Lasser initially refused the role. Of the casting process, Lear said "when she read a bit of the script for me, I all but cried for joy ... Louise brought with her the persona that fit Mary Hartman like a corset." Exhausted from the grueling schedule, Lasser left the series after two seasons (325 episodes), and the serial was re-branded "Forever Fernwood", which continued for 26 weeks focusing on the trials and tribulations of the other "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" characters. Lasser was interviewed about the series in the bonus features of the "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" Complete Series DVD box-set from Shout Factory, released in December 2013. In it, she reveals that the idea for Mary Hartman's nervous breakdown at the end of the first season came after she wrote a 12-page letter suggesting the idea to Norman Lear. In the spring of 1976 in Los Angeles, Lasser was arrested at a charity boutique, and police found $6 worth (or 88 milligrams) of cocaine in her purse. Authorities were called after Lasser's American Express card was denied and Lasser refused to leave without possession of a $150 dollhouse. Lasser was initially apprehended for two unpaid traffic tickets (one for jaywalking), but the officers then found the drug in her handbag. Lasser claimed the coke had been given to her several months earlier by a fan. Ultimately, Lasser was ordered to do six months in counseling, which was easily satisfied as she was already seeing an analyst. A fictionalized version of the dollhouse incident was also incorporated into "Mary Hartman"'s first season. In 1976, Ted Morgan assessed in "The New York Times": "The dreams and nightmares of the American people are reflected darkly through the glass of "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman"...No longer merely a television program, "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" has become a cultural event, in the same league as those other sociological signposts that culture watchers...are always on the lookout for to help us explain ourselves." "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" offers "Kitchen Sink Theater of the Absurd" wherein a Candide-esque TV-watching housewife believes that a consumer culture broadcasting the evils of waxy yellow buildup and virtues of frozen tacos is seeking to make her a better person. In one signature episode, Mary brings a sick neighbor a bowl of chicken soup, only to have him fall asleep and drown in it.