Eric Braeden was in Titanic as the real life John Jacob Astor IV, who goes down with the ship, in case you wondered. (For more Braeden connections, Kate Winslet's mother in the film was played by Frances Fisher, who had appeared on Guiding Light, then a fellow soap to Y&R on CBS, and Charlotte Chatton, who played Madeleine Astor, had a recurring role on Dr Quinn, also on CBS.)
And we forget that Jack Dawson himself was on Santa Barbara at one point......
Last edited:
- Awards
- 17
I would never bet against Victor Newman in any situation.
- Awards
- 21
Pre-series curio from 1970:
I seem to recall the 1991 reunion being a bit less sniffly than this one:
I seem to recall the 1991 reunion being a bit less sniffly than this one:
- Awards
- 21
The cast does OPRAH in 2008:
1991 reunion:
1991 reunion:
- Awards
- 21
Last edited by a moderator:
- Awards
- 11
Very early on in this thread (back in June 2019 to be exact), Snarky made a comment about people he knows despising MARY TYLER MOORE for practically no reason. For many years, I was among that camp. Sure, I had heard and even read a little about the show, but I had this distaste for it, all without ever seeing an episode. Looking back, I guess I didn't like the show because of what I read; comments, praises, and a whole lot of hype that I felt gave the show an elitism that just simply pushed me away. Similar situations initially pushed me away from DALLAS and SEINFELD, although I've since found out that I enjoy the former but not the latter.
I've said all that to say this: I was wrong about MARY TYLER MOORE and the long-held distain I had for a show I had never before seen. My local Walmart put out a couple of seasons of the show for sale one year, for a round $10 per season. Oddly enough, the stores closest to me only had Seasons 1 and 6, so those were the only ones I could buy. Once I started watching those seasons, however, I found that I thoroughly enjoyed the show and its characters. The earlier seasons, and the friendship between Mary and Rhoda, was very pleasant, although I didn't really like it when Phyllis was thrown in the mix (which leads me to the assumption that I wouldn't enjoy the PHYLLIS spin-off, although I play to, one of these days, dive into RHODA).
MARY TYLER MOORE has to be one of the strongest sitcoms TV's ever produced. While it may not be the funniest show ever (at least not to my tastes), I can applaud the show for its strong characterizations. When they lost such strong characters as Rhoda and Phyllis (paving a way for the greedy network execs to make some dough on some spin-offs), the writers were quick to replace those two ladies with two more women, namely Sue Ann and Georgette. This, as it goes, divides MARY TYLER MOORE into two separate periods in my mind. And naturally I like comparing the two separate periods.
I've since bought the complete series of MARY TYLER MOORE and I casually watch it when I get in the right mood.
I've said all that to say this: I was wrong about MARY TYLER MOORE and the long-held distain I had for a show I had never before seen. My local Walmart put out a couple of seasons of the show for sale one year, for a round $10 per season. Oddly enough, the stores closest to me only had Seasons 1 and 6, so those were the only ones I could buy. Once I started watching those seasons, however, I found that I thoroughly enjoyed the show and its characters. The earlier seasons, and the friendship between Mary and Rhoda, was very pleasant, although I didn't really like it when Phyllis was thrown in the mix (which leads me to the assumption that I wouldn't enjoy the PHYLLIS spin-off, although I play to, one of these days, dive into RHODA).
MARY TYLER MOORE has to be one of the strongest sitcoms TV's ever produced. While it may not be the funniest show ever (at least not to my tastes), I can applaud the show for its strong characterizations. When they lost such strong characters as Rhoda and Phyllis (paving a way for the greedy network execs to make some dough on some spin-offs), the writers were quick to replace those two ladies with two more women, namely Sue Ann and Georgette. This, as it goes, divides MARY TYLER MOORE into two separate periods in my mind. And naturally I like comparing the two separate periods.
I've since bought the complete series of MARY TYLER MOORE and I casually watch it when I get in the right mood.
- Awards
- 21
No, babe, you were never in tat camp. The anti-MTM Show crowd are a very specific brigade. Let's just say they drink a lot of black coffee. But the series is a kind of litmus test for key personality types.
I’m always a little put off by how MTM (the show, not the actress) looks visually. The film is grainy and the sets and fashions are ugly. The sound is also off - it’s clearly a product of the earlier days of television (ha - the 70s are now the earlier days of TV) when they didn’t have the sound technology they have now, so the actors are often shouting their lines.
But while the show doesn’t have the production polish of “Cheers”, from a decade later, its writing and acting are very strong, and you can see how it strongly influenced Cheers and other sophisticated sitcoms that came later on. I was watching an episode this weekend where Sue Ann made a comment about how one of her recipes will “satisfy your husband in the kitchen, and in other rooms later on” or something like that. It’s something that never would have been said even on The Dick Van Dyke Show, a similar sophisticated workplace/home hybrid comedy from a decade earlier.
But while the show doesn’t have the production polish of “Cheers”, from a decade later, its writing and acting are very strong, and you can see how it strongly influenced Cheers and other sophisticated sitcoms that came later on. I was watching an episode this weekend where Sue Ann made a comment about how one of her recipes will “satisfy your husband in the kitchen, and in other rooms later on” or something like that. It’s something that never would have been said even on The Dick Van Dyke Show, a similar sophisticated workplace/home hybrid comedy from a decade earlier.
- Awards
- 9
Shows from the 70s tend to look notably crummy; its odd that shows from the 50s and 60s often look better. ILL and DVD have a crispness to their look, whereas MTM and AITF look hazy and shoddy. I'm pretty sure those 70s shows were filmed (videotape came later in the decade and was, at first, even uglier) so I'm not sure what accounts for their graininess.
MTM and the other shows from her studio were filmed while AITF and other other Norman Lear shows were taped. Something happened with film stock and processing in the 1970s. There’s a discussion on Reddit here. I was digitizing some old family slides and the ones from the late 50s and 60s are still beautiful, with vibrant colors. The ones from the 70s look like crap.
- Awards
- 21
Graininess and muted colors seemed to be part of the melancholy aesthetic of the '70s.
The "shouting" of their lines is particularly pronounced in Season 1, as most sitcoms of the '60s had that louder tone, for some reason.
Didn't David Lloyd work on CHEERS, too?
The "shouting" of their lines is particularly pronounced in Season 1, as most sitcoms of the '60s had that louder tone, for some reason.
Didn't David Lloyd work on CHEERS, too?
Last edited by a moderator:
Yep (and David Lloyd’s son, Christopher, was the showrunner on Frasier during its peak years).
I believe there was a time after the glory days of MTM studios where a bunch of the creative staff migrated to Paramount: Glen and Les Charles, James L Brooks, and Gary David Goldberg.
I believe there was a time after the glory days of MTM studios where a bunch of the creative staff migrated to Paramount: Glen and Les Charles, James L Brooks, and Gary David Goldberg.
Last edited:
- Awards
- 11
That's sounds very interesting. I'd like to hear more about that
- Awards
- 17
I remember seeing reruns of it in the 80s and I just couldn’t grasp it. I couldn’t see the big deal over this show. It wasn’t until the mid 90s that I started watching it again and finally started to enjoy it. So maybe it’s a show that grows on you over time. At least that’s how it was for me.
- Awards
- 20
That may be true of a lot of things but personally I watched it from the start and it was my favourite show through most of the 70s.
- Awards
- 17
And I can see why! Not really sure why I didn’t like it sooner but I can assure you I love it now. It became one of my favorites.
- Awards
- 21
Last edited by a moderator: