TV Moms With the Most-- Part 2: Morticia, Lorelai, Claire and Carol

SCARIEST:  MORTICIA ADDAMS

(Carolyn Jones) "The Addams Family"

The matriarch of TV's creepiest and kookiest family.

MOST TALKATIVE:  LORELAI GILMORE

(Lauren Graham)  "Gilmore Girls"

Her gift of gab was crucial to this show's whimsy and charm.

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MOST COMPETITIVE:  CLAIRE DUNPHY

(Julie Bowen)  "Modern Family"

Has this Type-A personality ever met a challenge she didn't take on?

GROOVIEST:  CAROL BRADY

(Florence Henderson)  "The Brady Bunch"

In the '70s, her flare for fashion, unflappable cool and that rockin' hairdo made her the hippest mom on TV.

--Cooter

TV Moms With the Most-- Part 1: Lucy, Sophia, Marge, Samantha and Shirley

From the Nay 9, 2021, Parade Magazine.

Credit to some of TV's most superlative Moms.

WACKIEST:  LUCY RICARDO

(Lucille Ball)  "I Love Lucy"  There is no length she wouldn't go to to get a laugh.

MOST SARCASTIC:  SOPHIA PETRILLO

(Estelle Getty)   "The Golden Girls"  With no filter, she let the good times roll with the insults she dished out.

MOST CARTOONISH:  MARGE SIMPSON

(Julie Kavner)  "The Simpsons"  She has always been with us on TV's longest-running scripted program.  She also gets the nod for HIGHEST HAIR STYLE.

MOST MAGICAL:  SAMANTHA STEVENS

(Elizabeth Montgomery)  "Bewitched"  One little twitch of her nose was all it took to put a spell on us.  And that poor Dr. Bombay.

MOST MUSICAL:  SHIRLEY PARTRIDGE

(Shirley Jones)  "The Partridge Family"  She made everyone have a toe-tapping day when she sand "Come On Get Happy."

Here's Thinking About You, Mom.  --DaCoot

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Fictional Mothers-- Part 3

8.  It could be argued that the fictional mother Eliza, the slave in "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" had the greatest fictional mother impact in the history of literature.  The scene where she and her son flee from slave catchers across the partially frozen Ohio River took only two paragraphs in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, but had a great impact in plays of it.  Of course, this book can be said to be a major reason for America's deadliest war.

9.  MRS. INCREDIBLE from the "Incredibles" had superpowers, but also was seen caring for children, although she did drop one son off at an orphanage when she learned he did not have superpowers.

10.  CLARE HUXTABLE was the elegant, smart and loving mother played by Phylicia Rashad on "The Cosby Show," but was also a successful lawyer and equal counterpart to Cliff Huxtable.  But in Bill Cosby's original vision for the show, he was to be a chauffeur and she a plumber.  And, someone better help you if she got mad at you.

--Cooter

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Ten Things You Might Not Know About Fictional Mothers-- Part 2

4.  Cruel STEPMOTHERS doing all those bad things were occurring in stories and plays long before the Brothers Grimm.  This was a common plot in Greek and Roman plays.  So much so that the Latin word for stepmother, noverca, also referred to a site in military jargon that was too dangerous to use as a camp.

5.  ANGELA LANSBURGER played the evil mother in the 1962 film "The Manchurian Candidate," even though she was only three years older than Laurence Harvey, who played her son.    In TV's "The Golden Girls," ESTELLE GETTY played Dorothy's mother even though she was actually younger.

6.  "Brady Bunch" mom FLORENCE HENDERSON did not really "date" Barry Williams who played her oldest stepson on the show, but did go out to dinner with him once.

7.  One really strange MOTHER was the mid-1960s show"My Mother the Car," the story about a man whose car is the reincarnation of his dead mother who spoke to him through the car radio.    It is sometimes listed among the worst TV shows ever, even though some of its writers, Allan Burns and James L. Brooks, went on to create one of the best shows ever, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

No Taking a Date Out In That Car.  --DaCoot

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Fictional Mothers-- Part 1

From the May 11, 2014 Chicago Tribune by the intrepid researchers Mark Jacob and Stephan Benzkofer.

Always a great pleasure to read their Ten Things columns.  Almost makes the $3 for a Sunday Trib worth it.

Before it gets too far from M.D. 2014.

1.  The death of BAMBI's mother in the 1942 animated film was so sensitive that they kept the actual killing off-screen.  His 8-year-old daughter Diane cried after seeing an early screening.

2.  BARBARA BILLINGSLEY was the Beaver's mom and famously wore pearls and high heels on the shows.  She, however, wore flats at first, but switched to high heels in later seasons to stay taller than Tony Dow (Wally) and Jerry Mathers (Beaver).  Of course, that talking "Jive" on the movie "Airplane" had me rolling in the aisles.  The last thing you'd ever expect to see out of the Beaver's mom's mouth.

3.  LOUISA MAY ALCOTT was not a mother, but her Mrs. march "Marmee" in "Little Women" who was one of the most admirable mothers in literature.  Louisa's own mother, Abigail May Alcott was related to Samuel Sewall, one of eight judges who sentenced 20 women to deaths as witches in Salem, Massachusetts.  Of the eight, Sewall was the only one to publicly express regret later.

Mama Told Me Not to Come.  --Cooter