'Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted': 8 stories from the making of 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'

Writer Jennifer Keishin Armstrong explores what happened behind the scenes of legendary sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Here are eight stories from her book.

5. Mediocre reception

Ed Asner, Mary Tyler Moore, and Ted Knight

Many well-known publications panned the pilot of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" when it aired. A reviewer for Time magazine wrote that Mary's "bosses, a drunken clown of a news director and a narcissistic nincompoop of an anchorman, do an injustice to even the worst of local TV news." The New York Times called the show "preposterous," while TV Guide said Rhoda, played by Valerie Harper, was a "man-crazy klutz."

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