Rhoda is an American sitcom television series created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns starring Valerie Harper that originally aired on CBS for five seasons from September 9, 1974, to May 18, 1979.

[1] It was the first spin-off of The Mary Tyler Moore Show in which Harper reprised her role as Rhoda Morgenstern, a spunky and flamboyantly fashioned young woman seen as unconventional by the standards of her Jewish family from New York City.

Main co-stars included Julie Kavner as Rhoda's sister Brenda alongside Nancy Walker as their mother Ida Morgenstern.

Other co-stars throughout the series included The Mary Tyler Moore Show writer Lorenzo Music as Rhoda and Brenda's scarcely seen doorman Carlton, Harold Gould as their father Martin Morgenstern, Ron Silver as their neighbor Gary Levy, Ray Buktenica as Brenda's boyfriend and later fiancé Benny Goodwin, and Kenneth McMillan as Rhoda's boss Jack Doyle.

The pilot episode, entitled "Joe", aired on CBS on Monday, September 9, 1974, at 9:30 p.m. and immediately set a record by being the first television series ever to achieve a number-one Nielsen rating for its premiere episode, defeating the ABC ratings juggernaut, Monday Night Football in the process.

ABC aired a college football game, Notre Dame versus Georgia Tech, to fill a gap one week before the start of the NFL season.

The episode opens with Rhoda Morgenstern traveling from her home in Minneapolis to New York City, where she was born and raised, for a two-week vacation, staying with her younger sister, Brenda (Julie Kavner).

While there, she meets Joe Gerard (David Groh), a handsome divorcé who owns a wrecking company and has a ten-year-old son, Donny, whom Brenda babysits.

Following Brenda's prompting, Rhoda and Joe meet and develop an instant attraction to each other which leads to their dating nightly for the duration of her vacation.

When it becomes apparent Rhoda is sliding into a rut by occupying her childhood bedroom, Ida forces her to move out for her own good.

After some careful thought, and consultation with her sister and father, Rhoda accepts Joe's invitation, but within minutes of moving in decides that rather than living together out of wedlock she prefers to be married.

Eight weeks into the series, on Monday, October 28, 1974, Rhoda and Joe were married in a special hour-long episode that broke several television viewership records.

At the conclusion of the episode, Monday Night Football host Howard Cosell joked on ABC that he had not been invited to the wedding, and welcomed viewers back to the game.

[16] Vogue magazine reported that people across the country had pulled off the road checking into motels, and that friends had canceled dinner invitations (feigning illness), just to watch Rhoda's wedding.

Her frequent nemesis, Phyllis, who intentionally had not been invited, nonetheless flies in for the wedding, and Mary and Rhoda's friend, Georgette, drives in from Minneapolis.

This forces Rhoda to take the subway, running through the streets of Manhattan and the Bronx fully regaled in her wedding dress and veil and dashing into her parents' apartment building in one of the most memorable moments in the history of series television.

[21] Throughout the tenure of Rhoda Morgenstern's character being featured on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, her "Jewishness" was discussed on several episodes.

During the second season, Moore made no appearances on Rhoda, but Valerie Harper and David Groh were briefly featured as Rhoda and Joe Gerard on The Mary Tyler Moore Show's eleventh installment of the sixth season "Mary Richards Falls in Love".

Although the producers believed the plot development was essential, the fan response to Rhoda and Joe's separation was overwhelmingly negative and hostile.

Though Ida appears in the opening episode ("The Separation"), both she and Martin are absent for the remainder of the season, explained as traveling across the country in an RV.

To help fill in the void left by Walker and Gould, the producers hired comedian Anne Meara as Rhoda's new friend, Sally Gallagher, a middle-aged divorcee who works as an airline stewardess.

As the season progresses, however, Joe is seen less frequently and episodes show Rhoda coping with her single status or feature Brenda-themed stories.

She also occasionally dates neighbor Gary Levy as well as continuing her casual relationship with immature accordion player Nick Lobo.

Rhoda sports a new longer frizzy-permed hair style, which she keeps pulled back in a small ponytail for part of the season.

Brenda and Benny get engaged to be married, with their wedding planned for later in the season (though this would ultimately not happen, due to Rhoda's abrupt midseason cancellation).

A new coworker, Tina Molinari (Nancy Lane), joins Rhoda and Jack at the costume shop, having appeared in several Season 4 episodes as an employee at Gary's jeans store.

Actors featured in guest-starring roles on Rhoda include Robert Alda, René Auberjonois, Frank Converse, Norman Fell, Jack Gilford, Ruth Gordon, Eileen Heckart, Howard Hesseman, Judd Hirsch, Anne Jackson, Linda Lavin, Tim Matheson, Melanie Mayron, John Ritter, Doris Roberts, David Ogden Stiers, Jerry Stiller, Joan Van Ark, Vivian Vance, and Henry Winkler.

[32] Because the series premiere in the DVD set is the syndicated version, Mary Tyler Moore's appearance at the beginning of the episode is not included.

All About "Rhoda" was referenced in an episode of The Kids in the Hall during a sketch in which the character Buddy Cole (played by Scott Thompson) identified it as the book he would most want to have with him if he was stranded on a desert island.

Julius C. Burnett wrote Rhoda Revisited, which summarized the series (with a foreword by Valerie Harper) and was released by Ju-Ju & Co. Entertainment LLC on December 21, 2010.