Nanette Fabray has stated in interviews that she was overjoyed to be cast as Mary's mother and hoped this would lead to her and Bill Quinn playing Walt and Dottie Richard's on a recurring basis. However, Fabray was dismayed that after only a couple of appearances their characters never appeared again, and would become offscreen characters for the rest of the series. Fabray felt that perhaps Mary Tyler Moore and she did not develop a good on-screen chemistry and thus the character was dropped. Fabray asked Moore years later as to why her character never continued and was assured by Moore it had nothing to do with her performance although Fabray was never quite sure that was not the reason.