Sunday, July 14, 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

In 1970, writer-producers James L. Brooks and Allan Burns came up with an idea for a show about a divorced woman who had a career. The executives at CBS were not buying it. Time thought it would be a disaster and would never last. The Mary Tyler Moore Show proved everybody wrong. It became a classic that changed many lives and inspired so many women.
If you're a die-hard fan of this show (you can watch the first three seasons for free on www.Hulu.com), this is the book for you. You learn about the scripts, the women who wrote the sketches, the characters, the actors who all bonded very quickly with one another, the very creative minds of Brooks and Burns.
The first part of the book is very funny; the middle not so much; and the end, not at all. Some parts become repetitious with filler that is not needed. Every nuance and aspect of the show is written here. I couldn't wait to finish and I almost stopped reading it altogether but plowed on.
There's a great bit of interesting trivia here and much of the information is quite interesting. But I think the appeal is really for anybody who watched every episode and made an impact on them.