The Mary Tyler Moore Show Season 2

The Delights Continue in The Mary Tyler Moore Show Season Two 

by Kristin Battestella

WJM-TV associate producer Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) continues to balance the single Minneapolis scene with best friend Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper) as well as the bustling workplace with anchorman Ted Baxter (Ted Knight), news writer Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod), and boss Lou Grant (Ed Asner) in the 1971-72 sophomore season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Once again, the series hits the ground running with endearing character breakouts joining several topical episodes pushing the envelope of what television then dared to present. “He's No Heavy...He's My Brother” is a shrewd two-hander addressing xenophobia and cultural stereotypes with laughter as Mary and Rhoda grow suspicious of the package a friendly Mexican waiter asks them to take home after he gets them a vacation deal away from frigid Minnesota. Needing a birth certificate to travel, long distance calls, decoy phone numbers, and complaining memos make for great jokes thanks to shrewd comedic timing and visual gags to match. Negotiations, scab talk, weather jokes, and laugh out loud zingers earn The Mary Tyler Moore Show an Best Direction Emmy for “Thoroughly Unmilitant Mary” when a writers union strike forces management to cross the picket line. No pension or insurance and a pay cut is indeed a stinky deal, and others walkout in solidarity. This could be a long fight when there are bills to pay, but the workplace chaos, laughter, clamminess, and tears tell a serious, still relatable story. Reasonable adults also drive themselves crazy over bad luck fears and hope for financial reward in “Don't Break the Chain” – making copies, hording stamps, and fighting over address lists with workplace peer pressure and guests from last season. Millennials may not understand the premise here, but we tag fifty people on a cutesy social media post and pass it on don't we? Can sentimental, homey, lived in, messy, and gray become nouveau, light, and airy? Rhoda stretches her far out design ideas when cheap, reluctant to change Lou wants his living room painted as a surprise for empty nester Mrs. Grant in “The Square-Shaped Room.” Exceptional performances and décor revelations accent this multi-layered episode alongside work conversations, home mishaps, and generational clashes. Mary would also like to do more – civic duties instead of just socializing to meet men – for “The Five-Minute Dress.” Unfortunately, the Women for Better Government's meeting on recycling leads to a date with a very busy city official who keeps canceling on her. All the awkwardness happens via one-sided phone calls and angry messages from our unseen, unnamed suitor, reiterating how on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, an all dressed up and nowhere to go career woman isn't going to waste time waiting on a man who won't make her a priority. Of course, Ted thinks it's going to be nothing but carpools and girls to iron his shirts in “More Than Neighbors” when he considers moving into a vacancy below Mary. In its debut, The Mary Tyler Moore Show firmly separated the familiar home and bungling workplace comedy, but here they completely collide when Ted wants Mary to answer at home calls with “Mr. Baxter's residence.” Sophisticated Mary Frann (Newhart) befriends Mary after rear ending her in “Some of My Best Friends Are Rhoda,” and she promises Mary the $110 check for damages amid fancy activities and tennis at the social club. Rhoda, however, is excluded until Mary realizes the antisemitic truth and sticks it to her new friend in another progressive but tender and intelligent turn.

"Didn't You Used to Be... Wait... Don't Tell Me” is one of the few less than stellar episodes for Year Two of The Mary Tyler Moore Show with a 1959 Leif Erickson High School reunion that revisits one of the weaker episodes from Season One. The Viking Voice Alumni magazine lists Mary as a single career gal, and then Mr. Valerie Harper Richard Schaal is ready and waiting as the obsessed Howard Arnell – rehashing the same old questions on why Mary is cute but unmarried in unnecessary going home plots. It's not a terrible episode thanks to some fun winks including guest star Jack Riley (The Bob Newhart Show), however the embarrassing proposals get old when The Mary Tyler Moore Show never needs to go back to the “It's still Richards, isn't it?” snide. Likewise not the worst but just annoying is “Feeb.” When Mary inadvertently gets an incompetent waitress fired, she feels guilty and hires her at WJM. Unfortunately, the eponymous lady really isn't qualified in typing or shorthand – adding to Mary's clerical duties rather than alleviating them. Perhaps this is just too realistic a situation to be funny, as Mary thinks it is her obligation to be nice to someone who doesn't deserve it and gets walked all over as a result. It's odd to see our strong, independent woman guilt tripped into more mistakes, and all the men in the newsroom think the negativity between the women is just catty jealousy. Besides, this exact plot was done much better in the First Season with Phyllis' office incompetence. Although we won't be seeing The Happy Homemaker just yet, a different chef at WJM is mentioned in between the once again under utilized appearances of John Amos as weatherman Gordy. He answers the phone for Mary when she's getting obscene phone calls after a sex documentary, stands up for her during the union strike, and does the program logs when she's late even though he can't type and doesn't know how to do them. Gordy contests Ted with a quip or two, but he deserved much more than another meager four episodes to predict fair weather when it ends up snowing. Although backdoor pilots such as the “His Two Right Arms” finale were not unheard of then, it's incredibly weird to tune in for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and meet bungling councilman Bob Daily and his eponymous campaign gals. His Pete Peterson can't handle the tough questions when Mary needs a guest for WJM's political talk show, but can his hip crew prepare him in time? Viewers are supposed to love these girls instantly, but seeding them into the season earlier – even starting the year with this episode – would have helped tremendously. If Gordy's potential was not going to be used, then let's see the progressive African American family herein led by Mrs. Jefferson herself Isabel Sanford addressing the seventies civics. Who's the more incompetent scenes between Daily and Ted Knight could have been fun, too, for Peterson doesn't want to be briefed on air – he wants people to know he doesn't have any answers. Ted also runs for office in Season Four of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, making this idea somewhat unnecessary now. Of course, having Daily here means we wouldn't have had him on The Bob Newhart Show. So really it all works out in the end, especially since The Mary Tyler Moore Show would ultimately have count 'em three spin-off successes.

Mary Richards may wear flannel pajamas, embroider, call her parents on the phone, and not love Paul Newman o_O, but she goes ice skating to do all that “Peggy Fleming” stuff and gains not one, but two suitors when sending out a chain letter. Her unwilling to commit doctor fiance premise seems forgotten now, but Mary left the University of Minnesota after two years and stinks at tennis thanks to her out of date wooden racket. Rather than television perfection – save for her saucy exercise tights and seventies size seven – Moore keeps Mary endearing because she is a good person trying to do right in her little world. She doesn't think it's ethical to call in sick on a Friday when you aren't and remains too polite to get rid of someone. Mary thinks her apartment is a mess when it is completely neat, and her biggest fear in living alone is that one day there will be no one to help her when her back zipper gets stuck. Of course, Mary knows Mr. Grant doesn't like people in his office, yet she's always inviting people in there to confab. After she blunders a late breaking bulletin in “Room 223,” Mary is unhappy at being an average professional and wonders what she really does as an associate producer, so she takes a night school writing class to become better at her job. Naturally the professor is smitten, making Mary question whether she gets by on ability or personality as business mixes with pleasure and she gets a C. This charming relationship will be revisited in Seasons Three and Six, and although it's too soon to give her a regular beau, The Mary Tyler Moore Show keeps trying with a slightly older divorced architect in “You Certainly Are a Big Boy.” Mary is surprised he has a younger son that's closer to her in age – his twenty-five to her “over thirty” – and she dislikes the fast pace with no real time to talk, not to mention the idea of being a step-mother with a son old enough to make her a grandmother. Likewise, Ed Asner's western watching and grumpy as ever news director Lou Grant is told to smile and be natural but he says you can't have him both ways. He enjoys taking his sarcastic frustrations out on Ted, lulling his staff into a sense of understanding before turning deliciously viscous. Lou would love to have a news helicopter but when he's forced to go on the air, he's terrible unless he's drunk. He acquiesces to baking cookies if he can have them with scotch and has been working on a novel for five years – on and off between steaks and martinis. He's proud to be a newsman because real newsmen don't need coffee breaks, but he places himself in the middle when setting up Mary with his poker friend in “I Am Curious Cooper.” He knows his two favorite, attractive, successful friends will hit it off, however the only thing they have in common is Mr. Grant. Asner plays both sides wonderfully before earning his Emmy win with “The Six-and-a-Half-Year Itch.” I'd like to think the John Wayne flick he goes to see is Big Jake, but he catches his son-in-law at the movies with another woman, leading to awkwardness, hidden rage, not so hidden rage, and acting like nothing happened on the phone with Mrs. Grant. Lou says he hasn't been this mad since he let it all out in 1944 and captured a town in Germany, and fear of his wrath is enough to keep his son-in-law zipped. The Mary Tyler Moore Show shrewdly addresses infidelity without ruining any of the main characters or even saying it in so many words thanks to cleared throats and exclamations that somehow remain so innocent compared to today's sex everywhere culture.

Fellow Emmy winner Valerie Harper is as sarcastic as ever as Rhoda Morgenstern – who came to cold Minnesota to keep better amid winter vacations with less competition for her sweatsuit bathing suit. Despite Harper's beauty and style, Rhoda says the bad side of her face is the front, always joking about being fat or ugly and ending her diet with cake. Watching a documentary on swinging singles alone is depressing to her, but Nancy Walker's Ida Morgenstern flies in for “A Girl's Best Mother Is Not Her Friend” just to hook up slim, unmarried Mary with a perfect, not Jewish man. She's shocked to hear Rhoda has dated gentiles, but Ida tries being hip in a pink pant suit, no bra, and matching mother/daughter dresses. She drinks super sweet Jewish wine, too, so she can be “with it” in this delightful generational clash with uproarious results. Rhoda, however, gets caught up on the soap operas after getting fired in “...Is a Friend in Need.” Mary feels guilty about hiding an opening at WJM from Rhoda, and the workplace and friendship collide on The Mary Tyler Moore Show with a giant hair dryer finale. Our lovable ladies are at each other's throats again after a small fire makes them roommates for “Where There's Smoke, There's Rhoda.” None of Mary's clothes fit Rhoda, she laughs under the covers watching W.C. Fields, and dirties the kitchen but won't do the dishes. Rhoda just can't handle all Mary's good morning sunshine, but she takes Phyllis up on her phony move in offer just for the torment. Billed as a Special Guest Cloris Leachman's Phyllis Lindstrom keeps a college catalog in her purse because you never know when one might feel inadequate or need to better herself. She goes to a PTA presentation of Hair with all the clothes on when not boasting about her unseen husband Lars or listening in on the landline extension. Phyllis inadvertently reveals she is the lax landlord and may be self-centered, but she wants to be an open and honest parent to Lisa Gerritsen's Bess, letting her watch WJM's controversial sexual I.Q. Documentary in the “The Birds...and...um...Bees” premiere. Phyllis wants Mary to give her daughter the titular talk, but all the adults are too uncomfortable to say the word “sex” in a wonderfully tasteful reflection of television itself maturing into adolescence. Twenty years prior, Lucy had to be “expecting” but now our single unmarried thirty-something can talk freely about sex versus love and Bess is totally cool with it. When crusty backup babysitter Lou Grant is called in for “Baby Sit-Com,” he says Bess can do whatever she wants but play with matches. He's a father of three grown daughters, but entertaining a hip eighth grader leads to zany kitchen antics and poker for cookies. When Bess writes a report about her parents in “The Care and Feeding of Parents,” Phyllis thinks it can be expanded into a book and be published – ignored how the point of the piece was how children have it tough with such groovy parents. Disinterested Bess, however, wants to do what will make Phyllis happy, because her mother is a resilient, intelligent, creative woman that got stuck being a humdrum housewife.

Ted Knight's vain Ted Baxter carries glossy photos of himself and an autograph stamp, but sending his perfect head shot to the five people in his fan club might intimidate them. Cheap Ted buys “imported” beer from Los Angeles and tries having all his purchases written off on his expense report – stomach aides and shoe shines included. He has vintage fake pictures of himself with famous people, and while Ted may do a volunteer ventriloquist act to entertain local troops, he sings at the piano bar like it's karaoke and takes change from his tip. Ted adds complex numbers if it involves money but can't do basic math. He hires a second year law student for two dollars an hour with two cents a mile, and his accountant goes to “Wilson High.” When Ted's similarly silver haired and sport coat wearing brother commercial actor Hal Baxter visits in “Cover Boy” he thinks what Ted does in this little studio is quaint for a man his age. Ted has Mary pretend to be his girl as the topper, but the brothers' competition escalates with arm wrestling, visual blunders, and heaps of luxury restaurant faux pas. Ted's also deliberately not gone on vacation over fears a competent substitute would replace him in “And Now, Sitting in for Ted Baxter.” Why is Ted kept on when he is so bad? Because no one wants to hurt his feelings – especially after his card saying “terrifico in Acapulo” is postmarked Minneapolis. It's awkwardly endearing, too, when Ted's romancing Betty Bowerchuck, the sweet daughter of Chuckles the Clown in “Ted Over Heels.” He wears a fake mustache until the real one grows in and steals the roses from Mary's desk, but underneath his peacock fronting, Ted's really fearful of any rejection or embarrassment – and nobody wants to tell him they really don't like his mustache! Murray Slaughter admits he feels bad when his anchorman foil might get fired, but Gavin MacLeod's news writer keeps a fake bag lunch in his desk drawer for when Ted asks him out to dinner. Murray feels more like a comedy writer in writing the news for Ted, and although he enjoys getting paid, he doesn't really enjoy writing it. Initially Murray doesn't have much to do beyond his seated zingers – ad libbing as needed great rifts though they are, but Murray's making writing mistakes and yawning over his typewriter in the late season spotlight “The Slaughter Affair.” It's his tenth wedding anniversary, and he wants to get his wife Joyce Bulifant the car they couldn't afford in 1963. Unfortunately, Murray lies that he's teaching news writing at night school when he's really moonlighting as a cab driver. When he's robbed and late at the police station, Marie thinks he's having an affair with Mary. Though clumsy when there were better ways to feature Murray, a writer needing a second job to make means remains a realistic story. The balding Murray, however, would give up all his activities if it took him an entire night to wash his hair.

Thanks to directors Jay Sandrich and Peter Baldwin as well as regular writers including Treva Silverman, Susan Silver, Martin Cohan, David Davis, and Lorenzo Music; The Mary Tyler Moore Show creators Allan Burns and James L. Brooks keep the twenty four episode season uniform. Of course, the Second Season credits are updated with new at home and work scenes replacing Mary's big city move, and the “Love is All Around” lyrics are redone into the now more familiar anthem with a softer, mellow exit instrumental for a comforting, simpler time. Did you ever think we'd refer to 1972 coughwatergatecough as a simpler time? How much would a then $8 bottle of wine, $42 gourmet meal, and $28.50 for the plumber cost now? The door to door salesman doesn't know his product's price outright in cash because they make their profit via interest and penalties, and if you rush that typewriter bell, you must make your corrections with a pencil and eraser. Of course, let's not forget that tiny, primitive, portable television right next to the primitive, unmovable, behemoth VCR. While there aren't too many dated cultural references on Mary Tyler Moore, the younger generation won't understand the clip on the receiver to rest the phone on your shoulder nor how Lou wishes he could put Ted on the air after the Star Spangled Banner. Us oldsters will recognize those vintage cups and corning ware sets, but some of the seventies tall boots, empire dresses, chokers, waist cinchers, ruffles, and scarves are back in vogue. The skirts are still short to start the season but give way to longer, colorful suit sets and wider, flared jeans with groovy patches to match blazers with the suede elbows and wild ties. Orange turtlenecks, crocheted pink ponchos, and plaid vests can be a bit much, but The Mary Tyler Moore Show looks crisp and revitalized on the 4K television. In addition to several commentaries, Disc Three on the Season Two DVD set is double sided with unexpected parodies, news report spoofs, karaoke, and trivia as Cloris Leachman, Ed Asner, Betty White, the late Georgia Engel, and more host fun interactive features alongside 1972 Emmy highlights, vintage on location Moore on Sunday behind the scenes, and an hour long “Eight Characters in Search of a Sitcom” retrospective topping off the sentimental good time here.

Season Two of The Mary Tyler Moore Show is easy to marathon thanks to charming nostalgia and groundbreaking storytelling that remains fresh and must see for the whole family.