Murray Slaughter was a fictional character in the long running situation comedy Mary Tyler Moore. He was played by actor Gavin MacLeod.

News writer with the patience of Job

Murray was the long suffering news writer at television station, WJM-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was assigned to write the news stories on the station's nightly news broadcast. It was a chore for him, because he was saddled with perhaps the worst anchorman in the Twin Cities, Ted Baxter. Ted was exceptionally able to ruin newscasts and mangle names and places, and even after he had read the news about a strike, he would have no idea what he was talking about.

Murray was a happily married man, to a woman named Marie (played by Joyce Bulifant) and had several daughters. In the show's later years, he and Marie adopted a vietnamese son.

Although he was happily married, he was forever in love with Mary Richards, whom he thought was absolutely terrific, in his own words. To him, she was someone he could mother hen over, and he often did. Marie thought that he was going to leave her, but Mary explained to her that she thought of Murray as a best friend, and that helped things.

Murray tried to write a novel, despite failing, he never gave up.

He, along with Mary, Lou Grant and another nemesis of his, Sue Ann Nivens were fired from WJM-TV to boost sagging news ratings. Ironically, the one most responsible for the dismal ratings, Ted, of all people, had been retained.

Sitcom characters