The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1 – ABC

Created by Bill Persky and Sam Denoff

Theme music “That Girl Theme Song” by Earle Hagen and Sam Denoff

• 000. What’s in a Name? – UNAIRED 1965
  • Ann Marie is an aspiring actress living in New York City, and working at a fancy restaurant, where her mind is on waiting for a phone call from her agent and romantic interest Don Blue Sky to see whether she got a part in a TV series. She bounces between her customers (Douglas McCairn, Rance Howard, Owen Bush, Mary Foran) and the chef Charlie (Cliff Norton) and busboy Jimmy (Michael Hoffer) and winds up missing the call. However, she gets world from Jimmy that Don wants to see her, and he has good news: she got the part. He is concerned about her real name though, since everyone always expects that Marie is her middle name, rather than her last, and asks her to change it. She knows her father Lew (Harold Gould) will be devastated. but discusses it with her friends Charlotte (Shirley Bonne), Linda (Anne Whitfield), and Sharon (Jackie Joseph) until they land on Marie Brewster, her new last name inspired by her hometown. She thinks that her father might like this name, but when she calls home and runs it by her mother Helen (Penny Santon), she has no such luck. In fact, he comes to visit her and tells her that if she changes her name, he will no longer speak to her. Don offers to go home with her and help explain, but neither parent will listen to any reason. She films the scene which has her starring as a bank teller falling victim to an armed robber but loses her restaurant job in the process. On the night of the show’s premiere, she receives flowers from her father, which signify a truce, but not forgiveness, as the card is not addressed to any name. She decides to go home and watch her big premiere with her parents. She still gets a mostly cold shoulder from her father, but when the credits roll and she gets billing as “Ann Marie,” he lights up. She tells him that she only wanted to advance her career and not hurt him, but when she saw how it was eating him up, she decided to go back to her real name. Don is able to get her job back at the restaurant, but she has already accepted a job at Macy’s. Walter Sande is the desk clerk at her apartment Max Cochran. Joseph Azar is the actor in the TV show. Jerry Paris, the director of the episode, appears uncredited as the director of the show. 6/28/21

• 001. Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There – 9/8/1966
  • Ann Marie (Marlo Thomas) is an aspiring actress living in New York City, and working at a newsstand in an office building in the city. A TV commercial director named Sam (Ed Peck) and a cameraman named Ernie (Jerry Fogel) are scouting locations for a perfume commercial and want to use the building, and when they see Ann, the ask her if she’ll be in the commercial. The role call for her to be tied up and kidnapped as part of the commercial, and she excitedly agrees. Meanwhile she finds out from a secretary  named Shirley McChesney (Luana Anders) from Custom Interiors, a business that is going out of business and selling out their office supplies. Ann is interested in a roll top desk for her father, so goes up to see it during her lunch break. There she finds one of her customers, Donald Hollinger (Ted Bessell), a writer for News View magazine who works in the building, who is also interested in buying the desk. They argue over who should have it, but ultimately agree to each put down $10 so no one else gets it. That night, Ann films her commercial, but when Don sees her seemingly getting kidnapped, he intervenes, incapacities the ‘kidnappers’, and takes her up in the elevator. She reads him the riot act about ruining her career, but then later changes her mind and tells her apartment neighbor Judy Bessemer (Bonnie Scott) that he was very brave to do such a thing. She decides to reward him by letting him have the desk, but when the manager of Customer Interiors, Mr. Rudolph (Jack Goode), sees Ann, he immediately starts to make passes at her. Don walks in while he has her cornered, and thinks she is flirting with him in order to get the desk, and then storms out. Later she explains to him that she was actually in distress and he didn’t recognize it, and he tells her that he had gone up there to let her have the desk. Ann then unequivocally tells Mr. Rudolph to have the desk sent to Don. He then responds by asking her out to dinner, and when there is only one piece of the cake for dessert that they both want, this time they split it between them. Burt Taylor is the waiter. NOTE: Marlo Thomas addresses the audience and says that this episode was a ‘preview’ episode describing how she met her boyfriend, and the next episode would concentrate on how she left her parents to come to New York City. 6/27/21
• 002. Goodbye, Hello, Goodbye – 9/15/1966
  • Ann leaves her hometown of Brewster, New York to head to New York City four hours away to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress, despite the fact that her father Lew (Lew Parker) and mother Helen (Rosemary DeCamp) do not want her to leave. Ann arrives and moves her things into her apartment, and meets her neighbor Judy Bessemer, when Ann finds a neighbor’s mouse in her apartment. She then meets with her agent Harvey Peck (Ronnie Schell), who tells her that he’s gotten her a job appearing on the children’s show The Merry Moppateers, playing, of all things, a dancing mop. She also gets a job as a waitress in order to support herself. As she works on getting her apartment ready, she is surprised when her mother shows up and tell her that she has left her father after an argument. Ann tries to find out what the argument was about, but neither her father or mother will tell her. Ann performs on the show, and then asks her father to meet her at the restaurant after the show. She gets a message from her mother that she will also be coming to the restaurant at the same time. She finally get it out of them that they were arguing because her father wanted her mother to come to the city and stay with Ann so that she could spy on her. She refused to do it, and when they argued about it, her mother wound up coming to live there anyway. She lectures her parents about that she doesn’t wanted to be treated like a child, even though she knows they’ll always think of her as one. They finally agree, and both head home together. Later all three of them watch The Merry Moppateers episode together. Byron Morrow is Mr. Corcoran, the apartment doorman. J.B. Larson is the studio usher. Carol Worthington is the waitress, Janet. Joan Granville, Aileen Carlyle, Ivy Bethune, and Ogden Talbot are customers in the restaurant. Duke Stroud is show floor manager. 6/27/21
• 003. Never Change a Diaper on Opening Night – 9/22/1966
  • Ann has been the Benedict Workshop of the Dramatic Arts taught by the talented, but persnickety and perpetually grumpy Jules Benedict (Billy De Wolfe). No one he interviews for his class seems to be capable of attending his class, so he randomly picks Ann to audition for him that night at 8:15pm. Meanwhile, her neighbor Judy’s sister Margaret has been fighting non-stop with her husband, so she begs and pleads with Ann to watch her baby son Stanley so she can go to Larchmont and intervene. She reluctantly agrees to do it, if Judy promised to be home by 6:30. After trying to rehearse her lines all day while taking care of a crying Stanley, Judy calls her and tells her that she can’t leave just yet, but that Judy’s husband Leon (Dabney Coleman) will be home shortly. Leon does in fact show up and takes Stanley, but then brings him back because he gets a call that he has to deliver a baby. Judy calls again and says she still can’t get home but tells Ann that she can take Stanley to the audition. Ann ends up showing up with the baby, who keeps interrupting the audition, and Benedict keeps yelling at and insulting her. Finally, when he insults the baby, she reads him the riot act and tells him to forget the audition and that she wants nothing to do with someone so rude. As she packs up the baby in his office and gets ready to leave, Benedict comes in and offers her another time to audition for him after seeing her ‘performance’ yelling at him. He then offers her a spot, says she would present a real challenge for him, and that it will give him a chance to get even. 10/10/21
• 004. I’ll Be Suing You – 9/29/1966
  • Ann and Don rush into a small claims courtroom, which is presided over by a crotchety Judge (Robert Emhardt), who instructs the bailiff (James O’Rear) to call in the next parties: Arnold Lemming (Carl Ballantine) and Ann Marie. Ann is suing him for the damage he did to the car she borrowed from Don, while he is countersuing because he claims she hit him on foot and destroyed the sewing machine he was selling. She tells her story via flashback, when she asks Don to borrow his new car to pick up a rubber plant that her mother gave her. He is reluctant, thinking she might hit something. However, all goes well on her drive home until she tops at a light and pedestrian Lemming runs into her car with his sewing machine damaging her fender… while he is staring at a woman. Don is furious and won’t believe that it wasn’t her fault. She then decides to take Lemming to court in order to prove her innocence. She begins scouring the neighborhood for witnesses, visiting a shoe repairman (A.G. Vitanza), an antique saleslady (Ruth Perrott), and a butcher (Don Diamond). None of them witnessed the accident, but she leaves her name with all of them, and eventually someone gets hold of her through them and tells Ann that he has witnessed the accident and will meet her in court. She calls Don to the stand, who tells his part of the story, which amounts to nothing other than how angry he was initially that she crashed the car. The bailiff then announces that the witness has showed up… and it turns out to be priest Father John Morton (Sam Reese). Lemming has no choice but to accept his defeat, and Ann agrees to accept one of his sewing machines as payment, while she agrees to pay Don for the repairs herself. Rupert Crosse is the policeman. 10/10/21
• 005. Anatomy of a Blunder – 10/6/1966
  • Ann and Don plan to take a drive to visit Ann’s parents and pick up her stereo, and to stop on the way and have a leisurely picnic. Don is nervous about meeting Ann’s parents, and starts off by overdressing. On the way, Ann misses the toll booth slot when she tosses the coin in, which seems to be a harbinger of the chaos that will come. They find a place by a nice stream to have their picnic, but when Ann goes wading in the water and insists that Don join her, he steps on a bee with his bare foot and gets stung. Once he recovers from that, he realizes the hard way that the chopped liver sandwich she made contains horseradish, which causes his face to break out in blotches. While patting his back, Ann also knocks his contact lenses out of his eye. Ann then steps on one of them, and they can’t find the second one. Ann agrees to drive but realizes she can’t drive a stick shift. Don tries to guide her through handling the clutch, but she barely goes ten feet. Don decides they should go back and try to find the lens, but when he has to stop because he has something in his shoe, they realize it is the lens. Don can then see well enough to drive, but since he can only see out of one eye, he has no depth perception. Ann has to then guide him when to turn, and she manages to guide him into a muddy area off the side of the road. Don steps into the mud and has Ann drive the car while he pushes, leaving Don covered in mood when she gives the car too much gas. All the while, the Maries are waiting for Ann and Don to arrive, with Mr. Marie calling Don a ‘bum’ repeatedly. Eventually they show up with the help of a police officer, with Don limping, squinting, and covered in mud. Mr. Marie gives him clothes to change into, and decides he likes him well enough since he had so much bad luck. Don tries to assure him that he’s not as clumsy as he appears, but then sticks his entire hand into the dip bowl while trying to dip a chip. 4/5/22
• 006. Rich Little Rich Kid – 10/13/1966
  • Ann is paying for a traffic fine at the courthouse for parking in front of a fire hydrant, and as she’s complaining to the clerk (Paul Bryar), she meets a rich guy named Roddy Waxman (Sam Melville) who take her side. He winds up getting his license suspended, and since Ann doesn’t even have a car, he asks her if she’ll drive him home in his Rolls Royce. When he gets there, he has food and drinks waiting in the elevator for them, which he can do since he owns the building. Waxman keeps trying to get her to commit to going on a date with her, but she keeps declining. She tells Don about Waxman, and he knows the name for being one of the richest men in town. Waxman fills Ann’s apartment with flowers, and then buys out the theater for her next performance of A Preponderance of Artichokes so she will go out with him, but she makes him watch the entire play. Gus (Larry Hankin) the stagehand and all of the actors go home, so she does the play as a solo act. Waxman continues his pursuit of her the next day by sending over a gourmet lunch for her, while Don shows up and brings he hamburgers. She finally accepts a date with Waxman for dinner at the Purple Peacock, and although she has a nice time, she tries to put him off again. Don tries to step up his efforts by making reservations at the Purple Peacock himself, and is disappointed when he finds out she’s been there before. Waxman happens to be there as well and sends them over a $20 bottle of champagne. Don refuses to accept it and demands to pay for it himself… but then leaves himself with no money to pay for the rest of it after the Maitre D’ (Edmund Tontini) finally brings him a menu with prices on it. Don admits that he can’t compete financially with Waxman and is nearly ready to step aside, but Ann tells Waxman that she’s had a nice time with him, but find him to be too ‘unreal’ for her lifestyle. She tells Don she’s broken it off with Waxman, and they take their champagne and go back to her place for hotdogs and French fries. 4/5/22
• 007. Help Wanted – 10/20/1966
  • Ann has been having trouble finding a job, and Don has just lost his secretary who quits when she becomes pregnant. Judy suggests that Don hire Ann as the new secretary, and Ann thinks it is a great idea. However, Don does not, believing that they should keep their work and private life separate. Ann promises that she will be able to do that, but Don insists that since she will be shared by him and his co-worker Jerry Bauman (Bernie Kopell) that he would need to get Jerry’s approval. Jerry has no issue with it…even when Don tries to talk him out of it. From her first day onward, Jerry is anxious to find something wrong with her work, and he is constantly on pins and needles, when she ‘catches him’ laying down in his office, flirting with a co-worker on the phone, and arriving late to work. She also keeps opening his shades, and he likes it dark in order to think. Consequently, he gets very little done on her first day at work, and a crucial article is late to the managing editor of the magazine Mr. Hamlin. Don tries to rush through dictating it to Ann, who tries to correct all of his grammar as he is saying it. He gets irritated and tells her not to correct him. Therefore, she doesn’t correct his grammar when he sends the article up to Hamlin, and he gets chewed out. Don decides that Ann must be fired, and because of Don’s behavior when Ann is there, Jerry finally agrees. That night on their date, Don tells her about the trouble she caused and blames her for him almost getting fired. She gets irritated that he is so rigid and rude, that she breaks off their relationship. Not realizing he was firing her anyway, she shows up to work the next day. Don then gently breaks it to her by dictating a letter stating how he is crazy about her and that it causes him to behave poorly, jeopardize his career, and worst of all, affect his relationship. He then tells her that for this reason, she is fired. This time she goes along with it and even helps him find a new secretary named Terry. She tells Don and Judy that Terry is very attractive, but they are surprised when Terry (Bob Lindquist) turns out to be a man. Ogden Talbot is the messenger. Yuki Tani is the waitress. 8/5/22
• 008. Little Auction Annie – 10/27/1966
  • Ann, Don, and the Bessemers attend an auction where Ann is tempted into buying a box of bric-a-brac from the estate of a man named Jonathan Fox. The auctioneer (Stuart Nisbit) gets the price up to $7.50 and Ann buys it. Before she leaves the auction, a man going by the name of Johnson (Michael Conrad) offers to buy it for $30, but thinking that there must be something valuable in the box, Ann declines. When they get it home, most of it really does appear to be junk, but Mr. Johnson follows her home and again asks her if he can buy it for $50, and also offers her $10 for a mounted baseball that is in the box. While he is there, the neighbor Mrs. Morrisey (Dodo Denny aka Nora Denny) comes over in a panic because her little boy Patrick (Teddy Quinn) has locked himself in the bathroom. Mr. Johnson is able to help intervene and gets the boy out by putting a newspaper under the door, popping the key out with a coat hanger, and then sliding it back toward himself on the paper. He asks if Ann might show her appreciation by selling him the ball, but she says she’ll look more into it and think about it. That night when Ann and Don return from a date, they find the front door ajar and the baseball missing. Ann is sure that Mr. Johnson has stolen it, so she calls the police and they send over Officer Dombrowski (Ken Lynch). However as she is questioning Ann, Mrs. Morrisey comes over with the ball and tells Ann that she left it there during the locked door incident. Judy then finds a photo in the paper of Mr. Johnson among a group of FBI agents bringing in a spy. Since the spy is known as Mr. X, and the other agents are all named – and non are Johnson – they believe that Johnson is the spy. Ann and Don then bring the ball to Leon’s office so that he can x-ray it. Nothing appears to be inside, but he does make out the words “White House” on it. As Don and Ann, are getting ready to go see the FBI, Johnson shows up at the apartment. Ann and Don fear for their lives, but Johnson finally tell them that his real name is Charles “Chuck” Powers, current FBI officer and former baseball player. The ball in question was his only Major League homer, which won their team the pennant. The Hall of Fame now wants the ball, which had been caught by fan Jonathan Fox, who then tried to charge $1000 when Powers approached him to buy it. The “White House” written on the ball was actually “Whitey Houston,” the pitcher. In light of all of this, Ann simply gives him the ball to go to the Hall of Fame. Later, she and Judy try to divvy up the rest of the junk in the box, but Don swipes it all to send to the garbage. 8/6/22
• 009. Time for Arrest – 11/3/1966
  • Ann has been arrested and thrown in jail while wearing an incredibly skimpy leopard print dress. The sergeant (Dick Balduzzi) gives her a chance to make a phone call, so she chooses to call Don. He meets her at the station and is shocked to see her locked up and in such a scandalous dress. They are called into another room by Lieutenant Sylvestri (Richard X. Slattery) to be questioned about the evening’s events. She starts the story with her neighbor Margie (Jackie Joseph) asking for her to cover for at the restaurant where she works called The Cave, so she can go to a play audition. Ann is reluctant, but when she hears that she’ll make $25-$30, she decides to do it. She meets with the manager Mr. Lou (Bernie Allen), who sets her up as a coat check girl. An older employee named Marsha (Bella Bruck) gives her the skimpy outfit. She goes back to Mr. Lou to see if she can wear something more, and winds up in a conversation with a nice man in the office named Al Morganthaler (Milton Selzer), who offers to let her work in their private party room where she will feel less exposure. This is the man who the police want to know about, as they reveal that he is a big underworld gangster. Sylvestri explains that he is having dinner with a former mob partner named Eddie Parelle (Herb Edelman), who had a falling out with Al in the past, but they are now looking to reconcile. Eddie isn’t as warm to Al as Al is to Eddie. By the time the two and their men are ready for their desserts, they are one strawberry tart short for the men in Eddie’s gang. Eddie takes offense at this, but Al tries to smooth it over by bringing in a giant cake that has a lady known as Miss Friendship (Roxanne Arlen) inside. Eddie hits Al with a pie, which starts a huge brawl among the gangs. Ann climbs inside the cake to get out of harm’s way, and by the time she climbs out of the cake, the police are making arrests and take her in. Sylvestri is satisfied that Ann is innocent of any wrongdoing, and just glad that the gangs did not end up with a merger. Ann then takes some credit for that, since it was her who ate the strawberry tart. Johnny Silver is Joey the poker player. Charles Horvath is undercover cop bartender Dobbs. 12/2/22
• 010. Break a Leg – 11/10/1966
  • Ann’s old college friend Sandy Stafford (Sally Kellerman) comes to stay with her, as she has gotten a role in a Broadway show. Ann gets pains in her stomach when she thinks of how she’s gotten such a great job, while she still works in a bargain basement. Judy suggests that Sandy might be able to help her in her acting career, but Ann doesn’t even want to ask for such a favor. However, Sandy winds up asking Ann to be her understudy in the show. Ann feels awkward about accepting, but Sandy talks her into it and gets her an audition by the company manager, who happens to be Sandy’s boyfriend Jim Perryman (Robert Sampson). Ann gets with her agent George Lester (George Carlin) to rehearse the role, and Sandy and Jim come to visit her and hear her performance before they even enter the apartment. Sandy starts to get a little jealous when Jim is thrilled with her performance, and also mentions they were going to cast the role for a brunette until Sandy joined the cast with her blonde hair. Within minutes of Jim telling Ann that she got the part, Sandy falls down in the shower, stumbles out in front of a window that is stuck open in the cold, and gets wrapped up in Ann’s wool blanket that she’s allergic to. After a week of accidents directly or indirectly caused by Ann, she comes to the play’s opening night. When she visits Sandy in her dressing room, she fails to follow bad luck protocol by wishing Sandy good luck, whistling in the dressing room, and then breaking Sandy’s mirror. Ann skips the opening night party because she’s afraid she is subconsciously sabotaging Sandy because she wants the part. She decides that she’s going to back out from being her understudy. Sandy comes home early from the party because she isn’t feeling well. Sandy has Leon come over and examine her, and it turns out that Sandy has measles. This is a huge relief for Ann, as she hasn’t had measles, so she knows she didn’t cause the illness. Still, Sandy is faced with measles, so Ann has to go on as her understudy. She heads over to the theater, but the stage door employee Wesley “Pops” (David Fresco) tells her that the show closed on the same night as the opening. Still, he lets her go out and stand on the stage and lets her call him “Pops”. Ann gives Sandy the news and tells her that she’ll now be the understudy for her measles, coming in about ten days. Robert Sampson is Jim the autograph seeker. 12/2/22
• 011. What’s in a Name? – 11/17/1966
  • As Ann works as a waitress in a fancy restaurant, her mind is on waiting for a phone call from her agent Harvey to see whether she got a part in a TV episode. She bounces between her customers and the chef Charlie and busboy Jimmy and winds up missing the call. However, she gets world from Jimmy that Harvey wants to see her, and he has good news: she got the part. He is concerned about her real name though, since everyone always expects that Marie is her middle name, rather than her last, and asks her to change it. She knows her father will be devastated. but discusses it with her Judy, Leon, and Don as they celebrate her new job over champagne, until they finally land on Marie Brewster, with her new last name inspired by her hometown. She thinks that her father might like this name, but when she calls home and runs it by her mother, she has no such luck. In fact, he comes to visit her and tells her that if she changes her name, he will no longer speak to her. Don offers to go home with her and help explain, but neither parent will listen to any reason. She films the scene which has her starring as a bank teller falling victim to an armed robber but loses her restaurant job in the process. On the night of the show’s premiere, she receives flowers from her father, which signify a truce, but not forgiveness, as the card is not addressed to any name. She decides to go home and watch her big premiere with her parents. She still gets a mostly cold shoulder from her father, but when the credits roll and she gets billing as “Ann Marie,” he lights up. She tells him that she only wanted to advance her career and not hurt him, but when she saw how it was eating him up, she decided to go back to her real name. Harvey is able to get her job back at the restaurant, but she has already accepted a job at Macy’s. NOTE: This episode is reworked from the unaired pilot, with some new footage shot to incorporate different actors, but some scenes recycled from the original pilot. 5/21/23
• 012. Soap Gets in Your Eyes – 11/24/1966
  • Ann gets a job on a soap opera playing a homewrecking vixen named Sheila, who is destroying the lives of a character named Dr. Bruce Alden (Steve Franken) and his kindly father-in-law Dr. Randall played by an actor named George (Kurt Kasznar). The director (Stevenson Phillips) tells her how great she is playing such a despicable character and that the job could go on for months. Judy tells her how popular and famous she could become playing this role. Sol (Joseph Mell), owner of the local delicatessen even wants to put her picture up. During her lunch with Don, a woman named Rose (Marjorie Bennett) recognizes her… but it turns out she knows her as a friend of Ann’s mother. Meanwhile, Don’s parents fly in for a visit to New York, and Ann suggests that they all go out for dinner at Rocky’s. Although Don’s father Harold (George Cisar) is nice enough, his mother Mildred (Mabel Albertson) seems to take an instant dislike to her, making passive aggressive comments and talking about other women who are crazy about Don. By the time the dinner is over, Ann is quite upset by how much she seems to dislike her. This leads to a fight between her and Don as well. Later, when Don visits with his parents, he finds out exactly why she doesn’t care for Ann: she associates with her character of Sheila on the soap opera she watches. She believes no one could be so despicable if she didn’t have that behavior at her core already. However, Mildred really likes the character of Dr. Randall. Ann gets the idea to have the actor George over to a dinner party to put in a good word for Ann. During the party, Mildred is smitten by George, but soon starts to be put off by the excessive amount of alcohol that he drinks. By the end of the night, he is stone cold drunk, so Don sends him home in a cab. Ann is very upset by the evening and apologizes for George’s behavior. Mildred tells her that it became obvious that if Dr. Randall could be so different in real life, then Ann could too. Don surmises that his mother and Ann will get along after all, but she still manages to complain about the dessert that Ann made. After his parents are on the plane back home, Ann tells Don she’s no longer worried about Sheila making her unappealing, as Sheila has a cough in the next script which means she’ll probably be killed off within a couple of weeks. Geoff Edwards is the T.V. announcer. 5/22/23
• 013. All About Ann – 12/1/1966
  • When Judy tells Ann that she spotted Don going to lunch with another woman, Ann tries to pretend that it doesn’t upset her. However, after she learns that the woman was her friend from acting class Sheila Harmon (E.J. Peaker), Ann starts to get more and more angry. She tries to get either of them to confess that they saw each other for lunch, but having Sheila try to improvise dialogue as an acting exercise and asking her where she had eaten lunch the day before. She also asks Don to take her to lunch that afternoon, but he declines. When Don mentions to his co-worker Jerry Bauman that he’s bringing a woman who is not Ann to lunch, this piques Jerry’s curiosity as well. Don tells Jerry that he is working on a magazine article about Ann called All About Ann and is using Sheila to take some candid photos of Ann in acting class for him. He then asks Ann if he can come over that night to see her in order to take some photos of her at home, but he doesn’t get past the front door, as she hands him his belongings and slams the door in his face. Judy also is quick to criticize him, so he tells Judy the reason for the lunches with Sheila. Judy feels bad for spreading the gossip in the first place but promises Don that she won’t spill the beans about the article. He doesn’t want Ann to get her hopes up about it in case it falls through. Judy convinces Ann to meet Don at his office for lunch the next day and promises her that she will be happy with the results. However, while she is there, she asks his secretary Miss Cleary (Marti Litis) if she can use the phone. She then overhears a conversation between Don and Sheila that gives Ann the wrong impression once again that he is going to break it off with her in favor of Sheila. Ann leaves the office, now angry at Don, Sheila, and Judy. She heads to acting class and is asked by her teacher Mr. Slocum (Howard Morton) to do an improvisation exercise with Sheila, pretending that they are nurses reporting to work. Ann is quick to turn the conversation toward Sheila having an affair with one of the ‘doctors’. Don slips in and overhears the accusations, so he pulls her aside and shows her the article that has been approved to appear in Newsview magazine. Ann is both thrilled and apologetic, and even invites Sheila to join them for lunch. Later, Don delivers the finished magazine to her and sees that she is putting back together the photo of him that Judy had ripped up. Ann notes that it is sentimental of her to have kept the pieces. Rob Reiner is Ann’s classmate Chuck. 9/21/23
• 014. Phantom of the Horse Opera – 12/8/1966
  • Ann awakens one night, having had a nightmare about the Wolfman, Dracula, and Frankenstein, all with a background of spooky organ music. She goes and gets Judy so that she can hear it too. They agree that it is coming from the apartment that sits next to Ann’s. That evening, Ann and Don have Leon and Judy over to play Charades, and Ann enacts The Phantom of the Opera in reference to the organ music they are all hearing. After the Bessemers leave, Don agrees to accompany Ann to go talk to the neighbor about not playing the music so late. They find that the apartment is occupied by a nice, older man named Everett Valentine (Sterling Holloway), a former movie palace organist, who has collected his own theater organ, movie props and photos, and his own collection of old silent films to which he plays organ accompaniment to every night. His most recent screening was naturally The Phantom of the Opera. Ann doesn’t have the heart to tell him to stop playing music, so instead she sets her sights on finding him a job so that he can do what he loves, one that he hasn’t been able to do since the talkies came into being in 1929. Ann fails to interest her own agent in signing him up. She moves from her Tots & Toddlers area in the department store to go and talk to the organ saleslady (Reta Shaw) to see if he can be a demonstrator, but the saleslady is doing that job herself. Everywhere she checks that might require an organ player are using pre-recorded organ tracks. That night, she notices that it is 9:30pm and Mr. Valentine isn’t playing the organ. Ann is worried, and Don gets the idea to write an article about Valentine for his Newsview magazine. They go over to see him and find him humming along to a William S. Hart western. He says he had to stop playing the organ since he got so many complaints. Don asks him some questions for the article but is concerned that his editor might not be crazy about the idea. Later, Don calls to report that the article is a go, so on the day of release, Ann runs to the newsstand to pick up several copies. When Ann goes to deliver it, she finds that his apartment is completely empty except for a garbage can containing a copy of the new Newsview. Don gets a visit from an officer named Vernon Lyons (William Sargent), who is looking for Valentine because he has warrants for his arrest in seven states, for stealing organs and memorabilia, bouncing checks, bigamy, alimony payments, and theft. Ann later gets a letter from Mr. Valentine who is now serving his sentence in Sing Sing where he is the prison organist. Violet Carlson is the vacuum customer. Phil Arnold is the tobacco shop man. NOTE: Maxine Stuart is credited as the manager but does not appear in the episode. 9/22/23
• 015. Beware of Actors Bearing Gifts – 12/15/1966
  • Ann’s acting group is rehearsing the play Murder in Connecticut, and a newer actor named Hobart Niles (Bruce Hyde) is portraying a corpse. Socially awkward, he gives Ann an expensive watch as a token of his new friendship with her. She doesn’t want to accept it, but he insists, telling her that he has trouble making friends and likes to give gifts before he actually becomes friends with someone. Ann decides to invite him over for dinner with Don present so that she can return the gift, and then invite him back again so he can see that they can be friends without any gifts. During his visit, he tries to talk her out of the gift, mentioning that if he keeps giving gifts, he will go broke. He says not to worry, as he’s not buying them but rather stealing them. Ann then finds that many of the folks in their class have received gifts from his, so she tells them that they’re all ‘hot’ gifts. She gathers them up and returns them to the Lost and Found clerk (James Millhollin) at the department store, telling him that she found all of them in Central Park. Much to her surprise and irritation, when she gets home, she finds that there has been a new color TV delivered from Zip’s appliance store. She and Don then attempt to return the TV and speak to the owner Stanley Zip (Billy Gray). Unable to tell him who the purchaser is, Zip looks it up by the serial number and finds that Hobart did in fact pay for the TV. Ann now suspects that Hobart is rich, so she gets his address from her acting teacher Jules Benedict, who is anxious to have Hobart spread the wealth to his school. Ann and Don go to see him at his mansion, where he tells them that his father is rich, and he gets an allowance. Having been raised under the thumb of his parents in North Dakota, he now hopes to be his own man and become a director rather than actor. He explains that by telling people that he stole their gifts, it makes him seem more exciting. Ann suggests that they arrange a meeting between Hobart and Mr. Benedict since Hobart clearly has money to invest in the theater. Sure enough, this works like a charm, and the next time they are rehearsing the play, Hobart is directing while Benedict is playing the corpse. Ann is sure she made the right decision, as Hobart is hounding her performance just as hard as Benedict ever did. Lloyd Kino is Hobart’s houseboy. Ben Lessy is the Waiter. Burt Taylor is actor Frank. Carol O’Leary is actress Jane. 1/21/24
• 016. Christmas and the Hard-Luck Kid – 12/22/1966
  • Ann is working as Santa’s helper in a department store at Christmas, and as Don waits to meet up with her for lunch, he runs into a lady named Mrs. Phillips (June Vincent) who is bringing a gift for Ann and claims that her son Tommy (Chris Shea) spent a Christmas with Ann once. Don is naturally curious, so Ann tells him the story of Tommy, flashing back several years when she was working as a teacher at a boys’ boarding school. As a popular teacher, Ann receives a gift of a bug collection for Christmas from student Roger Green (Gerald Michenaud aka Jean-Michel Michenaud). Tommy confides in Ann that he’s worried that he’ll have to stay at the campus over Christmas break because his parents are busy in the movie business shooting a film. Sure enough, the school’s headmaster Mr. Merriman (John Fiedler) tells Ann that this fear has come to pass, and that Tommy will be staying with the Mr. Carson (Don Keefer), the school’s custodian. Ann offers to take Tommy home with her for the holidays, but Merriman says that the school’s policy won’t allow it. Instead, Ann decides to stay with Tommy and try to brighten his Christmas. She phones her father and tells him that she won’t be coming home this year. Since Ann is staying, Mr. Carson ends up leaving for his holiday, leaving Ann to do some of the caretaker duties. Ann and Tommy spend the holiday break playing Checkers, eating jelly sandwiches, and re-decorating the tree until it all becomes quite tedious. The only time Tommy really brightens up is when Roger, who lives nearby, comes over to use the gymnasium and winds up playing with Tommy all day. Tommy then becomes depressed when Roger had to leave. Ann calls Tommy’s parents and asks if it might be possible to have Tommy come and spend Christmas day with them, even though it means that she will be spending Christmas completely alone. This all works out, and Tommy comes back with a new toy truck, thrilled that Roger’s family had Christmas just for them since they are in fact Jewish. Back in the current time, Don tells Marie how unselfish and kind her act was, but she doesn’t have any more time to talk about it, as the department store Santa is in need of her when he gets saddled with a wailing kid. 1/21/24

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