Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

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Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman
Format Soap Opera/Sitcom/Satire
Created by Jerry Adelman
Daniel Gregory Browne
Ann Marcus
Starring Louise Lasser
Greg Mullavey
Mary Kay Place
Graham Jarvis
Debralee Scott
Dody Goodman
Philip Bruns
Claudia Lamb
Victor Kilian
et al
Country of origin Flag of the United States United States
No. of episodes 325
Production
Running time 30 minutes per episode
Broadcast
Original channel Syndicated
Original run January 6, 1976 – May 10, 1977
External links
IMDb profile

Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (sometimes abbreviated as MH2) is a 1976-1977 syndicated soap opera parody produced by Norman Lear and directed by Joan Darling. The soap was written by sitcom writer Gail Parent and soap writer Ann Marcus, who was best known for her work on Search for Tomorrow.

The show's title was the eponymous character's name stated twice, because Lear and the writers believed that everything that was said on a soap opera was said twice. Lear conceived Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman as satire, but it was viewed as so controversial that many stations aired it well after their 11 P.M. newscasts. The irony was that while Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman dealt with many of the same topics found in episodes of daytime soap operas, the topics were called by their names (impotence, sexual perversion) instead of being referred to in the hushed tones and euphemisms typically favored by "straight" soaps, although the cast had a tongue-in-cheek performance style. For this reason, the series was even more controversial than it might otherwise have been.

In 1977, the similarly-themed Soap was released, but, unlike Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Soap played itself more like a traditional sitcom. Something that made the very similar shows also very different was that MH2, while being a soap parody, played like an actual soap, in that there was no studio audience or laugh track, there were tight close-ups of characters' faces, and the show aired five days a week with no repeats throughout the year.

The storyline followed Mary Hartman, played by Louise Lasser, her husband Tom (Greg Mullavey), her mother Mrs. Martha Shumway (Dody Goodman), and Mary’s best friend and next-door neighbor, Loretta Haggers, (Mary Kay Place) and Loretta's much older husband Charlie ("Baby Boy") Haggers, played by Graham Jarvis.

Other cast members included Debralee Scott (who played Cathy Shumway, Mary's maneater sister), Martin Mull (as both wife-beater Garth Gimble and talk show host, Barth Gimble), Dabney Coleman (who played Merle Jeeter, Fernwood's slightly devious mayor), Marian Mercer (who played Wanda, a former sanitarium mate of Mary's and Jeeter's second wife) and Doris Roberts (who played Dorelda Doremus, a faith healer).

The series took place in the fictional town of Fernwood, Ohio. Although there is a real Fernwood, Ohio in the United States, the town in the series was not based on it but was instead named for Fernwood Avenue which runs behind the KTLA/Tribune Studios where the show taped.

In its first episode, MH2 addressed a family that had been mass-murdered (including the goats and chickens) and the "Fernwood Flasher", who turned out to be Mary's grandfather. Characters on the show died in several bizarre ways, including bathtub electrocution, drowning in chicken soup, and impalement on an aluminum Christmas tree.

Mary Hartman had a nationally televised nervous breakdown on The David Susskind Show at the end of the first season. Mary then found herself in a psychiatric ward, and she was delighted to be part of their selected Nielsen Ratings "family".

When Lasser left the show in 1977, it was rebranded Forever Fernwood and followed the trials and tribulations of Mary's family and friends after she ran away with a policeman. The series finally ended in 1978, after only 26 weeks on the air, along with the talk show parody spin-off Fernwood 2-Night. A total of 130 half-hour episodes were produced.

Mary Kay Place was nominated for a Grammy Award for the album Tonite! At the Capri Lounge, Loretta Haggers on which she sang as her MH2 character, Loretta Haggers. One of the songs Place wrote for the album, "Baby Boy", climbed to the Top 60 on Billboard's Pop Charts, and #3 on the country charts, in 1976. Place also won an Emmy for her performance on the show. The show's writers realized Loretta Haggers' newfound fame made it harder to keep her character in Fernwood, so they devised a storyline wherein the country and western star makes an anti-semitic, career-shattering remark on the Dinah Shore talk show.

Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was syndicated on local stations briefly in 1982, and enjoyed some short-lived air time on the television channel TV Land in 2002. Aside from the two-volume videocassette issued in the 1980s and bootlegged videos, the show has been difficult to find on any format. With the exception of the first 25 episodes available on DVD, many fans have been unable to watch most of the episodes from this series.

In 2000, many of the original cast appeared on a panel for a Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman retrospective at the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills, CA. The panel discussion was taped for the museum's archives.

During the run of the series and its various spinoffs and sequels, KTTV, which broadcast the series in the Los Angeles market, also broadcast a tongue-in-cheek version of its nightly "Metronews" newscast, titled "Metronews, Metronews."

Contents

[edit] DVD releases

On March 27, 2007, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman: Volume One on DVD in Region 1. The three-disc boxset features the first 25 episodes of Season 1.

Cover Art DVD Name Ep # Release Date
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman: Volume 1 25 March 27, 2007

[edit] Video releases

  • The Best of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman — Volume I. Videocassette. Embassy Home Entertainment.
  • The Best of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman — Volume II. Videocassette. Embassy Home Entertainment.
v • d • e
Shows produced or created by Norman Lear

[edit] See also

[edit] External links