Maude the Nanny

Sony is done with catalog TV releases. Anything that's coming out from them is coming through Shout! Factory, who said Maude is a music rights nightmare. I don't think they said anything about The Nanny one way or the other, but it, too, likely has music issues. I love these shows, too, and would gladly support their continued releases.

At the risk of offending any gay men on these forums:

One thing I learned about shows with strong female leads, such as Maude, The Nanny, Rhoda, and The Golden Girls, is that they tend to have a fairly large following of gay men. Is it wrong for straight men to be fans of those kinds of shows? If it isn't, then how come they seem to appeal to a lot of gay men? There has to be a logical explanation for this.

I don't think it has anything to do with whether the female lead is strong or not but more to do with if they are attractive or not. To me, none of the shows you mentioned have women/characters that I find attractive. I can't stand Maude, neither the character, the actress or the show, although I think that guys who did watch it did so for Adrienne Barbeau. She wasn't in it enough for me to sit through something with that unlikeable a lead character. But I love Honey West and The Avengers, both had strong female leads, but hot as hell. There's your difference, IMO.

It still doesn't answer my question, though. Is it wrong for straight men to be fans of shows with strong female leads? If it isn't, then why do they tend to have a large following of gay men?

No it is not. Being the fan of a show that happens to have strong female leads is just that, a fan of the show. I happen to think Golden Girls is funny, period. Nothing about the actors changes that. And I don't happen to be gay.

Why would Maude be a music rights nightmare ? I don't remember that series having that much musical content. Same goes for The Nanny. I'm guessing these series are stalled because of poor sales.

I can only say that my memories of how funny MAUDE was didn't match up to the reality when my wife and I watched the first season DVD.

Rather than funny, we found it to be just loud, brash and mean - unlike it's 'mother show', ALL IN THE FAMILY.

It was pretty disappointing. I expected to laugh with this show as much as I have with AITF and other classic sitcoms I had purchased over the years.

So if further seasons of MAUDE were released, I would definately take a 'PASS'.

I think, and I went back and forth with someone from Shout about it a while ago, that Maude has moderate music rights issues--four "musical" episodes that would be quite expensive, but the rest of the series is similar to All in the Family and not nearly as music-laden as Sanford and Son. The issue is the projected sales versus the music clearance. They just don't think it's going to be worth it.

 

And Vahan, you may add me to the list of straight male Maude fans. I draw the line at The Nanny, however. (No idea why different shows appeal to different groups, but a funny story about The Golden Girls. When LOGO, a gay-themed cable channel was starting up, they solicited ideas from the public about what programming to carry. The president of the network said that he couldn't understand why all these people kept asking for The Golden Girls. He added that they couldn't afford it anyway, but he had no idea why so many people suggested a series with no gay-themed content beyond two or three individual episodes. So I'm not the only one who can't answer your question.)

Loud, brash and mean was the way I felt about the show originally. I didn't care for it then or now.

Somebody must've liked "Maude," it was a Top Ten show for the first four years it was on. The first two years it led off the Tuesday evening network programming so it didn't benefit from a strong lead in. When I catch an episode now it doesn't seem very funny. Maude reminds me of a human female Foghorn Leghorn-no offense to Foghorn-minus the charm.

Here's the big difference between All in the Family and Maude. In AITF, Archie espoused a lot of wacky, extremest political views as did his son-in-law and they constantly battled back and forth over them. Maude did the same, only her nutty views were in the opposite direction and they mirrored the views of Norman Lear. Therefore, there was no strong opposition character in the show to balance the arguments out. So, while AITF featured heavyweight battles between Archie and Mike, on Maude the battles were what they refer to in wrestling as "squash matches" where the opponent is a tomato can who is there to get pummeled while offering little defense.

As for the ratings, well, there are a lot of shows which pulled in good ratings for years which are virtually impossible to sit down and watch today. Taken a look at any Bonanza lately? I tried watching it while I was on a plane a couple of years ago and I couldn't get through ten minutes.

Maude was frequently shown up for being hypocritical, misguided, or unreasonable in her views and behavior. Yes, her general political philosophy was embraced by the show, but the character herself often did not live up to her own ideals, or had to face a challenge to her opinions. The other regular characters may have been tomatoes in a sense, but many entire story lines were developed to make Maude question her views. It's certainly fair not to enjoy the show or find it funny; that is simply a question of taste. But I don't feel that the political criticism is fair. If anything, the show is an answer to conservatives who complained that Lear was only interested in mocking them on AITF.

Perhaps you're right but I couldn't watch the show long enough as I couldn't stand the character or the actress. I have a problem watching shows where I don't like the lead character.

Can't argue with that. Even as a fan, I understand she could be a lot to take. Carroll O'Connor didn't think Maude was good either, although he was always bitter that he wasn't given a financial stake in it.