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Rating:  -
The seller was very prompt in filling the order. The quality of the DVDs was excellent.
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Marlo Thomas is a brilliant actress and THAT GIRL was a revolutionary television show in the mid-60s. Marlo, already self-aware and wanting to portray a woman who was single, independent and living on her own. The result was one of the finest comedies in television history. Marlo and co-star Ted Bessell had a terrific on-screen chemistry. I used to watch the show during it's original run (I would have been 7 - 12 years old depending on which season we are talking about). I remember being fascinated with ANN MARIE, but I really didn't like Lew. He scared me. But all in all, the ensemble and the show's creators and writers made television magic. It occurs to me that the show harkens back to a more "civil" time in American history.
My only complaint about the DVD is that there are no subtitles available. I think that's a pity as it helps me catch some lines that I may not quite follow. A REAL bonus are the episodes where Marlo and ci-creator Bill Persky talk about their recollections of the show. Truly instructive and entertaining. two thumbs up!
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I have been watching the series with my mom who used to watch the show when she was younger. It has been fun to watch the episodes for the first time. My mom said she always wanted to be That Girl and it is fun sharing that with her. Ann Marie is great!
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No one on TV epitomized sunny 1960's-era optimism more than Ann Marie, the lovably determined young actress protagonist of "That Girl", the perky ABC sitcom that ran from 1966 to 1971. As played by Marlo Thomas with her then-trademark flip and false eyelashes, Ann was a breathless presence with a high moral code, a doting father, an eternally patient boyfriend in Newsview Magazine writer Donald Hollinger, and for her character's purported lack of solvency, a large Manhattan apartment and an enviably stylish wardrobe. The situation stretched credibility, but the basic concept was sound and for its time, quite groundbreaking for network television by showcasing a single woman out to seek success in the world. What pulled it all together and let it thrive for its five-year run was Thomas herself, who not only starred but produced the show well before such arrangements became the norm. She plays Ann with such unmitigated spirit that one can't help but see why Donald and the rest of the country were so captivated by her. When I was a child, I remember how happy I was when Ann and Donald finally got engaged in the final season.
As the primary custodians of vintage television videos, the Shout! Factory has thus far packaged the first three seasons in colorful DVD packages. Over five discs, the thirty episodes of the classic first season are presented along with several worthwhile extras. Throughout the series, you can see several actors before they became famous - Richard Dreyfuss, Carroll O'Connor, Rob Reiner, Teri Garr, George Carlin, Sally Kellerman, even a young Dabney Coleman as Leon, the obstetrician next door. Three episodes are particular favorites of mine. The first, "Don't Just Do Something, Stand There" shows how Ann and Donald first meet when she was working the newsstand in his office building. As they both vie for a roll-top desk in an antique furniture store upstairs, she gets hired to play a bound-and-gagged hostage in a TV commercial to be filmed in the lobby, where Donald mistakenly thinks he is witnessing a real crime and attempts to rescue her.
The second, "Anatomy of a Blunder", follows Ann and Donald as they drive up to Brewster where he will meet her parents for the first time. A bucolic picnic en route leads to a series of disasters for Donald, including a swollen foot after he steps on a bee, a case of hives due to the horseradish Ann uses in her chopped liver sandwiches, a pair of popped-out contact lenses gone missing, and a mud-soaking due mainly to Ann's inability to drive a stick shift. The third highlight is classic I Love Lucy-level hi-jinks when Ann gets her big toe stuck in a bowling ball after reading about someone who bowls with his feet. Much of the success of these shows rests on the slapstick-driven interplay between Thomas and Ted Bessell, who played Donald with pitch-perfect exasperation.
The extras should satisfy die-hard fans. First, there is the unaired 1965 pilot in which Ann lands a bit part on a TV show only to be pressured by her agent to change her professional name. Bleached out from age, this show intriguingly has Bessell play her agent and aspiring boyfriend, an unfortunate casting situation stuck at cross purposes and made further idiosyncratic by inexplicably making him part Cherokee (his name in the pilot is "Donald Blue Sky"). Character actors Harold Gould (later Rhoda's dad and Rose's boyfriend Miles on The Golden Girls) and Penny Santon play Ann's parents, deemed too "ethnic" by research test groups and replaced by the more "acceptable" Lew Parker and Rosemary DeCamp in the series. Second, there is a 2006 interview with Thomas in which she explains the genesis of the series and its significance in the depiction of a woman seeking her own identity. Running nearly half an hour, Thomas is quite engaging, and there are plenty of vintage clips and stills interspersed throughout.
Along with series co-creator Bill Persky, Thomas also provides audio commentaries on four of the episodes (including "Anatomy of a Blunder"). It's as much a nostalgic look for them as it is for the viewer since Thomas admits not recollecting a lot of what was going on during their filming. In fact, they both apologize frequently for the long silences because they are simply enjoying the shows. They jointly provide more insight on a ten-minute outtake reel called "That Girl in New York": in which they comment on raw footage shot on location in Manhattan - including the shots used for the opening credits sequence. By the way, the more famous opening, with the train tracks, the pink kite with her face, the look-alike mannequin and the tousled hair, did not turn up until the second season. Rounding out the extras is a couple of vintage promos (replete with groovy music accompaniment) produced by ABC at the time.
I had not seen "That Girl" in nearly a quarter-century, but what strikes me now is how fresh the show still is despite the 1960's fashions and sensibilities. Much of the credit has to go to Persky and his partner Sam Denoff, writing veterans of The Dick Van Dyke Show, who intentionally avoided most topical references in favor of timeless situations to which anyone can relate. Moreover, there is genuine chemistry between Thomas and Bessell that obviously mimics the opposites-attract personalities of the young marrieds in Neil Simon's then-popular Barefoot in the Park. If you are a baby boomer who was addicted to primetime TV like I was in the 1960's, this one will definitely tickle you to no end.
Rating:  -
The release of these DVDs bring back some great memories; however, I was let down a bit by Marlo's commentaries. I realize that, forty years on, she has quite a body of work behind her; yet as a fan you wait to hear such things as, "I remember this scene!," or "I remember Ted Bessell did this during shooting this scene...", but she speaks about Ann Marie in the 3rd person, occasionally pointed out some dresses she liked, or that, "Teddy Bessell was so thin then." Her commentaries seem to suggest she has no independent recollection of the shows, so in that sense it will be a let down for fans and you may question the value of the commentaries.
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