HTF REVIEW: That Girl - Season Three

Marlo Thomas gained national recognition as the star of ABC’s That Girl. For five years she played Ann Marie, aspiring New York actress desperate to make it in show business and coping with all of life’s little problems that a young, single girl in Manhattan is likely to encounter. Along the way she’s helped by boy friend Don Hollinger (Ted Bessell) and her constantly present father (Lew Parker) who’s none too happy with her chosen profession or her choice of male companionship. (Veteran character actress Rosemary De Camp appears occasionally as Ann’s mother.)

A single career girl being featured in a situation comedy was a fairly unknown quantity in 1966 when That Girl premiered (previously only a few stars such as Gale Storm or Ann Sothern had headlined sitcoms about single young(ish) career women), but That Girl paved the way for the likes of Mary Tyler Moore, Laverne and Shirley, Rhoda, and many other sitcoms about single working girls. Most female stars of sitcoms up until then played married women or widows, unless you had a occasional character actress who might play a domestic (Beulah, Hazel, Grindl).

That Girl is a pleasant, amiable sitcom, filmed with one camera and having a laugh track, pretty much the standard at the time for one camera comedies. Ann Marie is a super conscientious gal trying to be the best at whatever job she undertakes, whether it be as an actress, a juror, or a newly eligible voter. Her naiveté and plucky innocence lent an air of gentle wholesomeness to the show that kept it running during one of America’s most socially and politically hostile times. Watching That Girl now, one would never know there were protests, riots, assassinations, a war, and an ever-widening generation gap going on in America at the time. None of that crept into the safe, secure little Manhattan of That Girl.

Watching a show that’s almost forty years old now, I most enjoyed spying the huge number of beloved character performers who move through these episodes. Among the ones I glimpsed and knew on sight: Stuart Margolin (3 appearances), Hope Summers, Joe Besser, Dave Ketchum, Jesse White (2 appearances), Dick Wesson (2 appearances), Larry Storch, Jules Munchin (2 appearances), Dick Wilson, Benay Venuta, Bernie Kopell (a recurring role as neighbor Jerry Bauman), Vic Tayback, Ned Glass, Alan Oppenheimer, McLean Stevenson, Cliff Norton, and Eddie Foy, Jr. The only two performers considered to be big stars who appeared in Season 3 were Barry Sullivan in the season premiere and Danny Thomas in a small cameo during the episode that featured two other members of Marlo’s family.

Here are the episodes from Season 3 included in this set. An asterick (*) denotes an episode which contains an audio commentary by star Marlo Thomas and series co-creator Bill Persky.

1 - Sock It to Me
2 - The Hi-Jack and the Mighty
3 - Eleven Angry Men and That Girl
4 - 7 ¼ (Part I)
5 - 7 ¼ (Part II)
6 - Secret Ballot
*7 - The Face in the Shower Room Door
8 - A Muggy Day in Central Park
9 - Just Donald and Me and Jerry Makes Three
10 - The Seventh Time Around
11 - Ann Vs. Secretary
12 - Decision Before Dawn
13 - Should All Our Old Acquaintances Be Forgot
14 - The Homewrecker and the Window Washer
15 - The Eye of the Beholder
16 - Dark on Top of Everything Else (by far the best episode of the season)
17 - The Earrings
18 - Many Happy Returns
*19 - My Sister’s Keeper (featured Marlo’s sister Terre, brother Tony, and father Danny)
20 - There Was a Time Ann Met a Pie Man
21 - The Subject Was Rabies
22 - The Defiant One
23 - Fly Me to the Moon
*24 - It’s So Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House
*25 - Bad Day at Marvin Gardens
26 - Sue Me, Sue Me, What Can You Do Me?



The original 1.33:1 aspect ratio of the original shows is reproduced here in generally mediocre DVD transfers. The color is rather bland on many of the episodes bearing not the least resemblance to the deep, vibrant hues that are on the second season of The Wild Wild West DVD set, for example, which were produced around the same era. Sharpness varies from average to slightly above average, and there are occasional instances of spotting, specks, and black scratches and some occasional line twitter. Each episode has been divided into 4 chapters.



The Dolby Digital 2.0 track is decoded by Prologic into the center channel. The show is extremely talky (one of the running gags of the show is Marlo Thomas’ character repeatedly trying to explain complicated situations she gets herself into to members of her family or various onlookers), and the track handles the talk well, but the audio mix again betrays its age with the music, sound effects, laugh track, and all that talk jammed into the center channel. It’s typical for the time but limited in fidelity for today’s equipment.



Four episodes contain audio commentary by series star Marlo Thomas and series co-creator Bill Persky. The commentaries are extremely disappointing as the two participants are content to watch the episodes, laugh once in awhile, and only occasionally make a comment about what they’re watching. Almost no background on the making of the episodes is ever given (often Marlo doesn’t even remember making the episode or who the guest stars are), and the commentaries are a sadly lost opportunity to get some interesting trivia on the making of this fondly remembered series.

“That Show. . . That Woman. . . The Creation of That Girl: The Woman on Both Sides of the Camera” is an 11½ -minute conversation with Marlo Thomas about the creation of the series and the influence of her father on her desire to be in show business. No information on filming, casting, or reception of the series is mentioned in another very frustrating featurette.

“Marlo Thomas Makeup Test” is about 5 minutes of silent footage as Marlo tries out a series of hairstyles and makeup which must have been filmed before production began on the series’ first season. None of the hairstyles we see were used for the character’s signature look.




Interestingly, the third season of That Girl was the one season during the series’ five year run that Marlo Thomas didn’t receive an Emmy nomination for Best Comedy Series Actress. Yet, she’s just as effective with the lines and the slapstick in this season as she was in any of the other ones. The show was never a great comedy, but for an innocuous series with a winning formula for simple laughs, That Girl is certainly easy to like.


Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC