An important part of my childhood was coming home from school and hopping off the bus in time to catch the afternoon episode of The Brady Bunch.

The classic series is still playing in reruns to this day, which speaks to how the show's family values and relatable plots still resonate with audiences.

So imagine my surprise when I grew up and started reading autobiographies by the cast members.

It turns out this bunch weren't as wholesome behind-the-scenes as the characters they played on TV.

A Family Affair

When News.com.au asked Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady) about on-set hookups, she was surprisingly frank.

"I think all of us did," she admitted. "We led a sheltered life for part of the year, so if there was anybody to get a crush on or try to date, it would be our counterparts."

That included Olsen and Mike Lookinland (Bobby Brady), who got a little friendlier than a brother and sister should.

Lookinland and Olsen would sneak into the Brady family pet Tiger's doghouse to make out between takes, according to Barry Williams (Greg Brady).

Williams wrote in his autobiography, Growing Up Brady, that Lookinland only ditched his TV sister after he started pining for the older girls on set.

Peter and Jan Get Caught

Christopher Knight (Peter Brady) also started a behind-the-scenes romance with his TV sister Eve Plumb (Jan Brady).

The pair were going steady behind the scenes, but their relationship reportedly fizzled out after a police officer caught them "going steady" in Knight's pickup truck.

For a PG show things were very X-rated behind the scenes.

But the Brady kids weren't only interested in each other. One of them had a thing for Carol Brady.

"I had no idea that his intentions were to "date" me."

Barry Williams famously tried to put the moves on Florence Henderson (his TV mom, Carol Brady), who he later described as a "totally white hot babe."

In a chapter of Growing Up Brady titled "Dating Your Mom," Williams described taking Henderson out to dinner.

His older brother chaperoned, because 16-year-old Williams didn't have his driver's license yet.

But Henderson wasn't leading her co-star on. She wrote in her own autobiography, "I had no idea that his intentions were to 'date' me."

Williams himself admitted, "It wasn't that I sought to bed her. I just wanted to spend time with her."

The evening ended with a kiss on the cheek and no second date. But Williams only moved on to a relationship with another co-star.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia

Williams set his sights next on his TV sister Maureen McCormick (Marcia Brady).

But the pair didn't date until nearly the end of the series, because of their two-year age difference.

The couple shared their first kiss while filming the Hawaii episodes and felt a connection right away.

In fact, the crew famously had trouble filming a scene with Williams and McCormick on a bed in the attic, because they were getting too "cozy" with each other.

Producer Sherwood Schwartz broke up the couple after convincing Williams he was too young to give his heart to just one girl.

But it wasn't just puppy love to McCormick: she confessed in her own autobiography, Here's the Story, that she wanted to lose her virginity to Williams.

Instead, she may have given her heart to one of her TV sisters.

The Brady Sister Feud

McCormick and Eve Plumb (Jan Brady) had a famously frosty relationship, and for years would only speak to each other through Susan Olsen.

The feud has scuttled a lot of attempts to host a Brady Bunch reunion, as the pair simply can't stand each other.

A lot of explanations have been offered as the origin of their feud, including jealousy over their roles on the show.

But McCormick has her own story: that the pair shared a kiss and Plum has been bitter about it ever since.

After McCormick made the claim in her autobiography Here's the Story, Plumb accused her of lying to sell books, and their bad blood hasn't gone away ever since.

"From day one with these two I have always been in the middle," Olsen said in 2015, "and now it's at the point where there isn't even a desire to communicate through me."

Unrequited Love

Even more surprising than her story about Plumb, McCormick revealed in her book that she also had a crush on her TV father, Robert Reed.

But unlike Barry Williams, McCormick's crush didn't even humor her.

Of course, it was revealed after Reed's death in 1992 from complications caused by HIV that the Brady patriarch was secretly gay.

Such a surprising amount of backstage drama for a family-friendly show!

I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for these connections when I watch the reruns.

Did you know about any of these surprising connections?

[H/T: Fox News, News.com.au, CBS]