“Our research says American audiences won’t tolerate divorce in a lead of a series any more than they will tolerate Jews, people with mustaches, and people who live in New York.” — CBS executives rejecting Mary Tyler Moore Show creators Jim Brooks’ and Allan Burns’ first proposal for the premise: that Moore play a divorced woman

http://marytylermooreshowbook.wordpress.com/category/the-book/

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lcde1eVYBd1qcra2do1_500.jpg

Think about the time period that this was aired in, divorce back then, at least to my knowledge was a bit of a no no. That is the one that I can understand them not wanting to write a lead role for. The other ones though...

Jews is an odd one to list. If you look at the names of most of the people that basically ran production and all of that in Hollywood, they were Jews. As for Mustaches? Maybe if the man doesn't trim it and it gets disgusting looking then yeah, or even worse, if it is somehow on a woman then I guess I can see that one being a bit of a turn off. And New York, well, lol. I have absolutely nothing for that one. Again though, I wasn't alive in the time period.

They obviously changed their minds about mustaches by the time Magnum P.I. came along!! :lol:

“Our research says American audiences won’t tolerate divorce in a lead of a series any more than they will tolerate Jews, people with mustaches, and people who live in New York.” — CBS executives rejecting Mary Tyler Moore Show creators Jim Brooks’ and Allan Burns’ first proposal for the premise: that Moore play a divorced woman

Whoever said that, I wonder how they got their job as a TV executive? They obviously weren't paying much attention to what was on TV and should have been fired:

1) Vivian Vance was playing a divorcee on The Lucy Show eight years before TMTMS made its debut.
2) Morey Amsterdam's character on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Buddy Sorrell, was a Jew. So were the entire Goldberg family in the 1950s sitcom, The Goldbergs. And it was no secret that Phil Silvers, Milton Berle, George Burns, Groucho Marx, Jack Benny and Dinah Shore were all Jewish.
4) Ernie Kovaks, Groucho Marx, Gale Gordon, and John Astin's Gomez Addams all had prominent mustaches on their respective TV shows. The mustache was their trademark. Heck, even Walter "the most trusted man in America" Cronkite had a mustache!
5) The Ricardos, the Kramdens and Danny Thomas's TV family, were living in New York nearly two decades before TMTMS debuted. It was the setting of The Joey Bishop Show, That Girl, My Little Margie, Amos 'n' Andy, Car 54, Where Are You?, and a large percentage of sitcoms that aired before 1970. Rob Petrie worked there.