| Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman | |
|---|---|
DVD box cover |
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| Also known as | Forever Fernwood |
| 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 |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 455 (325 as Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and 130 as Forever Fernwood) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 23 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Syndicated |
| Original run | January 6, 1976 – May 10, 1977 |
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman is an American soap opera parody that aired in daily (weekday) syndication from January 1976 to May 1977. The series was produced by Norman Lear, directed by Joan Darling and starred Louise Lasser. The series writers were Gail Parent and Ann Marcus.
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.
In 2004 and 2007, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was ranked #21 and #26 on "TV Guide's Top Cult Shows Ever".[1][2]
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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.
The title sequences, which were somewhat suitable for soaps of the day, was a shot of pictures, planters, etc. that were near the dining room window at the Shumway home.
The storyline follows unhappy housewife Mary Hartman (née Shumway), played by Louise Lasser, her slightly unfaithful husband Tom (Greg Mullavey), her forgetful and somewhat daffy mother Mrs. Martha Shumway (Dody Goodman) who tended to talk more to her plants, and Mary’s best friend and next-door neighbor, aspiring country singer 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; Philip Bruns (and for a few episodes, Tab Hunter), who played George Shumway, Martha's husband and Mary and Cathy's father; Victor Kilian, who played Grandpa Raymond Larkin, Martha's father, who was eventually revealed to be the Fernwood Flasher; Claudia Lamb, who played Heather Hartman, Tom and Mary's troubled daughter, who had, unfortunately, witnessed the massacre of the Lombardi family (including the goats and chickens); Salome Jens, who played Tom's co-worker, Mae Olinski, with whom he had an affair; Bruce Solomon, who played Sgt. Dennis Foley, a police officer who liked Mary, whom she eventually ran off with (see Forever Fernwood, below); Martin Mull, as both wife-beater Garth Gimble and his twin brother, talk show host, Barth Gimble; Norman Alden as Coach Leroy Fedders, Tom's former High School coach, who ended up drowning in chicken soup; Reva Rose as Blanche Fedders, Coach Fedders' constantly protesting and militant wife; Susan Browning, who played Garth's wife, Pat, the target of his abuse; Sparky Marcus, who played Jimmy Joe Jeeter, child evangelist, who perished when a TV set fell into the bathtub electrocuting him; Dabney Coleman, who played Merle Jeeter, Fernwood's slightly devious mayor and Jimmy Joe's father; Marian Mercer, who played Wanda Rittenhouse Jeeter, a widow of a city commissioner, and a former sanitarium mate of Mary's who became Jeeter's second wife while also carrying on a bisexual relationship with their maid, Lila; Gloria DeHaven as CB radio aficionado Annie "Tippytoes" Wylie, a bisexual who also had an affair with Tom Hartman; Orson Bean, who played one of Fernwood's clergymen, Reverend Brim; George Furth, who played Reverend Standfast, who helped Mary, under duress, through the hostage crisis with Davey Jessup (Will Seltzer); Doris Roberts, who played Dorelda Doremus, a faith healer; Michael Lembeck, who played local television reporter Clete Meizenheimer; Andrew Rubin, who played his co-reporter, Jesus Jarerra; and Archie Hahn, who played Harold Clemens, a reporter for the Fernwood Courier.
The series took place in the fictional town of Fernwood, Ohio. Although there is a real Fernwood, Ohio, in the United States (located in Jefferson County, Ohio), the town in the series was not based on it, but was instead named for Fernwood Avenue, which runs behind the KTLA/Sunset Bronson Studios where the show taped.
In its first episode, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman addressed the Lombardi family of five that had been mass-murdered (including the goats and chickens) by young Davey Jessup, and had been witnessed by Mary's daughter, Heather; and the "Fernwood Flasher", who turned out to be Mary's grandfather, Raymond Larkin. Characters on the show died in several bizarre ways, including bathtub electrocution (Jimmy Joe Jeeter), drowning in chicken soup (Coach Leroy Fedders), and impalement on an aluminum Christmas tree (Garth Gimble).
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". One of her sanitarium mates, widowed Wanda Rittenhouse (Marian Mercer) would be more prominent, when she married Merle Jeeter, the mayor of Fernwood.
When Lasser left the show in 1977, it was re-branded Forever Fernwood and followed the trials and tribulations of Mary's family and friends after she ran away with a policeman (the aforementioned Sgt. Dennis Foley), with whom she had a lot of contact in the first season. Aside from Lasser, the rest of the cast was pretty much intact. Forever Fernwood 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 Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman character, Loretta Haggers. The album featured appearances by Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, and one of its songs, "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 Award 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.
During the run of the series and its various spin-offs 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."
In 2000, several 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.
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.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman: Volume 1 | 25 | March 27, 2007 |
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was syndicated on local stations briefly in 1982, and enjoyed some short-lived air time on the Lifetime Television in 1994 and TV Land in 2002.
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