|
Member
Forum Idol
Join Date: Jan 09, 2001
Posts: 125,181
|
https://web.archive.org/web/20070225...ptheshark.com/
- Other Thoughts:
When Ann Marie changed her flip to a reverse flip; she started to look like a Monkee groupie (see also Bewitched). The season finally episode when they had a marriage cliff-hanger. But alas, it was too late to save the show, they got cancelled. The planned "reunion" tv-movie got scrapped when Ted Bessel passed away.
That Girl jumped the shark when Don and Ann got engaged and she started wearing her hair long and straight. You knew she was no longer That Girl but That Woman.
I never could stand Donald and I have no idea why she put up with him. I mean she had her own apartment etc. but she treated him like her king. Maybe it was because of the times but I think she should have told him to shove it up you know where.
That theme. Palm trees...ex lax...earrings....that girl. Uggh.
Diamonds, daisies, snowflakes-- puke fest! I watched this show as a kid, mostly to see the outfits Marlo Thomas wore. They were MOD, you know? And those sunglasses on top of the pouffed-up hair... trendsetting. They should bring this to Nick at Nite, who the hell wants to see Facts of Life, ALL night, EVERY night? Marlo Thomas was too damn old to be so ditzy and a virgin to boot, but who cares? Nothing on TV back then even approached realism.
Marlo Thomas is NOT SEXY!!!!!!!
WHEN ANN MARIE AND DONALD HOLLINGER STARTED PLANNING THEIR WEDDING.
I grew up wanting to be That Girl, even if I could never get my hair to flip like that. When she changed her hairstyle the whole show changed as well. They even had to change the show's trademark logo! It was the hairstyle that made Donald propose and drive the last nail into the coffin.
This '60's show jumped the shark when the title character donned a chicken suit in the infamous episode, "There's Nobody Here Except Us Chickens!" OHMYGAWD!!! And even us Baby Boomers from the 60's were supposed to believe this stuff!!! She turned "That Girl" into "That (J)Yolk!"
Man this show was great. I loved watching reruns. We need more purity models for young girls today. I agree that Nick should show this big time.
In That Girl's fifth and final season, she grew her hair longer and the shoulder length do with the flip was gone. That Girl was canceled at the end of that season and I think Marlo Thomas started a trend. Because Elizabeth Montgomery grew her hair longer for the eighth season of Bewitched the next year and Bewitched was canceled. Of course being scheduled opposite All in the Family didn't help much either. Not to be outdone, Florence Henderson did away with the flip on her much shorter hair at the start of the Brady Bunch's fifth season. Then The Brady Bunch was canceled. I must have been the hair! A woman's hairstyle is a powerful thing. Just ask Farrah Fawcett.
Why on earth was ted bessel ever famous? it is, to me, a mystery liken to elliot gould, at one time, being a sex symbol. why these guys? i mean, i guess ive enjoyed eliott gould, he has some talent, but ted bessel? he is, was, the plainest bore ever to work in the entertainment industry...
Did Marlo Thomas help anyone else through puberty? I have very mixed feelings about this show (and about the whiny, tendentious left-wing opinions of Ms. Thomas), but That Girl really did help me through adolescence, courtesy of Ann-Marie's adorability quotient. I'm not proud of that, necessarily, but, you know.
I loved Marlo Thomass Hair It was Fabulous Her Flip was A Masterpiece Next to Mary Tyler Moore's Famous Flip Everyone said That That Her Long Straight Hair in The Final Season wasn't great. I thought It Looked Lovely I guess Marlo Felt it was time For a Change And It Was A good One Too
"Diamonds, Dasies, Snowflakes, That Girl.. Chestnuts, rainbows, spring time...its That Girl!! She's mine alone but luckily for you, if you find the girl to love, only one girl to love, then she'll be That Girl too! That Girl!!." For the above posters, this song was only sung in the 5th and final season of That Girl 1970-71. I know I know the song really can put you into a coma! I think Marlo Thomas was looking for a way out of the series, she never wanted to do a 5th season, so they pretty much ended it when her and "The Donald" got engage. This is a show that should have had a reunion show before Ted Bessell passed away. I think this show could have worked better if Ann Marie focused on her career more a la Mary Tyler Moore. Then the show could have probably run another two to three years more.
The show, though cute, just HAD to end. If Ann and Donald had married she would have been THAT WOMAN. It played itself out, and is such a product of its time, it doesn't play very well today. Interesting parallel: Marlo Thomas plays Rachel's mom on FRIENDS, another show set in New York where people have apartments and clothes that they could never afford. Oh, and I heard that Ted Bessell was chosen for his NONhunky looks purposely. The producers said they wanted a "regular guy" and I think that he fit that.
This show's concept of a single woman breaking into show business has been done over and over many times in the movies, so I don't think it was ground-breaking and original just because it was on TV. The show jumped the shark in the very first episode when she would run to answer the door...every time. Normal people usually walk to the door, especially when they don't know who's on the other side. But it was a hyperactive annoying dash on screen in every episode. Check out the re-runs or reach into that memory closet of yours...you know what I mean...it was a 10K just to see who was knocking! Think about it...if she DID land an acting job where the director simply asked her to "answer the door" in a dramatic scene...she'd REALLY be a starving actress!!!
This show was never funny and the "Mary Tyler Moore" show was everything this show should have been. Every job she had seemed to be a cute hobby designed to pass the day while she waited for her man to settle down. She had a nice apartment (with her strange career choices I don't know how) and to top this off every plot was written around a way to incorporate the words "That Girl" into the creepy title sequence. When Mary Tyler Moore came along she proved women didn't have to be married to feel fulfilled and could be feminine, smart, funny and vulnerable at times, like real human beings. Ann Marie seemed like a overgrown teenager chasing after er "fiancee Donald" every week. Thomas had some talent nonetheless. What a waste of a show.
Dumping George Carlin from the cast in the first season. Seriously, though, when Marlo Thomas' hair-do changed, so did the whole atmosphere. The engagement finished it off.
This show jumped for me when Donald's Mom showed up. She was the same lady who played Darrin's Mom on Bewitched. The two Ds look nothing alike so they couldn't be brothers. Plus That Girl came on right after Bewitched so it was extremely noticeable. It would have been worse if she had been on each show every week.
Ted Bessell TED BESSEL DID NOT DIE DURING THE PRODUCTION OF THAT GIRL!!!! He had a very long career after that girl, That Girl simply Jumped the Shark and the writers had no place to go with it. HE didn't die until 1996 not 76, you ghouls!
Neither Ann Marie nor Marlo Thomas were any feminist prototype of a strong, independent career women. Rather, both were cute little sorority chicks bubbling their way through the ultimate summer vacation job: "Daddy, I want to be an actress in New York!" "Okay, honey, we'll find you a nice apartment in a good neighborhood and don't worry about money." "Daddy, I want a TV series!" "Okay, honey, we'll put it on ABC, which is desperate for programming, and for your love interest we'll cast an actor with so little talent he can't possibly overshadow you." Think I'm exaggerating? Why is Ann flying that kite in Central Park during the opening theme? Because Marlo Thomas was a Kappa Alpha Theta, and Theta's symbol is a kite! (Puke now, or forever hold your bile.) Still, you kept watching because Ann looked like a cute little sorority chick, bouncing around a New York remarkably free of garbage and ethnic minorities. In the last season, she grew her hair long and straight and looked like some burnout hippie chick (only with bra) who probably afforded her apartment by selling hash. So what was the point anymore? Still, life imitates art. Ann was engaged to a homely mope, Marlo wound up married to one (Phil Donahue).
Never jumped. It was the perfect show for a girl who read Seventeen magazine. Definitely a teenage or preteen girl's show. Loved her hair, her job, her boyfriend singing "I've Got you Under my Skin."
I AGREE WITH THE POSTERS WHO SAID THIS SHOW JTS WHEN ANN MARIE GREW HER HAIR LONG. I BOUGHT A TAPE OF THE OLD SHOW FROM A WELL-KNOWN STORE AND THE TAPE CONTAINED ABOUT TWO EPISODES OF HER WITH THE FLIP, AND ONE WITH HER HAIR STRAIGHT, CURLED DOWN. THAT WAS THE EPISODE WITH MILTON BERLE AND SOME OTHER COMEDIAN (DANNY THOMAS OR DON RICKLES???)AND WAS ABOUT A TRUNK OF CLOTHES ANN INHERITED FROM HER DECEASED UNCLE. ANYWAY, ANN AND DON WERE ENGAGED, BUT SHE DIDN'T SEEM EXCITED ABOUT IT (I CERTAINLY WOULD HAVE BEEN THRILLED - SWEET GUY LIKE THAT...) TO ME, ANN WAS JUST GOING ALONG WITH THE ENGAGEMENT 'CAUSE IT WAS THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS PROBABLY. ANYWAY, THAT PARTICULAR EPISODE, ALTHOUGH FUNNY, HAD A TIREDNESS TO IT - A KIND OF FINALITY THAT THE EARLIER "FLIP" SHOWS DIDN'T. ONE OTHER POINT, I LOVED THE DON HOLLINGER CHARACTER. HE WAS DEVOTED, ATTRACTIVE, SMART, AND RESPECTFUL. IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT ANN DIDN'T SLEEP WITH HIM - ESPECIALLY DURING THAT WILD, CRAZY '60'S TIME WHEN NEARLY ANYTHING WENT. :<)
This was a transitional show. Previous to this show, single girls tended to me homely. middle aged women desperate to land a man (think Schultzy on "the Bob Cummings Show" or Sally Rogers on "The Dick Van Dyke Show"). The one hit show built around a "single gal" had been Ann Sothern's (actually she had 2 shows, but they had basically the same cast and the 2nd one was the result of a sponsor or network dispute about the 1st). And Sothern was pretty long in the tooth and spent a lot of time hiding behind credenzas to camouflage her weight. Ann Marie made Mary Richards possible by being a young single girl in the city. Yes, they stuck her with a boyfriend from day one (and he never stayed over, whereas Mary's beaus occasionally did). Still, the show focused on her and at Thomas' insistence they never had a wedding episoce (thank God). Despite Thomas' ownership of the show, she still had to bow to sponsor & network pressure to avoid controversy and keep the show from being what it should have been. The poster who dislikes Thomas' feminism should ponder what life would be liked without people like Marlo---it's easy to complain when people like her fought the battles you don't have to fight, and provide options that weren't available 30 or 40 years ago (I'm a guy & I can appreciate this, you lazy self-righteous hypocrite).
Day one. The premise is ridiculous. A "wanna-be" actress that NEVER lands a job and has NO visible means of income is somehow able to afford a very comfortable lifestyle while living in her own apartment in New York City. She always has plenty of money for food, utilities, rent, the latest clothing fashions, etc.
When Ann changed from the adorable girl to a woman, she seemed too sophisticated to fit the storylines. At that point, it was obvious that Marlo Thomas didn't want to be there, and should have not gone on. The first few seasons, however, were very entertaining. Ann Marie was very charming in the beginning, and whenever I see the early episodes they still crack me up, especially the underrated Ted Bessell doing the hero thing in the first episode. The episode where they are going to meet Ann's parents and Don loses his contact lense, etc., is really funny. Also enjoyed the actor that played Ann's dad, I think Lew Parker was his name.
I wanted to *be* Ann Marie, with her elegant bouffant hairdo and her cute "career girl" apartment and her "mod" clothes. For a girl like me, born in the mid-sixties and growing up in the seventies, Ann Marie represented a dream of independence and glamour. I sometimes wonder if that's why I've stayed single all my life (I'm nearing 40 now). Of course, the joke is on me. I make my own money, while Ann Marie had to have been supported by her parents to afford that nice apartment on a struggling actress's salary. And I've no adoring Donald to represent the option -- so standard in the 60s -- of being "taken away from all this," this being the responsibility to take care of oneself. Nevertheless, I'd love to catch this show on reruns or a retrospective of some kind. I have very fond memories of it, even though the only episode I recall with any clarity was the one in which Ethel Merman guest-starred.
This show jumped the shark with that ridiculous episode where Ann gets her toe stuck in a bowling ball right before an awards banquet. That one was a stinker even by mid-sixties standards. I see a lot of postings comparing this show to Mary Tyler Moore, but I always thought it was a single-woman updating of I Love Lucy. I cite as evidence the above episode and others, especially the one with Ted Bessell in drag. As I recall, Ann actually got a gig once in a while. I have no idea what rents were in the sixties, but her family lived in Brewster, so they probably had a few bucks around to support a daughter trying to break into show biz. The father was around way too much. He must have loved driving into NYC or commuting by train, just to drop in and say hi. Of course, the running gag was - When will he catch Ann alone with Donald? The typical TV dad with no job but always wearing a suit. He was way too young to be retired. I remember a married couple in the same building, the guy was Bernie Kopell. With the counter-culture in full bloom in NYC during this time period, Ann stayed remarkably free of its influences.
The show jumped in the very beginning. The plots were hokey, contrived and unimaginative. Many of the above posters say she was a role model for girls in the 60's. I beg to differ. Why didn't anyone on the show question the main character about why she had all those clothes, a ton of make-up, a decent apartment and seldom an acting job? To me, the show was just a vehicle Danny Thomas provided for his firstborn to make her happy and to assure her of stardom. It makes you wonder, though... would "That Girl" have lasted 5 seasons if Marlo Thomas DIDN'T get her nose job in the late 1950's? Nope. The series never would have happened. If she wanted to be in show business, she'd probably be just a comedienne doing stand up like Joan Rivers (that's how her father got started).
My own opinion about this pop classic show (not given enough airtime in reruns, most definitely) was that so much about it was so charming and even downright campy in retrospect that you have to ask “what’s not to like about it”? I’ve seen good bios about Marlo Thomas and know more about the background story now, so being more analytical of Marlo herself and what she DID versus what “message” this show put out are two entirely separate things. Was this a show with a strong feminist message for that era? No, not really. It was light and fun and funny. I don’t even refer to that style of hairdo as anything else than a “Marlo flip” and people automatically know what I’m talking about. I think one of the only other pop-stars enduring this look was Miss Diane Renay, but not as many know about her. Loved the many things about it that put it in the “hall of fame” of pop culture (“Oh Donald”, the kite, the twin in the window, her sailor suit, mussing her big-do, etc.). Sixties fashions and styles changed so much faster than these staple things did that it seemed like SOMETHING had to give way and change when Anne Marie’s hair-do did, like it or not. I have a lot of respect for Marlo Thomas herself for what she accomplished during and beyond this series – being a “secret” producer of it, standing her ground with a “no wedding” position and lots of her other projects since “That Girl” ended. By comparison, Ann Sothern’s “forced” marriage plot in the end of her series was such a bust I’m glad another female lead got a little further. So love it or hate it, to me “That Girl” never jumped.
Jumped when they got married. I'll be 115 years old and still remember the name "Donald Hollinger" ringing in my ears. They said his entire name more than anybody that I can think of on TV. Why not just Don? The kite at the beginning of the show was the best part! I wish I had the hubris to fly a kite with a picture of me painted on it! I wonder if that kite is in the Smithsonian.
I can't believe Marlo Thomas, or anyone for that matter, thinks that this show had one ounce to do with feminism. The MTM Show was so much better. Mary Richards never depended on anyone for financial support and had no problem getting her freak on from time to time. Believe me, had That Girl not come along, Mary Richards would still exists. The only reason this show was popular was because girls wanted to dress like Marlo. They didn't give a **** about the plots. And I'm sure if a guy watched this, it was usually with the tv on mute.
I'm 55 and remember this show very well. It was a well documented fact that yellow was Marlo Thomas's favorite color and NO ONE else on the set was allowed to watch it. Also I hated Don's mother. What a hag.
I still remember the shock of seeing the episode where Ann is on jury duty (a husband was accused of smashing his wife in the mouth with an ashtray, knocking her teeth out). Ann convinces the other jury members that the man was right handed, the woman was hit on the left side of her face , so he couldnt have done it. The man is acquitted, his wife stands up to protest, he picks up a handy ashtray, tells her to shut up, and backhands her across the left side of her face....what the hell were the writers thinking??
I am in total agreement with the poster who said Lew Marie was around too much. Nothing against the character, or Lew Parker, who played the role. I just couldn't fathom him commuting so much from Brewster to the big city. If he and Ann's Mom were going to be around on a regular basis, move them to the big city also--somewhere right in the proximity of Ann's apartment.
This show was excellent. Marlo Thomas and Ted Bessel had excellent chemistry and were one of the best tv couples of all time. The jokes were always right on. God forbid anything can be "sweet" on TV in this sadly cynical and grotesquely graphic era. I never thought I'd be homesick for the 60s and 70s, but whoever thought the millennium would be like this? Jeez. Endnote: Despite what has been said of Ted Bessel - I think Donald Hollinger was one of the best straight men since Bud Abbott.
I don't think that this show jumped - but if it did it was when Marlo married Donohue.
As entertaining as THAT GIRL was and I will admit I watched all five seasons, the show jumped from day one. There is no way an unemployed actress (and let's face it...Ann Marie was rarely working) could afford a one-bedroom apartment THAT nice in the middle of Manhattan...even in 1966. I'm sorry, it was just impossible. And even though she was rarely working, you never saw her get behind on her rent, you never saw her refrigerator empty, she never worried about her public service being turned off. She never worried about those million little things that an unemployed actress would have to worry about. And how was an unemployed actress able to afford an agent? I guess because the agent never got her any work so she didn't have to pay him. The show was based in complete fantasy from jump (pardon the expression), but I have to admit that Marlo Thomas' charm worked on me and I just swallowed the whole package.
My older sister dominated the television set back in the mid-late sixties, so I had no choice but to watch a show that I felt was out of sync with the times. Remember, this show was around at the time of Vietnam and the riots. I agree with the comment above that the Mary Tyler Moore show was everything this show wasn't. I'm not sure what Marlo Thomas has done since, save the occasional made-for-tv movie that came out from time to time where she invariably played the victim of an abusive situation, or the mother of a son who was gay. I did see her on the Arsenio Hall back in the early '90s's showing off her new boobs (Hey, Marlo? Did Gloria Steinem approve this?), but not much else. She is involved in charitable causes which is far more important.
I was a teenager when That Girl came on the air. I enjoyed it very much. Loved the styles. Years later, when the show appeared on cable, I still enjoyed it but took it for what it was...a very light-hearted piece of fluff, not to be taken seriously. But I must tell you that in order to really appreciate Ms. Thomas' acting chops, you have to watch "Law and Order". She appears on occasion as a high-powered, no-nonsense attorney. I was extremely impressed. Not only that, she has changed from the "cutesy, ditsy" Anne Marie to a very beautiful, serious actress. I hope to see her featured more on this L&O series.
Ann Marie was a combination of Lucy Ricardo and Mary Richards, as Marlo combined screwball comedy with a little sophistication. She had a lot in connection with MTM; she looked like her, was a single girl in the big city, and even had the same boyfriend in Ted Bessell! I was pretty young when this show aired back in the 60s, so I don't remember it fully. However, I watched a few reruns lately, and it's much funnier than a lot of other current sitcoms today.
C'mon -- two consenting adults in a committed relationship living in NYC, both with their own apartments, and they never gave into temptation? That's just not believable.
When, as an earlier poster put it, "That Girl became That Woman," and Anne started pushing feminism, it wrecked the fresh story of the small-town girl in the big city which was the basis for the show's appeal. What really screwed things up was that they tried to maintain the old innocence while turning the show into a soapbox for Marlo Thomas's feminist views. The mix was just a minor, tiny clash, and the show completely lost its way. Nice little show for a few seasons, though. Loved the jab they took at soap operas, when Anne, who had been playing a character on a soap, realized she was going to have to find another job, because the latest script from the soap called for her character to sneeze--twice. Same thing happened to That Girl when they tried to do a U-turn on the basic idea of what the show was.
Season 5. The most notable was Marlo's new look. Now a new hairdo has never been the cause of a show's demise before, but the hair do was just the most obvious, visible evidence of That Girl becoming a very different show for it's last season. Not only was her hair very different after a very consistent and cute look for 4 straight seasons, but her wardrobe looked very different, like she was ready to attend the nearest bra-burning ceremony. She also attacked too many social issues in a very trivial ways, that you just couldn't take them seriously. We also have the engagement, where it took Don so long to ask, we really didn't care anymore. But on top of that...the theme song. OH....that awful theme song. The instrumental version they used from seasons 2 - 4 was one of the best opening themes in TV history in my opinion. The lyrics and the dated 1970 music made the opening one of the worst ever. Bottom line, there was just too many changes all at once between seasons 4 and 5. Change is something that can be good on tv and make is seem more real, but change is better when done gradually, not all at once.
Marlo Thomas and Brenda Vacarro had those voices that made many of us pubescent teen boys vividly imagine their orgasmic vocalizations. We watched for that and because she was cute and friendly. She came off as they type of gal who either turned you down or gave you the not until I am married thing and you still hung out with not minding the rejection at all. The show itself was bland, formula, and vastly unremarkable television, common at the time. Marlo had the mod and chic look down but her demeanor was more respectful of a Victorian generation.
I agree with the above posters that the show changed once Marlo Thomas changed her hairstyle for the '70-'71 season. But there were signs of the show losing its original allure of being a sweet romantic comedy with some very funny moments and becoming a more "mature" show with a "message." The '68 season episode when Ann prepares for her first vote and takes copies of the Congressional Record out of the public library to study up on issues seemed to be a big departure from the innocence of the prior episodes. Must have been a product of its time, as the late '604 were very tumultuous.
I was to young to watch when it aired between '66-'71! I saw many episodes on the T.V. Land marathon a few weeks ago. I thought they had some funny, then silly, and then even downright ridiculous shows. What show doesn't? I didn't care she had a great apartment, & no regular job! I thought it was mostly entertaining and it's held up for 40 years! The hairstyle thing should be nothing that makes anyone angry! I never made the connection from That Girl to "That Women" was due to her change in styles! Seems to me that Marlo Thomas and her character was evolving! I don't think I'd want to play someone who never changes during the course of 5 years. I must say, N.Y. still looks great in the opening and closing credits, and I would have paid good money to watch Marlo Thomas run around Central Park flying that kite!
I agree with the poster who said Ann getting her toe stuck in a bowling ball was when this show jumped. I was around 9 when that episode first aired. Visions of Marlo's bony claw with a bowling ball dangling from it haunted my dreams for months.
|
09-24-2013, 05:09 PM
That Girl Boned the Fish When...
