Laura Petrie Vs. Mary Richards Quiz

Answer: Brooklyn, New York

In the "Dick Van Dyke Show" flashback episode that reveals the details of Laura and Rob's first meet,ing Laura is a somewhat prissy dancer performing in a USO troupe on the army base where Rob is stationed. Irritated by Rob's cocky attitude, she not only responds negatively to his request for a date, but refuses to speak to him altogether. Rob, ever resourceful, pretends to be a reporter for the base newspaper, grills another member of the USO troupe for details about the girl who has stolen his heart, and learns that the future Laura Petrie hails from Brooklyn.

Answer: False

Originally, the writers of the "Mary Tyler Show" intended to make Mary Richards a divorcee, since, at the age of thirty, they thought the character was too old to be just "a single gal". But it had only been three years since the demise of "The Dick Van Dyke Show", and CBS network execs were afraid that viewers would think that Ms. Moore was divorced from her erstwhile TV husband, Rob Petrie.

In what was then a very bold move, the writers changed Mary's status to that of a single woman who had voluntarily ended a long-term relationship with her fiancee in favor of pursuing a career of her own.

Answer: Arnie

Bess was landlady, Phyllis Lindstrom's precocious pre-teen daughter on the "Mary Tyler Moore Show". Gordy was the occasionally-seen weatherman at WJM where Mary worked. Freddie was Jerry and Millie Helper's invisible offspring on the "Dick Van Dyke Show". And Arnie..well...he was probably a grip on another show. God bless him.

Answer: False

The famous exchange concerning "spunk" took place between Mary Richards and Lou Grant, during the episode in which Mr. Grant interviews Mary for the position of associate producer at WJM. "You've got spunk," he tells her after she refuses to be cowed by his gruff attitude.

When she starts to thank him for the compliment, he interrupts with, "I HATE spunk." (As if all of you diehard MTM fans didn't already know that beautifully-written scene by heart.)

Answer: Laura

Although initially encouraged by the high praise her writing instructor heaped upon her, Laura quickly discovered that he was more interested in seducing her than in mentoring her writing career. In the pre-politically correct world of the "Dick Van Dyke Show", the situation was irksome, but nothing that Laura wasn't willing to chalk up to an important "lesson" about human nature.

In Mary's case, the situation was more complex: after a negative critique from Mr. Grant in regard to a short story she had written, she defiantly sent the story to a national magazine, only to recieve a rejection slip from the magazine's editor.

Her embarrassment and disappointment set the stage for Mr. Grant's confession that his own writing had been rejected as well, allowing them to forge an even stronger personal bond.

Answer: smoking

Like many members of her generation, Laura Petrie was a social smoker, as was her alter ego, Mary Tyler Moore. "I knew that I had to quit," Ms. Moore once told an interviewer, "but I have to say that I never smoked a cigarette that I didn't enjoy right to the very end." By the time she began playing non-smoker Mary Richards in 1969, Ms. Moore had quit in real life, too.

Answer: Rhoda

Transplanted New Yorker Rhoda Morgenstern was known for such self-deprecating remarks - that is, until Valerie Harper, the actress who played her, lost weight during the show's third year hiatus and returned to work looking so good that CBS offered her a spin-off show of her own.

Answer: Laura

Laura had commissioned the portrait from a Greenwich Village artist with the intention of giving it to Rob as a gift , but the dingy artist, played by Carl Reiner with a vaguely Baltic-like accent "saw" her in the nude and painted her that way. Outraged, Laura paid the artist for his work, then stormed out of his studio, never suspecting that the portrait would resurface at a Manhattan art gallery a few years later, forcing her to come clean with Rob and confront the artist about his injudicious use of her image.

Answer: Mary

Mary Richards was such a classy woman that I never could understand what compelled her to keep that kitschy orange pumpkin cookie jar on her kitchen counter. Was it a sentimental gift from a close friend? A lucky family heirloom? Whatever the reason for its continuing presence on the MTM show, I contend that it would have looked much more appropriate in Laura Petrie's kitchen.

After all, the Petries at least had a child who actually ATE cookies.

Answer: Mary

Mary Richards made the declaration reluctantly, during that endless initial job interview with Mr. Grant. Legally, of course, she was not required to tell him what religion, if any, she belonged to, but, as would happen so often in future episodes, of the MTM Show, she couldn't stop herself from giving into his more forceful personality.