Customer Reviews

The Very Best of Rhoda [4 VHS Boxed Set]

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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.

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.

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!!!.

Rhoda was one of the few cases of a spin-off that I liked better than the show it spun off from.I'd love seeing Rhoda and her friends and relatives. The marriage might have been a mistake,but there were real standout shows.My two favorite actors on Rhoda were Julie Kavner,whose Brenda turned out much more patheticly loveable than Rhoda ever was- and Lorenzo Music,who made an impression without ever really making an appearence.

Valerie Harper "spun off" of her successful (and very, very funny) co-starring role as "Rhoda Morgenstern" on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to star in her own CBS television comedy series, "RHODA". 110 episodes of "Rhoda" were produced -- 106 of which were aired between 1974 and 1978 (five individual seasons).

Many times "spin-off" series fail miserably and are, quite frankly, just not very good. But "Rhoda" succeeded for several seasons, and for several reasons. The main reason being, of course, the show's main star (Valerie Harper), who was very funny and was given funny lines left and right on the "MTM Show" prior to getting her own series. The writing on "Rhoda" was very nearly equal to that of the MTM show that spawned it, with many of the same writers penning scripts for both series (like James L. Brooks and Allan Burns, plus others).

The "Rhoda" cast, in addition to Valerie, was also a really good ensemble assemblage -- including the likes of Nancy Walker, David Groh, Julie Kavner, Harold Gould, and Ron Silver. Plus the always-funny, deadpan voice of Lorenzo Music, as "Carlton, the Doorman". We never actually saw Carlton, we just heard him through Rhoda's intercom speaker in her apartment. But that guy provided an ample number of laughs from just the way he delivered his lines -- sight unseen. Lorenzo was also a writer for the "Rhoda" series, as well as a staff writer on the "MTM Show" and "The Bob Newhart Show". Lorenzo, sadly, passed away of cancer at the too-early age of only 64, in August 2001.

"The Very Best Of RHODA" is a durably-packaged, slipcased VHS video boxed set containing 4 tapes and 9 "Rhoda" episodes, divided into individual seasons. Tape #4 serves the dual task of representing both Season 4 and the truncated fifth season of the series, which only consisted of nine aired shows. The fourth tape, therefore, has an extra (third) episode on it.

Picture quality is okay, for the Video Home System (i.e.: VHS) format, although some episodes look washed-out, with subdued colors. But, overall, these prints aren't too bad. The video ratio is Full Frame (1.33:1). Audio = Hi-Fi Mono. .... And be sure to listen for the proverbial "MTM Enterprises Honker" on most (or all) of these "Rhoda" shows. The "honker" is show executive James L. Brooks, who owns a singular and unorthodox style of laughing. He adds additional moments of humor to a goodly number of "MTM Enterprises" programs, all by himself. ("Honk, honk!") :)

The two shows on Tape #1 (the two-parter about Rhoda's wedding) are my favorite episodes in this boxed set. Several cast members from the MTM Show are guest stars in that 2-part program (Mary, Lou, Murray, Phyllis, and Georgette all make appearances). Mary Tyler Moore made 5 total guest appearances on the "Rhoda" series, all coming in the very first season (including the series' debut episode on September 9, 1974).

One very funny scene on the first tape is when the groom-to-be, Joe (David Groh), first meets Mary Richards (MTM). Joe is out of sorts after a hard day's work and a confrontation with the seemingly always-drunk doorman (Carlton), making Mary's first impression of Rhoda's soon-to-be husband less than favorable (and quite humorous) --- Joe bellows: "Rhoda, what the hell is wrong with that guy (Carlton)?! Is he ALWAYS drunk?! Does he ever do anything else?!!" ..... And when Phyllis forgets to pick up the bride on the wedding day, more laughs are provided. (Mother Ida is NOT a happy camper!) LOL!


Here's the roster of episodes that make up this 4-Tape video set .........................

Tape 1 (from Season 1): "Rhoda's Wedding" (Part 1 and Part 2). *
Tape 2 (from Season 2): "Friends And Mothers" and "A Night With The Girls".
Tape 3 (from Season 3): "The Separation" and "An Elephant Never Forgets".
Tape 4 (from Seasons 4 & 5): "One Is A Number", "Happy Anniversary", and "Martin Doesn't Live Here Anymore".

* = Interestingly, "Rhoda's Wedding" is listed in most episode guides as two separate episodes, even though it aired as a single, one-hour program originally (on October 28, 1974). .... It's also rather curious to note that many Internet sources list Ted Knight ("Ted Baxter" from the MTM Show) as having also appeared in the "Wedding" episode. This is a mystery, because Ted is nowhere to be found during this double-length "Rhoda" installment.

Being as how I have been a Fan of Valery Harper forever and loving Rhoda since day one I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed this RHODA COLLECTION I now own.
It captures Rhoda at Her finest, as well as her zany family and Friends that tag along for the ride, Everyone from Johnny Venture to Carlton the Doorman.
Its Rhoda with Joe (her Husband) and Rhoda without Joe as a single Lady out on the town with Her gal pals never knowing what to expect from one moment to the next.
I'm sure you will love and enjoy this collection as I have. You'll watch it over and over again and get a laugh every time.
I highly recomend it.

Like her sister show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda is a great series that is amazingly uplifting despite the stiff obstacles of life. On Mary's show, there was room for laughter even though a clown had died tragically or Mary had the worst day of her life; on Rhoda, and in Rhoda---the Very Best of Rhoda---she may separate, but when her mother, Ida, attacks her husband, Joe, like a lion going after its prey, we can only roll on the floor with laughter. Rhoda learned from Mary that life can be joyful and hilarious even despite its woes.

These classic episodes hold up against the best shows ever made. Lucy, Mary, and Carol Burnett may be among the most heralded female stars, but Valerie Harper had the best character of any of them. She was more like us than the other actresses's main character. She was insecure, constantly battling the bulge, relatedly obsessed with food, temperamental, distressed by the dating scene, frequently unlucky, and in love with her family. Valerie was blessed with a truly human character, and she blessed us with her brilliant performances.

The best episode of the lot is One is a Number in which Rhoda, who previously had thought she needed to be married to be happy, went to the theatre alone. Reluctently alone on the town after the play, she meets an elderly woman who claims to fly a rocketship and a waitress who's more of a Socrates than a Flo. It is a meeting of the oddballs. But through it all, she learned to love her own company and clearly see the beauty of humanity. There are still other swift and subtle messages, as well as hilarious moments, in this episode.

The Separation episode in which Ida attacks is also dazzling and An Elephant Never Forgets is Rhoda at her wittiest. (Julie Kavner, as her sister, Brenda, actually steals this show.) Still, only Rhoda would be funny despite being depressed and overweight. Rhoda's Wedding is a more obvious classic.

Vice Presidential candidate Lieberman faces the same fate that the actually not Jewish Valerie Harper has received. No matter how fierce his accomplishments may become, he will never be given the credit he deserves because of a stupid, underlying anti-Semitism that is pervasive in this country.

For the sake of this country, I hope that he turns out to be a quiet, resilient gem, too!

The Mary Tyler Moore Show is one of my favorite classic comedy shows and Rhoda is one of the best characters and they even gave Valarie Harper her own show in which she played Rhoda and I was really mad when TVland and Nick At Nite dropped the reruns of Rhoda from their lineups. I was hoping that since The Mary Tyler Moore Show has gotten complete seasons on DVD that they would do the same for Rhoda! Come on, Rhoda is a great classic show and should be on DVD!