IN MEMORIAM: Ed Asner (1929-2021)

My introduction to Ed Asner was The Mary Tyler Moore Show, one of the most celebrated sitcoms of all-time that ran on CBS from 1970-1977.

Obviously I wasn’t even conceived when it aired, but thanks to Nick at Nite and later TV Land, I discovered it. My family is big on sitcoms, especially ones from the older eras, and when they rediscovered them on Channel 46 in Detroit, I learned about their existence from a time I had never personally known.

The entire cast of The Mary Tyler Moore Show was dynamite, starting with Mary herself, continuing with Valerie Harper’s Rhoda Morgenstern, Gavin Macleod’s Murray Slaughter, Cloris Leachman’s Phyllis Lindstrom, Betty White’s Sue Ann Nivens, Georgia Engel’s Georgette, and of course the utterly hilarious Ted Knight as Ted Baxter.

The glue of the whole cast though was Ed Asner’s Lou Grant, the boss of WJM’s Six O’Clock News, who did everything he could to run that low budget, low ratings operation with as much class, grit and old school newsman integrity as he could. His character was intimidating at times, understanding at others, and genuinely had his heart in the right place most of the time throughout the show.

Asner brought that character to life in a way that no one could have with that cast, and it was just as hilarious as it was heartfelt and poignant through seven seasons of pure sitcom gold for that ensemble group. You might not have always agreed with his old school stance, but one of the brilliant things that Moore and Asner did with Grant’s character was they made him open-minded to the progressive changes the show directly addressed with respect to women’s rights and sociopolitical issues. If you watch the show now and realize just how much the subject matter from the 1970’s still applies to today, you’ll realize just how progressive The Mary Tyler Moore Show was at times……and it might scare you how little has changed in the world since it went off the air.

Asner was without question one of its brightest spots, and he had great chemistry with everyone, including Betty White’s happy homemaker that couldn’t resist actively flirting with him in the newsroom, playing a character that had more in common with Blanche than Rose in her later show, The Golden Girls.

Asner seemingly became a jack of all trades after that. Sure he spent another five years playing a serious version of his comedic character in the drama named after it, Lou Grant, but he was all over television before and after his fictional newsman days, appearing in Mission: Impossible, The Fugitive, The Untouchables, The Outer Limits, Hawaii Five-O, Roots, which won him an Emmy, JFK, Elf, and even an emotional episode of Doom Patrol in its first season on DC Universe, to name just a few of his massive credits.

Then there’s his voice acting work, which is where he made his stamp on a lot of fandoms. If you’re a DC fan, he’s either Roland Daggett in Batman the Animated Series, or Granny Goodness in Superman the Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited. If you’re a Marvel fan, he’s J. Jonah Jameson in the 1994 Spider-Man animated series, or Uncle Ben in an episode of The Spectacular Spider-Man animated series.

In Gargoyles, he voiced Hudson. In The Boondocks he was Ed Wuncler Sr. He also voiced characters in Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland Show, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of dozens of voice acting and TV roles he had in his career, including episodes of Cobra Kai in recent years.

Oh, and of course he was the voice of Carl Fredericksen in the Pixar movie Up, and yes it’s a tear-jerking story, as only Pixar can deliver.

Outside of film and TV, Asner was as non-problematic as Hollywood could have anyone, and his political leanings were definitely more liberal and progressive throughout his entire life. He served as president of the Screen Actors Guild in the 1980’s for two terms and was a member of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit intended to protect the first amendment rights of comic book creators.

Ed Asner was one of those rare talents that not only found a way to keep working his whole life, but never had any intentions of stopping either. Indeed, we will hear his voice one final time in a Disney+ series of shorts called Dug Days, that takes place after the events of the film Up. He simply didn’t know the meaning of the word quit, and to say that he made his mark on several generations of fans and audiences alike would be a massive understatement.

I’ll personally always remember him as Lou Grant, overprotective of his associate producer Mary Richards, ready to swing back a bottle of bourbon with his writer buddy Murray Slaughter, and always prepared to throttle his wildly inept and hilariously contemptuous anchorman, Ted Baxter.

RIP Lou Grant. You were truly one of the great ones in Hollywood, through and through.