"Rhoda" would have been better with the original sister

Rhodas husband Joe was very cute and hairy and sexy. Woof!!

Joe was my next husband for a month until I moved on to someone else. He was hotter than fuck. I'm going to look him up and see what happened. The events leading up to the divorce were so sad. Like the weekend they spent apart. They were both lonely and called each other at the same time and the line was busy. That's so sad. I still remember it.

Why didn't they spin off Georgette? Georgia Engel was brilliant.

Because, R3, Georgia Engel couldn't even step up to be an adequate second banana on The Betty White Show (canceled after 13 weeks). She was a void (and, in fairness, only one of many problems with that show).

She was only capable of being a recurring character or guest star.

She's a shiksa!

Julie Kavner always struck me as odd. She hates appearing on camera these days and doesn't have to do promo work for The Simpsons (it's in her contract). I suspect she hates the show and is only doing it for the money (still nearly half a million per episode which earns her about 10 million per season).

She is so private that friends who have known her for decades said she has yet to invite them over to her house.

I don't know if she had a crazed stalker or if she collects nazi memorabilia (yes, I know she's Jewish) or what but it's just really odd that she's practically a recluse outside of work even for a (B-List) celebrity.

"Rhoda" was managed so incompetently it's hard to believe it was overseen by the same people who revolutionized sitcoms with the MTM Show just a few years before.

There were the premise problems. The writers claimed they didn't know how to write comedy about married people. There are ways! The Dick Van Dyke Show managed it.

They didn't develop a bench of friends or neighbors for Rhoda. So when she got divorced and the actors playing her parents got lured away to do their own shows in the third season, she was twisting in the wind. When Rhoda departed the MTM Show, they brought in Sue Ann Nivens, a genius comic creation. When Rhoda's mom and dad left "Rhoda", they brought in ... Anne Meara, playing a younger version of Rhoda's mom.

Rhoda owning her own window-dressing business was boring. They could have given her a snobby primary client or something. And when she had to fold it and go to work for a costume company, it was depressing and made her look like a loser. Her boss there was just a lame, pale imitation of Lou Grant.

The whole show was just a compounding series of bad decisions. All in all, "Phyllis" was a funnier show, even if it lasted only half as long.

R6 I had a friend who lived in LA for awhile, trying to break into the business. In the meantime, he was a barista. One day Julie Kavner came in for coffee and when she put her purse, a huge shoulder bag, onto the counter, it made a strange sound: plunk, rattle rattle.

When she opened the purse to get her billfold, he saw it was filled with prescription pill bottles.

David Groh was a good actor and they should have given him more to do, instead of just making him cranky and kind of hard to get along with, then dumping him to try to save the show.

Between the divorce and losing her business, she came off as a loser like r7 said, and everyone wanted to see Rhoda win.

Brenda being slovenly and legitimately large and unlikable just made the audience realize that THAT was what the MTM showrunners had always intended for Rhoda to have been, the ugly wisenheimer sidekick with bitter, sarcastic cracks.

R9.

@r10, You talk too much

Julie sounds like she has a great life. She's the most famous cartoon mom in the world, makes $10 million a year, doesn't have to do any celebrity bullshit, no Daily Fail chasing her for "poor fat Julie" pics, all while high as a kite

I want her life

The best "Rhoda" episode!

Sally Gallagher (Anne Meara) was the Che Diaz of 1976.

Viewers hated her and bitched so much that she was dropped from the show.

Season 5 was just tragic. They decided to make Rhoda fat again, put her in tent dresses and gave her a terrible poodle perm.

The show dropped into the 80s in the ratings and was yanked midseason.

This character everybody loved and rooted for had become someone who was "going nowhere fast," as one critic put it. She was circling the drain in every aspect.

Didn't it end on a Sopranos-esque note? Brenda running away from her wedding to Benny, with no resolution?

Jeez, Rhoda was larger in season 5 of her own show than she ever was on MTM.

[quote]Rhoda owning her own window-dressing business was boring. They could have given her a snobby primary client or something.

Or a wealthy dilettante assistant named Karen.

They shoulda made her a lezbeen.

Season 6 Rhoda finds out she was accidentally switched at birth and isn't Jewish after all. In fact she's half-Black.

Why did they name her Brenda? What Jewish woman is named Brenda?!

I loved Brenda. When I was a little boy I wanted to be Brenda. Sadly, I’m 50 now and I am Brenda.

Julie Kavner won an Emmy for her role on Rhoda

R20 The sister Brenda replaced had an even waspier name: Debbie.

The trouble with the show from the beginning was that Valerie Harper was sick of being schlubby, self-denigrating, unlucky in love Rhoda. So she insisted on a new wardrobe, new styling, and a new, hit man to fall in love with her.

The producers knew that the audience fell in love with the old Rhoda, so they attempted to fill the gap by replacing perfect little sis Debbie with even schlubbier than old Rhoda little sis Brenda. Rhoda had a fabulous look, a fabulous man, and no fodder for storylines, because conflict is what drives narrative.

The result was that Brenda became the most popular character on a show titled Rhoda. The end.

R23 Debbie, short for Deborah, a female prophet in the Old Testament, is a WASPy name? Oh dear...

You boys sound hungry. I got my special chicken in the oven.

Brenda Patimkin in "Goodby Columbus." Popular name in the early 50s.

FYI, it's pronounced Brinda.

@r24, Exactly, I know a lot of Jewish Debras (Debbie)

R23, every other Jewish girl I grew up with was Debbie. The other was Lisa.

"Lisa" was a generational name - not a Jewish one - in the 60s and 70s.

We wanted ugly fat hopeless 😩 Rhoda

I was so looking forward to this show in the fall of 1974. But the minute I heard that HORRIBLE theme song, I knew it was in trouble.

Count me as a gay who disliked Brenda. Joe was a bore. The doorman was tedious. I liked some of the supporting actors like Anne Meara, Beverly Sanders and Barbara Sharma. I wish Vivian Vance had become a regular. HATED Jack Doyle the Lou Grant-like boss they invented for Rhoda toward the end.

What saves the show from being a complete wasteland was IDA MORGENSTERN. Rhoda and her mother together made the show watchable (to a point).

How To Destroy A Sitcom

DL Fave Linda Lavin made a guest appearance as Rhoda's old school nemesis - good episode

Deborah is a legitimate Jewish name--it's in the Hebrew Bible. Deborah was a famous judge (or leader) of the jewish people.

Lisa and Brenda were trendy names for all Americans in the post-war era. They are not Jewish names, but were still popular names in Jewish families, as were other non-Jewish names like Alan and Steven.

But who names their daughter Rhodant??

Rhoda is the female version of...

[quote]Julie Kavner always struck me as odd. She hates appearing on camera these days and doesn't have to do promo work for The Simpsons (it's in her contract). I suspect she hates the show and is only doing it for the money (still nearly half a million per episode which earns her about 10 million per season).

She's on the spectrum....

It would've been better with Shelley Hack!

How I'd have fixed the premise:

Rhoda would have still married Joe, but this Joe would have been a really handsome and successful African-American. Then show would have been a sitcom about the various issues that interracial couples face, and how they (comically, in this show) deal with them, as well as a show about a Jewish family and a African-American family becoming one. It would have been so much better than the show we got.

Also, if 'Rhoda' had debuted this way in 1974, they'd have beaten 'The Jeffersons' in having the first interracial marriage on tv.

Instead of the handsome prince type, they should have cast Joe as a scruffy New Yorker like Judd Hirsch. Hirsch guest starred as Rhoda's bf on a few episodes and it was a good pairing. Valerie Harper said that Rhonda-Joe as it was, was too "married married Sadie lady" to succeed.

I always thought Debbie, Brenda and a brother would’ve been an interesting family dynamic for Rhoda. Nieces and nephews, Ida as a grandma, Rhoda as a step mother which they never really explored.

They should have killed Joe off, it would have made Rhoda more sympathetic.

Valerie wanted to be perceived as a glamour girl, and that’s that. And yes, 2/3 of the “Debbies” I have known have been of the Zucker, Levine, and Goldberg clans.

When a sitcom star has a steady partner or spouse, it is deadly dull. As in real life, nothing interesting can happen to you when you're dragging a ball 'n chain.

Rhoda should've joined a traveling circus as a seamstress for clowns and elephants.

The show had a revolving door of head writers. Nobody could figure it out, so they kept handing it off to someone else.

Mitchell/Neigher engineered the disastrous divorce and got bounced. Allan Katz and Don Reo from MASH did season 4. Bob Ellison from the MTM Show did drain-circling season 5.

For some reason, Rhoda got the weaker writers in the MTM Productions stable. Phyllis had a surplus of great ones: Ed Weinberger and Stan Daniels (who would go on to do Taxi), Glen and Les Charles (who would do Taxi and Cheers), David Lloyd, Earl Pomerantz.

What the show needed was a star with the balls of Roseanne. Apparently, Roseanne fought with everybody to make her show the best of its kind, firing producers/writers left and right until she got exactly what she wanted for the series.

Say what you want about her, but for somebody who really was kind of new to the sitcom world, she took no shit from nobody. You can actually see "Roseanne" get better and better as it moved up the ratings ladder. Valerie should have been the same way, it was her reputation on the line.

Nothing could be done for Rhoda. She was interesting as a fish out of water in Minneapolis but, as soon as she went back to New York, she was done for. The show functions as a database of ridiculous 70s fashions like the head wrap with a little bun in back or a tie at the side.

They could’ve come up with something for her as a married woman. I think viewers tuned out because it was been there, done that... and done much better on the MTM show. People didn’t want to see her single.

Bren was America’s Hag

When Rhoda first appeared on MTM in the fall of 1970, I couldn't help but think that if Miss Streisand was not a movie star at the time, Rhoda would have had a different accent, different background.

The real issue for me is that the character Rhoda needed a straight man to bounce off of. No one on her spinoff series fulfilled that role as well as Mary did.

Mary wouldn’t never ever reward you with anal, Rhoda .......

Buck never would've mishandled a sitcom.

Thank you, R12. David Groh used to give me such hard-ons! Seeing that fit man once again in those tight 70s' trousers did it to me all over again!!!

What a beautiful butt he had!

"Jeez, Rhoda was larger in season 5 of her own show than she ever was on MTM."

Valerie Harper was never fat, but her weight fluctuated quite noticeably on 'Rhoda.' She was painfully thin during the early episodes of S4; Winifed Hervey, who was an intern on the show, recounted that VH had been on a liquid fast that summer and was not in the best mood when she came back from hiatus. The drastic diet was not sustainable, and she regained weight by S5. She lost it all and then some for her swimsuit scene in 'Chapter Two,' filmed the summer after 'Rhoda' was cancelled.

I loved Julie Kavner as Brenda and think she was the character the writers most enjoyed creating stories for. Hervey wrote a 'Rhoda' script with Brenda as the lead that got her into the Warner Bros. writing workshop; she talks about it in her Television Academy interview.

Been watching this on YouTube thanks to this thread (seen it before but forgot). The separation stuff was such a downer, no wonder ratings tanked. Rhoda finally got a happy ending and they pulled the rug right from under her. I can see how it turned off viewers back then. She also kept that insecurity. It was sad.

I really think writers who say they can’t write a married couple are cop outs. I remember hearing that about with Sam and Diane on Cheers had they gotten married. I loved the show Wings and they did a great job of the on/off again relationship, then finally getting them together and showing their married life. It can be done.

I disagree with OP. Julie Kavner was inspired casting for Brenda, just as Nancy Walker and Harold Gould were as Rhoda’s folks.

David Groh didn’t work from the beginning. The audience didn’t buy the two of them as a couple (they had no chemistry) and actively disliked Groh.

[quote]I remember hearing that about with Sam and Diane on Cheers had they gotten married. I loved the show Wings and they did a great job of the on/off again relationship, then finally getting them together and showing their married life. It can be done.

I am watching Wings on Hulu right now and they did do a good job with Helen and Joe. They got together pretty quickly the first time, and after the break up, once Helen worked through her anger they did not revisit it with a lot of will they or won't they get together teasing and simply reunited them when they were ready to put them back together for good without 800 false starts (hello Ross and Rachel). Joe and Helen worked well as a married couple, because besides having good chemistry they seemed like a good match. I am not sure that would have worked for Sam and Diane, because while they had good chemistry and I do think they cared for each other in their own way, they could be pretty toxic to each other. Still, I do prefer the Sam and Diane years on Cheers.

There were several shots of Harper in tights during the first season and while not exactly fat, she was definitely stocky in the legs.

By the fourth season Harper was skinny. Even Julie Kavner lost quite a bit of weight in season 4 and 5.

I'm sorry, but the out-of-tune kids on Rhoda's theme song was awful. Couldn't listen to it. My ears are allergic to bad notes.

They should’ve given Rhoda a post-Joe-divorce girlfriend.

R63 = Cynthia Nixon, showkiller

R59, very true. They knew exactly the right tempo to hit with Joe and Helen. I love Wings and think it’s so underrated. As for Sam and Diane, I will never forgive the producers for at least not having them get together in the finale. Yes, they were a mismatch and the writers went for realism, but damn if they couldn’t just give us a happy ending.

I remember Ida hugging her daughters "Rhoda Faye and Brenda Faye." Rhoda said "Ma, if you liked the name Faye so much why didn't you just name one of us Faye>" And Ida said "I didn't like it THAT much."

Wasn't Rhoda's middle name on the MTM Show alternately Mae, Louise, and Roberta? That was a major continuity error.

Another continuity error on MTM was one episode Lou said his daughter was dating someone (maybe living in NY too), they always said all his daughters were married. I always thought it was strange they were all married with children seemingly in their early 20s.

David Groh was so sexy. I think he and Val had nice chemistry, but there was really nowhere for the writers to go once Rhoda attained a good deal of self-esteem and achieved her goal of a happy marriage. Her character arc was basically over the minute she said "I do."

Too bad there many times in bed where she said she don't.

Maybe Rhoda and Joe should have had a baby. It worked Lucy and Ricky.

Rhoda would've been an awful mother, fat-shaming her kids and projecting all of her insecurities onto them. And the kids would've been subjected to a hypercritical grandmother. Would've made some therapist very, very wealthy.

I know, I know! Rhoda and Joe should've opened up a half-way house for a whole bunch of cute delinquent kids!

I remember one of Brenda's funny lines. Referring to the sister's weight problems Brenda said that people would comment "What a shame, Rhoda has such a pretty face. With me they'd say "What a shame."

[quote]David Groh was so sexy. I think he and Val had nice chemistry

I disagree about the chemistry, but is there anyone here agrees with me that David Groh was just not a skilled actor? Maybe he was just lacking in comic timing, I though he was pretty lame on Rhoda. Certainly no match for Valerie Harper.

R72, I think Rhoda would be an overly concerned Jewish mother spoiling the kid to no ends, even if the child was chubby and dateless. It usually works that way, Rhoda wouldn't want a mini-me.

[quote]She lost it all and then some for her swimsuit scene in 'Chapter Two,' filmed the summer after 'Rhoda' was cancelled.

Valerie in Chapter Two was a sight you don't ever want to see. She was anorexic looking, and everyone - from critics to Rona Barrett to my neighbors - commented on it.

There is going to be a marathon on Decades this weekend.

David Groh sucked at comedy.

They should've cast Lorna Luft as Brenda.

^ Thank you for your contribution, Lorna.

So I’m watching the marathon and they definitely shouldn’t have made her and Joe divorce.

[quote] I had a friend who lived in LA for awhile, trying to break into the business. In the meantime, he was a barista. One day Julie Kavner came in for coffee and when she put her purse, a huge shoulder bag, onto the counter, it made a strange sound: plunk, rattle rattle. When she opened the purse to get her billfold, he saw it was filled with prescription pill bottles.

Julie Kavner reminds me of Penny Marshall. After PM died, Anjelica Huston said that PM did too much coke, sat in her basement, watching QVC & buying Beanie Babies.

With $10 million per year, I wonder what Julie K. does with her money.

R80 There's an actor named Steven Kavner who did bit parts on 3 episodes of Rhoda. I wonder if he is her brother. Julie is so private that I can't find anything on the web about whether they are brother and sister. Steven is married per IMDB, so it's possible there are nieces and/or nephews that might inherit a lot of money from their aunt Julie.

I think I’m the only one here watching the marathon, some of these eps for the first time. Observations now into S3. You can tell by S2 they had no clue what to do with Rhoda and Joe. It was all about Brenda and sometimes even outside characters. Secondly, I can’t believe how they made Joe disappear. One ep they are in marriage counseling, the next he’s gone, no mention of him again in the next episodes and Rhoda is acting single. They definitely were trying to paint him as a jerk, but oddly consistent with him never wanting to be married. Which is also strange since he did go through with the marriage, then he says he wants to just date!? Very backwards. The entire thing was weird and badly done.

Does anyone know where to get good DVDs of Rhoda? I understand the one put out a few years ago weren't re-mastered and look like shit.

I'm watching a post-divorce episode. Wow is it tedious.

The character of Rhoda worked best in doses as a supporting character on MTM. Whose bright idea was it to center a series around her?

Rhoda is more than enough likable to have a series build around her. Phyllis, on the other hand...

"Rhoda" the series was TOO New York (code for TOO Jewish) to be likeable.

Joe was a really good guy; there was no conflict between him and Rhoda and conflict is what makes tv sitcoms funny. I heard that the writers had a hard time coming up with ideas while Joe and Rhoda were married but after they divorced they were brimming with them.

R83 Amazon has the DVDs (released by Shout! Factory) of all 5 seasons. I've seen them, and they are high-quality transfers from original source material.

R86 The best thing about the Phyllis spinoff was the opening number. I haven't been able to watch beyond the first 5 episodes of Phyllis recently, even though I watched many of them when they aired originally. As I mentioned above, I've re-watched all the Rhoda episodes in the past few years, even the numerous subpar episodes. It seems to me that Phyllis was a narrowly-written character whose principal job on the MTM show was to be a self-obsessed and annoying comedic foil to all the other characters. Rhoda started that way on the MTM show but was re-written to become Mary's self-disparaging best friend. In my opinion, the Phyllis character was very funny for a few minutes in every few episodes of MTM, but 23 minutes of her in every episode was tedious. If a fantastic actor like Cloris Leachman couldn't make it work, no one could have done it.

I always wondered how Rhoda and Joe l6ived in apartment 9D of that 6-floor building...

Were the writers trying to tell us Rhoda was delusional?

Was it all some St. Elsewhere fantasy that Rhoda had when she blew a fuse in her tiny apartment in Minneapolis?

Was Carlton the voice of an EMT trying to revive her?

I think Joe should've started earning money as a gay porn performer to support his construction business...

it would've created a lot of interesting conflicts

and a lot more excuses for Joe to be nude with other hot men

I don't know if Valerie really like David Groh that much...

IIRC, she wrote in her biography that David came in all excited at the start of the new season talking about buying a house in Hancock Park

They sat down to the do the table read of the script and it was about Rhoda and Joe separating

Valerie wrote something that came across as kind of unsympathetic - like no one told him to buy a house

I loved Rhoda! I loved that she was the bitter, ethnic, loser, woman who was skinny and pretty and nearly fashionable but somehow destined to fail in America. It was reassuring in a very precarious moment in my prepubescence.

Brenda’s apartment was so weird. Why did she have TWO beds?

R91 Maybe the 6 came lose on the door, and Carlton came up and nailed it back into place.

Phyllis was very funny, but mostly because of the two female supporting characters - her idiotic mother-in-law and Mother Dexter.

David Grohl seemed to be a very good sport about being unceremoniously let go from a show that he had every reasonable expectation to stay on indefinitely.

[quote]Brenda’s apartment was so weird. Why did she have TWO beds?

Look (she) got a lot of action...but keep it on the dl...we don't want Ma to know

Julie Kavner sighting!

Were the writers the same as MTM? There was an episode where Rhoda was dating Judd Hirsch (who I read on IMDB originally turned down the role of Joe) which was similar to Mary’s storyline where the guy didn’t want commitment and she just accepted it. It made no sense on MTM and even less on Rhoda since it was the same as Joe and the relationship ended in divorce. You’d think she’d run first chance and not accept seeing someone every two weeks. They clearly didn’t know how to write long standing relationships because Mary never had one either.

I did think there was more chemistry with Hirsch. Interestingly both he and DG were Jewish in real life but not on the show. I think they should’ve had her date a toned down Johnny the lounge singer. He had personality at least. After Joe they didn’t have her seriously date anyone. Rhoda was sort of ill conceived, Harper became a supporting player over the course of the show. They probably should’ve kept the married sister and had Rhoda sort of stay Minneapolis Rhoda instead of introducing Brenda.

So basically, Rhoda was an ill-conceived show that became unwatchable once they married her off. Is that what y'all are trying to say?

Really, R89? I just read some of the reviews on Amazon and they're supposed to be shitty.

Groh was also a public relations nightmare. He did the Cher Show on his own network and then did an interview in TV guide trashing it and Cher.

Phyllis had trouble recovering once Barbara Colby was murdered and they replaced her with the inept Liz Torres, whom I like but not in that role. They made up a lot of ground when they switched to the councilman's job and the ensemble got much better and the situation that Phyllis was a demented MTM in a demented WJM worked, almost like Newhart.

Where's the appreciation for Groh's delicious chest?

Start a new thread, R105.

Groh had issues.

After he got bounced from Rhoda, CBS put him in a show called Another Day that they had high hopes for. It was about a suburban family after the wife goes back to work. Groh was the dad and Joan Hackett was the wife. It was supposed to take their prime 9pm comedy slot on Monday.

Groh and Hackett got into some feud. At one point, Groh overturned a table onto Hackett. CBS quietly burned the show off on Saturday nights.

^ Sounds like a asshole

So much to unpack here.

1. Once again I am astounded by the Eldergay ability to remember intricate plot points of a largely forgettable show that first aired 48 years ago. That's like someone in 1974, the year the show first aired, remembering details of shows from 1926.

2. I am also blown away by the inability to comprehend that a name like Debbie or Lisa could be both (a) popular in general, and (b) popular with Jewish families in particular versus other popular names of that era.

(R7) I whole heartedly agree! Clearly one of my favorite characters lol

^ Fails to understand what a TV MARATHON is, run the other day.

[quote]He did the Cher Show on his own network and then did an interview in TV guide trashing it and Cher.

What did he say, r104?

I'm going to go out on a limb R111 and say that most of the 100 or so people posting on this thread did not watch that marathon.

[quote]Once again I am astounded by the Eldergay ability to remember intricate plot points of a largely forgettable show that first aired 48 years ago.

Rhoda, the MTM Show, and even Phyllis have been rerunning on various cable networks pretty consistently since the mid-'90s, and have been on YouTube for years.

Phyllis only ran for two seasons, so there's little chance people saw it on TV but YT and DM keep it readily available.

I don’t know why they saddled Rhoda with a divorced guy with a kid. Did they think the kid would be comic conflict?

That Girl was able to do five seasons of NYC with a steady boyfriend and interfering parents. And while some episodes are pitiful at least some episodes were fun.

Since Rhoda was a window dresser, why didn’t they have her work in a major department store that has loads of opportunities for quirky stock characters. The snooty gay store manager always there with a withering quip, the sexpot girl in ladies lingerie, the guys in the sports department always talking sex, the old man in accounting always trying to pinch Rhoda’s bottom.

There were many situations they could have put Rhoda in in 1970s NYC and could have thrown in some great cultural references.

I just saw that new movie “Annie Hall”. Diane Keaton was dressed like my Uncle Leopold. Who knew The Cossacks would one day have their own fashion line? [cue laugh track]

[quote] Rhoda, the MTM Show, and even Phyllis have been rerunning on various cable networks pretty consistently since the mid-'90s, and have been on YouTube for years.

In that case I am even more baffled by the fact that Eldergays will seek out a forgettable 50 year old sitcom on random cable channels and YouTube given all their other options.

Though most of you don't do streaming and still regularly watch network prime time, so maybe not so surprising.

R117/R109/R113, why don't you take a hike?

You don't like old sitcoms, you don't like "elder gays," you're a grouch. I'm happy you feel superior, but this is not the place for you. You're NOT winning.

I was on the fence about Groh, but, I'm sorry you don't eff with Joan Hackett. He's cancelled to me!

Groh was great as wife beater D.L. Brock on General Hospital in the mid-1980s.

But I am #winning R118 - look how wound up I've got you!

I am living inside your head and you will hear my mocking you every time you turn on your TV to watch an old sitcom.

Every

Single

Time

^ Anyone want to take this?

[quote] Since Rhoda was a window dresser, why didn’t they have her work in a major department store that has loads of opportunities for quirky stock characters. The snooty gay store manager always there with a withering quip, the sexpot girl in ladies lingerie, the guys in the sports department always talking sex, the old man in accounting always trying to pinch Rhoda’s bottom.

IIRC, Rhoda Show was mostly set in her NY apartment. Maybe they didn't want to spend $ on a workplace set. Frankly, the MTM work / WJM set looks downright flimsy, but somehow worked.

OP good call. It would have worked so much better. Although I loved Julie Kavner's Brenda it limited Rhoda.

[quote] The wedding episode featured guest appearances by many of the main characters from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, including Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore), Lou Grant (Edward Asner), Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod), Georgette Franklin (Georgia Engel), and Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman). The only major characters who didn't attend were Ted Baxter (Ted Knight) and Sue Ann Nivens (Betty White).

I guess I can understand why Sue Ann wasn’t invited by why wasn’t Ted there?

Rhoda hated Ted. She even dated him once. Phyllis wasn't invited either, but she crashed it.

[quote] I just read some of the reviews on Amazon and they're supposed to be shitty.

R103 I rented the DVD sets of seasons 1, 2, and 3 from Netflix in 2019. I purchased the DVD sets of seasons 4 and 5 (the Shout! Factory releases) from Amazon in 2019 and 2020. They all looked great to me, but keep in mind that I saw them previously in 480i resolution on cathode-ray TVs via analog over-the-air transmissions (remember snow and ghosts?) in the 1970s. I watched the DVDs on a Blu-ray player that upscales non-HD content. All I can say is, the shows looked a hell of a lot better now than they did then! The first season consisting of 4 DVDs costs $9.99 at Amazon at the moment, so it's a relatively small price to pay to find out if the quality is OK for your viewing situation.

R102, what you wrote makes no sense. It was ill conceived because the creators/producers intended to have a show centered around Rhoda being married. Instead they couldn’t write for a couple and had her divorced after 2 seasons. That’s ill conceived. Then she basically became a supporting character to Brenda. Like the other poster said, they could’ve modeled it after MTM, with Rhoda working at a big department store with a core group of co-workers and she could have a home life too. If they kept her divorced or never married, they could’ve developed a relationship for a season or two also.

[quote]Rhoda Show was mostly set in her NY apartment. Maybe they didn't want to spend $ on a workplace set. Frankly, the MTM work / WJM set looks downright flimsy, but somehow worked.

It was interesting/weird that Rhoda didn't have a workplace to start, because that was part of the MTM house style as set by Grant Tinker: All of their sitcoms were to have a home and work setting. MTM, Bob Newhart, Phyllis, The Tony Randall Show (very underrated) and even flops like The Betty White Show and Doc all followed that formula.

An NYC department store in the '70s would've been a very plausible career path for Rhoda and a great source of storylines and characters. They were dumb not to go that route. It could have been as classic as MTM.

Hey cunty millennial - if you were in grade school in the 70s, and were the kind of kid who liked sit-coms, there really weren’t that many to watch. Lots of straight guys have and insane amount of childhood sports stats / trivia at the ready - remembering things you really enjoyed growing up in great detail seems to be a make trait.

Also MTM / Rhoda / Bob Newhart & the Lear shows were what the culture at large was watching & discussing - mass media was much more monolithic back then. And if you think our grandparents weren’t also discussing the pop-culture of the 20s & 30s with us at the time, because we didn’t KNOW what we were missing, then I’m not sure what kind of home you grew up on, but it seeks like it wasn’t much fun.

^* male trait.

Rhoda never could have been as classic as MTM because they didn't even have a decent idea of what they were going to do. As such, the characters even became jumbled. Rhoda Girard was not Rhoda Morgenstern. She was just boring.

[quote]It was interesting/weird that Rhoda didn't have a workplace to start because that was part of the MTM house style

Rhoda and Joe's relationship vs. Rhoda dealing with her family (Brenda/Ma/Pop) kind of stood in for that dual focus. Maybe that's what they were going for.

Problem was, when Nancy Walker and Harold Gould left and they split up Joe and Rhoda in season 3, there was no show left.

Rhoda got a job at Bloomingdales in that season 3 episode where she contemplates moving back to NYC. They should've run with that idea when it came time for the spinoff the following season. Would've been fun seeing Rhoda working in a NYC department store. It would've been comic gold with the right mix of characters.

"Rhoda" did have a lot of potential. I like the mother (Ida / Nancy Walker) and father characters & the actors who played them. Brenda as well.

They always do that to women characters: get them married for immediate ratings, but then sacrifice more interesting story lines.

Yeah, a department store workplace might have been funny with a few different characters (coworkers) to counter Ida, Brenda, and Dad (home life).

MTM felt they hit their stride in the final seasons when they focused on the Newsroom and Mary's relationships there. Rhoda did not have that kind of luxury because the show was poorly conceived but was also an instant hit. Also, we knew Rhoda from MTM so they had to find situations to place the character in and it just didn't wash.

Why were Ted and Georgette never spun off into their own show? Ted Knight and Georgia Engel were huge fan favorites too.

R138, Ted was integral to the MTM Show, as were Lou and Murray. IMO.

The successful Lear spin-offs took secondary or even less frequent characters out of the mix - so the characters were less familiar - thus more malleable, and their absence didn’t hurt the show that much. MTM’s spin-offs broke both those conventions.

Ted wasn't spun off because the (genius) ending of the MTM Show had him being the only person who wasn't fired from WJM.

More practically, he was too much of a buffoon to be the lead, even if his character had been softened. By the time MTM was ending, execs could see where Phyllis was going as a softened character on her own show (south in the ratings).

Today, we're used to seeing buffoon-type news readers, anchors, etc. Back then, Ted was an embarrassment, a symbol that WJM was a small, underdog, striving new channel. There were a couple of episodes that featured WJM's competitors' news anchors. Very dignified. Even Gordy the weather man (WJM) was very dignified, esp. compared to Ted.

Georgeanne just wasn't very funny.

[quote]I just read some of the reviews on Amazon and they're supposed to be shitty.

I seem to remember the first season DVD release had episodes sourced from broadcast video tapes rather than the original masters as that was all Shout Factory could find. I think there were episodes that were edited for syndication as well (which seems to be a very common problem for TV shows on DVD.) I may be remembering incorrectly but I think from season 2 onward they were able to use the original master tapes and the quality was much better.

On MTM Show, Rhoda also refers to a brother who is never seen or heard of again. The thing with switching the younger married sister for spinster Brenda was weird too.

Last summer, the Hollywood Reporter interviewed Charlotte Brown, Rhoda's executive producer, "the first woman running a network TV show."

Somehow they glossed over her fucking it all up.

Rhoda was so dull by the time they spun her off. They should've spun off Barbara Colby's Sherry instead. An ex-hooker in the dress design business with a withering sense of humor in NYC would've opened a host of comedic possibilities.

The apartment wasn't exactly inviting either, although it was probably accurate in its depiction.

The whole show was sort of drab, but I assume that was 70s decor of brown and orange. The only nice apartment was Rhoda and Joe’s. It was an ok show, but I think they should’ve left her on MTM. They could’ve married her off there.

[quote]Why were Ted and Georgette never spun off into their own show?

At the time, I read that was being considered, but Ted is such an unsympathetic asshole it wasn't plausible.

As I recall too the character of Joe was not intrinsically "funny". Most memorable sitcom characters are funny for some reason, whether they are needy, self-deprecating, foolish, airheaded, etc. He was just Joe.

Joe could have been a straight man for Rhoda, but they wrote her so desperate even with marriage, it wasn't funny. Joe had almost no personality except to say "babe" to her every now and then.

[quote]At the time, I read that was being considered, but Ted is such an unsympathetic asshole it wasn't plausible.

I like Georgette/Georgia Engles, but she also works better in smaller doses. The two of them as the tent pole for a show would have been painful.

I hated the Georgette character with that baby voice. The Ted character got even more dopey vis-a-vis the Georgette character.

Sue Ann Niven probably saved the show, absent Rhoda and Phyllis (loss of funny female characters).

Interesting AV Club article - How the producers of Rhoda killed the show by making it better...

Do you think Mary was livid when Rhoda posted hiring ratings it first season than the MTM Show?

No, R156, it was more money in Grant Tinker's pocket for the upcoming divorce settlement.

And Mary wasn't feeling much of anything at that point—she was drunk as a skunk every night, by her own later admission.

CBS was so disrespectful to Rhoda. They didn't even give it a proper final show to wrap things up after over over 100 episodes The Jeffersons got similarly disrespected after 11 seasons. It's like they didn't even care.

Network suits “caring” about creative?

Oh my sides!!

Debralee Scott would've been better as Brenda than Julie Kavner.

Debralee Scott was TVs ultimate “easy” girl. No way would audiences buy her as the unattractive wallflower when she’d made a career as the unattractive sure thing.

R151 Allan Carr wanted her for Marty in Grease

[quote]Do you think Mary was livid when Rhoda posted hiring ratings it first season than the MTM Show?

WHY? She was happy the show was succeeding. That's how real life outside of a daytime soap opera works.

They made Joe act like a big baby at times. Nobody held a gun to his head and forced him to join Rhoda in holy matrimony. He acted as if being married to her was a punishment of some kind. It wasn't like he wasn't married before to Miss Joan Van Ark. He knew exactly what he was getting into. They should have come up with a more plausible explanation for their separation and divorce. Perhaps it would have been better for them just to kill the character off thus preserving his integrity. Also he had a son named Donnie who liked Rhoda and was never mentioned again, we never heard about his reaction to the divorce.

They should've had Rhoda get pregnant. The pregnancy weight would've re-triggered her weight/self-esteem issues, which could've been interesting.

R164, as I recall, it was very much a Rhoda guilt trip situation. It was a punishment because he wasn't ready for it and told Rhoda so but she insisted on marriage. It was a terrible start to an obviously doomed marriage.

[quote] They should have come up with a more plausible explanation for their separation and divorce.

Rhoda, after many hours of agonizing, I have come to the realization that I’m gay. I want to dance with the Village People. I want to say to my best friend, “Yes, girlfriend!” I want to dance shirtless at the International Stud.

Spin-off: Joe in the Village It’s 1980 and stud Joe is free to live his best life.

When you have to practically beg a man to spend more time with you and force his hand by dating their marital counselor you know it's a sign the things are not working out the way they should.

The production values looked really cheap compared to MTM and Bob Newhart Show.

Groh was one hot Jewish daddy!

R160 Julie was great as Brenda. No one else would have been as funny as she was.

Kavner was about as funny and entertaining as a tooth extraction done with pliers and without anesthesia.

In the beginning of Rhoda, Joe's workplace was often shown with characters played by comedy actors Scoey Mitchell, Candice Azzara and even Cara Williams for a couple of shows. But that scenario didn't work because Groh couldn't do comedy.

Valerie Harper later praised Mad About You and said its depiction of a New York marriage was exactly what she had wanted for Joe and Rhoda, but the network had refused her ideas.

Again, that wouldn't have worked because Groh couldn't do comedy.

Could Groh do anything? From what I saw, she couldn't do either comedy OR drama. He was hired for his looks.

Groh had a rather busy career guesting on TV drama and cop shows. He also taught acting classes in LA.

He died of kidney cancer at 68.

^^ After the Rhoda mess died down, Groh found a niche in TV dramas and police shows and kept fairly busy for several decades. He was especially adept at playing TV cops. He also taught acting classes in LA.

He died of cancer at 68.

I can't be sure but it seems like David Groh may have died.

Of CANCER.

At age...68, I think?

They chose awful leading men for Val. What genius picked the block of wood soap actor Josh Taylor to be her husband in Valerie's Family? She had less chem with him than she did with Groh.

Taylor was hot though. I wanted to live in that testosterone filled house as a kid.

Valerie's real-life husband (divorced in 1978), actor Richard Schaal, was on the MTM Show quite a bit. He was hilarious, IMO, but old-looking (even back then). I'm guessing he was way too old-looking to play Rhoda's husband.

Is David Groh still with us? Does he like Shamrock Shakes?

MARY!

Tina, the groovy chick in Season 5, was played by Nancy Lane, who was in the original Broadway cast of A Chorus Line.

David Groh died of cancer at age 68. Too young to go.

Tina was annoying as hell. She was the nail in the show's coffin.

I dunno, R184. He couldn't do comedy and sanked what could have been a good spinoff sitcom.

He could’ve just played the straight man, he didn’t really need to be funny.

I think you need to understand comedy, though, to be a straight man. Unless it's camp, like Charlton Heston.

They should’ve brought in Sandy Duncan to save the show.

R187 meet R52

The issue with Rhoda too is that the characters just weren't very likable. They were all just very shrill.

Didn't David Groh play in Nirvana and Foo Fighters?

Rhoda needed a sassy black friend.

R189 She certainly saved The Hogan Family. Val stunk in that too. She was only ever excellent on the MTM show.

They should've had Rhoda working in the Garment District where she would butt heads with that bigot Joanne Forbes.

I was going to say, a female boss would’ve worked better than the Lou Grant wannabe they cast in the costume shop.

R194, I agree regarding Valerie’s Family (Valerie, Hogan Family etc), and MTM (her best work on TV) and really she was THE breakout star of seasons one & two of MTM.

On ‘Valerie,’ it always seemed like she was the odd man out, but I think that’s because the material was beneath her. Those last four seasons of The Hogans weren’t classic ‘MTM’ or golden era CBS quality. Valerie was above that. That aside, Josh Taylor was SO HOT, the kids were great, Mrs. Poole was perfect as a kindlier & less nosy ‘Mrs. Kravitz’ and by the time Sandy Duncan dropped in with her box of Wheat Thins, it all had gelled.

On Rhoda, she was still “Rhoda,” but her life was not aligned with her lifestyle. She was like a satellite thrown out of its orbit.

[quote]She was only ever excellent on the MTM show

Valerie Harper was a very good dramatic actress if you didn't know - stage and TV. She was particularly good in a TV movie about a woman driving alone being chased by a killer. Like all actors, she needed writing. Val wasn't a stand up comic who wrote her own material.

Valerie Harper played everything from Tallulah Bankhead to Pearl S. Buck.

The problem with Rhoda - It was NEVER a good show from the start.

I don't care how bad the show was. There are TV people I like to spend time with, and one of them is Rhoda.

[quote] There are TV people I like to spend time with, and one of them is Rhoda.

I think this sums up the problem.

We loved the Rhoda of the MTM shows. She was creative, could throw out some great zingers, and yet was vulnerable in her self-consciousness. A lot of that was lost when she moved to her own show.

R202- Even the VERY first episode of Rhoda she was more self confident then she ever was on MTM- and attractive.

I tried to wear my hair like Rhoda in the 70s and it never worked. Then I saw the show again and realized she was wearing wigs!

[quote] Even the VERY first episode of Rhoda she was more self confident then she ever was on MTM- and attractive.

Exactly.

There was one episode of MTM where Rhoda was saying she went to school with Barbra Streisand and she started harmonizing with her. We needed more of that Rhoda.

I never understood why they didn’t use more characters of her childhood. She’s moving back to where she grew up. Why not have a character that was either a best friend or nemesis…or both characters? There’s perfect material for Ida to invite over a friend of Rhoda’s who Ida thought was perfect. “Remember Celeste from your high school? She married a doctor. I’ve invited her to lunch so she can give you tips on how to find a husband.”

R205, lord I can already tell what a drag that would have been. Ida was even softened for the series because she would have been insufferable.

[quote]I never understood why they didn’t use more characters of her childhood

There was one excellent episode where Linda Lavin played a uppity character from Rhoda's school days who still intimidated her - Linda Monroe.

Even though they divorced they still could have kept Joe on as a side character.

Joe was lousy as a lead character, he would have been worse as a supporting character. He was decent on drama but terrible on comedies.

They didn't give Joe any funny lines. There was only so much he could do. Who could have played that part better? Ed Marinaro?

Groh was charmless and had no personality. They could have hired a block of wood and it could have done as good as he did.

Joe was written into a corner by being head of a demolition company. They should have made him a doctor with patients that got on his nerves or something like that. What's so funny about demolishing buildings?

Joe as a cook with political ambitions = endlessly funny

R203, are you sure? I haven’t watched the entire run, just random eps during marathons. From what I’ve seen she was super insecure with Joe. When he was upset about something, she automatically thought he was cheating and leaving her. Then when the marriage was actually breaking down, she was a puddle of insecurity and could barely confront him.

Rhoda was kind of a boring, fill-in-the-black character by the time they spun her off. She was really no longer interesting. She overcame her weight and self-image issues, and once that was done, there was nothing really interesting about her. They tried to use her as the sane one in a sea of quirky characters, like they did with Mary Richards, but MTM was better able to carry off that "straight man" role than Val. Rhoda the series was a mess.

The show ran well over 100 episodes so she must have been doing something right.

I think they needed to get to the magic number of 100 to make it viable for syndication. Looking back, once they got past the wedding, it wasn't a terribly good show. The wedding episode was absolute genius.

^ Bruce Willis

Would Judd Hirsch have been a better Joe if he wanted to take the part?

....

Rhoda's original sister was very funny on Three's Company in the episode a camping we will go.

R221, she looked very young in that episode as well. She held her own with John and Ann and that's pretty impressive.

Like Bess Armstrong she should have been a bigger star.

[quote] heard that HORRIBLE theme song

The absolute worst of all time.

La la la LA la, la la la LAAAAAAA... 🎶

I thought the version of the intro where she tried to throw her hat in the air, as a parody of the MTM intro, was kind of clever.

Whatever happened to Windows by Rhoda?

Whatever happened to her plant shop that was such a big success she hired Georgette

What happened to that yellow Oldsmobile Rhoda gave to Mary? We saw it once and never again.

[quote]They should've had Rhoda working in the Garment District where she would butt heads with that bigot Joanne Forbes.

Better yet...they should've had Rhoda working in the Publishing Industry where she would butt head with that bigot Barbara Thorndyke.

[quote]What happened to that yellow Oldsmobile Rhoda gave to Mary? We saw it once and never again.

I remember when Rhoda paid the down payment on yellow Ford Mustang convertible for Mary...

but I missed the "yellow Oldsmobile" episode

You're confused, R231. The Mustang was white, and the car Mary drove to Minneapolis in over the titles. The car Rhoda put a down payment on was no Mustang, it was enormous yellow thing.

^ I'm sorry R232

You mean this huge 1973 Ford Mustang convertible yellow thing?

The plant shop was so successful that Rhoda even began dressing differently as seen in that capture.

Ford provided the cars for the MTM show

Rhoda said her car that was in the shop needing repairs was a Falcon.

While I was "confused"

it apparently escaped R232's notice that the 1973 Ford Mustang was bigger than previous models.

Then there was this car in later opening credits.

Maybe Mary traded the yellow Ford Mustang for a blue one...

She wasn't really crazy about yellow.

R208 Stan from the Golden Girls was funny, Joe was not.

THIS is Mary's white Mustang - 1970

IIRC, Rhoda owed Mary $ b/c Mary lent R money to start her plant shop. Mary is irritated that Rhoda is not paying back the loan, but R ends up paying Mary back by putting a down payment on a car. And Mary is apparently happy about this form of repayment.

That was a really weird episode. Who wants someone else choosing a car (ugly color) and then encumbering them with a 3-5 year loan.

That was a very strange episode, and was one of the few that Jay Sandrich didn't direct. John C. Chulay directed that one. Louise Lasser steals the entire episode from under everyone as the bank VP.

Why weren't Gavin McLeod and DL fave and icon Joyce Bulifant spun off into their own series? Now THAT I would've watched! They could've called it something like "The Bald and the Beard."

^ with Joyce shitting in the purses of all the women she resented and was envious of

[quote]And Mary is apparently happy about this form of repayment.

Do you not understand this is a SITCOM? None of it should make much sense.

MTM was an intelligently written sitcom. Everything should make sense.

The origin story.

....

It was weird they shot all those San Francisco location scenes for the Phyllis intro and then immediately changed her hairstyle.

Maybe they should have kept the original sister and brother as well.