248: That Girl Meets the Cross-Dressing Cops

"A Muggy Day in Central Park" (November 14, 1968)

A contemporary of Bewitched, That Girl aimed for a more sophisticated audience than most sitcoms of its era. Not only does it look more cinematic, in a way that sitcoms generally wouldn't until the 2000s, but it's also more clearly a feminist show, where Marlo Thomas plays a woman braving big city life on its own. This episode does that tired thing where gay men, cross-dressers, trans woman and drag queens are conflated down to a single thing, but it’s nonetheless interesting to see how a progressive show handles queer things fairly explicitly in the ’60s.

Listen to the Monday Afternoon Movie episode about the Ted Bessell thriller Scream, Pretty Peggy.

Episode artwork by Ian O’Phelan.