Mary Tyler Moore Show and Its Spin-Offs

[Spooky Owl!]

since your headcanon is always impeccable

 

[Spooky Owl!]

ABC's 20/20 tribute to Mary Tyler Moore (which, oddly, was better than CBS') the week she died in January 2017:

 

[The Averyville Horror]

I suspect if Waggoner had been cast -- and I think he was only considered, not offered -- the producers would likely have leaned into a romance with Mary, which would have put the show onto a very different trajectory.

That was my same thought, especially since his most notable credit (as a cast member of The Carol Burnett Show) was earned because according to Carol she needed someone her characters (in skits) could swoon over. His charm, looks, etc. could have overshadowed character development. But Sue Ann sure would have been on him like white on rice.

 

[ClassyCo]

But Sue Ann sure would have been on him like white on rice.

Rose Nylund certainly rooted for Lyle Waggoner to win Dorothy's affections in a dream episode of THE GOLDEN GIRLS.

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

I liked Bill Daily in both I Dream of Jeannie and The Bob Newhart Show but I agree that he was not funny in a central role. He was best as a confounding annoyance to the leads. He starred as a vet in a sitcom called Starting from Scratch which just falls flat. He's overshadowed by Nita Talbot as his wise-cracking assistant.

Agree. Bill Daily is a good actor, who was perhaps best used in more subtle humorous situations.

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

Offering an unpopular opinion, but the only role that I enjoyed Betty White playing was Rose on Golden Girls. Otherwise, she plays a variation of Sue Ann Nevins in a lot of other works.

I agree, Betty White usually played a variation of Sue Anne.
However, I never cared much for "The Golden Girls".
Isaw some episodes, and I just didn't think it was funny, but some people liked it.

 

[ClassyCo]

I'm divided on whether or not I see Betty White as always playing a variation of Sue Ann. I suppose that's how the industry viewed her because MARY TYLER MOORE was her biggest break with a running part on a TV show after years of being a game show regular. Her role as Ellen in "The Family" sketches and later the MAMA'S FAMILY sitcom mirror Sue Ann, at least a little anyway.

Her reputation as being naughty and flirtatious is the reason NBC originally wanted to cast her as man-hungry Southern belle Blanche Devereaux on THE GOLDEN GIRLS. It was TV director Jay Sandrich that suggested White and Rue McClanahan, and that they play Rose and Blanche, respectively.

So I guess that underlining "vixen" has stuck with her.

 

[Crimson]

I'm divided on whether or not I see Betty White as always playing a variation of Sue Ann.

Betty's career consisted of two broad arcs: establishing a wholesome image and then playing against it. She was cast as Sue Ann because it was such a shocking departure from her established, sweet image up until then. She continued with Sue Ann's bitchiness for a few years, in her own short lived sitcom (which I've never seen) and as Ellen on MAMA'S FAMILY. And then she reset her image back to (mostly) wholesome with Rose on GG. The rest of her career was playing against that established image, a sweet old lady involved in incongruous activities: the foul mouthed owner of a pet killer crocodile (LAKE PLACID), playing football (Snickers commercial), or muffin double entendres (SNL).

All in all, there's really not that much Sue Ann in her career.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

She continued with Sue Ann's bitchiness for a few years, in her own short lived sitcom (which I've never seen)

THE BETTY WHITE SHOW with Georgia Engel in 1977. I couldn't sit through it, as it was videotaped (same with WKRP) and in the '70s, unless it was from Norman Lear, I couldn't handle videotaped comedies (or dramas, for that matter). It was a show-within-a-show called "Undercover Woman" starring a none-too-talented-actress, played by White. Angie Dickinson got the joke and was reportedly pissed (-off, for the Brits).

 

[ClassyCo]

THE BETTY WHITE SHOW with Georgia Engel in 1977. I couldn't sit through it, as it was videotaped (same with WKRP) and in the '70s, unless it was from Norman Lear, I couldn't handle videotaped comedies (or dramas, for that matter). It was a show-within-a-show called "Undercover Woman" starring a none-too-talented-actress, played by White. Angie Dickinson got the joke and was reportedly pissed (-off, for the Brits).

There were once episodes of THE BETTY WHITE SHOW on YouTube. I don't know they're there anymore. Might be.

 

[Sea - Boo! - Er]

THE BETTY WHITE SHOW with Georgia Engel in 1977.

Yes. I saw that. It's an interesting curio.

 

[Spells & Karma]

Season Two
And Now, Sitting In For Ted Baxter / Don’t Break The Chain / The Six-And-A-Half-Year Itch / …Is A Friend In Need / The Square-Shaped Room / Ted Over Heels / The Five-Minute Dress / Feeb / The Slaughter Affair / Baby Sit-Com / More Than Neighbours / The Care And Feeding Of Parents / Where There’s Smoke, There’s Rhoda / You Certainly Are A Big Boy / Some Of My Best Friends Are Rhoda / His Two Right Arms


It strikes me that many - if not most - scenarios in MTM found their way into sitcoms that followed it. While there were, of course, sitcoms long before this series, the way the situations unfold here feels contemporary, as though this became something of a template or, at the very least, influenced what came later. These include standard situations such as The One Where The Wife Thinks The Husband Is Cheating When He’s Actually Planning A Nice Surprise. Or The One Where The Neighbour Moves In After A Fire To Everyone’s Exasperation. But even the more specific ones apply.

An example of this is Mary feeling guilty after her complaint about poor service gets the waitress sacked, leading to her trying to fix things by arranging new employment for the girl at her own place of work. This exact premise was later used for a Will & Grace episode (with Grace in the Mary role). Likewise, I recall The Golden Girls’ Dorothy having a shallow, snobby new (or old) friend who tries to edge out one of her current closest friends until Dorothy tells her to go to Hell.

Speaking of that one, Some Of My Best Friends Are Rhoda is an absolute blinder of an episode. Somewhere along the line I’d read or heard that one of the episodes addressed anti-Semitism and was curious to see how it would play out. It’s pleasing to see that it did so in a way that I don’t believe diluted the comedy, and was also unexpected for Rhoda not being directly involved (nor even explicitly knowing what had happened), with Mary experiencing and challenging her new friend Joanne’s bigotry, even briefly telling Joanne that she is Jewish herself.

I don’t recall watching anything in which Mary Frann has appeared but her name is familiar for coming close to being cast as Sue Ellen on Dallas. Due to this I found myself watching trying to envisage her in that role. While I know little about her acting range and she has a very different energy to Linda Gray, I really could see her working in those early episodes since she did passive-aggressive very well here and convinced with the requisite snobbery with a brittle, cold edge when needed, but an intelligence and charisma that made sense of why she’d attract friends. I’d also buy her as a Miss Texas. Apparently Mary was best friends with Joan Van Ark as well.

has a loud, desperate, unfunny vibe to it that feels very "stuck on" at the of the first season -- and smells vaguely like a bad, late-'60s sitcom in that way. (The episode with Bill Daily as a hapless politician has a comparable vibe).

Backdoor pilots are always so clunky. And fortunately this one failed

See, I didn't know it was a backdoor pilot. But it certainly feels that way.

I watched this episode last night and yes - realising it’s a backdoor pilot made sense of the change in tone and the inordinate time spent with different players. It clicked when I saw Bill Daily’s name at the end and remembered scrolling past the previous discussion on it. I found Janet MacLachlan very engaging as Sherry, and liked Isabel Sanford as her mother. Beyond that, the new characters did nothing for me.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

It strikes me that many - if not most - scenarios in MTM found their way into sitcoms that followed it.

Yes, sadly but inevitably, innovators rarely get credit for their innovations several decades down the road and after being copied left-and-right -- sometimes, younger generations even consider the innovator hackneyed and cliched because they don't realize where the subsequent field of imitators got these things and that the innovator was the first to do it.

Only those of us who were there at the time retain any awareness of how fresh the innovator was. And then we die off.

 

[Crimson]

Speaking of that one, Some Of My Best Friends Are Rhoda is an absolute blinder of an episode. Somewhere along the line I’d read or heard that one of the episodes addressed anti-Semitism and was curious to see how it would play out. It’s pleasing to see that it did so in a way that I don’t believe diluted the comedy

One of the few "message" episodes of MTM and evidence of how dexterous the writers of the show could be; the same message handled on a Norman Lear show would have resulted in the audience being clobbered over the head with the point.

I don’t recall watching anything in which Mary Frann has appeared but her name is familiar for coming close to being cast as Sue Ellen on Dallas.

I often feel bad for actors who came close to being cast in projects that became successful and who never got another chance; Mary Frann at least did find her success, as the wife of Bob Newhart on his second hit sitcom. That role didn't really take advantage of the qualities you list out, but at least she got a nice paycheck. The only other project that I recall seeing her in was the Jackie Collins miniseries LUCKY CHANCES.

I was unaware that she had been in consideration for Sue Ellen. Not that I'd want anyone else in the role other than Linda, I could see Mary embodying some of Sue Ellen's notable characteristics while bringing a very different energy to the role; makes me wonder what the character's trajectory would have been. (And we're both lucky the Sue Ellen fanatics of this forum are long gone or they'd be forming an angry mob against our heresy.)

 

[Spells & Karma]

sometimes, younger generations even consider the innovator hackneyed and cliched because they don't realize where the subsequent field of imitators got these things and that the innovator was the first to do it.

Yes. While I don't consider myself a younger generation, MTM did begin some years before I was born and here I am watching it for the first time almost five and a half decades after its original airing. I've had to check myself over finding certain things familiar or predictable by recognising that every time I've seen these familiar situations has been in later projects (some of which perhaps involved creative personnel from MTM such as James L. Brooks).

One of the few "message" episodes of MTM and evidence of how dexterous the writers of the show could be; the same message handled on a Norman Lear show would have resulted in the audience being clobbered over the head with the point.

I'm sure you're right.

makes me wonder what the character's trajectory would have been.

While watching last night, I was thinking that it would have to have gone in a different direction simply because her screen presence (here, at least) is so different from Linda's. I think it would have worked, and don't think it would have necessarily have been better or worse, but like you I'm fine with what we got in the end.

(And we're both lucky the Sue Ellen fanatics of this forum are long gone or they'd be forming an angry mob against our heresy.)

 

[Spooky Owl!]

I don’t recall watching anything in which Mary Frann has appeared but her name is familiar for coming close to being cast as Sue Ellen on Dallas. Due to this I found myself watching trying to envisage her in that role. While I know little about her acting range and she has a very different energy to Linda Gray, I really could see her working in those early episodes since she did passive-aggressive very well here and convinced with the requisite snobbery with a brittle, cold edge when needed, but an intelligence and charisma that made sense of why she’d attract friend

I often feel bad for actors who came close to being cast in projects that became successful and who never got another chance; Mary Frann at least did find her success, as the wife of Bob Newhart on his second hit sitcom. That role didn't really take advantage of the qualities you list out, but at least she got a nice paycheck. The only other project that I recall seeing her in was the Jackie Collins miniseries LUCKY CHANCES.

I was unaware that she had been in consideration for Sue Ellen. Not that I'd want anyone else in the role other than Linda, I could see Mary embodying some of Sue Ellen's notable characteristics while bringing a very different energy to the role; makes me wonder what the character's trajectory would have been. (And we're both lucky the Sue Ellen fanatics of this forum are long gone or they'd be forming an angry mob against our heresy.)

Mary Frann was a pretty good dramatic actress -- and her role as the antisemite on MTM was basically a dramatic part. But comedy wasn't her forte, as NEWHART in the '80s proved; people often defend her boring casting in NEWHART by pointing out she was given thankless material, but so was Suzanne Pleshette in Bob's '70s show, but she still found a way to make it work.

Had she been cast in DALLAS, Mary Frann would have brought intelligence and the requisite bitchiness to the role of Sue Ellen. But she lacked the Joan-Crawford's-daughter narcissistic divadom that Linda Gray effortlessly brought to Southfork. And, without that, DALLAS would never have worked.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

Yes. While I don't consider myself a younger generation, MTM did begin some years before I was born and here I am watching it for the first time almost five and a half decades after its original airing. I've had to check myself over finding certain things familiar or predictable by recognising that every time I've seen these familiar situations has been in later projects (some of which perhaps involved creative personnel from MTM such as James L. Brooks).

And you may be smarter.

Mary Frann was a pretty good dramatic actress -- and her role as the antisemite on MTM was basically a dramatic part. But comedy wasn't her forte, as NEWHART in the '80s proved; people often defend her boring casting in NEWHART by pointing out she was given thankless material, but so was Suzanne Pleshette in Bob's '70s show, but she still found a way to make it work.

Had she been cast in DALLAS, Mary Frann would have brought intelligence and the requisite bitchiness to the role of Sue Ellen. But she lacked the Joan-Crawford's-daughter narcissistic divadom that Linda Gray effortlessly brought to Southfork. And, without that, DALLAS would never have worked.

And who knows if the "Untitled Linda Evans Project" that David Jacobs scrawled across the first draft of his pilot script for DALLAS, had actually come to pass...?

Evans had done a TV movie for Lorimar months earlier and had only recently left CBS' talent division (where they'd been trying to find a series for her). As such, she was never offered the Pam role in DALLAS. She was also "too old" for Patrick Duffy (lightyears younger than Victoria Principal).

Some people sneer that Linda Evans couldn't act (VP was wildly inconsistent herself during her first four years on DALLAS) but many people don't remember that Linda Evans, after bitchy-turned-vacuously-angelic Audra on BIG VALLEY in the '60s, had metamorphosed into a heart-brokenly soulful screen presence in the '70s -- she'd become a genuinely good (and quite beautiful) actress, which is why she was subsequently hired to play Krystle in DYNASTY, a show that paid her well but essentially ruined her finely-etched performance thru increasingly nonsensical scripting and, worse, the Static Acting Directive implemented with the very first episode of Season 3 and maintained for the next six years.

So people have little memory of how goof Linda Evans was during DYNASTY's first two seasons, where she was getting awards and even tied BBG for the Golden Globe in 1982 (and no one laughed. Yet).

Still, DALLAS wouldn't have destroyed Evans' acting as DYNASTY did, but it's hard to see her as a prospective Pam. When the casting is as right as it was on DALLAS, it's hard to picture anybody else in the role. (As Donna Reed proved).

But I'm getting sidetracked now from Mary in Minneapolis.




Krystle, Barbarella and Pam, oh my!

 

[Crimson]

She was also "too old" for Patrick Duffy (lightyears younger than Victoria Principal).

I must admit that Linda Evans has always looked older to me than she actually was; I thought Krystle looked older than Alexis. Even on THE BIG VALLEY she seemed older than her character. Maybe it's the frosty blonde hair, or maybe just that she's kind of a serene, subdued actress.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

I must admit that Linda Evans has always looked older to me than she actually was; I thought Krystle looked older than Alexis. Even on THE BIG VALLEY she seemed older than her character. Maybe it's the frosty blonde hair, or maybe just that she's kind of a serene, subdued actress.

Scorpio Risings -- they may be quite comely in youth, but age quickly. Even the good ones -- and there are good ones, like Linda.

While Joan Collins, a bitch on screen and a quasi-pseudo-pretend bitch in life, is an Aries Rising, which age far better. (If they keep the weight off).

And that was one of the many perverse quirks on DYNASTY, both in fiction and in reality, the Scorpio Rising is the good one while the Aries Rising is the bad one on DYNASTY.. And that's not usually what happens (although ... there are weird exceptions).

But there's just a Yin-yang thing between Aries Rising and Scorpio Rising. Typically, Scorpio Rising is the clever, talented manipulator, kind of the "dark star" of the zodiac (which, at its worst, become the most pathological dictators in history -- the Hitlers/Stalins/Napoleans/Mousillinis/Castros/Putins/AllenDulleses/OsamabinLadens, etc...). While the Aries Risings (although admiring of Scorpio Risings' intellect and self-possession) are themselves more vulnerable and less clever (and know they are), they nonetheless represent a certain unique life force (that Scorpio Rising recognizes and admires but also resent because the Scorpio Rising can't quite 'control' the Aries Rising in the way Scorpio Risings generally prefer). So there's a tension.

And it works on screen as well (if not exactly in the same way) as it does off screen.

You see a lot of Aries Rising (usually the wife) and Scorpio Rising (usually the husband) couples:

Anthony Newley and Joan Collins
Jack Cassidy and Shirely Jones
John Derek and Bo Derek

(Okay, sure they're all joke-couples, but you can see the pattern).

Jock Ewing and Miss Ellie (Scorpio Risings usually see Jock as the "good" one).

Lou Grant and his underling Mary Richards. (Crowley and Pepper on that old cop show). He's the over-gruff boss, contemptuous and undermining of the melancholy woman he supervises, for the same reason he admires her.

So there's a weird rivalry at the center of the Scorpio Rising-Aries Rising dynamic. Over on the DYNASTY page, I pointed out that the Miss Ellie/Lady Jessica duo was the equivalent of the Krystle/Alexis thing -- a Scorpio Rising pitted against an Aries Rising, in both cases; a Gemini pitted against a Sun in Scorpio, in both cases; and even two Alexises (both of the Geminis) pitted against the hapless Sun in Scorpio victims (Miss Ellie and Krystle)... Only, the DALLAS duality is more common: the predatory Scorpio Rising (Lady Jessica, Alexis Smith) is the villain; while on DYNASTY, the villain is the Aries Rising (Alexis Carrington, Dame Joan of Collins), which is much less frequent but happens.

Which is why I wanted to see Barbara Stanwyck and Dame Judith Anderson together, however briefly, in Season 6 of DYNASTY (and THE COLBYS) -- a geriatric version of the Aries Rising-Scorpio Rising adversarial pairing that I'm pointing out. But you only get to see it in THE FURIES (1950) where Stanwyck, in maniacal frustration, stabs Judith Anderson's eye out with a pair of scissors. Stanwyck also murders Anderson in THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS (1947) but it's the little girl version of Stanwyck's character, so it's not entirely the same thing.. So the Aries Risings aren't always saints, and the Scorpio Risings and their 24/7 schemes can bring out the malice in the Aries Risings (which can sometimes go over the top in its own right).

Again, in life and in fiction. It's a Cain & Abel thing -- and which is which depends on whom (and whose friends) you ask.

DYNASTY was atypical, because the Aries Rising was the unquestioned villain and the Scorpio Rising was the unquestioned holy person -- flipped from how it tends to work. But there's usually enough blame to go around. When the Aries Rising cracks, it's rare but they may bare a firearm in a foolish display of incompetent-if-focused rage; and when a Scorpio Rising comes to power, after writing great books and directing brilliant movies and cooking fabulous meals, they lay waste to nations.

But they've got chemistry fer damn sure.

^ ^
I copied this out of the Apocrypha from the Bible.

I think I'll re-post this on that DYNASTY threads so the crazies will have something strange to read.

 

[The Averyville Horror]

I've had to check myself over finding certain things familiar or predictable by recognising that every time I've seen these familiar situations has been in later projects (some of which perhaps involved creative personnel from MTM such as James L. Brooks).

I think you hit the nail on the head here regarding the re-use of plotlines in future sitcoms. People who worked on MTM and its successors went on to later, also notable shows, and those people trained/mentored others at those shows. James Brooks especially stayed a force in BTS sitcom-land for decades, so if you're going to copy someone, at least he's someone worth copying.