One of my favorite episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show is "Put On a Happy Face" from season three. It's the one where Mary is nominated for a Teddy Award, but everything in her life suddenly starts going wrong. It starts with a "hair bump," then moves on to a sprained foot, a nasty cold, a dress that comes back from the cleaners with a horrible purple spot on it, a broken hairdryer, and Ted as a date for the awards ceremony.

So Mary ends up going to the event with a dress borrowed from Rhoda that looks like something a grandmother (back then) might wear. It starts raining so the slipper she's wearing on her sore foot gets soggy, and then her false eyelash comes off just as they announce her name as the winner. Seriously, Mary still looks pretty fantastic even when her life goes to heck.

There aren't many shows that can make you laugh out loud even when you're watching them by yourself. The Mary Tyler Moore Show is definitely one of a kind. Here's the episode, straight from our sister site, SlashControl.

Fred Thompson, Jesse Ventura and 11 others who went from the small screen to the podium

Did you know that before he hosted his eponymous chair-throwing, fist-flying talk show, Jerry Springer was the mayor of Cincinnati?

Going from politician to TV star may be an unusual path, but the opposite route is actually quite common.

Here are 13 stars who made -- or tried to make -- the leap from primetime to politics.

Have you ever wondered if Mary Tyler Moore can still turn the world on with her smile? You'll be able to find out this Monday on Oprah.

The daytime talk show host will host a reunion of the show. Not only will she get all of the surviving cast members together (Moore, Valerie Harper, Ed Asner, Betty White, Gavin MacLeod, Cloris Leachman, and Georgia Engel), they will also have duplicates of the WJM set and the set for Mary's apartment on the stage (the link above includes a preview of the show - no idea why Oprah is crying).

Since we had so much fun examining the greatest mysteries of Cheers, I've decided to make this a quasi-regular feature. The next classic show to come under scrutiny is The Love Boat, the 1977 - 1986 Aaron Spelling series that involved water, Mexican paradises, and everyone from David Hasselhoff to George Burns getting busy on the Lido deck.

I used to watch the show just about every Saturday night, especially during its early years (it was a big event when Julie went from her bowl cut to the feathered look... I think it coincided with my very first months of pre-puberty). At the time, I just took the show at face value, but as the years have gone on, aspects of life on the Pacific Princess made me scratch my head, starting with a fact of life that just about everyone took for granted:

A classic sitcom with have a reunion of sorts when cast members of The Mary Tyler Moore Show gather at the Screen Actor's Guild Awards this Sunday night.

Mary Tyler Moore, Ed Asner, Betty White, Gavin MacLeod, Valerie Harper, Cloris Leachman, and Georgia Engel will give out the Best Ensemble In A Comedy Series award. Ted Knight died in 1986. Chuckles the Clown died in 1975.

The show airs on TNT at 8pm. Julie Andrews will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the show, and Dick Van Dyke will be a presenter as well.

[via TV Tattle]