Calling Help on a Land Line:
"Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman"
by Jamie Jobb
"Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" crashed through the roof of our house like a chunk of lavatory ice dropped from a Jumbo Jet. We weren’t the only ones shocked by this outrageous late-night tv show. The year was 1976, back in the day of antennas and snowy signals. Cable had just becoming available in San Rafael in cozy Marin County. We didn’t have it yet; this show forced us to sign up.
Suddenly a soap opera! After the late night news on a UHF Channel. With no laugh track, of course. And very little sappy soapy organ music. Just the dull fluorescent hum of studio wildtrack, perhaps a muffled cough or a crewman’s dumb stumble off camera. Plus very strange storylines and a sudden silly cliffhanger ending every night. Those of us raised on Saturday afternoon serials always appreciate a lame cliffhanger.
"Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" was a broadcasting breakthrough created by Emmy-winning producer Norman Lear (“All in the Family”). After the major networks turned down his odd soap, Lear envisioned it running on his own late-night network that snubbed the three-network power structure (NBC, CBS, ABC) of the time.
Lear's "network" had only one show, five nights a week, 30 minutes each night. Every night it started the same way, with Mary’s mother, Martha Shumway (Dody Goodman, the Queen of Ditz) yelling deep into the night: “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman!”
In a time long before media turned social and scrambled itselves all aTwitter, Lear relied on word-of-mouth momentum to create an audience that understood his sensationally absurd satirical sendup of daytime soaps at night.
These included the dull thud of characters dropping dead to suit any sudden new gig elsewhere for an actor who then had to be “written out of the show” quickly. “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” became famous for its ridiculous scenes involving the sudden death of a character. Coach Leroy Fedders (Norman Alden) died in a bowl of chicken soup; Jimmy Joe Jeeter (Sparky Marcus) died in a tragic bathtub accident involving a live tv set.
Louise Lasser played Mary Hartman with an acting fanaticism unknown to tv before or since. Indeed, Lasser’s acting career extended into her seventies and she taught the craft to young actors for many years.
Lasser’s reputation as Woody Allen's co-star/soulmate/ex-wife helped quickly build a loyal audience for the show at the time. But what propelled the word-of-mouth were the ridiculous plotlines and punchlines from the writers’ room of Gail Parent, Ann Marcus, Daniel Gregory Browne and Jerry Adelman. They made sure trouble was Mary’s “friend”, night after night.
Mary Hartman (Louise Lasser) calls Help Line
Woeful Mary's plight is complex to say the least: a neighborhood teenaged mass murder, hostages, slaughtered goats and chickens, a cop bound-and-gagged in a Chinese laundry, dismissed overtures to open marriage and self-help STET, getting brushed off by the free-love Lackawanda Institute and an eight-year-old televangelist, not to mention her personal responsibility for Coach Fedders’ sudden demise! No ... Mary's troubles are so complex and all-consuming that she barely knows where to begin to ask for help. And if that seems nuts, rest assured it is. In her kitchen, prim Mary is calling the Help Line:
Mary: “Hello, Help? … Help!”
Help Lady: “I beg your pardon?”
Mary: “I’m calling Help … “
Help Lady: “ … Ah … yeah, this is … The Help Line.”
Mary: “Good … (quitely) … help!”
Help Lady: “ … I understand that part. What is your name?”
Mary: “Oh. Well. My name is … Mary.”
Help Lady: “Good! Mary what?”
Mary: “Ah … Mary Hartman.”
Help Lady: “Ah! What is your address?”
Mary: “... don’t wanna tell you.”
Help Lady: “Huh?”
Mary: “I don’t wanna tell you.”
Help Lady: “OK, OK. that’s OK. What’s the problem?”
Mary: “Actually I don’t know if I could talk about it?”
Help Lady: “Is it suicide?”
Mary: “Oh no! If I’d wanted to kill myself I wouldn’t have called the Help
Line. I’d just stick with Information.”
Veteran tv actor Beverly Sanders played the Help Line Lady in this scene. Sanders was born in Hollywood and destined for a long career as a tv actor herself. This episode, No. 106, aired on 31 May 1976. The eight-minute clip of the scene is worth watching (see “Mary Hartman on You Tube” below).
The show wasn't always funny as these episodes played out slowly. Some scenes were brutally futile fare for the tame late-night home entertainment of this time before HBO and VCRs. The daily episodes were cranked out fast and furious with lots of fumbling on set and off.
Although “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” only lasted 16 months, the DVD of the program is a daunting Everest of episodes, a total of 325 twenty-two minute segments. It was a time-consuming show in 1976-77, Norman Lear's bastard child of Theatre of the Absurd on late-night tv! Recall that only a decade before, Lucille Ball could not say the word “pregnant” on her program! The word was too hot for tv.
It’s best to watch “Mary Hartman” in pairs of episodes over several months to keep from getting overwhelmed and needing to call the Help Line your own self!
“Mary Hartman”
DVD Links
The 2008 Louise Lasser interviews/comments in the box set offer a real actors workshop of insights into how she did that tedious work. Serious actors looking for inspiration should look no further … Lasser is a gifted actor/teacher, full of insight. Here she sums up Mary: "Mary was a survivor in a world that might not be worth surviving in."
Lasser on Mary's battle with Perfection, based on her wardrobe: "You can't be that symmetrical with her braids, her little optimistic shoulders ... You can't be symmetrical anywhere in any world ... but she doesn't know that."
Get the DVD box set here:
“Mary Hartman”
on You Tube
The "Chicken Soup" episode:
Calling for Help on a Land Line:
EVERY EPISODE of the series:
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