In 1993 the new LGBT weekly magazine, Michaels Weekly Entertainment Guide, ran a new feature column called Mary Go-Round. Within three episodes the serial story had become the most talked about item in Washington, DC gay life.The story ran for 54 consecutive weeks, and maintained its popularity throughout its entire run. In the next five years the series ran in New York, Miami, and San Francisco. In 1999 the portion of the story that dealt with AIDS was made into a stage play called A Time Below that was presented at the AIDS Theater Conference sponsored by AMFAR. It was also turned into a 20-hour epic television screen play that garnered much interest with the emerging LGBT television industry.Consequently, funding was found to film a pilot, and this script was developed and shot. By the time it was edited and ready for consideration 9/11 had happened and all scripts involving terrorism were out of consideration.Now, available to the public, the full pilot script is published.

First time in print, this historic production is derived from a magazine story with 54 weekly issues telling a hilarious and gripping adventure shows behind the scenes in Washington, DC when a conservative matriarch with unimaginable influence over one Congressman discovers her son is gay. The only problem is that he is working for the Congressman. This story was considered the favorite gay soap in America for many years. It was made into this screen play and the pilot was shot. But when, in 2001, the twin towers fell, so did all scripts with references to terrorist plots. Oh, yes, there is a terrorist plot in this story, originally written in 1993. Now, the screen play for this 19-episode epic television series is available.

This small volume exposes part of that artistic fingerprint which will ultimately show what really did happen. It began with an assignment to a free-lance writer, sent out through a popular media net-the classified ads in the back of local newspapers. In response, writer Ken Ludden was the one chosen to fulfill the assignment. When the assignment first came to write Mary Go-Round, there was no way to anticipate its ultimate success. Neither editor nor the writer had any notion how timely this drama would be, nor that it would touch at the centerpiece of LGBT lives for time to come. Out of the original weekly story (which ran ultimately for 54 consecutive weeks and then was syndicated to other magazines for the next 14 years) came a novel, a 20-hour screen play for an epic television series, a script for a one act play and the script for the pilot series.

"Mary Go-Round" began as a serial publication in Michael's Weekly Entertainment Guide in Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD. The column became an instant success with a nearly cult following in the alternative, LGBT communities on the east coast of the United States.In time the column grew into screen play form and a pilot was shot on location in San Francisco, using the offices of then City Supervisor Gavin Newsom (later Mayor of San Francisco, and then Lt. Governor of California) for the Congressional scenes.The AIDS scare plot line from the story was later turned into the stage play "A Time Below" which was met with critical acclaim at the AIDS Theater Conference.This is a story of the clash of cultures: the old south of Knoxville, TN; insider Congressional Washington, DC and gay sub-culture. Ludden's point of view and vast life experience takes you into these worlds as nobody else can. This is the ride of a lifetime!

Established by the Army Air Force in 1943, the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program opened to civilian women with a pilot's license who could afford to pay for their own transportation, training, and uniforms. Despite their highly developed skill set, rigorous training, and often dangerous work, the women of WASP were not granted military status until 1977, denied over three decades of Army Air Force benefits as well as the honor and respect given to male and female World War II veterans of other branches. Sarah Parry Myers not only offers a history of this short-lived program but considers its long-term consequences for the women who participated and subsequent generations of servicewomen and activists. Myers shows us how those in the WASP program bonded through their training, living together in barracks, sharing the dangers of risky flights, and struggling to be recognized as military personnel, and the friendships they forged lasted well after the Army Air Force dissolved the program. Despite the WASP program's short duration, its fliers formed activist networks and spent the next thirty years lobbying for recognition as veterans. Their efforts were finally recognized when President Jimmy Carter signed a bill into law granting WASP participants retroactive veteran status, entitling them to military benefits and burials.

In this “fast-paced and charming…absorbing cultural history” (Publishers Weekly), Jennifer Keishin Armstrong presents an engaging behind-the-scenes look at the making of a classic and groundbreaking TV show that defined the sitcom genre and revolutionized the way women were portrayed on television, as experienced by its producers, writers, and cast. When writer-producers James L. Brooks and Allan Burns dreamed up an edgy show about a divorced woman with a career, the CBS executives they pitched replied: “American audiences won’t tolerate divorce in a series’ lead any more than they will tolerate Jews, people with mustaches, and people who live in New York.” Forty years later, The Mary Tyler Moore Show is one of the most beloved and recognizable television shows of all time. It was an inspiration to a generation of women who wanted to have it all in an era when everything seemed possible. Jennifer Keishin Armstrong’s Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted tells the stories behind the making of this popular classic, introducing the groundbreaking female writers who lent real-life stories to their TV scripts; the men who created the indelible characters; the lone woman network executive who cast the legendary ensemble—and advocated for this provocative show—and the colorful cast of actors who made it all work. James L. Brooks, Grant Tinker, Allan Burns, Valerie Harper, Cloris Leachman, Betty White, Gavin MacLeod, Ed Asner, Ted Knight, Georgia Engel—they all came together to make a show that changed women’s lives and television itself. Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted is the tale of how they did it.

This fully updated and expanded edition covers over 10,200 programs, making it the most comprehensive documentation of television programs ever published. In addition to covering the standard network and cable entertainment genres, the book also covers programs generally not covered elsewhere in print (or even online), including Internet series, aired and unaired pilot films, erotic series, gay and lesbian series, risque cartoons and experimental programs from 1925 through 1945.