The Mary Tyler Moore Show

[MissLlanviewPA]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhysMotWXoE&feature=related

[Y&RWorldTurner]

This is one of those shows that never gets "old."

I can simply re-watch episodes over and over again.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Looks like tomorrow's marathon on Hallmark focuses mostly on the first season.

Here’s the rundown of episodes for Sunday’s marathon, including the crap Mary/Rhoda TV movie from 2000:

Sunday, April 1, 2012

10:00 am "Love is All Around": (1970)

Jilted by her fiancé, Mary Richards moves to Minneapolis and starts eventually winds up Associate Producer of The Six O'Clock News, and befriends her new neighbor, Rhoda Morgenstern, with whom she is initially at odds.

10:30 am "Today I Am a Ma'am": (1970)

Mary is upset because she is outside the 15-29 demographic group, which the news channel considers young. However, she really cannot believe it when the mailroom boy calls her Ma am.

11:00 am "Bess, You is My Daughter Now": (1970)

When Phyllis's husband, Lars, takes ill, she asks Mary to babysit Bess for a few days. However, Phyllis is heartbroken when she discovers that Bess wants to stay with Mary forever.

11:30 am "Divorce Isn't Everything": (1970)

Mary and Rhoda find out that divorcees at the Better Luck Next Time club can get group rates on charter flights to Paris and decide to join. However, Mary proves a hit with the club's members and gets elected to its board.

Noon "Keep Your Guard Up": (1970)

A football player turned insurance salesman applies for a job as a sportscaster and attaches himself to Mary. Mary and Rhoda discover that he hasn't had much success at anything and encourage him to pursue his dreams.

12:30 pm "Support Your Local Mother": (1970)

Rhoda's mother, Ida, comes visiting and Rhoda refuses to see her. Ida stays with Mary but drives her crazy.

1:00 pm ""Toulouse-Lautrec is One of My Favorite Artists": (1970)

Mary begins seeing an author who appeared as a guest on WJM-TV's Scrutiny, and becomes extremely self-conscious after discovering he is several inches shorter than she is.

1:30 pm "The Snow Must Go On": (1970)

A snowstorm leaves Mary producing her first program, broadcasting the results of the local elections. The show has to remain on until a winner is declared -- and no word is received at the newsroom.

2:00 pm ""Bob & Rhoda & Teddy & Mary": (1970)

Mary is nominated for her first Television Editors' Award (the ""Teddies""), but at home Rhoda's boyfriend Bob takes more of an interest in Mary than in Rhoda.

2:30 pm "Assistant Wanted, Female": (1970)

Mary's workload gets too much so Lou allows her to hire an assistant. She chooses Phyllis who hinders more than she helps.

3:00 pm "1040 or Fight": (1970)

Mary is audited by the IRS, and the shy auditor takes an interest in her. Unfortunately, he has great difficulty telling her how he feels.

3:30 pm "Anchorman Overboard": (1970)

Ted loses his self-confidence after speaking at Phyllis's club and Mary has to find a way to get Ted back on a high.

4:00 pm "He's All Yours": (1970)

After Mary invites Lou's nephew home for dinner, she must confront false rumors in the newsroom the following day.

4:30 pm "Christmas and the Hard Luck Kid": (1970)

Feeling sympathetic for a co-worker who hasn't spent Christmas with his family for years, Mary is forced to stay alone at WJM-TV on Christmas Eve.

5:00 pm "Howard's Girl": (1971)

Mary begins seeing Paul Arnell, the brother of her former boyfriend Howard Arnell, and is shocked to discover that the brothers' parents still believe that she and Howard are an item.

5:30 pm "Party is Such Sweet Sorrow": (1971)

Mary gets a tempting offer from a rival television station, but becomes reluctant to leave when her WJM-TV colleagues throw a farewell party for her.

6:00 pm "Just a Lunch": (1971)

Mary reluctantly finds herself romantically involved with a married man.

6:30 pm "Second Story Story": (1971)

Mary's apartment is burgled with only her clothes, stereo and television taken but the next night the whole apartment is cleaned out.

7:00 pm - “We Closed in Minneapolis": (1971): Murray's play is finally produced but his happiness is short-lived when he discovers that the leading role will be played by Ted.

7:30 pm "Mary Tyler Moore Show, The: ""Hi!"": (1971)

Mary is admitted into the hospital to have her tonsils removed and shares a room with a grouchy woman who refuses to get along with anyone.

8:00 pm - 10:00 pm "Mary and Rhoda: (2000 movie)

Mary Richards and Rhoda Morgenstern find themselves alone after the death of Mary’s husband and Rhoda’s divorce. Both have relocated to New York City and try to jumpstart their dormant careers and reconnect with their daughters. Stars Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper.

[quartermainefan]

Some of these I remember. Lou's nephew I remember being a little creep until Lou set him straight. Any episode with Ida is a keeper. Nancy Walker was just perfection.

[DRW50]

The early episodes are probably the most "cute" of the whole series, but that also leads them to have some great charm which the later years lacked. I always loved the interplay between Rhoda/Mary and Rhoda/Phyllis. Today I Am a Ma'am is one of my favorite episodes of anything. The scene where Rhoda, on a date with a man who brings his wife, just gives up and pours the snacks on her lap, it's one of the funniest scenes ever on a sitcom.

[reallyhateskateonlost]

Chuckles Funeral. Still funny after all these years.

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[Y&RWorldTurner]

The show was a little more "bubbly" in the earlier years, but I thought the progression was natural. As Rhoda and Phyllis added a totally different element to the one Sue Ann and Georgette would later add. Both still good, but totally different and a little more edgy (mainly Sue Ann).

Unlike most other sitcoms of this era and later on, the last season of this show is one of its finest, IMO. The show had a very consistent quality streak from beginning to end that very few shows have ever had.

Speaking of Lou, I always found it interesting that his spin-off was a drama, and not a comedy. I haven't seen an episode of Lou Grant in years.

[DRW50]

I think the show did naturally progress, I just think they lost some of the heart and became a little more hostile. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not (some episodes, like the one where they were all trapped together for Christmas, or when Mary's date was a stalker, or when Mary left her job due to not getting enough and Lou was written as some master manipulator waiting until he could con her into returning, really bothered me). I got tired of Murray, although I did like that episode where he admitted he was in love with Mary.

I think my favorite season, overall, was probably that awkward interim season, Phyllis' last, and the last in the first apartment. The episode where Mary went to jail, and the one where Phyllis has to go to work, Mary dating a younger man, etc.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I always thought they screwed Phyllis over in her own spin-off show.

It just wasn't the same, she worked well as a supporting character, but as a lead, they totally had to reinvent certain aspects and make her softer to digest.

It was easier to spin Rhoda off, but even on the show, after about the third season, they really ran out of steam. They kind of tried to make Rhoda into Mary, which didn't work.

[DRW50]

Phyllis shouldn't have ever had her own show. If she had one I think they should have kept Lars alive.

I do remember the episode where she had to learn to be alone, which was something you don't see too often on TV.

Oh, I forgot to mention my favorite episode. It was the one where Mary and Rhoda stopped talking to each other (I think this was one of Rhoda's last). I could watch that a million times.

I used to watch MTM on Nick at Nite, every night, for years. Now I don't give a damn about that channel.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I think TMTMS, along with probably I Love Lucy, might have been the longest running show that aired on the Nick@Nite lineup. I think they aired it for like a decade. I can't back that up with any source though.

I hated what they did to Rhoda on her spin-off after she got married and then divorced.

I think the ultimate failure of Phyllis's spin-off (which started out as a hit) was one of the reasons MTM (the company) gave Betty White a brand new sitcom (which sucked for different reasons), instead of spinning Sue Ann Nivens off. If Phyllis totally didn't work as a lead, Sue Ann was never going to.

[DRW50]

Rhoda's show just seemed to become very depressing. The sets were grubby, the characters were sadsack. I liked Joe, and I thought he and Rhoda were a good couple. I know a lot of people disliked him, and I think the actors may have had some issues (or am I wrong?),but I thought that it was just a bad idea to add so many stories about liberation and independence and all the rest into Rhoda. I think that style of personality is not something people want to see go through constant stages of growth.

I can't see Sue Ann with her own spinoff either, although I think it would have worked if they'd had her as the HBIC at a new TV station, and focused on some of the people who worked there with her.

I'm glad that the MTM cast still seem to be in the cultural zeitgest, in some way (like Betty White's birthday party where she gave Mary a standing ovation, and Georgia Engels, Ed Asner, and MTM showing up on Hot in Cleveland). I think the show works as both nostalgia and as pure comedy, and the memories of the show don't have that increasing toxicity and trashy luridness which seems to have attached itself to things like The Brady Bunch.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Here's the reunion/retrospective special CBS aired in 2002:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aJ2N3kRgNz0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/IwAewB6kE9E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zL5Ui2o9ZsY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/92kR4neoDAw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[DRW50]

I remember the one they did around 1990 or 1991, set in some fakey living room. I think that was one of the first times I knew about the show and started watching reruns. I also bought a few of the videos (I think I still have them).

[MissLlanviewPA]

According to the List of programs broadcast on Nick at Nite Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programs_broadcast_by_Nick_at_Nite), these are the airdates for MTM and ILL:

The Mary Tyler Moore Show (September 12, 1992 – June 25, 2000)

I Love Lucy (February 14, 1994 – December 31, 2000)

There are a few other shows that had equally/longer runs on N@N, though:

Bewitched (September 1, 1989 – September 29, 1991; June 6, 1994 – September 3, 2000)

The Dick Van Dyke Show (September 29, 1991 – 2000)

Happy Days (September 9, 1996 – February 2, 2003)

The Cosby Show (March 3, 2002 – August 29, 2010)

And it's completely possible that I missed a show or two.