Phyllis

I was 20 when Phyllis was filmed - and had the absolute pleasure of attending every single episode filmed, as part of the live audience for the two season run. What a thrill. I was (still am) an avid Cloris Leachman fan and following Phyllis from MTM was so exciting. It had a great start - and I especially loved Barbara Colby. So sad for the world that she did not get the chance to fulfill her talent longer due to the untimely death. Looking back though, I must say that the highlight of the whole Phyllis experience was the Mother Dexter character. She just stole EVERY scene (the way Phyllis used to on the MTM show). If I want to smile - all I have to do is think about Judith Lowry (Mother Dexter) chasing Billy Barty (guest starring as Bess' potential new in-law) around the living room saying..."you're so cute" - as if he was a baby. As much as I love Cloris (always will) - Judith was the highlight. The second season absolutely declined, but still contained many classic Judith Lowry & Cloris moments. Mother Dexter's Wedding stands out. So funny & moving at the same time to see these two old people (Judith & Burt Mustin) getting married. Burt was also perfectly cast. And then...as fate would have it...Judith died a week before the airing of the show and Burt died about six weeks later. This was the last piece of work they would do. (What a way for an actor to go!). HOPE THE WHOLE SHOW GOES TO DVD SOON! While I do have an unedited version of the "wedding" - the rest of what I have is so heavily edited. IF anyone from MTM reads this...THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES!!

Of all the characters on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW the least likable was possibly Phyllis Lindstrom. Played by Cloris Leachman (brilliantly) she was a pretentious know-it-all, who patronized Mary Richards (Ms Moore), acted like Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper) was a weird social misfit, and managed to annoy or confuse the other regular in the cast. Only once, when she learned that her unseen husband Lars had an affair (or sorts) with Sue Anne Nivens (Betty White) did Phyllis become sympathetic. Suddenly we felt she was human after all. But the character constantly ended with mud in her face in most of her appearances, and so she was a welcome member of the cast.

After RHODA spun off THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW it was thought that shows about the other characters might work. Actually the hour series LOU GRANT turned out to be successful too. But PHYLLIS was a harder nut to sell to the public. Rhoda Morgenstern was sympathetic because she was trying to find a husband and trying to survive her mother (Nancy Walker). Lou Grant (Edward Asner) was an experienced newspaperman, whose marriage had fallen apart. But PHYLLIS had no likable characteristic. This, of course, made a spin-off with her as the central character seem a hard sell.

The plot took Phyllis to California. Lars has died, so Phyllis takes her daughter Beth (Lisa Gerritson) with her and settle with Lars mother (Jane Rose) and her second husband, a Judge (Henry Jones). Also in the household is the Judge's mother (Judith Lowry). The first episodes were about her setting up her new home and her new job. But the job was with a woman named Julie Erskine, played by Barbara Colby. Unfortunately the talented, subtle, likable Ms Colby was killed with a boyfriend in an unsolved murder just a week or so after Phyllis began. The role was re-casted by Liz Torres.

Colby's murder would have been a serious problem for any show to get out of. That the producers and writers tried to continue the role show a willingness to wait and see if the public would accept the change. Fortunately the show managed to pull in a regular audience each week, partly because of the character played by Judith Lowry. The 80+ actress played a caustic tongued lady who did for Phyllis in this show what Rhoda had done in THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW. The part was a bit role, but like Henry Winkler's Fonzie on HAPPY DAYS it gradually expanded. Even when Phyllis went out of her way to be nice to her, Ms Lowry cut her down to size. She even filled out background about her youth. In one episode she shocks Henry Jones by openly suggesting that the great romance of her early days was with President Warren Harding!

As a result the show went through it's first season, and seemed to be headed to success. However it decided to change the location of Phyllis's job, changing from the business that was run by Torres (formerly by Colby) to being an assistant to a city councilman. The episode where Phyllis landed this job was quite humorous in another way: the councilman whom Phyllis initially goes to see about the job is John Ritter, who is in the midst of a news conference denying allegations of improprieties. She tries to start her duties, only to find Ritter asking her to help shred some files. As he tries to do this the police arrive to drag him off. Fortunately another councilman turns up who needs an assistant.

The second season seemed destined for success, and the beginning of a long run. In December 1976 Lowry's character married her current boy-friend (not a relative of Harding, by the way), in an full episode. Within two months Lowry died (so did Burt Mustlin, the elderly actor who played her bridegroom). Unlike Colby's character, which had not fully developed when she died, Lowry's had been developed. There was a taped introduction to an episode by Leachman, in honor to Lowry. It was moving. Unfortunately there was little time to figure out how to fill Lowry's big shoes (or remove the growing taint of a "Phyllis" curse). The show was not renewed for another season. Well, two seasons for a weakened spin off is not bad...and it was a better show than AFTER M.A.S.H. was.

I'm very much working from memory but there was a time back in the70's when I was as happy viewing this MTM comedy as its more celebrated originator and first spin-off series, "The Mary Tyler-Moore Show" and my personal favourite "Rhoda". The few times I remember in "TMTMS", she was almost the anti-heroine, the snobbish, bitchy next door neighbour whom you wondered how even St Mary could befriend. Only occasionally did she show her human side which probably made it difficult for the show's writers to centre her as a watchable character in her Jen show.

For what it's worth, I certainly remember enjoying the show on the sporadic occasions it turned up on British television in the mid-70's. Clovis Leachman was great in the title part, her face capable of going from happy to sarcastic in the one line. I was never comfortable when her daughter got air-time with her own brand of spoilt second-hand sardonic-ism but her genial but occasionally caustic middle-aged parents and her acid-tongued grandmother Dexter made good foils for her, the latter perhaps prefiguring the similar character who stole the show years later in "The Golden Girls". It perhaps said something about the star- power of the show that the episode I remember best is the one where Tyler-Moore guest- starred, perhaps to try and boost the ratings.

Perhaps I'm remembering thus show as better than it was but I'd sure like the opportunity to see it again although its short-lived TV shelf-life makes that only a remote possibility. One thing it did have was a great bitter-sweet theme tune which arguably captured the title character's personality in one pay-off finishing line better than two full series of half- hour shows!

Sure, this series didn't showcase Cloris Leachman's talents to any great extent. Sure, the comedy was more than often silly. Sure, the cast changes at the start of season 2 LOOKED like the desperate attempt that it really was to keep fresh story ideas alive. Sure, Jane Rose's performance was the equivalent of finger-nails on a chalk board. Sure, the character of Phyllis was extremely watered down after the pilot.

But for Mother Dexter alone, I'd have to disagree with the opinion that it's "unwatchable." ...And whatever happened to Lisa Gerritsen anyhow??

This was a funny spin off, not the best ever, but certainly memorable, and enjoyable. (The theme-song sequence is one of the best in TV history.) The show allowed the wonderful Cloris Leachman to really flesh out the Phyllis Lindstrom character. Unfortunately, despite good ratings, the show was canceled just when it was blossoming.

Phylllis was the flip side of Mary Richards. She didn't so much embrace her liberation as slip on it like a banana peel. In many ways her character and this show were precursors of the dysfunctional survivor school of situation comedy. Marge Simpson, Peg Bundy, Malcolm's mom, Lois, and many others owe a little tip of the hat to Cloris Leachman's put-upon Phyllis.