I was so sad to hear that Mary Tyler Moore has died. What a presence she had in our imaginations! Her show was on from 1970-1977, and yet the character she played is still familiar.

In 1999, the magazine Entertainment Weekly chose Mary Richards’s tossing her hat into the air as the second-great TV moment of the 1970s.

For me, it’s one of the happiest moments of all of TV. It gives me a chill, and lifts my spirits, every time I see it. It’s a moment of joyful, unself-conscious exuberance.

What an extraordinary image to leave behind.