The Mary Tyler Moore Show Thread (Love Is All Around)

Me missing the joke = I'm not dated.

funny how things that are 40 years old address the collective experiences of 40 years ago, eh

(see if I'd said 50 that'd be easy zing pickins)

There's also an episode that relies heavily on Ted trying to tell a joke punning on the lyrics of, um, "The Darktown Strutter's Ball."

I'm not being serious. I am, after all, a MST3K superfan.

knock knock

who's there?

Anna Maria Alberghetti

Anna Maria Alberghetti who?

(sings) Anna Maria Alberghetti in a taxi, honey....

(jeez you have to have heard of A.M.A. too)

Valerie Harper has announced she has terminal brain cancer.

Poor Rhoda, she was my favorite.

I miss the MTM show being on Nick at Nite every night, it used to be a way for me to help unwind when I couldn't sleep.

very sad news

The fun in being married to a foreigner is having a 30-minute conversation, as we did the other night, on the transition from "Valerie" to "The Hogan Family" - was it the end of Harper's career, is there a parallel world where Kirk Cameron is the star of Arrested Development, Do we have Harper to blame for eight years of "Coach", who is Sandy Duncan and what are Wheat Thins.

Still coming back to this one in two- or three-episode bursts.

"Dated" works great when you're in the mood for a fast nostalgia binge ... only in my case, it's making me nostalgic for the early '90s, when I was a preteen watching this show on Nick at Nite and getting nostalgic for the Minneapolis that existed for the decade leading up to my birth, never realizing I'd one day work at a TV station in downtown Minneapolis. Tangled webs, et al.

Wish I could be more like Phyllis; pretty sure I come off more like Rhoda.

Ha, I'm the other way around.

E, you have your Sue Ann moments, honeybunch.

In short, I'm every woman but Mary.

lol, what's on 3rd St these days?

The '90s is on 4th Street, actually.

Saw this in a book store today:

http://d28hgpri8am2if.cloudfront.net/book_images/cvr9781451659207_9781451659207_lg.jpg

Love the cover, of course. Will buy and read eventually.

I want!!!!!!!!!

I flipped through it briefly and it looked solid--not a scrapbook-type thing, but an actual book. Came out in May, but I've heard anything about it. I look at that excellent cover, and it's one of those books that seems so obvious, I can't believe it hasn't been done till now.

Just to quibble a bit, Rhoda's stay on the show didn't last long the way I remember it (ditto Phyllis)--Murray was obviously much more integral (even if you didn't care for him), and for me, Sue-Anne and even Georgette eclipsed Rhoda in the end.

Just watched the episode where Mary has to work the Christmas late nite shift. It's really tender and alleviates the holiday sads a little.

Man, I feel lucky that in all my years working in TV news, I've only had to work one single Christmas Eve night shift.

You can have the night off, why don't you take it

*Take off glasses, look concerned*

"Throws hat in air, freeze frames."

Just read the first half of that book clemenza posted. Pretty good. Plenty of good stuff I didn't know perhaps will post some later.

In The Betty White Show, she would play a character named Joyce Whitman, a TV actress who has to work with her ex-husband as the director of her new show. Georgia Engel would play Joyce’s best friend. White had watched Star Trek from its beginning in 1966, often to her husband’s chagrin, so she pitched the idea of Joyce’s series being a space show. It would not only provide two contrasting worlds for Joyce, but it would also be hilarious, she thought.

OK, definitely recommend that book to clemenza and others. A few things I learned, which maybe you all knew already

Ed Asner nearly didn't get the job because he gave a too-angry reading of "I hate spunk" during his audition.

Gavin MacLeod originally read for Lou but turned around as he had his hand on the doorknob to leave and asked to read for Murray.

Creators Brooks and Burns prior show was Room 222. Before that Allan Burns' biggest show was perennial gag-line My Mother The Car , which was where he gave James L. Brooks his first break into TV writing.

Guy who directed the famous credit sequence also did the same for the Hawaii Five-O and Get Smart among others.

Your revive reminded me that this was out there, so I ordered a copy from Amazon yesterday. Love the episode LL mentioned above.

Just watched the episode where Mary has to work the Christmas late nite shift. It's really tender and alleviates the holiday sads a little.

Any thoughts on Rhoda, the series?

Only a few episodes in but it seems hard going.

I did not love the pilot

That's Valerie Harper's whole career right there. She kept trying to be a lead, but she's really just a support.

then they married Rhoda off outta desperation. still think of Julie Kavner as Brenda rather than Marge tho.

and Nancy Walker got TWO leads in a sitcom after that.

One was Blansky's Beauties, iirc. What was the other?

Bosom Buddies

never ever ever think about the theme song for "valerie's family/valerie" or you will not get it out of your head for daaaaaaays possibly weeks

to cleanse your brain immediately
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50k-dCwV6SU

I could never get into Rhoda either. I liked the set dressing, clothes, etc but the stories were boring, or I didn't understand them bc I was a kid.

Wasn't Phyllis worse?

Phyllis was cursed. Lady who was playing her boss died in some kind of car crash, had to be replaced in third episode.

Ha, probably. I don't think I watched that one at all. By the time I knew Cloris Leachman, she was Beverly Anne on Facts of Life and I was just like ok who is this lady now? She was such a weird character.

She had spiky hair.

She was quasi den mother for adult women/store owner/adoptive mother of a cute blonde boy who appeared to have come out of nowhere.

that poor show died a terrible death

anyway, phyllis!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8--8V7bVeI

I may be jumping the shark here, but Phyllis gives out a strong TS vibe to me.

Book showed up a few days ago, will get to it soon. Also found the third season on sale, so I resumed watching the first season, which I bought many years ago (along with the second) but put aside after the first episode. In the second episode, I recognized the office gopher who remarks on Mary's age but couldn't place him; it's David Hayward, the assassin in Nashville. John Schuck's hard to take for most of his episode, but by the end, the story comes together nicely.

When I recently rewatched the Xmas Eve episode learned that the familiar-looking actor who played the character Mary subbed for, Fred, was a guy named Ned Wertimer who was best known for playing the doorman on The Jeffersons.

i am watching LOU GRANT

i don't know why there's not a thread for it, it seems p. good

he seems like such a weird character, i can't quite get a bead on what sort of masculinity he's supposed to have. but then i've never watched much late-70s tv.

The famous spunk scene notwithstanding, he's really conceived very broadly (gruff, gruff, and gruffer) the first few MTM episodes. One of those sitcom characters who got better and more shaded with time. (Never watched his own show, so I can't speak to that.)