Upon her debut in 1966 as the first TV Land Gal on a mission, Marlo Thomas in That Girl rapidly scored points and set the bar for those to come. Topping off her first season with a well-deserved Golden Globe Award, Thomas went on to secure no less than four successive Emmy nominations in each of the show's remaining four years on the air. And what a girl was That Girl!
I remember growing up when TV was a world of its own, characters were real, and series held true to an ongoing story. It was like checking in on the latest scoop on the neighborhood, and That Girl was front and center. Marlo Thomas' character, Ann Marie, was America's first single girl out and about, an aspiring actress growing up in front of us, and maturing into a confident woman of her own terms. Long before Rhoda, Mary Tyler Moore and literally decades before those fabulous sexy gals in Manhattan ever even knew what a Cosmopolitan was! It was an innocent age for most of us, yet it was the '60s and that innocence was soon to be tested.
Watching this hilarious review from my childhood, I was very impressed with both the quality and clarity of the shows, having watched the bulk of them in black and white as a child, I was quite taken with it. Shout! Factory once again does an excellent job in bringing the very best of pop culture back to the forefront.
That Girl starred Marlo Thomas, who was also was the producer; Ted Bessell as her boyfriend Donald Hollinger; and Lew Parker and Rosemary DeCamp as her doting parents. Thomas was an icon for little girls of the time, each wanting to grow up and be just like Ann Marie. The show's popularity far outlasted the five seasons it in first run, and set a precedent for appealing strong women characters to follow for the years to come.
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