She'll Make It Alright

I'm gonna be too lazy over the next few days to post much, but I'll feed your need for entertainment with an occasional YouTube clip. You may know that I'm a fan of TV opening titles. Theme songs too, but also opening title sequences. I even put together a two-hour DVD compilation recently of TV-show openings. Yes, I realize this does not make me especially cool.

Something that is cool: the opening to THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, which is one of the few sitcoms in television history not to feature the name of the series in its titles. This clip is from the first season. Composer/singer Sonny Curtis (a former Cricket) re-recorded the theme for Season Two, changing the "you might just make it after all" to "you're gonna make it after all." After all (heh), she had just finished an entire year associate-producing the WJM news and dealing with grouchy Lou Grant. It's a wonderful song and a very well edited title sequence.

The Season Two DVD box set contains an interesting extra: a half-hour documentary produced during the 1970's on the making of THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW's titles. A camera crew followed producer David Davis and his crew as they returned to Minneapolis three or four years into the show's seven-season run to update the opening titles. They, along with cast members Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper, spent a couple of days in Minneapolis shooting new footage. This led to a famous confrontation when the woman who lived in the house that doubled for the exterior of Mary's demanded money from the producers for the right to film her house. When they didn't pay her, she hung an "Impeach Nixon" banner from her windows so they couldn't shoot without her permission.