The Partridge Family was, according to legend, supposed to be the story of the Cowsills, an actual family of singers/musicians that became famous for a few hits: "The Rain, The Park and Other Things" and "Indian Lake" being their first Top Ten hits, followed by their cover of the title song from the Tribal Love/Rock Musical "Hair," which reached #2 on the charts.
The problem was that ABC had planned to use the sitcom as a vehicle for Shirley Jones, rather than casting the actual mom from the family. When the kids of the group said no, it was their mom or nothing, the producers went ahead and cast actors to play the parts.
Shirley's actual stepson David Cassidy was cast as the eldest sibling of the family and teen heartthrob Keith Partridge, followed by Susan Dey as Laurie, Danny Bonaduce as middle brother Danny, Jeremy Gelbwaks as Chris (replaced by Brian Forster in season 2) and Suzanne Crough as littlest Tracy. Plus, as the family's haggard and harried manager, Dave Madden as Reuben Kincaid.
A deceased parent (standard sitcom trope for this era of television), in this case, Mr. Partridge (which makes it more unusual as there were many more motherless kids on TV at this time), left Shirley Partridge (Oscar Winner, Jones) widowed and with her five way too adorable kids struggling to make ends meet on Mom's bank teller budget. But they formed a musical group in their garage, got their mom to sing along and became national hits, much to the delight of everyone!
Stories tended to follow one of three separate scenarios: the family on their tours to various (and quite honestly, questionable) gigs, often at places like amusement parks, ski lodges, street festivals or other "non- headline" venues; some venture, ploy or plot schemed up by Danny that entangled the rest of the Partridges in some way, designed to make money but typically did not; or an episode with personal issues that one particular sibling was having in their lives.
Luckily none of this was overtly "precious" and the songs the family performed were mostly pretty good for MOR type pop/rock tunes, and several of the songs charted with the big hit "I Think I Love You" reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
And it's the combination of some thoughtful scripts and some decent tunes that made this into the TV classic that it is. Yes, towards the end they brought in Ricky Segall to try to charm their audience back to the program, but even that can be forgiven in the overall scheme of the story of a family act in a psychedelic painted school bus and the misadventures they experienced all along the way.
The problem was that ABC had planned to use the sitcom as a vehicle for Shirley Jones, rather than casting the actual mom from the family. When the kids of the group said no, it was their mom or nothing, the producers went ahead and cast actors to play the parts.
Shirley's actual stepson David Cassidy was cast as the eldest sibling of the family and teen heartthrob Keith Partridge, followed by Susan Dey as Laurie, Danny Bonaduce as middle brother Danny, Jeremy Gelbwaks as Chris (replaced by Brian Forster in season 2) and Suzanne Crough as littlest Tracy. Plus, as the family's haggard and harried manager, Dave Madden as Reuben Kincaid.
A deceased parent (standard sitcom trope for this era of television), in this case, Mr. Partridge (which makes it more unusual as there were many more motherless kids on TV at this time), left Shirley Partridge (Oscar Winner, Jones) widowed and with her five way too adorable kids struggling to make ends meet on Mom's bank teller budget. But they formed a musical group in their garage, got their mom to sing along and became national hits, much to the delight of everyone!
Stories tended to follow one of three separate scenarios: the family on their tours to various (and quite honestly, questionable) gigs, often at places like amusement parks, ski lodges, street festivals or other "non- headline" venues; some venture, ploy or plot schemed up by Danny that entangled the rest of the Partridges in some way, designed to make money but typically did not; or an episode with personal issues that one particular sibling was having in their lives.
Luckily none of this was overtly "precious" and the songs the family performed were mostly pretty good for MOR type pop/rock tunes, and several of the songs charted with the big hit "I Think I Love You" reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
And it's the combination of some thoughtful scripts and some decent tunes that made this into the TV classic that it is. Yes, towards the end they brought in Ricky Segall to try to charm their audience back to the program, but even that can be forgiven in the overall scheme of the story of a family act in a psychedelic painted school bus and the misadventures they experienced all along the way.