About the Show. Based on the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Hairspray Live! takes place in 1962 Baltimore. Plump teenager Tracy Turnblad's dream is to dance on The Corny Collins Show, a local TV program.
Rhoda's Mom was the classic Jewish mother and was played by Bounty pitchwoman Nancy Walker (who also played Mr. Cunningham's cousin Nancy Blansky on the Happy Day's semi-spin off Blansky's Beauties!). Other characters on the show were the always heard but never seen Carlton the Doorman and Rhoda's sister Brenda. With Rhoda on her own show, Brenda strangely enough became The Rhoda and Rhoda became The Mary. And while Brenda, as played by Julie Kavner, was a great character, this change may have hurt the show's longevity. People like Rhoda's character like she was on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Making her the pretty, happy, married one took away a lot of the elements people expected her to play off of.
Valerie Harper and Mary Tyler Moore in 2006. Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper werenât just co-stars on The Mary Tyler Moore show, but friends as well. Harper gained fame on The Mary Tyler Moore Show as Rhoda from 1970 to 1974 and went on to have her own sitcom hit with Rhoda, which ran from 1974 to 1978. In 1975, Harper even beat Moore, who died on January 25 at age 80, in the Best TV Actress â Musical/Comedy category at the Golden Globes.