The sitcom was considered “fluff,” the actress recalled.

Brady Bunch star Eve Plumb says no one would admit to watching the show: ‘Everybody sort of looked down on it’

The sitcom was considered "fluff," the actress recalled.

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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May 30, 2026 2:30 p.m. ET

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Eve Plumb as Jan Brady on 'The Brady Bunch' in 1971. Credit:

- Eve Plumb said "everybody sort of looked down on" *The Brady Bunch *as "fluff" during its original run.

- She added that "no adult would admit to actually watching" the show.

- She and her *Brady Bunch* castmates "never felt like big stars," she says.

Eve Plumb had no idea how big *The Brady Bunch*'s cultural impact would be.

The actress, who portrayed Jan Brady on the beloved sitcom, recently reflected on her perception of it while it was on the air.

"We really never felt like big stars," Plumb said during an appearance on the Australian program *The Morning Show. *"It never really hit the big ratings. It was never really well thought of in the critiques. Everybody sort of looked down on it as fluff and not serious fare."

Indeed, *The Brady Bunch *never cracked the Nielsen ratings' top 30 shows during its five-season run, becoming a cultural juggernaut only after its reruns gained a wide following after it concluded.

Plumb said she and her costars discovered their true celebrity status when the fictional family began releasing music like 1970's *Merry Christmas From the Brady Bunch* and 1972's *Meet the Brady Bunch*.

"We did realize we were very popular once we started making albums, and we would go out and sign records at a department store on the weekends, and we would get a huge crowd," she recalled. "That was when we realized that, yes, it was very popular, but no one at the time, no adult would admit to actually watching *The Brady Bunch*."

Barry Williams, Eve Plumb, Maureen McCormack, Christopher Knight, Susan Olsen, and Mike Lookinland in New York City in 2019.

Cindy Ord/Getty

Plumb, who released her memoir, *Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond*, in April, looks back on her time on the show with fondness. "It was really a great place to grow up," she said. "I had already been working in television for about four years by the time I got *The Brady Bunch*. I had already done a couple of pilots. So when this started, I had no idea — nobody did — that it was going to last as long as it has."

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The actress also responded to rumors that she'd actually met Maureen McCormick, who played her sister Marcia on the show, before they starred on it.

"That's what I've heard," Plumb said. "I don't necessarily remember that, but I think we were in a television commercial together. There was a whole raft of little girls at that time that we came up with that we would see in the audition rooms. We were all making the rounds. There were about eight or 10 of us. So of course we did — we met a lot of little girls. It was sort of a closed loop."

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Watch Plumb's full interview with *The Morning Show* above.

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