 This is the SF Productions podcast network This is a 10 30 to 3 that Darren Pamela Ferdin for disparate of show to the place your parents didn't understand the world of 60s and 70s television Welcome to vast wasteland Welcome home to vast wasteland the video journal of 60s and 70s TV. I'm Mark Schmidar along with Wilbert Neil and Marty Wiley Well, we're going to talk about MTM shows all of the fine Mary Tyler Moore production company shows which It's a big topic in a maid in fact take take us to episodes spending on how things go But first off before you jump into that just want to tell you we're on the Tuesdays at 6 Wednesdays up Wednesday, when did it Dan? I'm going to Here on a CTV cable 21 talk to your psychiatrist about your Wednesday phobia. Yeah Also, if you want to write to us you want to write to box 15 1411 Columbus, Ohio 4 3 2 1 5 And here it is And also before we jump into the big show we want to show you the new backdrop Yes, you've been waiting for it for who knows how long and darn it. It's finally ready. Here it is The big unveiling here it comes And here it comes They don't revoke your degree Here it comes Here it comes Oh Yes, yes, there it is folks Also want to say this is like a continuing process It can only get better from here Well only got to get better Well great, so you'll be seeing more of that new logo during the show. Well, I'm not in this one It's all you're gonna see this Tonight's topic the Mary Tyler Moore shows the MTM Productions MTM universe Yeah Certainly one of the most prolific as far as big huge hit long-running sitcoms I I would be hard-pressed to find another company that just so consistently hits big hits With possibly the exception of maybe a Norman Lear and but even he's had a lower, you know hit, you know He's getting a better Not as good a percentage as MTM like Desi Lou or something, but they didn't do a lot. That's true They just weren't as perky. Yeah That's the problem Well first off the show that got it all rolling the the Mary Tyler Moore show of course the production company specifically designed for this show To begin with and what's interesting when turn the world on with a smile That's right. Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all worry more while Well, it's you girl Every little movement you show I Need to waste it you can have a towel. Why don't you take it you might just make it after all Well When when you look at this show, it's interesting. I mean that the basic concept of a single woman really the first show to to Show a single woman in a fairly positive light the idea that that yes, you can be single and it's not a curse You know you have the feeling that she had a dark past There was always something that wasn't said Right well, she almost got married I mean at the very the first episode shows that she just went to Minneapolis because she wanted to get out of this Failed relationship that she was there. She was just about to get married and what happened originally was she was Original concept she was going to be a divorcee and CBS said you can't do that because the last time most people saw this actress She was Dick Van Dyke's wife and still assume that Robin law got divorced Exactly this protection program that means the dick Gives you an idea of the thought process is for having a break the thought processes of CBS executives and in fact television executives in general to think that Absurd concept, but anyways, so she's single and never been married That's the last second that was like we're gonna change it around and Really you you can't find a show with a with a more See what's the word I'm looking for just a really well balanced ensemble cast Diverse diverse I mean, I mean you had you had you had your your perky lead and Then you had the gruff but lovable boss And you had the overbearing other guy at work, and then you had the wisecracking guy at work Then you had the wisecracking girlfriend to live in the same apartment building Phyllis or Sue Ann that's the question We'll get to that later just a minute, but first so well, let me let me ask you this Favorite Mary Tyler Moore episodes Well, I mean the first obvious one is the the chuckles is dead episode One of the classics where where well if you were in Tibet in the last 20 years and haven't seen anything in syndication you The chuckles the clown who worked at WJM died in in what turned out to be a very humorous way and at at the All up to and lead up leading up to the funeral. There's all this doom and gloom talk and meanwhile other people are being kind of have it being kind of frivolous about it and Mary's berating them for being so frivolous And then she breaks up at the at the funeral and everyone and she's very embarrassed and when that's and that's really One of the major parts of the Mary Tyler Moore show is Mary Richards being embarrassed. Yes Put her in an embarrassing situation and so she can just look embarrassed. That's one of the big things Every show has its hook and this right this that was the big hook That and the fact is every time she opened her closet door. She had a new She had this closet that must have been the size of a small football field Exactly every time she opened the door and walked into it. She came out with new clothes new clothes All right Well, she got a really good deal in the apartment for Phyllis apparently and he was able to spend most of her budget On clothes, maybe the previous tenant like left Or her closet was a TARDIS go anywhere and come out Well, then then you got then you got Lou Grant You get the again the gruff but lovable I mean in the first episode the the big line where he says Says the Mary you got spunk. I ate spunk But a big classic well kind of portrayed him as a drinking man, right, right that I Don't know. I always had a feeling that this man had a perpetual hangover. That's why he was just so damn happy to be there One one show I remember in particular is a show where they decide they want to show the single scene so they take live cameras and all this down to a singles bar and For some reason I don't remember exactly no one wanted to be seen at the single right and so nobody's there And they basically have allotted like something like half an hour on the air their entire newscast to this singles bar And there's nobody there and it's just kind of like the regular cast is kind of standing around at the bar Trying desperately to fill airtime Kind of like us, but Let's see when they're like we're cheers kind of start or something Yeah Anyway, let's see. Just a Oh Like the crisis that Phyllis was always be having a crisis because she didn't know how to pair it right her little daughter best And she was just always running up to Mary like Mary would know like Know what to do right having no children, of course Mary would know just what to do, of course And something that One of the books I was reading about this Goes a lot into is the the Unconsumated relationship between Mary and Lou Okay, now I never really saw this but this guy goes on and on and on about it the idea that that you know That was the only true Relationship and there was this romance between the two of them We just never saw and they never it was well-hidden Most people like what are you talking about? I Don't know I think that kind of falls under the category of get a life man Stop trying to read these Into the background here. It's just a sitcom just a half-hour sitcom You don't have to try to make our life experience out of it which they say was the relationship between Ted and Lou Well, he liked the biggest jerk on TV at the time He's a lovable jerk, you know, he's he's so jerky that you you gotta love him, you know, it's basically the idea there one Ted reminds me that the one episode where They decide to enroll in this writing class well Mary's enrolling this writing class and Ted decides to go to and He's walking around like a smoking jacket in the pipe trying to act like the writer And it turns out that he has he has blown off this big assignment and Mary can flies in him what is what her story is going to be and he Just feels a story completely outright and then reads it first in the class before she can And Mary berates them in front of the whole class basically Well, do you want a smack road or what? Yeah, you did after a while and they did get him off of this show I'm the neighbor who has no self esteem And Mary so much prettier and I'm so fat like You know, that was one thing that occurred to me grow this fat Never saw that it's just Man, what do I do? They just shot her off that show under her own show We'll talk about that one after a while Look first So then you then you had Murray swatter Kind of like a Holdover from the dick man dyke show. Yeah, really yeah, in fact, he did guest appearances on dick man dyke and Character just like the wisecracking writer type is hey, you know, it's is there to just To slam down Ted whenever he gets a chance I don't know. I thought he was like the only normal person on the show. Well, just to the most extent. Yeah, yeah, I say yeah Had the most normal life. You didn't really see a lot of Murray's life You saw a little bit of it. You saw you saw his wife every once in a while played by Joyce Bule font, but You know, you didn't really see a lot of his life You seem like the most normal person Right Are you talking most normal or most realistic? Yeah Realistic yeah One more episode that I remember particularly is the Is one they they did a lot of ones because it's in it's in Minneapolis They did a lot of they're stuck at it's no storm. They're stuck at the office and Prince comes in and entertains Oh Too early for them and run into the 80s He was already performing His hair though he had my hair from hell back But this one of them was where everybody's office was mad at each other and There's and it was it was Thanksgiving and they none of them could leave They're all gonna go to to big Thanksgiving dinners in various places like nobody could leave the station much less fly anywhere And so they're stuck there and Sue Ann comes up and announces that she's taping her Christmas show So she has a huge Christmas dinner and meanwhile everyone is mad at each other Yeah, thanks giving what they had to tape ahead, okay, so So she's just like we do exactly This was shot several years ago This show was actually done in 1950 Look if I pull hard enough this will just come around And they're mad at each other anyway, so they they all sit down and and and Sue Ann forces them to wear like Christmas hats of the world and all this And sing Christmas carols and and finally they they all They'll receive the spirit of Christmas, and everything's wonderful, but but a particularly well-written episode anyway I always thought Betty White was just really excellent. Oh, yeah character because oh, yeah, I don't know I guess everyone always thought of her. It was I guess it was surprising cuz she's played such an Magnificent nasty woman. It was the first time she had done that on a show I mean really since then she hasn't really played that part true, and she doesn't and today Look the part right and she was so good at it right She was well, it's the thing of people liking to go in. I've always heard stars say they like to play a villain or Type yeah, yeah, just a not nice person because they get to they really get to act They get to have so much fun to be nice, but it's fun. They get out there and people when they're down and everything and They enjoy that immensely if you talk to any actors that they'll tell you their favorite parts were the parts where they got to be nasty Well anything else about Mary Tyler more so well, I I did like the way that Ted was always mispronouncing things like our Kansas Things like he just amazed me it was supposed to be Arkansas But he looked at our Kansas is he had a lot of fun with it Of course the ironic way that the entire show ended was that because of mediocre ratings everybody was fired Except for Ted the main reason why they had the low ratings all these years Ted He stayed kind of showing really what our television works. Well, you could say the the whole general the media Circus or whatever you want to call it and They'll say that about radio and everything else too, right It just went crazy ever because first she had Rhoda Rhoda went to New York and apparently she went to some well see she went back home Right and and and the impression they gave on the show although you didn't really see much physically different that she went to a Fat farm or something. I lost 500 pounds. You never saw it on the show. I think she lost about three pounds She didn't really look like we're saying before she didn't look particularly overweight during the show And she doesn't look particularly overweight during her own show But then she just became a total new woman, right and she moved into apartment and had this fat, whiny sister Had no self confidence the Rhoda part She was like the understudy for Rhoda She just moved in and Rhoda moved into the Mary Tyler Moore part Rhoda's gonna make it on her own But Rhoda couldn't throw her hat right So throwing pounds away Yeah, but look who's where now That's right. Julie Kavner. Kavner Is now Marge Simpson. That's right. That's right. And she's got hair from hell Yeah After she did the light had that wonderful stint there on Tracy Oman and we really got to see that little Brenda could act She could do more than go I got a boyfriend who plays the accordion Rhoda got to get married and divorced right Because they decided, you know this We couldn't do it in Mary Tyler Moore. Let's do it with Rhoda because nobody really knows her She's had no past. We'll do it with her. They got married things didn't go well and they got divorced. So they only had to divorce say And this was kind of the show that um and this happened Well, I say this still happens today on sitcoms and don't do particularly well, although today if a sitcom doesn't do particularly well It's gone. Yeah There's none of this. Well, we can still get some more out of it Rhoda's ratings never did really really well And each season she had a different job Because it's like well, we've exhausted all the possibilities of that job All the comedic possibilities. Let's move around to another another type of job They've got the writer surgeon in the background who's saying well, this didn't work. Okay. Well, throw this piece out We'll add this in So back up present it again. You know what they could have thrown off that was really super irritating Her mom Yeah I still don't like her she she could play one character. She could play one character That's the one character what she's on she's on she's on true colors now and who's she playing she's playing rhoda's mom What is rhoda's mom doing on that true colors show? I don't understand. I don't get it I I I can't stay on Nancy Walker and I don't know why rhoda ever put up with a mother like that Now now one of the things that rhoda did have it was one of the first completely off-screen characters Carlton your doorman Who's Garfield now? Yeah Some life goes on Oh, not much after she left that darn uh, uh, what was it called hogan family Oh Well, she was on that for a while before she left and sandy duncan came in. Oh, yeah, and the whole brew. Uh-huh about that Yeah And then y'all then of course you had fellas now This was a show that Even even in the child when I saw this come out as its own show. I said this isn't gonna work I'm sorry. This is too limited a character Leachman is a fine actor is unfortunately this was no way you could have a lead character that was basically not likeable And they proved that with shows like buffalo bill later that you just that the public just doesn't warm up to a show Where people just can't stand that one. Well, yeah, I adored that one But but the mainstream public just went No, I don't know. Dabney Coleman though. It seems like every time he plays a character It's not a likable character as far as it goes But people kind of warm to the fact that he is so Unlikable, right? Right. Well, you got that that Drexel's class which now has didn't have anything to do with the class anymore I don't think it does. I think they've completely dropped the whole class. You might see um At the beginning he might be in the class, but after that it has some horribly ugly children on that show Yeah, they did if I remember watching But anyway, they had that problem child on there one night. Oh, what a kid Remember that remember the one where oh, maybe you don't remember the one where phyllis is okay phyllis is living with her dead husband's Mother and father. Yes with her daughter best Who was that girl that played best lisa? Uh Myerson I don't know. She was on she was on my world a welcome to her. Oh that kid. Yep But there's the one where she's deciding to get married and I think I got a deal with it phyllis couldn't deal with anything Lisa garrison lisa garrison phyllis couldn't deal with anything Get on my nerves, right? Did she have the braces on at this time? How'd she get a job? How did phyllis get a job? And this was a new show where every season she had a new job And she was only on like Three seasons this show was on the air for three seasons today a show like that wouldn't have been on the air for four weeks Today that show's on Well, it's on uh, I haven't watched phyllis in the past year only because it's on how many channels Yeah, but I mean a new a new show today so many central. Yeah, of course. They're showing rhoda, too Right That's that's the hawk contingent that they have some sort of contractual agreement. They have to show that apparently They got it cheap. Yeah Basically, that's it What's interesting about that is when hawk came out, they said we're gonna have shows like the mary tyler more shows They wrote in the middle Rhoda or mary tyler more to Right The bronc whatever they were at new york's new york's Believe it or not, we're gonna have to we're gonna have to put this sucker into two episodes For the second episode where we'll talk about wkrp And uh, what was it that uh, paul sand and friends and lovers Oh, that's true. We forgot lou grant and lou grant and white shadow and not to mention all of the mtm stuff as we go into the 80s with st. Elsewhere and uh, and um hillstree blues So we got tons of stuff to talk about So just put your button on paul come back in two weeks Your vcr can easily stay in pause for two weeks. I think that's uh, it won't hurt the heads College museum of broadcasting boy, this one's a keeper For all of us here at bass wasteland, we'll see you next time. Good night everybody