This is the ninth post of a series. The previous posts are:
#1: The Howdy Doody Show
#2: 77 Sunset Strip
#3: The Edge of Night
#4: The Defenders
#5:
#6: The Dick Van Dyke Show
#7: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
#8: The Mary Tyler Moore Show
#9: St. Elsewhere
#10: The West Wing
Sorry for not finishing this series in a timely manner. This is an arbitrary list of my favorite shows that I watched as they were broadcast during the 20th Century. It was supposed to reveal them in chronological orde, but then Tommy Smothers died, so I advanced his show, and everything got out of order. So this is the ninth entry in the series, but it’s about the eighth show chronologically.
With that out of the way, I don’t think I can say anything about The Mary Tyler Moore Show that hasn’t been said many times already.
As it happens, it debuted on CBS during the same year that I’m writing about now in my off and on memoirs, 1970-71. Those of us who were at home at 737 Southgate Drive on Saturday evenings were always watching Mary, and we all loved the show.
The one thing that sticks out very clearly in my mind is the theme song, “Love Is All Around”. While I liked the song, I hated the singer, as he had a country and western twang to his voice. Terry noticed that as well, I guess, but apparently he couldn’t separate the voice from the song, because every time the singer (Sonny Curtis) started up with “How will you make it on your own?” (the lyrics for the first season), Terry chimed in with “What a terrible song!” or something similar. It became a Pavlovian response.
Our TV, an older set supplied by either Perry or Carl, I’m not sure which, was a black and white model, so we didn’t get to see Mary in full, living color. I don’t know exactly when color TVs overtook black and white models in this country, but a quick web search suggests it was sometime in the 1970s.
There are plenty of classic MTM episodes, but I’ve stitched together a few scenes from the 17th episode from the third season entitled “My Brother’s Keeper” where Phyllis tries to get Mary to date her brother, but things don’t turn out the way she planned. As per usual, nearly all the laughs go to everyone except Mary. She realized that the more successful her supporting cast was, the more successful her show would be.
One more TV series to go. Anyone have a guess?