First I’d like to apologize for taking so long to get my opinions on season two out. I kept pushing “Mama’s Family” aside while watching “The Wonder Years.” So in a way, I treated it as poorly as NBC did when this show originally aired, lol. But I finally finished season two last night and here’s what I think of it.

To me, this was an improvement over the first season. The core group once again consisted of Thelma “Mama” Harper, Vinton Harper, Naomi Harper, Aunt Fran, Buzz Harper and Sonja Harper, with the recurring guest appearances by Ellen Harper (Betty White) and early in the season Eunice Higgins (Carol Burnett). Harvey Korman returns as the program’s host Alistair Quince, though there are some episodes later in the season he does not appear in.

One of my complaints in the first season was the acting of both Buzz and Sonja. This time around, however, I really enjoyed Sonja but feel the same way as before about Buzz. Sonja was better performed in season two but they still didn’t give her much to do. You can tell that both kids were forced into the episodes, given a couple of jokes and then would exit the scene. They were, for the most part, normal. And since Mama’s family is supposed to be anything but normal, they simply didn’t fit in.

This time around, I have a couple of favorites. One of them is “Obscene Call.” I love the scene where the obscene caller is on the phone and Mama says “You wanna WHAT?” Then Naomi grabs the phone and says “This is Naomi speaking. You wanna WHAT?” Finally Vinton grabs the phone and says “This is Vinton Harper. You wanna WHAT?” Funny stuff, lol. Another favorite is “Ask Aunt Fran.” That episode really let the character of Fran shine. As for least favorite episodes, I’ll go with “Ellen’s Boyfriend” and “Gert Rides Again” both of which are okay episodes but they’re the ones I liked the least.

My top 10 of season 2:
1. "Supermarket"
2. "No Room at the Inn"
3. "Rashomama"
4. "Obscene Call"
5. "The Mama Who Came to Dinner"
6. "Ask Aunt Fran"
7. "Mama's Birthday"
8. "Country Club"
9. "Mama Learns to Drive"
10. "Flaming Forties"

My least favorites of season 2:
"Naomi and the Stork", "Ellen's Boyfriend", & "Mama Cries Uncle"

Very interesting comments about Season 2. I would hands down put "Rashomama" as my favorite episode, with honorable mention to "No Room at the Inn" and "Grave Mistake". Least favorites were "Flaming Forties", "Gert Rides Again" and "Amateur Night" I agree that in the second season the show began to get into a rhythm with the main characters that wasn't quite there in Season 1. The down side of this was that it became obvious that the kids and Aunt Fran were pretty much excess baggage. In Fran's case, it was too bad because Rue was a terrific actress, with Fran being badly underused and never really too well defined. I'm glad she had was given one episode that season in the spotlight, but even here she is portrayed as pretty much an nervous airhead, so clueless that she couldn't even recognize she was being hit on by her boss until she had Mama tell her. No wonder Rue didn't have fond memories of her time on the show.

The kids were largely a waste of space. Most episodes, they had only a few lines and were rarely funny. Part of the problem may have been that most the show's writers came the Carol Burnett Show and, never having written for kids before, simply had a hard time giving them any sort of realistic personality or quirks to make them interesting. When the show returned in syndication, the writers learned from their mistakes with Buzz and Sonya by giving Bubba not only a stronger personality but also making his flaws more typical of a kid who grew up in a disfunctional home and ended up in trouble with the law. They could do a lot more with Bubba than they ever could with the network kids. (Plus Allan Kaiser was a much better comedy actor.) It was just a no-brainer when the show returned for syndication that Buzz and Sonya were history.

I think S2 is as great as S1 but has the edge since my two top episodes appear this season: Rashomama and The Flaming Forties. Other faves include:

The Mama Who Came to Dinner
Black Belt Mama
Supermarket
Mama Learns to Drive
No Room at the Inn
Country Club

It seems from this thread that "No Room at the Inn" is a fan favorite. It didn't come across to me as being one of the best that season. It was an okay episode. I don't have anything negative to say about it. It just didn't make much of an impression on me.

I know Rue McClanahan didn't like the character of Aunt Fran (and thus her time on the show) but I actually like her. Nervous characters make me laugh. I really loved in the court episode, where she approaches the bench and admits to removing the Do Not Remove tag from the rug. She's someone I miss as I go into season three. Even though it's nice to know that during season three, Rue was working on one of the shows she's best known for and one she loved a lot - The Golden Girls.