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Special Features
- 25 episodes on three discs
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Long before Twin Peaks, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman turned the soap opera inside out. Produced by Norman Lear (All in the Family), the syndicated serial centers around gingham-clad housewife Mary Hartman (Woody Allen regular Louise Lasser). The saga begins with Mary agonizing over her floor's waxy yellow buildup when neighbor Loretta Haggers (Emmy winner Mary Kay Place) bursts in to announce that a mass murderer is on the loose in Fernwood. That isn't Mary's only problem. The magic has gone out of her marriage to Tom (Greg Mullavey) and her grandfather is revealed as the Fernwood Flasher. And that's just the pilot.
At first glance, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman resembles a daytime soap with consecutive airings (five nights a week), frame-filling close-ups, and syrupy score, but everything is off-kilter. When Mary isn't looking at other characters as if they're speaking in tongues, she appears to be on the verge of laughter or tears--maybe both at once. She's the ultimate desperate housewife. Aside from Grandpa Larkin (Victor Kilian), regulars include Mary’s preteen daughter Heather (Claudia Lamb), younger sister Cathy (Debralee Scott), and parents, Martha (Dody Goodman) and George Shumway (Philip Bruns). In addition, there's Sgt. Foley (Bruce Solomon), who has the hots for our sexually unsatisfied heroine, and Loretta's hubbie, Charlie (Graham Jarvis), who works with Tom and George at the plant. Mrs. Haggers, an aspiring country singer, loves her Baby Boy "more than a hundred billion frozen Milky Ways." The first set of this groundbreaking series features 25 episodes. Between 1976-1978, a whopping 325 were produced, some as Forever Fernwood when Lasser left in 1977, reportedly due to exhaustion. That year, the series also spun off talk-show satire Fernwood 2Nite, which would soon develop a cult following of its own. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Stills from Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (click for larger image)
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Product Description
Legendary TV producer Norman Lear developed this outrageous soap-opera spoof staring Louise Lasser as a pigtailed, gingham-frocked housewife beset by a bewildering array of crises. The three-disc set features the first 25 episodes of the groundbreaking series hailed by critics as "hilarious" (TV Guide), "mind-blowing" (Newsweek) and "televisions zaniest show!" (Readers Digest)
Mass murders, kidnappings and a flasher may be troubling the residents of Fernwood, Ohio. But housewife Mary Hartman (Lasser) has a much more serious problem; waxy yellow buildup on her kitchen floor. And while her husband Tom (Greg Mullavey) struggles in the bedroom and her best friend, country singer Loretta Haggers (Mary Kay Place), struggles to make it big in Nashville, Mary teeters closer to the edge, desperate to save her marriage, keep her family together and give her kitchen floor a proper shine!
Customer Reviews
Anyway, I know I'm not the only person who's been waiting for Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman to either make its way back to TV reruns or DVD... and the only who was ANGRY how long overdue it was, but now, finally its HERE... though I remembered it as one of the greatest TV shows of all time, to be honest, I didn't remember just HOW great it was, otherwise the wait would have been harder...
Starting with the first episodes (complete with the overhead mic slipping into the frame) the show is on a heavy roll... There's no laugh track, and no time killing... Jam packed with great script delivered by a crack ensemble. In fact, the writing is SO brilliant you get broadsided by the humor sometimes and find yourself gigling without even realizing why... then if you go back a half a minute and watch it again you're like... "oh my god ! ! !" (am I the only person who reacts like this?) The strange, soap opera spoof, non-sequitor double entendre lines, TV commercial derived dialogue and strange scenerios all delivered in the dry quirky uniquely MH2 style makes this a must have/must see/must repeatedly see view... and Mary Hartman's unforgetable young, unhappy, valium dazed housewife is so great... (and actually reminds me of my mother's friends and neighbors... back then going to shrinks and getting your tranqs to deal with the stresses of middle class American life was really in!)
Anyway, as you watch you marvel at the ensemble, but can see them doing their best to hold back from cracking up over their own lines and delivery... the show also strikes an edgy nerve... almost like Vonnegut on Valium. - - Though Louise Lasser may best be remember as one of Woody Allen's ex's, you can actually feel the Allenesque "zeitgeist" quirk via her brilliant acting. (Of course, the acting allegedly backfired when people actually believed that her nervous breakdown on the show was real!)
Watch Mary Hartman... the ultimate spoof of the American soap opera... and dysfunctional family life ! Over 9 hours packed onto 3 DVDs in a nifty slimline box set. Meanwhile... when's FERNWOOD TONIGHT gonna hit DVD ???
Mary Hartman, for many, was a great guilty pleasure. People who scoffed at soap operas in the 1970s sat down and watched each night while Mary, early on, dealt with such issues as the waxy yellow buildup on her kitchen floor or her grandfather being arrested for exposing himself. Neighbor Loretta's funniest moments included her day stint appearance on The Dinah Shore Show cooking her sweet potato pie and making a crack that almost ended her career (Loretta's, not Mary's) , which included Dinah playing herself. Then there was the rivalry between Mary and her sister Cathy for the attentions of the police officer Dennis Foley. The show was also played "straight" and not for laughs, which added to the campiness and watchability of the show. Season One (probably the most famous season) ended with Mary melting down on the David Susskind Show. Season One also helped to spawn, briefly, the singing career of Mary Kay Place both as Loretta and under her own name.
I sincerely hope that the powers-that-be can arrange for the 1976 hilarious spoof of Mary Hartman from The Carol Burnett Show to be put on as a future extra. It was called "Mary Mary Quite Contrary, Mary Mary Quite Contrary" and had Carol as Mary, Vicki Lawrence as Loretta, Jim Nabors as Charlie, and Tim Conway as grandfather who liked to play peek-a-boo.
