Archive for May 14th, 2001

May 14 2001

Mary & Rhoda

Published by under Random Thoughts,TV

Remember that scene in “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion” where the two title characters are arguing bitterly about which is the “Mary” (i.e. cute) and which is the “Rhoda” (i.e. less cute)? The argument gets so heated that they actually have to pull over, even though up to that point they were speeding along traffic-free freeways (which never happens to me).

Even when “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” was in its heyday, I thought Rhoda, with her wisecracks and actual personal style — even when she was supposedly fat — was much more attractive than stick thin, uptight Mary with her matronly clothes and stiff, lacquered hair. The Mary of “Dick Van Dyke” was so much cuter and sexier in her little capri pants. What happened? The MTM Show Mary’s puritanical personality could and did rob even a miniskirt of its sex appeal, whereas you got the impression that Rhoda was much more, shall we say, warm-blooded. Plus she’d make you laugh afterwards, and possibly even during, which I consider to be a bonus.

And I gotta say, Rhoda has the last laugh. I saw a few seconds of a trailer for Mary’s latest TV movie, undoubtedly some form of tear-jerker, and she looked freakish and frightening. I don’t know if she’s the victim of platic surgery gone disastrously wrong, but she looks like a hard-faced creature from another planet. Valerie Harper, on the other hand, has made a couple of guest appearances lately looking fabulous — on “Sex & The City” and “That 70’s Show”. She’s still got wit and style and is undoubtedly still turning heads — and not because she looks like an alien. Maybe one day that scene in “Romy & Michele” will be funny because viewers will wonder why anyone wants to be the Mary.

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