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Her Name is Rhoda Morgenstern

May 7, 2009

Has it really been 25 years since Mary Tyler Moore’s hip Jewish neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern moved out of her apartment in chilly Minneapolis and back to her humble beginnings in her hometown? “New York, this is your last chance,” she declares are the end of the opening credits of Rhoda, the very funny Mary Tyler Moore Show spin-off that had a successful five-season run on CBS-TV from 1975 to 1979. The first season of Rhoda, starring Valerie Harper, was just released by Shout! Factory.

 

The Rhoda: Season One DVD offers only one supplement, but it’s a fun one. Remembering Rhoda is a 10-minute-long featurette that finds Rhoda creators James L. Brooks and Allan Burns discussing the show’s genesis and five-year run. (Incidentally, it looks like Brooks and Burns’ contributions were taped at the same time they

recording their supplemental features for another one of their shows recently issued by Shout! Factory, Room 222.)

 

Brooks and Burns are candid and funny in their segment, offering how audiences thought Valerie Harper was to abrasive when they screened the very first episode of the Mary Tyler Moore, but mellowed out when the writers gave an additional line to co-star Cloris Leachman’s character saying how she loves Rhoda, this giving the audience the latitude to admit they just might like her. Brooks and Burns also freely admit that they did not want to do a spin-off with Rhoda’s character, but that Valerie Harper was getting so many offers from competitors that they had to do something or lose her. And they also didn’t want Rhoda to get married, but they lost that fight and the marriage takes place near the end of season one. (The hour-long wedding episode was a guest star-packed affair that finds a wedding gown-donning Rhoda taking the IRT to her own marriage ceremony in the Bronx.). But the men got their revenge a couple of seasons later by having Rhoda get divorced.

 

The two gentlemen praise all of the women on the show, including co-stars Julie Kavner and Nancy Walker. But they save the simplest and bluntest compliment for Harper,  whom Brooks simply describes as “Menschy. Very Menschy.”

 

 

Posted by Laurence Lerman on May 7, 2009 | Comments (2)