Is there not a Mary Tyler Moore box set? (1 Viewer)

[The Obsolete Man]

Interesting... I guess I just wasn't paying attention to their schedule at the time. I'd say it was before we got "Nick at Nite" here but we had "TV Land" from its inception so I have no excuse other than forgetfulness...

Yeah, looking it up, Mary was on N@N from 1992-2000. When I was watching, it had a prime 10 PM ET spot.

It hit TV land for a couple years after, but TV Land was on its way downhill at that point.

 

[BobO'Link]

^In those years I know exactly what was going on. My kids went from Elementary-HS age through that decade and we had a VCR. I time shifted everything my wife and I wanted to see from earlier in the evening to ~8:30 (Central) and later. There was absolutely no time for reruns from any decade during "normal" evening hours. While the kids may have watched N@N earlier in the evening, for my wife and I N@N and TV Land were relegated to "middle of the night, I can't sleep, and I just want to watch something" status. Although... I did tape The Bob Newhart Show during those years (it came on at a very "bad" time plus I wanted a copy to keep) as I loved the show and hadn't seen it in years before those airings.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

^In those years I know exactly what was going on. My kids went from Elementary-HS age through that decade and we had a VCR. I time shifted everything my wife and I wanted to see from earlier in the evening to ~8:30 (Central) and later. There was absolutely no time for reruns from any decade during "normal" evening hours. While the kids may have watched N@N earlier in the evening, for my wife and I N@N and TV Land were relegated to "middle of the night, I can't sleep, and I just want to watch something" status. Although... I did tape The Bob Newhart Show during those years (it came on at a very "bad" time plus I wanted a copy to keep) as I loved the show and hadn't seen it in years before those airings.

Well, I'm probably about the same age as your kids, which is why I say Nick at Nite was the last chance for 30somethings to discover classic TV.

Around 1994/1995, they had a murderer's row of shows. Munsters, Jeannie, Lucy, Bewitched, Mary, Taxi, Dick Van Dyke, Bob Newhart, Dragnet, Superman... and for a few years, they added in more great shows.

But once the 2000s hit, they shifted focus, until both N@N and TV Land were pale shadows (not White Shadows, which was something they aired on Sunday nights in 1994).

So going back to your original post on this page, there is indeed a whole lost generation between 2000ish and the rise of digital subchannels a few years back that hat are now hitting their 20s and had no free, easy access to old shows because Nick at Nite became the Friends channel and TV Land decided to air only Gunsmoke, Andy Griffith, and whatever originals they could scrape up.

Maybe the subchannels and YouTube and streaming will help bring old shows back into view for younger viewers the way N@N did twenty years ago. But for quite a while, there was nothing.

 

[bmasters9]

Something I've been wondering: why did the MTM releases not have any bonuses at all starting with the third one (1972-73) (the first two [1970-72] having bonuses out the wazoo)?

 

[FanCollector]

Something I've been wondering: why did the MTM releases not have any bonuses at all starting with the third one (1972-73) (the first two [1970-72] having bonuses out the wazoo)?

Fox expected the series to have tremendous sales and spent a lot preparing that first season set. The sales were far below their expectations and didn't justify more spending on bonuses, so they put the bonuses they had already produced before the release of the first season onto the second season set and then stopped making more bonus features. (After the fourth season, they decided sales were too low to continue at all, until the well-documented Oprah-shaming.)

 

[bmasters9]

Fox expected the series to have tremendous sales and spent a lot preparing that first season set. The sales were far below their expectations and didn't justify more spending on bonuses, so they put the bonuses they had already produced before the release of the first season onto the second season set and then stopped making more bonus features. (After the fourth season, they decided sales were too low to continue at all, until the well-documented Oprah-shaming.)

Explains it very well-- thanks!

 

[KPmusmag]

In Los Angeles, MTM was on afternoon reruns from 1978 to about 1982 on the local CBS station. I watched it after school every day and loved it. I am not sure when they stopped showing it, but I am certain about 1978 - 1982 because those were my high school years and I watched faithfully.

 

[Rob W]

The media have been exaggerating the success of The MTM Show. It was far behind the blockbuster status of shows like All in the Family & Sanford and Son. It did well enough and was prestigious enough for CBS to keep it going.

What they're really wrong about, but repeat over and over, was that Mary Richards was the first unmarried, independent female sitcom character with a career. Then what was Our Miss Brooks 18 years earlier? Also in the '50s, Ann Sothern qualified in both her sitcoms. In the second one, she was the assistant manager of a large hotel in a big city, very much analagous to the kind of job Mary Richards had.

Even Lucy qualified in the second format of "The Lucy Show" and in "Here's Lucy." "That Girl" presented a single career woman four years before MTM, as did "Julia" two years before.

I liked MTM just as much as anyone. I think she was one of the greatest comic actresses in TV history. I'm just saying the "alternative facts" given out about her show are very debatable.

Well, Lucy was a widower in both of her later series so the comparison to Mary Richards doesn't quite work. The tributes that did get it right suggested that Mary Richards was the first single career woman who didn't feel she had to get a man in order to complete her life. Miss Brooks was a typical man-hungry, wisecracking single gal in the Sally Rogers mode. I've never seen Ann Southern's show so I can't comment on her character, although given that it was set in the 1950's I'm guessing she wasn't quite as liberated as later sitcom women. Marlo Thomas always had a boyfriend throughout her series ( who came closer than anyone else to actually becoming a fixture in Mary Richards' life a decade later )
From what I've read, the writers could never come up with a partner for Mary good enough for the audience to accept, which is part of the reason she remained single throughout the series. There was no conscious attempt to make any statements about singlehood ( is that even a word ? ). It's only after the series ended that people started to analyze the subtle themes that ran underneath, and why the character meant so much to them.

 

[Rob_Ray]

Well, Lucy was a widower in both of her later series so the comparison to Mary Richards doesn't quite work. The tributes that did get it right suggested that Mary Richards was the first single career woman who didn't feel she had to get a man in order to complete her life. Miss Brooks was a typical man-hungry, wisecracking single gal in the Sally Rogers mode. I've never seen Ann Southern's show so I can't comment on her character, although given that it was set in the 1950's I'm guessing she wasn't quite as liberated as later sitcom women. Marlo Thomas always had a boyfriend throughout her series ( who came closer than anyone else to actually becoming a fixture in Mary Richards' life a decade later )
From what I've read, the writers could never come up with a partner for Mary good enough for the audience to accept, which is part of the reason she remained single throughout the series. There was no conscious attempt to make any statements about singlehood ( is that even a word ? ). It's only after the series ended that people started to analyze the subtle themes that ran underneath, and why the character meant so much to them.

Marlo Thomas took great pains to ensure that Ann Marie didn't need a man to complete her life. This is why she stood firm to network and sponsor pressure to show Ann and Donald's marriage in that last season. She really was the first heroine who endorsed the Woman's Liberation Movement.

Diahann Carroll's Julia was a widow but certainly wasn't man-hungry in any way. Ann Sothern was a career gal, first and foremost, and wasn't adverse to finding a man, although I'd hardly call her man-hungry. But she did typify the attitudes of the era.

 

[Rob W]

Marlo Thomas took great pains to ensure that Ann Marie didn't need a man to complete her life. This is why she stood firm to network and sponsor pressure to show Ann and Donald's marriage in that last season. She really was the first heroine who endorsed the Woman's Liberation Movement.

Diahann Carroll's Julia was a widow but certainly wasn't man-hungry in any way. Ann Sothern was a career gal, first and foremost, and wasn't adverse to finding a man, although I'd hardly call her man-hungry. But she did typify the attitudes of the era.

Nothing you say is untrue. Widowers are different from singles as people see them as having had a successful relationship that ended too soon. And the fact that Marlo Thomas always had a boyfriend in her life is quite different that Mary Richards's situation ( I agree that she has likely not gotten the credit she deserves for her contributions to the genre ). If you listen to the many tributes from young women who came of age watching Mary, one of the things that resonates with them was that it was ok to be quilt-free and single and not be seen as a failure.

 

[Brian Himes]

I read somewhere, I believe it was a Marlo Thomas quote, that Ann Marie opened the door and Mary Richards walked through.

Yes, Ann Marie was a single girl out to make a career for herself but the inclusion of Donald (and her Father) always gave the impression that she was (on some level) being taken care of and not all that independent.

Mary Richards on the other hand, who after two years of dating (and possibly living with) her boyfriend who had still not proposed, decided to start over all on her own. Without her boyfriend. This, for 1970, was viewed as throwing off established expectations and traditions for a future on her own terms. This is what resonated with young women of the times. Mary seemed to be the first woman on TV to say that you didn't need a man to have a meaningful and fulfilling life. She was not widowed or divorced. Singleness was not forced upon her. Mary chose to stay single. That was the defining difference.

 

[upperco]

I think the debate between That Girl and The Mary Tyler Moore Show over their respective influences isn't actually about the qualifications of the characters (because obviously there'd be progression between the two), but is much broader -- hinged on the the differences between broadcasting sensibilities in 1966 and 1970. Both characters were unmarried women in search of fulfilling careers, but they weren't written anywhere near the same because ideas of what television audiences -- and the kinds of audiences to whom broadcasters needed to connect -- were radically different at the times of their individual premieres.

I'd initially written several more paragraphs about the two shows, but I think the more efficient way to make this point is to simply note that That Girl, and its '60s contemporaries, didn't (or more specifically, couldn't) embrace the reality that sitcoms of the '70s, equally defined by the works of MTM and Norman Lear, aimed and were encouraged to project -- thanks to the "go-ahead" from network executives who had new ideas about how to best serve their clients (the advertisers). Because Mary Richards' universe was the more relatable one, her show was better poised to make a cultural statement in a way that That Girl, as a result of the different societal mores and comedic aesthetics in which it was mired, couldn't and didn't.

Thus, it isn't fair to regard Mary as more relevant than Ann, based on their unique characteristics, without attributing these differences almost entirely to era discrepancies, as that's something over which neither series had creative control, but to which they were both beholden. I think it is fair to note, however, that the degree of influence disparity between the two shows must also account for the different qualities espoused within the writing and their respective significance to the genre's development. While The Mary Tyler Moore Show ushered in new ideas of how comedy was going to be represented on television thereafter, That Girl, partly because of its timing and partly because of its nature, only reflected sensibilities already in existence.

As one show more amiably embodied how its contemporaries were written, the other more aggressively influenced them -- and, in addition to the reality that the latter's era manifested, it's also easier to find socially progressive statements in a show that proved itself to be creatively progressive as well. It's because of these two reasons that Moore's show gets more credit for its depiction of women on television than That Girl (or any of the aforementioned working woman shows of the '50s and '60s).