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C'mon, get happy
Mike Todd had been dead 12 years when "The Partridge Family" debuted on TV in 1970. But he would have applauded the way the family traveled around its sitcom world in a bus painted in bright geometrics, a Todd-like attention-grabber sure to turn the necks of onlookers to rubber.
Like Todd, "Partridge Family" creator Bernard Slade knew how to grab your attention by the nape. Slade had been a writer on "Bewitched," one of his contributions being the befuddled witch Aunt Clara. In 1967, Slade came up with "The Flying Nun." If a witch could wiggle magic out of her nose, then why couldn't a nun fly? Slade, and star Sally Field, squeezed three years from that sitcom-ish artifice.
"The Partridge Family" was grounded in more reality. The clan -- widowed mom and her five kids form a musical group -- was modeled after real-life hitmakers the Cowsills, whose performance on "The Tonight Show" had given Slade his inspiration.
The Partridges included a real-life stepmother and stepson -- Shirley Jones and David Cassidy. Jones, a star of the film musicals "Oklahoma!," "Carousel" and "The Music Man," and an Oscar winner for 1960's "Elmer Gantry," says she had turned down "The Brady Bunch" before accepting "The Partridge Family."
Jones was married at the time to actor Jack Cassidy; David was his son from an earlier marriage.
Even if Jones and Cassidy did their own vocal work, the Partridges were only one step above the Archies or Josie and the Pussycats. Susan Dey, Danny Bonaduce and the rest of the family pretty much just played air instruments, the real musicianship coming from studio pros.
"The Partridge Family" lasted four seasons, much of the show's popularity coming from David Cassidy's ascension to teen idol (as would also happen later to half-brother Shaun Cassidy, Jones' son with Jack Cassidy).
Bobby Sherman starred in what "Partridge Family" spin-off?
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