TV Seven TV Shows and One First Lady Influenced by 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' By Madeline Boardman Updated on January 26, 2017 12:31PM EST Trending Videos Close this video player 01 of 09 The Influence of The Mary Tyler Moore Show CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images Mary Tyler Moore died Wednesday at the age of 80, leaving behind a storied legacy of film and television projects, including her beloved Mary Tyler Moore Show. The groundbreaking series aired from 1970 to 1977, introducing viewers to single working woman Mary Richards and influencing decades of TV characters in her wake. See shows and one particularly famous face who credit The Mary Tyler Moore Show as an inspiration, ahead. 02 of 09 30 Rock Ali Goldstein/NBC 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon may never have seen the hallowed halls of the NBC building if not for Mary Tyler Moore. Creator Tina Fey credited The Mary Tyler Moore Show as an inspiration for her Emmy-winning show and its single working woman lead, developing the complex character nearly 30 years after her predecessor completed an on-screen run. 03 of 09 Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Fey took inspiration from The Mary Tyler Moore Show once more, building off of the beloved show for her hit Netflix program, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. "We wanted to center this [show] around [Kimmy Schmidt], do the kind of Mary Tyler Moore template of the girl in the big city," Fey’s co-creator Robert Carlock told EW.com in 2015, a sentiment Fey echoed. "Very often, pilots are about people starting their lives over for various reasons—[it's] my first job, or I’ve just gotten a divorce, or whatever," she said. "And what we hope is that in spite of its strange origin story, Kimmy as a character is very relatable… Like, 'I'm here, and I'm new, and I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life.'" 04 of 09 Girls Lena Dunham’s Girls follow Mary Tyler Moore’s single woman in the city inspiration, though with a few more mistakes and slightly detoured career paths. Dunham expressed her admiration for The Mary Tyler Moore show in a 2013 interview with EW, listing the show as one of her all-time favorites, along with My So-Called Life and Felicity. One of EW’s Hollywood insiders also drew parallels between Moore’s character and Dunham’s lead Hannah, telling EW in 2013, "Hannah is the mumblecore Mary Tyler Moore." 05 of 09 2 Broke Girls 2 Broke Girls’ Max and Caroline — a pair of Brooklyn-dwelling single entrepreneurs — entered the Mary Tyler Moore Show legacy in 2011. Creator Michael Patrick King paid tribute to the show in a 2012 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, telling the outlet The Mary Tyler Moore Show inspired him to start writing. 06 of 09 Friends Alice S. Hall/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images Friends’ Rachel Green, Monica Geller, and Phoebe Buffay spent their 20s and 30s working and dating as single women in New York City, unencumbered by societal expectations or pressures. Creator David Crane recognized the lines between his series and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, telling The San Francisco Chronicle in 2004 that he used Moore's finale as inspiration for his own. "Mary Tyler Moore, that's the gold standard," he said. 07 of 09 Hot in Cleveland Hot in Cleveland leads Melanie, Joy, Victoria, and Elka are a little older but no less the picture of dream-chasing single women in a city. Mary Tyler Moore got the chance to join the show she served as an inspiration for in 2011, reuniting with her Mary Tyler Moore Show costar Betty White. 08 of 09 Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Lisa Rose/The CW Crazy Ex-Girlfriend lead Rachel Bloom weighed in on her show's ties to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, telling NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, "I didn’t realize how much of an influence it had until we were thinking about the season 2 theme song. And we were originally going to do a Mary Tyler Moore-like thing, this idea of pluckiness and she’s the girl everyone wants to be. We really wanted to play with that and it really fits our show. And I hadn’t realized that until we were talking about that theme song... That idea of a plucky conflicted ingenue who was adorable but still very conflicted and had problems of her own and was a deep nuanced person – that really relates to our show." 09 of 09 Michelle Obama Joe Raedle/Getty Images Even First Lady Michelle Obama took inspiration from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She told Variety in 2016 that the series had a major influence on her, explaining, "She was one of the few single working women depicted on television at the time. She wasn’t married. She wasn’t looking to get married. At no point did the series end in a happy ending with her finding a husband — which seemed to be the course you had to take as a woman. But she sort of bucked that. She worked in a newsroom, she had a tough boss, and she stood up to him. She had close friends, never bemoaning the fact that she was a single. She was very proud and comfortable in that role... I was probably 10 or 11 when I saw that, and sort of started thinking, ‘You know what? Marriage is an option. Having a family is an option. And going to school and getting your education and building your career is another really viable option that can lead to happiness and fulfillment."