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(CBSDFW.COM) – Last night’s Presidential election returns, which went on way into the early morning before a winner was declared, triggered a happy memory for me: an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
This show with its 168 episodes aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977 on Saturday nights. The premise of the show was about a young woman who moves to Minneapolis after a relationship breakup with a man she had been dating for several years. In real life, Moore was married at that time to producer Grant Tinker. And CBS wanted to make sure that viewers didn’t confuse her character, Mary Richards, with her former character on CBS’s Dick Van Dyke Show: Laura Petry, and having them think that she “broke up” with Rob Petry (Van Dyke), another beloved character.
She is hired at WJM-TV as an associate news producer working with News Director Lou Grant (Ed Asner), Anchorman Ted Baxter (Ted Knight), and head writer Murray Slaughter (Gavin McLeod). Also in the show was pesky neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper) and busybody landlady Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman). Midway into the series the cast included Betty White as WJM’s Happy Homemaker Sue Ann Nivens, a man-hungry lady, and Georgia Engel, whose character Georgette marries Ted Baxter in the series. Harper and Leachman left the show after a few years and both had spinoff shows on CBS as a result of being on the Moore show.
On November 7, 1970, some 46 years ago, episode #8 aired, “The Snow Must Go Own”. It was written by James L. Brooks and Allen Burns, directed by Jay Sandrich. In this episode, it is Election Night in Minneapolis and WJM is preparing for broadcasting the results of local races there. This is Mary’s first show to produce since being hired and in addition, Lou puts her in charge of everything and everyone. Unfortunately, the weather forecast calls for a strong snowstorm.
While on the air, WJM’s teletype phone lines for receiving election voter returns go dead during the storm. Since the storm prevented their scheduled guests and some WJM employees from coming in to work, Mary has to use substitute talent and crew, including Rhoda! And since the show was fully sponsored by station advertisers, they weren’t allowed to air any backup programming. Appearing on this episode were John Amos as Sports Director Gordy Howard (Amos later starred in the CBS hit series “Good Times” a few years later), Chuckles The Clown (Richard Schaal), and Ivor Francis as Father Flint.
So time goes on and on for hours and Ted is reading the same election results over and over (“Turner 85, Mitchell 23”). Toward the end of the show, someone walks in and ask why they are still on the air with the election returns. When Mary answers him, he responds, “Oh, that race was decided hours ago!!” All of the other Minneapolis stations operated without any problems……except WJM!
When KTVT was an independent station prior to being a CBS station, it owned the syndication rights to Mary Tyler Moore in the late 1970’s after it left CBS. Unfortunately, it was not a success with only one syndication cycle and was subsequently moved to cable after that. Today it can be seen on KTXA 21.2 on MeTV Sunday nights from 11pm-12am as well as various OTT (Over The Top) services such as Amazon or Hulu.
A classic TV sitcom for the ages. See you next time.
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