Watching Sitcoms

In the 1970’s, Norman Lear ruled television. He created “All In The Family“, “The Jeffersons“, “Maude“, “Good Times“, “Sanford and Son” & “One Day At A Time“. Not a bad listing of shows. He had an iron grip on the Neilsen ratings and was CBS’s golden child.

In the mid 70’s, Lear had an idea for a spoof on soap operas. They called it “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” and hired Louise Lasser to play the title role. The show’s title is repeated because the writers believed that everything on a soap is spoken twice. The show, like all of Lear’s shows, talked about many taboo topics such as sexual perversion, serial killers, and a lot of other topics that were way out there to be on tv in the 70’s (even on a Norman Lear show). When no major network would pick it up, it was sold into syndication and aired 5 nites a week. Most stations aired it way after the 11 PM news, but it turned into a ratings and critical hit (even earning Lasser an Emmy nomination!)

The show was part soap opera and part spoof. Let’s put it this way, to sum it up: she was the the pigtailed, gingham-frocked Ohio housewife who lived in a world where television commercials were as meaningful as personal experiences, and who tried to remain calm while her daughter was held hostage by a mass murderer, her husband was impotent, her father disappeared, and her best friend was paralyzed. Unlike “Soap”, that played itself more like a sitcom, MHMH did not have a studio audience and had a lot of those dramatic soap opera closeups that were so very popular on soaps in the 70’s.

After 325 episodes, and her character having a nervous breakdown on a television talk show, Louise Lasser decided to leave the show. She has been reported as saying that people were only recognizing her as the title character and not as an actress. I suppose she did not want to be typecast. She went on to do a ton of guest roles and currently teaches acting at NYU.

MHMH also spun off 3 shows: “Fernwood 2Nite” (a less then serious talk show spoof that stars Fred Willard and Martin Mull), “Forever Fernwood” (which was MHMH after Louise left and it also ran about a year) and “America 2Nite”. Occasionally these shows pop up on TVLand.

As for MHMH, there was a videocassette release years ago, but besides that, there has not been any real home releases of the show. UNTIL NOW. Sony has announced that on March 27 they will be releasing Volume One of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman!