Thursday, December 12, 2013

Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And All the Brilliant Minds Who Made the Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic

By Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
Simon & Schuster, 2013. 336 pages. Nonfiction

I grew up in the seventies and watched the Mary Tyler Moore show regularly. And loved it. While recently re-watching the series this new book was published and gave additional perspective on this award-winning sitcom. In the seventies I had no idea how ground-breaking this show was. Mary plays a single, independent, professional woman. This had never been seen on television before. Behind the scenes this show was also the first to employ a team of women writers. The show was entertaining and funny with an occasional serious edge to it.

Armstrong gives her readers a well-written, informative and entertaining story of how the Mary Tyler Moore show came to be, excelled, and influenced future television. Readers will enjoy the background information on the main actors and descriptions of the dynamics between the actors during the course of the show.

SML

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