Classic 1960s Christmas #5 – The Brady Bunch “The Voice of Christmas”

We continue our countdown of Brian’s favorite 1960s Christmas TV episodes with 1969’s “The Voice of Christmas” from The Brady Bunch

I am never going to try to convince you that The Brady Bunch, the saccharine sitcom about a widow with three girls marrying a widowed man with three boys, ever had any real edge to it, but the first season of the series was definitely different from the rest of the series in terms of having at least an APPROXIMATION of an edge, in terms of some of the drama between the kids suddenly having to become a family. That was dropped for the rest of the series, and it was just “Okay, we’re all brothers and sisters now” from that point forward.

So while I am not saying that the first season was edgy, it was definitely more interesting than the rest of the series, outside of the general camp appeal of the later seasons, of course.

In any event, the concept for this episode is that the Bradys are celebrating their first Christmas as a family, and Carol is going to be singing the solo at the Christmas service, but suddenly, she has a bad case of laryngitis and will not be able to sing. All of the kids are pretty depressed about it, and it leads to the youngest kid in the family, Cindy (played by Susan Olson, the epitome of “Cute kid who will only be interesting so long as she stays perpetually eight years old,” which is a problem a lot of sitcoms had with their youngest kids. No, no one said your name, Jennifer Keaton. Why did you think I was talking about you?), asking a Mall Santa to cure her mother’s voice. The flustered Santa says yes, putting Mike and Carol (Robert Reed and Florence Henderson) in a bind trying to explain to Cindy why a request directly to Santa won’t come true.

But of course, it DOES come true.

And hey, Florence Henderson freakin’ KILLS it on “O Come, Oh Ye Faithful”…

The episode is probably best remembered now for it being referenced in the classic Christmas reunion TV movie, A Very Brady Christmas, where the whole family sings the song to help lead their dad to safety when he’s trapped in a collapsed building.