Where Does "Maude" Really Live?

It's not like the interiors ever matched the exteriors on any Norman Lear show.

And all those 1950s cars on the road in the 1970s!

It's one of my favourite TV show openings. I'd like to know the origins of the footage. It's probably from some incomplete documentary.

Teaneck doesn’t really say limousine liberal like Tuckahoe does.

Never watch the film “The Warriors” OP — the geographic errors and inconsistencies will drive you to self-harm.

You know, contrary to conventional wisdom, people do go to New Jersey.

Not to get to Tuckahoe, r5.

Who said they were going home?

Lear liked to use references to places with names by ingenious communities, Tuckahoe, Naugatuck, Schenectady.

Queens?

It's a real place OP

Tuckahoe sounds funny, or it sounded funny to 70s ears.

Sort of how Bugs Bunny always made references to Albuquerque and Pismo Beach

Tuckahoe always seemed an odd choice for Maude's home. At least back in the 70s, it was pretty much a working class and middle class town. A big Italian population - there were marble quarries there at one time. It is surrounded by the tonier suburbs of Bronxville and Scarsdale, either of which would have been a more logical choice for Maude and Walter.

Did they have money? The house looked rather modest, as I recall.

Didn’t Walter run a kitchen appliance store? Not exactly big money back then.

R12: Walter was a prominent Maytag dealer. And Maude was an excellent real estate agent. With a live in British maid! Did they have money.....

I always enjoyed watching Maude. But, I had to watch it on the sly because my parents thought it was too controversial for an 8 year old (even a gayling). Most of the humor and situations were beyond me. But, I did pick up on the fact that the daughter was a slut.

No one could wear a tight shit brown polyester turtleneck sweater like Ms. Adrienne Barbeau.

R16 Before that had an import, they had a sassy black American maid named Florida. She was one of the best parts of the original show.

They also had two additional mouths to feed, Maude's slutty daughter and the fugly grandson.

R17: Red head Philip was a cute kid, and got cuter as he became a teen. Then for the last season, they switched him out for that blond fatty who chewed every scene he was in. I remember reading that the reason Philip 1.0 was dropped was because he was gonna be as tall as Bea, and the producers didn't that image for a grandson to as tall as grandma or some shit. Even though it would be true to genetics that a tall, striking woman would have a tall, striking grandson. And it might have made sense if the blond fatty could act, but he really couldn't.

Maude lived up her own ass.

Poor Florida had quite a commute.

Ha! r15 i was banned from watching One Day at a Time because "Those girls are too sassy!"

TG for a B&W portable.

[quote] Lear liked to use references to places with names by ingenious communities, Tuckahoe, Naugatuck, Schenectady.

Indigenous?

They could be going to Rockland County (which is NY and not NJ). But yeah, they don't need to cross the Hudson to go to Tuckahoe.

[quote] They also had two additional mouths to feed, Maude's slutty daughter and her two ginormous tits

FTFY

The opening credits are just Florida's first day working for Maude. She got on the wrong bus in Harlem and ended up in Jersey.

Lol r25, that is funny. NYCers really are completely clueless when they have to venture outside the city. They act like they’re going to Siberia.

Especially if you consider that Good Times was set in Chicago, R20!

Florida couldn't act, let alone do comedy.

R27: She was part of the Harlem-Near North Side of Chicago Black Exchange Program.

R28: Esther Rolle got better as time went on with comedic timing, but she trained to be dramatic I believe and that's why she was very forceful in her delivery. That doesn't always work in a comedy.

Esther Rolle was the only cast member of Maude that was believable. The others were all shrill, constantly shouting, caricatures.

I put this poster of Adrienne Barbeau up in my dorm room during my sophomore year, just in case anyone had suspicions about my sexuality, way back in the 70s. You should have seen the other guys' eyes water when they first saw it. I think one of them wanted to sleep underneath it.

R27 I’m a millennial I don’t know. I don’t think Nick at Night ever reran that.

Adrianne"Big Tits " Barbeau was one of the nicest celebrities , I ever met. Also , Miss Lauren Bacall.

[quote]Esther Rolle was the only cast member of Maude that was believable. The others were all shrill, constantly shouting, caricatures.

Bea Arthur certainly didn't agree with you.

God'll get you for that R29.

I cant watch this show because every time I do I get distracted by the fact that the house apparently has 20 feet high ceilings.

Exterior shots of home for Maude was actually a property in Claremont, CA. Given that we may well understand why opening credits are so far off.

No, you don't take GWB to reach Tuckahoe. From west side of Manhattan (they got that part correct) it's either I-87 N or Bronx River Parkway.

From NY-9A N you take exit 14 for GWB going towards I-95/Cross Bronx Expressway. But if you get onto GWB then you're obviously going the wrong way. California people obviously never drove from Manhattan to points north.......

You can get to Tuckahoe from north NJ by taking 287 which puts you out around Tarrytown, but then you'll have a long drive south..

Florida was a great foil for Maude. The show really lost it's way after she left.

Adrienne had never even heard of All in the Family when she was cast as Carol. She went from doing Fiddler to Grease on Broadway. She knew nothing about Norman Lear or what he was doing on TV.

Poor Marlene Warfield went from an oscar worthy performance in Network to being a minor supporting player in the last season. I don't think her name was even mentioned in the main credits.

Bea was the one who ended the show because she found out her husband was having an affair and she was devastated.

Norman gave Conrad and Rue their own shows as a gift. Rue got "Apple Pie" developed for her and Conrad "Diffrent Strokes"

Esther was the original choice to play Ruby Dee's character on that Golden Girls episode where Blanches Mammy comes back, but she had to drop out before taping.

IIRC Norman Lear was incredibly cheap, he filmed the pilot for "All in the Family" in about 1968 or 1969 and shopped it to all the network - all rejected it

Until CBS picked it up as a mid-season replacement for the "Governor & JJ" and the series started airing in January 1971.

Lear still had the exterior footage from the filming of the pilot circa 1968 and he used that footage for the opening of "All in the Family" and reused it for the opening of "Maude"

[quote]Esther was the original choice to play Ruby Dee's character on that Golden Girls episode where Blanches Mammy comes back, but she had to drop out before taping.

She was offended after Betty White showed up to the table read in a mud mask.

Always heard that Maude ended for a few reasons.

One was both lead in shows "Phyllis' and "Rhoda" were having problems of their own. Then came changes to Maude that saw her elected to Congress which meant the Findlay's would move to Washington, D.C., but rest of ensemble cast was to be written out. Congresswoman Maude Finlay would have an entire new supporting case, something Bea Arthur felt she just didn't want to do and she left series after season six. That effectively brought Maude to an end.

I used to live a mile away from that house and go by it every day...and never knew.

R42 I'd heard that too - that Bea felt they were running out of stories and that Maude as Congresswoman was an ending not a beginning. They did three shows at the end to see if there was any spark, but decided to call it a day.

I'm sure her husband's affair had an impact, though.

VP...

I loved Mrs. Naugatuck.

The episode where Arthur and Viv have a party and Fay Wray is coming and the couples get into a misunderstanding is the funniest in terms of broad comedy of all of them. The whole second half of the show is just hilarious dialogue.

R43

Entire drive up to Maude's house doesn't look like New York, but then again could be wrong. I mean as camera pans along homes leading up to Maude's something seems different.

On both of her shows, Bea knew better than anybody else when it was time to quit.

I've always wondered who was the genius plastic surgeon who did Bea Arthur's face lift. They really did an amazing job. She was so old and jowly and masculine during Maude and looked so much better by the time she did Golden Girls.

I think Maude living in a nothing place like Tuckahoe was part of the joke. She was solidly middle class who had pushed herself into being slightly upper middle class and had aspirations of grandeur despite the fact she lived in a rather ratty old house in a not very chic town in an upscale suburban NYC area.

She lost a lot of weight in the early 80s.

To be honest, she looked and sounded so different it's hard for me sometimes to reconcile that they were both the same people.

Always loved how Walter Findlay when push came to shove would shut his wife up with "Maude, Sit"!

Just as with other hen pecked husbands (Richard Bucket comes to mind) now and again a husband has to stand his ground and prove he has a pair.

R49

Was just about to post something similar.

Bea Arthur was one of those women who actually looked better as she got older. If you compare Ms. Arthur from "Maude" to "Golden Girls" it's hard to believe they are same woman.

Eh, I loved Maude and the way she looked. Dorothy, not so much.

Maude was my Aunt Lorraine, pantsuits, attitude, and all.

She would smack your smart ass with a wooden spoon too.

The musicale episodes were something else. Arthur Harmon tried to get Maude to include some stupid Disney song in the show. Then they still remained on speaking terms after he tried to get a gay bar closed down.

[quote] Bea Arthur was one of those women who actually looked better as she got older. If you compare Ms. Arthur from "Maude" to "Golden Girls" it's hard to believe they are same woman.

Not to mention comparing the Maude and Golden Girls Bea to 1943 Marine truck driver Bea.

[quote]One was both lead in shows "Phyllis' and "Rhoda" were having problems of their own.

?

One of those shows had a miscast male lead and the other had a murdered female costar.

R57 Nancy Walker wouldn't stop taking shits in Rhoda's apartment se and she was under suspicion for the murder of Barbara Colby.

[quote]And all those 1950s cars on the road in the 1970s!

It's Television circa 1970, stock video used a lot when no one really cared about high quality or actual reality back than. "Good enough" or marginally believable ruled the day. We all know it's just make believe, why spend the money?

By 1976-1977 network television season Rhoda then Phyllis were lead in shows on CBS before Maude. Both shows were having problems with ratings and other issues meaning neither was providing the sort of lead audiences in that Maude needed.

Phyllis in particular was just a hot mess. Oh and as discussed in another DL thread, there is a Liz Torres connection...

Chicken chest wit chess!

[quote]One was both lead in shows "Phyllis' and "Rhoda" were having problems of their own.

So the producers told them to get the lead out?

Hell.

The likelier explanation was not connected to Rhoda or Phyllis or any of that nonsense.

One, Maude was running out of ideas.

And two, as fun as many of CBS's more sophisticated comedies were for most of the 70s, the new ABC comedies were now in vogue, and it made shows like MTM, Rhoda, Phyllis and Maude look old in comparison. Which is why they all left the air around 1978 - all except All In The Family.

[quote]...as fun as many of CBS's more sophisticated comedies were for most of the 70s, the new ABC comedies were now in vogue, and it made shows like MTM, Rhoda, Phyllis and Maude look old in comparison. Which is why they all left the air around 1978 - all except All In The Family.

Well said, R66

As revolutionary as those shows were in the early 1970s,

By 1978, they were beginning to look tired

As the axiom goes, 5 years is a lifetime in TV - 8 years is 2 lifetimes in TV

In the hearts of dozens.

She did live in Westchester County for many years

But she ultimately moved to the Miami-Dade area

R23 the Hudson line of Westchester would have also made sense in that context. Or who knows, maybe they were just trying to avoid Yankee Stadium traffic that day so they took the GWB.

R66 and R67 are both entitled to their opinions. But fact remains by final season Maude was 66th in all important Nielsen ratings. You don't get much worse than that.

Even Bea Arthur acknowledged Maude suffered from being moved about and going up against some stiff competition (Monday Night Football, and NBC's Big Event roster of programs).

It isn't "nonsense" or whatever the two of you wish to believe that poor lead in shows can harm what comes after. If people aren't watching what airs a half-hour or hour before a program comes on they aren't likely to suddenly switch on their sets/turn from another channel unless very highly motivated.

In any event Ms. Arthur decided it was time to leave the series, and that was that.

Maude was driving to New Jersey to return a very "dirty" glass top coffee table she bought at a yard sale at Danny Thomas' house

Walter and Maude were driving to an Appliance Salesmen Convention in New Jersey...

where they would stay in a seedy motel

and Maude would meltdown about wearing a "Mrs Walter Findley" name tag

[italic]Maude[/italic] they were willing to part with but [italic]Rhoda[/italic] and [italic]Good Times[/italic] they dragged out for one more year.

R71 I thought we were pretty much saying the same thing, but it sounds like you really absolutely need to be right. I don't need that validation, so go ahead and have it, honey.

[quote] and Maude would meltdown about wearing a "Mrs Walter Findley" name tag

Then she would have drowned herself at the end of [italic]A Star is Born[/italic] along with my husband.

The last season of Maude was so weird anyway. They must have had huge budget cuts, because I think Adrienne Barbeau was off contract or gone all together. There was a new Phillip, they wrote Conrad and Rue out, and then did the move to DC.

Continuing the show then or doing a sequel show would have been worse than [italic]Golden Palace[/italic]. That didn't stop them from trying to build a show around the new supporting cast members. First with Cleavon Little s a Congressman named [italic]Mister Dugan[/italic] which was pulled before it aired because it was so bad even Lear's Black friends called it racist. Then they put Bill Macy in, moved it to a college, and called it [italic]Hanging In[/italic], and it didn't. Four weeks then it was expelled from TV forever, its last episode airing five days after a show the production company had just launched on NBC: [italic]The Facts of Life[/italic].

If Maude was still alive she would be living out her golden years in Champlain Towers.

Did Maude ever try to call Florida 'Flo'?

No, but she did call her Mrs. Dubonnet!

I live in the suburbs, but my heart's in the ghetto.

Maude! Shit!

Remember, Bea is from the theater. You leave the audience wanting more, not run shit into the ground. She wanted to end it in Season 5 but Lear talked her into doing one more. At the end of 5, Lear writes everyone out and sends her to Washington for a new show of her in Congress. But she called it quits. She did the same thing with Golden Girls, hell she wanted to end that after 4 seasons.

And I agree with her. John Cleese is the same way as is Kim Catrail. Do something fun and original, enjoy it, enjoy the success, then move on. Don't run something into the ground. Quality over quantity. But people just can't let stuff go.

That's because they build their lifestyles around that income, and once it is gone, it's hard to replace it with something else.

[quote]And I agree with her. John Cleese is the same way as is Kim Catrail. Do something fun and original, enjoy it, enjoy the success, then move on.

That's why [italic]Amanda's[/italic] was such a miserable failure that it almost cost us [italic]The Golden Girls[/italic].

She lived at CBS Television City in Hollywood, CA.

Until she moved to Metromedia Square.

Finally cable series over the last 10-15 years have gotten it right. Shorter seasons, shorter runs.

They should've cast Godzilla as Maude's new housekeeper after Miss Naugatuck left.

[quote] Finally cable series over the last 10-15 years have gotten it right. Shorter seasons, shorter runs.

They already were doing that in the 1980s for budgetary reasons.

I always assumed it was the Tappan Zee bridge but as others have pointed out, you don’t need to cross the Hudson to get to Tuckahoe. Never noticed this!

Bea was smart to end Maude and the Golden Girls when she did. You don't want to hang around and let shit get tired, like so many tv shows have done.

Patrica Routledge ended "Keeping Up Appearances" for same reasons. She was done, and felt the show should end on a high note.

"It's far better to have people saying "when are you doing to do more...", than hear "oh is that still on!" or words to that effect was what PA has said in interviews.

Ms. Routledge also wanted to go on and do other work with different people.

In more recent memory Jim Parsons left "The Big Bang Theory" despite offers of astronomical sums for again pretty much same reasons. Don't forget also Dan Stephens and a few others that left Downton Abbey.

[quote] Don't forget also Dan Stephens and a few others that left Downton Abbey.

Most UK contracts seem to be for 3 years and it's more common for actors to leave after that time.

Dan Stevens was one that really should have stayed at the Downton trough as long as he could have. He very much overestimated demand for his services.

The UK always did 13 shows a year so it took longer to run a show into the ground, hence the perception from some circles in the US that British TV is inherently superior for this reason. Doing weekly shows almost continuously from September to May is a uniquely American thing.

There is also fact British television shows/series are shot entire season in can at a go. Once done actors and others are free to do other things until next period of shooting.

OTOH American television normally starts with a pilot episode or two. If thing does well everyone is called back to shoot more episodes. Rest is as noted in R95, if series goes into steady production then it's a shooting schedule that usually runs several months per year.

Main scheduling issue for British television actors is what time of day shooting takes place. Some studios do things in morning, others later in day. That does mean an actor can do two shows if they film at different times of day.

British way of doing things of course means if a series is a hit after first season (or whatever number actors were contracted), they've got to go around and get (hopefully) everyone back.

ITV did a great medical series set in 1960's Britain (Breathless) starring the wonderful Jack Davenport. Things started out well ratings wise, but by final episode of first season viewership dropped by almost half. That was that, ITV did not renew Breathless for a second season so all that exists is first bit that was in the can.

As R60 pointed out, exteriors in the opening credit montages of these shows are often are made from stock footage that is licensed, not specifically shot by the production team — especially if none of the stars appear in the shots (like Mary Tyler Moore often did).

Lear certainly didn’t rent a helicopter to get the opening city aerial and many of the driving shots feature more 50s cars than would have been left on the road by 1972. The GW bridge appears in the shot traveling up the west side highway, so it makes “storytelling sense” to show the cars on the bridge shot next. And that shot is visually different and more interesting than just another highway shot. The fact that it is all geographically wrong was really irrelevant to the people putting the credits together - the shots convey “we have entered the suburbs of NYC” - that’s all they needed to do.

Siobahn Finneran also left Downton Abbey early, and it was a smart decision because she went on to do great work elsewhere. Happy Valley was outstanding.

Departing "early" from Downton Abbey largely depends upon whose view one takes of things.

Siobhan Finneran sighed on for three series, and that's all she wanted to do. Thus by her account that departure was on time so to speak.

From Ms. Finneran's Wiki page...

"Finneran announced her departure in March 2013, ahead of the fourth series,[48] explaining that she had been signed for only three series and did not wish to extend her contract, adding: "When I stop loving something, I stop doing it."[49] Later that year, when asked by the Radio Times how her character's abrupt exit would be handled, Finneran retorted: "I’m hoping she’s flung off the roof of the Abbey"

Thing to keep in mind about British television series in general is effects of foreign audiences and funding has had on programming.

Time was BBC, ITV or whoever dramas had a book or at least set number of series, when that material ran out, show ended.

Due to financial cuts and other concerns both at BBC and ITV budgets aren't lavish as in past. This means shows have to find funding elsewhere, which increasingly is coming from Americans (PBS/Masterpiece) who join up as co-producers or something.

Until Downton Abbey "Brideshead Revisted" was the most successful British television drama. But comparing the two BR was from a different time in British television history were lush budgets still could be found and that book was done all at once.

One huge problem with Downton Abbey was it never was meant to go on long as it did. No one could have predicted show would be such a huge success ( especially abroad). To keep that gravy train going past first three seasons said "book" had to be extended with new scripts written and so on.

Problems began on one front when several main cast actors simply said "no", they won't be back after fulfilling contractual agreements.

Remember when Benedict Cumberbatch publicly called Downton Abbey "fucking atrocious?" That was fun.

Remark in context...

R99 I've said this for years.

The first two and a half seasons were sharp. Then there was an OH SHIT moment where they realized they'd have to sustain it for a while, and the entirety of seasons 4 and 5 were just treading water. I swear, suddenly in the last five or so episodes of the series it all got exciting again.

But you could SO obviously tell they were trying to kill time in between.

R102

Early on (first two or so series) DA was must watch television. Then soon grew bored and was turned off by what Julian Fellowes was please to call scripts. Was sort of rooting for that evil ladies maid to pull a "Mrs. Danvers" and burn Downton Abbey down with most inhabitants sill inside. In particular Bates, Anna, and Lady Edith