The Mary Tyler Moore Show - General Discussion

[Milburn Stone]

9 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

Wow, I'm surprised the audience hated Rhoda and that it just took a line about Bess for them to like her.

I'm not surprised about the second part. Often one little cue can do the trick. The phrase "throw me a bone here" comes to mind. 

[txhorns79]

On 3/15/2020 at 1:13 AM, andromeda331 said:

Wow, I'm surprised the audience hated Rhoda and that it just took a line about Bess for them to like her.

I think in the pilot, without context, Rhoda could come off as abrasive and pushy.  She was yelling at the character the audience knew they were supposed to like, so without a character to say that Rhoda is likable, the audience probably wouldn't get that they are supposed to like her.  

[Milburn Stone]

We're about 8 or 9 episodes into Season 2, and something in the Season 2 main title montage caught my attention. There's a shot in it that is clearly from a blown take! It's the one with Phyllis and Mary in Mary's apartment. Phyllis' hand is on Mary's shoulder, and they are both breaking up and looking at the crew. Without doubt, one of them blew a line, or made a very funny ad-lib that took them both out of the scene. It's a lovely moment, actually. Just surprising that it made it into the opening montage. (Or maybe it's surprising that it never stood out to me before.)

I don't know if this moment is in the opening of later seasons.

[cleo]

I just watched the pilot. This show had a great cast right off the bat.

Watching old comedies- I just finished Cheers- really highlights that so called comedies today are not really funny. Ken Levine used to complain about this all the time in his blog and I used to kind of roll my eyes but it's really true.

I've seen the last couple of seasons but nit the first ones so I'm looking forward to it. 

Edited June 7, 2020 by cleo

[chessiegal]

8 minutes ago, cleo said:

I've seen the last couple of seasons but nit the first ones so I'm looking forward to it. 

You're in for a treat.

Quote

In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked The Mary Tyler Moore Show #6 on its list of the "101 Best Written TV Series of All Time."[2]

 

[chessiegal]

What a surprise - 5 episodes of MTM on my DVR today. I thought Sundance had stopped airing it.

[andromeda331]

20 minutes ago, chessiegal said:

What a surprise - 5 episodes of MTM on my DVR today. I thought Sundance had stopped airing it.

Sundance has this weird habit where it'll run a few episodes or even for a couple weeks and then stop for weeks or even months. Its very annoying. I finally gave up and bought the DVDs.

[Milburn Stone]

I bought the complete series on iTunes Apple TV. As I recall it was very cheaply priced--like $19.99 for all seven seasons combined. An offer I couldn't refuse!

[chessiegal]

1 hour ago, Milburn Stone said:

I bought the complete series on iTunes Apple TV. As I recall it was very cheaply priced--like $19.99 for all seven seasons combined. An offer I couldn't refuse!

Me too. But sometimes I just like to watch it on tv as feel good tv.

[andromeda331]

16 hours ago, chessiegal said:

Me too. But sometimes I just like to watch it on tv as feel good tv.

That's still my preferred way of watching shows too. Reruns of Elementary, the Closer, Psych, Gilmore Girls, and Monk but so many more great old shows they never air or in MTM case never knowing when their going to run it or how long that I give up and buy the DVDs.   

[cleo]

I've only watched the first 3 eps, been busy. Mary has some great outfits and sometimes looks great. Other times I find it kind of hard to look at her, she seems painfully thin and her posture is bad at times- I think from being tall you can tell she has a habit of trying to slump forward. 

I just recognize the postural stuff bc I have had serious postural issues that needed a lot of time and hard work to fix so I am hyper aware of it.

I also always feel too aware of MTM's personal life and challenges when watching too, so I'm enjoying the eps but it's kind of sad too 

[Milburn Stone]

2 hours ago, cleo said:

I've only watched the first 3 eps, been busy. Mary has some great outfits and sometimes looks great. Other times I find it kind of hard to look at her, she seems painfully thin and her posture is bad at times- I think from being tall you can tell she has a habit of trying to slump forward. 

It's funny how hard it is to tell how tall someone is in movies and TV. When Mary was Laura Petrie, I never thought of her as tall, because Rob was so much taller. But it's clear that Mary Richards is tall. Another thing I notice now on MTM is that Ed Asner must also be tall. I always thought of him as "short and round." But when Lou Grant and Mary Richards are standing face to face, they really are face to face.

As for Mary's too-thinness, I'm seeing that, too--now. I didn't way back when. To perhaps overly extrapolate from myself, "we" weren't as conscious then that a woman could be too thin. Twiggy was a figure of fun, yes, but not because anybody thought her body type was unhealthy. We now have more awareness that very-thinness can be a problem. 

[chessiegal]

I don't think MTM was overly thin. Look at Audrey Hepburn and Katherine Hepburn. We've been watching a lot of movies on TCM and there are plenty of women who are thin.

Did we ever see Mary Richards wear the same outfit? It never ceases to amaze me that she had enough room in her closet for all those outfits.

[cleo]

I guess it's subjective....it doesn't look healthy to me and I did have the same thought about Hepburn in some of her movies. But I do understand that was the ideal at the time.

Eta I notice it particularly in shots where bone is essentially protruding. It is not noticeable in every shot. That is too thin to me. But everyone has different perspective on this kind of thing.

Edited July 17, 2020 by cleo

[Hiyo]

Were either of the Hepburns considered the ideal of their time? If anything, I always felt they both stood out because they were a bit different from what the ideal of their time was supposed to look like.

[Harry24]

2 hours ago, chessiegal said:

Did we ever see Mary Richards wear the same outfit?

Yes.  And I loved the fact that they did that.

[DXD526]

I remember when Mad Magazine parodied the show, they zeroed in on the fact that Mary Richards had such an extensive wardrobe. They called it Mary Tailor-Made!

Before now, my mom was the only one I'd ever heard use the expression 'painfully thin'! And yes, she did apply it to MTM back in the 70s. 

[CraftyHazel]

On 7/16/2020 at 2:19 PM, Milburn Stone said:

It's funny how hard it is to tell how tall someone is in movies and TV. When Mary was Laura Petrie, I never thought of her as tall, because Rob was so much taller. But it's clear that Mary Richards is tall. Another thing I notice now on MTM is that Ed Asner must also be tall. I always thought of him as "short and round." But when Lou Grant and Mary Richards are standing face to face, they really are face to face.

As for Mary's too-thinness, I'm seeing that, too--now. I didn't way back when. To perhaps overly extrapolate from myself, "we" weren't as conscious then that a woman could be too thin. Twiggy was a figure of fun, yes, but not because anybody thought her body type was unhealthy. We now have more awareness that very-thinness can be a problem. 

Neither Mary nor Ed were/are particularly tall.  5’7” is somewhat tall for a woman in the 70s, but not extraordinarily so.  And it certainly isn’t tall for a man.

[Milburn Stone]

11 hours ago, Marmiarmo said:

Neither Mary nor Ed were/are particularly tall.  5’7” is somewhat tall for a woman in the 70s, but not extraordinarily so.  And it certainly isn’t tall for a man.

You're right, Asner was not tall. But it remains that if you blindfolded me and asked me to visualize a scene with Mary and Lou, I would tell you that Mary was a good six inches taller than Lou. So I was surprised to notice in a scene with the two of them that they're the same height.

[Harry24]

2 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

So I was surprised to notice in a scene with the two of them that they're the same height.

Almost the entire cast was a similar height.  I think Betty White might have been a bit shorter.  But I think they were all in the 5’-7”-5’-9” range.  Unlike with the DVD show, where DVD, Jerry Paris, Carl Reiner and Richard Deacon were very tall, and Morey Amsterdam and Ann Morgan Guilbert were somewhat short with MTM and Rose Marie in the middle.

[JAYJAY1979]

When Rhoda left after season 4, the show lost it's charm though the 2 Phyllis centric episodes in season 5 were funny.

By the time of the new apartment, the show had lost it's early season charm.and became kind of run of the mill (Georgette and Sue Ann were not good replacements).

[Hiyo]

Sue Ann was awesome.

[andromeda331]

2 hours ago, JAYJAY1979 said:

When Rhoda left after season 4, the show lost it's charm though the 2 Phyllis centric episodes in season 5 were funny.

By the time of the new apartment, the show had lost it's early season charm.and became kind of run of the mill (Georgette and Sue Ann were not good replacements).

It really did. It wasn't the same without her. Mary no longer had a best friend. I missed her hanging out at home with Rhoda or doing things with her. 

[Milburn Stone]

16 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

It really did. It wasn't the same without her. Mary no longer had a best friend. I missed her hanging out at home with Rhoda or doing things with her. 

In our "chronological survey" of the show, we're not up to that season yet. (Although we watched it 50 years ago.) Did the show make an attempt to find Mary a new best friend, and it didn't take? (In many episodes in season 1-3, you can sense them trying out characters of various sorts that could become recurring but didn't.)

[CraftyHazel]

I never really felt that they were trying to give Mary a new best friend after Rhoda left, and it really left a hole, for me.  She did things with boyfriends, colleagues, and Georgette, but there was never anyone even close to Rhoda.

[Hiyo]

But could anyone have really replaced Rhoda? If they had brought it someone, I have a feeling all the comments would have compared that person negatively to Rhoda as a substitute.

[CraftyHazel]

I agree!  No one could have compared to Rhoda...Valerie Harper and MTM were lightning in a bottle.

[HyeChaps]

In the last season, at the new apartment, they tried introducing Penny Marshall as a neighbor/friend.  

[Blakeston]

I'm obsessed with TV shows from the '60s and '70s, yet I somehow made it until this summer without ever watching this show! (I didn't subscribe to Hulu until the pandemic started, which is a big part of it.)

I really love it. And I'm actually of the opinion that the show got better as it went on!

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the character of Rhoda, and I think the show lost something when Valerie Harper left the series. And I preferred the original apartment to the later one.

But at the end of the day, the post-Rhoda seasons had a huge percentage of the episodes that I enjoyed the most, namely:

• The finale
• Chuckles Bites the Dust
• Georgette giving birth at Mary's party
• The All About Eve-esque episode with Sue Ann's young rival
• Mary going to jail
• Ted and Georgette's wedding (with a not-yet-famous John Ritter as the minister!)
• Mary and Sue Ann auditioning for the commentator job
• The Washington, DC episode with Betty Ford
• Mary, Murray and Ted traveling to California, where Ted is tempted to cheat
• Sue Ann having a meltdown at the Teddy Awards after her date hits on Mary
• Mary helping the prostitute get a job
• Georgette revealing her pregnancy
• Sue Ann getting fired and preying on Mary's pity
• Ted Baxter's Famous Broadcasters School

I think the series found its unique voice more as it went along. The early seasons had way too many "Mary dates a guy who turns out to have _______ wrong with him" episodes. And IMO, Sue Ann brought more laughs per minute than any other character on the show.

[chessiegal]

MTM is recognized as one of the best TV series.

Quote

In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked The Mary Tyler Moore Show #6 on its list of the "101 Best Written TV Series of All Time."[2]

 

[Milburn Stone]

13 hours ago, Blakeston said:

I think the series found its unique voice more as it went along.

Agree. We probably watched most of the episodes when they first aired, but a few months ago we took on a "project" of watching every episode in chronological order. Partly just to make sure we watched them all, but also for the view it would give us into how the show evolved. We're somewhere in Season 4 now and you're right, every season is better than the one before. The other night we watched "Lou's First Date" and picked it as one of the best we've seen.

[cleo]

Season 1 yeah a lot of eps about Mary and various men. They're not bad per se- well the one I'm watching now is bad. But not enough of the other charaters.

Also I really notice the eps are 25 mins. Shows are so much shorter today.

The eps I have were numbered out of order but so far the election night snowstorm was my favourite.

About halfway through 

Edited August 18, 2020 by cleo

[Blakeston]

I've watched the vast majority of the episodes, but there are some I just can't bring myself to watch. Judging from the plot descriptions, there are a few episodes that contain sitcom tropes that I absolutely hate - like "Mary gets someone fired and feels bad for them, so she gets them a job at her office" and "Mary dates a guy whose kid is a total brat."

Having watched most of the episodes, I think the show's characters are straight-up iconic, with the exceptions of Murray and Phyllis.

Murray is just boring as sin. Episodes about him were filler. His main purpose was to deliver "zingers," but I hated most of his zingers. He even managed to suck the humor out of Sue Ann! The only times I didn't enjoy her were the formulaic "Murray makes a slut joke then Sue Ann makes a bald joke" exchanges between the two.

With Phyllis, I think the writers were very inconsistent. Sometimes her phoniness and pushiness were presented as being kind of adorable, and other times she was just a vile human being. (Like when she harassed Mary and Bess about that stupid essay, or when Mary and Rhoda figured out that she and Lars secretly managed the building without doing any work). I've never seen her spinoff, but I hope they made the character tolerable - which she often wasn't on MTM

I have mixed feelings about Ted. He certainly gave us a lot of funny moments, and Ted Knight was great at playing him. But I think we saw way, way too much of him. There were too many Ted episodes. I'm sure he was an easy character to write for, because his personality was so over-the-top, and he had so many ridiculous characteristics to draw humor from. But seeing so much of him made him really, really hard to take.

I will say, though, that I appreciated the episodes that gave him some depth (like when he was dejected about his sperm count, and when he resisted the urge to cheat on Georgette).

[Milburn Stone]

2 hours ago, Blakeston said:

With Phyllis, I think the writers were very inconsistent. Sometimes her phoniness and pushiness were presented as being kind of adorable, and other times she was just a vile human being. (Like when she harassed Mary and Bess about that stupid essay, or when Mary and Rhoda figured out that she and Lars secretly managed the building without doing any work). I've never seen her spinoff, but I hope they made the character tolerable - which she often wasn't on MTM

We're watching the show chronologically, and that way, Phyllis is not as inconsistent. She changes, don't get me wrong, but the changes are in a straight line, at least up to the middle of Season 4 (which is where we're at). She becomes progressively more good-humored and gifted with some sense of perspective, less concerned with keeping up appearances and being vile to Rhoda. I can see where if you watch the episodes randomly her character would seem to jump all over the place, but that's not our experience watching in order.

As for the guy who gets fired and Mary hires, I think that was Jerry Van Dyke, who was pretty bad in the show. (Although in the second of his appearances he did make me laugh out loud a couple times as well as hate him.)

Edited August 27, 2020 by Milburn Stone

[cleo]

I think Phyllis was more fully realized as a character than Sue Ann who could be more one note.

Also Chloris Leachman did a great job with a difficult character. 

Jmo of course. I did like Sue Ann.

ETA agree about Ted and Murray but I can't say I dislike any character and overall the whole ensemble works for me.

Edited August 27, 2020 by cleo

[Nordly Beaumont]

9 hours ago, Blakeston said:

"Mary gets someone fired and feels bad for them, so she gets them a job at her office"

Ohh, if it's the one with Barbara Sharma (a waitress Mary gets fired and hires as an assistant) I love that one! Barbara Sharma is so great. I also loved her hair. I still love her hair. 

[Milburn Stone]

15 hours ago, Nordly Beaumont said:

Ohh, if it's the one with Barbara Sharma (a waitress Mary gets fired and hires as an assistant) I love that one! Barbara Sharma is so great. I also loved her hair. I still love her hair. 

Oh right. With the Jerry Van Dyke one, it wasn't Mary that got him fired. I liked Barbara Sharma. And here's a shout-out to @Rinaldo if he's listening: I like her on the cast album of Hallelujah, Baby! too!

[txhorns79]

Quote

With Phyllis, I think the writers were very inconsistent. Sometimes her phoniness and pushiness were presented as being kind of adorable, and other times she was just a vile human being. (Like when she harassed Mary and Bess about that stupid essay, or when Mary and Rhoda figured out that she and Lars secretly managed the building without doing any work). I've never seen her spinoff, but I hope they made the character tolerable - which she often wasn't on MTM

Phyllis, the show is kind of meh.  She moves to San Francisco to live with her in-laws after Lars suddenly dies and leaves her penniless.  There are funny moments, but I don't think the character is strong enough to sustain a series.  If you want to see episodes, I think most of the show is on YouTube. 

[cleo]

Just started season 2. The first ep- Birds and Bees is good, I had a few chuckles. Liked Carl the weatherman answering the phone and saying- this is Ms. Richards- bc of the obscene callers.

I may have to buy the DVDs. I don't like the quality of youtube.

Curious what other older sitcoms people like? I like sitcoms but find most current ones not funny. The genre has really disappeared. 

I've seen a few eps of All in the Family, but never all of it. I've seen a few eps of Soap and maybe one of Barney Miller and it didn't appeal. I've seen Taxi and it was ok, though not as funny as MTM. Christopher Lloyd is the best part of the show imo, even more than Kaufman.

[chessiegal]

I bought the entire series from Apple so I can watch it on my iPad. I think I got it on sale for about $22.

I like Happy days Seasons 1-7. I like the first several years of Laverne & Shirley. I love every season of Frasier. We watch a few episodes of Leave it to Beaver every day. I enjoyed Newhart but Decades left my market so I don't see it any more.

[Milburn Stone]

12 hours ago, chessiegal said:

I bought the entire series from Apple so I can watch it on my iPad. I think I got it on sale for about $22.

I did the same, except watching it via AppleTV. It's been a while, but I think it was even cheaper. Like $18 or something.

Edited October 23, 2020 by Milburn Stone

[friendperidot]

On 6/15/2019 at 8:49 PM, annzeepark914 said:

Me too.  I loved the show right from the start because I was working in a Congressional office and our AA (today's AA's have fancier titles, of course) was our very own Ted Baxter. We all loathed him.  He was a legend in his own mind, just like Ted.

I have to know, in WDC? I lived on Capitol Hill during most of the MTM show's original run and my roommate worked for a Congressman.

 

[annzeepark914]

1 hour ago, friendperidot said:

I have to know, in WDC? I lived on Capitol Hill during most of the MTM show's original run and my roommate worked for a Congressman.

 

I worked on the hill for an upstate NY congressman and lived in N Arlington. None of our staff lived in the district. Gee...this was back in the day when there was hardly any crime in DC. And all the Representatives & Senators lived in the area (no sleeping in offices). 

[Milburn Stone]

On 12/31/2020 at 5:56 AM, annzeepark914 said:

I worked on the hill for an upstate NY congressman and lived in N Arlington. None of our staff lived in the district. Gee...this was back in the day when there was hardly any crime in DC. And all the Representatives & Senators lived in the area (no sleeping in offices). 

Now I have to know. Congresspeople have sleeping quarters in their offices now?

[Driad]

Speaking of Ted Baxter, remember when he was mentioned on The West Wing? The president was about to hold a press conference to announce that he had MS.  Staffer 1: Do you think they will ask if he plans to run for a second term?  Staffer 2: *Ted Baxter* would know to ask that.

[annzeepark914]

2 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Now I have to know. Congresspeople have sleeping quarters in their offices now?

A number of very conservative congressmen have been doing this for at least 15 years. They say they can't afford an apt as well as their house back in their district. There are no sleeping quarters in congressional offices. They put a cot in their private offices instead of moving their families here.

[txhorns79]

Cloris Leachman has passed away at 94.  She had a heck of a career, and was wonderful on MTM.  I think Ed Asner and Betty White are the only regular cast members left. 

[Miss Anne Thrope]

RIP, Cloris Leachman.

Hope I'm not jinxing him, but Gavin McLeod (Murray Slaughter) is still with us too.

[chessiegal]

Speaking of Gavin MacLeod, I saw a very young Gavin in an episode of Dick Van Dyke this week. MTM and his character weren't in any scenes together, but I thought it was prescient. They must have met on the set.

[txhorns79]

21 minutes ago, Miss Anne Thrope said:

Hope I'm not jinxing him, but Gavin McLeod (Murray Slaughter) is still with us too.

My mistake!  I completely forgot about him.