One of the few occasions I spoke to Norman Lear was in 2017, while we were waiting for an Outfest panel on “One Day at a Time” that I moderated. The Netflix remake of Lear’s ‘70s classic about a single mother raising two kids while caring for her own aging mother had just been renewed. Lear, along with its co-creators Gloria Calderón Kellett and Mike Royce, were in a wonderful mood.
We were discussing other great TV comedies that transformed the medium, and Lear spoke with special fondness about “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” a legendary comedy he wasn’t involved in creating. I had just indulged in a rewatch and marveled at how rare and timeless its writing was.
