That Girl

This article is about the sitcom. For other uses, see That Girl (disambiguation).

That Girl
That Girl logo
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Bill Persky Sam Denoff
Starring	Marlo Thomas Ted Bessell Lew Parker Bernie Kopell Rosemary DeCamp
Theme music composer	Sam Denoff Earle Hagen
Composer(s)	Warren Barker Luchi De Jesus Dominic Frontiere Harry Geller Earle Hagen Walter Scharf
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	5
No. of episodes	136 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Sam Denoff Bill Persky Marlo Thomas Danny Thomas
Producer(s)	Danny Arnold Jerry Davis Sam Denoff Bernie Orenstein Bill Persky Saul Turteltaub
Camera setup	Single Camera
Running time	22–25 minutes
Production company(s)	Daisy Productions
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Picture format	Color
Audio format	Monaural
Original run	September 8, 1966 (1966-09-08) – September 10, 1971 (1971-09-10)

That Girl is an American sitcom that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971. It stars Marlo Thomas as the title character, Ann Marie, an aspiring (but only sporadically employed) actress, who moves from her hometown of Brewster, New York to try to make it big in New York City. Ann has to take a number of offbeat "temp" jobs to support herself in between her various auditions and bit parts. Ted Bessell played her boyfriend Donald Hollinger, a writer for Newsview Magazine; Lew Parker and Rosemary DeCamp played Lou Marie and Helen Marie, her concerned parents. Bernie Kopell and Ruth Buzzi played Ann and Donald's friends. That Girl was developed by writers Bill Persky and Sam Denoff, who had served as head writers on The Dick Van Dyke Show (with which Thomas's father, Danny Thomas, was closely associated) earlier in the 1960s.

Storyline

Ted Bessell, Marlo Thomas and Jennifer Douglas in a scene from the show, 1969

Each episode begins with a pre-credits teaser in which an odd incident occurs or a discussion foreshadows the episode's story. The scene almost always ends with someone exclaiming "...that girl!", just as Ann wanders into the shot or the character notices her. The words "That Girl" would appear over the freeze-frame shot of Ann. The opening credits featured Thomas, in character, strolling the streets of New York, flying a kite in Central Park, and seeing (and exchanging winks with) her double in a store window. In the last season, lyrics were added to the theme music::

Diamonds, Daisies, Snowflakes,
That Girl
Chestnuts, Rainbows, Springtime...
Is That Girl
She's tinsel on a tree...
She's everything that every girl should be!

Sable, Popcorn, White Wine,
That Girl
Gingham, Bluebirds, Broadway...
Is That Girl
She's mine alone, but luckily for you...
If you find a girl to love,
Only one girl to love,
Then she'll be That Girl too...
That Girl!

That Girl was the first sitcom to focus on a single woman who was not a domestic or living with her parents. Some consider this show the forerunner of the highly successful Mary Tyler Moore Show and Murphy Brown, and an early indication of the changing roles of American women in Feminist-era America. Thomas's goofy charm, together with Bessell's dry wit and the strong chemistry they shared, made the show a solid performer on ABC, although throughout its five-year run, the series' ratings never made the top 30.

At the end of the 1969–1970 season, That Girl was still doing quite well in the ratings; however, after four years, Thomas had grown tired of the series and wanted to move on. ABC convinced her to do one more year. In the beginning of the fifth season, Don and Ann became engaged, although they never actually married. The decision to leave the couple engaged at the end of the run was largely the idea of Thomas herself. She did not want to send a message to young women that marriage was the ultimate goal for them.

Production notes

Although never officially credited as such (as Persky and Denoff are the "official" creators and executive producers), Thomas was the de facto creator and executive producer of the series through her Daisy Productions, which she formed specifically for the series; it was credited on-screen as the production company. She originally wanted to name the sitcom Miss Independence, the nickname given to her by her parents.

That Girl was filmed at Desilu Cahuenga (now called Ren-Mar Studios), located at 846 N. Cahuenga Blvd. in Hollywood.

Episodes

Main article: List of That Girl episodes

Five complete seasons of That Girl aired, with the series finale airing on March 19, 1971. Over the five seasons, a total of 136 episodes aired. Thomas's sister Terre, her brother Tony, and father Danny Thomas all appeared in a 1969 episode called "My Sister's Keeper".

Season	Episodes	Originally aired		DVD release date
		Season premiere	Season finale	Region 1	Region 2	Region 4
1	30	September 8, 1966 (1966-09-08)	April 6, 1967 (1967-04-06)	May 16, 2006	N/A	October 11, 2006
2	30	September 7, 1967 (1967-09-07)	April 25, 1968 (1968-04-25)	November 14, 2006	N/A	March 14, 2007
3	26	September 26, 1968 (1968-09-26)	March 27, 1969 (1969-03-27)	August 7, 2007	N/A	November 7, 2007
4	26	September 18, 1969 (1969-09-18)	March 26, 1970 (1970-03-26)	August 12, 2008	N/A	November 11, 2008
5	24	September 25, 1970 (1970-09-25)	March 19, 1971 (1971-03-19)	May 5, 2009	N/A	August 5, 2009

The pilot

The only episode never shown during the series' original network run was the pilot produced in 1965. The major differences were evident in its opening credits. Bessell's character was Don Blue Sky, Ann Marie's talent agent who was part Cherokee, and Harold Gould and Penny Santon played her parents. By the time the show aired on ABC, Thomas and Bessell were the only actors to receive top billing.

The plot centered on Ann Marie's attempt to adopt a stage name based on her agent's suggestion. After her use of "Marie Brewster" (the names of her family and hometown combined) was met with disapproval from her parents, she decided to not make the change in the end. This storyline and numerous scenes were recycled into the eleventh episode of Season 1 titled "What's In A Name?" from November 17, 1966.

The pilot was included in the five-disc set of That Girl: Season One, which was released by Shout! Factory in 2006. It has since been added to the sitcom's broadcast syndication package; it led off a New Year's Day marathon on Me-TV at the start of 2012.

Syndication and home media

On January 1, 2012, That Girl returned to national television on Me-TV with episodes shown on weeknights and Sunday afternoons.

Shout! Factory has released all five seasons on DVD in Region 1. Each release contains extensive bonus features including episodic promos, featurettes, commentary tracks and the original pilot episode.

In Region 4, Madman Entertainment has released all five seasons on DVD in Australia/New Zealand. On April 21, 2010, Madman released That Girl: The Complete Series, a 21-disc box set that features all 136 episodes, as well as extensive bonus features.

Popular culture

The show's theme song and opening visuals have been parodied in pop culture several times. They appeared as a series of T-shirts, then as a Saturday Night Live skit featuring cast member Danitra Vance in an African American remake That Black Girl, as a sequence on episodes of Animaniacs, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Clarissa Explains It All, Arthur and Roseanne.

It was also parodied in the pre-credits teaser of an episode of The Nanny where Maxwell's guest-starring mother encounters Fran at the florist; in another episode of The Nanny, Peter Bergman, playing himself acting in The Young and the Restless casts Fran in the soap by asking for a co-star like "that girl!" while pointing to Fran.

An episode from Ugly Betty had Fabia forcing Wilhelmina Slater into making an exchange: she'll give up her wedding date to Wilhelmina in exchange for the services of Wilhelmina's assistant, Marc St. James, after Fabia evokes the opening lines.

In 1968, shortly after the feminist protest against bras and other feminine products at the Miss America Pageant, Marlo Thomas began going braless on That Girl. "God created women to bounce," Thomas said. "So be it."

External links

• That Girl at the Internet Movie Database
• That Girl at TV.com
• That Girl page on Shout! Factory