Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Yellow Ticonderogas

Eberhard Faber Mongols were on the job in the WJM newsroom during the first season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. After that, it’s Dixon Ticonderogas and no-name pencils. A great loss for Mongol fans.

Perhaps one of the writers was using a Ticonderoga when working on the episode “Mary Richards and the Incredible Plant Lady” (March 3, 1973). The premise: Rhoda (Valerie Harper) has borrowed money from Mary to open a plant shop, and she’s taking her time about paying back. The reason: she’s secretly using her earnings to buy Mary a new car, a yellow Mustang convertible. Rhoda knows that Mary has had her eye on a Mustang. But it turns out — uh-oh — that Mary hates yellow. She and Rhoda and Georgette (Georgia Engel) sit in the newly purchased car in the dealer’s showroom:

Georgette: “Yellow’s a lovely color, Mary. It’s the color of the sun, and wheat fields.”

Mary: “Yeah.”

Rhoda: “Ticonderoga pencils.”

Georgette: “And daffodils, and lemons — whoops, I shouldn’t have said that.”
Related reading
All OCA MTM posts : Ticonderoga posts (Pinboard)

comments: 4

Joe DiBiase said...

Thought you may like this ... https://woodclinched.com/2014/06/13/mary-tyler-moore-sharpening-pencils/

Michael Leddy said...

Yes, I do. Thanks, Joe. I think that but went right past me, before the Mongols made me take notice of the show’s pencil thematics. Those look like Mirados (?) to me — they’ve also been discontinued.

Anonymous said...

a dixon primer

https://archive.org/details/DixonPencilGeography/mode/2up

Michael Leddy said...

Thanks, Anon. Talk about indoctrination — I hope Ron DeSantis doesn’t find out about this primer.

And my previous comment should read “bit,” not “but.”