Despite airing for only five seasons, from 1969 to 1974, The Brady Bunch has remained on the air for decades, mostly thanks to cable networks. That’s over 50 years of reruns.
In fact, one report claims that since it first went into syndication in September 1975, an episode of The Brady Bunch has been broadcast somewhere in the world every day since. Whether that is actually true or not, it isn’t that hard to believe.
It has aired for years on channels like TBS, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., Noggin, TV Land, MeTV, and the Hallmark Channel, and can currently be seen anytime a viewer wants to see it on Pluto and other streaming services.
So, surely, the cast of The Brady Bunch has been making some good money in residuals from the show over the past five decades, right? Wrong.
“We don’t make residuals,” Eve Plumb, who played middle daughter Jan Brady, said recently during an interview with PauseRewind.
Plumb made the revelation while promoting her new memoir, Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond.
“I have to explain every time that it wasn’t popular before the Saturday Night Live skit did it, that we don’t make residuals, that I didn’t hate The Brady Bunch,” Plumb said, referring to her oft-cited and meme-worthy line, “Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!”
Eve Plumb also mentioned the lack of residuals from The Brady Bunch in her memoir, writing, “If I had a dime for every rerun episode, I’d pay off the national deficit. I don’t.”
Not all hit sitcoms still provide income to the main cast
Instead, she is more like Jodie Sweetin of Full House and less like Lisa Kudrow of Friends. While Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc are still raking in a reported $20 million a year from their show (it’s unclear if Matthew Perry’s estate is still earning the same money), Sweetin recently admitted that she “got a one cent check the other day.”
“People are like, ‘Oh, but you get the residuals.’ You’re like, ‘Well, maybe like the first like run of syndication when it, you know,’ I mean, sure, in my twenties, there would be money, but not reliable,” Sweetin said. “You don’t know how much it’s going to be or how often they’re going to run the show.