Pop Culture Moment: Happy ‘Fake Jan’ Day

If you are a fan of the classic family sitcom The Brady Bunch (and, let’s face it…who isn’t?), you will recall the first revival TV series, The Brady Bunch Hour, in the 1977-78 season featuring the entire original cast sans one – Eve Plumb as the perennially troubled middle girl, Jan. Plumb was busy headlining some cheesy teen-angst TV movies of the week (Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway in 1976 was the first) and only agreed to make five appearances in this unusual (translation: bizarre) musical variety-themed reboot. But it was a full-time Jan the producers wanted, and along came actress Geri Reischl — now commonly referred to as “Fake Jan” — to fill Plumb’s shoes.

Jan, of course, was not the first character from The Brady Bunch played by a second actor. There was Jennifer Runyon as “Fake Cindy” in the 1988 TV movie A Very Brady Christmas. There was Leah Ayres as “Fake Marcia” in the short-lived dramedy The Bradys, who in one particularly bad episode was…egads!…an alcoholic. Even good ol’ Alice’s then hubby Sam (as in Sam the Butcher) was suddenly played by Lewis Arquette as the end of A Very Brady Christmas.

Heck, if you are a diehard fan of this bunch you will also remember a “Fake Tiger”, the family dog, in season one of The Brady Bunch. But it was Geri Reischl who cemented her status in the world of pop culture as “Fake Jan” in The Brady Bunch Hour.

Reischl is so firmly entrenched as “Fake Jan” that today, January 2nd, is designated as “Fake Jan Day.” More specifically, take Jan for January and 2 for the second Jan, and there you have it! Launched in 2008, there is one known tradition associated with Fake Jan Day: the purchase and consumption of the holiday’s official food, the cheese ball!

The Brady Bunch Hour

In the event you have never seen The Brady Bunch Hour (admit it – you have!), that wholesome clan, plus Alice, are suddenly living in a beach-side home somewhere in California where they are hosting a variety show. In a format featuring song-and-dance numbers and sketches, the guest roster was impressive: Tony Randall, Lee Majors, Farrah Fawcett, Milton Berle, Tina Turner, Vincent Price, Redd Foxx, Donny and Marie Osmond, and the cast from sitcom What’s Happening!!, to name a few. And there was the zany Rip Taylor as their next-door-neighbor and love interest for Alice. Little did Sam know!

“I think The Brady Bunch Hour is an important part of our history because it was so campy,” noted Maureen McCormick (Marcia Brady) in the book, Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of the Brady Bunch Variety Hour (co-written by Susan Olsen – Cindy Brady). “It was so kitschy and unbelievably unforgettable.”

Originally intended to air on ABC every fifth week in the same slot as The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries on Sunday nights, The Brady Bunch Hour was ultimately scheduled sporadically throughout the season. But the initial curiosity following what was planned as a one-hour special faded, leading to its quick demise. Nonetheless, the clan was back in 1981 for the TV movie The Brady Girls Get Married, which morphed into the short-lived spinoff The Brady Brides (this time with Eve Plumb back as Jan). And it was certainly not the last you saw of the TV clan…and Alice.

“The Brady Bunch Variety Hour was one of the greatest experiences of my career,” noted Geri Reischl. “I got to act, sing and dance. I’m very grateful that I was given the opportunity to be a part of such a wholesome and iconic TV show.”

Collectively, Geri Reischl appeared in over 40 commercials throughout the course of her career, including as Dorothy in a series of Wizard of Oz-themed spots for the breakfast cereal Crispy Wheats-n-Raisins. Reischl guest-starred in TV dramas Gunsmoke, The Interns, Apple’s Way and The Bold Ones. She is a professional singer. And she was initially given the role of snobby Blair Warner in the television pilot Garrett’s Girls, which later became The Facts of Life (but was forced to give it up due to her contract with General Mills).

Ironically, Eve Plumb subsequently played Blair’s (Lisa Whelchel) sister in a two-part episode of The Facts of Life, which would have featured the two Jans had Reischl played the role. But it was her nine-episode stint on The Brady Bunch Hour, and willingness to embrace the role all these years later, that has made Geri Reischl the true poster child for stepping into another actor’s established TV role.

“Over the years I’ve been able to interact with fans who are so awesome, so kind and so nice,” she said. “I truly appreciate their their love, loyalty and support.”

On this occasion of Fake Jan Day, let’s raise our glasses, and dig into our cheese balls! Happy Fake Jan Day!