Product Description

Mary and the gang from WJM-TV return in another award-winning season. No longer the new girl in town, Mary has come to think of the newsroom staff as family. But along with the good times and close friendships come the often trying—and ultimately hilarious—situations every family faces. From Mary explaining the facts of life to Phyllis’ daughter to going on a blind date (set up by Lou!) to attending her disastrous high school reunion, it’s clear why this TV classic is one of the most beloved comedies of all time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5841 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-07-26
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Dubbed in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 613 minutes

Amazon.com
The Emmy-winning first season was an auspicious beginning. By its second season, the classic theme song "Love is All Around" has been revamped with an even more optimistic outlook: "You're gonna make it after all." In the sophomore season of this instant gold-standard sitcom, the ace writing staff and peerless ensemble begin to flesh out the iconic characters. Gruff Lou Grant (Ed Asner, enjoying his second Emmy-winning season) reveals his more loveable side when he discovers his son-in-law out with another woman in "The Six-and-a-Half-Year Itch." Vain Ted Baxter (Ted Knight) becomes a more sympathetic character in "Cover Boy," featuring the hilariously preening Jack Cassidy as Ted's competitive brother, and "And Now, Sitting in for Ted Baxter," in which a substitute anchor earns higher ratings than the vacationing Ted. Mary, the sweetheart of prime time, is still something of a pushover (in "Feeb," she feels compelled to write a letter of recommendation for an extraordinarily incompetent secretary), but she develops the backbone to stand up to an anti-Semite who disapproves of Rhoda in one of the season's best episodes, "Some of My Best Friends Are Rhoda." The indelible friendship between Mary and Rhoda (Valerie Harper, also earning her second consecutive Emmy) is sorely tested when they become temporary roommates in "Where There's Smoke, There's Rhoda." As with the most enduring shows, The Mary Tyler Moore Show eschewed topical humor that would date the series, and instead, mined its more universal and timeless humor from the wellspring of the characters. More than 30 years later, there is still, as ever, something about Mary. --Donald Liebenson

Customer Reviews

About Time
Finally! While so much crap is coming out on DVD the best show of all time is finally getting it's due. Thank you Fox for having the good sense to release a TV classic. It was during this time [1970's] that sitcoms made the change to reflect what was going on in America. Always funny and sometimes controversial, Mr. Grant got divorced, Mary was a liberated women etc. The cast was perfect for their roles. This show is very tame by todays standards, but still original and hillarious. No need to go into details of the show because we all know about the show. I watched this show when I was a kid in the 70's and liked it then. Fans please buy this DVD so Fox will release the rest of the seasons, before they use up their supply of DVDs for more releases of American Idol or some other crap show.

Classic season of "MTMS" finally available on DVD
She had spunk. As Lou Grant (Ed Asner) noted in the first episode, he hated that. Luckily, the rest of the nation loved it. Mary Tyler Moore lit up "The Dick Van Dyke Show" during its run and after a string of movie disasters returned to the small screen with "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" a series that was pitch perfect for her small screen persona. I always think of Mary Tyler Moore as a single, hipper Samantha Stevens without the magic. She had her comic foils but she didn't have to go home with them and deal with their ranting and ravings about all the mistakes she had made during the episode. Moore's show created by writer/director/producer James L. Brooks ("Broadcast News") and Allan Burns poked fun at everything from the nosy next door neighbor (Phyllis expertly played by Cloris Leachman soon to get her own show) to the goofy, uncertain best friend ( Rhoda played by Valerie Harper and soon to get her own show as well). She had the clueless but big hearted boss (Ed Asner as Lou Grant soon to get his own show- I see a trend here...) and the stuffy news anchor (expertly played by the funny, diverse Ted Knight so well that for many years nobody could see him as anything but the stuffy "you fill in the blanks" character on a number of shows).

After a two year wait the second season FINALLY comes to DVD. It seems that Fox was disappointed by the sales of the first season which came with many of the same bells and whistles as this one does. What Fox failed to factor they had priced the first season way too high. So the lesson learned here is that when you price any series or movie too high smart buyers are going to rent it or, better yet, wait until you finally drop the price to purchase it. So it really wasn't due to any fault in the quality of the boxed set but the idiocy and greed of the marketing department. This ain't "The X-Files" folks (and that series would have sold much, much better if it had also been priced more affordably like Fox has been doing lately with retailers). So this set has been languishing (along with extras) in DVD purgatory until this year two and a half years after the initial release of this series.

The second season of "MTMS" looks as sharp and colorful as the first. While some of the episodes are a bit dark, the colors are much richer and more vibrant than any syndicated version of the series I've ever seen. It's hard to compare to the original broadcast episodes because it's been so long and the quality of color TVs just can't compare (and neither can memory) to that of the current crop of HDTV ready TVs. The images are clean of analog artifacts for the most part and look crisper than Mary's 70's era disco inspired outfits. There's only so much that you can do to improve mono sound. "MTMS" sounds really good with clear dialog and music cues.

I was afraid with the lower price for this set that Fox might skimp on the extras but seeing as how they already had them lined up, they've kept them in tact for this release. Future releases, on the other hand, may not have much of anything. Fox has included the Mad magazine parody "The Mary Tailor-Made Show" with each panel presented in a large enough format to read. We get the first season and season two through seven openings with their dizzy pop zoom shots in karaoke format. The re-recorded theme with different opening lyrics and a more easy listening arrangement misses the energy of the later season opening theme. It sounds as if the opening was re-recorded and then edited together with the earlier theme song. We get clips from the Emmy Awards for Ed Asner and Valerie Harper for the second season of the series. Asner's acceptance speech is a crack up. Harper tied with Sally Struthers ("All in the Family") in a unique situation that hasn't occurred since. We get Struthers and Harper both giving their acceptance speeches. Struthers is a crack up.

We also get a "News Beat" segment from the comedy show. How is that tied into " The Mary Tyler Moore Show"? They go in search of Mary Richards and everywhere she went. "Moore on Sunday" is from a local TV program with behind-the-scenes footage of the shooting of the second season opening title. The color on this extra is quite faded and the picture quality so-so but, hey, it's a piece of history. "8 characters in Search of a Sitcom" features writers-producers-creators Jim Brooks, Alan Burns, director Jay Sandrich Joan Darling actor/teacher/director of the episode "Chuckles Bites the Dust" provides some great comments about the various characters in the series. Members of the cast such as Ed Asner, Betty White, Valerie Harper and others appear discussing their characters and the relationships on the show. We also get a photo gallery that includes pictures of scripts from the series all provided by Ed Asner. There are also photos of Gavin MacLeod and director Peter Baldwin at the DVD commentary session, Asner preparing to shoot the Trivia Game for the DVD, Paul Sand and producer David Davis again shot while they were prepping for their commentary tracks. We even get good old Cleveland Armory the TV critic for TV Guide during the 70's with his recap of the Emmy Awards and who won. There's also the "All-Star Trivia Challenge" hosted by Asner. Sadly, the only person missing from all this is Mary Tyler Moore herself.
A classic, classy package from Fox, I'm happy that "The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Complete 2nd Season" has finally been released from DVD purgatory by Fox. It was worth it guys. With the second season more reasonably priced than the first, I'm hoping this second season will sell better than the first and prompt Fox to release the remaining seasons on DVD. Fox has done a marvelous job of transferring this classic series and providing great extras as well.

It's about time!
It is hard to rate an unseen item but if the second season is as nicely remastered and as well packaged as the first season the wait will have been worth it. I don't really understand why it has taken so long to bring out Mary Tyler Moore on DVD, when you can get the complete Dick Van Dyke Show. But, whose to figure the mechanizations of this industry. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was one of the best series to come out of the 70s. It is so great to be able to relive it on DVD in all its glory.