# That Girl (1966)

> An aspiring actress leaves small-town Brewster for New York and fills the gaps between auditions with offbeat temp jobs.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/1817

## Facts

- Seasons: 5
- Episodes: 136
- Episode runtime: 25 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: comedy
- Created by: Bill Persky
- Network: ABC
- Cast: Marlo Thomas, Ted Bessell, Lew Parker, Luana Anders, Michael Conrad, Rupert Crosse, Sam Melville, Jackie Joseph
- TMDB rating: 7.3/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060034/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: mild
- Complexity: simple
- Violence: none
- Tone: gentle, optimistic, breezy, nostalgic, comforting

## Synopsis

That Girl (1966-1971) is an American network sitcom created by Bill Persky for ABC. Marlo Thomas stars as Ann Marie, an aspiring actress who leaves her parents in Brewster, New York, for the bright and expensive streets of Manhattan. Her day-to-day engine is simple and comic: she needs rent money, so she takes a string of offbeat temp jobs in between auditions and small parts, while her ambitions keep pulling her toward a career she cannot yet secure. Ted Bessell plays her boyfriend Donald Hollinger, a writer for Newsview Magazine, and their romance provides the emotional anchor of many episodes. Lew Parker and Rosemary DeCamp play her worried parents, whose phone calls and visits pull Ann back toward Brewster's expectations. Bernie Kopell, Ruth Buzzi and Reva Rose round out the circle of friends who share the apartment-level mischief. Across five seasons and 136 episodes, the show is a case-of-the-week comedy built from misunderstandings, auditions gone wrong and fast physical gags. Its tone is gentle, optimistic and nostalgic, with the bright fashions and sitcom craft of the mid-1960s. Fans of The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show will find the same warm, workplace-minded comedy resonance here.

## Shows like That Girl

- [Newhart (1982)](https://ember.film/tv/2857)
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- [Alice (1976)](https://ember.film/tv/464)
- [The Bob Newhart Show (1972)](https://ember.film/tv/1866)
- [Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1968)](https://ember.film/tv/9185)
- [Party Down (2009)](https://ember.film/tv/16026)
- [Mad About You (1992)](https://ember.film/tv/470)
- [One Day at a Time (1975)](https://ember.film/tv/2078)
- [DMV (2025)](https://ember.film/tv/195043)
- [Great News (2017)](https://ember.film/tv/62203)

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