Allan Burns The last project between Hayward and Burns would be as story editors for the sitcom "Get Smart". In 1969, Burns began a partnership with James L. Brooks after being impressed with the television pilot for Brooks's show "Room 222". Burns joined the "Room 222" writing staff and later produced the series. After "Room 222", television executive Grant Tinker hired Brooks and Burns to develop a television series for CBS starring Mary Tyler Moore. In 1970, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" premiered and became a critically acclaimed series, spawning spin-off series such as "Lou Grant" and "Rhoda". Brooks and Burns also
Maude (TV series) program (during the heyday of topical sitcoms, which its presence helped to create), when it was regularly one of the top-ten highest-rated American television programs in any given week. In Great Britain, "Maude" was not shown nationally, although it was shown (beginning in 1975) in the ITV regions of Westward, Border, Tyne Tees, Anglia, Yorkshire, Granada and Channel. Satellite station Sky One ran the series in the early/mid 1990s. In the fifth season, "Maude" unexpectedly plunged from #4 to #31 in the Nielsen ratings as its lead-ins "Rhoda" and "Phyllis" began to struggle. In 1978, late in the sixth season,