How Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda’s ‘Yours, Mine and Ours’ Helped ‘The Brady Bunch’ Happen

Sherwood Schwartz saw the possibility in exploring blended families on TV.

In CW’s docuseries, TV We Love, Schwartz’s children recall their dad getting the idea for The Brady Bunch during a morning like many others.

“It was at breakfast and he was reading a paper,” daughter Hope Juber recalled.

“And there was a little filler in the paper,” continued son Lloyd Schwartz, who would end up as a producer on the show.

“It said that for every married couple that comes together that has previous husbands and wives, they bring children into the marriage, and he said, ‘Wow, that’s a series.’”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

At that point in his career, Sherwood already knew plenty of success. He’d gotten his start writing for radio series including The Bob Hope Show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and The Alan Young Show. He then got into TV, writing for a few series before his first original creation, Gilligan’s Island, which began in 1964.

While Sherwood was excited for the idea, which he’d originally titled Yours and Mine, there was still hesitance about portraying these dynamics on TV in the late 60s. They worried how audiences would perceive divorcees entering new relationships.

It was tackling the same concept on the big screen in 1968 that would change everything. Desliu Productions’ release, Yours, Mine and Ours, introduced big, blended families in a major way. In the film, Frank Beardsley (Henry Fonda) meets Helen North (Lucille Ball), after crossing paths on a Navy base. The two hit it off, but each hides that they have a family back home. Both were widowed and as their romance grows, so does the reality of combining Frank’s ten children with Helen’s eight children.

The film was a box office hit, proving that audiences were willing to immerse themselves in more modern scenarios than before. It got the attention of ABC, who had been pitched Sherwood’s idea, and were ready to revisit it.

Archival footage in the documentary shows Sherwood joking, “The movie did my pilot for me. So ABC called me and said, ‘Okay, fine, we’ll do it your way.’ ”

The path forward would result in lawsuits on both sides, with Sherwood feeling his idea had been stolen, a point that was disproven by the fact that the film was based on a true story. In turn, executives for the film were against ABC moving forward with titling the series Yours and Ours, which led to changing the show’s name, first to The Bradleys and later to The Brady Bunch.

TV We Love is airing on Mondays on the CW at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT.