Ellen: Two Ring Circus

Ellen: Two Ring Circus
ABC
February 28, 1996
Sitcom
DVD
B

This David Flebotte story is very funny and multi-layered, although much of the latter is hindsight.  After two months of dating (more like a month and a half between airdates), Matt wants to propose to Paige at a hockey game, since they both love hockey.  She's been hiding her true self from the beginning, and this is tested when he gets her a "demure" ring.  The proposal is like and unlike the Who's the Boss? proposal of four-and-a-half seasons earlier.  Paige gleefully accepts, unlike Angela reluctantly saying no, but the crowd is as happy about the proposal as they were about Tony's (here on a scoreboard rather than a blimp, but then it would be indoors of course).  However, Matt is actually unconscious, knocked out by a puck, and it's Ellen that Paige accepts and hugs, and the crowd, this being L.A., in nonjudgmental. 

This isn't the only moment that teases about Ellen's then closeted state.  (If I recall correctly, there had been rumors for years, but the public at large had no idea about DeGeneres.)  When Ellen looks at bridal magazines, she likes the tux better than the gowns.  And meanwhile, Peter and Barrett exchange rings but, unlike Matt and Paige, no kisses, just hugs.  It's as if the powers that be (DeGeneres included) are testing the waters here for what would become perhaps the longest coming-out in television history.  The playfulness spills over into less in-joky lines like a reference to "that dreamy Robby Benson," i.e. that season's director.  Note that Spence is not thrilled about Paige's engagement, but it's unclear if it's just jealousy or if he thinks she shouldn't found a relationship on dishonesty, maybe both.

Bari K. Willerford returns as the Delivery Man.  This time, Moore gives Ellen hat-tossing lessons in the title sequence.

Ellen: Lobster Diary

Three legends.  (I'm guessing the title sequences
didn't get filmed the same weeks as their episodes.

Ellen: Lobster Diary
ABC
February 21, 1996
Sitcom
DVD
B

In this Newman & Stark story, Ellen's liberation of a lobster from its restaurant tank turns her into a heroine, Lobster Lady.  Mary Tyler Moore, as herself, gives her an award, and later a pep talk.  The main fun here is seeing Ellen and Mary's nervous mannerisms, with a lot of self-parody on both sides, play off of each other.

Wesley Thompson, who was a Corpsman on M*A*S*H in '83, is Kevin Brown here.  Another of Joely's sisters, Tricia Leigh Fisher, plays Joanie here and would later be Megan.

Mary Tyler Moore: The 20th Anniversary Show

"20" years later

Mary Tyler Moore:  The 20th Anniversary Show
CBS
February 18, 1991
Sitcom
VHS
B-

By now it should be clear that CBS was interpreting "20th anniversary" pretty loosely, eager to relive their glory days in the '70s.  This clip show at least has the advantage of getting the cast in a room together as themselves.  Much of it feels scripted, although the tears at the end look real.  MTM was one of those shows I watched all the time growing up but don't really feel inclined to get on DVD.  Still, it's nice to revisit.  This was taped after Ted Knight died, but the cast was then otherwise intact.

I Love Liberty [fragment]

I Love Liberty [fragment]
ABC
March 21, 1982
Variety
VHS
C+

Sometimes kitschy, sometimes moving, sometimes dull, always patriotic by some definition of the word, variety special from the unlikely writing team of Norman Lear, Rita Mae Brown, TV critic Rick Mitz, and more, featuring the following (until my videotape ran out later in the '80s):

• Barry Goldwater as himself, backed by several marching bands, a couple baton-twirlers, and dancers in historical costumes;
• Big Bird as himself, talking with host Martin Sheen;
• The Muppets, including Bert, Ernie, and Grover in a cameo, doing a fourth-wall-breaking and not terribly funny skit about the Second Continental Congress;
• Robin Williams as the American flag (one of the better segments);
• Judd Hirsch as a Jewish immigrant, speaking in the park, although his wife, Valerie Harper, wants him to come home, and Christopher Atkins (as bad an actor as ever) brings up the Alien & Sedition Acts;
• Barbra Streisand singing "America the Beautiful";
• Two African-American performers, I think Madge Sinclair and Louis Gossett, Jr., as Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass;
• and Mary Tyler Moore as Stephen Douglas's wife talking about Abraham Lincoln.