Friday, April 21, 2006

Another '60s-Com

Sitcoms Online has a review of the first season of "That Girl." Looks like a good package, what with Marlo Thomas and co-creator Bill Persky (formerly head writer for "The Dick Van Dyke Show") participating in the extras. I haven't seen the first season in a while, but I don't recall it being the best of the run; like I said earlier, "That Girl" improved mid-run when it brought in some new writers and producers -- including that '60s and '70s mainstay, Danny Arnold, who had this to say about working with Thomas:


I like Marlo. Her biggest problem is that she's much brighter than most of the people she has to work with.... And I'd have to say she's not at all difficult to work with... unless she has no respect for you.


Persky has also participated in the DVD extras for another show he created, "Kate and Allie." Still, I think most people will always remember him and his writing partner Sam Denoff for writing the "Dick Van Dyke Show" episode "Coast to Coast Big Mouth."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The middle seasons of "That Girl" were the best, with the Season 1 shows a little too slowly paced, while in the Season 5 shows Thomas ran into the same problem Liz Montgomery did in her last season of "Bewitched" in taking the 60s styles/demeanor a little bit too far. But the opening title montage was better for the first season than for the later ones (though this may just be a personal quibble -- as a young, impressionable New Yorker, it irked me that in the Seasons 2-5 opening, the movement on the railroad tracks, presumably of the train taking Miss Marie to New York, was actually heading away from the city towards Newark. Which would be even more the wrong way to go if you headed to visit daddy in Brewster).