Rhoda

The pilot episode 'Joe' set a record on September 9, 1974 by becoming the first television series ever to achieve a number-one Nielsen rating for its premiere episode, defeating Monday Night Football on ABC that night.

The hour-long wedding episode aired October 28, 1974 and became the highest-rated television episode of the 1970s, a record it held until the 1977 miniseries Roots surpassed it; it was watched by more than 52 million Americans, making it the second most-watched television episode ever at the time, behind only the 1953 I Love Lucy episode featuring the birth of Little Ricky.

During the live broadcast of the competing Monday Night Football game, ABC host Howard Cosell joked on air that he had not been invited to Rhoda's wedding before welcoming viewers back to the game.

After Rhoda's wedding aired, fans across the US held hundreds of 'wedding parties' to celebrate, and CBS studios were flooded with wedding gifts sent in for the fictional couple Joe and Rhoda Gerard.

The exterior shots used for Brenda's apartment building, supposedly located at 332 E. 64th Street in the show, were actually filmed at 332 East 84th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues.

Although their characters were depicted as members of a Jewish family, neither Valerie Harper (Rhoda) nor Nancy Walker (Ida) was actually Jewish in real life.

Before the fourth season, Valerie Harper went on a controversial liquid protein diet and lost 40 pounds, resulting in Rhoda's slimmer new look for that season.

Nancy Walker and Harold Gould were written out for most of season three (explained as an RV road trip) because the actors left to star in their own short-lived ABC shows, The Nancy Walker Show and Blansky's Beauties for Walker, and The Feather and Father Gang for Gould; both shows failed and the actors returned in season four.

The plotline separating Rhoda and Joe in season three provoked such a hostile fan reaction that CBS was flooded with thousands of angry letters, and actor David Groh reported receiving hate mail for up to a year afterward.

Carlton the doorman was voiced by Lorenzo Music, who is heard constantly over the intercom but is almost never seen on screen throughout the series; Music would later go on to voice Garfield.

An animated TV pilot called Carlton Your Doorman, a spin-off centered on the unseen doorman character voiced by Lorenzo Music, aired on CBS on May 21, 1980 and won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program, but was never picked up as a series.