RIP Mary Tyler Moore

qtlaw reaffirms himself in 2017 as the sj.com regular you'd least like to have a beer with.

 

Sounds like Hall of Fame wingman material to me.

 

I always found a sort of disconnect between the MTM opening and the actual show. The opening showed Mary out and about, shopping, walking in the park, etc. Just about everything in the show happened in two places --- the newsroom and Mary's apartment (with the occasional trip to Rhoda's pad).

 

that's a great point.

 

I think that's deliberate. The idea of the opening was to show Mary's back story -- she came to town as a single woman trying to make it on her own -- and to establish Minneapolis as the setting (since you rarely see any of the setting in the actual show).

 

Same thing with the open to the Bob Newhart Show showing Bob commuting from his apartment to his office in downtown Chicago. Office and apartment were just about the only locations for that show, too.

 

A former co-worker who wound up at the Star Tribune once said that the high-rise apartment building depicted as Mary's home in the final years of the series eventually deteriorated into a crime- and drug-infested hellhole. Can anyone with Twin Cities expertise confirm or deny?

 

Riverside Plaza - Wikipedia

 

I always found a sort of disconnect between the MTM opening and the actual show. The opening showed Mary out and about, shopping, walking in the park, etc. Just about everything in the show happened in two places --- the newsroom and Mary's apartment (with the occasional trip to Rhoda's pad).

Easiest explanation is the show was filmed on a studio set in California, and not in Minneapolis. They didn't have to waste time and money shooting backdrops in Minnesota (or Chicago, for Newhart).

 

I'll let my buddies answer that.

 

Hüsker Dü Had the Best Cover of the 'Mary Tyler Moore' Theme Song

 

Off the MTM topic a bit, but I lived in Dallas for a few years during the heyday of "Dallas" and can confirm that very little of the show was filmed there aside from the outdoor shots depicting the settings. There were occasional scenes that depicted characters walking through downtown or whatever and were filmed there, but those occasions were rare. Too bad -- I would have loved to have caught a glimpse of Victoria Principal back in those days.