In this test pilot, Ann's parents are played by different actors, Ted Bessell plays Don Blue Sky, her agent who is also her boyfriend, and Ann has a group of three girlfriends. Don thinks that Ann should change her name from Ann Marie to a more suitable stage name because every time he tells people her name, they ask "'Ann Marie' what?". Ann is hesitant because she knows that it would upset her parents, particularly her father. As she predicted, her father becomes very angry and will not speak to her unless she keeps her name. This episode was later changed to include the different actors and characters, and is episode 1.11 of the first season.
Ann's five years of being an independent woman actress begins when she meets Donald Hollinger, a magazine reporter, in one of her in-between jobs as a candy clerk. She gets a job in a perfume commercial where she plays a woman who gets kidnapped by two robbers. Donald happens to see the act and thinks that Ann is in real trouble, so he saves her only to get serious flack from her. But with that incident aside, Ann and Donald find out that they really belong together.
Ann Marie leaves the safety and comfort of her parent's home to live on her own in New York. But she has a visit from her mother who is threatening to move in with her!
Ann has a chance to audition for Jules Benedict, but has to babysit Leon and Judy's baby as well. Will Ann be able to pull this off?
Ann has to go to court because of an accident involving a pedestrian and a sewing machine.
Ann brings Donald home to meet her parents, but he goes through some serious torture when they stop for a little picnic on the way.
Ann is charmed by a wealthy man who gives her many luxuries and Don tries to compete. Ann realizes that money is not the most important thing in a relationship.
One rule in life: never ever ask your girlfriend to work with you. Don learns that the hard way when he hires Ann to be his secretary.
At an antique auction, Ann buys a box of junk with a baseball in it. A strange man follows her because he wants the baseball. It turns out that he is an ex-baseball player who wants the ball for sentimental reasons.
Ann ends up in jail trying to help a fellow waitress when she serves two rival underworld groups and the place gets raided by the police.
Ann's friend Sandy, an actress who has just won a lead role in a Broadway play, visits Ann. Suddenly, Sandy gets sick, leaving Ann to play her role. Everyone thinks that Ann stole teh job from her, but Ann pays them no never mind as she enjoys her chance. Unfortunately the play closes after one performance.
Ann's agent thinks that she needs a new name for an excellent acting career.
Donald's parents meet Ann for the first time, and his mother Mildred takes a dislike to Ann because she plays a vamp on a soap opera.
Ann thinks she will lose her sweet Donald to a famous actress when all the time, he is interviewing her for his article.
Ann and Donald find a strange organ player who used to play the soundtrack in silent movies. Donald does a story about him, but he disappears because he is a wanted criminal.
Ann is being given presents by one of her acting class colleagues, Hobart Niles. She and Donald think that these gifts are hot, but they find out that Hobart is very wealthy.
This very touching Christmas episode has Ann telling Donald about a time where she was a teacher and had to keep a lonely boy company on Christmas when his parents cannot get him.
Ann finds souvenirs that remind her of a boyfriend she used to have named Freddy. It turns out that Freddy still has a flame burning for her.
Ann is a salesperson for shoes that somehow fall apart over time.
Ann hires a maid for Donald, but who she hired makes her jealous.
Donald gives Ann a manuscript of a novel that he is writing, and she loses it. Donald is waiting for a response, but Ann stalls because she did not want to admit that she lost it.
Ann and Donald are invited by their friends, Jerry Bauman and Margie, to a private wedding in Connecticut, but they get snowed in. There are only two rooms available in the inn that they are staying and the boys share one room and the girls share another. The problem begins with Jerry and Margie decide to stay together leaving Ann and Donald in a room together, much to the chagrin of Ann's parents.
Ann thinks that her friends are going to surprise her with a birthday party when she is invited out to dinner by her father.
Lou thinks that Ann and Donald ought to be married, but they have different ideas.
Ann helps Donald get a story about a famous opera singer, if only he can control his romantic urges.
Ann invites her parents and her Aunt Harriet to dinner at her house where she tries to prove to them that living in the city is pretty cool. A stranger outside the window ruins Ann's point because he has romantic woes.
Ann reads that a famous producer is looking for an unknown for his play and has Donald put in a good word for her. He tries to tell her that the producer had found his star a long time ago, but she doesn't listen.
Ann gets a visit from her cheap cousin and his bride. When he refuses to leave, Ann gets a room in a bridal suite to formualte a plan to get him out.
Ann has her toe stuck in a bowling ball at a very unopportune moment.
Ann needs some funny material for an audition and enlists Donald's writing expertise, but his jokes aren't funny.
Donald has to do a story on the show ""The Mating Game"", and he has Ann be a contestant. Ann doesn't know that Donald is one of the bachelors and she picks another man. While she had her date with this man, Donald tags along to get a story.
Ann is overwhelmed to find herself on stage with Ethel Merman.
Ann learns to roller-skate to get a part in a soft-drink commercial.
When Donald can't get his novel published, Ann's father makes connections with a publisher.
When Ann tries out computer dating, her match turns out to be a lot like Donald.
Ann borrows Donald's apartment to conduct her new telemarketing job while her place is being painted.
Ann Marie's elation at winning a Broadway role fades when she realizes its Philadelphia opening will mean a long separation from Donald.
Despite attention from a fellow castmate, Ann misses Donald while in Philadelphia to do a play.
After a meeting with a famous doctor, Donald uses what he has learned to find out all out Ann's personality.
Ann and Donald learn that a couple that works together also fights together when they collaborate on a play about her life.
Ann wins a part in an Italian movie, but turns it down when she discovers it includes a nude scene.
Trying to cook everyone's favorite Thanksgiving dishes, Ann takes over a neighbor's kitchen.
While modeling at restaurant, Ann meets an agent who hires her for a publicity stunt.
Ann meets a fashion photographer who wants to take her to California to do a shoot.
When Don sees a newspaper photo of Ann and the photographer being arrested for frolicking in a fountain, he's on the next plane to Los Angeles.
To prevent a robbery, Ann and Donald remove all the valuables from the Baumans' apartment, only to be caught by the police.
When Ann sprains her ankle, Donald comes to the rescue cooking gourmet meals and cleaning her apartment.
A fortune hunter targets Ann when she wears a borrowed chinchilla stole at an elite party.
Ann takes Donald home to spend the weekend with her parents, only to find that her father is jealous of Donald and sees him as a rival.
Ann is upset to learn that her lines have been reduced for her pending Broadway debut.
Ann believes that she has no sex appeal when she lands a commercial part for her plain-looking face.
Lou escorts Ethel Merman, but the press thinks that they are an item, much to Helen's dismay.
Donald is stunned when Ann receives a marriage proposal from a fashion photographer.
Mrs. Hollister stays at Ann's apartment and finds a pair of her son's pants hanging in Ann's closet.
Marge tells Ann that she met the man of her dreams but lost him when she proposed marriage.
With Ann under police protection, Donald gets the wrong idea when he sees an officer emerge from Ann's bedroom in the morning.
When Ann is knocked unconscious, the doctor who treats her looks exactly like Donald.
Ann's unscrupulous press agent links her to a divorce scandal in the hope that it will boost her career.
Ann dislikes Donald's new beard and tries to get him to shave it off.
After a drunken comedian is taken in by Ann to sober up, he thinks that they had an affair.
Ann meets an elderly man who showers her with gifts that she cannot accept.
Against the objections of the director, Ann is awarded a part in a Broadway play by the star, Barry Sullivan. Ann is excited to get this opportunity, but when the script calls for Ann to slap Barry, she can't bring herself to do it.
Ann works as a flight attendant to get a job for an airline commercial. Ann thinks that a man is going to hijack the plane and she tackles him. She then discovers that he is a detective hired to prevent hijackings!
Ann takes her jury duty to heart and will not go along with the rest of the panel when they all want to vote ""guilty"" against a man accused of hitting his wife with an ashtray. After reasoning that he couldn't have hit her with his right hand, she convinces the others and they vote for acquittal.
Ann goes with Donald to Los Angeles to do a story on media violence and causes confusion for her father and everyone else who thinks that they are getting it on.
While in Los Angeles, Ann gets a job appearing in soda commercials, which irks Donald.
Ann is excited at the prospect of voting in her first presidential election. She's gone to the library to read everything she can about the issues and the political process. But on Halloween night, when Ann's father asks her what party she registered with, Ann feels it's her right to preserve her secret ballot.
Ann gets stuck in a shower and a new neighbor helps her to get out.
Ann is mugged and tries her best not to let her father find out about it. Donald gets into the act by dressing up as a woman to catch muggers to do a story for his magazine.
Ann and Donald get in the middle of Jerry and Ruth's troubled marriage to get them back together again.
Don does a story on an old multimillionairess named Margaret ""Trixie"" Weatherby, and Ann thinks that she is trying to steal Don away from her.
Donald's sexy new secretary, Pat Crawford, arranges to accompany him on an out of town assignment to Washington, D.C., hoping to steal his heart from Ann. Feeling neglected and rejected, Ann decides she'll spare Don the pain of breaking up with her and she'll have it all done by the time he returns, so she returns all borrowed items of hers and Donald's to their proper apartments. But when she discovers she was wrong, she has only minutes to get everything back to normal before Don finds out.
Ann is torn when everyone wants her to do different things with her expensive pay check.
Ann and Donald want to ring in the New Year by themselves, but the arrival of Ann's parents for one quick drinks instantly turns their private celebration into a big party house.
When an aggresive bully collides with Ann in an office lobby, only nearby window washer, Rudy Clarn comes to her aid. But while warning him off, the bully slugs Rudy and breaks his nose. Feeling terribly guilty, Ann helps him to the doctor and then home. Rudy's wife, Ethel - a terribly jealous woman, believes there is more to the relationship between Ann and Rudy and threatens to leave him.
Ann receives a godawful art piece from Donald and gets a lot of different opinions about it.
Ann and Donald decide to take a little vacation from themselves, so Ann decides to move into her parent's house. Her parents are going on vacation, and she stays there. A noise gets her locked down in the basement and she is trapped. Her parents are worried when Ann doesn't answer the phone and they hurry back home to find that Donald has rescued her.
On Valentine's Day, Ann and Donald exchange permanent gifts. She gives him a tie clasp and he gives her a pair of genuine diamond earrings they saw together at Tiffany's. Ann is scared to wear them. When Don puts his foot down and insists she wear them on their evening of dinner and dancing, one of them indeed disappears. Don buys her a replacement earring and puts it in her apartment. Ann, not wanting to disappoint Dan, buys a replacement earring herself.
Donald tries to help Ann out of an IRS mess but gets into a mess himself involving flour.
Ann gets a job in another soda commercial, but she has to have her singing voice dubbed by someone else. Her voice double, Rose Cassinetti, helps Ann out and Ann tries to do something good for her. She doesn't know that Rose is a nun.
Ann gets a job in a TV show. She is a pretty lady that gets hit by a pie. After the spot airs, she is embarrassed to death.
Lou gets bitten by a dog that follows Ann home and he thinks that he has caught rabies.
Ann befriends an African-American boy after saving him from a shoplifting charge. When he tells her he lives on Park Avenue, she does not believe him, so he invents a story of 13 brothers and sisters, fat rats, life in a dirty tenament, and a father who beats him. Appalled, Ann goes so far as to decide to adopt him! The boy then calls his father, who happened to be wealthy like he said earlier.
Ann lands a public-relations job with the Air Force to promote women in the space program.
Ann calls Donald late one night because of a mouse in her apartment. Donald goes over to stay in her apartment to protect her. Of course, Lou comes by and finds Donald in Ann's apartment and decides that Ann and Donald should be married right away!
The Maries, Donald and Ann are playing a game of Monopoly and Lou gets very competitive.
At the Newsview office, Lou slips on some water. Donald is told that Lou has to sign a waiver of responsibility. Donald goes to Mr. Prentice's office and quits, only to be talked back into his job by his managing editor.
While modeling at Unifit, Ann is hired to spy on a competitor who is suspected of stealing designs.
Unaware that her cover has been blown, Ann is tricked into photographing reject designs.
Ann is assigned to direct an annual play, but has to tell her father that he will not have the starring role.
Ann gets a job as a dancing chicken for a fried-chicken chain.
Ann gets the wrong message when she visits a dentist who uses hypnosis.
Ann's temporary hearing loss ruins a commercial spot for her.
Despite being snowed in at the airport, Ann is determined to make it to a Broadway audition.
Don writes a TV segment about the blizzard at airport, with Ann as its star.
Don is doing a story on a fighter who wants to be an actor.
Ann tries to help out her neighbors in saving their hotel from the ownership of her ex-boyfriend.
Don has a chance to go to Paris, but hesitates when he thinks about how Ann will feel having to live without him.
Ann gets a job in a show in Las Vegas with an egotistical actor who tries to ruin her relationship with Donald.
After Marty tries to trick Ann into believing Donald had married a starlet, Ann and Donald turn the tables on him.
Ann's attempts to impress Donald's ex-girlfriend at a dinner party go awry.
Ann joins her agent's comedy act in the Catskills, with disastrous results.
Anxious about reviews of her opening night on Broadway, Ann gets her finger stuck in a kitchen faucet.
Ann relives her days as a meter maid when she meets Donald's new boss.
Flying to Vermont in a friend's plane, Ann and Donald are forced to endure an emergency landing.
After the emergency landing, Donald and Ann take shelter in a cabin while the pilot looks for help.
Ann's accidental encounter with a stockbroker leads to her investing in the stock market.
Ann's hires a musical group to help bring business to her father's flagging restaurant.
As class secretary-treasurer, Ann loses track of money she is to use for a high-school reunion.
Ann goes to court to help a producer win a lawsuit.
Donald's film catches a neighbor kissing a mysterious man.
Donald hurts his back trying to demonstrate skiing in Ann's apartment.
Don wants to take Ann out for her birthday, but she has to babysit for a neighbor's sick child.
After four years of dating, Donald finally asks Ann to marry him and presents her with an engagement ring - which he was talked into buying second-hand by a co-worker against his better judgement.
Donald's sister Sandi has a passion for an actor, and he wants Ann to check up on him to see if he's a good man. The actor finds out what's going on and makes moves on Ann to teach her a lesson.
A nude picture of Ann is plastered in a ""Playpen"" magazine, which jeopardizes her chance of being on a kiddie show.
On a game show, Ann is asked to find out about her neighbors. No one wants to speak up, so Ann throws a party to invite everyone until her purse gets stolen.
Ann and Donald go to a pre-nuptial counselor to weed out their non-existent problems.
Ann learns that killing two birds with one stone is almost too much when she goes to St. Louis with Donald to meet his parents and to star in a play. She is convinced that Don's mother hates her and decides that she might be able to turn it around if she were to have a larger, starring role in the play instead of her more modest part.
In St. Louis to appear in a play and meet Donald's parents, Ann once again finds that nothing is ever easy.
Ann lands the presitgious title of ""Miss New York has Everything"" and does a TV promotion for the city in which she bakes a fruit topped cheesecake using all New York ingredients. While baking the cake, Ann loses her ring in the cake batter, and to make matters worse, the cake has been shipped to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller's house for a state dinner. After all the trouble they went to, Ann finds out that her ring wasn't even in the governor's cake!
Lou feels as though he is getting too old, and Ann introduces him to Jeanie, who makes him feel more younger. Ann thinks that he is going to leave her mother when actually he wants to please her.
Ann is hired by a rival magazine because they think that Donald is going to help her out now that they are engaged.
Don is stuck in a ""super Don"" costume when his friends steal his clothes and forget to give them back to him. All before he is to accept an Humanitarian award from the deputy mayor!
Ann gets a lesson in minorities when a sketch that she is in is very offensive to Mexicans.
Uncle Herbert is turning Ann and Donald's world upside down when he makes bogus get-rich-quick schemes.
Ann wants film rights to a novel, but the author will not sell. He changes his mind when he sees Ann, and how much she resembles his late wife. His new wife tells Ann that her husband can't write anymore and Ann turns down the movie out of respect for him.
Ann's late Uncle Harry wills her an old trunk filled with bits and pieces of his career in vaudeville. Ann is doubly surprised when stars Milton Berle and Danny Thomaspay a visit to her apartment and try to buy the old trunk.
Donald breaks off his engagement to Ann because of cold feet.
Ann makes friends with a Russian named Nicholai who is a con man sponging off her.
Ann is duped by a robber into shoplifting.
Ann and Donald try to run Lou's restaurant by themselves when the staff comes down with a virus.
Ann makes friends with a king, who turns out to be a kid!
Donald's friends throw him a stag party - which almost costs him his engagement to Ann.
Ann gets a modeling assignment at Belmont Race Track and when Don's friends realize there's a horse running named for her, they see it as a "sign" and send her with the money to place a bet for them. She loses the ticket at the wrong time!
As a member of an ecology-minded group, Ann is assigned to picket in front of the Newsview Magazine building where Donald works. Donald tries to make amends by inviting his boss to Ann's house for dinner.
On their way to the Women's Liberation meeting, which Donald reluctantly agrees to visit, Ann and Donald become trapped in a stuck elevator. While they await to be rescued, they look back on their favorite moments together.
Part 1 of "The Creation of That Girl" featurettes, with Marlo Thomas.
Outtakes, raw footage and other clips, narrated by Marlo Thomas and co-creator Bill Persky
Part 2 of "The Creation of That Girl" featurettes, with Marlo Thomas.
Promos from That Girl.
Part 3 of "The Creation of That Girl" featurettes, with Marlo Thomas.
Newlywed couple Bob and Caroline Sommers seem to be enjoying their new life together. In this failed TV-pilot, Bob quits his job as an assistant at a law firm, and former model Caroline tries to go back to work in an effort to make ends meet by modeling maternity fashions, which makes Bob assume that his wife is hiding her pregnancy.
Newlywed couple Bob and Caroline Sommers seem to be enjoying their new life together. In this failed TV-pilot, Bob quits his job as an assistant at a law firm, and former model Caroline tries to go back to work in an effort to make ends meet by modeling maternity fashions, which makes Bob assume that his wife is hiding her pregnancy.
