The Mary Tyler Moore Show/Trivia

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• The Danza:
  • Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Richards
  • Subverted, however, with Ted Knight's character, Ted Baxter. The role was actually originally conceived with Jack Cassidy in mind, but he turned it down. Cassidy did, however, appear in an early episode as Ted's equally egocentric brother, Hal.
• Directed by Cast Member: Moore herself helmed the Season 5 episode "A Boy's Best Friend".
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Many examples, such as...
  • The Fonz is Rhoda's dinner date
  • The Price Is Right Barker's Beauty Dian Parkinson appears as the Lovely Assistant for the Game Show pilot Ted hosts.
  • Dimwitted Navigator Howard Borden is a Dimwitted Local Politician in a Poorly-Disguised Pilot also featuring Louise "Weezy" Jefferson.
  • Joanna Louden as a bigot who almost comes between Mary and Rhoda.
  • Laverne DeFasio lives in Mary's new apartment building.
  • Charles Emerson Winchester III owns WJM for a while.
    • Ironically, one of the producers of M*A*S*H, Gene Reynolds, would later serve as co-creator and executive producer of the program's After Show, Lou Grant.
  • Bobby Wheeler's dating Lou's ex-girlfriend.
  • Coach Hayden Fox is Mary's mechanic.
  • James Evans is Gordy the weatherman.
  • Elliot Carlin wants to rent Rhoda's apartment.
  • Dr Melnix is Mary's Father.
  • Angel Martin is in love with Mary.
  • Stacy Petrie is head writer for Chuckles the Clown.
  • Jamie Buchman is Murray's daughter.
  • Moe Greene is Lou's Army Buddy.
  • Parker Tillman is the entire student body of Ted Baxter's Famous Broadcasters School.
  • Doctor Adam Bricker was set up on a date with Mary by Ida Morganstern.
  • Ted set Tron up with Murray's daughter Bonnie.
  • And, of course, Uncle Walter.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Meanwhile...in the halls of WJM, a problem was brewing...
• I Am Not Spock: Ted Knight hated the problems people had separating him from Ted Baxter. He had a hard time after the series as well.
• Marathon Running: Nick@Nite's The Mary-thon, a one season a night week long marathon that introduced the series to the cable network's line-up in 1992.
• Reality Subtext: One of the episodes from the final season is about Murray's frustration at being the only person in the group who hasn't won a Teddy Award. In real life, Gavin MacLeod was the only major cast member who never won an Emmy (he was never even nominated) and he later admitted his disappointment about this.
• Shout-Out: In later seasons, the opening credits feature two scenes in which Mary is seen interacting with people connected with the show. The first scene shows Mary walking in the park when two joggers run by her: creators James L. Brooks and Allan Burns. The second scene shows Mary dining at a restaurant with an older man: Moore's then-husband, Grant Tinker, who also served as co-founder and president of the show's production company, MTM Enterprises, and would later become even more well known as "the man who saved NBC", when he served as the network's chairman and CEO from 1981 to 1986.
  • The opening also has a scene of Mary washing her car while donning a Fran Tarkenton (Minnesota Vikings QB) jersey.
  • If you look closely at the WJM program grid on the wall of the Station Manager's office, you'll see My Mother the Car is shown several times a day. This is an in-joke to the Old Shame shared between Brooks and Burns.
• Spin-Off: There were three - Rhoda, Phyllis and Lou Grant.
  • And oddly enough, that last one was a drama and it was the most successful one!
• Star-Making Role: Pretty much everyone in the cast other than Mary Tyler Moore herself (and perhaps Betty White) can thank this show for first making them a household name.
• Take That: The writers would sometimes put in disparaging references to the cheesy late-'60s sitcoms this show was rebelling against, including Gilligans Island, The Brady Bunch (re-named "The Clancy Clan") and co-creator Allan Burns's own Old Shame My Mother the Car.
• Throw It In: When Moore filmed her famous hat-tossing scene in downtown Minneapolis, the camera caught an elderly woman scowling at her in the background. The woman was a local resident named Hazel Frederick, who happened to be walking down the street after shopping in the area and couldn't understand what this young woman was doing in the middle of a busy intersection. The producers decided the shot was too good not to use, and Frederick's face became an unintentionally iconic part of the show's opening.
• What Could Have Been: Mary was originally going to be divorced, but the writers feared people would think she'd divorced Rob. Plus, executives back then didn't think a divorcée protagonist wouldn't appeal to many people.
  • Gavin MacLeod originally auditioned for the role of Lou Grant.
  • The role of Ted Baxter was written with Jack Cassidy in mind, but the actor wasn't interested in another sitcom commitment so soon after the failure of his critically acclaimed Short Runner sitcom He & She. He would eventually guest star as Ted's brother in one episode.
• Write Who You Know: Ted Baxter was actually inspired by real life anchorman Jerry Dunphy of CBS Los Angeles O&O KNXT, who later also provided the inspiration for Kent Brockman on Brooks's The Simpsons.