MTM Enterprises

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MTM Enterprises, Inc.
Former type Corporation
Industry Television production
Fate Folded into 20th Century Fox Television
Founded 1969
Defunct 1998
Key people Mary Tyler Moore
Grant Tinker
Owner(s) Independent (1969–1988)
TVS Entertainment plc (1988–1992)
International Family Entertainment Inc. (1992-1996)
News Corporation (1996-1998)

MTM Enterprises (later known as MTM Enterprises, Inc.) was an American independent production company established in 1969 by Mary Tyler Moore and her then-husband Grant Tinker to produce The Mary Tyler Moore Show for CBS. The name for the production company was drawn from Moore's initials.[1]

MTM produced a number of successful television programs during the 1970s and 1980s. Its recognizable logo, shown briefly at the end of their programs, was a meowing Mimsie the Cat in a pose reminiscent of the MGM Lion.

Contents

History[edit]

For many years MTM, with CBS, co-owned the CBS Studio Center in Studio City, California, where a majority of their programs were filmed and videotaped. In turn, most of MTM's series aired on CBS.

MTM Enterprises acquired Jim Victory Television from Viacom Enterprises in 1980 taking the MTM library with it. Victory was later reincorporated as MTM Television Distribution, which in turn was folded into 20th Television after News Corporation bought MTM.

Tinker oversaw MTM's operation until leaving the company in 1981 and becoming chairman of NBC. Lawyers backing NBC's then-owner RCA convinced Tinker to sell his remaining shares of MTM. Tinker later regretted leaving MTM, believing that the company started to decline without him.[2]

After being an independent production company for many years, MTM was sold in 1988 to British production company TVS Entertainment for $320 million.[2] After TVS lost their franchise to Meridian, TVS was in turn acquired by Pat Robertson's International Family Entertainment in late 1992.[3] IFE along with MTM was sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 1996. MTM ceased operations and was folded into 20th Century Fox Television on August 15, 1998 when The Family Channel became Fox Family. The library of non-MTM shows was subsequently sold on to form part of ABC Family's archive.

MTM Enterprises also included a record label, MTM Records, which was in existence from 1984 to 1988.[4]

Programs[edit]

MTM's productions included:

In addition to the above shows, MTM has distributed programs such as:

Films[edit]

CBS connection[edit]

MTM programs appeared almost exclusively on CBS until the early 1980s, when Grant Tinker assumed the additional role of president of NBC. Soon, NBC picked up a number of MTM shows, and Tinker stepped down as head of MTM to avoid a conflict of interest. His intention was to leave NBC after 5 years (in 1986) and return to MTM, taking over the reins from interim MTM president Arthur Price. However, Price fired many of the key players in the company's ranks, and by 1986 they had few shows left on the schedules (Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere and Remington Steele were all nearing the ends of their runs, leaving Newhart as the sole entrant on the schedule). There was also a record label in the 1980s featuring the logo on the label. No major mainstream artists recorded for this label; however, Judy Rodman and country girl group, The Girls Next Door, did have a few minor hits on the country charts in the mid-1980s.

Mimsie the Cat[edit]

Mimsie the Cat was the cat seen in the MTM Enterprises logo, in an apparent spoof of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's famed lion mascot, Leo.

In the standard version of the logo, as first used on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mimsie appears in a crouched position, looks up at the camera, and meows once. Mimsie would not meow for the camera crew, so they eventually used footage of her yawning, run in reverse, with the sound effect added. By the 1980s, there were many different variants of the logo, with Mimsie often appearing in different painted "costumes" corresponding to the style and theme of the particular programs. For the detective series Remington Steele, a Sherlock Holmes-esque stalking cap and pipe were added; The White Shadow featured a basketball with Mimsie; Hill Street Blues painted a police uniform hat onto Mimsie's head; St. Elsewhere used a surgical mask; in contrast, Newhart kept the original, unadorned footage, but replaced the sound effect with Bob Newhart's voice-over of "meow" in his trademark deadpan style.

References[edit]

  1. ^ "MOORE, MARY TYLER - The Museum of Broadcast Communications". Museum.tv. 1995-11-26. Retrieved 2011-03-21. 
  2. ^ a b Carter, Bill. "THE MEDIA BUSINESS; Tinker Looks Beyond 'USA Today on TV'". The New York Times (November 27, 1989)
  3. ^ COMPANY NEWS; Pat Robertson Buys Parent Of MTM for $68.5 Million. The New York Times (September 23, 1992).
  4. ^ Kingsbury, Paul (2004). The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Sourcebooks, Inc. p. 359. ISBN 0-19-517608-1, 9780195176087 Check |isbn= value (help). Retrieved 2009-07-31. 

External links[edit]

MTM Enterprises
Mary Tyler Moore  · Grant Tinkler
TV shows
Films
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