Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

This should MUST be resurrected.

A more insightfully absurd and comically astute series has not been made. Mix the daily grind of ALL MY CHILDREN, the experimentation of MONTY PYTHON, the self-absorbed and urbane existentialism of WOODY ALLEN and the offbeat quality of BLUE VELVET and you have MARY HARTMAN MARY HARTMAN.

What a fabulous cast and what kooky writing! This is black comedy at its most tongue-in-cheek.

TVLAND bring it back, please!

I was totally hooked on this show back in the 70s. Way out there, really dry. There are times when they'd set up a joke for several episodes running then spring the punchline on you. They tried to clone this into that show SOAP, but they added a laugh track that had the effect of killing the humor (at least for me). They really went out on a limb. That episode where Dabney Coleman stares silently into the camera for five minutes may be the most I've ever laughed at a TV show ("Look me in the eye and decide if Merle Jeter should be the next mayor of Fernwood"). I'm amazed that someone let them get away with this show.

For a while the Lifetime channel brought this back. I wasn't sure if it would be as hilarious a second time around but it was. After a few weeks Lifetime pulled it for Unsolved Mysteries.

TVLand made a better attempt a few years ago. It went on longer and they got Martin Mull and Fred Willard to emcee. Great stuff !! Once again it didn't go on too long. I don't know what useless stuff is in its place.

If anyone hears of this one getting replayed or made available on DVD, send me an email !

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!

This was one of those seminal moments in television history, because the 70s seemed to be more open to experimentation and strangeness than certainly the 80s and definitely the 90s.

Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was a show that was unclassifiable by any standard of TV today. Now, I haven't seen the show in about 15 years (I watched the whole series on tape at a friend of mine's back in the mid or late 80s), but I am sure that it would be just as bizarre and wonderful today as ever.

Martin Mull was brilliant as the psychopathic wife beater, Barth Gimble. I hope that TV Land or some other such channel will pick this show up, because I would really love to see it again.

MH2 is the greatest show ever on television. No show before or since has captured the pathos and absurdity of American life. Louise Lasser's performance was nothing short of genius.