Ed Asner, who played Lou Grant was five years older than my father, so they had the same cultural references - although Lou Grant was supposed to be a little older than that, which is why he served in World War II, whereas my father served in Korea. Lou Grant was a solid family man, and had a nice paternal relationship with Mary Richards, and was pretty conservative, like my father.
Ed Asner is not a conservative - he's a pretty hard-core lefty. It's widely believed that this is why his spin-off from the MTM show, Lou Grant, was canceled in spite of the fact that it was doing very well in the ratings. I've still never seen the Lou Grant show, I will put that on my to-do list after I watch the complete run of MTM.
So it's hard for me not to feel lots of affection for Ed Asner, and I'm glad he's hanging in there at 84.