Seems like of all the Normal Lear shows from that era, Maude has been the least prominent in terms of regular reruns. With the pedigree it has, it should still be airing on TV somewhere.
shareIt is on Antenna TV now. It brings back alot of memories. I think it has the best song intro ever!
shareMy guess would be that it was less viable in early days of syndication when reruns ran for kids home from school. Good Times, and even AITF had younger characters and themes. So it's not a nostalgia watch for people who grew up on the earlier syndicated Lear. I-m watching it for the first time.
I've mentioned in a previous thread pretty much the same thing. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068103/board/thread/254298794 It's really a shame on so many levels. I'm just glad I have a copy of the complete series where I can watch it anytime I choose and not have to wait for some stubborn channel to decide whether or not to run the series...
It's not as timely as it was in the 70's, and Maude's liberalism might be a bit too much for Trump supporters to accept (or any Republican for that matter). Many of the issues are long resolved, and often, Maude is like a dog with a bone in trying to get her point across. She's really not that hard to take as a person; In fact, she could be Dorothy Spornak's long-lost sister, although Dorothy was far from being presented a woman's libber or as abrasive when it came to the issues. Maude would have loved to have stood up to George W. Bush (while Dorothy lost her confidence), and imagine her in the Reagan era, especially with his refusal to even mention AIDS. I think she's a product of her time, much like Murphy Brown, and there's a lot of greatness in both shows that some audiences refuse to look at. Mary Tyler Moore holds up because people relate to work issues, while political and social issues change in time. I really wish that Maude had a gay son; Imagine her as a member of PFLAG, trying to run the whole show, meddling in her son's love affairs, trying to set him up against his will. The issues of the 70's were serious, but they changed very much from decade to decade. After Maude, there was Murphy and "Designing Women's" Julia Sugarbaker, who seemed to be a more sophisticated, "hipper" version of Maude. Fans of Bea's will watch, but I think the world at large prefers the ensemble of "Golden Girls" rather than the political rantings of a by-gone era.
"Great theater makes you smile. Outstanding theater may make you weep."
Not sure the social issues have really changed all that much, what with the right-wing nutjob agenda of trying to thrust the country back in time by about 12 decades or so.
50 Is The New Cutoff Age.
When I grew up in NYC in the 80s, all of the classic Norman Lear shows were rerun except Maude. I had never seen Maude until Antenna TV came along. This has nothing to do with Trump. It's being rerun now but it wasn't back then.
I'm glad I've finally been able to see the show. Bea Arthur was magnificent. But I would say that it's not as consistently entertaining as the other Lear shows. Maude was all about Bea and the rest of the cast pale in comparison. Pretty much every episode I've seen takes place in their living room which makes for a boring set. On the other Lear shows, they would go outside fairly often. The issues they bring up are still relevant today. Maybe even moreso now that there is more discussion about feminism, classism, and social justice nowadays.
George Carlin: It's all bullsh-t and it's bad for ya.
I just watched a few episodes of Amanda's By the Sea, and other than Bea, the cast is wretched. Jerry Stiller appeared in one episode and was hysterical. Bea needed a Bill Macy or a Herb Edelman to play off of, and Stiller would have been great. I could also see her with Henry Jones who played Cloris Leachman's father in law on Phyllis.
"Great theater makes you smile. Outstanding theater may make you weep."
For a few reasons:
1. Of all the Normal Lear shows, this one has aged the poorest. Even though some of the issues it dealt with are still being argued, its style and perspective is so 40 years ago that it doesn't transcend its era to feel timeless, the same way All In the Family or The Jeffersons did.
2. As someone else said, the Maude character is the only impressive one there (and she has a tendency of being too over the top.) The rest of them were a bit on the drab side. More argumentative than funny. Furthermore, they all look very middle-of-the-road "70s," like they could have been extra's in Deep Throat, or something.
3. Three of its biggest stars went on to have arguably bigger, and more career-identifying, success with following shows. All of which feel more "contemporary" by today's standards. Most of the general public seems to identify Bea and Rue as Dorothy and Blanche, and Conrad as Mr. Drummond. Seeing them as Maude, Vivian and Arthur seems weird. And since Golden Girls/Diff'rent Strokes have done very well in syndication, I can imagine that TV stations would probably rather just buy those shows than this one.
4. The abortion episodes. Bea once said in an interview that Maude's abortion created a backlash against the show. Sure, Maude was popular during its production run, but once the show ended, the show seemed to become defined by that particular storyline - which scared off many TV stations in the more conservative 1980s from buying it. Meanwhile, during that same period, again, GG and DS were on and popular. This just sort of buried Maude.
They did show the reruns on a local Chicagoland market WGBO-TV channel 66 back in the 1980's running back to back with All In The Family...
Its heavy topicality/strident preaching (Maude was more or less a nonstop, pious rant on a single topic (feminism), whose ideas were novel in the 1970s but we've more than likely heard a million times since then) and often dark humor most certainly didn't. Several other factors for why this may now be the case include the fact that, in contrast to its parent program All in the Family, Maude simply wasn't as funny, had weaker writing, and featured a less memorable supporting cast. Also in hindsight, Archie Bunker could be seen as a more likable protagonist than Maude Findley because Archie's extremist beliefs were constantly derided and existed as the series' principal source of comedy. Everything that made him unlikable was mocked and shown to be from ignorance. Meanwhile, Maude's extremist beliefs, though they got her into comedic predicaments, could not be truly mocked by the series. Not only did most of the creative team personally identify more with the character, but the progressive mood of the time would not allow for derision of the kind afforded Archie. Sure, she became the butt of jokes, but she couldn't be shown as ignorant or outdated. And because she was equally extreme, just as obnoxious, and not shown as ignorant, she was a less lovable character.
Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda, phyllis even Charlies Angels were easy to accept about 'women's empowerment' with the 'lead woman' themselves working outside of the home.
Okay fine. Some costuming and technologies are obviously dated now but those shows still more or less hold over.
Rich white housewife yelling about women's rights with a black housekeeper....uh this looks REALLY dated now as a 'progressive' series. I tried watching an episode and turned it off.
The only thing I liked was the catchy opening song. Other than that I got bored.
Interesting to see a younger Bea Arthur but the plot doesn't age well. Would have been better if she went back to school or even had a job of some kind. Would have been convincing then.
It's been showing on cable TV again. I recently caught the show's final episode where Maude was elected to Congress. Maude was arguing and alienating everyone. It didn't seem like a good way to wrap-up the series.
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