Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

Truly one of the greatest-and least remembered -TV shows of all time.I loved this show back in the seventies. It was a rich tapestry of comic-and touching- characters, exemplified by the naive heroine, Mary Hartman,and her friends, perhaps most unforgettable of whom was would be Country Music queen,Loretta Haggers, played by the sadly underused -and brilliant-Mary Kay Place.But then this show was rich in fine acting-Dabney Coleman, martin Mull, and Marian Mercer, among others.If the Comedy channel can rerun "soap" why cant they rerun this masterpiece?

I first began watching MH2 in the eighth grade on the advise of my friend Todd. We would laugh hysterically each morning in homeroom at the strange absurdity of it all. Though we weren't getting all of it at that age, we understood a lot of their references and learned a lot in the process. And suffice it to say that when "Soap" came on the air a couple of years later, we could only see it as a network ripoff of a show they didn't have the guts to take on before the waters were tested (and by the way, I'm not knocking "Soap" which was a good show. It's just that MH2, for all its absurdities, was riskier and more truly satirical, and...it didn't have a laugh track). One of the most special traits of MH2 was that it tended to focus on small town America's working class and the places they congregate such as the bowling alley or the factory break room. Though serials like All My Children and One Life To Live had revolutionized the soap genre in the 70s by focusing on more "topical" characters, it was still unusual for a soap (or a satire of one) to focus empathetically on the denizens of the other side of the tracks, sometimes referred to as dirty white trash (Roseanne would later revolutionize sitcoms in a similar manner). This was certainly part of MH2's charm. I grew to love Mary Hartman's kitchen (and other Fernwood locales) as if they were an extension of my own town and home. Too bad the show couldn't have lasted longer than it did. Let me finish by saying this...about 5 or 6 years ago Lifetime network began reruns of this show and I was in my glory. For some strange reason, they stopped very soon into it and never resumed. But, I was fortunate enough to have viewed, for the first time in 20 years, the first episodes in which Mary is held captive by the guy who "killed the whole Lombardy family, two goats and six chickens" and, from the vantage point of my 30s, I was finally able to really "get it"; Mary Hartman is one of the great emblems of the distress of the mid-20th century American woman. Her hair in childish pigtails while wearing those little girl dresses, Mary was an example of the overly-consumered, growth-stunted American housewife trying to function while in a semi-daze. Her confrontations with adultery, contemporary feminism, and countless other social issues (often found within her own family) while trying to be the perfect little housewife and mother makes her eventual nervous breakdown more than just another crazy plot twist. In actuality, it was an inevitable progression. Compare her and her friends and neighbors to Carol Burnett's Eunice and other 70s television characters like Edith Bunker and you'd have a rather fascinating college course, I think. Perhaps I need to put one together! So, for those of you who have a similar fondness for this groundbreaking, offbeat series and to those who have never seen it, here's to bringing Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman back in reruns. Fernwood deserves to be revisited! P.S. If you want to see Louise "Mary Hartman" Lasser in a recent role, rent "Happiness". Beware, though,

Who would have guessed that 30 years later Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman would still be an absolutely hilarious and entertaining program? Controversial for its time, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman still seems to walk the line of racy subject matters.....not subtle and not over-the-top. Watching takes you back in time. It is entertaining to see the fashion statements and listen to the dialog from so long ago. The series is really like a time capsule! Also enjoyable is the product placement, a real blast-to-the-past! Thanks to everyone who brought this program to DVD. I certainly hope that the entire series makes it to video.

A sharply satirical soap opera about a modern-day "Candide" (Louise Lasser) and the dysfunctional pre-fab Americana she inhabits. In the opening episodes (beginning 1/76), Mary has to contend with her impotent husband, indifferent daughter, pervert grandpa, hot-to-trot sister, and the massacre of a local family (along with their 2 goats and 8 chickens) but it seems the waxy yellow build-up on her kitchen floor subliminally affected the mass media-influenced Mary more than all the domestic drama combined. The absence of a canned laugh track can make viewers feel they're either losing their mind or experiencing a darkly comedic, penetrating pop-culture parody. Possibly both. I loved it then and I love it now!

I was an original fan of the show, being about 16 or 17 in its first year. It was a cult hit for sure. My friends loved it. The jocks either hated it or hadn't heard of it. The cheerleaders I think were scared of it.

Since then I've seen several attempts to bring it back on TV as a rerun. But like others have said on here, the ratings for the reruns are low and they cancel it after a month or so. I think there are several reasons for this. One, is that the show really changed as it got past its second month. I remember an article of the time that said that they ran out of their first year's worth of material after the first month. Now I know that the first month or so have some classic stuff in them - the couch dying in the chicken soup, etc., but they hadn't really found the pace of the show in the early weeks. So, while they have some classic stuff and some inking as to what's coming, the first month or so isn't really that good. So, in reruns, the new audience gets bored and it gets canceled. So yes, in reruns we get the classic "chickens and goats", grandpa Shumway being a flasher, but we don't get Sgt. Foley's heart attack and Mary and him finally getting it on in the hospital, grandpa's affair with Roberta, her joining STET, the sex surrogate for Tom, Loretta's aborted trip to California, Garth Gimble, etc. What's great about this site it it's reminded me of how much I've forgot about.

Something else that I remember about the show is that, well, not all the episodes were that funny. I think at the time we accepted that they had to come up with two and a half hours of TV a week and that not all of it would be great. I remember many episodes where there was only one real laugh. It may have been a great laugh, but today's audience isn't as patient as we were. The other thing is think of what the competition was for Mary Hartman. It ran at 11:00 PM and was up against the local news in an era of three broadcast channels and twelve cable channels. In my house, the only serious competition were re-runs of the Honeymooners on WPIX from New York.

The other thing that makes this tough on reruns is that Mary Hartman was so much a part of the 70's. What's hard to explain to people who weren't there, is how weird the 70's were. The whole country was in this very odd mood, partly giddy, partly freaked out, partly numb. I don't know if I can explain how Mary Hartman fit in to that, but it did and maybe not enough time has passed where it won't seem dated. The other thing is that the show had a whole parallel life running at the same time in the live soap opera of Louise Lasser's sudden fame. Her personal trajectory towards a nervous breakdown tracked Mary Hartman's. Do I need to remind everyone of her bizarre interviews in Rolling Stone, her bust for cocaine, and her appearance as the host on SNL, in which she also had a nervous breakdown. Years later it came out that this was not faked, that she was ready to refuse to appear on the show minutes before curtain time, and only agreed to appear once Chevy Chase convinced her that if she didn't go on, he'd go on in her place wearing a wig.

This show in its first run had a drama to it that is hard to recreate in reruns. Not only did it track Louise Lasser's breakdown, it also traced America's breakdown too.

I miss the show. It meant a lot to me, and it's sad that it's only a memory.

BTW, does anyone remember what is one of my favorite moments, when Mary's rival for her husband Tom's affection, Mae has tried to kill herself with sleeping pills? And she turns to Mary for support, who plies her with coffee, and the towering Mae flops all over smaller Mary before they both slump on to the floor and Mary ends up drinking the coffee. It's been over thirty years and I still remember that after only one viewing.

Or when Loretta came over to bring Mary Jell-O with Cracker Jacks suspended in it?