That Girl: Sue Me, Sue Me, What Can You Do Me?

That Girl: Sue Me, Sue Me, What Can You Do Me?
ABC
March 27, 1969
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This script, co-written by Milt Rosen, Ruth Brooks Flippen, and Danny Arnold, has Jerry urging Lew to sue Newsview when Lew slips on some water near a drinking fountain.  Donald ends up quitting, after four years, when his integrity is questioned.  The episode never quite comes together, but it has its moments.  Alan Oppenheimer plays his first of four TG roles, as Stewart Hurly.

The season ends after 26 episodes, as compared to 36 for Gilligan's Island in '64-'65.  I don't know the reasons why seasons shrank at this time, with half the year in "summer reruns."  Perhaps it was production costs, but this length for a season would be consistent I believe well into the '90s.  (For sitcoms anyway.  Obviously, Saturday morning TV was a different matter.)

The average for That Girl's third season remains a B-, but now on the lower end rather than the higher.

That Girl: Bad Day at Marvin Gardens

That Girl: Bad Day at Marvin Gardens
ABC
March 20, 1969
Sitcom
DVD
B

This episode, the last one for TG written by Carl Kleinschmitt, is another example of how the show is often at its best when it focuses on Ann & Donald and Lew & Helen.  A Monopoly game reveals a lot about Lew's character, and shows that Don has insights into him that his wife and daughter don't.  The women also have their moments, as when Helen talks about Lew's behavior the last time they played poker together, in 1947.

That Girl: The Face in the Shower Room Door

That Girl: The Face in the Shower Room Door
ABC
November 7, 1968
Sitcom
DVD
C+

I realize that the character played by Cesare Danova (who was the older man Gidget gets a crush on in Gidget Goes to Rome) is supposed to be suave and charming, but I found him nosy and a bit creepy.  The episode improved for me when Donald showed up.

Leon Colker makes his third of four TG appearances as the 2nd Waiter, while Headwaiter Renzo Cesana had a larger role as Dr. Enrico Cesana.  Stan Cutler and Martin Donovan again collaborated, based on an idea by Bill Idelson and Harvey Miller (both later of The Bob Newhart Show).

That Girl: The Drunkard

That Girl: The Drunkard
ABC
April 18, 1968
Sitcom
DVD
D+

This collaboration between Danny Arnold and Ruth Brooks Flippen just doesn't work at all.  Sid Caesar plays Marty Nickels, a TV comic with a drinking problem.  (I believe this was about a decade before his real life drinking problem, but that doesn't make this any less painful to watch.)  He casts Ann, partly for her legs, even though one of her rivals is Teri Garr.  Then he shows up at her apartment drunk-- three nights in a row!-- and each morning thinks that he's slept with her.  (He asks her if she's old enough to vote, i.e. over 21.)  And then his mother shows up, just so that he can hear that "Mrs. Nickels" is in Ann's bedroom and think that he's married Ann.  (Audrey Christie, who plays his mother Ella Nickels, was previously Miss Dailey and was ten years older than Caesar, who was not aging well.)  The episode is tasteless, unfunny, implausible even on farcical terms, just a mess.  In fact, the worst episode of any show I've watched so far.  The only reason I'm not going lower with the grade is because Ann at least wears cute outfits.

That Girl: If You Were Almost the Only Man in the World

That Girl: If You Were Almost the Only Man in the World
ABC
March 21, 1968
Sitcom
DVD
B

This is another Danny Arnold and Ruth Brooks Flippen collaboration, carrying the second season theme of various men pursuing Ann to the '60s inevitability of Donald's sort of lookalike, a brunet bespectacled "swinger" doctor.  Amusingly, once Lew gets over the shock, he prefers Dr. Rex to Donald.  You know, a doctor son-in-law.  Well, that was the '60s.

Leonard "Lennie" Bremen has an uncredited role as a Baseball Fan (the one who says, "That Goil"); he was a Janitor on Gidget and would do some Brady Bunch guest shots later.  Milton Selzer does his middle of three TG roles, as Dr. Corey.

That Girl: Great Guy

That Girl: Great Guy

"Gay 'n Frisky" still didn't mean what it would now.

ABC
March 7, 1968
Sitcom
DVD
C+

I didn't enjoy this collaboration between Ruth Brooks Flippen and Danny Arnold as much.  Ann interferes with Pete (Ruth Buzzi)'s love life.  Dick Balduzzi previously played a Police Sergeant on the show and this time is Glenn Davidson.

That Girl: A Friend in Need

That Girl: A Friend in Need
ABC
December 28, 1967
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Richard Baer's third TG script has Donald "challenging Ann's femininity" by cooking and cleaning for her when she has a sprained ankle.  If this seems odd, considering it's not that long since he himself had a maid, it turns out he's a slob at home but likes taking care of Ann.  In a nice change, Ann's mother but not father appears.

Danny Arnold makes an uncredited appearance as the Producer.  Benny Rubin plays Dr. Ferguson and would be Mr. Mellinger later on TG.

That Girl: The Mailman Cometh

That Girl: The Mailman Cometh
ABC
November 30, 1967
Sitcom
DVD
B

The title is a bit of a misnomer, since Ann's new agent is a former mailboy, Don Penny as Seymour Schwimmer, a role he'd reprise.  He comes up with a scheme involving stage comedian 43-year-old Dick Shawn, shortly before his scene-stealing role as LSD in the movie The Producers.  The teaming up of writers Danny Arnold and Ruth Brooks Flippen works, with one of the better, funnier episodes about Ann's career.  Both Penny and Shawn are good, as is Buzzi of course, although given less to do here.

George Neise did a couple Gilligan's Island episodes and plays Norman Kramer here, his first of two TG roles.

That Girl: The Philadelphia Story

That Girl: The Philadelphia Story
ABC
October 19, 1967
Sitcom
DVD
B-

I still don't think this merited a two-parter, this time padded by Philadelphia sight-seeing, but I do like how Ann has to deal with her first big failure in show biz.  Lew has mellowed in the year or so his daughter has been in New York, and he gently urges her to go back.  Also, Donald has to figure out how to review the play without hurting her feelings.  Pete, who turns out to be an actress, has both comedic and serious moments, a nice showcase for Ruth Buzzi.

Jim Connell, who was almost 22 at this point, had played high school student Norman Crowley on Gidget a couple years earlier and is Harvey Miller here.

That Girl: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Nervous

That Girl: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Nervous
ABC
October 12, 1967
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Arnold Margolin and Jim Parker co-wrote both this and the second part of the two-parter.  Not much happens in this part, which seems to be mostly shot to promote New York tourism.  It's cute and sweet, especially when Donald and Ann say how much they'll miss each other while she's away touring with a show, but it doesn't seem like enough for a whole episode.

That Girl: The Apartment

That Girl: The Apartment
ABC
October 5, 1967
Sitcom
DVD
B

As she did with Gidget, Ruth Brooks Flippen delivers a fun script, her first of thirteen for TG.  This is still a world that's a decade away from Three's Company, but for this show it does get relatively farcical and suggestive.  In fact, Bill Bixby's line to Ann, "I'm going to nail you in the bedroom," comes across as a lot more suggestive than I assume they intended.  He's playing Donald's old fraternity brother, Harry Banner (yes, with the Hulk's last name), who has a standing invitation to stay at Don's place when he's in town.  Don himself is out of town, so he invites Ann to stay over while her apartment is being fumigated for termites.  Ann does not want to stay in the same apartment with this strange man, so he makes that suggestion, although he ends up nailing himself into Don's bedroom.  As when Lew found out that Ann and Donald were snowbound in a hotel, Lew shows up in the middle of the night, without Helen this time.  The laugh track is heavy on the gasps and "uh oh's" throughout.

Leon Colker makes his first of four TG appearances, here as an Agent.  Florence Halop plays a Clerk and sounds much like she would on Night Court in the '80s, but less raspy.

That Girl: Author, Author

That Girl: Author, Author
ABC
March 30, 1967
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Ann has to have an original comedy piece for an audition, so after the disappointment of Jerry's cousin Ernie Bernie, she recruits Donald, who wrote for a show back in college.  It almost wrecks their relationship but they come through OK.  I actually thought that Ann's rambling explanation would end up getting her a role, but it doesn't go in that direction.

J.B. Larson, who plays the Assistant Producer, was the Studio Usher earlier.  Jack Good, who's Mr. Handley, was Mr. Rudolph previously.  Snag Werris, who plays the Waiter, would have four guest shots on The Brady Bunch.  This is Howard Harris's only TG episode (co-written with Ronald Axe), although he wrote a couple for Gilligan.  It's the first of six TG Danny Arnold (best known for Barney Miller) would direct, although he'd write some, too.