..:: A Real Experience on the Set of TMTMS:
A Story By Joe Rainone::..
The Mary Tyler Moore Show definatley
has big fans, and this is the story of one of them! EXCLUSIVE: This story
was exclusively written for, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show Page," and the text
and photos must not be used without permission!
I ran across your site while browsing the web for Mary Tyler Moore references.
This whole Internet thing is still pretty new to me. In fact, this is
the first e-mail I've attempted, so please forgive any gaucheries or failures
to follow form. Beginning almost with the first episode of Mary's show, I
had an involvement with the cast and production staff which went beyond what
most fans are privileged to encounter. I began corresponding with them
at the conclusion of the second aired episode (Today I Am a Ma'am). Responses
started coming in January of 1971. The first thing I got back from them
was a giant birthday card signed by every member of the cast and production
staff, and a letter from Mimi Kirk, Mary's personal assistant, explaining
that they all read my letters each week and looked forward to receiving them,
and that the producers would personally respond once production ended for
the first season. This resulted in a fairly regular stream of letters
from the likes of Allan Burns, Lorenzo Music, and even an occasional note
from Mary herself. In the summer of 1971, I visited the studio and spent
a week being shown just how an episode is put together (Thoroughly Unmilitant
Mary). My question is this. Do you think any of
the other Mary fans out there would be interested in hearing the story of
my involvement with the show and its people? If you think there'd be
any interest, I'd be happy to tell the whole story, but if not then I won't
bore anyone with it. Please let me know. Thanks
for your input.
The whole story, huh? Well, it all started in a 5000-watt radio station
in Fresno, California. A starry-eyed kid with a dream... Actually, it
all started in North Providence, Rhode Island, back in the fall of 1970, like
it did with all of us, when The Mary Tyler Moore Show debuted on September
19. I was 19 years old at the time, a walking hormone like most 19-year-olds.
I'd been vaguely aware of Mary as a very attractive actress who'd been an
integral part of the excellent Dick Van Dyke ensemble cast, but whose career
had fallen on hard times for a variety of reasons. Truth to tell, I
wasn't a particularly big fan of Mary's, mostly because I'd been too young
to watch the Van Dyke show during its network run. However, she'd been
in a made-for-TV movie earlier that year called "Run A Crooked Mile" (it starred
Louis Jourdan, I believe), and she'd struck a responsive chord in me, shall
we say (remember that walking hormone remark?). Back then I used to
read TV Guide each week cover to cover, and there was some industry buzz
that maybe this sitcom of hers starting in the fall would be something special.
In any event, I found myself looking forward to it, then found myself watching
it, then found myself hooked. I think it was her vulnerability.
Maybe it was her availability. Maybe it's because she was stacked. I
don't know, maybe all of the above. But there I was, making sure nothing
would interfere with seeing the show's second episode. That episode, as all
true MTM fans know, was "Today I Am A Ma'am," the episode which introduced
us to recurring character Howard Arnell. At the end of the show, when
Howard reluctantly decides he can't marry Mary because he has to have his
freedom, he says to her, "No goodbyes, Mary." Mary nods in agreement.
After a slight pause, Howard says, "Goodbye, Mary." That did it for
me. I knew at that moment that this was a show that had something special
going for it, and not just the testosterone-stirring great looks of its leading
lady. This was a genuinely funny show, put together by talented people
whose names whizzed by at the end each week. What's more, I wanted to
be a part of it. Not in any creative way, of course, but in a way that
I was eminently qualified to do -- as its number one cheerleader! So
I decided to write a fan letter to the show -- to its star, its featured
players, its production staff. An autobiographical comment might be in order
here. Looking back from the perspective of nearly thirty years, it's
clear to me that a big influence on this decision to write a letter was H.
P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft was a writer of supernatural horror stories in the
1920s and 30s. Today he is remembered for the tales themselves, for
the considerable influence he had on a generation of writers of fantasy and
horror (as well as succeeding generations), and as a remarkable epistolarian.
Estimates of the number of letters he wrote range from 60,000 to 100,000.
As a fan of Lovecraft, I was well aware of this correspondence. I also
knew that for him it replaced what was normal social intercourse for the
rest of us. The possibility of establishing and conducting a relationship
through letters was very real to me. Well, just one letter wasn't going to
be enough. I wanted to meet Mary Tyler Moore. I was 19, anything
was possible. I made the convenient assumption that she, the real person,
was the same as Mary Richards, the character. It seemed to me the best
shot I had to get to meet her was by writing letters and enamouring myself
to everyone associated with the show, until a bond of affection developed
between California and Rhode Island that would fairly pull me across the
continent to my new friends. I would write a succession of letters
that would stun them with my cogent insights, flabbergast them with my witticisms,
and bowl them over with the force of my personality. Today it would
be called stalking. So I started writing letters. Each week I'd critique
that week's show, using the tools I'd learned in English classes in high
school and college, but always maintaining a cheerleader level of "criticism."
It helped that the shows were so very well done that there was rarely anything
of substance to be critical of. And along the way I told them about
myself -- part of that campaign to insinuate myself into their lives.
And, well, it worked! My routine was to watch the show on Saturday night,
then drive to my family's printing business. I'd spend the next two
or three hours in the peace and quiet of the office typing a letter, finishing
at midnight or thereabouts, then driving to the main Post Office to mail
it out. This was before email, kids. I'd shoot for a five page letter,
double spaced, as the minimum. Most of it would be about the show, at least
at first, because that was all we had in common. I wrote about the
plot, the characters, the conflicts and their resolutions. I gave a
lot of thought to the structure of the show, the situation of the situation
comedy, as it were, and came up with a couple of observations which I felt
had some validity. For example, I wrote about something I called the
theory of parallel characters, which held that the two main theaters of action,
the Apartment and the Newsroom, were filled with characters who had relationships
with Mary that paralleled someone in the other theater. Rhoda, for instance,
had a relationship with Mary at the Apartment which paralleled the relationship
that Murray had with her in the Newsroom. Another observation was something
I called anti-Mary. Each character in the show exhibited some dominant
personality trait which Mary did not possess. This was the anti-Mary
trait, and the collision of Mary and anti-Mary provided not annihilation
but humorous conflict which helped propel the plot forward. What do
you want, I was 19. I particularly liked the idea of anti-Mary because
it applied to guest characters as well as the regulars, and could be used
to explain everything from plot dynamics all the way down to the level of
individual jokes. It's basically just a restatement of the truism that
humor has its origin in conflict, but hey, I had five pages to fill. But
where to send those five pages? I knew from my reading of Harlan Ellison
and from numerous references made on The Carol Burnett Show that there was
a place called CBS Television City. A visit to the local library to
check their Los Angeles phonebooks revealed its address, so that's where
my letters went. But as the weeks turned into months with no response,
I began wondering if they were being read by anyone, if they were having
any effect, if they were even being delivered. All of this was happening
in the fall and winter of 1970, the first season of Mary's show. The
way the calendar fell, January 4, 1971, was a Saturday, which made it an
MTM day and therefore a day on which I wrote a letter and sent it on its
plaintive way. The significance of that date is that it's my birthday,
so in my letter for that week I mentioned that I had just turned twenty years
old. Well, guess what happened... About two weeks later a giant envelope
arrived, about nine inches by thirteen inches, bearing a return address of
"M.T.M., 1040 N. Las Palmas, Hollywood, Calif." Inside was a birthday
card, and the signatures and expressions of birthday greetings included Mary
Tyler Moore, Allan Burns, Jim Brooks, Jay Sandrich, Valerie Harper, Ed Asner,
Gavin MacLeod, and Ted (who for some reason signed as Ted Baxter).
Also enclosed was a letter from Mimi Kirk, who identified herself as Mary's
secretary. Mimi wrote that she'd been given all my letters by the producers,
who asked her to drop me a note assuring me that not only were my letters
being received, but they "actually look through our fan mail to pull yours
out....you have quite a few fans yourself." She expressed "the thanks
of all of us for your wonderful letters," and in a postscript promised that
"the producers will try to answer you personally at a later date."
The stationery on which this was typed had a logo of a television screen,
printed in blue, containing the words "mary tyler moore" in the same
typeface as the one used for the credits throughout the show's seven year
run, and about a third of the way down the page there was a very cute cartoon
of Mary's smiling face, also printed in blue. (These details about
the stationery may not seem of much interest, but keep in mind that my family's
business was printing, and this is the only one of the many letters I received
over the years that used this style of letterhead. It's history, for
crying out loud!) Well, talk about a bolt from the blue. This came
as a complete surprise, despite the fact that it was what I'd been working
toward for almost four months. To get a response at all was wonderful,
to learn that my letters were being read by the people I hoped would read
them was exhilarating, but to hear the things Mimi said about the reaction
they'd had just blew me away. They liked me, they really liked me!
(You saw that coming, didn't you?) Well, now I knew that my letters were
reaching the good folks at MTM, that they actually read them, and that for
some unknown reason they liked them. What to do? Continue, of
course, but I'd be less than honest if I said it didn't cross my mind to
just clam up and not send anything else. Why? Stage fright, I
guess. I was only 20 years old and still pretty unsure of myself.
But I'd taken it this far, so I figured if they could stand it then so could
I. Something I need to explain, because there were frequent references to
it in the correspondence that followed, is that I invented a rating system
for Mary's show. Every episode, of course, was light years ahead of
the dreck being shown elsewhere on the tube, but if that's all I could say
each week, things would get boring fast. Everyone likes to be praised,
but that can get old after a while. It should be possible, I thought,
to make relative criticisms of an episode by referring to other episodes of
the series, and that process could be made somewhat consistent if I developed
a rating system. So I did. An episode would be given a JARS number,
which was its total score based on various elements called JOLLIs, GRINs,
and SOBs. These elements were based on my reactions to the jokes each
show contained. A JOLLI measured those jokes which elicited an actual
out-loud laugh. A GRIN was a funny line which didn't quite make it up
to laugh-out-loud-ness, but which was clever nonetheless. A SOB sought
to measure those lines or situations which were touching and tender and brought
a tear to the eye. These elements combined to produce the episode's
overall score, which was its JARS number. At the end of the season
I'd compile a list of all that season's stories ranked from first to last
according to their JARS numbers, and it was surprising how close the correlation
was between my favorites and not-so-favorites and their own evaluations.
Two more things before resuming my story. First, every now and then
in my letters I'd refer to some character that I'd made up, just to give
a different voice to the letter and break up the monotony of my own droning
persona. Old Jake the Wino, Harmon the Elf, Joe II, and others whose
names I could recall only after 15 minutes of the deepest hypnosis, would
come out and do their stuff, sometimes for just a moment and sometimes longer.
In their letters to me, the MTM people -- mostly Allan Burns -- would pick
up one of these characters and incorporate it into what they were writing.
The other thing I have to point out is that not everyone at the MTM show
thought I was wonderful. Allan and Jim had two secretaries, Pat Nardo
and Gloria Banta, who left the show during its first season to write comedy
scripts together (quite successfully, I might add). (These two, by
the way, provided the last names of two of the characters in Jim Brooks's
later series, "Taxi" -- Elaine Nardo and Tony Banta.) For some inexplicable
reason, Pat Nardo took everything I wrote in deadly earnest and was convinced
that I was psychotic. She would refer to me, I learned later, as "Joe
Wacko," and urged everyone to do nothing to encourage me. It never bothered
me when I heard that, probably because the rest of the people at the studio
had taken me to heart, and years later when I finally met her she was extremely
gracious. She asked me to do her a favor, which I was glad to do, but
more on that when we come to it. (At this rate, that'll be at the show's
centennial anniversary.) New episodes were still being telecast, but production
for the first season had wrapped up by the time they sent the birthday card
to me. Letters kept winging their way westward from Rhode Island to Los Angeles.
By April 1971 my thoughts had turned to the Emmy awards, at which I was sure
the show would do well, though "All in the Family" loomed as a possible spoiler.
I decided to pre-empt possible disappointment and had a plaque made up --
I called it, what else, the JOE Award -- and sent it out. This elicited
a letter from them, this time from Allan Burns and Jim Brooks, which parodied
an acceptance speech of the kind you hear at the Emmys and the Oscars.
It was very funny, and I felt no small amount of pride that these highly
talented people had written it in response to something I'd done. They
also sent a publicity photo of the cast in which everyone was cross-eyed,
and a copy of the rerun schedule for the show. I learned from the rerun schedule
that each episode had its own title, and as we all know some of them are
very clever. Matching each episode with its title was easy in most
cases, but there were a few that weren't obvious. One of these was
"Hi!" By a process of elimination, I matched this one with the story
in which Mary goes into the hospital for a tonsillectomy, there meeting a
caustic, embittered patient played by Pat Carroll. I asked if this
was the correct title of that story, and if so, what did the title mean?
Mimi Kirk wrote back to confirm that the title was correct, and to explain
that in its original conception the story had Mary in the hospital to have
a tattoo removed from her stomach, a tattoo which read "Hi!" The script
was changed, but the title remained. This is the kind of inside info
I reveled in picking up! Mimi answered a few other questions I'd posed
in my letters, then said they'd like me to send a picture of myself.
Perhaps Pat Nardo's dire warnings made them think if would be prudent to
have something they could turn over to the FBI if need be, I don't know.
Not having any current photos, I had someone take a picture of me lounging
against the front of my car, a 1970 Road Runner. About a week later another
letter arrived from Allan, accompanied by a photograph of him, Jim, and Dave
Davis lounging against their cars just like I had done. Allan's letter was
again very funny, this time telling the story of how my character Old Jake
the Wino had staggered onto the studio lot and taken their picture.
An arrow pointed to a corner office of the Administration Building in the
background, and Allan explained that this marked the office of one "G. Tinker,
husband of the star of a popular CBS series," who, according to Allan, decided
to save a few bucks by hiring Old Jake to be the official photographer for
MTM Enterprises for the coming year. The Emmys rolled around, and Mary's
show did quite well, but Mary herself did not win and the show lost out to
"All in the Family" for Best Comedy Series. I expressed my displeasure
in a letter, to which Allan responded with a letter correcting my misconceptions
about how the winners are determined. There had been some validity
to my complaints, though, and he said he agreed and let the television Academy
know where they could improve the process. Spring turned into summer, and
everyone returned to begin work on the second season. Mimi sent a copy
of their latest production schedule (more titles!), and then one day my brother
Eddy asked if I thought I'd ever get out there to meet all of these people.
I was still in college at the time and didn't have the money to make a trip
across the country like that, but he said that he'd foot most of the bill
if the two of us could go. The cast had returned from hiatus and all were
busy producing episodes for the second season of Mary's show. Several
letters had arrived from Allan Burns, Jim Brooks, and Mimi Kirk, answering
questions posed in my own letters and sending photographs and schedules of
reruns and episodes currently in production. Near the middle of July
my brother Eddy offered to pay the expenses of a visit to the studio, if it
was okay with the people at MTM for us both to go out there and meet them.
So, I sent a letter asking if we could fly out and watch them put together
an episode for a week. Allan Burns responded with his usual grace and
good humor. After asking, "Will the mail-order bride turn out to be
what the farmer ordered? Ah, the delicious thrill of it all!" he went
on to say I should let him know exactly when we'd be arriving, "...so that
Joe Day can be arranged." He went on to caution, however, that giving
us a week would be impossible. "We hope you will understand that a couple
of days is the most we can give anyone. As a matter of fact, it is
a couple of days more than we have given anyone -- even Nelson Rockefeller
got a quick handshake, a glimpse of one scene and a fast brushoff a couple
of weeks ago. So..let us hear from you, both by letter and by telephone
when you arrive in Los Angeles, and we will make all the unnecessary arrangements."
As it turned out, we spent quite a bit more time with them than Allan's remarks
suggested, but it was great to know that Eddy and I would be welcome.
Finally, I was going to meet Mary Tyler Moore! On August 15, 1971, a Sunday,
brother Ed and I boarded a 747 and flew to Los Angeles, a first flight for
both of us. We took a cab from LAX to the Mikado Motor Hotel on Riverside
Drive, not far from CBS Studio Center, and checked in. Waiting for us
was a package and a letter. The package contained about twenty comic
books and a copy of the script they were shooting that week, "Thoroughly Unmilitant
Mary" (written by Martin Cohan, who had coincidentally written the script
for my favorite episode from the first season, "Party is Such Sweet Sorrow").
The letter explained that the package contained "required reading for the
coming week." It went on to say, "We'll call you Monday morning and
hope you are ready to be picked up at 9:15. You will recognize my voice.
It will be bald. It will not have a red carnation." Lorenzo Music
signed it. The next morning at 9:00, the phone rang in our room and
there was Lorenzo's voice, not yet famous as Carlton the Doorman or Garfield,
welcoming us to Los Angeles and saying he'd be pulling up in front of the
motel in a few minutes. Eddy and I went outside to wait, and at least
I was feeling pretty nervous. (Eddy, on the other hand, seemed calm
about the whole thing. He doesn't get excited very often.) A few minutes
later, a brown station wagon drove up and stopped. Lorenzo got out and we
met our first MTM person face to face. As we drove to the studio, I
asked him about what Allan had written about being able to give us only a
couple of days. All he said was that there had been a change in plan.
He said that today was officially designated as Joe Day. We'd be meeting
all of the cast and production staff and sitting in on the morning "read
through," then we'd all go to lunch. The afternoon would be taken up with
walking through the script down on the set. I asked if Mary was among those
who read my letters, and he answered that she was aware of them and aware
of the fact that Eddy and I would be visiting this week. The studio lot was
not very far from the motel, so it took only a few minutes for us to be rolling
up to the gate, being waved through, and parking. CBS Studio Center
has a number of very large studio buildings (obviously), several pleasant
looking Spanish style stucco office buildings, and is dominated by a large
glass and steel building for Administration. Lorenzo led us into one
of the office buildings, the first one on the right as you drive onto the
lot, and up to the second floor. Off the hall which runs down the length
of the building were a number of interconnected offices. We walked
into one of these and met a tall, very pretty woman named Cheryl Blythe,
who was Allan Burns's secretary. She told us that she was the person
who processes the mail received by the show, so she was actually the first
one to notice my letters and bring them to the attention of the staff.
When one of my letters arrives, she said it now makes the rounds from office
to office until everyone has had a chance to read it. She told me that
on one occasion Jim Brooks had to go to New York, and he asked that my letter
for that week be copied and forwarded to him there. Pretty heady stuff.
We entered Allan's office and Lorenzo introduced us. I can't for the
life of me remember what we said, but Allan went to some pains to make us
feel comfortable. I asked about a Bullwinkle the Moose lamp on his desk,
and he explained that he'd been a writer on that show. His office contained
bound volumes of scripts from shows he'd worked on during his career -- The
Munsters, My Mother the Car, He & She, Room 222. The office was
fairly large and contained his desk, a sofa, coffee table, and several chairs
arranged in a rough semicircle around his desk. He explained that in
a few minutes when the cast arrived we would all sit and read through the
script for next week's show, to familiarize the cast with it, then the one
for this week's show a couple of times. That would bring us to lunchtime,
which we would celebrate as part of the festivities of Joe Day. Eddy
and I were sitting on the couch, which faced the open doorway leading out
of the office. I spotted a slender, pretty, dark-haired person pausing to
speak with Cheryl Blythe just outside the door. She looked into the
office at me, flashed a big grin, and we exchanged waves, after which she
left. I thought it was Mary, but discovered later that it was Mimi Kirk,
her secretary. When I told her later about the mistake, she said she
often acts as Mary's stand-in during rehearsals. "Same body type," she
explained. We left Allan's office to meet the rest of the production staff,
people whose names I recognized from reading the credits at the close of
each episode. Now I had faces to match with those names. We headed back
into Allan's office, and as we approached the door I could see that all of
the cast had assembled there. God love her, there she was! There
they all were, for that matter. To our left where the chairs were there
were Ted Knight, Gavin MacLeod, John Amos, and Ed Asner. Seated on
the couch were Valerie Harper and Mary. We entered the office and Lorenzo
took us around to everyone and introduced us. (Later, Eddy told me
he'd said, "How are you, Gordy?" to John Amos. Oh, the embarrassment!)
When I got to Valerie, I have to admit that I didn't recognize her.
I was used to seeing frumpy Rhoda Morgenstern, with her hair pulled back and
looking very dark. This...this beauty...with light brown, almost frizzy
hair was no frump. And then there was Mary. She was sitting on the
end of the couch, nearest to Allan's desk. She had her legs crossed
one over the other, and her elbows were propped on her knees, a posture which
accentuated the startling thinness of her limbs. Her face was very
darkly tanned and looking up at me, flashing that thousand-watt smile.
You'll never guess what the first thing was to flash through my mind as I
gazed down at her. I thought, her face looks just like a Boston baked
bean. Before you send a surge of indignation over the Internet to fry
me and my computer, let me explain. Mary's face, as we all know, is
dominated by that incredible smile, which widens, or seems to widen, the lower
portion of her face. This gives it a shape which could be likened to that
of a bean, and with the surprising darkness of her tan, well, that's what
occurred to me. Don't forget, I was under a lot of stress. There, seated
before me, in the flesh, real as you or I, was honest-to-God MARY TYLER MOORE!
I mumbled out something which I hope sounded like, "It's very nice to meet
you." She said the same, and as she extended one oh-so-elegant hand
for me to shake, she said that she'd taken all of my letters home with her
that weekend to read. I was stunned, and said, "All of them?"
(At this point there were around 40 letters, totalling more than 200 pages.)
She nodded, and said she'd enjoyed them very much. I told her she was
too kind, then remembered my brother standing next to me and introduced him.
Allan called everyone to order, we took our seats, and the read through began.
It was when she read Rhoda's lines that I realized who Valerie was.
Mary was called upon to cry in one of the scripts we read, so we were treated
to that famous cry of hers. It was incredible, everything but tears,
and to judge by the smiles around the room everyone was delighted. Lunchtime,
and we all went to the Tail O' the Cock restaurant, where an extra-large
table was reserved for us. I sat near one end, with Mary to my left
and Valerie to my right. Allan sat next to Mary, Jim next to him (and
across the table from me), then Ted, and everyone else ranged around the
table. Eddy was at the other end, where he talked with John and Gavin.
Later he told me they discovered a mutual interest in hockey, and he was
amazed as these famous people sat around listening while he told them about
his stomach problems. He also said that at one point Gavin asked him,
"Who are you guys? We never do anything like this (going to lunch together)."
In the meantime, I was having the time of my life. I admitted somewhat
sheepishly to Valerie that I hadn't recognized her at first, and she said
not to worry, it happened to her all the time, and that she was quite flattered
that people didn't see her the way Rhoda was portrayed. We all talked about
some of the things that had come up in my letters, like my interest in comic
books. Valerie, it turns out, had been a big fan of EC Comics when
she was a kid. (When I got home the following week I sent her some paperback
reprints of EC, and years later when I visited the studio again, she remembered,
but that's getting ahead of the story.) As everyone complimented me
on the letters, I demurred, saying I was no writer. What I meant was
that I wasn't creative, not in the same sense that they all were, and creativity
was an essential part of my definition of "writer." Jim Brooks disagreed,
and persisted in trying to convince me I was a writer. In fact, he flat
out stated that I was, and that I was just going to have to find a way to
deal with it, even if that meant pretending it wasn't true. Near the
end of the meal, who should come walking into the restaurant but Grant Tinker.
He came over to where I was sitting next to Mary, gave her a kiss, and when
she asked why he'd come to the restaurant, he said, "Why, to meet this young
man." He shook my hand and said that he wanted to sit down with me at some
point during the week and have a talk. The bill came, and Allan pulled
out a credit card to pay it. He looked me dead in the eye and said,
"Next time it'll be your turn to pay." We returned to the lot, gathering
in the cavernous studio where the show was filmed each week. Seeing
the Newsroom and Apartment sets was a trip (to use a dated expression).
Eddy and I sat up in the bleachers watching as they rehearsed. He might
have been a little bored, but I was loving every minute of it, soaking up
everything about the place. Only the regular cast members were there this
early in the week. Guest actors and those in minor roles wouldn't show up
until Thursday, so all the non-regular parts were read by director Jay Sandrich
as they walked through each scene, reading from their scripts. The first scene
took place in the Newsroom. After a few minutes of this, Jay suddenly
said, "Why am I reading all these lines?" He looked up into the bleachers
where Eddy and I were sitting and called out, "Joe! Get down here!"
I jumped down onto the set, my heart pounding. He handed me his script
and said, "Here, you can do this." The scene called for my character, the
union representative, to come bursting in through the Newsroom doors, where
everyone was waiting for word on whether there would be a strike against
the station, and to say, "Well, that's it! We're on strike!" This
announcement causes a flurry of activity as everyone prepares for the strike.
I cross over to one of the desks under the row of clocks in the background
(the one just to the left of the door leading into the studio), there to
shuffle papers and look busy until a moment later, when Mary, who has been
opining that maybe there won't be a strike after all, that maybe there's
still time to reach a settlement before the strike deadline, points up at
the clocks and stops in front of my desk. I look at her and shake my
head. Then I take my papers and exit the Newsroom by the studio door.
No, I'm not making this up. I actually got to rehearse a scene with
Mary Tyler Moore. There was something funny that happened in all of this,
though it became funny to me only after some time had gone by. The essence
of rehearsal, of course, is repetition, and doing it the same way each time.
Bob Newhart once said that the people on his show were sometimes exasperated
with the lackadaisical way he approached rehearsal. He said that because
they were all actors, all aspects of their craft were important to them,
even rehearsing, and they always gave it their all. He approached his show
as a comedian. Rehearsals bored him. For him, the important thing
was the performance, and getting the audience's reaction. He turned
up the volume, so to speak, on the night of the show's filming. What
I'm getting at is that after several repetitions of bursting into the Newsroom
and delivering my line, the enthusiasm of my delivery began to wane, until
I was just saying the words without any energy behind them. Well, I
did that just one more time and Jay threw down his script and said, "Stop!"
He rounded on me and yelled (really yelled), "What do you mean delivering
a line like that on MY set! Get back out there, and when you come through
those doors again I want you to punch up what you're saying!" I was
stammering like a fool, of course, and very embarrassed. But as I headed
into the corridor outside the Newsroom doors I could see that Mary and the
rest of the cast had big grins on their faces, and I knew that Jay's outburst
had been, at least partly, Temperamental Director Theater. It really
made me feel like part of the show. I even improvised at one point;
when Mary looked at me and I was supposed to shake my head, I pointed at the
clock instead. A few more times through the scene, then they moved on
to the next scene, and I was back up in the bleachers with Eddy, basking in
the glow of a memory that will last a lifetime. The afternoon stretched on.
Around five o'clock they broke up for the day. Eddy and I were going
to spend the next day at the beach, since Tuesday's work was basically a
copy of Monday's. We said goodbye before leaving, and everyone again
said how wonderful it was to meet us. Back at Allan's office we met Dan Jenkins,
whose agency handled public relations for Mary's show in its first two seasons.
Dan asked if I'd mind being interviewed by a television columnist. I
told him I didn't mind at all, it sounded like fun. He said he'd set
it up for Friday afternoon. He then accompanied us to a car rental agency,
where he used his personal Diner's Club card to guarantee our rental of a
car for the week. Neither of us had a credit card back then, and it
hadn't occurred to us that one would be needed (flying on an airplane wasn't
the only thing we were doing for the first time). We drove back to
the motel, called home, and filled everyone in on our big day. Eddy
complained that he'd spent all day being referred to as "Joe's brother." The
next day we spent at the beach in Santa Monica. Sun, sand, surf, beautiful
girls in skimpy bathing suits. It was beautiful. I couldn't wait
to get back to the studio. More on that next time. Big Chicken!
I almost forgot to tell you about Big Chicken! And you were supposed
to remind me. While having lunch at the Tail O' the Cock Restaurant and talking
with Mary and the others about different things I'd written in my letters,
the subject of my rating system came up. This rating system, tongue
in cheek though it was, nevertheless achieved a sort of grudging acceptance
because it nailed the worst episode of the first season, "The Forty-Five-Year-Old
Old Man." That story got the lowest score. My main complaint was
that it seemed to jerk around in the telling. Its parts didn't fit
together well, or as well as most of their stories. It didn't flow smoothly.
So they told me why. The original title had been "Big Chicken." It
was intended to tell the story of that character when he had to be let go
from the station. It was inspired by actor Richard Libertini's uncanny
ability to imitate a bird. But when they did the episode, it didn't
turn out nearly as funny as they thought it would. The studio audience
didn't respond well, and even if they'd "sweetened" the reaction with a laugh
track, they didn't think it would save the show. Richard did his part,
but the result -- a man stalking around in a giant bird suit -- just didn't,
well, fly. The decision was made that this show wouldn't be released, at least
not in its original form. They rewrote the story into the familiar one
we know about Lou being fired and Mary going to see Wild Jack to save his
job. They kept some of the scenes from the original "Big Chicken," and
shot others in an empty studio whenever they had the time. The result
was okay, I suppose, but definitely not up to their usual standard. What
can you expect, though, given the cobbled together nature of the thing? That's
why it was the last new episode telecast in the first season. That's
why it was the only episode from the first season not to be rerun during
the summer. As far as I know, it was also never released into syndication.
They were ashamed of it. Ironically, after its only network airing,
it was hailed by some famous television critic (I forget his name; I think
it was Martin something) as a "classic." They all got a chuckle out of that.
Two final bits about this story. First, Slim Pickens, who played Wild
Jack, was performing before a live audience for the first time in his long
career in movies and television. Allan said he had a terrible case of stage
fright all week, but did a terrific job when the cameras started rolling.
Second, this is an episode whose title is almost always misstated. Most
of the time it's called "The Forty Five Year Old Man," but that's wrong.
It's "The Forty-Five-Year-Old Old Man." See, there should be a second
"old" in there. That's the joke. Lou was only 45 years old, but
he was being considered an old man. When Mimi Kirk sent me a note with
the episode's title, she made the same mistake in her typing, but then wrote
in the extra "old" by hand. Several years later, when Carol Straugn
(a name which will come up later in this story) sent me a listing of the first
five years of episodes, that listing had codified the title as "The Forty
Five Year Old Man." When I asked her about it, she wrote back to confirm
that the correct title had the word repeated. Think we can fight the entrenched
wisdom and get all those episode listings in all those websites corrected?
Nah! Tuesday was a beach day for us, so there's nothing to tell relating
to MTM. Allow me to back up to Monday, when Dan Jenkins, MTM's public
relations guy during the first two seasons, accompanied Eddy and me to a
car rental agency and used his personal credit card to get us a vehicle.
While the paperwork was being made out, Dan told us that in all the years
he'd been involved with television and movies he'd never heard of a fan like
me being allowed the type of access we were enjoying at the studio.
That's what made it a good story and why he wanted me to be interviewed later
in the week. He went on to say that in his experience the atmosphere surrounding
a show like Mary's took its cue largely from the star, and I was fortunate
to have developed an attraction for a star whose personality created the
kind of easygoing, accessible environment in which two guys from Rhode Island
could come out and hobnob with the cast and crew. He said he wasn't
taking anything away from my contribution in terms of persistence and the
quality of my letters. But he thought that on almost any other show
that persistence would not have paid off with much more than an autographed
picture and a form letter thanking me for my interest in the show. As
valid as his comments may be, I think there may be a bit of circular logic
involved in what he said. It was precisely those qualities of friendliness
and accessibility which attracted me to her in the first place. All
right, let's give testosterone its due and throw in her fabulous good looks.
It may be academic at best (and turgid otherwise) to try to trace the dynamics
of what happened. Better to enjoy it for what it was -- a unique experience
-- and leave the explanations for those who need to have them.
By Wednesday the episode had been rehearsed thoroughly and changed
extensively. The next step in the production process is called the
run through, where the producers and staff writers sit in front of the cast
on Wednesday afternoon and watch them perform each scene. Problems are discussed
and possible solutions tried out. When the run through is over, the
writers and producers adjourn for a late night meeting to thrash out any
problems that remain. This is the last opportunity they have to make
major changes in the script. We reached the studio
lot around 4:00 p.m. and went to Allan's office. When the run through was
about to begin, we accompanied him to the set and took our usual seats in
the bleachers to watch. Mary greeted us warmly and asked how we'd liked
the beach. During the run through, one of the questions that came up
was whether viewers would find it offensive to see Lou actually take a drink
in his office (he was going to have to go on camera and do the news in place
of Ted, who was on strike, and was seeking courage from the bottle). As the
question was being discussed, Mary looked up at me in the bleachers and asked
what I thought. I told her I'd always gotten a kick out of Lou's drinking,
and didn't think it would be offensive. During that night's rewrite
session it was decided that he wouldn't take that drink, but it was quite
a thrill to be asked my opinion. Something else
happened that was even more of a thrill. At the end of the run through,
as Eddy and I were saying goodnight, Mary asked what we'd be doing the next
day. When we told her we were going to Disneyland, she told us her
favorite ride was Pirates of the Caribbean and to make sure we didn't miss
that one. She then said that they were going to try to get me into
the episode as an extra! There was a bar scene with the cast sitting
at a couple of tables in the foreground and a somewhat rowdy crowd around
the bar in back, and that's where they were going to plant me. Or try,
anyway. She couldn't make any promises because the actors union might
not allow a non-member like me to be on camera (taking the place of a union
member). I keep saying this, but it's true: pretty heady stuff, huh?
Thursday was spent at Disneyland, which was fun.
Especially Pirates of the Caribbean. Friday rolled
around. Eddy and I met Chuck Witbeck, the syndicated television columnist
with whom Dan Jenkins had set up our interview. We got another free
lunch and had a good time telling Chuck about our experiences with Mary and
everyone else. His column was not syndicated in our area of the country,
so Dan promised to send us a clipping when it came out.
Back to the studio after lunch, watching more rehearsals. Things were
different than they'd been during the week because now all the guest actors
and extras were on the scene. There was an excitement and anticipation which
I guess is like the atmosphere surrounding a play. Sadly, they weren't
able to get the union to give its okay to my being on camera. I COULD
HAVE BEEN SOMEBODY!! Oh, well. I probably would have turned into
a backstabbing Hollywood weasel. Lorenzo came by and chatted for a
few minutes. He mentioned that there was some talk about finding something
for me to do at MTM Enterprises. I thought he was referring to the
abortive attempt to get me into that week's show, and told him that that
had fallen through. But he said he knew about that already. He
was talking about something permanent, like a job of some kind. He
said to stay cool and we'd see if anything developed. Later that afternoon,
Grant ambled over to the set. All week, whenever I asked what his connection
was with the show, people had been vague in their answers. They'd say he
was involved in administration (whatever that meant), or that "he's not directly
a part of the show." It wasn't until I got home and received a letter
on his stationery that I found out that he was the president of MTM Enterprises.
He and I talked for a while, and maybe it was what Lorenzo had just said
about some kind of job for me that put me in a particular frame of mind,
but I got the distinct impression that he was trying to size up my interest
(and aptitude) for working in television. Eddy told me later that he'd gotten
the same impression. Dinner in the studio commissary (which wasn't
bad at all), then we joined the people who were being led by network pages
to their seats in the bleachers (which we regarded as our seats after all
the time we'd spent on them all week). Being familar with the show's
plot, we knew that most of the action took place in the Newsroom, so we asked
if we could sit in front of that set. Not a problem. (The permanent
locations of the sets, by the way, was with the Apartment in the center of
the stage and the Newroom to the Apartment's right, with any additional sets
like this episode's bar scene on the Apartment's left.)
The show began around 7:00. Lorenzo was the Master of Ceremonies,
introducing the cast members, telling jokes, and talking to the audience.
He answered questions and explained what was going on. If a scene needed
to be stopped at some point and restarted (if an actor messed up a line,
for example), he would encourage us to laugh as if we were hearing the jokes
for the first time. Between scenes, he did things like announce that
Jim Brooks's wife had just delivered their first baby that day (8 pounds
3 ounces), and he even told the audience about Eddy and me and had me stand
up and take a bow. One of the things they were
all surprised to learn was that I hadn't kept copies of any of my letters.
Well, during one of the breaks in filming, Mary came out with a binder which
contained copies of every letter I'd written up to that point, and presented
it to me. I was completely taken by surprise. CBS's promotional
jingle that year was "CBS -- Where the Good Times Are" with a very colorful
rainbow background. They'd taken one of CBS's binders with that cover,
cut out the "CBS" and substituted "MTM." It was another amazingly thoughtful
gesture. Of course, I still have it today.
In addition to Lorenzo's patter, they had a three-member jazz ensemble playing
between scenes, so the audience was kept entertained through the whole two-and-a-half
hour production. When the episode was finished, everyone came out for
one last bow, and the rest of the audience departed. But it wasn't over yet
for the cast and crew. Sometimes a scene needed to be done over so
many times that the director would decide to move on rather than make the
audience hear and see the same things again and again. In that case,
after the audience had left, they would do the scene in an empty studio,
just like in rehearsal, then add the audience reaction from when they'd done
it live earlier. This is called doing a scene "in pickup." Also,
sometimes a word or phrase isn't clear when the actor says it during the
show. These unclear words or phrases are then recorded separately after
the show, the actor saying them with several different inflections and speeds
so the editor can have a choice as to which one fits best. They are
referred to as "wild lines." In this particular episode there were
no scenes in pickup, but there were a few wild lines. When that bit of business
was taken care of, everyone down on the stage shared champagne (in honor
of Jim's new baby), and Eddy and I had our pictures taken with the cast and
production staff. (Ed and I had decided not to bring cameras with us
each day. These wonderful people had let us into their lives, and we didn't
want to alienate them by acting like obnoxious tourists. Dan Jenkins
hired a photographer to take pictures of us during the filming and the celebration
afterward.) In addition to the binder filled with my letters, there was an
envelope filled with autographed pictures of the cast members. Mary's
inscription read, "To Joe With Love from your number one fan -- Mary Tyler
Moore." When we finally had to leave, we thanked everyone profusely
and gave hugs all around. After she hugged me Mary said, "Come back
whenever you like. You're always welcome on this set." What can
I say? She's the best there is. The next day (Saturday), Eddy and I
drove down the coast to Del Mar, home of a famous horserace track.
Eddy was a big horse racing fan and had intended to visit Del Mar all along
as part of this trip. I can't remember if we won or lost; I was still
high from the week of incredible experiences we'd just had. On Sunday
we returned the rental car, boarded our plane, and flew home. And that's
the story.
