Unpacking the Magic of the Mary Tyler Moore Show Open

Analyzing the Iconic Mary Tyler Moore Show Opening

In this audio-adbridged episode of the Media Download, hosted by John Ondo, the focus is on the classic opening sequence of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. John delves into the techniques that made this sequence memorable, including insights into its editing, the significance of the music, and its visual storytelling. The episode highlights the importance of story-driven show openings and discusses how today's productions can learn from these classic techniques. Listeners are encouraged to watch the full video analysis on YouTube for a complete exploration.

00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview
01:30 The Importance of the Mary Tyler Moore Open
02:31 Analyzing the Mary Tyler Moore Open
03:29 Editing Techniques and Insights
09:57 The Power of Theme Songs and Opening Sequences
11:27 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Watch the YouTube Episode at: https://youtu.be/-HA-UIFBTaU

Watch all of the video format of this podcast on my YouTube Channel.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMqz-XMZ8v2VLfSXSCrEtDmfKum5g5ZEb

Transcript

Speaker 7: 0:33

This episode of the Media Download's gonna be a lot of fun. However, unfortunately, because you're listening to us on the Audio podcast platform, you're gonna get cheated a little bit here. So I'm gonna encourage you, listen to it. But when you get done, go to the media download YouTube site. And watch the whole open'cause today we're gonna talk about the Mary Tyler Moore open and, uh, techniques that were used on it. And obviously they're very visual, so it's kind of difficult to talk about it on an audio podcast. But we're gonna leave some of those parts in, let you listen to the audio podcast, and hopefully you'll come over and watch the whole video on YouTube. One of the things we have to do in a transmedia world, which means we have video and audio podcast, is sometimes we have to adjust a little bit. So I hope that makes sense. I'm really glad you joined us today'cause this is gonna be an excellent episode as we look at the past to help us with our future projects, this is the media download. I am John Ondo. This podcast is about smart shortcuts in media production, how to save time while improving quality. I've spent 40 years in broadcast and digital media earning multiple Emmy awards while helping clients with small budgets look big time. Make sure you subscribe to this podcast on YouTube and also our audio podcast that you can listen to on all podcast platforms. We're brought to you by Ondo Media. You might be asking yourself, why are we looking at the Mary Tyler Moore Open? It is something that was done, you know, over 50 years ago. What? What can we learn from it? We can learn a lot. First of all, it's one of the most iconic, classic TV show opens of the era, and it's still through this day. Many people will tell you, all the Mary Tyler Moore open immediately stirs up emotion and memories. And that is something we as content creators, storytellers need to do this. This open was created by a gentleman by the name of Reza Badi. He was Iranian born. And he wasn't just, this wasn't like a one hit wonder for him. He actually produced not only the Mary Mary Tyler Moore open, but another open, I'm very fond of the Hawaii five oh open and also Mission Impossible. So when you think about those original seventies and sixties TV opens, you instantly go, wow, those are pretty impressive. Uh, so he was the one who was responsible for this. And there's some neat stories that we're gonna get into. But first, let's get into the open. I have it loaded up here on my Adobe premiere, and this is my edit suite. And, uh, someday, I'll give you a tour of this because I'm very picky about edit, suite, layout and ergonomics because this is where we live if we're storytellers, and it's important that it is comfortable. Just a couple disclaimers. First of all, Mary Tyler Moore Show is owned by MTM Productions. I have no rights to this whatsoever. Um, I'm not charging anybody for it. It's just simply we're looking at it, uh, for education and academic studies. Please, we're not making any money on us. Uh, second of all. Uh, when I pulled this clip, I did a little bit of enhancement just to get rid of some of the graininess and compression. I also tried to clean the audio up a little bit, but nothing massive, just enough so it would play back a little cleaner. And, and the flush tones and colors look good. So now that that's all over, let's get in. And I'm just gonna play it through the Mary Tyler more open. What a great open, and let's talk a little bit first about you can't, if you took that soundtrack off and replaced it with stock music or something, it would be completely. Probably not memorable at all. The music is absolutely what makes this open so special. Uh, this was, this was a, a song written by Pat Williams and performed by Sonny Curtis, and it went on to be a radio hit because it was so popular. There was a handful of just very incredible show opens that, uh, that did this. So, uh, incredible job with that. Uh, let's get into this a little bit, what I have here, and you'll be seeing, uh, as we display what's going on here. Is I've taken the open and put it into a timeline, and I've put cuts and dissolves markers in where they happened in the actual, uh, show open. So we can kinda study a little bit and where we're gonna learn from today. For those of you who are editors, maybe you're doing commercials, you're doing music videos, or you're just a fan of the show, uh, we'll talk about some of the things that make this all work. First thing is, it's kind of unique about how they open this. Uh, it is a story open, which was very common in the seventies and the early eighties. We don't do show opens anymore. I'll, I'll gripe about that in a moment. But first it starts off with the show title. And a very, uh, again, what I would call the rainbow display. Here, here, here it is. That's again, iconic. You notice it immediately. Here's a couple quick notes about this. Um, first of all, the font, the Mary Tyler Moore font, um, if I'm pronouncing it, it's. Uh, Peno, what I call that is the seventies font. This was the big time font, uh, that was used a lot in the seventies. Mary Tyler Moore, uh, the Johnny Carson, uh, tonight Show used it and this was just like the seventies font. Um, and I still love it. But anyway, it comes out. The first thing I want you to notice is very simple. You see the rainbow spits out there, and then give it a second. And you see, we, we, we turn the middle. Mary Tyler Moore turns into a, what we call a keyhole, because let's back it up a little bit. It's chroma key green. Very simple. Uh, trick if the producers of Mary Tyler Moore said, Hey, can we make it all pink or make it all that wouldn't have worked? So they, uh, they, they kind of came up a nice little trick, keyhole happens, and then the transition into a white 1970 Mustang later they redid it as a 73 nice car. By the way, it's a story. Open is a story. This is something that they don't do in Opens anymore. They just give you a title card and episode one, and then we do the, of course, the Netflix Paramount Plus recap, which you skip every time. Um, it used to be this would be your setup and, and I wanna talk more about that and why we've lost something in today's culture because of that. So anyway, they went through the dissolve. Little flashback, she's leaving, going somewhere else. Now, here's one of the things I wanna talk about with editing. Typically, the question comes down to when I'm editing, am I cutting to the narration or to the, to the lyrics in this case? Or am I cutting to the beat of the song? And uh, you might be saying, well, you cut to the beat of the song, John, and you never change, or you cut to the lyrics. John, you never change. And you'll see here, I don't buy that theory. I think you can do whatever you want and then. The infamous, uh, crash pans or, uh, flash pans and whatever you wanna call it. Uh, these are techniques you can still use today. Uh, you'll still see flash pans, um, gosh, Ford versus Ferrari. How many times you see a, a quick whip pan, another term they'll use for it. And you can obviously even get plugins for your edit suite. But back in the day, this is how you did it. So first of all, what you see here. Is a series of shots that are all 15 frames long. Now, I think I am set up, uh, at. I think I'm set up at 29 97 on my editor, but it's basically, these next set of shots are all 15 frames. The, uh, whip pan is 15 frames. Then this, this shot of Mary, which is a still shot, is 15 frames. This shot. Is basically 15, it's 16 frames and this one is 14. It is very possible that these were closer than that, and then this one also 15, so they're almost all identical. Then we get into the finale shot, and this is the shot that is legendary, um, within everybody who loves Mary Tyler Moore, who doesn't, uh, but it's the iconic shot that you think of. Matter of fact, I think they have a, a statue of this shot in Minneapolis and the story goes. That, uh, Mary Tyler Moore and a, a small crew were out shooting all, all this footage in a day or two in Minneapolis and uh, uh, Reza said, Hey, go out into the middle of the street and throw your hat. And, uh, this became the iconic shot for the Mary Tyler Moore Show. So another fun fact about this is that lady back there kind of looking at Mary Tyler Moore saying, why are you throwing your hat? Um, her name is Hazel Frederick. And she, uh, was legendary and the folks who loved this show, uh, because people wanted to know who she was and they actually. Found out who she was and tracked her down later in life. And, um, she became a legend in this open because this shot, they never changed. They never bless their heart, tried to recreate it. Uh, come up with a, a new updated version, uh, during the show's run, which went to I think 77, uh, this was the shot. So that is, um, a great moment. The open is 53 seconds long. Don't ask me where they came up with that number. So I know as you're listening to this audio you're like, this is kind of confusing and I apologize, but I wanted to still have some of this up for the audio podcast for those of you who listen so you can understand what we did with the video. So again, uh, if you go to YouTube, you can, uh, watch this whole video where we go through the frame by frame analysis of the Mary Tyler Moore Open and, uh, really think you'll enjoy that. We will be doing more of these because, uh, I really wanna look at. Classic video because that will really help us understand, uh, the techniques we need to use today. With storytelling. So again, thanks for bearing with us through this. Why are we spending time talking about a show open from 55 years ago? Because it's a story and I think we're losing something in this scaled down production world we live in. I know we've abandoned episodic television for these 10 show arcs that we see on Netflix and Amazon and everywhere else, but that might be okay, but here's what I think that executives have forgotten the retention that viewers have with a great opening and theme song. Just think about these shows as I list them off. Mary Tyler Moore, Sanford and Son, WKRP in Cincinnati, the Dukes of Hazard, golden Girls. Cheers. Friends, at the very mention of those names, you probably had a theme song. Pop up in your head. That's the power of a theme song and a great opening sequence, not just a title sequence, but an opening story sequence. Just skip to the last show open that I really made my wife sit down and watch every episode was Ted Lasso, because I love the theme song and I wanted to hear it. The theme song and the opening story can create an emotional connection for a lifetime. This may not work for every show, but I wanted to make a case that I'd like to see more opening sequences, even if they're under 30 seconds. Tell the story of your show. Now I've got more practical storytelling and production techniques coming your way on the media. Download both on your favorite audio podcast platform and on YouTube. And if your business or organization needs media direction or help or training, why don't you give me a holler@ontomedia.com. I hope you've enjoyed this abridged version of the media download for our audio podcast. Again, please, uh, watch the video on our YouTube channel, which if you Google, uh, John Ondo or Ondo Media, you will find the media download and you can watch this episode as well as all of our episodes, and we will continue to have our audio podcast as well. Thanks so much. Please subscribe and I look forward to seeing you next week on the media download.