Celebrity Death: Grant Tinker(Producer former head of NBC) dead at 90

[Archangel]

http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/grant-tinker-appreciation-dead-90-nbc-mtm-1201930239/

If you watched tv in the 70's and 80's you watched one of his shows.For nearly nearly twenty years he was married to Mary Tyler Moore and with her founded MTM production. The big one being Hill street Blues and many other Steve Bochco shows Tinker was the guy responisble for NBC turn around in the early 80's. While Brandon Tartikoff is often giving credit for turning around NBC.. many of the shows that went on the air on NBC in the early 80's were a direct resualt of what Tinker did.

Here is a brief list of shows just from MTM that he was directly resposible for getting on the air

The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977)
The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978)
Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers (1974-1975)
The Texas Wheelers (1974-1975)
Rhoda (1974-1978)
The Bob Crane Show (1975)
Doc (1975-1976)
The Lorenzo & Henrietta Music Show (1976)
Three for the Road (1975)
Phyllis (1975-1977)
The Tony Randall Show (1976-1978)
Lou Grant (1977-1982)
The Betty White Show (1977-1978)
We've Got Each Other (1977-1978)
The White Shadow (1978-1981)
WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-1982)
Mary (1978)
The Mary Tyler Moore Hour (1979)
The Last Resort (1979-1980)
Paris (1979-1980)
Carlton Your Doorman (1980)
Hill Street Blues (1981-1987)
Remington Steele (1982-1987)
St. Elsewhere (1982-1988)
Newhart (1982-1990)
Bay City Blues (1983)

He is also responsible for making one of the shrewdest of all time. In 1982 he picked up the show TAXI from ABC. With that pick up he also go the right to first look at any show created by the guys who created TAXI. They had several in the works but the first one was a show called Cheers which finished dead last in the ratings after its first. Tinker was the one who decided to keep it on the air for that second year and that is when the show caught fire. Tinker was the first person to hire Director James R Burrows to more then just write shows in the early 60's By bringing Hill street Blues to air, many believe this was the start of "gritty" television that is still on the air today

Click to read more...

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Rip.

 

[Acadmus]

http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/grant-tinker-appreciation-dead-90-nbc-mtm-1201930239/

If you watched tv in the 70's and 80's you watched one of his shows.For nearly nearly twenty years he was married to Mary Tyler Moore and with her founded MTM production. The big one being Hill street Blues and many other Steve Bochco shows Tinker was the guy responisble for NBC turn around in the early 80's. While Brandon Tartikoff is often giving credit for turning around NBC.. many of the shows that went on the air on NBC in the early 80's were a direct resualt of what Tinker did.

Here is a brief list of shows just from MTM that he was directly resposible for getting on the air

The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977)
The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978)
Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers (1974-1975)
The Texas Wheelers (1974-1975)
Rhoda (1974-1978)
The Bob Crane Show (1975)
Doc (1975-1976)
The Lorenzo & Henrietta Music Show (1976)
Three for the Road (1975)
Phyllis (1975-1977)
The Tony Randall Show (1976-1978)
Lou Grant (1977-1982)
The Betty White Show (1977-1978)
We've Got Each Other (1977-1978)
The White Shadow (1978-1981)
WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-1982)
Mary (1978)
The Mary Tyler Moore Hour (1979)
The Last Resort (1979-1980)
Paris (1979-1980)
Carlton Your Doorman (1980)
Hill Street Blues (1981-1987)
Remington Steele (1982-1987)
St. Elsewhere (1982-1988)
Newhart (1982-1990)
Bay City Blues (1983)

Lot of misses in those hits.
What I watched (at least a few times, mostly in my youth when these shows were still regularly in syndication):
The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977)
Rhoda (1974-1978)
WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-1982)
Remington Steele (1982-1987)
Newhart (1982-1990)
...and, of course as you'd mentioned his indirect key role in, Cheers.

I'm familiar at least with a few others:
The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978)
Lou Grant (1977-1982)
Hill Street Blues (1981-1987)
St. Elsewhere (1982-1988)

And I can't believe they gave Lorenzo Music his own show based on his MTM character Talk about giving a guy a job sight-unseen He was made for voice roles, as he realized when he became the voice of Garfield and the animated version of Dr. Peter Venkman.

I'd have to say Mr. Tinker had an impact on my life, especially for putting a show set in Vermont on television, even if he did make fun of us Vermonters But it gives us the lasting memory of Larry, his brother Darryl, and his other brother Darryl.

R.I.P.