"Mary and Rhoda"
Some Articles
Monday, February 7, 2000
Remaking Mary
By Pat St. Germain, The Winnipeg Sun
Nostalgics will love the opening scenes of Mary and Rhoda, the ABC movie reuniting the best friends from '70s TV icon The Mary Tyler Moore Show tonight at 7 p.m.
There's Mary, riding up an escalator to the strains of Sonny Curtis's mellow "Love Is All Around" theme -- before a zippy morph into Joan Jett's grrrl version of the song serves notice this is not the same Mary Richards viewers knew for seven seasons on CBS.
She's tougher, she's smarter and at 60, she's a whole lot older -- which counts against her when she has to make it on her own all over again in the youth-obsessed TV news business.
"Unfortunately, that is a fact of life and a tradition that is hard, apparently, for some people to let go of -- and that is that the minute menopause hits, women are no longer interesting," Moore said when she and co-star Valerie Harper met TV critics in Pasadena, Calif., last month.
"And we took that on as our challenge to show that it does not in fact make sense."
Moore is always interesting. Too bad the same can't be said for the movie, which she co-executive produced after an initial stab at a "Mary and Rhoda" sitcom hit a dead end.
For diehard fans who adored Mary and Rhoda at 30, when they joined That Girl's Marlo Thomas in TV's tiny world of single working women, a reunion is long overdue. But like most reunions, this one can't live up to expectations.
That wooden "M" still has a place of honour on Mary's apartment wall, but she long ago abandoned Minneapolis for New York City. And her friendship with Rhoda has been on ice for 20 years, since Mary busted Rhoda's lecherous second-husband Jean-Pierre at a pre-wedding bash.
Now, after two decades in Paris, an older, wiser, vegetarian Rhoda is ready to break up with Jean Pierre and make up with the recently widowed Mary.
In the too-cute story, Mary and Rhoda move in together and connect with their annoying Rose (Mary's "Ro") and Meredith (Rhoda's "Mer"), both 20, neither interesting enough to warrant being seen or heard here.
Also virtually superfluous is a stray dog the women go to ridiculous lengths to fetch and adopt. But the mutt does force Mary to exercise some authority. And Moore is proud of her dog-catching scene, in which she takes a hard dive over a roll of carpet. She was supposed to have a soft landing on her butt, but an accidental header made for better footage. "I caught my foot in the carpet, became airborne over cement and came crashing down on my two hands and my knee. I broke two bones in this hand and had to do the rest of the picture with a removable cast," she says. "Do you know what she said when she fell, first thing?" Harper adds. " 'Did you get it on film?' "
Well, she's a trouper. Which is why Moore has been America's sweetheart since she played Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the '60s. The Mary Tyler Moore Show only solidified her status, and while Mary and Rhoda can't hold up to the original, it can't diminish its memory, either.
She still chuckles over Chuckles
By Pat St. Germain, The Winnipeg Sun
In September 1970, Mary Richards left her boyfriend of four years and moved to big-city Minneapolis to make it on her own in the CBS pilot The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Seven years later, the new owner of WJM-TV fired the entire staff -- except newsman Ted Baxter (Ted Knight). Ted, Lou Grant (Ed Asner), Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod), Mary and Sue Ann Nivens (Betty White) group hugged all the way out the door in The Last Show.
The finale came after 168 episodes, but Moore has no trouble picking her all-time faves -- including the hilarious funeral for Chuckles the Clown, at which Mary bursts out laughing.
"For me, there were two. One was Chuckles Bites the Dust, which I think was everybody's favourite. And the other was the episode (Put On a Happy Face) in which everything went wrong for Mary, who had until that time been thought of as always perfect and never too troubled or too messed up.
"And her hair looked terrible, and she had a cold, and her eyelashes fell off, and she twisted her ankle and she had to wear Rhoda's dress to a big award dinner -- where she won the award and had to get up in front of a microphone and say, 'I usually look much cuter than this.' That was my favourite."
Co-star Valerie Harper says Rhoda's wedding on spinoff series Rhoda was a standout, and her favourite MTM episode involved a wedding, too.
"For me, I remember early on Mary and I having to put on bridesmaid dresses that looked like Little Bo Peep ... I think most of the women in this room have climbed into an ugly dress for a friend's wedding, correct?"
Something missing about Mary
By Tyler McLeod, Calgary Sun
She may be able to turn the world on with her smile, but Mary Richards won't be turning on many viewers with Mary and Rhoda.
The new TV movie reunites, tonight, the characters played by Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show".
Twenty-five years might have been too long for Mary and Rhoda to be apart. When the time came to turn on the cameras, the filmmakers tried to cram too many ideas and improbabilities into two hours.
For starters, these inseparable buds haven't spoken since Mary expressed dislike for Rhoda's fiance over 20 years ago.
They didn't even know they both had daughters going to university in New York.
Now both Mary and Rhoda are single (widowed, separated, respectively) and looking to re-enter the workforce.
Mary and Rhoda should please devoted MTM fans -- as long as they forget this is supposed to be a MTM reunion. If you want a walk down memory lane, try the MTM reruns weekdays at 3:30 p.m. (Thursday's is "Chuckles Bites the Dust", by the way.)
Mary and Rhoda is a pleasant TV movie with the occasional smile, manufactured sentiment and some worthwhile themes. Moore and Harper play two interesting enough characters with a compelling story to be told, but you never really get the feeling you're watching Mary and Rhoda. This is not the way many fans would have expected them to turn out.
At one point, Rhoda casually mentions: "You know how I used to complain about being alone? I love it now."
You see, there's the problem. We don't want a happy, well-adjusted, mutant Rhoda. We don't want a new-and-improved Mary.
Fans want Rhoda Morgenstern -- not Rhoda Morgenstern Gerard Rousseau with 20 years of emotional baggage and introspective philosophical Oprahisms.
Fans want the Mary Richards they remember. Not the shy, slightly desperate woman Mary is for most of the film.
We want Lou and Murray and Ted and Sue Ann and Phyllis and Chuckles. Not to mention chuckles, period. An emotional "one mother's love" movie of the week is not a logical follow-up to one of the funniest sitcoms of all time.
Well, Mary made it after all. I'm just not sure why.
She's gone and made it after all ;
Upcoming TV movie first sign of Mary's new assertiveness
by Pat St. Germain, Winnipeg Sun
PASADENA -- Mary Richards is back, but the quivering lip and Mr. Graaant warble are missing in the TV movie Mary and Rhoda, coming to ABC next month.
Stars Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper reprise their best-friend roles from the groundbreaking '70s series about a single working woman in Minneapolis. Except now, Mary Richards is a widow and former ABC news producer in New York City. And at 60, it looks like she really has made it after all, especially when she gives her new boss an earful in a scene that would have reduced the old Mary to tears.
"I have a really fine confrontational scene with him in which I say, 'You know what? Twenty years ago, this conversation would have devastated me, but there are a lot of good things about getting older,' " Moore says.
"It's important to say what we have said in that. And Valerie has a confrontational scene with a man for whom she goes to work as a photographer's assistant."
Kicking proverbial butt doesn't sound like our Mary -- Richards or Moore. But Moore says they've both grown up and she's proud of the strength she's gained as mature woman.
She's especially proud of finding the nerve to flex some creative muscle to get the movie made, although initial plans to bring Mary and Rhoda back as a half-hour sitcom on home network CBS didn't work out.
Moore is writing a book about the whole experience, focusing on how she overcame life-long insecurities to push the project through to completion and "for the first time in (my) life actually took the reins and made something happen."
"It's kind of an emergence of me as a mature woman, finally being able to stand on my own two feet and say, 'I have learned a lot about this business. I know a thing or two that a lot of other people don't know and I have a sense of humour and I've had great experiences with people that I oughta share.' ''
Moore, who was cast as a pixie in Hotpoint appliance commercials the day after she graduated from high school, starred in two of the best-loved TV sitcoms of all time, playing Laura Petrie on the Dick Van Dyke Show in the '60s and Mary Richards in her own series in the '70s. Her ex-husband Grant Tinker produced the '70s show. And Moore, now married to Dr. S. Robert Levine, says even though her initials made up the MTM production company logo, she was never involved behind the scenes until now.
"So, since this idea came to me, I felt I oughta see it all the way through and just say to myself, 'I know it's scary to pick up the phone and call Sandy Grushow at Fox, who owns "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", and say, 'What do you think of doing this?' and run the risk of being rejected or laughed at or not taken seriously.
"These are things that I have carried with me from my very first day working -- that I'm a good actress but I'm not good at very much else. And now I've proven differently. And I'm very happy," she says.
"I'm just terrifically wonderful. Better than I have ever been."
Pat St. Germain is reporting from the Television Critics Association mid-season press tour in Pasadena, Calif.
Last updated:
Sitemaster: Andrew Szym, esq. webmaster@mtmshow.com
© 2000, Benteen Fort Industries