Day by Day

Great 80's sitcom. Lifetime played reruns for awhile. It was about ex-stockbrokers who opened up a childcare center in their house, and everyone seemed to think that was just fine. For some reason, this quickie show sticks out in my mind because it was the among the first things Thora Birch of "American Beauty" did, as well as Julia-Louis Dreyfuss from "Seinfeld," who played Eileen on this show before she was Elaine on "Seinfeld." The best episode of this show was when Ross, the couch potato son dreamed he was on "The Brady Bunch," where all the Brady men did was get perms and "fix their bikes." Strangely enough, Christopher Barnes, who played Ross, went on to play Greg in "The Brady Bunch" movies.

I remember watching it when it came on in the late 80s when I was about 10, and saw re-runs on tv land in the fall of 1999. The show is not really funny at all, except for the scenes with the hard career driven overbearing business woman who is ruthless, obnoxious yet funny. She looks pretty damn good. ANyway the occasional appearance from the oldest son is somewhat amusing. My favortie episode is the one where Eileen goes back to her highschool re-union and takes the kid from the brady bunch with her as her date. There, she dances look a crazy fool that she is, and ditches her date at the ball to be with a guy she had a crush on in highschool, only to break her date's feelings. And from my recollection, queen elizabeth is portrayed. Don't remember the details too much of da show but its funny. Too bad they dont show rereuns....

I read about this series in an article on Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and tracked down a couple of episodes on youtube. The first one I found was the "Brady Bunch" episode, mentioned in most of the IMDB user reviews. It was pretty cute, as a slacker kid gets to life love as a Brady surrounded by BB's original cast. Not amazing, but cute.

Then I found the first episode, which was quite mediocre. The cast is a pretty well-known group, but both episodes focus primarily on an unappealing teenage boy. Louis-Dreyfuss shows up now and again and is amusing, but she's a peripheral character.

This is like a million forgettable sitcoms from the 80s.

The eighties brought a plethora of sitcoms. I remember Julia Louis-Dreyfuss before Seinfeld. Linda Kelsey was the heart and soul of the show. It was about a daycare center being run out of the Harper home. It had a delightful cast and mediocre sense of humor. It was a fine sitcom that only lasted two seasons. Linda Kelsey was the star of this show and never got another chance to really shine in her own right. Kelsey brought joy and a world of experience to this sitcom. It should have been a vehicle for Kelsey but Julia Louis-Dreyfus's end up having the last laugh. She played a serious lawyer who wasn't kid friendly.

On an episode of "Day By Day" Ross, played by C.B. Barnes (as he was know at the time) falls asleep while watching a Brady Bunch Marathon on television. While asleep he dreams that he is the fourth Brady son "Chuck". Chuck is requested by his father to get out of Ross' ever present blue bathrobe and to get a perm as "all Brady men have perms". Chuck has a run in with nearly every Brady kid, including a very pregnant Marsha, and as you would imagine hilarity ensues. Coincidentally, in 1994 Christopher Daniel Barnes (as he is now referred to) was tapped to play the role of oldest brother Greg Brady in director Betty Thomas' "The Brady Bunch Movie" a role he recreated for the 1996 sequel aptly titled "A Very Brady Sequel".