Happy Birthday Mary

Mary Tyler Moore celebrated her 72nd birthday this week.

For a lot of people in the UK and of my age, the only reference people have for Mary Tyler Moore is from a lyric in the Weezer track Buddy Holly. Little do they know she was a hot brunette with great legs and a talent for comedy. In the 60's and 70's she appeared in two of the biggest and most celebrated US sitcoms ever made.

Her 1st starring role came in The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-66) when she was just 25. She played Laura Petrie, wife to Rob (Dick Van Dyke). Mary Tyler Moore soon became an instant sensation, with her Jackie Onasis bob and tight capri pants. Hollywood opened its arms to her once The Dick Van Dyke Show finished. Because of her clout she was able to pitch a new show to the network and get it made without a pilot, this was unheard of then and even today. She set up MTM productions in 1970 to produce The Mary Tyler Moore Show. By the third season MTM had made Saturday nights on CBS essential viewing with its double bill of Mary and The Bob Newhart Show, the addition of M*A*S*H* also helped.




The Mary Tyler Moore Show revolutionised TV sitcoms. Mary was a single, working, independent woman, not reliant on a man. The shows characters were not one dimensional and evolved as the show went on. The show lasted an impressive 168 episodes over 7 seasons and won a record breaking 29 Emmy's. This number has only recently been broken when Frasier won its 30th. Along with The Dick Van Dyke Show over a 12 year period Mary Tyler Moore won 6 EMMY awards for her acting and the shows won a combined total of 86 nominations and 44 trophies. This is why these two shows are held in such high regard. Plus the fans love them to bits.

This can be seen on The Simpson's 'And Maggie Makes Three' and Family Guy 'Wasted Talent' episodes where they have been homaged. For the Simpson's this is understandable as producer James L. Brooks created/wrote The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The city of Minneapolis where The Mary Tyler Moore Show was set even has a statue of Mary because of how the show put the city on the map. The show proved so successful that it spawned 3x spin-off series Rhoda, Phylis and Lou Grant.

One of the reasons people in the UK don't have an appreciation of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Is that when it was originally screened in the UK in the early 70's on BBC1 they only showed about 30 episodes. Then when CH4 launched in 1984, again only 30 episodes were screened. As far as I know no other repeats have been screened on any of the UK channels. I can just remember the end of Happy Days and Mork and Mindy, then the endless repeats of those shows on CH4. It baffles me why The Mary Tyler Moore show couldn't have been picked up for those 6pm repeat time slots or even daytime TV.

I Love The Mary Tyler Moore Show, its a great snapshot of the 70's. Every DVD boxset was welcomed with great joy. Sadly its run never finished on DVD, as they only released 4x seasons, sadly the same happened with The Bob Newhart Show. After a few years of misery, complaining and petitioning things were looking bleak. This year things began to turnaround, a groundswell of popularity for the show grew. The catalyst for this was a recent Oprah episode and cast reunion which resulted in a rise in DVD sales on Amazon. Perhaps the biggest reason was that the man with the power, the senior vice president of Fox, Steven Feldstein’s email address was found by Mary fans. This led to his inbox been swamped with emails pleading that seasons 5-7 to come out on DVD. Shortly after this Mary fans were rejoicing with news that FOX will be finishing the shows run on DVD. That was in September, however no release dates have been released yet. News should be forthcoming once we get into 2009. Hopefully they will decide to finish The Bob Newhart Show at the same time.

I cannot wait for Seasons 5-7 as apparently the best episode of the whole series is to come. Chuckles Bites The Dust was voted #1 in TV Guides 'Greatest Episodes Of All Time'. This was partly due the dealing of the death of a cast member, the episode dances precariously between tragedy and black comedy in how Chuckles dies and then how Chuckles colleagues mourn his passing.