| Former type | Corporation |
|---|---|
| Industry | Television production |
| Fate | Folded into 20th Century Fox Television |
| Founded | 1969 |
| Defunct | 1998 |
| Key people | Mary Tyler Moore Grant Tinker |
| Owner(s) | Independent (1969–1990) TVS Entertainment plc (1990–1992) International Family Entertainment Inc. (1992-1996) News Corporation (1996-1998) |
MTM Enterprises (later known as MTM Enterprises, Inc.) was an American independent production company established in 1969 by Mary Tyler Moore and her then-husband Grant Tinker to produce The Mary Tyler Moore Show for CBS. The name for the production company was drawn from Moore's initials.[1]
MTM produced a number of successful television programs during the 1970s and 1980s. Its recognizable logo, shown briefly at the end of their programs, was a meowing Mimsie the Cat in a pose reminiscent of the MGM Lion.
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For many years MTM, with CBS, co-owned the CBS Studio Center in Studio City, California, where a majority of their programs were filmed and videotaped. In turn, most of MTM's series aired on CBS.
MTM Enterprises acquired Jim Victory Television from Viacom Enterprises in 1980 taking the MTM library with it. Victory was later reincorporated as MTM Television Distribution, which in turn was folded into 20th Television after News Corporation bought MTM.
After being an independent production company for many years, MTM was sold in 1990 to British production company TVS Entertainment, which was in turn acquired by Pat Robertson's International Family Entertainment in late 1992. IFE along with MTM was sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 1996. MTM ceased operations and was folded into 20th Century Fox Television on August 15, 1998 when The Family Channel became Fox Family. The library of non-MTM shows was subsequently sold on to form part of ABC Family's archive.
MTM Enterprises also included a record label, MTM Records, which was in existence from 1984 to 1988.[2]
MTM's productions included:
In addition to the above shows, MTM has distributed programs such as:
MTM programs appeared almost exclusively on CBS until the early 1980s, when Grant Tinker assumed the additional role of president of NBC. Soon, NBC picked up a number of MTM shows, and Tinker stepped down as head of MTM to avoid a conflict of interest. His intention was to leave NBC after 5 years (in 1986) and return to MTM, taking over the reins from interim MTM president Arthur Price. However, Price fired many of the key players in the company's ranks, and by 1986 they had few shows left on the schedules (Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere and Remington Steele were all nearing the ends of their runs, leaving Newhart as the sole entrant on the schedule). There was also a record label in the 1980s featuring the logo on the label. No major mainstream artists recorded for this label; however, Judy Rodman and country girl group, The Girls Next Door, did have a few minor hits on the country charts in the mid-1980s.
Mimsie the Cat (1968-1988) was the cat seen in the MTM Enterprises logo, in an apparent spoof of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's famed lion mascot, Leo.
In the standard version of the logo, as first used on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mimsie appears in a seated position, looks up at the camera, and meows once. Mimsie would not meow for the camera crew, so they eventually used footage of her yawning, run in reverse, with the sound effect added. There were many different variants of this logo, with Mimsie often appearing in a different "costume" corresponding to the style and theme of that particular show. A partial list of Mimsie variants follows.
Other variations of the MTM logo do not feature Mimsie (or an animated version of Mimsie):
One of the last versions of the logo before being sold to Fox had a five note jingle before Mimsie meows.[4]