Trivia / Lou Grant

• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Lou Grant was once one of the very few quality television series left that wasn't on DVD... until Shout! Factory licensed the series. By May 2017, they'd released boxed sets of all five seasons.
• Playing Against Type:
  • The character of Lou Grant itself was built on comedy (from The Mary Tyler Moore Show), but now was made serious. Ed Asner won critical acclaim for his interpretation of the character in both lights. There were still plenty of lighter moments on the show.
  • Emilio Delgado, who concurrently played Luis on Sesame Street, had a recurring role as national editor Ruben Castillo. Although he is generally genial (albeit focused), it is the fact that he had a role on a primetime TV drama concurrently with his role on Sesame Street that makes the trope work here.
• Real-Life Relative: Nancy Marchand's husband Paul Sparer played Damon Forrest in "Hype" and Dr. Walter Goren in "Stroke".
• Screwed by the Network: Despite having significant enough ratings in its last season to be renewed, CBS abruptly cancelled the show due to controversies created by Asner in using both the series and his presidency of the Screen Actors Guild to protest U.S. intervention in El Salvador.
• Technology Marches On: Averted in one episode in which the computer-using City Room reporters make snide remarks about the one old timer who insists on using a typewriter... just before a city-wide power outage.
• What Could Have Been: After the series was cancelled by CBS in 1982, NBC considering picking it up for a sixth season but eventually decided against it.
• Write Who You Know: Mrs. Pynchon was inspired by real life newspaper publishers Dorothy Chandler of the Los Angeles Times and Katharine Graham of The Washington Post.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Linda Kelsey played Sue Ann Nivens' would-be replacement Gloria Munson in The Mary Tyler Moore Show episode "A New Sue Ann" before taking on the regular role of Billie Newman.
  • Julie Kavner, who concurrently played Brenda Morgenstern in Rhoda, played Alice Merrin in "Housewarming".
  • Robbie Rist, who previously played Ted Baxter's adoptive son David in three episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, played Josh in "Airliner".

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