The syndicated series follows the eponymous Mary Hartman, a small-town Ohio housewife attempting to cope with various bizarre and sometimes violent incidents occurring in her daily life.

The series was produced by Norman Lear, directed by Joan Darling, Jim Drake, Nessa Hyams, and Giovanna Nigro, and starred Louise Lasser, Greg Mullavey, Dody Goodman, Mary Kay Place, Graham Jarvis, Debralee Scott, Victor Kilian, Philip Bruns, and Claudia Lamb.

[1] Developed by Lear with the intention of examining the effects of consumerism on the American housewife, the series was filmed at KTLA Studios in Los Angeles.

"[2][3] TV Guide ranked the death of Coach Leroy Fedders, who drowns in a bowl of Mary's chicken soup in the first season, 97th on its list of the 100 Greatest T.V.

Some of her key traits, unusual but prescient for the times, include her initially numbed-out response to both external and emotional conflicts, her indecisiveness, and her potential to suddenly snap out of one state of mind and swing to its opposite.

Other characters also die in bizarre ways, including electrocution in a bathtub (Jimmy Joe Jeeter), drowning in chicken soup (Coach Leroy Fedders), and being impaled on a pink bottle brush artificial Christmas tree (Garth Gimble).

[5] One of her sanitarium mates, widowed Wanda Rittenhouse (Marian Mercer), became more prominent later, when she married Merle Jeeter, the mayor of Fernwood.

Lear then pursued a syndication strategy by hiring a sales agent to sell the show at the 1976 National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) market in San Francisco.

[12] "Baby Boy" was a minor hit for Loretta Haggers in the series, which she played to a nationwide audience live on the set of Dinah!

79 on the Hot 100,[16] and at least four other Mary Hartman-related disco songs were released by Vincent Montana Jr., Sammy Davis Jr., Floyd Cramer, and The Marketts during the show's run.

"[1] Of the series' influence on pop culture, Claire Barliant wrote: "For some, the 1970s [...] was a descent into chaos, a dissolution of self, but also a kind of awakening [...] The seventies nervous breakdown coincides with women's lib and a strengthening gay rights movement [...] MH2 is relevant today because it entertains but still shocks, because the social commentary and satire and bravery of the show are as fresh as ever.

"[2][3] When Lasser left the show in 1977, it was rebranded Forever Fernwood and followed the trials and tribulations of Mary's family and friends after she had run away with police sergeant Dennis Foley, with whom she had had a lot of contact during the first season.

Aside from Lasser, the rest of the cast remained intact even as new actors joined the cast: Shelley Fabares as Eleanor Major, who began dating Tom after Mary had left him; Judith Kahan as Eleanor's stuttering sister, Penny Major; and Randall Carver as Cathy Shumway's gangster husband, Jeffrey DeVito.

In February 2021, it was reported that a reboot of the series was in development by Sony Pictures Television with Emily Hampshire as writer and starring role, Jacob Tierney as co-writer, and Lear and Brent Miller as executive producers.