Lou Grant

Lou Grant is a fictional character played by Ed Asner in two shows. The first was The Mary Tyler Moore Show 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 a hour long serious dramatic series which frequently engaged in social commentary.

In 2004, Asner reprised the role in a series of ads promoting Twin Cities station KSTP, a very real channel in the same market as the fictional WJM-TV.