Celebrate 50 Years of ‘The Brady Bunch’ With Producer Lloyd Schwartz On Our Classic TV Podcast (Exclusive)

In his lifetime, the late Sherwood Schwartz created both The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island, two perfect examples of Classic TV shows that have lived on through the decades — being handed down from one generation to another — not only in reruns but in new versions of themselves, with more on the way.

His son, Lloyd Schwartz, is the keeper of the flame. He worked on both of those shows and their spin-offs and remains involved with new versions, including HGTV’s reality series A Very Brady Renovation, the long-gestating Gilligan’s Island: The Motion Picture, and the currently-in-development stage show, A Very Brady Musical.

In the first of a two-part chat with Lloyd on CloserWeekly.com’s Classic TV & Film Podcast, we’re taking on the past 50 years of The Brady Bunch and its legacy, previewing that musical that we can’t wait to see, and discussing an unfilmed movie version NBC wanted that would have seen the Bradys shipwrecked on an island (but not the one belonging to Gilligan — different copyright holders), and offering his views on the various spin-offs from the original series.

“When you’re talking about the legacy of those shows, fortunately or not, I’m now the top of the food chain, which is an interesting place to be,” Lloyd admits to us in this exclusive interview. “What that means is protecting the legacy of the two shows. Many times people have wanted to do things with Gilligan or Brady, and I have a very simple guideline for myself: would dad want it that way? This may be maudlin, but it’s also truthful, that that was a deathbed promise I made to him when he was dying. And that always overrides everything in terms of what we do with it.”

Next week, the podcast will continue the conversation with Lloyd, shifting the focus over to Gilligan’s Island and all its spin-offs, including that previously-mentioned movie that’s still in the works.

Check out two of our previous podcasts with Jerry Mathers from Leave It to Beaver and Angelologist Mike Pingel on Charlie’s Angels below. You can find the rest of our episodes here.