Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman: The Ballad of Ed and Howard
Added 2025-03-25 12:59:46 +0000 UTCHi, all. This week’s regular episode will be weird in a few ways. For one, it’s going to have me (Drew) hosting solo. For another, it’s about a cult favorite show that the vast majority of our audience has never seen. And for a third, it’s not about one single episode but a single story sustained across 40 or so episodes.
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman is one Norman Lear’s more important shows, but as a result of the fact that it was only syndicated and never tied to s specific channel or network, it’s been lost in the age of streaming. You can order the complete series right now on DVD — and if you like this episode, you should — but it’s just not so easy to appreciate this show today. What’s more, it’s not necessarily the easiest watch. It’s technically a comedy, but the pacing and tone may not line up with the tastes of your average 80s kid, but I’m going to try and make the argument that it’s worth your time anyway.
What I’ve posted here is a two-hour supercut of all of the moments that tell the story of Ed and Howard, a gay couple that TV viewers were introduced to back in 1976. That’s well before the notion of well-rounded gay characters became commonplace, to say nothing of the idea of two men in a loving relationship. Well Ed and Howard fall victim to the same dramatic twists as any couple in a nighttime soap — or a comedy lampooning nighttime soaps — they end up together, in the end.
Please, watch this video in preparation for this week’s episode. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, just skip around for a flavor of how this unique show approached social issues. I’ll try my best to make sense of it in the episode I record tomorrow.
For the purposes of fair use, I should declare that nothing in this video fully satisfies the experience of any one single episode of MH2. I’m posting this as an educational aid that will hopefully result in motivating some of you to seek out the full experience. It’s worth it.
I, for one, think you’re all very lucky to be having a look at this show that has mostly been lost to time. And I feel lucky to be sharing it with you.
– Drew
Comments
The performances feel weird and the conversations tend to go in circles. Its so odd.
N S P
2025-03-29 17:13:18 +0000 UTCI was a younger when it aired but remember watching re runs in the 80’s Your mention of disco sent me to wikipedia to confirm a long forgotten memory. “Several songs have been written about Mary Hartman, many of them incorporating elements of the theme song. All-woman rock group The Deadly Nightshade disco-flavored "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (Theme)" reached No. 79 on the Hot 100,[16] and at least four other Mary Hartman-related disco songs were released by Vincent Montana Jr. Sammy Davis Jr. Floyd Cramer and The Marketts”
Lobo
2025-03-25 23:35:45 +0000 UTCDumb Kid me always confused this with a mexican show called La India María The shows have nothing in common they just both wore similar pigtails.
Lobo
2025-03-25 20:57:59 +0000 UTCThank you for devoting time to Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and adding it to your fantastic historical archive. I was in grade school during the run but even at that age there was sometimes a sense of "what the hell did we just watch" after it was over. But it drew us in -- my parents and siblings alike. And when Coach Feders drowned in the bowl of soup I distinctly remember it being a topic of conversation in the schoolyard and among my parent's friends over a card table. Yet it's largely a forgotten flash in the pan bit of pop culture. Not to belabor the generational thing too much, but as an older X'er I feel like quite a bit of pop culture from roughly 74-81 was willfully disremembered by the dominant boomer narrative in subsequent decades. Like it was reduced to disco and pet rocks and feathered hair with the rest best forgotten. But it was a time, and in retrospect a perfect time amidst the perpetual economic and national identity malaise for MH2 to bloom, as short as that bloom was. Thank you for brining new eyes to this touchstone of that time.
knope2001
2025-03-25 14:14:33 +0000 UTC
