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This 1960s comedy has achieved a modicum of notoriety for its premise. A poor American working for a talent agency meets a beautiful British actress and, after posing as a female model for his brother, travels to England and is forced to pretend to be a woman. Cross-dressing at its best? Perhaps not. But the theme song is memorable and the sheer inanity of the series has kept it alive almost forty years after it came and went.

The Ugliest Girl in Town

One thing The Ugliest Girl In Town has going for it -- perhaps the only thing -- is its theme song. Sung by the Wall-o-Bees, the theme is a catchy little ditty that no one who hears it will ever be able to forget it. Many viewers who watched it when they were children in the 1960s can still recall the lyrics. Aside from its theme song, The Ugliest Girl In Town holds the dubious distinction of being one of television's famously awful programs.

The premise behind the series is both ludicrously complex and complexly ludicrous: In America, a young man fall in love with a young British model. When she is called back to London, he decides to follow her, posing as a female model in order to stay by her side. Thus the young man becomes the ugliest girl in town.

In what can only be described as a shockingly ill-advised attempt at marketing, The Ugliest Girl In Town was sponsored by Yardley of London, a high-end cosmetics company, with Screen Gems producing under the aegis of Harry Ackerman (who also produced The Flying Nun and Bewitched, among other shows). Yardley described the series as "a wild, way out, fun-filled romp" [1].

Peter Kastner starred in The Ugliest Girl in Town as Timothy Blair, a young man working at the Harper Talent Agency in the lowest possible capacity: he gets sandwiches and makes delivery. While bringing a contract to Julie Renfield (played by Patricia Blake), a British actress filming a horror movie in the United States, Timothy falls madly in love with her.

After going to extraordinary lengths to get her to notice him, Julie and Timothy fall madly in love with one another. Sadly for the new lovebirds, only a day after meeting, Julie is to return to her native England. Timothy doesn't make enough money to join her (his paycheck is only $97 a week). On their first and only date he had to tip the waiter with his watch.

Enter Gene Blair, Timothy's brother (played by Gary Marshall), a photographer who has just been contracted to snap pictures of hippies for a London magazine. Somehow, Gene screws up the assignment and dresses his brother in a hippy outfit, snaps a few rolls of film and sends them off to the magazine. The folks at the magazine go wild over the photographs of Timmy. Only, they think the hippie in the photographs is a female model named Timmie!

Julie Renfield

In the face of this confusion, Timothy and Gene decided to pack their bags and fly to London for two weeks. It's the perfect way for Timothy to stay close to Julie, after all, and what could possibly go wrong? The two are met by David Courtney of Courtney Talent Agency (played by Nicholas Parsons) and Julie waiting for them. Julie doesn't recognize Timothy in his Timmie outfit at first, but eventually figures things out.

Timothy (as Timmie) and Julie go off on a wild modeling tour of London. That evening, he attends a party thrown by Mr. Courtney (also as Timmie). Gene, meanwhile, has fallen for Sondra Wolston (played by Jenny Till), Mr. Courtney's pretty assistant. Two weeks later, Timothy and Gene are set to return to the States but Gene, somehow, has racked up quite a lot of debt so the two (and Timmie) are forced to stay in England so Timmie can pay of his brother's debt.

Gene Blair

When Mr. Courtney stumbles upon the charade, he threatens to throw Timothy out what's really going on and threatens to throw he doesn't continue pretending to be Timmie so Courtney can make his money back. Therefore, the rouse continues and Timothy gets to stay in England with Julie.

This silly premise meant the writers had little trouble coming up with plots for episodes. What would happen if Timothy, posing as Timmie, was stuck in this situation? Or this one? Or that one? And so on and so forth.

For example, what would happen if Timmie were to sing? Or to pose nude? Plots were silly, but then again, so was the series. Poor Gene's gambling problem came back to bite the brothers in the bum. Another episode saw Timothy being called up for National Guard duty while still in London. Timmie would model by day and Timothy would be with Julie by night.

All in all, The Ugliest Girl In Town was the epitome of sixties pop culture, with outrageous hats and outfits, bright colors, and trippy music. And it was filmed in London so at least the scenery was real.

Sondra and Gene

The series was given a tentative Wednesday timeslot by ABC in February of 1968 before eventually finding its way to Thursdays from 7:30-8PM, where it would compete with Daniel Boone on NBC and a new comedy, Blondie, on ABC [2]. For the most part, television critics were savage in their reviews of The Ugliest Girl In Town, with James Doussard of The Louisville Courier-Journal writing that the series is "as humorous as terminal cancer" [3].

Ben Gross of The New York Daily News stated that he "couldn't believe any of it" while Harry Harris of The Philadelphia Inquirer said that it had "some basically distasteful overtones" [4]. The New York Times' Richard F. Shepard wrote that the series was "the most vapid half-hour in the nation last night" and Newsweek's Harry F. Waters suggested it was the "first television series aimed directly at the 12-year-old transvestite" [5].

Not all the critics were entirely negative, however. In its review, Time argued that "here and there [it] amusingly needles the fashion pacesetters" [6]. Bevo Baker of The Dallas Morning News wrote that "it's funny in spite of a permise which is still raising eyebrows;" Lawrence Laurent of The Washington Post felt it was "better done than most of the original retreads of this season;" and Rick DuBrow of UPI said it was a "wild, half-hour comedy" [7].

The premiere episode of The Ugliest Girl In Town, aired Thursday, September 26th, 1968, drew a lowly 16 share in the New York City overnight Nielsens (covering just that city's viewers) and a third-place 22.9 share in the 26-city overnight Trendex report (covering 26 cities where all three networks competed) [8]. The following week's episode did bettery, with a 24 share in New York City (ranking first in its timeslot) and a 27.3 Trendex share (ranking second in its timeslot) [9].

According to "fast" national Nielsen ratings covering the first week of the new season (September 23rd through September 29th), the premiere of The Ugliest Girl in Town ranked 70th out of 86 programs [10]. It should be noted that during that first episode, The Ugliest Girl in Town faced the first half-hour of a two-hour Ironside episode, not its regular Daniel Boone competition.

In New York City, the October 10th episode could only muster a 14 share from 7:30-8PM, slightly better than the 9 share local programming drew on ABC from 10:30-11PM that same evening [11]. The writing was on the wall. In mid-November, ABC revised its Wednesday, Thursday and Friday schedules and The Ugliest Girl in Town was cancelled [12]. The Flying Nun would move to fill the 7:30-8PM timeslot. The final episode of The Ugliest Girl in Town was broadcast Thursday, January 30th, 1969. A total of 17 episodes were aired (three others were reportedly filmed but never shown by ABC).

Perhaps one reason for The Ugliest Girl in Town's lack of success was the number of stations airing it. In September of 1968, the series was cleared on 162 stations, compared 217 for Bewitched, 212 for The Flying Nun and 210 for That Girl [12]. On the other hand, ABC's Here Come the Brides, seen on only 152 stations when it premiered in September of 1968, fared better than The Ugliest Girl in Town and was renewed for the 1969-1970 season.

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