THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, created by Jim Brooks & Allan Burns was, for its time, a perfect sitcom. Great characters, situations, and writing. There was a smartness and depth of emotion to the scripts that, to this day, stands as the absolute gold standard in sitcom comedy writing.
Oh, and it was very very very FUNNY.
Fabulous jokes that all came out of character and attitudes. Some of the greatest TV writers of all-time wrote for THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW including Treva Silverman, Ed. Weinberger & Stan Daniels, Bob Ellison, Earl Pomerantz, Glen & Les Charles, and David Lloyd. Talk about the ’27 Yankees.
You could say, “Yeah, well, 50 years ago is a long time,” but that’s when MASH was launched and that’s still revered (thank goodness for me). And ALL IN THE FAMILY was in its heyday during that period. ABC (not even the network that originally aired it) saluted ALL THE FAMILY with two primetime recreations.
Happy anniversary to THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW on turning 50. What’s weird is that that show had a huge impact on me and I got to work with her when she turned 50.
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It was also the night that "Creature Features," a Chicago icon, premiered, and somebody sent me a TV listings page from that night and I saw this:
"The Mary Tyler Moore Show" premiered in Chicago at 10:30 p.m. It had been knocked out its time slot on the very first day by a Chicago Bears game. So I didn't see the premiere of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" because I was watching Bela Lugosi in "Dracula."
I've been enjoying the late-morning reruns on Decades TV with one quibble: In the first season Mary wore miniskirts and boots; next season her hemlines were like Laura Petrie's. I was around at the time and it warn't so. They must have hired nuns for the wardrobe department.
Saturday nights have never been the same since the show ended production in 1977.
I've seen Ed Asner in a couple of different parts lately, doing well, of course.
FQ: With this current reboot trend I HATE but for some crazy reason is still going on, would you be down with a MTM reboot or even a live stage revival like Norman Lear did? Or would you be completely opposed to it due to the chance they would screw it up and make it shrill, mean, preachy and frankly much less funny like most sitcoms now?
When I lived in Los Angeles, I took a comedy writing class from Neil Simeon’s older brother Danny Simon (also a famed comedy writer in his own right) who used the MTM pilot episode as an example of writing the perfect pilot for a a sitcom. The show kept its high level of entertainment and comedy throughout its entire run, never slouching for a season or so as some shows do in their later years.
I've always found it ironic that you enshrine THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW as one of the best sit-coms of all time, the standard you sought to reach, and yet your time working on Ms. Moore's MARY TYLER MOORE HOUR in 1979 was one of your worst experiences. Maybe one day you could do a blog on it and, as the teachers say in school, compare and contrast.
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At least one of the show's creators had, a few years earlier, been a staff writer on the silly Jerry Van Dyke vehicle "My Mother The Car" (pun intentional). If you look on the WJM newsroom board shown from time to time, you'll find a schedule grid for Twin Cities TV stations...and one of them is carrying "My Mother The Car." Nice in-joke.
"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down the pants" - RIP Chuckles
My family was watching the Mary Tyler Moore.
We laughed all the way through.
At the end, my dad, a TV devotee from way back, pointed to Ed Asner and said:
"You know, I've never seen him do out-and-out comedy before. He's really good ..."
Nobody remembers this, but before MTM, Ed Asner almost never did comedy; usually he was the tough cop, the gang boss, the Bad Guy.
The same was true, to a lesser extent, of Ted Knight: when he had more than a few lines, he was always some minor functionary in a suit, getting ignored by the stars.
And Cloris Leachman ... almost never funny, often harsh and sometimes nasty.
Oh, and one other thing:
When MTM was announced, the consensus was that it was going to be the flop of the season; too many people remembered Dick Van Dyke.
Also, MTM was scheduled for Tuesday night, following Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres.
Fred Silverman saved it by moving the show to Saturday - and the rest is history.
By the way:
As has been documented elsewhere, ABC had first crack at All In The Family (which was then called Justice For All) - and then a second crack (which was called Those were The Days) - one (two?) of the legendary blunders in TV history.
William Goldman's Law applies: Nobody KNOWS Anything.
I saw the first episode fifty years ago and I thought the series would work, mainly because of Ed Asner. I still think the show went on three seasons too long, though.
BTW the pilot for My Mother the Car is pretty damn funny. Can't speak as to the rest of the series, since I haven't seen any of it since forever.
Unlike CHEERS, MTM was a show that took a season to really gel. If you watch the first season, there are way too many episodes about Mary's dating life that aren't up to the standards of the rest of the series. But don't get me wrong, it's in the top 5 best ever sitcoms!
I didn't see the premiere- but I remember that TIME really slammed it- saying something about an opening night disaster. My memory is also that ARNIE (the Herschel Bernardi sitcom which preceded MTM that season) was hyped as the can't miss hit of the fall.
@Mike Barer: I saw Asner as a dirty old man in the laundry room on MOM.
Hey, Anonymous: Ken worked on neither of the two CBS MTM variety hours in 1978-79, Mary and The Mary Tyler Moore Hour; rather, he worked on CBS' Mary sitcom that premiered (yes, I watched the premiere) on 11 December 1985.
I could never forgive Laura for leaving Rob. How could she? And what about Richie? Who got the house in New Rochelle? What a mess! It traumatized Rob's brother so much that he started thinking his dead mother was reincarnated as a car.
@Kevin Fitzmaurice Oh, I'd say NBC's late eighties line up of Amen, 227, The Golden Girls, Empty Nest and Hunter would beg to differ. :)
For looks behind the scenes of the show, listen to Allan Burns talk about casting it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12tRERsAlH8
I'll ask a Friday question and then salute the MTM writers for what they got away with. Ken, did you have any significant stuff censored by the networks?
Early in MTM's run, Nanette Fabray and Bill Quinn played her parents (a great combo, and making it better, MTM said she learned the Laura "cry" from Fabray, and Quinn was the father-in-law of some other guy in the company stable, Bob Newhart). Mary and her father, a doctor, had had a spiky relationship because she felt ignored by him; that's settled when he recites from memory her senior performance, which she thought he'd missed to tend to a patient, and it turned out he'd come in to see her. But as Mom is leaving for a movie with Rhoda so her daughter and husband could bond, she says, "Don't forget to take your pill." Mary and her father both say, "I won't," and her father does a perfect double-take, and Mary quickly looks down at the food she's preparing. Well.
The other one was an episode where Mary's boyfriend (the always wonderful Ted Bessell) is going to get drunk with the newsroom crew. He goes out and when he returns, Ted is basically passed out in Lou's lap. He asks if Ted's drunk. Ted says, "First time!" Lou says, "In drinker's terms, tonight Ted lost his olive." Well, well.
FRIDAY QUESTION: Have you ever had an actor audition and say, "I'd be better for this role than the one you called me for" and have them turn out to be right?
And the prostitutes Mary shared a jail cell with. "What are you in for?" Mary asks. "I fell in love with a policeman." Later one of them returns and gets a job, working with Georgette at a rental car counter. Georgette innocently recalls a conversation: "We were laughing about something and two these two johns walk up ..."
In the show, Mary comes to the big city because her very-long-time fiancé wouldn't commit. In an interview before the debut, MTM said something to the effect her character was living with the boyfriend, but the network wouldn't let them say that.
Did CBS have a Southeastern Conference college football game on prime time Saturday night? That's the only reason I can think of for them overlooking the MTM 50th.
I will forever maintain that the funniest MTM episode was "Ted Baxter's Famous Broadcasters School." Even better than the Chuckles episode.
Barbara Colby played the prostitute in those MTM episodes. Soon after, she was cast as Cloris Leachman's boss on the new "Phyllis" spinoff.
Ms. Colby had completed only three "Phyllis" episodes when she and a male actor and friend were killed in an unsolved and seemingly random street shooting in Los Angeles on July 24, 1975.
Ms. Leachman filmed a brief tribute to Colby that CBS chose not to air. Liz Torres replaced Colby on the show.
As long as we're mentioning funniest episodes, I think the second half of "Lou's Place" (by Ed. Weinberger), from season 3, ranks right alongside "Ted Baxter's Famous Broadcasters School" (the only episode written by Michael Zinberg, apparently better known as a producer).
Michael: When Bob Newhart got married, as Bill Quinn gave his daughter away, someone whispered, "Look who they got to play the father!"
I'm with Gary on "Ted Baxter's Famous Broadcasters School."
As a child of the 80s, I was lucky enough to pick and choose things that were on the air in prime time, and in syndication. But it felt like a minefield, and it made you figure out the good from the bad very quickly at a young age.
I got to see a lot of the great stuff, particularly MASH, CHEERS, BARNEY MILLER, WKRP, NEWHART, and the list goes on. I missed out on MARY TYLER MOORE and DICK VAN DYKE, I guess they just weren't in syndication at that time. I've come to appreciate them as an adult.
But I swear I will never understand LEAVE IT TO BEAVER.
Mary Tyler Moore. All in the Family. MASH. Bob Newhart. Sanford and Son. The Odd Couple. Barney Miller. Maude. The sitcom's golden age.
My wife and I loved the show and made it a point to be in front of the tv the night it was on.
And thanks to most of us having more time on our hands, many of those old shows are being appreciated again and by new viewers.
I remember TMTMS very well, and it was very smart, character driven comedy. It wasn't trendy, it wasn't a zinger a minute, it wasn't potty mouthed … and yet even today it stands up well and certainly outclasses most of today's sitcoms. I've heard that MTM herself could be difficult, and that may be. But the show had a stellar cast.
My retirement is coming up, and one thing I'm rather looking forward to is having time to sit and enjoy reading good books, watching old movies, and revisiting the best of classic tv. There is enough of the good stuff available out there that I could create my own line up and enjoy tv again for years to come, even if I have to watch it on my laptop.
Mary Tyler Moore ultimately had a sad life which made her cold and distant to many people. In the 1970s her 21 year old sister killed herself and it was openly reported in the press that it was because she'd been pressured to follow in her sister's footsteps but didn't have the talent. Mary never talked about her sister and on rare occasions when the subject came up she claimed that "she died in an accident." In the 1980s her son did die in an accident when he was fooling around with a loaded gun. She never got over that. All of her success could not make up for her personal tragedies.
The MTM show spun off no less than three shows, all reasonably successful (Lou Grant, Rhoda, Phyllis). Do you think this reflects the good genes those characters inherited from the The MTM Show? Or were those shows so different from MTM that they were, in effect, whole new creations?
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