working woman, although I had married by then. I had the same weird dates and problems with BFFs. There were differences, of course. I would never had been an assistant producer but would have been her secretary, except she would have been a man. My clothes nor my shabby studio apartment were as cute as hers. The wage difference, I was still suffering through, and that episode brought it home to me.

Incidentally, I went to high school with the real MTM although I never was friends with her because she was a couple of classes ahead of me.

I don't remember that particular episode, but it is kinda funny when you realize MTM turned into a teaper and Ed Asner is a Democrat (not sure if he qualifies as Liberal).

She went before Congress a few years back to lobby for stem cell research.

...but, a Republican who thinks Sarah Palin is a 'great lady'.

I don't think Mary is really very political and probably has been drinking the same Kool-Aid dished out by Fox News. She's still friends with Betty White and even did a cameo on Betty White's sitcom, "Hot In Cleveland". The only references I could find about this and Ed Asner dissing her about her politics were on "Free Republic", which makes the veracity of it suspect already.

I don't really care, one way or the other. I was never a fan of hers, though I did love that show.

Whatever.

I think it get better when Mary White joins the cast. Rhoda is gone by then.

as a young, single woman in NYC. I worked for a corporation as a secretary. I lived alone in a NYC apartment. Imagine that today w/o a couple of rommates? I made $8/hour (above minimum wage TODAY) and rented a $125 a month West Village apartment.

Damn, have we really come a long way, baby? It doesn't sound like it from my past.

They don't waste any time about establishing that, and it's a re-occurring theme. He pulls the bottle out during Mary's interview and offers her a "blast".

Ed later played a surgeon with a drinking problem in a made for tv movie. It may have been a guest star role in one of the medical drama's even. I can't remember that one for sure.

Where I teach, we had paycuts a couple years ago. It was suggested that I voluntarily offer to take less pay for doing the same work since I have a husband. I was speechless.