A
television production company, formed in
1970 by Mary Tyler Moore and her husband Grant Tinker to produce
The Mary Tyler Moore Show for
CBS. The show was an instant success (and deservedly so), and led to other productions:
spinoffs
Rhoda,
Phyllis, and
Lou Grant,
The Bob Newhart Show,
The Tony Randall Show,
The White Shadow,
Hill Street Blues,
The Betty White Show,
WKRP in Cincinnati.
The MTM logo meant something in those days: even if you weren't getting revolutionary stuff (Hill Street may have been the only truly innovative one of the bunch), you were getting television that was at least above-average; the modern ensemble/workplace comedy owes much to many of the aforementioned shows.
Moore and Tinker divorced in 1979. MTM continued, producing St. Elsewhere and Newhart, et al, and branching out into the music business (though I'm hard-pressed to name more than one band on the MTM Records
roster). Tinker had a successful reign as head of NBC Television; he would later form a joint venture with Gannett Newspapers - the short-lived TV version of USA Today.
MTM was sold to TVS, which was subsequently bought by Pat
Robertson's International Family Entertainment conglomerate, and, like other IFE properties (e.g. The Family Channel, Ice Capades), may now be in the hands of Pat and Rupert Murdoch - but who knows who owns what these days?
The MTM logo was a kitten - a parody of MGM's roaring Ars Gratia Artis lion. It would meow at the end of the closing credits; variations included a cartoon medical outfit for the kitten (St. Elsewhere), a Sherlock Holmes motif (Remington Steele), and Bob Newhart's voice handling the "meow" (for his three sitcoms).
Which MTM show starred Jim Carrey?