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.