Health crisis for Mary Lou Retton

Film and TV appearances[edit]

• 1985: ABC Funfit; hosted a series of five-minute segments on physical fitness which were broadcast between Saturday morning cartoons.[29]
• 1988: Scrooged; as herself.[30]
• 1992: Knots Landing; as herself in the episode "Letting Go".[31]
• 1993: Baywatch; in the episode "The Child Inside".[32]
• 1994: An Evening at the Improv; as herself.[33]
• 1994: Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult; as herself.[34]
• 2002: Mary Lou's Flip Flop Shop.[35]
• 2010: Glee; in the episode "Grilled Cheesus" Sue Sylvester refers to Mary Lou Retton as her worst enemy.[36]
• 2014: RadioShack Super Bowl XLVIII commercial "The '80s Called"; cameo appearance.[37]
• 2018: Appeared as a contestant on 27th season of Dancing with the Stars, partnered with Sasha Farber. Eliminated Week 6 – 9th Place[38]

 

I swear some of you fuckin’ vultures ain’t gonna be satisfied unless the New York Post gets photos of MLR lying in ICU intubated with an oxygen line runnin’ into her nose.

Yeesh.

 

roll her old bones on over here, and I'll conjure up some sympathy. You know that's school policy.

 

Mary Lou Retton on line one.

 

I don't often actually LOL . . . but I just did.

 

I should just close the laptop for the day if I of all people got you to laugh (with a big assist from @Octave). Of course, when have I ever done that?

As for Mary Lou, this ties together to another common topic here: News deserts. A generation ago, the hospitalization of a former Olympian and one-time poster girl for the good ol' U S of A would have been tracked & chronicled by both her local outlets and the national wire services or papers of record. Now no one's got any time or resources anywhere so the best-case scenario is everyone just taking the word of her daughter via social media and believing the family is being selectively private re: the details b/c they had to say something in order to raise funds for their insurance-less matriarch. The worst-case scenario is, as @wicked noted, the '80s continuing to come home to roost.

 

I can't believe that the fucking Enquirer, of all places, wouldn't be sitting in front of a hospital every day if she was in one — or in front of her house, if she's being treated at home. I suppose some stringer hoping to sell video to TMZ, too.

That's why this smells like 10-day-old cow shit.

 

How much would the Inquirer pay for a pic of her in a hospital bed?

 

That's another thing. Does the audience for the scuzzball tabloids even know who Mary Lou is? How many 50-somethings are watching TMZ? How many gossip hounds even know the Enquirer still exists? This is where we need the Weekly World News. They'd get to the bottom of Bat Boy's torrid affair with Mary Lou.

 

I always check the tabloids at the grocery store to figure who their fixations are that week. The Bidens clearly don't move the needle. Do they even hang with celebrites the way the Clintons, Obamas and Trump did? No big blowouts on the WH Lawn or anything.

 

I don’t think the Enquirer has any readers younger than 50. Mary Lou is in their wheelhouse.

Anyone 40 and younger is all TMZ. And it’s because they’re everywhere with the website and plenty of clips on social and that stupid TV show.