There’s Something About “Mary”, Part Two

Last time, I left you all with something of a poser. Clips from three episodes of Mary are sitting on YouTube in various forms. Are these the same three episodes which were broadcast back in 1978? Certainly, most people seem to have either assumed that they are, or are simply uninterested in whether they are or not. Let’s take a look again at the YouTube video “Why Mary Tyler Moore’s 1978 “Mary” Bombed Big Time”: The narration certainly leaves us in no doubt about what they think about poor Mary: “From what I saw, there were two things which caused this programme to nosedive and crash so quickly. The writing was bad. At times, really bad.” We then get a clip of Mary talking to the studio audience: “Let’s talk about Canada!”. Followed inevitably by a song about Canada. Neither works very well in clip form, I will admit, although I could make the best show in the world look bad by slagging it off and then throwing in a few clips out-of-context. We are then told: “So much of the comedy I…