Lou Grant
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Lou Grant is a fictional character played by Ed Asner in two shows on CBS. The first was Mary Tyler Moore in which the character was the producer of the fictional WJM-TV news. A spinoff series, simply entitled Lou Grant, featured the character as an editor at the fictional Los Angeles Tribune.
The remarkable thing about the character is that the two shows in which he appears are completely different genres. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a half-hour long light-hearted situation comedy while Lou Grant was an hour long serious dramatic series which frequently engaged in social commentary.
In 2004, Asner unofficially reprised the role in a series of ads promoting Twin Cities station KSTP, a real channel in the same market as the fictional WJM-TV.