Product Details

• Actors: Rhoda, Valerie Harper, Mary Tyler Moore, Nancy Walker
• Format: Box set, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 4
• Studio: Mtm Video
• VHS Release Date: March 24, 1998
• Run Time: 225 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0767005953
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #286,852 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Everyone who watched The Mary Tyler Moore always wanted to be Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore); most of us, though, related better to her best friend, Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper). Rhoda was a loud, perpetually single, witty woman who was unlike anything on television before her. In 1974, Rhoda left Minneapolis to return to her home of New York and to her own show, Rhoda, living in the same building as her sister Brenda (Julie Kavner) and not far from her overbearing Jewish mother Ida (Nancy Walker) and her long-suffering father (Harold J. Gould). This boxed set of four videos contains episodes from each of the five seasons, beginning with her unforgettable wedding (who would've thought that Rhoda would find a man!) to Joe (David Groh) in the 1974 season and ending with her parent's separation in 1979. Some of these shows are remarkable, as when Joe and Rhoda separate after a few years of marriage. Others don't hold up as well next to these groundbreaking episodes, such as "An Elephant Never Forgets," in which Brenda comes to terms with the fact that she's lost weight and is attractive. But as a glimpse at the 1970s, the eight episodes are a wonderful trip backward and remain hilarious, albeit slightly dated, today. No, you still don't get a look at the faceless doorman, Carlton. And yes, we can still all relate to Rhoda. --Jenny Brown

Product Description

When RHODA first aired in 1974, the eagerly-anticipated show was an instant hit. Built around an independent, ethnic New York woman, RHODA broke all the rules of conventional television. In a landscape of happily married sitcom couples, Valerie Harper’s

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice box set, but not enough!, June 1, 2002

By 

John Corbett (Summerland, California United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Very Best of Rhoda [4 VHS Boxed Set] (VHS Tape)

Although Rhoda will always be compared to the ground-breaking Mary Tyler Moore Show, this is unfortunate, because this MTM spinoff made history in its own right, and ranks as one of the best TV shows of the 1970s.

Mary Richards was the person that women across America wanted to be - smart, witty, attractive, ambitious. Rhoda Morgenstern, on the other hand, was the person that most of us identified with in the end - unlucky in love, schleppy, addicted to food, and neurotic. Sonny Curtis reassured us every week that Mary would make it just fine. But what about Rhoda? Can't the underdog make it, too?

After four seasons in Mary's shadow, Rhoda finally graduated to her own show on CBS in the fall of 1974. Moving back to New York, she was able to land the handsome Joe Gerard, owner of a wrecking company. Still paranoid that her luck would run out, she married him as soon as she could, in front of one of the largest television audiences in history. Rhoda and Joe settled down into married bliss.

Rhoda's success posed the writers with a question which they hadn't considered before. Now that the self-depricating underdog had succeeded, and the ratings were sky high, what next? Should a forceful, leading lady of the 1970s settle down for normal domesticated life? At first, the stories began to revolve around Rhoda's younger sister Brenda, who became the "new Rhoda". But eventually, Rhoda had to run into a stretch of bad luck and reclaim her individuality.

Sure enough, at the beginning of the third season (1976-77), Joe revealed to Rhoda that he didn't want to be married anymore. The producers of the show quietly felt that David Groh was miscast as Joe, being a somewhat weak actor against Valerie Harper's multi-dimensional Rhoda, and that storylines revolving around their marriage could only go so far. The two separated and stories began to focus on Rhoda's parallel attempts to repair her failing marriage and halfheartedly date new men. By the fourth season, Rhoda was divorced and in a new job in a run-down costume company.

The writers seemed to be happy with having the old, scrappy Rhoda back, but the viewers apparently liked the relationship between Rhoda and Joe after all, and the ratings never recovered from their peak during the first two seasons. At the start of the fifth season (1978-79), even Rhoda's parents had separated for a few episodes. Halfway into the season CBS abruptly yanked Rhoda from the lineup, never to return.

Despite all of this, the writing was fairly solid throughout the entire run of the show. Rhoda's younger sister, Brenda, played by talented actress Julie Kavner (the voice of Marge Simpson), wound up becoming as strong a character as Rhoda. And of course, Nancy Walker and Harold Gould were unforgettable as the consummate Jewish parents. The voice of Carlton the doorman was provided by producer Lorenzo Music after auditions failed to locate the right actor for the role. Music's voice later became famous in the animated Garfield series and the crash test-dummy commercials. Many rising stars made guest appearances on the show before going off to greater fame, including Linda Lavin, John Ritter, Howard Hessman, Ken McMillan, Ron Silver, and Richard Masur (as accordion-playing Nick Lobo). In some classic later episodes, Rhoda was persued by trashy nightclub singer Johnny Venture (Michael Delano).

Rhoda also made for groundbreaking television. It was the first show to feature an openly Jewish female in a leading and believable role. It was also the first to explore the breakup of a marriage in a prime-time situation comedy.

This box set is certainly an excellent primer to the series, but nothing but a DVD release of the four-and-a-half seasons (110 episodes) of the series would do it justice. The Mary Tyler Moore Show is coming to DVD in September. Now it's time that Rhoda, too, gets introduced to a new generation of fans.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I dig Rhoda and I don't know why, July 9, 2000

By 

Cassidy C Stager (Norco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Very Best of Rhoda [4 VHS Boxed Set] (VHS Tape)

I am a big fan of Rhoda. Something about the show makes me really happy, in spite of Rhoda's self-deprecating style. She is completely insecure about her image, yet she doesn't let that get in the way of saying what she thinks when she wants to. The show is dated and the message it sends isn't really timeless, but something about it makes me want to don a scarf and abbreviate every one's name down to one syllable. What can I say? I love her. If there was a Rhoda fan club, I'd be president. This box set is a lot of fun. I think we should all buy them and have Rhoda sleepovers where we all wear scarves, talk about how fat we are, and lament the lack of men in our lives. I dig Rhoda, I dig this box set, and I have no clue why.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars See all of Rhoda and enjoy., December 31, 2002

By 

James McDonald (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Very Best of Rhoda [4 VHS Boxed Set] (VHS Tape)

Of course, we all know "Rhoda" was a spin-off from the "Mary Tyler Moore Show". "Rhoda" did very well on her own. I personally like the episodes when Rhoda was living in her own apartment. When I was a child, I could not watch the series every week, but thanks to the joy of VHS and VCR, the option is there for me to see all of "Rhoda" and enjoy. The show was ever- changing. New situations for Rhoda, different sets, different characters, the show was always refreshing itself.
As of 2010, Season One, Season Two and Season Three are available on DVD.
Rhoda: Season One
Rhoda: Season Two
Rhoda: Season Three.
Rhoda: Season 4 -- BRAND NEW RELEASE!!!.