Red Fiddler

Looking back at the many scenes/ mini sketches that focus on Mary and Lou Grant's recurring bits, my favorites with Lou and Mary In Lou's office. These just got better as the character of their acquaintance gets more established as the series matured. My very favorite comes in the final season where Mary is creating the line-up for the Teddy awards, and she gets the idea that she should sing "one for my baby" for the show. She then proceeds to perform the most wretched cover of the song ever done. Lou is trying not to hurt her feelings, and treats her whole audition as though it were a joke she created to make him laugh. It's not an easy bit to do, but mtm amd Asner made it work.

I suppose carrying Ted's character would have been exhausting, but Ted Knight did so many tight comedic bits with it. Maybe he never actually knew how good he was, to have come up with so much creative interpretation of a character lots of actors wouldn't have been able to do much with.

Not a Christmas story: the singalong scene with the funny hats, Lou wearing a sombrero and barking out the line "three French hens" from the twelve days of Christmas. One of those sneaky surreal moments in the series.