"I didn't know that people took coke in those days and they were snorting all over the place. I never tried it. I think somebody gave me speed sometime and it really cleared out my sinuses. I can't smoke grass. So I'm pure." TV veteran Ed Asner on the secrets behind the scenes of beloved sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

http://www.hollywood.com/news/The_things_they_say/7818563

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Can't picture MTM or Betty White doing coke. Cloris Leachman, maybe.

I guess alcohol and cigarettes were the only vices MTM had and I doubt Betty White did anything.

This sounds surprising, but on the other hand maybe not. Drugs are everywhere. Perhaps it was mostly/just the crew that was involved in this activity and not the performers.

Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson of Sanford and Son were cokeheads.

I dont see any of the principals of the MTM show doing drugs because all of them are old and alive, except for Ted Knight. I will say that because of their generation, the main vices would be booze and smokes, and the characters were mostly drinkers with Lou keeping a bottle in his desk drawer. They went to a bar near work where they knew the staff, with Mary having her awful parties and so on.

MTM is a diabetic who overly drank alcohol. Dunno if she smoked. Probably hard for someone who started drinking in the Mad Men era of the 50's and 60's and not smoke with your martini.

Ed Asner is one of those guys who should have been dead years ago from eating and drinking who isn't dead. Lou Grant would have been dead by 1980 is he was real from the stress, the divorce and the liquor.

Mary has admitted in print and on TV that she did smoke (regular) cigarettes for many years, but quit some time ago. Of course, she has also come foreward as an alcoholic. Ted Knight was a pretty straight arrow, Georgia Engel taught Sunday School in her private life and Gavin MacLeod was going through a divorce with his first wife and married his second during this time - not to mention being occupied with his own four children and two stepchildren. The others, I dunno. Who honestly can tell anymore just from appearances?

Gavin MacLeod was going through a divorce with his first wife and married his second during this time - not to mention being occupied with his own four children and two stepchildren.

Actually, Gavin MacLeod was drinking heavily during his MTM and LoveBoat days. He's been sober for more than a decade, though.

Actually, Gavin MacLeod was drinking heavily during his MTM and LoveBoat days. He's been sober for more than a decade, though.

You know, you're right. I just thought he became a heavy drinker during the Love Boat era.

Ed Asner said he,Gavin and Ted enjoyed several lunch time drinks,particularly in the early seasons of the MTMS until Ed began to work on his weight.

This seems a bit misleading.
It sounds to me like Ed is talking about all of Hollywood, but it's somebody else's tagline that says it's the Mary Tyler Moore Show.
So until I knew the context, I couldn't be sure.

That said, Ed claims he largely avoided drugs, and my guess would be that the rest of the cast did, too. Yet would it shock me if any of them dabbled? Absolutely not. That's just the way it was out there.
They held up pretty well, though, through the years, so I definitely don't think it would have been any longterm thing.

I have my doubts about how much sex was going on on the set, too. At home within your own circle? Knock yourself out. But on the set?