Mary Kay Place and "Mary Hartman" Page Two

I�ll try to keep Mary Kay associated with the materials on this page, but first, I�ve got to mention a few more characters who were basically Mary Hartman oriented and didn�t interact much with Loretta.

Mary�s Grandpa Larkin, Martha�s father, was arrested in the first episode as the infamous �Fernwood Flasher.� Victor Kilian played Grandpa as someone who had basically become useless to society, but still had a ton of vitality. Flashing was probably a way for him to get noticed since the elderly often are ignored in American life. The promise of interesting storylines developing from a chance for romance with social worker Roberta Walashek (Samantha Harper), or even with another one of Roberta�s clients, Fanny Crookshank (played with typical strangeness by Sudie Bond), fizzled after a few weeks. Grandpa was sort of relegated to the background, just like he was before the first episode.

Veteran actor Victor Kilian

    Roberta was flaky and impressionable. She seemed like a brunette Gracie Allen. When her qualifications as a social worker were somewhat questioned, Grandpa and she had this conversation:

     Roberta-�You don�t understand. I�m not a lady. I�m an M.S.W.�

     Grandpa-�Mighty Sweet Woman?�

     Roberta-�Master of Social Welfare. I mean I have my Masters in Social Welfare. As you can see, I have all these papers on my desk.�

     Roberta�s papers didn�t keep her employed as a social worker after she broke the client/doctor barrier with Grandpa. She tried to sell Lady Fashionetta products (which were somewhat like Avon items with an Amway edge) and got deeply involved in S.T.E.T. (Survival Training and Existence Therapy) which was a parody of �70�s craze est ( according to Daniel Lockwood, author of The Mary Hartman Story, was �the current craze for quasi-authoritarian courses in personal �betterment� during which people are bored and abused for sixty hours and then convinced they have been led to a deeper understanding and acceptance of themselves). S.T.E.T. was founded by neo-Nazi Otto Fuhrenbach. They try to enlist Mary, but she�s too distracted to focus on the program.

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Here are the basic principles of S.T.E.T.

1. What is isn�t.
2. Right there is nowhere.
3. What might be could be.
4. What will be will be.
5. Try anything once.
6. You are where you are.
7. Now is only now, but tomorrow is the future.
8. You are where you drive.
9. Ride the subway in the direction it�s going.
10. Most people are asleep when they are asleep and awake when they are not asleep.
11. Nothing is the ultimate nothing and also the ultimate something.
12. The truth is�what the truth is.
13. What there is right now is a part of the universe, but not all of it.
14. Many subways do not work.
15. Eighty thousand times $250 is $20,000,000�which is not nothing.
16. I know that you know that I love you. But do you know that I think you�re all beautiful people?
17. You can�t always get what you want. You can�t always get what you want. You can�t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.

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At some point in the Roberta storyline, she ends up as the object of police Sgt. Dennis Foley�s attention because Mary Hartman placed her there. Mary had a fatal attraction for Dennis (or more so, he had an obsession with her, which was always inappropriate). Since Tom was having an affair with Mae Olinski (stage star Salome Jens), who gave him V.D., and he was impotent with Mary, it wasn�t too hard for Mary to consider straying. The yo-yo aspect of their relationship was the Soap Opera Digest focus for two years until she finally left Tom and Heather to run off with him (and Louise Lasser left the show).

    Mary typically had surreal conversations with Dennis in which they discussed the most trivial of daily activities as he stared at her lasciviously. One phone conversation went like this:

     Dennis-�Mrs. Hartman, if you�d like to stop down at the station, I�d really like to see you.�

     Mary-�Oh, I don�t know if I should do that but if I see you, I�ll let you know, okay?�

     Dennis-(with a hint of confusion) �I think so.�

It was a T.V. that did him in.

Little Jimmy Joe was almost too fervent, but at least he meant it. His father Merle (devilishly played by Dabney Coleman) however, had another facet of organized religion in mind. Let�s just say that he had �more practical aspects of the operation� to which he attended. Loretta offered to donate all of her singing proceeds to the huge housing development Condos for Christ. In all of this mess, Merle falls hard for Loretta. Eventually, Charlie gets wise and has a shoot out with him in a hotel room, which cliff-hung the audience at the end of the first season. I�m not sure here, but if I remember correctly, this is when Charlie shot off his testicle.

Dabney Coleman and Marian Mercer
worked together again
after "MH2" in the film 9 to 5

Wanda Jeeter (Marian Mercer), Merle�s wife, joined the citizens of Fernwood around this time after being released from the same mental institution in which Mary is committed after her nationally televised breakdown.

    In one of the most clever moments I�ve ever seen in television, Wanda and Mary were members of a �very special Nielsen family� when the famous ratings service installed a Nielsen box in the mental ward. Once again, �MH2� scoffed at the system with the system itself.
     Wanda had two kinds of ways of dealing with Merle, who by this time was running for mayor. She either let him walk all over her and found other outlets for her passions (specifically, Lila, the Jeeters� maid, on trial for murder, who spends lots of time getting to �know� Wanda). Or, Wanda figures out some long kept secret of Merle�s and holds it quite professionally over his head and finally gets her way.

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     Other characters on the show included Betty McCullagh and her son Howard and his �brother� Ed �McCullagh� who lives with them. It seems that Fernwood, Ohio was a sort of mecca for gay folks what with Lila, Ed and Howard. And since we�re on that subject, Tom Hartman had a couple of latent homosexual moments as a house guest of the McCullagh�s. And that wasn�t the first time. Earlier in the season, Tom had been trying to get advice from his former high school football coach Leroy Fedders. Leroy seemed to be just a tad too interested in Tom�s sexual problems, despite his protestations to the opposite.

Regardless, those thoughts didn�t amount to much when Leroy got the flu. In one of the most talked about scenes the show ever had, Mary Hartman accidentally offed the coach with her chicken soup. It seems that Seconal and Jack Daniels and don�t mix very well and that one can drown in a few inches of chicken broth. In a slapstick moment of perfection, Mary and wife Blanche Fedders ignore Leroy while he struggles to stay awake enough to (with his own hand) pull his head out of the bowl, but fails.

Norm Alden's Last Scene on "MH2"

Blanche (Reva Rose) was another Fernwood oddity. She always started short-lived protest organizations like S.M.U.T. (Society of Mothers Upset with Trash). She didn�t seem to mind much about Leroy�s demise though.

"Savagely wonded by grief, Blanche Fedders demands to know, 'Is this the cheapest funeral you could arrange? Are you sure?'"--Ben Stein in Fernwood U.S.A.

Another popular Fernwood couple were Pat and Garth Gimble. Garth was a self-righteous wife abuser and Pat was slobby and self-pitying.

Pat After a Little Garth "TLC"

Wanda Jeeter and Garth Gimble

Garth might put Pat in the closet, if just for a while, but in another moment of infamy, he met his maker in that same closet. From what I�ve heard, Garth was supposed to die in the closet and Pat was to find him there. Actor Martin Mull was given the opportunity to try multiple death scenes while the cameraman kept the tape going. The truly inspired result was that Garth had apparently been impaled by an aluminum Christmas tree as Pat closed the closet door on him. I�ve heard that this version of the death was kept secret until it was videotaped and that the cast and crew just completely lost it.

Pat and son Garth, Jr. moved to the woods, while Garth�s twin brother Barth (also played by Martin Mull) showed up in Springfield on the spin-off summer replacement show �Fernwood 2-Night.�

Merle Jeeter did his best to seduce naive Loretta at the Bide-A-Wee Motel. Loretta only wanted to do her best for the Lord.

Mary Kay Place said at the Museum of Television and Radio's "MH2" Reunion that this scene was not scripted to include Mayor Merle Jeeter's removing a stray hair from Loretta's dress.

Mary Kay illustrated the improvisational nature of the show by noting this example of Dabney Coleman's ad lib. She said that she 'had no idea that he was going to do that."

    The (in my opinion) gorgeous Michael Lembeck played Clete Meisenheimer. Clete was a reporter for Fernwood, Ohio's Channel 6 and often had reason to interview Loretta or Charlie.
     Clete asked Loretta to comment on her friend Mary Hartman's being taken hostage in the Chinese laundry by "Little" Davy Jessup. Loretta sings instead.
     Clete interviewed Charlie and Loretta right after they had run into a station wagon full of nuns, killing several. Clete stepped over the nuns' bodies in order to get to the Haggers.
     Clete interviewed the Haggers right after Loretta ruined her own career on the "Dinah!" Show. Loretta continued to innocently insult Jews while directly speaking to a (supposed) Jew. Clete redirected her misguided apologies as best he could, but that wasn't terribly easy.

Both Michael Lembeck and Mary Kay Place have graduated from "MH2" to direct episodes of "Friends" and other popular TV shows.

Speaking of Dinah Shore, several guest stars appeared on "MH2."

First, Dinah, you mash
the heck out of
them sweet potatoes.

Who knows why media whore Dr. Joyce Brothers was in the Hartman kitchen, but here is the photographic proof.

Of course David Susskind had to appear on "MH2" so that Mary could be a guest on his show and have a nationally televised nervous breakdown.

And here Gore Vidal makes a visit to the mental institution.

The parade of actors guesting on "MH2" was endless. Harry Dean Stanton, Ed Begley, Jr. and Doris Roberts are three famous names of actors who had short stints on "MH2." And there were countless other character actors who made the Fernwood scene.

"Mary Hartman" effectively ended when Louise Lasser left the show due to all-encompassing exhaustion. Her character ran off with Sgt. Foley and that was that.
The following season, Mary Kay Place and the remaining cast returned for one more season, which was then renamed "Forever Fernwood." Although for me, the third season was still reason enough to watch after Ms. Lasser's departure, the cast soon decided that the demands of the show were too great and everyone involved stopped production while ratings were still decent. Since the program was daily, there were far more episodes taped than the typical sitcom sold into syndication for reruns. There is such a wealth of material there to enjoy. I sincerely hope that an outlet for the program becomes available. In the early 1990's Lifetime Cable ran 13 weeks of two episodes per week. In June, 2002, TV Land began a programming block called "The TV Land Kitschen." "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" once again had a venue.

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"The dreams and nightmares of the American people are reflected darkly through the glass of Mary Hartman."-Ted Morgan in The New York Times

Visitors Since June, 2001

Samantha Harper

Louise Lasser and
Bruce Solomon

When Loretta was paralyzed, she and Charlie put their misguided trust in charlatan faith healer Dorelda Doremus, played by �Everybody Loves Raymond� star Doris Roberts. Although Loretta regained her mobility by chance, Charlie and Loretta had a kind of religiosity that attracted them to a new fundamentalist sect. Jimmy Joe Jeeter, at the ripe old age of 8, was the figurehead of the movement.

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