Episode
The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Bird and ...Um ...Bess
Overview
In the second-season premiere, after Mary Richards produces a ""What's Your Sexual IQ?"" documentary for the Six O'Clock News, Rhoda confesses to failing and Phyllis says that young Bess watched it. Phyllis calls on Mary to teach Bess the facts of life, but it turns out that Bess already had learned it from her friends. Meanwhile, the WJM-TV newsroom is shelled with phone calls responding to the documentary. According to Mary, more people are appalled by it than anything else.
Details
- Series
- The Mary Tyler Moore Show
- Season
- Season 2
- Episode
- Episode 1
- Air date
- 1971-09-18
- Runtime
- 25 min
Episode context
The Bird and ...Um ...Bess is Episode 1 in Season 2 of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It aired on 1971-09-18. The runtime is 25 min.
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More episodes from this season
Episode 3: He's No Heavy . . . He's My Brother
Mary and Rhoda take an unplanned vacation to Mexico but have to do a strange favor for a Mexican restaurant owner for reservations.
Episode 4: Room 223
Mary and Rhoda enroll in a night school course in journalism and Mary begins dating the lecturer.
Episode 5: A Girl's Best Mother Is Not Her Friend
When Ida, Rhoda's mother, visits, she sees how well Phyllis and Bess get on, and how closely Mary appears to her mother when they chat on the telephone, that she tries to be Rhoda's ""friend"".
Episode 6: Cover Boy
Jack Cassidy guest stars as professional model Hal Baxter, who comes to visit his brother Ted at WJM-TV. Immediately, the two engage in a heated battle of sibling rivalry about EVERYTHING -- salaries, cars, & even women. In an effort to size up his brother, Ted claims that Mary is his girlfriend.
Ted & Hal decide to go on a double-date with Mary & Rhoda. At the restaurant, Ted doesn't know any etiquitte, and it shows. Back at Mary's apartment, Ted & Hal arm wrestle before Hal decides to go with Rhoda up to her apartment to look thru magazines for his picture. Ted stays with Mary to make Hal think that he spends more time with his girl than he does.
Episode 7: Didn't You Used to Be . . . Wait . . . Don't Tell Me
Mary attends her high school reunion and meets up with her former boyfriend Howard Arnell, who continues to have feelings for Mary. Meanwhile, Rhoda tags along believing that people will ""remember"" her although she didn't attend Roseburg High.
Episode 8: Thoroughly Unmilitant Mary
The writing and technical unions go on strike, leaving only Lou, Mary, and Ted in the newsroom. WJM-TV makes Lou be second cameraman on ""The Chuckles the Clown Show"". Because an upset Murray is on strike, Mary has to write the news stories. They are terrible, and when Lou criticizes them, she starts crying.
Things take a turn for the worse: Ted's union strikes, and Lou has to fill in as anchorman! On his first brodcast, he has ""clammy hands"", and he bombs. At a local bar, Murray, Gordy, & Mary share a laugh over this. After drinking before his 2nd brodcast, he is ""as cool as a cucumber""--that is, until he falls asleep at breaktime. Herb fills in for Lou for the rest of the brodcast.
The next day, the unions come to an agreement, and everything goes back to normal. Rhoda Morgenstern & Phyllis Lindstrom do not appear in this episode.
Episode 9: And Now, Sitting in for Ted Baxter
Ted is forced to take a vacation and the anchorman hired to sit in for him becomes a huge success.
Episode 10: Don't Break the Chain
Mary gets a chain letter from Lou, and she is persuaded to send it on. To her surprise, one of the recipients comes for a visit, giving Mary a less than pleasant time dealing with him.
Episode 11: The Six-and-a-Half-Year Itch
Mary, Rhoda and Lou go to a John Wayne movie, where they spot Lou's son-in-law with an unknown woman.
Episode 12: . . . Is a Friend in Need
Rhoda loses her job as a window-dresser and isn't in a hurry to find something new. When there is a job opening at WJM-TV, Mary lies to Rhoda and tells her the job has been filled, to Lou's surprise.