Episode 1.4
originally broadcast October 10, 1970
Written by Treva Silverman
Directed by Alan Rafkin
Storyline: Mary and Rhoda need an inlet to the social scene, and they'd also like to go to Europe. The Better Luck Next Time Club could be their way into both! The club is for divorcees and they offer cheap charter flights. They go to one of the club meetings, and are immediately drilled about their (nonexistent) marital relations by Mrs. Norris, the registration girl friday, and Dr. Udall, a wacky dentist with a fetish for female mouths. They meet the usual share of third-rate losers, of course. And before the evening is over, Mary gets elected to be the new vice president of the club. In attempt to rectify the situation, Mary goes to Dr. Udall's office and tries to tell him that she's never been married, and that her showing up at the club was a mistake. He doesn't let her off the hook quite so easily, however. Mary and Rhoda show up the next week and Mary has to tell everyone that she was never married. Turns out that everyone there except Udall, his brother Freddy, and Mrs. Norris have never been married either! Time to start a new club?
Memorable Quotations/Exchanges:
TED: Mary, I need your advice about something. Not that it's any big deal or anything, but do you think it's too risque for an anchorman to say that he sleeps in the raw?
(Mary turns away in disbelief)
RHODA: And on top of that, you speak French.
MARY: Spanish.
RHODA: Eh, they speak anything in Paris.
DR. UDALL: Are you aware of the fact that you have incredible teeth, young lady?
MARY: Well, thank you.
DR. UDALL: Brushing after meals, electric toothbrush, sugarless gum, you're into that whole bag, right?
MARY: Well, uh, yes.
DR. UDALL: Good luck to you...and with that mouth, you won't need it.
KAREN: Your maiden name, Mrs. Richards?
MARY: My, uh...
DR. UDALL: Excuse me, Karen, you know how I get...tell me, did you have such beautiful teeth even before your marriage went on the rocks?
MARY: Uh...
DR. UDALL: So often after a divorce, a woman tries to spruce herself up, and the first thing she thinks about are her teeth and gums.
RHODA: I can say, as an objective bystander, that Mrs. Richards' teeth are as beautiful as the day she married Stefano as they are today.
KAREN: Your name?
RHODA: Rhoda Morgenstern. Miss Rhoda Morgenstern.
KAREN: Miss Morgenstern?
RHODA: He thought it was in the best interest of the space program if I retained my maiden name.
KAREN: You were married to an astronaut?! Which one?
RHODA: Oh, please, I'd rather not say anymore. Word gets out, and then people start hittin' ya up for moon rocks.
SPARKIE: (bubbly) Hi, my name is Francis Franklin, but everybody calls me Sparkie! I guess that's just because all my friends say I sparkle and bubble all the time! Heh, heh!! It's like ever since I've been divorced, I've become a whole new person! All sparkly! That's why they call me Sparkie! Isn't that crazy?!
RHODA: Yes.
HAL: Hey, ya wanna split?
RHODA: No, I'm already splitting with Roy. We're gonna take flashlights and go out hunting for losers.
DR. UDALL: Tonight's the night when we stand up and give intimate details about what led to our divorces.
MARY: I don't think I can do that.
DR. UDALL: Oh, well why not?
MARY: The details are very embarrassing.
RHODA: Sordid, even.
DR. UDALL: Oh, really? Then you can go first!
DR. UDALL: You don't want to call off the examination, do you?
MARY: No, no.
DR. UDALL: Oh, good. Because to have that mouth in this chair and not to get at it! Oohhh!
DR. UDALL: Professionally speaking, I'm a gum man myself. Do you, by chance, keep up with gums?
MARY: Well, not anymore than I need to get along.
DR. UDALL: Well, you might've heard lately that teeth themselves are nowhere. I mean, teeth are teeth, God bless 'em, but gums are where it's at.
MARY: Do you realize that in five minutes I'm gonna have to stand up on this stage and face those people and tell them that I'm not divorced?
RHODA: Take it easy, kid, I know how you feel. You don't know what you're going to say, and that there's no way it's gonna work...
MARY: And then something kinda just magically just pops into your head?
RHODA: No, you usually just stand up there and bomb.
MARY: Oh, Rhoda!
DR. UDALL: (to Mary) Incidentally, your not-yet-paid-for x-rays came back today. You have a cavity! And I'm not going to tell you where!
MARY: It's a lie! I am not divorced, I was never even married. It's just that you had these charter flights to Europe...and I didn't think it would be so bad lying to a club, but it turned out that I was lying to people and I'm sorry! And I wish someone would just...say something.
RHODA: (standing) I think that's a lousy thing you did. (Mary reacts with a shocked look on her face!) Yeah. And I did it too. I lied. The fact is...my divorce is not yet final.
SPARKIE: Hiiiiii.
MARY: Hi. What happened to your date with Hal?
SPARKIE: We never got out of the parking lot. We had an argument over whose car to take. His was a camper. What are you girls doing tonight? I feel like doing something really crazy and kookie!
MARY: I'm not really up for 'kookie'.
RHODA: Or 'crazy'.
SPARKIE: I had another dream last night and it was all about teeth. There I was, and it was a beautiful day, and I was surrounded by all these dazzling teeth and there were soft white dental floss clouds in the sky...hellooo Dr. Udall!
DR. UDALL: Would you care to go next door for some punch?
SPARKIE: Oh, do they have punch?
DR. UDALL: No. (squirts a mouthful of breath spray!)
Audio Files:
Will return shortly.
Credits:
Associate Producer/Unit Production Manager: Lionel A. Ephraim
Music Composed and Conducted by Pat Williams
Theme Song "Love is All Around" Written and Sung by Sonny Curtis
Director of Photography: Paul Uhl
Film Editor: Douglas Hines, A.C.E.
Assistant Director: John C. Chulay
Art Director: Lewis E. Hurst, Jr.
Set Decorator: Raymond Boltz
Script Supervisor: Dorothy Aldworth
Title Visualization: Reza S. Badiyi
Assistant to Producers: Lorenzo Music
Camera Coordinator: Don Bustany
Music Editing: Ed Norton Music, Inc.
Makeup Artist: Ben Nye, II
Hair Stylist: Donna M. Cox
Men's Costumes: Don MacDonald
Women's Costumes: Leslie Hall
Wardrobe for Mary Tyler Moore Furnished by Evan-Picone
Men's Wardrobe Furnished by Palm Beach, Designed by John Weitz
Trivia: Pat Finley holds the dubious distinction of being the only person to guest-star in two episodes in the same season. A few years later she'd play Bob Hartley's sister Ellen on "The Bob Newhart Show". No Ed Asner in this episode! He must have taken the week off. This is one of only a few episodes that have virtually no action in the WJM newsroom. Only the opening teaser takes place there. In many of the early shows, Ted Baxter was almost hopelessly pompous. After the first fifteen or twenty shows, Ted Knight started taking a different approach and made Baxter less pompous and more of the ignorant, malaprop-dripping boob we all came to know and love.
Rating: 67
Humor: 20
Writing: 15
Acting: 22
Story Concept: 15
Category: Top third
Comment: This was Treva Silverman's second episode for the show, and it's a pretty funny story. MTM Enterprises was lucky to get comedian Shelley Berman to play geeky Dr. Walter Udall and he plays the part magnificently. This episode was actually intended as a spinoff for Berman, but CBS didn't pick it up. They did retain the 'humourous dentist' element in "The Bob Newhart Show" two years later (played by Peter Bonerz). "Divorce Isn't Everything" is a classical, if dated, glimpse into singles life and it shows the vulnerable side of the early Mary Richards...a side that would all but dissolve as the years went by.
Shelley Berman at the August 2002
"Stars of the Twilight Zone Convention"
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