Ace This Quiz on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”

In the Season 7 episode “Murray Ghosts for Ted,” a 14-year-old Helen Hunt played the single-episode role of Laurie Slaughter, the daughter of character Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod), the head writer at WJM. Prior to her cameo, Hunt played in several TV movies and series, including Helga Wagner in 1960’s “Swiss Family Robinson.” Later in her career, she won four Emmys for her role in sitcom “Mad About You” and an Oscar for Best Actress in the 1997 film “As Good As It Gets.”

In the episode “The Good-Time News,” Mary learns that she makes $50 a week less than the man who previously held her position. When she confronts Lou, he said that men make more because they have a family to support while Mary doesn’t. Mary says if that were true then men with three children should make more than men with two. Lou’s response reflected popular justifications for pay inequality at the time.

The co-creators of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” Allan Burns and James L. Brooks, originally envisioned Mary Richards as a recently divorced woman. At the time, divorce was openly discussed and accepted, but still considered controversial for TV. Moore was onboard with the idea, but the head of programming for CBS squashed the idea. If the co-creators and Moore had their way, Mary Richards would have been the first divorcee portrayed on television.

In the Season 4 episode “The Dinner Party,” Henry Winkler makes a cameo as Steve Waldman, an uninvited guest to Mary’s dinner party. This was Winkler’s primetime TV debut, and he went on to appear in episodes of “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Rhoda” (a spinoff of “MTM”) before landing his iconic role as "The Fonz" in “Happy Days.”

In the series finale, the TV station WJM is taken over by a new owner. The new owner fires everyone except the vain and untalented newscaster Ted Baxter, which comes as a surprise to characters and audience alike. In the final emotional scene, all the characters come together for a comical group hug before they walk out together singing “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.”

First Lady Betty Ford appeared in the Season 6 episode “The Seminar,” which aired on January 10, 1976. In the episode, WJM news director Lou Grant (played by Ed Asner) regales Mary with stories about his elite connections, but Mary doesn’t believe him. When she receives a call from Betty Ford, she thinks it’s an act and introduces herself as “Mary Queen of Scots,” and tells Ford that her impersonation of the First Lady “stinks.”

In Season 4, Betty White makes her debut as Sue Ann Nivens, who hosts the TV program the “Happy Homemaker.” White’s “Happy Homemaker” character was a subtle subversion of stereotypes about women. Single, sensual, and snarky, Sue Ann rejected society’s expectations of women, which complimented the more overt rejection portrayed in Moore’s character Mary Richards.

In the summer of 1970, singer-songwriter Sonny Curtis was asked to write a song for the upcoming “Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Curtis wrote the song “Love Is All Around” in two hours, and it was picked up by the studio immediately. Between Season 1 and Season 2 (the show ran for seven seasons from 1970 to 1977), Curtis changed the final lyric “You might just make it after all” to “You’re gonna make it after all” to indicate Mary’s growth and success.

In the show’s opening sequence, Mary comes to a highway sign pointing to St. Paul or Minneapolis. She takes the road to Minneapolis for a new job at the local TV station, WJM. The iconic beret toss scene was filmed at the corner of Nicollet Mall and 7th Street, where in 2002 a statue of Mary Tyler Moore tossing her beret was erected in her honor.

In the opening credits of the beloved 1970s CBS sitcom “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” the character Mary Richards (played by Mary Tyler Moore) joyfully tosses her knit beret into the air in the middle of a busy intersection. For director Reza Badiyi, the act of tossing the beret signified Mary’s transformation into a new life as a single woman in the big city.