When It Rains, It Pours

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Mary (Mary Tyler Moore): Rhoda, did you ever have one of those days?

Rhoda (Valerie Harper): Yeah, mostly!

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Everyone has a bad day now and then.

It's the most predictable fact of human existence. High hopes and expectations may be rare and will take a beating and go unfulfilled, but bad days are universal for nearly all of us — and occur with a depressing regularity.

There is a small portion of the population that never seems to endure a bad day, but appearances can be deceptive. When those folks do have a bad day, the rest of us take a kind of perverse pleasure in the assurance that no one is immune.

Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) was having three of those days (in her own words) in a single day when the episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show that first aired on this night in 1973, "Put On a Happy Face," began.

Actually, it all started with something small. When the episode began, Mary was drinking coffee and some of it dribbled onto her new sweater. Her date for an upcoming broadcasting awards banquet encountered some difficulties — and ultimately fell through. Then Mr. Grant (Ed Asner) informed her that, instead of disposing of the obsolete file as requested, she had thrown out the file of obituaries that news outlets keep so they will be ready in case someone famous dies.

Make that when someone famous dies.

Because, as Mr. Grant explained to Mary, "There is no 'if.' They're gonna die. We're not gonna have one thing to say except maybe 'So long.'"

(Personal note here: I have never worked in broadcasting, but I have worked for newspapers and a trade magazine, and we had certain files that we kept for future events, like obituaries and such. It was good to have them handy. You never knew when someone prominent was going to die, but, as Mr. Grant observed, you knew they would die one day.

(We didn't have to keep advance obituaries for presidents or anyone else who was nationally prominent. We knew that kind of obituary would be readily available from the wire services. A good example of that is the death a few days ago of Billy Graham. The wire services undoubtedly had his obituary ready for many years — he was, after all, 99 when he died.

(But we needed to be ready when folks who were known locally — like mayors or community activists — passed away.

(I don't remember any files that were specifically designated as "obsolete" in the newsrooms where I have worked — but I suppose there could be such a file that serves as a temporary placeholder for such files. That would be a decision for the management of an individual news outlet to make.

(And, apparently, the folks at WJM had made that decision. Perhaps the responsibility for disposing of obsolete files fell to a different person periodically — that wasn't mentioned — but, in this episode, which is the only time I can recall an obsolete file being mentioned, it was Mary's responsibility.)

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Then when she got home that night, her phone was ringing as she came through the door. She made a mad dash for the phone only to find that the person on the other end had hung up. In the dash for the phone, her bag spilled and her groceries were scattered on the floor.

Rhoda (Valerie Harper) came in, took one look and said, "It looks like somebody mugged Betty Crocker."

But the really big misfortune came when Mary slipped at work and sprained her ankle. To help her ankle when she was back in her apartment, Mary soaked it — which gave her a cold. That made it hard for her to talk on the phone when she was trying to find a date for the banquet.

(That wasn't her only obstacle, though. She had been out of touch with the men she contacted — long enough for one of them to have gotten married in the interim.)

Frustrated, Mary finally gave in and agreed to go out with a guy that Ted (Ted Knight) had been recommending — only to find out that Ted had been speaking of himself.

That was bad enough, but then the dry cleaner ruined the dress she had planned to wear, and she had to turn to Rhoda to get something to wear. Rhoda urged her not to go to the banquet, but Mary insisted that she was nominated for an award and had to go. She didn't expect to win, but it would be bad form not to attend.

So she and Ted went to the banquet. Bad luck continued to follow her. It was raining, which couldn't do much to her hair since her hair dryer gave out on her earlier, but she did step in a puddle, which made her squish when she walked. Then at the banquet one of her false eyelashes came off, and she tried to put it back on while the awards were being handed out.

It was at that very minute that she was announced as the winner of the award for which she had been nominated.

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The first words out of her mouth in her acceptance speech — after a rather loud sneeze — were "I usually look so much better than this."

I guess we all know people who seem to be perfect all the time — and it can be a source of, as I said before, perverse pleasure when such people have to go through the trials and tribulations the rest of us must face.

But Mary was such a pleasant person that it was hard to take any satisfaction from her misfortune.

It was still funny, though, and it remains funny today. Call it a guilty pleasure.

Oh, and by the way, there was a neat little twist at the end that Mary Tyler Moore fans will appreciate.

The usual ending for a Mary Tyler Moore Show episode showed a kitten in the same pose as the old MGM lion.

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But 45 years ago tonight, Mary's face appeared in place of the kitten — and, instead of meowing, Mary stammered "That's all, folks!" like Porky Pig.

A Special Night

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"I just wanted you to know that sometimes I get concerned about being a career woman. I get to thinking my job is too important to me, and I tell myself that the people I work with are just the people I work with and not my family. And last night, I thought, 'What is a family, anyway?' They're just people who make you feel less alone and really loved. And that's what you've done for me. Thank you for being my family."

Mary Tyler Moore

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I think I will always regret the fact that Mary Tyler Moore did not live a few more months.

I had nothing to do with her death, of course. I have no more power over life and death than any other human being, and I completely understand that we all will die someday so I do not lament the fact that she is dead. She was 80 years old, after all.

But I do wish she could have lived until today — the 40th anniversary of the final episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, which is still one of the best television programs of all time. It just doesn't seem right that she missed this milestone.

The episode was called, appropriately, "The Last Show." That isn't quite as flippant as it sounds. Yes, it was the last episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show — but it was about the last news broadcast at fictional TV station WJM with the familiar crew of Mary, Murray (Gavin MacLeod), Ted (Ted Knight), Sue Ann (Betty White) and Mr. Grant (Ed Asner).

Well, one person would remain at WJM.

The story line was that there was a new station manager (Vincent Gardenia) who wanted to make some dramatic changes. He came to speak to Lou (Ed Asner) to get some input on where to make cuts in the newsroom, and Lou suggested that he should watch the evening news and judge for himself.

Ted (Ted Knight) was certain that this would be the end for him so he began doing everything he could to ingratiate himself to the new boss.

And, apparently, it worked, because the station manager decided to let everyone go — except Ted. For long–time viewers of the show, I guess that was really the only way it could have gone. It made it seem more final — if such a thing is possible.

I guess the last half of the episode was mostly a sentimental journey for the cast and the show's fans. Mary was depressed by the turn of events, and Mr. Grant, in an attempt to raise her spirits, arranged for her old friends Rhoda (Valerie Harper) and Phyllis (Cloris Leachman) to return to Minneapolis for a visit.

Back in the newsroom the inevitable time for goodbyes arrived following the final newscast. That led to a group hug and an oft–imitated exit with the cast marching out of the newsroom singing "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" and Mary peeking back in the newsroom one last time.

The story itself wasn't especially memorable — even though it did reunite Mary with two of the series' early regulars who left the show before Sue Ann and Georgette (Georgia Engel) joined it; thus the final episode was the only time all of the primary characters in the series — the ones I have already mentioned along with news writer Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod) — appeared in the same episode together.

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And when all eight came out and took a curtain call after the episode ended, that was a first as well.

Actually, I don't believe the show's cast ever did a curtain call before — so that was a one–time–only event.

And I am quite sure they never appeared on the same stage at the same time either before or after the night the episode was taped.

It was a special night all the way around.

The Night the Lights Went Out in Minneapolis

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Mary Tyler Moore was notorious in her 1970s sitcom for throwing epically lousy parties. It was a running joke, the kind that all the successful sitcoms have — you know, like Debra Barone's awful cooking or Michael Stivic's insatiable appetite. Or Fibber McGee's closet.

The mere mention of one of Mary's parties would cause eyes to roll and excuses to be made. Each party was worse than the one before, and it wasn't really a matter of being spectacularly bad. The parties generally weren't too bad — until one thing went wrong in a spectacular, only–at–one–of–Mary's–parties way.

That was what happened in the episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show that aired 40 years ago tonight, "Mary's Big Party."

Mary almost always believed that her next party was going to be a game changer for her, and this time was no exception. She was convinced that this party would be the one to change her reputation. After this she was certain that people would want to attend her parties, not avoid them.

A guest at the party was going to be a congresswoman with whom Mary was acquainted. But the congresswoman would not be the main attraction. The congresswoman had a special guest coming into town to M.C. a charity event — Johnny Carson — and she asked Mary to have a small dinner for him so they could be spared the crush of admirers they were sure to encounter at a restaurant.

Mary wouldn't reveal the name of the special guest so everyone in the newsroom came to the party to find out who it was — even though most clearly expected another one of Mary's disastrous parties. When Mary told Mr. Grant (Ed Asner) that this would be a terrific party, he replied, "It better be. I gave up tickets to midget wrestling."

Finally Mary could contain herself no longer, and she spilled the beans. When she did, Mr. Grant conceded that it might be a "fair" party after all.

Mary was feeling triumphant and insisted it was going to be a great party — when the lights started to flicker, and then the apartment was plunged into darkness. The only lights that could be seen were a few lights from a distant building visible through the glass doors leading to Mary's balcony. Apparently the power was out over most of the city.

Mary had a flashlight, but the batteries were dead. And she had candles — somewhere. They were left with no alternative but to talk in the dark. Mary fretted that this would be her worst party ever.

"That's impossible," Mr. Grant said. "You'd really have to go a long way to top some of the bad parties you've had."

And that set up a series of flashbacks to the bad parties in Mary's past.

For Mr. Grant, Mary's worst party had been one that she had thrown with her friend Rhoda (Valerie Harper), and Mary set him up with a blind date who "turned out to be a little old lady."

Sue Ann (Betty White) remembered when the congresswoman attended another one of Mary's parties, and Sue Ann prepared a special veal dish for the occasion — but with just enough for each guest to have a single portion. Then Rhoda showed up with a date (Henry Winkler). He had been one of Rhoda's co–workers, but he had just been fired, and Rhoda couldn't let him be alone when he was feeling so vulnerable.

Feeding him would be a problem with only six portions of the veal and six people already at the party. Rhoda told Mary that her friend could have half of her portion. Problem solved — temporarily.

Then, when Mary was serving the veal, Mr. Grant took three portions — and Mary had to talk him into putting two portions back. Reluctantly he did so, explaining to the other guests that "I'm not as hungry as I thought I was."

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Eventually Mary's special guests did show up. They had been stuck in the elevator when the power went out. They were only liberated after Johnny climbed through the trap door at the top.

Bear in mind that the stage was still cloaked in darkness. In that setting, Carson delivered one of the best deadpan lines I have ever heard: "Nice place you've got here."

Carson was never seen. I have heard that it was because he was under contract to NBC and could not be seen on the other two networks (the Mary Tyler Moore Show was on CBS). I don't know if that was true, but I do know it was a very entertaining episode, aired just two weeks before the series' grand finale.

Be Careful What You Wish For

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Karl (Eric Braeden): What you're watching at this very moment is a classic example of what's wrong with television in this town. It is the pursuit of personality at the expense of competence.

Ted (Ted Knight): I'm not sure I understand.

Karl: I'm sure you don't.

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The episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show that first aired on this night 40 years ago, "The Critic," began innocuously enough — Mr. Grant (Ed Asner) was trying to put together a softball team to play WJM's crosstown rival.

But Mr. Grant and the rest of the staff had to leave the newsroom to attend the station manager's reception for Professor Karl Heller (Eric Braeden), a well–known critic who was going to be teaching some classes at the University of Minnesota. He also happened to be a friend of the station manager (David Ogden Stiers, in a pre–M*A*S*H recurring role), who had decided to hire him as an on–air critic at WJM one night a week.

The station manager said the news had become stale and predictable; he wanted controversy because controversy builds ratings.

As the staffers tried to make conversations with him, mentioning plays and movies that they had liked, it dawned on them that the professor was negative about everything.

Murray (Gavin MacLeod), for example, told the professor that he loved watching movies on TV. "That's where they belong," the professor replied.

"Come on, you must like some movies," Murray said.

"Well, at best, which it seldom is," the professor conceded, "a film can be powerful. There was one absolutely first–rate Ukrainian film at the last festival. It was called 'Blood On A Dog's Face.' It was about deformity. But somehow the subtitles missed all the whimsy."

When he left the professor, Murray walked over to Mr. Grant. "You want to know something?" Murray asked. "That guy's a pain in the neck."

"I have an even lower opinion of him," Mr. Grant replied.

In his first appearance on WJM, the professor pledged to spend the coming weeks evaluating the people of Minneapolis and trying to determine "why no first–rate art has ever been created in this vacant — but intellectually famished — arid and sterile city."

If the station manager wanted controversy, he got it. "That is the cruelest man I have ever seen," the perpetually amorous Sue Ann (Betty White) told her colleagues in the newsroom. "I think I am in love!"

The professor's commentary about Minneapolis had the phones ringing off their hooks. And it persuaded the station manager that one night a week wasn't enough. He wanted the critic to be on the air every night.

Things cut a little too close to the bone, though, when the professor turned his spotlight on WJM.

And he got told off by, of all people, normally timid Mary.

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After she finished, Mr. Grant and Murray were about to throw some punches at the professor when he pointed out that they would not do so because he had stated an honest opinion, and people in the news business don't attack people for that.

Sue Ann came in carrying a pie. She was angry about what the professor had said about her show in his critique, but he used the same rationale to mollify her. "You're sensible, rational people," he said, "and sensible, rational people do not throw either pies or punches at someone's face for simply stating an honest opinion. Only a fool would vent his frustration in those ways."

At that moment, Ted walked into the newsroom and pushed Sue Ann's hand that was holding the pie into the professor's face.

It was unanimous.

Strength in Numbers

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Did you ever have a job in which you felt underpaid and unappreciated, and you deserved a raise, but you kept running into brick walls at work so you fantasized about leaving your job suddenly, but you didn't for any of a number of reasons?

If you have — and most of us probably have — you can sympathize with the situation confronting Mary Tyler Moore in the episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show that aired on this night in 1976, "Look at Us, We're Walking."

Mary hadn't had a raise in three years, and she decided to approach Lou Grant (Ed Asner) about a raise when she realized she had $400 to her name. (I know that doesn't sound like much, but to put it in perspective, when you adjust that for inflation, it would have the buying power of about $1,700 in 2016 dollars.) Before she did, though, she went through all the possible reasons Lou would say prevented him from being able to give her a raise.

But she didn't anticipate the reason he gave. It was out of his hands, he told her. Such decisions were being made by the TV station's new manager.

The station manager wouldn't give either a raise, Lou said, figuring that if one quit, the other would pick up the slack on the production end. His logic was that neither could get a raise because both were good at their jobs. "If we were both incompetents," Lou told Mary, "we'd have 'em over a barrel."

This was a situation, Lou told Mary, that called for solidarity. They should go to the station manager's office and demand that both be given raises.

Mary wasn't especially keen on that idea, especially after the meeting with the station manager. He gave them two weeks to change their minds before he replaced them.

They didn't change their minds, though, and Mary was struggling to occupy the time. Lou was finding projects to keep him busy — like painting a chair for the 27th time. "I figure it will take a year and a half to dry," he said.

Mary was wavering. They had a talk and solidarity was restored.

But Mary was feeling a financial squeeze. When Ted (Ted Knight) and Georgette (Georgia Engel) came by to visit, Mary told Georgette that, for the first time in her life, she was in debt "up to my ear lobes."

"What a classy place to be in debt up to," the ever–positive Georgette replied.

She persuaded a reluctant Mary to accept money from them, then she persuaded a reluctant Ted to give Mary a blank check. ("It's better that way," she told him. "Better for who?" Ted asked.) Pretty impressive for the normally mousy Georgette.

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Neither accomplishment was insignificant, but it was the last straw for Mary. She called Lou and told him she was going to renegotiate her contract.

"Don't tell me things aren't that bad yet," she said into the telephone receiver. "I just accepted money from Ted Baxter!"

In the end they came back to work for WJM — and got what must have been by 1976 standards pretty good raises.

Never Assume

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Things aren't always what they seem to be — or don't seem to be. I don't know about you, but I learned that the hard way — and, on this night 40 years ago, so did Mary Tyler Moore. Well, I guess she did. That point was uncertain when the episode ended. But the audience sure did learn it.

In the episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show that premiered on this night in 1976, Mary and Mr. Grant (Ed Asner) were going to a seminar in Washington, D.C., that was devoted to politics and the press.

It was going to be like a homecoming for Mr. Grant. He had covered Washington for the Detroit Free Press in his younger days, and he boasted to Mary about the connections he had made; they were the kind of people, he told her, who would show her the Washington that tourists seldom, if ever, saw.

But first Lou had to deal with Ted (Ted Knight) who reminded Lou that he had promised Ted could go on the next free trip that came up. Ted rationalized the decision out loud, suggesting that Mr. Grant had opted to leave Ted in charge of the newsroom because he needed a steady hand at the wheel. Mr. Grant went along with that, apparently figuring it was the easiest way to get Ted off his back. But it was not smooth sailing. Ted insisted that Mr. Grant tell Murray (Gavin MacLeod) that Ted would be in charge while he was away.

Murray didn't take that news well and refused to wish Mary and Lou a good trip when they departed.

Once they arrived in Washington, Lou put out some feelers and waited for the calls from his connections. Mary wanted to go to a restaurant for dinner, but Lou assured her that there were probably five really good parties in progress in D.C. that evening. He said they should wait at the hotel for some calls to come in.

"I've never been to Washington before," Mary protested. "It's my first night in the capitol. I want to see some of it."

Lou told her she shouldn't worry. She was going to see the whole city. At that moment, the phone rang. Lou was sure it was one of his connections, but it turned out to be for Mary. It was someone she had met earlier who invited her to a party at the French embassy.

But Lou nixed the embassy party. "We're gonna do a lot better than that," he assured Mary. So Mary turned it down.

A minute later, the phone rang again — but, once again, it was for Mary.

"What did you do, write your number on a wall?" Lou asked testily.

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Actually, it was a congressman Mary had met earlier at the seminar, and Lou tried to get reservations for the two of them to have dinner at the best place in town. But it turned out that his connection there, the head waiter, had died 10 years earlier.

"I guess he died without mentioning how close we were," Lou told the person on the other end of the line.

The congressman called up and got a reservation there with no trouble, and he and Mary left Lou in his hotel room.

The next day, Mary and Lou compared notes on their evenings. Lou, as it turned out, hadn't talked to anyone after Mary left. He dozed off and thus may have missed calls — if any came in. But he was determined to wait it out again that night. "Sometimes you have to wait around like that if you want a really good time," he told Mary.

He insisted that he wasn't losing his faith in his buddies, but Mary was, and she went out on the town again that night, leaving Lou alone in his hotel room.

When she got back to the hotel later, she went to Lou's room and told him she was sorry he hadn't joined them. They had gone to a party in Georgetown where she met the assistant secretary of Defense.

Lou said he was sorry that Mary hadn't stayed with him that evening. A couple of old friends came by, he said.

Mary was pleased to hear that. She said she was sure he had had a wonderful time seeing old friends again, and Lou said he did.

"John Glenn told the funniest story," Lou said.

"John Glenn the astronaut?" Mary asked. Lou said yes.

"John Glenn is an old friend of yours?" Mary asked.

"No, I never met him before," Lou replied. "He came with Hubert."

"Hubert?" Mary asked.

"Humphrey," Lou replied. "Anyway, it was the funniest story. I thought Eric Sevareid was gonna bust a gut!"

The conversation went on like that. Sevareid wasn't able to stay long, he said, because he was giving Ethel Kennedy a lift. "How did she get home?" Mary asked.

"The Fords gave her a ride," Lou said, referring to then–President and Mrs. Ford. It certainly would have made sense that Lou, as an employee of the Detroit newspaper, would have had dealings with Michigan Congressman Gerald Ford in the years before he became Richard Nixon's vice president and, eventually, his successor. Ford, after all, represented his district in Michigan for a quarter of a century. Nevertheless, Mary made a face.

Lou leaned forward. "Mary," he said, "you don't believe the president was here tonight, do you?"

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"Well, of course, I believe the president was here," Mary replied. "Was Lincoln here, too?"

It was at that moment that the phone rang. On the other end of the line was Betty Ford, the first lady. She was looking for the president's pipe. It was his favorite pipe, and he thought it might have fallen from his pocket. Mary looked and found it under a sofa cushion. She held it out and said, in a mocking tone, "What do you know? The president's pipe."

Mrs. Ford asked Lou if she could speak to Mary so he handed her the phone.

"Hello, Mary?" and the screen showed the first lady speaking on the phone, presumably from the White House. "This is Betty Ford."

"Hello, Betty," the still disbelieving Mary replied. "This is Mary ... Queen of Scots."

A couple of interesting trivia points:

First, I have heard that the people behind the Mary Tyler Moore Show wanted President Ford to make the cameo appearance. But it was the start of an election year, and President Ford was seeking the Republican nomination. It was decided that an appearance on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, which ranked #19 at the end of the 1975–76 season, might be considered an advertisement for — if not an endorsement of — his re–election. So Mrs. Ford was selected instead.

Second, Mary Tyler Moore wrote in her autobiography that Betty Ford was drunk when she filmed her scene. I don't know if that was true. I have seen that episode a number of times, and I can't tell if she is drunk in it — but I do know that a few years later she went through recovery and established the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., for the treatment of chemical dependency.

The Day Ted and Georgette Got Married

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Mary (Mary Tyler Moore): You do love him?

Georgette (Georgia Engel): Of course, Mary. Somebody has to!

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The Mary Tyler Moore Show was consistently good for seven years, then voluntarily bowed out while the ratings were still high. In other words, they left 'em begging for more.

The episode that aired 40 years ago tonight has always been one of my favorites. It was sitcom script writing at its finest performed flawlessly by a top–notch cast. Ahhhh, they just don't write 'em — or perform 'em — like that anymore. More's the pity.

The episode that made its debut on this night in 1975 centered on something that we've all experienced — a wedding. Even if you have never been married, you have probably participated in one or, at least, attended one. Maybe more than one.

And, centered around this universal theme, the story gave perfect capsule glimpses into the hearts and souls of the characters in the series.

Yet, true to tradition, this wedding was about the bride, Georgette (Georgia Engel). She was the girlfriend of Ted Baxter (Ted Knight) and a recent addition to the ensemble. The viewing audience hadn't had much of a chance to get to know her yet, but that would change. Yes, this wedding, like all the others, was about the bride. Strangely, though, the title of the episode was "Ted's Wedding."

Let me share samples of the dialogue with you.

The episode opened with Georgette and Ted having Saturday brunch at Mary's apartment. Mary was trying to be sensitive to Georgette's concerns that everyone in the newsroom treated Ted with disdain, but Ted really hadn't been helping his own cause, even with Georgette. For months, he had been proposing to her, she had accepted, then he found a way to get out of it and she allowed him to do so. This had happened so often that Ted was treated like the fabled boy who cried wolf. No one, least of all Georgette, took his proposals seriously.

Anyway, Mary was making an effort to include Ted in more things, and her way to get the ball rolling was to invite Ted and Georgette to brunch at her apartment. She also tried to include Mr. Grant (Ed Asner), explaining to him that this kind of thing would make Ted a better anchorman — instead of being preconditioned to be oafish and vain by the negative perceptions of his peers.

Adopting a professorial demeanor, Mr. Grant told Mary that she was speaking of the "self–fulfilling prophecy," in which a person's behavior is governed by the assumptions of others. People expect a certain kind of behavior from someone, be it good or bad, and that is precisely what they get.

Mary was fascinated to learn that there was an entire theory devoted to what she had been thinking. She was also gratified that Mr. Grant understood what she was talking about, and that knowledge emboldened her.

She said she wanted Mr. Grant to join them for brunch, and, in one of the most delightful exchanges I believe I have ever seen, Mr. Grant wiggled out of it by asking Mary what her assumption had been about his response. She conceded that she had assumed that he would say no.

"Well, there you are!" Mr. Grant exclaimed with a triumphant grin on his face. "Personally, I'd have loved to have come. I probably would have had the time of my life. But your previous assumption made it impossible for me to come. You do see that, don't you, Mary?"

And so it was that Mary found herself having brunch alone with Ted and Georgette. Mary complimented Georgette on her dress, and Ted was inspired to propose — again — this time with an onion roll in his mouth.

But this proposal was met with a frosty resistance from Georgette, who asked Mary if she and Ted could have a few minutes of privacy. Mary went into her bedroom.

Georgette told Ted she had doubts that he had ever been serious about marrying her. "If you really wanted to marry me," she said, "you wouldn't talk about it. You'd do it."

Ted protested that he'd get married that day if he could.

"We can, Ted," Georgette countered. "We've had the blood test. We have the license, and it's still valid. We can call and get a minister over here. We can call our friends and tell them to come over here. What else do we need?"

Then mousy Georgette, usually so soft–spoken you couldn't hear her if she was shouting into a megaphone, delivered her character's best line ever. With her hands on her hips, she said, "So whaddya say, buster? Ya still wanna get married?"

Ted was just as assertive in his reply. "Yes, I do."

Then came The Shriek. I know you've heard The Shriek. You may even have emitted a Shriek — but only if you're a female. It seems to be a biological characteristic that only females possess.

The Shriek brought Mary running into the living room. "What would you do if I told you there's going to be a minister over here with all our friends in the next half hour to have a wedding?" Georgette asked her.

Mary's reply: "Vacuum!"

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Getting the wedding together in half an hour was a bit more problematic.

Mary called Mr. Grant and had to talk him into coming over instead of watching a basketball game. Besides, she said, if everything was done quickly, he could get to the bar before the game was over.

Murray (Gavin MacLeod) had to be dragged away from his son's football game — he was the coach.

The minister was playing tennis, but Georgette said his wife had assured her she would try to get in touch with him. Georgette didn't tell the minister's wife why he was needed. She only said it was an emergency.

"I wasn't sure he'd interrupt a tennis game for a wedding," she told Mary.

Ted tried to get his mother to come over, but she declined. After hanging up, Ted explained that she had to wash her hair. "But we can save her a piece of cake," Ted said. "We do have a piece of cake, don't we, Mary?"

"The whole wedding was put together in half an hour," Mary replied as the doorbell rang and she went to answer it. "You can't expect too much preparation on that kind of notice."

Enter Sue Ann (Betty White), the Happy Homemaker, radiant in wedding attire and carrying flowers for the ceremony, champagne and rice for after the ceremony and a veil for Georgette to wear — as well as a gift for the "happy couple." Sue Ann was always the bridesmaid, never the bride, and she was always ready for the occasion. And she wouldn't tolerate slackers. "What are you all standing around with your thumbs up your noses for?" she demanded. "We've got to get this show on the road!"

Part of getting that show on the road was settling on a best man, and Mr. Grant wound up with the honor.

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Turned out his primary responsibility as best man was to reassure Ted that he was doing the right thing.

"If you're going to get married," Mr. Grant told Ted, "you're going to have to stop acting the way you do."

"What way?" Ted asked.

"The way you act," Mr. Grant said somewhat evasively. But he could see he wasn't getting through so he tried a different approach.

"Ted, what I'm trying to say is, you gotta become different."

Ted still didn't understand.

"Look," an increasingly exasperated Mr. Grant said, "you know how you always are?"

Ted said, "Yeah."

"Don't be that way," Mr. Grant told Ted.

The minister was played by John Ritter, and he arrived dressed in his tennis clothes and carrying a tennis racquet. He was newly ordained and unprepared to conduct a wedding ceremony, but Georgette suggested that they should each say something instead of repeating vows. Ted, as an anchorman, was accustomed to having Murray write the words he would deliver so he had Murray come over next to him and whisper in his ear what he should say. It came out like this:

"Georgette, I promise ... to be a devoted husband ... and to never give you cause ... to regret ... having married ... such a cluck!"

Anyway, when the wedding was over and everyone had left, Mary, Ted and Georgette looked at each other.

"Well," Mary said.

"Well," Georgette said.

"Well," Ted said. "What's for dessert?"

It's In the Hole ... Well, Not Exactly

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"Cinderella story, out of nowhere, former greenskeeper, now about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac ... It's in the hole! It's in the hole!"

Carl (Bill Murray)
#92 on the American Film Institute's list of the Top 100 movie quotes of all time

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I have friends who will tell you that "Caddyshack," which premiered 35 years ago today, was the greatest comedy ever made. I'm not one of those people. The first time I saw "Caddyshack," I got some chuckles out of it, but I figured that you had to be a golfer to really appreciate the humor — as haphazard as it was — and I still feel that way. I have never played a round of golf in my life.

Film critic Roger Ebert may have put it best. The movie, he wrote, "never finds a consistent comic note of its own, but it plays host to all sorts of approaches from its stars, who sometimes hardly seem to be occupying the same movie. There's Bill Murray's self–absorbed craziness, Chevy Chase's laid–back bemusement, and Ted Knight's apoplectic overplaying. And then there is Rodney Dangerfield, who wades into the movie and cleans up."

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Dangerfield shook things up, all right.

But, even so, I found "Caddyshack" to be a disjointed tale with humorous scenes linked together by a story that really wasn't much of a story.

"The movie never really develops a plot, but maybe it doesn't want to," Ebert wrote. "Director Harold Ramis brings on his cast of characters and lets them loose at one another. There's a vague subplot about a college scholarship for the caddies, and another one about the judge's nubile niece, and continuing warfare waged by Murray against the gophers who are devastating the club."

Each of those subplots had its moments, but the movie never really united those elements behind a single story. As I said, golfers probably got a lot of the humor. Much of it escaped me — or came across as hopelessly juvenile.

"Maybe one of the movie's problems is that the central characters are never really involved in the same action," Ebert wrote. "Murray's off on his own, fighting gophers. Dangerfield arrives, devastates, exits. Knight is busy impressing the caddies, making vague promises about scholarships and launching boats. If they were somehow all drawn together into the same story, maybe we'd be carried along more confidently. But 'Caddyshack' feels more like a movie that was written rather loosely, so that when shooting began there was freedom, too much freedom, for it to wander off in all directions in search of comic inspiration."

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It did have a kind of improvisational quality to it — sort of a "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" goes golfing (with some sailing on the side). Don't misunderstand. Improv can be good. Sometimes it can be very good. But I can't think of an example when it worked in the motion picture format.

The thing is that I liked all the stars — but in what I regarded as their own milieus. Ted Knight was great as Ted Baxter on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Chevy Chase was funny on Saturday Night Live — which he had left a couple of years earlier and was replaced by Bill Murray, who struggled at first with a skeptical public but eventually endeared himself to viewers and found his niche on the show.

But I just never got carried away with "Caddyshack." I remember seeing it when it first hit the theaters — and laughing at the obvious points that tend to amuse young viewers. But much of it — like the Baby Ruth bar floating in the swimming pool — just didn't amuse me after I got past that stage in my life.

I'm not even sure I was amused by that the first time I saw it.

When Ted Baxter Met Walter Cronkite

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Mary (Mary Tyler Moore): [meeting Walter Cronkite] So nice to meet you. Really. Nice. Nice. Really.

Murray (Gavin MacLeod): [meeting Walter Cronkite] So nice to meet you. Really. Nice. Really.

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It probably isn't most people's favorite Mary Tyler Moore Show episode.

Most people would probably say the "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode is their favorite — and that would be hard to dispute.

And I do like that one.

But I also like the one that aired 40 years ago tonight, "Ted Baxter Meets Walter Cronkite."

When I was a kid, Cronkite was trusted by just about everyone — so much so that some people actually called him "Uncle Walter"

I don't remember how the writers for the Mary Tyler Moore Show established that Ted Baxter (Ted Knight) was an admirer of Cronkite. Maybe it was never really established — except for the presumption that viewers knew that the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Cronkite's evening news program were on the same network — CBS.

But Ted definitely was an admirer of Cronkite.

He also openly coveted a Teddy Award, the fictional (at least, I think it is) award for broadcasting excellence in the Minneapolis–St. Paul market, but he had never won one.

He had his acceptance speech all ready, and he launched into it on several occasions, often when he failed to win the award.

But this time he got to recite it for real — largely because he had campaigned for it. Uncharacteristically for Ted, he had invested a lot of money in it. I don't remember if the writers made him the only WJM staffer to win an award that night or not. I just remember that Ted won a Teddy, and the others resented the way he had won it.

The fact that Ted won a Teddy was enough to irritate his co–workers even if one or more also won a Teddy — but then came the coup de grâce — Cronkite was in town to see Lou (Ed Asner) and he happened to come by the TV station.

Lou had no choice but to introduce them. After introducing Cronkite to Mary and Murray, neither of whom distinguished themselves in the presence of such an important journalist, Lou introduced the legendary newsman to Ted — who had the idea that, somehow, Cronkite's visit was an unannounced audition for him. If he did well enough, Ted reasoned, he would be invited to be Cronkite's partner on the evening news.

So Ted took over, putting his arm around Cronkite's shoulder and delivering one of my all–time favorite lines: "Well, Walt, let's talk shop. Which words do you have trouble pronouncing?"

As they walked out the door of the newsroom, Ted was reciting that evening's newscast to Cronkite, who glanced back at Lou and said, "I'm going to get you for this."

Once I Had a Secret Goal

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There were so many episodes of the Mary Tyler Moore Show that made me laugh the first time I saw them — and still make me laugh today.

There are the classic episodes that everyone remembers, but there are also episodes that are rarely mentioned. Such an episode — at least, in my experience — is the episode that aired 40 years ago tonight.

Titled "Lou's Place," it explored one of the secret ambitions of Lou Grant (Ed Asner), the news producer with the gruff exterior and the heart of gold.

Lou revealed that he had always wanted to have his own bar, but he didn't have enough money to buy one of his favorite watering holes when it became available so he tried to persuade Ted (Ted Knight) to invest in it with him.

But Lou, the hard–boiled newsman, didn't have the temperament to manage a bar — and certainly not with Ted, who kept inventing lame excuses to get his investment money back.

The bar's previous owner had been a gregarious sort who remembered everyone's name and encouraged his patrons to participate in group sing–alongs.

That wasn't Lou's nature, and he knew it. But something needed to be done. The bar was not thriving, so Lou resolved to be just like the previous owner and be lovable.

That proved to be a challenge for Lou.

"I never really cared about being lovable before," he said. "It was always enough that people were afraid of me."

So Lou set out to be just like the previous owner, establishing "happy hour," introducing himself to the patrons and then introducing them to each other, repeating the process every time someone new came in and then leading everyone in a sing–along.

But it didn't catch on with the gang. So Lou, reverting to his true self, decided to give it another try. He announced another sing–along.

"And this time," he said with eyes squinting as he glanced around the room, "I really want to hear it."

And he went around the room like a drill sergeant, barking out orders like "Sing it!" or "I can't hear you" as he went from table to table.

The group did perform better the second time around, but it was a forced performance, and, before they finished singing, Lou decided that he had to sell the place.

I guess some things must be learned the hard way.

But it worked out well for fans of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. After all, if Lou had found that running a bar was his true calling, he might have left WJM long before the series went off the air.

And, consequently, he might not have gone on to star in his own series, Lou Grant, further defining the character.

Lou's place was in the newsroom.