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The future was ripped out from under the Brady Bunch kids
Here's the story... of how one of TV's most beloved sitcoms was unceremoniously canceled, with no care shown to its child stars.
Brady fans rejoiced at the 2025 Chocolate Expo at Hofstra University
May 2025 marked another reason for Brady Bunch enthusiasts to get excited. The annual Chocolate Expo held in Hampstead, NY, saw a classic cast mini-reunion. Together, Mike Lookinland (Bobby), Susan Olsen (Cindy), Christopher Knight (Peter), and Barry Williams (Greg) visited the event for a panel discussion that saw the TV alums speak on their famous roles as four of the six Brady kids.
The Brady Bunch stars are no strangers to reunions
While the panel was undoubtedly a thrill for those in attendance, this was by no means a rare occasion. While they're not always up onstage talking about their roles, the Brady Bunch co-stars do appear together a lot. It seems like every couple of years, the Brady gang is back together in some new project.
In addition to formal, sitcom-style reunion series, the six Brady kids have been reunited in the likes of TV specials, renovation shows, and even cooking competitions. The key difference for the New York Chocolate Expo was that the former child stars were very candid in discussing The Brady Bunch and how the show ended.
That cast never knew the show was ending
"We didn't know whether we were picked up," said Christopher Knight in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE.
The show's fifth season just came to an end, with no talk of where the show was going from there, or whether the cast would be back together for another year of Brady mayhem.
"We didn't know when we broke out [for the summer]," Williams explained. "So, when your season ends, you don't know if you're coming back. So you could take stuff, but you're taking stuff that's theirs."
The kids thought they were coming back for more
Knight asked his co-stars, "Do you guys remember finding out? Because I think we just went on hiatus. Probably not expecting to come back, or did we know we were ..."
"I thought we were coming back for sure," said Williams.
Williams explained, "We all were under five-year contracts. So the five years had run. For there to be another season, there would've had to be new negotiations."
Was it contracts that killed the Brady Bunch?
"We stopped shooting in February," said Williams. "They would've had to start up again in June. There's a little window in there to do some negotiations. So I think we broke thinking maybe we would know rather quickly if we're picked up or not because they'd have to start negotiations," he recalled.
"It was probably a month or two when we probably found out that we weren't being picked up. And so you're not even around one another, it just ... It's gone. It dissipates. There's no real, formal exit or time to feel."
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