Reunited: Mary Richards and Sue Ann Nivens

It has been 37 years since the series finale of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970 - 1977). The 168^th, and final episode was one of the saddest in television history - not only did we have to watch teary goodbye exchanges between the cast...we had to contend with our own teary goodbye as well.

In 1977, during "The Last Show," Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) and Sue Ann Nivens (Betty White) (and Lou Grant, Murray Slaughter, and Ted Baxter & his wife Georgette), crowded into a huddled mass of goodbye tears as they stood on the WJM-TV newsroom floor - and we all cried along with them.

Now, at the beginning of 2011, all of us Generation Xers, Baby Boomers, and anyone else with the good taste to adore Betty White and Mary Tyler Moore, received a special treat - the two reunited on the season premier of Betty's new show, Hot in Cleveland.

In case you were under a rock last year, Hot in Cleveland (2010 - ) is an original TV Land sitcom that stars Betty White and teams her with several veteran actresses who should be familiar to most audiences of 70s, 80s and 90s sitcoms: Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves, and Wendie Malick.

In Hot in Cleveland, Betty White stars as Elka Ostrovsky , the cantankerous caretaker of the three women's rented house. The hook of Cleveland is the unpretentious Midwestern atmosphere they experience after they land there in a fluke. The three friends are from L.A., they are in the entertainment industry, and they saw 40 come and go eons ago... as such, they each suffer from a terminal case of feeling "over the hill."

Hot in Cleveland ended its first season with a cliffhanger that landed Elka in jail (probably where she should be since she is a weed head). While she is in the big house, she is reunited with her old friend (Mary Tyler Moore). The episode is titled "Free Elka," and it aired on TV Land on Wednesday, January 19^th (last night).

If you hurry, Tvland.com is airing "Free Elka" online in its entirety, but only until the next episode, so hurry. If you have already missed that window, never fear... reruns will air in the summer, be sure to catch it then. .

Betty White was initially slated to guest star in the role of Elka Ostrovsky , but White has been a hot commodity since her Rose Nylund days (The Golden Girls), and her recent mega-popularity sure has rendered her "An American National Treasure" according to Sandra Bullock...and the rest of America as well. It was only natural that the show's producers would want to keep her around.

Betty White has been in two of the most influential television shows in history, and the octogenarian shows no sign of slowing down - now if we could just get more on-screen time for Mary Tyler Moore. Perhaps there should be a millennium version of The Golden Girls with Mary, Rhoda (Valerie Harper), and Phyllis (Cloris Leachman)...and they could get Mrs. Garrett (Charlotte Rae - Diff'rent Strokes/The Facts of Life) to be the caretaker of the house, hmmm...

http://www.tvland.com/shows/hot-in-cleveland

http://www.tv.com/the-mary-tyler-moore-show/the-last-show/episode/12314/summary.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065314/