The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Murray is unhappy with the new station owner's policies and tells him off over the phone one evening. However, the station owner fires him the following day.

Lou almost ruins one of Mary's parties when his old girlfriend, Charlene Maguire, arrives with a date. He tries to make her jealous by taking out one of Mary's neighbors.

Lou has spent the night with Sue Ann, and confides in Mary. Their friendship is almost ruined when Mary is unable to keep the secret.

Lou and Mary go on a press junket to Washington, DC. Lou was once a correspondent there, but Mary has difficulty believing him about his contacts.

Ted and Georgette face marital problems, but Ted refuses to see a counselor unless Lou goes with him.

Initially delighted at the chance of producing the Happy Homemaker show, Murray quickly becomes miserable when he realizes the menial tasks he has to do for Sue Ann.

Mary's old flame Dan Whitfield, who once proposed to her, returns to Minneapolis and she's forced to choose between him and her current boyfriend.

Sue Ann gets Mary to ask Lou out on a date on her behalf. Lou accepts, not realizing who Mary's 'friend' is.

Ted is overjoyed when he gets a tax refund and splurges out on everyone at the newsroom, but is later shocked when the IRS informs him that he will be audited.

Mary is convinced she has really fallen in love, but her boyfriend seems reluctant in saying those three magic words, 'I love you'.

Lou meets up with a woman who had sent him a 'Dear John' letter during World War II but is disappointed to learn her motives for doing so.

Out of pity for Ted, Mary invites him & Georgette over for brunch. While he as an onion ring in his mouth, he proposes to Georgette...again. When, for the first time, Georgette says no, she & Ted have a talk and decide they want to get married now. They invite all their friends: Lou, Murray (with mud on his sweatshirt from his son's football game), and Sue Ann (who, in a spectacularily comedic enterance, brings a veil, flowers, and rice, among several other things). Ted's mom can't make it (she's washing her hair), but the incompetent minister comes straight from his tennis match. Best man Lou helps Ted calm his wedding day jitters. When the minister asks Ted if he takes Georgette to be his lawfully wedded wife, he pauses for a moment. Finally, with a smile on his face, he says, ""I do."" When they are pronounced husband & wife, Sue Ann sings the wedding march...very poorly, of course. Once the wedding ends and Lou, Murray, & Sue Ann leave, Ted asks, as if nothing had happened,

Mary joins a Big Sisters scheme and tries to bring a teenage shoplifter to the side of good. Sue Ann, pursuing an award, decides to "adopt" a little sister as well but finds herself getting influenced.

Chuckles the Clown is crushed to death by a rogue elephant in a parade, which leaves all the newsroom staff in hysterics except Mary.

Mary's high-flying journalist aunt comes for a visit, and Lou finds that he has a rival in her.

Ted's jocular nature is ideal for hosting a game show in New York, and he successfully auditions for the job. But Mary and Lou wonder if they really want to see him go.

Murray realizes that he's always been in love with Mary and wants desperately to tell her.

Mary researches a documentary with the help of a priest. He eventually decides to leave the Church, and Mary thinks that he has fallen in love with her.

Mary, wanting some change in her life, makes the decision to move to a new apartment.

Lou puts on a brave face when he learns that his ex-wife Edie is remarrying.

Ted pops the question to Georgette at Murray's 20th wedding anniversary party and then gets cold feet.

Lou wants to research his own news story now that Mary's producer and decides to launch a major investigation on a city councilor only to discover that he is completely honest.

Phyllis and Lars have a dispute and she finds her credit cards cut off. She looks for a job but finds that she has no relevant skills.

When Ted's formula for betting on football games works, Lou goes into partnership with him. He winds up betting all of the season's winnings on the Super Bowl without telling Ted.

Mary doesn't feel she deserves the title of producer and asks Lou that she be given the chance to produce The Six O'clock News alone.

Now that Mary is producer, Ted thinks that he can make his move on her. He convinces the rest of the newsroom that they are having an affair.

Lou wants to hire a female newscaster 'like Mary', so Mary decides to audition for the job herself.

Lou wants a smaller place and moves in to Rhoda's old apartment but can't help interfering in Mary's private life.

Murray, who has three daughters, wants a son, but his wife Marie doesn't want to have another child. The couple decide to adopt instead.

Ted is shocked when he finds out his mother does not intend to marry her boyfriend, but will live with him.

Mary and Sue Ann go to a convention in Chicago and Mary finds out that Sue Ann leads a lonely life.

The entire newsroom staff is arguing with each other, and when they are trapped at the office due to bad weather, Sue Ann decides to serve her Christmas dinner early.

Phyllis dates a man on a platonic basis, but he is attracted more to Mary and begins seeing her.

A young fan, Gloria, persuades Sue Ann to hire her for The Happy Homemaker. Sue Ann is less than pleased when Gloria plays up to the station manager and gets a larger role on the show at the expense of her own.

Murray meets an attractive woman at one of Mary's parties and considers having an affair. On the pretext of buying her old piano, he goes to see her.

WJM-TV hires a young business consultant, who demands certain changes for The Six O'clock News, offending every member of the news team.

Lou begins seeing a cocktail lounge singer but becomes uncomfortable about her past.

Lou finally loses his temper with Ted when he endorses a political candidate on The Six O'clock News and throws him through the office doors. Lou feels guilty, and Ted takes advantage of him.

Mary dates a man with whom she has nothing in common and becomes concerned that their relationship is superficial.

Mary refuses to reveal a news source for a story she produced and has to spend a night in jail.

To relieve her boredom, Mary jokingly writes a humorous obituary of one of the people in the WJM-TV file. Coincidentally, the same person dies the following day and the obituary is read on the air. Lou has no choice but to suspend Mary, but she threatens to quit in response.

Rhoda tells the secret of Mary's that she never graduated from college, as she claimed on her job application, and their friendship is suddenly put at risk.

Mary and Rhoda are given permission to develop a new show for WJM but their dreams begin to fade when they find out that the hosts will be Ted and Sue Ann, who both begin to interfere with their plans.

Phyllis, who has gotten her real estate license, persuades Lou to sell his house. However, Lou hasn't really made up his mind whether he wants to move.

Mary begins dating the anchorman from Minneapolis's top news show and becomes ashamed of WJM-TV's smaller news operation.

Lou is closing in on fifty and today is his birthday. Mary can't stand the thought of the now-separated Lou celebrating his birthday all alone, so she arranges a surprise party for him. That evening, she invites Lou over for a drink and the doorbell rings just as he tells her how much he appreciated her not throwing an office party for him that afternoon. Gordy is at the door with an envelope...full of hats. Others are out in the hallway, too. Lou is furious and tries to get out using the back door...but there is no back door. Mary asks Lou's permission to invite Murray in. He enters, miffed at Lou's actions. Next Rhoda, and finally Ted, get to come in. Lou admits that he hates displays of affection...then reluctantly agrees to let the remainder of the guests in. While they all file in, he files out and down to MacKluskey's bar where....they throw a surprise party for him. Later he returns to Mary's place to apologize...evidently the guests opened his gifts (at Ted's urging) and they a

Georgette finds Ted making out with a woman in his dressing room. She then decides to enter a nunnery, but the head nun talks her out of it.

Murray's daughter, Bonnie, is looking for a job and Mary is persuaded into giving her one but Bonnie is not as efficient as everyone had hoped.

Phyllis persuades Ted to stand for local government. Ted agrees and goes so far as to quit his job at WJM-TV.

Lou is still heartbroken over Edie's departure and asks Mary to help them get back together.

Mary invites Congresswoman Geddes to a fancy dinner at her home, trying hard to ensure that everything is perfect.

Rhoda begins dating the boss of Hemple's and falls deeply in love with him. She wants to tell him how she feels, but Mary warns her to take things slowly.

Lou gives Mary the task of finding him a date for an awards' ceremony. A name mix-up means that Lou winds up taking out an 80-year-old woman.

Mary's former boyfriend, Wes Callison, gets a job in the newsroom but his affection for Mary gets in the way of his work.

Ted meets his father, who deserted him as a baby.

In this episode Dick Gautier guest stars briefly as Ed Cavenaugh, a sleazy sportscaster. Have a look at his website at Dick Gautier.com. Gordon Jump, later of MTM Enterprises' ""WKRP"" is seen for a few minutes playing one of the sportscaster applicants. When Ted asks Mary to order tweezers and other assorted supplies for his personal use, she gets more than a little flustered and asks Lou to give her something challenging to do. At the drop of a hat, he assigns her the task of hiring a new sportscaster...and firing the old one. In order to let Ed Cavenaugh down easy, she invites him to lunch and he tries to mesmerize her with his suavity with the opposite sex. Then Mary learns a lesson: don't fire the current sportscaster until you've hired another one. After days of screening applicants, listening to demo tapes and perusing their eight-by-ten glossies, she decides on Andy Rivers.

On the advice of their marriage counselor, Lou's wife, Edie, decides to move out. Lou is heartbroken by the prospect.

Rhoda and Mary fly to New York for Rhoda's younger sister's wedding. Rhoda's mother downplays the whole thing fearing that Rhoda is envious.

Mary's boyfriend is younger than she is and she and Rhoda discover there is a generation gap when they go and visit his friends at a party.

Phyllis finds out that Lars has been having an affair with Sue Ann Nivens, the star of WJM-TV's The Happy Homemaker show.

The new station manager, an attractive woman, falls for Lou.

Rhoda introduces Mary to a very irritating Warren Sturges, who tries everything including a giant billboard across the road from the WJM-TV offices to get her to accept his marriage proposal.

Mary and Rhoda try to encourage Georgette to take a stand for herself after seeing how Ted takes advantage of her.

Phyllis wants to set up her visiting brother with Mary, but instead he hits it off with Rhoda and begins spending time with her to Phyllis's disapproval.

Lou spots an opportunity to buy a bar after realizing a lifelong dream. However, he is short of several thousand dollars and Ted is the only one who can come to his aid.

Mary runs into her former boyfriend Dan Whitfield in an elevator by chance. Subsequently, Dan realizes he still has feelings for Mary, breaks off his engagement, and begins dating her again.

Rhoda decides to move back to New York but Mary is taking the whole thing with a grain of salt.

Lou goes to hospital to have a piece of World War II shrapnel removed and, surprisingly, he and Ted become best friends.

Bess's 15-year-old boyfriend falls in love with Mary and begins to surprise her with visits to her apartment and her work.

Mary becomes concerned when her father, newly retired, appears to have no friends or hobbies in Minneapolis, and tries to take on the role herself.

Two of Mary's friends separate and Mary accepts a date from the husband.

Ted refuses to sign his contract renewal until Lou agrees to let him pursue other ventures, a decision he soon regrets when Ted begins appearing in commercials.

Mary begins dating the writer of the Chuckles the Clown show, whose real ambition is to become a stand-up comedian.

Mary is worried that her parents, who have moved to the Twin Cities to be close to her, may pry into her life too much.

After losing 20 pounds, Rhoda enters a beauty contest at work, but continues to put herself down.

When Lou's trip to Las Vegas is cancelled, Mary organizes a poker game at the office where Murray loses a substantial amount to Ted.

Ida Morgenstern, Rhoda's mother, mistakenly believes that her husband is seeing other women, so Rhoda and Mary try to clear things up between them.

Lou is promoted to the position of program director but has to decide to whom his old job should go. Meanwhile, The Six O'clock News begins falling apart without him.

Mary is interviewed by a newspaper columnist and ends up telling a little too much.

Mary is given the task of making The Six O'clock News more upbeat, and her plans are on target to succeed until they're frustrated by Ted.

Bess gets top marks for a report she wrote for school, and Phyllis pressures her to write a book based on it, calling on Mary for help.

After being persuaded by Phyllis, Ted moves into a vacant apartment below Mary's but Mary and Rhoda are not thrilled by the prospect.

Mary agrees to babysit Bess for the weekend, but then a former boyfriend, in town for a few days, asks her out. When she can't find a babysitter for Bess on such short notice, she ends up asking Lou.

Murray takes on a night job as a cab driver in order to save up and buy his wife Marie a new car for their 10th wedding anniversary. However, Marie becomes suspicious about Murray's absences and fears that Murray is having an affair with Mary Richards.

An incompetent waitress is fired after Mary complains about her poor service and Mary feels obliged to hire her when she applies for an assistant's job at WJM-TV.

After volunteering some of her spare time for a worthy cause, Mary begins dating the Governor's aide. Unfortunately, the aide's duties cause him to break every date.

After Ted appears on the Chuckles the Clown Show, he falls in love with Chuckles' daughter.

When Edie is out of town, Lou hires Rhoda to redecorate his living room. However, Rhoda's tastes are too modern.

Rhoda loses her job as a window-dresser and isn't in a hurry to find something new. When there is a job opening at WJM-TV, Mary lies to Rhoda and tells her the job has been filled, to Lou's surprise.

Mary, Rhoda and Lou go to a John Wayne movie, where they spot Lou's son-in-law with an unknown woman.

Mary gets a chain letter from Lou, and she is persuaded to send it on. To her surprise, one of the recipients comes for a visit, giving Mary a less than pleasant time dealing with him.

Ted is forced to take a vacation and the anchorman hired to sit in for him becomes a huge success.

The writing and technical unions go on strike, leaving only Lou, Mary, and Ted in the newsroom. WJM-TV makes Lou be second cameraman on ""The Chuckles the Clown Show"". Because an upset Murray is on strike, Mary has to write the news stories. They are terrible, and when Lou criticizes them, she starts crying. Things take a turn for the worse: Ted's union strikes, and Lou has to fill in as anchorman! On his first brodcast, he has ""clammy hands"", and he bombs. At a local bar, Murray, Gordy, & Mary share a laugh over this. After drinking before his 2nd brodcast, he is ""as cool as a cucumber""--that is, until he falls asleep at breaktime. Herb fills in for Lou for the rest of the brodcast. The next day, the unions come to an agreement, and everything goes back to normal. Rhoda Morgenstern & Phyllis Lindstrom do not appear in this episode.

Mary attends her high school reunion and meets up with her former boyfriend Howard Arnell, who continues to have feelings for Mary. Meanwhile, Rhoda tags along believing that people will ""remember"" her although she didn't attend Roseburg High.

Jack Cassidy guest stars as professional model Hal Baxter, who comes to visit his brother Ted at WJM-TV. Immediately, the two engage in a heated battle of sibling rivalry about EVERYTHING -- salaries, cars, & even women. In an effort to size up his brother, Ted claims that Mary is his girlfriend. Ted & Hal decide to go on a double-date with Mary & Rhoda. At the restaurant, Ted doesn't know any etiquitte, and it shows. Back at Mary's apartment, Ted & Hal arm wrestle before Hal decides to go with Rhoda up to her apartment to look thru magazines for his picture. Ted stays with Mary to make Hal think that he spends more time with his girl than he does.

When Ida, Rhoda's mother, visits, she sees how well Phyllis and Bess get on, and how closely Mary appears to her mother when they chat on the telephone, that she tries to be Rhoda's ""friend"".

Mary and Rhoda enroll in a night school course in journalism and Mary begins dating the lecturer.

Mary and Rhoda take an unplanned vacation to Mexico but have to do a strange favor for a Mexican restaurant owner for reservations.

Mary is intrigued by the voice of Lou Grant's friend, Mike Cooper, and asks to be set up with him. Lou breaks his policy of not matchmaking friends and colleagues.

In the second-season premiere, after Mary Richards produces a ""What's Your Sexual IQ?"" documentary for the Six O'Clock News, Rhoda confesses to failing and Phyllis says that young Bess watched it. Phyllis calls on Mary to teach Bess the facts of life, but it turns out that Bess already had learned it from her friends. Meanwhile, the WJM-TV newsroom is shelled with phone calls responding to the documentary. According to Mary, more people are appalled by it than anything else.

Mary is admitted into the hospital to have her tonsils removed, and shares a room with a grouchy woman who refuses to get along with anyone.

Murray's play, All Work and No Play, is finally produced but his happiness is short-lived when he discovers that the leading role will be played by Ted.

Mary's apartment is burgled, with only her clothes, stereo and television taken but then next night the whole apartment is cleaned out.

Mary reluctantly finds herself romantically involved with a married man.

Mary gets a tempting offer from a rival television station, but becomes reluctant to leave when her WJM-TV colleagues throw a farewell party for her.

Mary begins seeing Paul Arnell, the brother of her former boyfriend Howard Arnell, and is shocked to discover that the brothers' parents still believe that she and Howard are an item.

Feeling sympathetic for a co-worker who hasn't spent Christmas with his family for years, Mary is forced to stay alone at WJM-TV on Christmas Eve.

After Mary invites Lou's nephew home for dinner, she must confront false rumors in the newsroom the following day.

Ted loses his self-confidence after speaking at Phyllis's club and Mary has to find a way to get Ted back on a high.

Mary is audited by the IRS, and the shy auditor takes an interest in her. Unfortunately, he has great difficulty telling her how he feels.

Mary's workload gets too much so Lou allows her to hire an assistant. She chooses Phyllis who hinders more than she helps.

Mary is nominated for her first Television Editors' Award (the ""Teddies""), but at home Rhoda's boyfriend Bob takes more of an interest in Mary than in Rhoda.

A snowstorm leaves Mary producing her first program, broadcasting the results of the local elections. The show has to remain on until a winner is declared and no word is received at the newsroom.

Mary begins seeing an author who appeared as a guest on WJM-TV's Scrutiny, and becomes extremely self-conscious after discovering he is several inches shorter than her.

Rhoda's mother, Ida, comes visiting and Rhoda refuses to see her. Ida stays with Mary but drives her crazy.

A football player turned insurance salesman applies for a job as a sportscaster and attaches himself to Mary. Mary and Rhoda discover that he hasn't had much success at anything and encourage him to pursue his dreams.

Mary and Rhoda find out that divorcees at the Better Luck Next Time club can get group rates on cruises and decide to join. However, Mary proves a hit with the club's members and gets elected to its board.

When Phyllis's husband Lars takes ill, she asks Mary to babysit Bess for a few days. Bess decides she wants to stay permanently with Mary, to Phyllis's dismay.

Mary is worried now that she's outside the 15-29 demographic group which the station classifies as 'young', and the mailboy has called her 'Ma'am'. Rhoda persuades her into calling an old boyfriend for a get-together.

The classic series begins its classic 7-year run in Mary's apartment. Mary Richards, a 30-year-old single woman, has left her long-time boyfriend, Bill, to be with her old friend, Phyllis Lindstrom, in Minneapolis. (Mary originally lived in Roseburg, MN.) Why did Mary leave Bill? After promising to her that he would marry her right after his internship at the hospital, he said, ""Why rush into things???"" Meanwhile, she's already having troubles with her new apartment--a bitter upstairs neightbor, Rhoda Morgenstern, insists that she owns Mary's apartment!

In September 1973, three years after the debut of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," WCCO-TV's "Moore On Sunday" program went behind the scenes with the MTM production crew as it returned to Minneapolis to shoot new scenes for a refresh of the show's opening sequence.

Produced by Danny Gold and Matthew Asner (son of Ed), the documentary interviews practically every surviving member of the MTM team (Ted Knight and writer Lorenzo Music have both passed away). Gold and Asner dig deep into the creative process, focusing on the development of the show and the team's difficulty in dealing with the CBS brass, who fully believed they had a real disaster on their hands.