Valerie Harper has had a star-studded, five-decade Hollywood career, winning Emmys and a Golden Globe, acting on Broadway, starring in "Valerie"/"The Hogan Family," and even popping up on "Desperate Housewives." But we're not going to lie -- to us, and to millions of viewers, she'll always be Rhoda Morgenstern, Mary's best pal on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and then returning to New York and marrying on the spinoff "Rhoda." Here are five reasons we loved that character so.

Slideshow: Valerie Harper

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1. Rhoda and Mary forever
How is this not the best female friendship ever depicted on TV? They fought at first, as New Yorker Rhoda's brashness clashed with Mary's Minnesota Nice. But in the end, no pals were better, no sidekick more entertaining. In an third-season episode where Rhoda plans to move back to New York (but changes her mind), Mary buys and returns three farewell gifts before confessing she can't find anything that's an appropriate farewell to her best friend. The room awwws, except for blustery newscaster Ted Baxter, who snorts "What a cheapo!"

2. Rhoda and chocolate
Back before the dieting woman was a cliche played out in "Cathy" cartoons, Rhoda handled her supposed weight problem (she always looked fine to us, if not as stick-thin as Mare) with aplomb. You've heard this line said a million times and seen it on greeting cards and magnets that are supposed to be funny, but it was Rhoda who said of a piece of chocolate, "I don't know why I should even bother to eat this. I should just apply it directly to my hips." Rhoda also informed Mary that "cottage cheese solves nothing, chocolate can do it all."

3. Rhoda and men
Rhoda and Mary fought the good fight in the dating world until Rhoda left for her own show and married Joe. But when they were single, they were an unstoppable pair. When landlady Phyllis once snotted at them, "I just thought I'd see what you swingin' singles do for fun," it was Rhoda who retorted with, "Same as you -- sit around and wonder what it would be like to have a happy marriage." 

4. 'Rhoda' opening credits
There's just something so Rhoda about seeing her booking it across town in her flowing wedding gown and veil, hiking up her skirt and swinging her tan purse over her shoulder. But the entire opening credit sequence is great, up to and including the childish "la la la LA la" theme song. They don't make TV openings like they used to.

5. Mary and Rhoda, reunited
Mary Tyler Moore made a guest appearance on a "Rhoda" episode where Rhoda and Joe had planned a weekend in Cape Cod. Rhoda was too kind to tell her Minneapolis friend that she couldn't stay and visit despite hubby Joe's wishes. Their fight resulted in a great scene where Rhoda went out on the balcony and screamed out her fury in silence, in a great pantomine scene that showed off Harper's acting skills. Sorry, Joe. You were always going to lose to Mary anyway.

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Children of the 1970s, you remember "Schoolhouse Rock," the short catchy musical bits that taught kids how to unpack their adjectives, helped them memorize the preamble to the constitution, and taught us all how a bill becomes a law.

Now "Schoolhouse Rock" has met up with another 1970s powerhouse, "Star Wars," in a smashing viral video. The video sets scenes from the "Star Wars" movies (the originals, please, not the sad sequels) to that "Grammar Rock" song "Interjections."

So instead of Reginald being home with flu (uh-huh!), it's Luke Skywalker getting his new prosthetic hand. Princess Leia is the "Geraldine" who played hard to get (ah-ha!), though "Geraldo" (Han Solo) knew he'd woo her yet. And when the "game was tied at 7-all," it's not Home vs. Visitors in a football stadium, but the Empire vs. the Rebels in a galactic brawl-for-it-all.

Wrote one viewer, "This is hysterically funny. I grew up w/ School House Rock and Star Wars in the 70s and am NOT easy to impress when it comes to things nerdy and comical. This had me in tears I was laughing so hard."

Another poster was hoping for a mashup set to History Rock's "Shot Heard Round the World." And he or she may get their wish for more content. The video was posted Feb. 24 by the YouTube account One Minute Galactica, and the poster says another mashup, using "Schoolhouse Rock's" camp-themed "Unpack Your Adjectives," could be on the way. He was a hairy Darth, he was a scary Darth...

What's your favorite "Schoolhouse Rock" ditty? Tell us on Facebook.

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Children of the 1980s, you remember "Pretty in Pink." Molly Ringwald's bizarre home-sewn prom dress. "His name is Blane? That's a major appliance, that's not a name!"  "What's this? We don't have a candy machine in the boys' room!" "WHAT ABOUT PROM, BLANE?"

The 1986 John Hughes classic came out 27 years ago Thursday, meaning that had Andie Walsh (Molly Ringwald) actually stayed together with either rich pretty boy Blane McDonnagh (Andrew McCarthy) or (our preference) quirky best friend Duckie Dale (Jon Cryer), they might even have kids of their own by now. Possibly adult kids. Maybe even a grandkid.

Everett Collection

"Pretty in Pink" came out 27 years ago Thursday.

Some say "Pretty in Pink" pales next to some of Hughes' other work, such as "Sixteen Candles" or "The Breakfast Club," but there's no doubt it's made its mark on pop culture. Years ago, Jon Cryer told TODAY.com that he's played Alan Harper on "Two and a Half Men" for years, but when he walks down the street, fans who recognize him never yell "Alan!" They always yell, "Duckie!"

In 2012, Jimmy Fallon asked Cryer if the beloved character couldn't be resurrected for a "Duckie Holiday Speclal." Cryer wasn't so sure, pointing out the innate uncoolness of his alter ago. "People forget that Duckie wore lederhosen!" he admonished.

And when McCarthy's memoir came out last fall, TODAY anchor Savannah Guthrie asked him if he felt it was true that Duckie was better for Andie than his own character of Blane. "That is an outrageous theory," McCarthy joked.

It's famously known that "Pretty in Pink" was supposed to end with Andie leaving Blane and ending up back with Duckie, her faithful, fashionable friend. But that ending was reportedly rejected by a test audience (someone find these people and interrogate them about what they were thinking), so Andie got the "happy" ending with richie Blane.

And perhaps that's as it should be. As much as we support Duckie's eternal faithfulness and fire, a 2012 TODAY.com poll showed that a slight majority of readers chose Blane over Duckie anyway. So let's pretend they're content, whoever and wherever they are. And happy anniversary.

Duckie or Blane? Take our new poll, and tell us what you think on Facebook.

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Want to see "Red Dawn" this weekend? Be sure to don your acid-washed jeans, Forenza sweater, Mary Lou Retton-inspired haircut, and jelly shoes. "Red Dawn" first came out in 1984, when Ronald Reagan was president, gas cost around $1 a gallon, and the film's star-spangled vision of a war against Soviet invaders made a lot more sense.

MGM, Film District

More cult than classic, "Red Dawn" (2012 version at top, 1984 version below) seems an odd choice for a movie remake. WOLVERINES!

In the new version, 1980s heartthrobs Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell and Charlie Sheen have been replaced by Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson and Connor Cruise. The role of Russia is being played by North Korea. Neither film version was intended to win Oscars, but the original developed a bit of a cult status, thanks in part to its handsome Brat Packy cast and weirdly memorable catchphrases. ("WOLVERINES!")

Now times have changed, and the new "Red Dawn" feels as clunky as a pay phone in a smartphone world.

"There's nothing to take away from this new version that ever feels like it's commenting on the here and now," Sara Michelle Fetters, critic and editor-in-chief for MovieFreak.com, told NBC News. "It just feels like another corporate byproduct, a movie made by people with no artistic credibility sitting in a room saying to one another, "Yeah, 'Red Dawn,' that totally kicked butt when I was a kid.' "

The Russkie -- er, North Korean-fighting teens of "Red Dawn" aren't alone in their nostalgic world. "Total Recall," "Footloose" and "Arthur" are among cult classics that have been recently remade for a 21st century audience, with "Dirty Dancing," "Robocop" and "The Evil Dead" among those awaiting their turn in the remake mill.

Few of the remade films have scored high with critics. The new version of "Red Dawn" currently earns only a 23 percent positive critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes.com, with many critics pulling no punches when it comes to the unneeded remake.

"Remaking an old film is rarely a good idea, but sometimes the idea is so spectacularly bad that the reasoning behind it defies all comprehension," critic Charlie McCollum wrote in the San Jose Mercury News. "About the only positive thing you can say about 'Red Dawn' is that it is finally coming along on the perfect holiday: Thanksgiving, otherwise known as Turkey Day."

Movies are often undeniable products of their time, said Fetters, noting that the original "Red Dawn," while "silly and over the top," carried with it some sense of historical significance in a Russia-wary country.  

"That's the problem with so many of these 1970s and '80s remakes," said Fetters. "The context and the reasoning behind them has been stripped away. Nobody greenlighting them now cares what the original filmmakers were trying to say, they only care that the concepts were cool, the villains were bad-ass and the heroes were larger than life."

Remakes may earn money, but they can also actively anger those who loved the originals.

"It bothers me to think of Gen X classics like 'Red Dawn' being remade," said Jennifer James, an Oklahoma writer who runs JenX67, a weblog about all things Generation X. "Nobody wants their coming-of-age films messed with."

But James admits that "Red Dawn" doesn't hold a cherished place in her personal pantheon of movie classics. 

"In my opinion, there are just some movies that can't be rebooted," she said. "Like 'The Breakfast Club' and 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off.'"

And James points out that Hollywood's obsession with remakes is robbing a new generation of their own stories.

"Do not remake 'The Breakfast Club,'" she said of John Hughes' classic 1985 film. "It would be an utter distortion of a cultural touchstone that belongs to one generation -- Generation X. A touchstone can't be remade or inherited. It can't be retrofitted to another generation. To inject current trends into old stories is to rob Gen Y and Gen Z of their own unique coming of age tales."

What classic movies should never be remade? Tell us on Facebook.

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Gael Fashingbauer Cooper is the movies editor for NBCNews.com and the co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s."

Danny Moloshok / Reuters

South Korean rapper Psy performs "Gangnam Style" with MC Hammer at the AMAs.

Dressed all in black, PSY took the stage first, sporting a version of the baggy "Hammer pants" MC Hammer made famous decades ago. Then MC Hammer himself joined in, though his outfit was all in white.

The billowy trousers didn't stop either musician from dancing up a storm, even trotting through the famed horse-riding style dance PSY tackles in the "Gangnam" video.

Christopher Polk / Getty Images

Singer Justin Bieber wore MC Hammer-style pants to the AMAs.

Hammer wasn't the only nostalgic act to take the AMA stage. Boy banders The Backstreet Boys, who celebrate their 20th anniversary next year, also made an appearance.

Jason Merritt / Getty Images

Singer Justin Bieber's striking shoes.

In contrast, the night's big winner, Canadian teen singer Justin Bieber, wasn't born until 1994, at which point the Backstreet Boys and MC Hammer were already well into their fame. Yet even Bieber himself sported a version of Hammer's baggy pants, along with a fashion twist of his own -- what appeared to be red slip-on shoes dotted with tiny black spikes. No one step on his foot!

It was one of the most devastating days in American music. Thirty-five years ago Saturday, a plane carrying the band Lynyrd Skynyrd ran out of fuel and crashed in Gillsburg, Miss., killing six people, including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and siblings guitarist Steve Gaines and vocalist Cassie Gaines. The band's pilot, co-pilot and assistant road manager also died in the crash, and many more were injured.

Getty Images file

Lynyrd Skynyrd performs in 1976, a year before the plane crash.

The site TennesseeConcerts.com lets interested persons read about the crash as it was covered in real-time by the local paper, the Enterprise-Journal. The newspaper's front page was given over to the disaster, with a horrendous photo of the wreckage showing that the plane pretty much split in two.

Rescuers had to cross a 20-foot-wide, waist-deep creek and dig through a forest so overgrown and untouched that some emergency vehicles got stuck in the mud on their way to the scene, the Enterprise-Journal reported. The paper also quotes a local resident who was approached by bloody survivors, one of whom hugged him around the neck while saying "we got to get them out."

Three days before the crash, the band had released its latest album, "Street Survivors," which originally featured a cover showing the band surrounded by flames (it was quickly changed). The album became a hit, but the decimated band broke up, only to reunite in 1987 and begin touring again.

Their music lives on -- "Sweet Home Alabama" especially has a permanent place in American rock history. A whole generation of fans who love the song weren't even around for the crash, which has passed into shadowy musical legend.

In the 1997 Nicolas Cage movie "Con Air," as "Sweet Home Alabama" plays, Steve Buscemi's character says, "Define irony. Bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash."

He wasn't quite right. While the crash would seem to have destroyed the entire band, that isn't quite true. Lynyrd Skynyrd is currently touring Florida and about to move the tour to the United Kingdom. But the echoes of that day 35 years ago still resonate for those with a lengthy musical memory.

Do you remember the Skynyrd crash? Tell us on Facebook.

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Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann Summers, the ponytailed innocent trapped for years on "Gilligan's Island," turns 74 Thursday. Stop a minute, build a radio out of coconuts and let that sink in: Fresh-faced Mary Ann is a senior citizen and then some. (But still looking terrific!) 

Everett Collection / Getty Image

Dawn Wells on "Gilligan's Island" and in a more recent photo. The actress turns 74 today.

Her co-star, redheaded siren Tina Louise/Ginger Grant, turned 78 in February. The two will forever be linked thanks to the inevitable "Ginger or Mary Ann?" question. It even makes it into Tina Louise's Wikipedia entry, which notes, "The question "Ginger or Mary Ann?"  is regarded to be a classic pop-psychological question when given to American men of a certain age as an insight into their characters, or at least their desires as regarding certain female stereotypes."

Everett Collection / Getty Image

Tina Louise as Ginger on "Gilligan's Island" and in a more recent photo, still sporting her famed red tresses.

It's a question that's as much about personality and expectations as it is about looks. Ginger had the va-va-voom figure, the sparkly gowns (so many, packed for what was supposed to be a three-hour tour) and the breathy Marilyn Monroe voice. Mary Ann had a lovely figure too, though her outfits were more Daisy Mae than glamorous movie star. But she was the one viewers could relate to, a winsome farm girl who was as all-American as the flag. Ginger was the unattainable dream, Mary Ann the more realistic dream come true.

Even Gilligan himself, Bob Denver (who passed away in 2005, though Twitter seemed to believe he died more recently), reportedly picked Mary Ann in the Mary Ann-Ginger debate. And show creator Sherwood Schwartz admitted that he was wrong to leave her out of the show's theme song in its first go-round. You remember: The first version sang of Ginger as "the movie star," and then zoomed over Russell Johnson and Wells' characters as "and the rest." Schwartz quickly fixed that, adding "the Professor and Mary Ann" as a line. As he should have.

So as Mary Ann celebrates her 74th birthday, we want to know: Ginger or Mary Ann? Vote in our poll and tell us on Facebook.

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The "Peanuts" gang never really went away, they were just ... hibernating. Vacationing. Playing baseball and feeding Snoopy and dragging Linus' blanket around and telling Pig-Pen to take a bath.

Courtesy PNTS

But now the beloved comic-strip characters, who taught us about the Great Pumpkin and the Red Baron and how happiness is a warm puppy, are heading back to the theaters with a new big-screen movie planned for 2015.

"Peanuts" ran in newspapers for 50 years. Charles Schulz, its creator, died in 2000, the night before the final strip was published.

Schulz's son, Craig; grandson, Bryan; and writer Cornelius Uliano will write and produce the film.

"We have been working on this project for years. We finally felt the time was right and the technology is where we need it to be to create this film," Craig Schulz said in a statement. " I am thrilled we will be partnering with Blue Sky/Fox to create a Peanuts movie that is true to the strip and will continue the legacy in honor of my father."

Although the "Peanuts" gang's television specials are perhaps better known, the gang has appeared in four big-screen movies -- "A  Boy Named Charlie Brown," "Snoopy, Come Home," "Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown," and "Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back!!)."

No title or plot description has yet been released for the upcoming movie.

2015 will mark the 65th anniversary of "Peanuts" debut and the 50th anniversary of "A Charlie Brown Christmas," the most famous television special in the series.

Are you happy the Peanuts gang will be back in theaters? Tell us on Facebook.

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The Peter Gabriel song "In Your Eyes" will forever be associated with John Cusack. In the 1989 film "Say Anything," Cusack's Lloyd Dobler courts Diane Court by holding a boombox playing that song over his head.

That famous scene got a real-life re-enactment of sorts Saturday at Gabriel's concert at California's Hollywood Bowl. As "In Your Eyes" began, Cusack came out on stage and handed Gabriel a boombox, doffing his cap to the singer as he did so.

Gabriel then held it over his head, Dobler-style, and acknowledged Cusack before putting the boombox down and starting to sing.

Timothy Norris

Peter Gabriel holds up the boombox given to him by John Cusack.

Former rock journalist Cameron Crowe, who wrote and directed "Say Anything," tweeted on Sunday that the moment was "surreal and beautiful."

Cusack himself also tweeted about the experience, telling Twitter followers to use the moment to encourage Crowe to tackle another project with Cusack, which they did.

And that would be great, as long as it didn't involve selling anything, buying anything, or processing anything.

Are you a "Say Anything" fan? Tell us on Facebook.

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Monty Python / BBC

Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is a comedy classic.

Are you a lumberjack? Because you're OK. Is this the right room for an argument? Because that parrot is definitely deceased. Nudge nudge, know what I mean, know what I mean?

Yes, "Monty Python's Flying Circus" turns 43 years old today. The show premiered Oct. 5, 1969, on Britain's BBC One. Americans, though, quickly jumped on the Brit-wit bandwagon, making the show and the Pythons' movies quotable cult classics.

Their skits were viral videos before there most of us had ever heard of the Internet. Depending on your school, you had a fairly good chance of walking into the band room or another place where Python-esque people hang out, throwing out "What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?" and having someone shout back, "What do you mean? An African or European swallow?" You have to know these things when you're a king, you know.

So if you're a fan, serve yourself some Spam, do a silly walk or two, and share this post with a friend. Because no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

What's your favorite Monty Python sketch? Tell us on Facebook.

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Louise Fletcher says she can't bear to watch "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" because the Nurse Ratched character she won an Oscar for is so cruel. 

Fantasy Films via Getty Images

Louise Fletcher and Jack Nicholson in 1975's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

"I find it too painful," said Fletcher, 78. "It comes with age. I can't watch movies that are inhumane." 

Fletcher is returning this weekend to the institution where the movie was made in 1975, the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, the Statesman Journal reported.

The hospital, long under fire for inadequate programs and crumbling facilities, has been rebuilt in recent years. Fletcher is attending the opening of its Museum of Mental Health.

The movie is based on the novel by Oregon writer Ken Kesey. It centers on the struggle between the steely Nurse Ratched and Jack Nicholson's scheming character, Randall McMurphy, who eventually gets a lobotomy for leading a rebellion among the prisoners on his ward.

"I was really shocked in those scenes where I was actually so cruel," Fletcher said.

In 1975, Dr. Dean Brooks, then the superintendent, opened the campus to the cast and crew. Fletcher said she was in the city 11 weeks, filming six days a week. He and Fletcher have stayed in touch — they talk by phone each July 22, their common birthday.

Brooks recalls the actress as being nothing like the character: "I have found her to be angelic."

Fletcher, whose parents are deaf, took time out from filming to visit students at the Oregon School for the Deaf, he said. He said he's admired how she doted on her parents and cared for them as they aged, and how she dropped everything to spend time with a dying friend in London.

Fletcher said better known actresses turned down the role, and it wasn't until she saw the film for the first time with an audience, in Chicago, that she was convinced she pulled it off.

In scene where McMurphy throws Nurse Ratched against the wall and chokes her in a fit of rage, she said, "they all stood up and cheered in the theater and were stomping their feet. That got to me. I realized, 'Hey, I created a real villain here.'" 

What did you think of Fletcher's performance in "Cuckoo's Nest"? Tell us on Facebook.

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20th Century Fox

"The Princess Bride" came out 25 years ago, and people have been quoting it ever since.

There are movies with great lines, and then there are movies with so many great lines that fans walk around quoting the entire screenplay. Think anything by Monty Python, "A Christmas Story," "The Big Lebowski," "Diner." And one of the most quotable films around turns 25 today. "The Princess Bride" was released into theaters on Sept. 25, 1987.

The film wasn't an enormous box-office smash -- "Three Men and a Baby" and "Fatal Attraction" were that year's top films. But how many lines from "Three Men and a Baby" can the average person recite?

Here are seven of our favorite  "Princess Bride" quotes. If you've seen the movie even once, we're betting you can fill in the context for each.

And if you want to see how the cast looks today, tune in to TODAY on Oct. 2 for the reunion. Sadly, some cast members, including Peter Falk and Andre the Giant, have passed away.

1. "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

2. "Inconceivable!"

3. "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

4. "Have fun storming the castle!"

5. "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well-known is this: 'Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!'"

6. "As you wish."

7. "Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning. "

Are you a fan of "The Princess Bride"? What's your favorite line? Tell us on Facebook.

Slideshow: Most romantic movies of all time

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