Those of you who haven’t seen or have long forgotten the TV show Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976), it’s time for a wake up call. This peculiar little show was the talk of the town back in the day, and for good reason. It constantly dealt with controversial and taboo subjects which inspired the ire of both liberal and conservative minded viewers. But beyond that, the show was just plain STRANGE. Picture Days of Our Lives directed by David Lynch, and you have pretty good idea what this show is like.
I’ll spare you the detailed synopsis (that’s what Wikipedia is for) and break down a few topics from the first season to give you a taste.
The very first episode starts out with a bang when there’s a mass murder in the neighborhood – and the killer is still at large. There’s a sort of morbid tone set by the incident and the characters express more concern for the pets killed than the humans. There’s no laugh track, so I didn’t know whether to be amused or disturbed – so I was both. I think Norman Lear and the writers wanted the audiences to feel uncomfortable.
Before I go any further, let me state that you would have to swallow a handful of quaaludes, and chase it with an entire bottle of Ny-Quil to appear half as drugged as Mary Hartman. Her speech is mumbled and slurred, and she always seems to be in a haze. Add to that, she dresses like someone with psychiatric problems (in fact, she is institutionalized in Louis Lasser’s last season). And this is the main character!
Loretta, Mary’s best friend, is an aspiring country singer and racist with hair extensions. She basically spends all day in her filthy house pretending to be famous. Picture Laura Dern in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart.
Her husband is a 43 year old balding man that simply could not look more nerdy… and when he removes his shirt to make love to his wife, audiences are treated to a pale white body covered in a thick mange. Back hair never looked so repulsive. At least he’s got his shotgun to protect his pretty lady from any mass murderers!
The bedroom scenes between Loretta and her spouse are intimate to a fault. The camera closes in close, zeroing in on blemishes, cellulite, beads of sweat, hairy armpits, etc. I felt like I was in bed with them… and a tad squeamish.
In the scene depicted in the next screen shot, Mary’s daughter is feeling uncomfortable because she was a witness to a mass murder. Not only that, she is complaining of menstrual cramps and so slides under the table. It’s times like this that I was wishing there was a laugh track so I would know when something was supposed to be funny or not.
Then there’s grandpa who likes to expose himself in public. In this episode, gramps is arrested for flashing at a school playground. Granted, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman modeled itself after soap operas, and soaps often cover illicit topics. However, adultery and murder plots are one thing… mass murders and a 90 year old man exposing himself at a playground is another thing entirely!
But it wasn’t just the risqué subject matter that made this show so off putting for most audiences that it had to be shown late at night, it was the element of the bizarre that was injected into each episode. There are no menacing midgets like in Lynch’s films, but there’s plenty of nihilistic dirty strangeness to go around: impalement on an aluminum Christmas tree, wife beating, kidnapping, and bathtub electrocution – all played with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
There were over 300 episodes of this show produced, and yet only about 25 are currently available on DVD. I guess I should be glad they were made at all - if it weren't for a letter of support from Ben Stein (who was then an aid to President Nixon), it would've probably been cancelled very early on. I guess a good question is: If the entire run was made available, would I even watch them? I think I would. Certainly, it takes a while to acclimate yourself to such a unique brand of television, but once you “get it”, you won’t be able to stop. There’s a pleasure in being shocked, repulsed, and disturbed one minute, and then laughing the next.
I'll end this essay with a beautiful quote from Mary Hartman:
"I must have been born under an unlucky star. You know I have filled out entry blanks for every single drawing in the supermarket for the last twelve years, and the only thing I ever won was a coupon for a small little jar of tomato paste. But they were out of tomato paste, and by the time they got more in, my coupon had expired. And now I have venereal disease.".... classic.
I’ll spare you the detailed synopsis (that’s what Wikipedia is for) and break down a few topics from the first season to give you a taste.
The very first episode starts out with a bang when there’s a mass murder in the neighborhood – and the killer is still at large. There’s a sort of morbid tone set by the incident and the characters express more concern for the pets killed than the humans. There’s no laugh track, so I didn’t know whether to be amused or disturbed – so I was both. I think Norman Lear and the writers wanted the audiences to feel uncomfortable.
Before I go any further, let me state that you would have to swallow a handful of quaaludes, and chase it with an entire bottle of Ny-Quil to appear half as drugged as Mary Hartman. Her speech is mumbled and slurred, and she always seems to be in a haze. Add to that, she dresses like someone with psychiatric problems (in fact, she is institutionalized in Louis Lasser’s last season). And this is the main character!Loretta, Mary’s best friend, is an aspiring country singer and racist with hair extensions. She basically spends all day in her filthy house pretending to be famous. Picture Laura Dern in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart.
Her husband is a 43 year old balding man that simply could not look more nerdy… and when he removes his shirt to make love to his wife, audiences are treated to a pale white body covered in a thick mange. Back hair never looked so repulsive. At least he’s got his shotgun to protect his pretty lady from any mass murderers!
The bedroom scenes between Loretta and her spouse are intimate to a fault. The camera closes in close, zeroing in on blemishes, cellulite, beads of sweat, hairy armpits, etc. I felt like I was in bed with them… and a tad squeamish.In the scene depicted in the next screen shot, Mary’s daughter is feeling uncomfortable because she was a witness to a mass murder. Not only that, she is complaining of menstrual cramps and so slides under the table. It’s times like this that I was wishing there was a laugh track so I would know when something was supposed to be funny or not.
Then there’s grandpa who likes to expose himself in public. In this episode, gramps is arrested for flashing at a school playground. Granted, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman modeled itself after soap operas, and soaps often cover illicit topics. However, adultery and murder plots are one thing… mass murders and a 90 year old man exposing himself at a playground is another thing entirely!
But it wasn’t just the risqué subject matter that made this show so off putting for most audiences that it had to be shown late at night, it was the element of the bizarre that was injected into each episode. There are no menacing midgets like in Lynch’s films, but there’s plenty of nihilistic dirty strangeness to go around: impalement on an aluminum Christmas tree, wife beating, kidnapping, and bathtub electrocution – all played with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
There were over 300 episodes of this show produced, and yet only about 25 are currently available on DVD. I guess I should be glad they were made at all - if it weren't for a letter of support from Ben Stein (who was then an aid to President Nixon), it would've probably been cancelled very early on. I guess a good question is: If the entire run was made available, would I even watch them? I think I would. Certainly, it takes a while to acclimate yourself to such a unique brand of television, but once you “get it”, you won’t be able to stop. There’s a pleasure in being shocked, repulsed, and disturbed one minute, and then laughing the next.
I'll end this essay with a beautiful quote from Mary Hartman:"I must have been born under an unlucky star. You know I have filled out entry blanks for every single drawing in the supermarket for the last twelve years, and the only thing I ever won was a coupon for a small little jar of tomato paste. But they were out of tomato paste, and by the time they got more in, my coupon had expired. And now I have venereal disease.".... classic.
