I Watched This 1960’s Sitcom For 10-Plus Hours A Day. Then It Disappeared.

It was freezing chilly in Texas in February 2023, and the ice and snow mainly had me barricaded in my new solo residence. When my dad referred to as to see how I used to be holding up, I informed him I used to be tremendous, however my shaky voice in all probability gave me away.

It was my first time residing alone, and the ice storm made it manifestly apparent to me and nearly everybody how lonely I used to be. I spent my days working from house and my nights scrolling my cellphone. There have been no roommates to hassle and no mother and father to hassle much more. My residence was consistently quiet, and I used to be bored. It was simply me and the canine, who I used to be beginning to assume was by no means going to discover ways to communicate English. So as soon as the ice melted, my dad purchased me a $200 Samsung TV.

My mother informed me that my TV had its personal streaming service and there was a channel that performed “That Girl” 24/7. I had by no means seen “That Girl,” which ran from 1966 to 1971, however my mother’s clarification that it was “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” earlier than “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” intrigued me.

After a number of episodes, I grew to become obsessed. In “That Girl,” Ann Marie (Marlo Thomas) is an single girl residing in New York Metropolis, hustling a number of jobs attempting to “make it” in her profession whereas her overprotective mother and father and supportive boyfriend, Donald (Ted Bessell), cheer her on. I associated to Ann, minus the boyfriend, as a result of she was like me in a variety of methods: artistic, humorous, scatter-brained at occasions. She was additionally the type of lady I needed to be — bubbly, stunning, 103 kilos, comfortable. Antidepressants in all probability weren’t even in Ann’s vocabulary a lot much less her medication cupboard.

I began watching the present nonstop. I may flip the “That Girl” channel on at any time of the day to look at one of many 136 episodes from the five-season sequence. Whereas I labored from house, Ann was with me. She auditioned for appearing jobs whereas I wrote breaking information tales. Ann spent evenings along with her mother and father whereas I did the identical. Ann made dinner for her boyfriend, and I dreamed about doing the identical for my very own Donald at some point.

“That Girl” was groundbreaking as a result of it was one of many first sitcoms centered on an impartial single girl. Earlier than that there have been housewives June Cleaver and Lucy Ricardo, or fantasy girls like Jeannie in “I Dream of Jeannie” or Samantha in “Bewitched.” Ann Marie wasn’t a housewife; she wasn’t simply somebody’s daughter; she wasn’t simply somebody’s somebody. She stood on her personal, and the present revolved round her tales. I’m not naive sufficient to assume that life within the Sixties was easier or simpler, however “That Girl” supplied me an escape. Although my issues couldn’t be solved in half-hour, Ann Marie’s may. The present premiered greater than 50 years in the past, however Ann handled among the similar points that I face in the present day — hardships of chasing a dream profession, girls’s rights, an overprotective father and lots of others. I noticed myself in Ann.

I began to overlook Ann and Donald after I was away from them too lengthy, which sounds simply as insane as it’s. If I went out to lunch or to buy groceries, I couldn’t wait to get house to see what they had been doing.

I began researching the origins of the present. I shopped on-line for any “That Girl” memorabilia so I may enhance my residence. I incessantly informed my pals about Ann and Donald as in the event that they had been part of my life. Regardless of what number of occasions I rewatched the identical episodes, I by no means bought sick of them.

“You won’t believe what Donald did today,” I texted a buddy.

“Oh, my god, Ann owes $2,000 in taxes just like me,” I posted on social media.

“Donald is going to propose to Ann at 7:30 tonight,” I texted my dad.

“Again?” he responded.

Then for my thirty third birthday, I threw myself a “That Girl”-themed get together the place I made all my pals gown up in Sixties glitz and glam. Whereas we ate and drank, “That Girl” performed on the TV within the background, and I made everybody hearken to me whereas I defined how “That Girl” was a trailblazing present.

One in all my favourite scenes is from an episode in Season 1, when Ann Marie’s dad, Lew (Lew Parker), takes her out to dinner for her birthday. It’s by no means talked about how outdated Ann is popping, however she’s sufficiently old to stay on her personal and nonetheless younger sufficient to be seen as a woman. After dinner, Ann’s dad drops her off on the door to her very personal residence however not earlier than Ann asks him a query. She needs to know if he was “terribly disappointed” on the day she was born when he came upon his new child was a woman.

Lew Marie provides a candy, quick monologue and reassures her that when he heard his new child was a woman, he merely thanked God.

“Let me put it this way: If there was a factory where I could’ve ordered my own specifications, you would’ve been what I ordered, even with all your craziness,” Lew Marie tells Ann.

I had watched that scene dozens of occasions, and it all the time made me tear up. To me, Ann’s query was much less about her gender and extra about if she had lived as much as his expectations. It completely summarizes what it feels prefer to be a toddler, a daughter, a woman and a lady coming into her personal. As she is celebrating her ageless birthday, she needs to listen to from her dad that she’s sufficient.

Lower than a month after my birthday celebration, I awakened and rolled over to activate the TV to see what Ann and Donald had been as much as. However the display was black. Channel 1322 was no extra. Samsung had taken “That Girl” off its streaming service.

I cried on and off that day. I texted my dad to “fix it,” pondering possibly as a result of he put in the TV, he knew find out how to get this channel again on air. My psychological well being took a nosedive. My residence was again to being quiet and lonely.

So I attempted different exhibits. “Family Ties” wasn’t the proper match, possibly as a result of Alex P. Keaton was no match after falling in love with Donald Hollinger. My pals advised “Girls,” the Lena Dunham-created present that’s in all probability the closest to a modern-day model of “That Girl.” However whereas Ann in “That Girl” was a lady I aspired to be, Hannah in “Girls” was neurotic, self-absorbed and a struggling author.

“I didn’t want to watch myself on screen,” I informed my pals. TV was meant to be an escape.

Nobody may fairly perceive what I used to be feeling. I used to be unhappy. It felt like I had misplaced a buddy. After which I used to be mad. How may the channel be gone? “That Girl” was what I watched for 10-plus hours a day, and with out the present, I began to overlook Ann and Donald. I’d typically marvel what they’d be doing if I may watch them. With no person to grasp the profound unhappiness I used to be feeling, I did the one factor I may assume to do. I referred to as Marlo Thomas, the girl who made Ann Marie and “That Girl” well-known, to speak in regards to the present.

From her house workplace, Thomas chatted with me over Zoom. I may see her Golden Globes within the background, certainly one of which she received in 1967 for “That Girl.” She informed me about getting the present on the air almost 60 years in the past. The present was her concept, however community execs needed Ann to be somebody’s daughter or spouse or niece, however Thomas needed Ann to be sufficient on her personal.

“The network wanted me to live with my aunt,” Thomas informed me. “Or they wanted my little 6-year-old brother to move in with me. And I said, ‘No girl goes to the big city and lives with her aunt. And that’s not the point. The point is to be independent.’”

She additionally fought them once more once they needed the sequence to finish with a marriage between her and Donald.

“I said, ‘I would be betraying all my girls and women who watch the show. We can’t say that the only happy ending is a marriage; that would be the worst thing to say,’” Thomas informed me. “I said, ‘Well, that’s no longer ‘That Girl.’ That’s another show. You can’t call it ‘That Girl.’ That will be called ‘That Married Couple.’”

So as an alternative the sequence finale is an episode the place Ann takes Donald to a girls’s liberation assembly. It’s anticlimactic and ideal.

I informed her how Lew jogged my memory of my dad. When Ann has to fly from New York to Miami for work in a Season 3 episode, she walks on the aircraft to seek out out her dad is becoming a member of her. My dad has accompanied me on loads of outings, however when he couldn’t try this, he tracked my location to verify I made it safely from the airport to my lodge.

Lew was robust on Ann however cherished her tremendously, similar to my dad.

Thomas shared that sentiment, telling me that Lew was based mostly on her late father, actor and producer Danny Thomas.

“My dad was very strict,” Thomas informed me. “And he would wait up for me. Sometimes he’d be out on the lawn waiting up for me. He was just very strict, but he was completely loving. I’m a true daddy’s girl. You could see how much Ann Marie loved her daddy and how much he loved her.”

After which she introduced up my favourite scene unprompted.

“When we did that scene, [Lew Parker] couldn’t get through it without crying,” Thomas informed me. “He didn’t have any children. He’d been married two or three times. But he didn’t have children. And so I became like a real daughter to him. And so when he had to say that speech about how he loved me from the moment he saw me, however, when he couldn’t do it, he just kept crying. We started over and over and over. And then finally I grabbed his hand and he did it.”

Thomas informed me she needed to verify she spoke about Ted Bessell, the actor who performed Ann’s boyfriend, Donald. That was a simple matter of dialog as a result of I had fallen in love with Donald whereas watching the present. I informed Thomas how a lot I appreciated that Donald by no means added stress to Ann’s life. His function on the present was to assist Ann and cheer her on. In a single episode, when Ann is featured on the duvet of {a magazine}, Donald goes and buys each copy on the nook bodega.

Thomas informed me that Bessell was like that in actual life. When Thomas would argue with the community over the cellphone a few storyline in “That Girl,” Thomas mentioned that Bessell was often within the room rooting her on.

“I’d be on the phone arguing about something that they didn’t want me to do,” Thomas informed me, recalling moments within the make-up room with Bessell supporting her concepts. “He was just always on my side, just always there. He was just on my side, and that’s why I think you saw so much love between us.”

Since discovering “That Girl,” I’ve requested a number of girls older than me in the event that they watched it when it was on TV, and the reply is all the time sure. I requested Thomas if she thought a 33-year-old girl like me can be fully enamored by the present almost 60 years later.

“No, you know, it was so hard to get it on,” she informed me. “Because there had never been a single girl on television before that didn’t live with her family.

“Getting past those barriers really was a long race, jumping over obstacles to do the show that we wanted to do. So I wasn’t even thinking about the next year, let alone years ahead. I just wanted to get that show on. And it was very hard. It’s exciting to be the first, and it’s really hard to be the first at anything because you have to break through membranes of myth. People don’t want to see a girl without a family; people aren’t interested in a girl who doesn’t want to get married.”

I feel typically about Thomas as a younger girl preventing community executives. A younger girl making a present now nonetheless looks as if an enormous deal, so it’s exhausting for me to think about what the male executives considered Thomas throughout these Sixties board conferences. She mentioned that often she can be the one girl in conferences in regards to the present.

“The secretaries would come in and bring coffee, and it always used to aggravate me so much. I would stand up, go get my own coffee,” she mentioned. “And it just bothered me that everybody else was a man in a suit and a tie.”

I knew Thomas was forward of her time earlier than I spoke to her, however listening to her inform me about it put it into perspective as a result of she’s nonetheless forward of her time. She informed me about her work with St. Jude Kids’s Analysis Hospital, the hospital her dad based in 1962, for which she now serves because the nationwide outreach coordinator. She informed me the hospital is consistently engaged on including new tools to assist save the lives of sick kids. I used to be touched not solely by her take care of sick kids but additionally by her work finishing up her late father’s imaginative and prescient to verify kids don’t die younger.

After which there’s the youngsters’s album “Free to Be … You and Me,” one thing she produced in 1972 after she grew to become an aunt and observed that there have been no youngsters’ books that challenged gender norms.

“We did a song called ‘William Wants a Doll’ and another song, ‘It’s All Right to Cry,’ and that was in 1972, and so many gay men have come up to me and said, ‘I just knew when I heard those songs, it was going to be OK. I was gonna be OK.’ It just makes me cry. That’s what entertainment can do. That’s what’s so exciting about being creative.”

I informed her that at 33, all of my pals are already married and beginning their very own households, so it means quite a bit to me that she didn’t get married till she was 42. She additionally by no means had kids of her personal, as an alternative serving to increase husband Phil Donahue’s kids from a earlier marriage.

It’s been three months because the 24/7 channel with “That Girl” was taken off the air, and since then I’ve discovered consolation in different issues, like happening walks with my canine or watching trashy actuality TV that units feminism again 100 years — one thing I couldn’t bear to inform Thomas about.

I’ve needed to mourn the disappearance of “That Girl,” however my dialog with Thomas comforts me greater than the present ever may. She urged me to select up the place she and Ann left off and create my very own story.

“The most important thing you can do in your life is do what you feel,” Thomas mentioned. “You got, I don’t know, 80 years ahead of you to figure out what else you want to create, to notice, to point your finger towards, hey, look at this. This is something we should be talking about, or this is something we should remember. I’m gratified that you at 33 see the importance of ‘That Girl.’ That means so much to me.”