On September 25, 1970, The Partridge Family premiered on ABC. Created by Bernard Slade and loosely inspired by the real-life family band the Cowsills, the musical sitcom followed a widowed mother and her five children as they formed a pop group and toured in a brightly painted school bus.
The series quickly became a centerpiece of ABC’s Friday-night lineup, airing after The Brady Bunch. It made stars of Shirley Jones and her real-life stepson, David Cassidy, who soon became one of the era’s most prominent teen idols.
The show’s greatest crossover success came through music. “I Think I Love You,” released by the Partridge Family recording act, spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1970.
Running for four seasons and 96 episodes, The Partridge Family became an enduring symbol of early-1970s family television: upbeat, music-driven, and steeped in the era’s bubblegum-pop sensibility.
Image via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
