The Saturday Six

 

I started a new workout plan this week, and I am so sorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre! The other night, I flopped into bed (like a belly flopping fish) and Ryan asked if I was okay. I said, "No! No, I am not okay. I am not Mary Tyler Moore. I am not going to make it after all." Crickets. Crickets. And then he said, "I don't know what that means." WHAT?! It turns out he has never watched the Mary Tyler Moore show. Moreover, He didn't even know it existed! Ahhhhhh!!!! So I had to pull up the theme song on YouTube and play it for him right then. 

That launched into storytime with Bekah about how I used to watch the Mary Tyler Moore show on Nick at Night with my grandma when I would stay with her on the weekends. Then that launched us into an entire conversation about the 'good ole shows" that used to be on Nick at Night. And that has inspired today's Saturday Six. Shows of yore!

One.

So let's just start with Mary Tyler Moore herself. I was trying to explain the cast of the show to Ryan by telling him actors he would know from other shows. Like Ed Asner, who he knows as Santa in Elf, or Georgia Engel, who he knows as Amy's mom in Everybody Loves Raymond. I tried to explain the premise of the show, and I'm trying to stop just short of making him watch all the seasons to experience it for himself.

But I think my favorite thing about the show was Mary's apartment! Maybe I loved tiny house/loft living before I even knew it was a thing! And the little shutters that separated her kitchen from the rest of the place...so cute. My other favorite thing was the platform at the one end of the apartment. Rooms with steps utterly fascinated me. It's like having your very own little stage in your own home!

I found this floor plan of her TV apartment, and I have to say...I think this is a fabulous floor plan. You would have to enjoy sleeping in your living room, of course. (Didn't she sleep on a hide-a-bed?) But it's awfully cute!!! What do you think? Could you live in Mary's apartment?

Two.

I also loved Mary Tyler Moore in her role on The Dick Van Dyke Show. I am so sad that it doesn't play in regular syndication with the regularity that I Love Lucy and The Andy Griffith Show play. I think it was every bit as good. Dick Van Dyke's physical comedy is excellent. (You remember the ottoman, right?) And Laura (Mary's character) breaking out into her hiccupping/sobbing and "Robbbbbbbbbb" - such a Bekah move!

I used to watch this one with my grandma too, and I just loved it. I don't think I've seen it in years and years, and maybe it's time to figure out where to watch it, so I can relive some of those great memories!

I found this list of fun facts about the show - and I did not know most of these!! (I definitely didn't know Mary Tyler Moore was a heavy smoker for a while!) 

Three.

Grandma and I also used to watch Three's Company together. I loved that show so much and was a HUGE John Ritter fan. Here's a Bekah-fact you may not know. When I first graduated from college, I had a roommate that lived with me for the first nine months. She ended up moving out, and my friend Angela (you might remember her) moved in to take her place. But there was a three-month span in between the roommates when I had to live alone, and I was absolutely terrified. I had never lived in a house by myself before, and I was scared to death. 

Three's Company played for several hours around my bedtime, so I would go to bed and leave all the lights and the TV on - and that was the only way I could sleep. It felt to me like if someone saw lights on and heard a TV playing, they would think people were still awake and they wouldn't break in. So I consumed a LOT of Three's Company in that stretch of time. Another Bekah-fact? I was so gut punched by John Ritter's untimely death that I couldn't ever watch the show after he died. I have not watched an episode since!

Anyway - here are some fun facts about the show - and I did not know a handful of them until just now! :) 

 

Four.

I Love Lucy was probably one of Grandma's favorites, and we loved watching that one together, too. It still stands for me (along with The Andy Griffith show) as one of the best sitcoms ever made. I know there was tension behind the scenes between Lucille ball and Desi Arnaz when their marriage began to strain, and I've read that the actors weren't the same real-life friends as they were in their characters of Lucy, Ricky, Fred, and Ethel. But on-screen, they were fantastic, and I still love watching it. 

This article gives the top ten rated episodes in the show's history. I love all of them, but I think Vitameatavegmin may be my favorite. (Ryan and I actually talked about that episode just the other day. He's never seen it! I have failed.)

Five.

One of the spinoffs from The Andy Griffith Show was Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Did you ever watch that one? Gomer was one of my favorite Mayberry characters, so I actually did watch this series. (After Grandma and Grandpa died, I got their little black and white TV that always sat on top of the refrigerator. I put it in my bedroom (first TV I ever had in my room!) and would watch Gomer after school! 

Here is a little montage of the best of Gomer in his spinoff role. That singing voice is no match for his speaking voice! :) 

Six.

And finally, since I've talked about 402 times in this post, I should mention The Andy Griffith Show, which plays regularly in the evenings around our home. Ryan and I visited Mt. Airy, North Carolina, five years ago and would love to go back when we have more time to spend there. (We didn't allot enough time to see it all.) This article shows pictures of some of the cast members from their younger years and older years. Some might surprise you! (Hello, young Aunt Bee!) If I knew it, I did NOT remember that Opie's friend, Johnny Paul Jason, was played by the same actor who played Little Ricky in I Love Lucy!

And as a part B to this point, another Andy show we love around here is Matlock. LOVE Matlock. (Not surprisingly, Grandma loved it too! Here are a few fun facts about Matlock, if you want to take a look. Ryan and I watched an old Andy Griffith interview a while back, and in it, he talked about the courtroom monologues and his desire to get them right the first time. Memorization is not my gift, so when people can deliver lengthy pieces like that, I'm amazed!