Because of stagnant ratings, the station manager calls a meeting. He wants the news to be more entertaining. Lou, the old time news guy is appalled. But Mary agrees with the station manager, partly because she is hurting from the news that her predecessor made fifty dollars a week more because he was a man. Anyway, the decide to do co-anchors. Gordy is to team with Ted. Ted is the straight man, but he doesn't know it. When he finds out he sabotages the news, including Mary's report on population. Actually, some of his comments are pretty darned funny. Things are a disaster and Mary is the fall guy. This is a really funny episode and Ted is at his very best.
4 Reviews
The Birth of "Fake News"?
darryl-tahirali6 April 2023
Although WJM-TV's news doesn't exactly become "fake news," a term that became commonplace thanks to President Donald Trump's pervasive usage of it starting in the 2010s, station manager Jack Stoneham (Robert Hogan) insists that it needs a new format to bolster ratings. Sensing Jack's inclination toward the "Happy Hour" feel-good format that was already becoming prevalent in actual local news programs of the time, Lou makes his stand: "News is truth, Jack. And I'm not gonna turn it into something fake," to which Jack replies, "Why not? . . . After all, Lou, there's fake, and then there's fake."
Thus series creators James L. Brooks and Allan Burns's sharp, crackling script delivers an early warning on the descent of television news into mere entertainment--"The Good-Time News" of the episode's title--that reduces substantive issues to a spectacle of pageantry and personalities. Granted, hapless WJM is already saddled with a news program that is close to a Twin Cities laughingstock thanks to inept, pompous anchorman Ted, but when Mary disagrees with Lou on Jack's idea, she is saddled with having to retool the program.
Why Mary disagrees with Lou lies in the opening gambit, when, in reviewing past budgets prior to their meeting with Jack, she discovers that the previous associate producer, a man whose work was, by consensus, inferior to hers, was paid $50 more a week than she is paid. (That would be about $360 in 2023 dollars, just over $18,700 annually.) Confronting Lou about this, he tries to justify it by stating that the man had a family to support, and when Mary challenges him, he weasels out of the discussion.
Thus Brooks and Burns broach the issue of gender inequality in the workplace that not only seems tame and even disingenuous today, but was even genteel in comparison to contemporary situation comedies, particularly Norman Lear's stable of socially conscious sitcoms ("All in the Family," "Maude" et al.). Call it cautious, but it was still a noteworthy statement for its time.
Adopting a two-anchor format in a more relaxed setting and approach, Mary's choice to co-anchor with Ted is Gordy. However, the joke is on Ted, as he is slated to be the "straight man" to Gordy's more engaging personality, a circumstance that the news team has been working hard to conceal from Ted during the week's rehearsals on the new format--and it isn't until moments before air time that Jack stops by to congratulate Ted, telling him that it takes a big man to play the straight man in the new format.
That of course all but guarantees a train wreck, which Lou and Murray watch--but only by killing off a bottle of scotch before moving onto bourbon. (Exemplifying the then-contemporary trope of the "three-martini business lunch," Lou had also had a scotch at the earlier meeting with Jack.) Applying the coup de grace is Mary herself, who is tapped to do the station management editorial on population control (noting that projections place the global population at 7 billion by 2000, which actually occurred in 2011--but maybe her editorial worked?), but Ted's continuous wisecracks finally goad Mary into very un-Mary-like exasperation.
Noteworthy here are a number of items: One is that even local TV news programs did do editorials of the kind Mary delivers, and they were very often on controversial, or at least substantive, topics such as population control. Contrast that with contemporary American TV news, which, while consisting overwhelmingly of a panel of pundits pontificating endlessly, nevertheless rarely approaches a level of substance, let alone controversy, shown here for fear of losing market share or offending advertisers, continuing fallout from the Reagan-era 1987 repeal of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine and the Clinton-era passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which deregulated the communications industry and exacerbated media monopolization that effectively demolished local, independent television news.
One unfortunate noteworthy item is Gordie's remark introducing Mary: "I'm sure after you see her, you'll understand why I say that I'm not sure what it is you're for or against, but whatever it is, I'm with you." Today we see the sexism in that remark, which puts the emphasis on how Mary looks and not on what she says, but keep in mind far fewer did at the time, illustrating the value in watching old programs such as "The Mary Tyler Moore Show": to get a sense of the attitudes and assumptions of the time.
In any case, "The Feel-Good News" is a terrific start to the third season, with John Amos, Ted Knight, and Mary Tyler Moore leading an episode in which even the throwaway lines induce laughter while illuminating serious issues that remain with us today--including that little matter of income inequality between genders, which Lou addresses definitively in the hilarious final line. A real gem.
REVIEWER'S NOTE: What makes a review "helpful"? Every reader of course decides that for themselves. For me, a review is helpful if it explains why the reviewer liked or disliked the work or why they thought it was good or not good. Whether I agree with the reviewer's conclusion is irrelevant. "Helpful" reviews tell me how and why the reviewer came to their conclusion, not what that conclusion may be. Differences of opinion are inevitable. I don't need "confirmation bias" for my own conclusions. Do you?
Thus series creators James L. Brooks and Allan Burns's sharp, crackling script delivers an early warning on the descent of television news into mere entertainment--"The Good-Time News" of the episode's title--that reduces substantive issues to a spectacle of pageantry and personalities. Granted, hapless WJM is already saddled with a news program that is close to a Twin Cities laughingstock thanks to inept, pompous anchorman Ted, but when Mary disagrees with Lou on Jack's idea, she is saddled with having to retool the program.
Why Mary disagrees with Lou lies in the opening gambit, when, in reviewing past budgets prior to their meeting with Jack, she discovers that the previous associate producer, a man whose work was, by consensus, inferior to hers, was paid $50 more a week than she is paid. (That would be about $360 in 2023 dollars, just over $18,700 annually.) Confronting Lou about this, he tries to justify it by stating that the man had a family to support, and when Mary challenges him, he weasels out of the discussion.
Thus Brooks and Burns broach the issue of gender inequality in the workplace that not only seems tame and even disingenuous today, but was even genteel in comparison to contemporary situation comedies, particularly Norman Lear's stable of socially conscious sitcoms ("All in the Family," "Maude" et al.). Call it cautious, but it was still a noteworthy statement for its time.
Adopting a two-anchor format in a more relaxed setting and approach, Mary's choice to co-anchor with Ted is Gordy. However, the joke is on Ted, as he is slated to be the "straight man" to Gordy's more engaging personality, a circumstance that the news team has been working hard to conceal from Ted during the week's rehearsals on the new format--and it isn't until moments before air time that Jack stops by to congratulate Ted, telling him that it takes a big man to play the straight man in the new format.
That of course all but guarantees a train wreck, which Lou and Murray watch--but only by killing off a bottle of scotch before moving onto bourbon. (Exemplifying the then-contemporary trope of the "three-martini business lunch," Lou had also had a scotch at the earlier meeting with Jack.) Applying the coup de grace is Mary herself, who is tapped to do the station management editorial on population control (noting that projections place the global population at 7 billion by 2000, which actually occurred in 2011--but maybe her editorial worked?), but Ted's continuous wisecracks finally goad Mary into very un-Mary-like exasperation.
Noteworthy here are a number of items: One is that even local TV news programs did do editorials of the kind Mary delivers, and they were very often on controversial, or at least substantive, topics such as population control. Contrast that with contemporary American TV news, which, while consisting overwhelmingly of a panel of pundits pontificating endlessly, nevertheless rarely approaches a level of substance, let alone controversy, shown here for fear of losing market share or offending advertisers, continuing fallout from the Reagan-era 1987 repeal of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine and the Clinton-era passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which deregulated the communications industry and exacerbated media monopolization that effectively demolished local, independent television news.
One unfortunate noteworthy item is Gordie's remark introducing Mary: "I'm sure after you see her, you'll understand why I say that I'm not sure what it is you're for or against, but whatever it is, I'm with you." Today we see the sexism in that remark, which puts the emphasis on how Mary looks and not on what she says, but keep in mind far fewer did at the time, illustrating the value in watching old programs such as "The Mary Tyler Moore Show": to get a sense of the attitudes and assumptions of the time.
In any case, "The Feel-Good News" is a terrific start to the third season, with John Amos, Ted Knight, and Mary Tyler Moore leading an episode in which even the throwaway lines induce laughter while illuminating serious issues that remain with us today--including that little matter of income inequality between genders, which Lou addresses definitively in the hilarious final line. A real gem.
REVIEWER'S NOTE: What makes a review "helpful"? Every reader of course decides that for themselves. For me, a review is helpful if it explains why the reviewer liked or disliked the work or why they thought it was good or not good. Whether I agree with the reviewer's conclusion is irrelevant. "Helpful" reviews tell me how and why the reviewer came to their conclusion, not what that conclusion may be. Differences of opinion are inevitable. I don't need "confirmation bias" for my own conclusions. Do you?
Wage gap
Rrrobert14 August 2019
Mary is dismayed to learn she earns $50 a week less than her predecessor, and horrified when Lou gladly admits the reason is that she's a woman. Then in a management meeting Mary disagrees with Lou and says she likes the idea of a 'fun' news format. They argue when Lou believes she disagreed with him due to resentment over the $50.
The fun news format goes ahead. It involves Gordy as co-anchor but with Ted's ineptitude it's a disaster. Great comedy though.
The funniest episode so far addresses equal pay for women and handles the subject well while still being funny. The news show with Ted and Gordy hits new heights of comedy.
It's a great story where everything works perfectly, and there's a fantastic resolution too.
The fun news format goes ahead. It involves Gordy as co-anchor but with Ted's ineptitude it's a disaster. Great comedy though.
The funniest episode so far addresses equal pay for women and handles the subject well while still being funny. The news show with Ted and Gordy hits new heights of comedy.
It's a great story where everything works perfectly, and there's a fantastic resolution too.
Really!
nadajio25 September 2021
MTM is the highest paid actor on the show and she virtue signaled to show the disparity...Wow...Also they want more entertaining news which they literally said fake news kinda makes you wonder how long they we're waiting to unleash this craziness we're in today...News flash:She was inexperience, but no, that never made it the script...This show literally has one black guy on it and the writers are constantly patting themselves on the back for Thinking they're keeping up with the times...Just pathetic... Other than above, it's a cute show sans the whining and who doesn't love Baxter.,.
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