Mary Tyler Moore pivotal one-hour musical special called "Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman", Moore and husband Grant Tinker successfully pitched a sitcom centered on Moore to CBS. "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" is a half-hour newsroom sitcom featuring Ed Asner as her gruff boss Lou Grant. Moore's show proved so popular that three other regular characters, Valerie Harper as Rhoda Morgenstern, Cloris Leachman as Phyllis Lindstrom and Ed Asner as Lou Grant were also spun off into their own series. The premise of the single working woman's life, alternating during the program between work and home, became a television staple. After
1977 World Series having been denied access to the Yankees' clubhouse during the series, asserting that her 14th Amendment right was violated. Ludtke won her case. The 1977 television movie "Murder at the World Series" centered around a fictionalized version of this year's Fall Classic, in which the Houston Astros were playing the Oakland Athletics. At the time, it had been three years since the A's last appeared in a World Series, and would be eleven years until their next appearance; the Astros did not make the playoffs until 1980, win their first pennant until , or their first championship until . 1977