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In ComedyFilm/TV

A Debt of Gratitude: Mary Tyler Moore built the foundation of modern television

By Ken Reidon

The day Mary Tyler Moore died, I was sitting in a television studio in the appropriately named Studio City California watching a taping of a CBS sitcom.

Wandering around the studio I came across a plaque on the wall; eerily this very studio was built by Mary Tyler Moore and the show named after her was filmed there. She was not a creation of television, she was one of the creators of modern television as we know it. Without her vision and business savvy as a producer, modern comedy and modern culture would be missing its foundation.

Mary Tyler _ Ken Reid

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Like Lucy before her, the onscreen innovation was just the surface. Mary Tyler Moore managed to shine on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and became a hero and an icon for women everywhere as a single woman making it after all. But she also co-founded MTM with Grant Tinker, creating a production company that gave us not only The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin offs (Rhoda, Phyllis and the rare dramatic spin-off of a sitcom, Lou Grant) but also innovative and iconic programs like The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart, and WKRP in Cincinnati. She changed the look and feel of sitcoms forever, and launched the careers of giants like James L Brooks and Ed. Weinberger.

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We all owe Mary Tyler Moore a debt of gratitude -- for being an inspiration, for being an innovator, for creating works that have entertained and enriched. The 20th century would not have been the same without her, and the world is a much better place for her having been in it. She will be deeply missed.

Ken Reid is the host of the TV Guidance Counselor podcast and is a Boston-based comedian. Follow him on Twitter @KennethWReid.

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