TVSquad

As Bob mentioned in his DVD post this week, The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Complete Fifth Season was released in a 3-disc set on Tuesday. I have fond memories of watching this show as a kid, and the clips after the jump confirm once again that it featured one of the best casts in TV history.

Not only was each actor perfect for their role, but their timing and delivery of lines was second to none. I also love all of the 1970s-era props, clothes and decor, because of course, the show was made in the 1970s.

Have you ever wondered if Mary Tyler Moore can still turn the world on with her smile? You'll be able to find out this Monday on Oprah.

The daytime talk show host will host a reunion of the show. Not only will she get all of the surviving cast members together (Moore, Valerie Harper, Ed Asner, Betty White, Gavin MacLeod, Cloris Leachman, and Georgia Engel), they will also have duplicates of the WJM set and the set for Mary's apartment on the stage (the link above includes a preview of the show - no idea why Oprah is crying).

If I was to pick the Top 5 things I hate about television, the coverage of the NCAA Tournament this month would be near the top of the list. It interrupts regular shows, and I truly don't understand why people get so ga-ga over COLLEGE basketball, unless you went there or something.

But I do like the brackets set up, and we can use it for other things in life, including TV! Jacksonville.com has a tournment of their own going on. They're trying to pick the best sitcom character of all-time and they need your help. Go here and vote for your favorites in Week 1 (the second round is this Wednesday). Make sure you read the directions carefully.

Speaking of brackets, I picked up the new book The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything. It's a clever idea: get an expert in a particular field to set up a tournament about everything in life (puncuation, sports rivalries, dogs, political issues, etc) and keep on narrowing them down til you get the champ. There's a lot of TV-related ones in the book, including game show catchphrases (by Ken Jennings), animation characters (by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast), black and white TV shows, talk show hosts, and several more). Lists like these are argument starters for sure, and the entire outcome depends on how you start the brackets, which is rather random (unless you do something like talk show hosts, which you can at least start by nighttime, daytime, or region). Why are certain people/items placed together and not in another bracket? So it's probably not precise, but it's a ton of fun.

[Thanks to Toby for the tip.]