Tuesday, January 08, 2013

Winking Mannequins of Yore

Hey there used to be a sitcom called THAT GIRL and all my life I have been pronouncing the title like this: "THAT girl," but last night I heard the recorded voice of Marlo Thomas, the star of THAT GIRL, in an interstitial piece on TCM and she said it like this: "that GIRL," and it was like my whole life had been a sham. And that was all I was going to tell you today. Except that to my recollection she flew a kite with her own picture on it in the opening credits of THAT GIRL, which seems like a weird thing to do. And that was all I was going to tell you today. But when I looked for a photo to illustrate this "post" I found this image (above) of Marlo Thomas as "THAT GIRL" biting her glove and my brain asked me wasn't that the scene from the opening credits where she looks at a mannequin in a store window and it winks at her? So even though I was going to base this whole "post" on my feeble memory that everyone loves so much I went ahead and looked on the "youtube" and found the opening credits and YES she does fly a kite with her own picture on it and YES a department store mannequin is winking at her only GET THIS. She sees HERSELF in place of the department store mannequin. SHE SEES HERSELF AS A DEPARTMENT STORE MANNEQUIN. And that was all I was going to tell you today. But then I remembered that my friend Ward sent me the shabby, awkward opening to THE NEW ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW the other day, struck and depressed as he was by it. "Andy's expression looks like he's already given up" on the show - IN THE OPENING CREDITS! - noted Ward in the accompanying email. "Click" here to confirm. I would only add that the theme song sounds sort of like the regular ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW theme song played backwards, some sort of failed network attempt at mass brainwashing, probably. Oh wait and I also wanted to tell you that the THAT GIRL theme song starts out like this: "Diamonds, daisies, snowflakes, THAT GIRL. Chestnuts, rainbows, springtime, it's [is? - ed.] THAT GIRL!"