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<blockquote data-quote="Crimson" data-source="post: 399505" data-attributes="member: 5079">Before my time, so I don&#039;t know how aware contemporaneous audiences were of the entertainment upheavals they were witnessing.&nbsp; Certainly I think AITF&#039;s impact was hardly subtle.&nbsp; In &#039;69, American TV comedies were pablum.&nbsp; AITF had to feel like a full frontal assault, even if couched in domestic sitcom coziness.&nbsp; MTM&#039;s impact was more subtle and so perhaps only fully apparent in retrospect how it had one foot in the past and one in the future.Mary&#039;s success with her eponymous series didn&#039;t exist in a vacuum; she was well known to American TV audiences by way of her co-starring role on THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW the previous decade.&nbsp; If MTM was the sitcom masterpiece of the 70s, DVD was its 60s counterpart.&nbsp; On DVD, Mary was the lead actor&#039;s spouse, an unusually sexy housewife named Laura Petrie.&nbsp; Laurie&#039;s comedic image was heavily inspired by Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball), the star of the best sitcom of the 50s, I LOVE LUCY.&nbsp; And so, when Mary Richards struck out to make it on her own she carried with her two decades of audience familiarity; early Mary Richards feels very much like Laurie Petrie after leaving her clumsy husband in the suburbs.&nbsp; In fact, Mary was originally meant to be a divorcee but network execs feared audiences would think Laurie had left Rob.&nbsp;&nbsp; But Mary Richards is also symbolic (reluctantly on the part of the actress) of the second wave feminism that was in full bloom and an absolutely vital step in the development of women in sitcoms.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crimson, post: 399505, member: 5079"] Before my time, so I don't know how [I]aware [/I]contemporaneous audiences were of the entertainment upheavals they were witnessing. Certainly I think AITF's impact was hardly subtle. In '69, American TV comedies were pablum. AITF had to feel like a full frontal assault, even if couched in domestic sitcom coziness. MTM's impact was more subtle and so perhaps only fully apparent in retrospect how it had one foot in the past and one in the future. Mary's success with her eponymous series didn't exist in a vacuum; she was well known to American TV audiences by way of her co-starring role on THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW the previous decade. If MTM was the sitcom masterpiece of the 70s, DVD was its 60s counterpart. On DVD, Mary was the lead actor's spouse, an unusually sexy housewife named Laura Petrie. Laurie's comedic image was heavily inspired by Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball), the star of the best sitcom of the 50s, I LOVE LUCY. And so, when Mary Richards struck out to make it on her own she carried with her two decades of audience familiarity; early Mary Richards feels very much like Laurie Petrie after leaving her clumsy husband in the suburbs. In fact, Mary was originally meant to be a divorcee but network execs feared audiences would think Laurie had left Rob. But Mary Richards is also symbolic (reluctantly on the part of the actress) of the second wave feminism that was in full bloom and an absolutely vital step in the development of women in sitcoms. [/QUOTE]

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