That may be true, but I think there enough people who were alive the better part of the 20th century who still love this show and is relevant to our lives, or my life at least.
Joe B, you may have hit on something there. My best friend's wife hates The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler MooreShow. She just finds them "very unfunny." And it's starting to affect his view of them too. When I said how much I love the 4th season opener, "The Lars Affair," he told me how they'd hated it, and were shocked that Rhoda and Mary told Phyllis not to worry about Lars cheating on her. I just rolled my eyes.
And something else: there's a perception by some that All in the Family is very dated, but it actually plays quite well today to people who haven't seen it, or don't remember it. A lot of what they argue about is relevent again: the president, the economy, a war that's split the nation, immigrants & ethnicity. What was dated in the late 80's suddenly plays well again in 2007. Maybe the pendulum just hasn't swung back enough for MTM yet. Maybe it never will. Maybe it will go the way of The Donna Reed Show. I hope not.
I'll always buy the remaining seasons, no matter what.
Well, clearly there aren't enough. Or at least, they're not going out and buying it anyway. I mean, at best only 75,000 people in the entire country bought the 4th season. And possibly less than that if some of those people made multiple purchases as gifts.
As a series progresses in season sets, consumers recognize that if they wait a little bit, they can buy the set cheaper. I've been getting the Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart Show sets as Christmas presents for the folks when deepdiscount has them on the 2 for 1 specials.
Also if the main demo for the MTM boxsets is women, there's a chance that they won't buy the next set until they are finished watching the last set. Whenever I pick up a new boxset, the wife will say, "But you're not finished watching all of season ___."
Corey, your wife may have a point. I slowed the purchase of DVD seasons just for the simple fact that I still have tons of shows to watch. And given the fact that I have over 150 season sets of TV shows, I don't think I'll live long enough to watch them a second time.
I agree with what was said about "M*A*S*H": To me, war is such a stupid human tragedy, I can't laugh at anything connected with it.
However -- why would someone find "Mary Tyler Moore" "irrelevant," but not "I Love Lucy"? "Lucy's" my favorite TV-show of all time, but even I get disgusted with the way Ricky treats Lucy -- she was even offered a Hollywood contract, but he wouldn't let her have a career -- he thought her place was in the home, fixing him dinner. (Which is ironic, considering their real-life situation.)
As for MTM -- it shouldn't be judged by the first episode. The seven years showed Mary becoming a "liberated" woman, for those who are concerned about such things.
Maybe there's a glimmer on the horizon: New Line (a division of Warners) said that sales of Wanted: Dead or Alive - Season One with Steve McQueen did not warrant releasing any further seasons. Well, a company named BCI has licensed the remaining seasons and Season Two is coming out in July. They also have some others shows coming, like the 70's Saturday morning fave, Isis.
Maybe with enough letters, calls, emails, etc. they might be pursuaded to pick up the 3 remaining seasons of MTM.
I really hope we haven't seen the last of Mary Tyler Moore on DVD, since some of my favorite episodes come from the last 3 seasons ("Chuckles Bites the Dust" - Need I say more?).
As for the music rights issues, the changes that have been made so far haven't bothered me TOO much. However, if we couldn't get "One for My Baby," I think I'd have to hurt somebody, LOL. That would just be criminal.
I'm not sure if it's been mentioned yet in this thread (I only skimmed it, sorry), but our best bet seems to be e-mailing Fox over and over, telling them how we feel. I've already done it once, and I'm planning to do it again, as soon as I come up with something really good to say. I'm a firm believer that you should never give up, as we almost didn't even get Season 2, and we now have 4 seasons.
Anyway, sorry for rambling, I just wanted to add my 2 cents to this discussion as this is a topic I'm really passionate about.
I'm with you Kristen, I ran out and bought every season release the first day it hit the shelves. I used to be bummed that they stopped the extras but now I'd be thrilled just to have the bare bones episodes. All the tv dvds I have in my collection are the old classic shows. Most of them are incomplete series: MTM, Big Valley, Adam-12, The Rifleman. The only complete ones I have are Little House, Dick Van Dyke, and Battlestar Galactica (which was only one set). Every time I see this thread updated I'm hoping for news of a new release date.
The companies go by sales to determine whether or not to release a new set (obviously).
But they shouldn't, and here's one reason why:
I don't buy a new set when it first comes out, because I've noticed that very often when a new set comes out, the older sets go on sale (sometimes at very cheap prices.)
So, when a new set comes out, I buy the previous set, and wait to buy the new set until the next set comes out.
I do this because my wants are huge and my funds are limited.
So, come on, Fox, continue MTM and see what happens. If you release Season 5, I'll buy Season 4 -- I promise you!
I am so with you on this Joe. I've always bought on day 1 of any release only to find that the price shoots down on the season set when the latest comes out. I'm going thru my 1st experiment with the release of Simpsons Season 9 (which I'm dying to get because of the New York episode - one of my all time favorites). I'm waiting until Season 10 to see what happens to the price of Season 9. I'm hoping it'll drop to the $19.99 range like the others seasons have fallen. This represents huge savings in the end. And like you, I have purchased tons of season sets of shows and will continue but my wallet is limited.
That's how I bought Friends. I would skip a few seasons, then when a new season came out, I'd buy that and the prior couple, which were then cheaper, on sale, AND featured a rebate with the new season.
Of course, I should have just waited and gotten them all now at Costco for $15 each.
I still think the best bet is for a company like BCI to pick up the remaining three seasons. I honestly think Fox is 100% through with the show.
I wish that there was something that we as fans of Mary and Bob Newhart could do to get Fox to release the final seasons of both shows. I'd also like to figure out how we can get fox to release Rhoda. I have almost the entire run of Rhoda on VHS but they're not in the best of shape. I'd really like to upgrade to DVD. I really, really loved Rhoda.