Happy Girls on the Tube
by Will Somers
Mr Somers spots some girls worth looking for when channel surfing, renting videos, or programming your Tivo.
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Happy Girls on the Tubeby Will SomersMr Somers spots some girls worth looking for when channel surfing, renting videos, or programming your Tivo. Last updated on |
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Compared to just about any other cultural group, young girls in short skirts are sadly under-represented in video media. Despite the valuable contributions of a handful of producers like Sherwood Schwartz and Dan Schneider, and kid-focused channels like Disney and Nickelodeon, fans of Happy Girls have to search high and low for something fun to watch.
Fortunately, Tivo and similar products make the search much easier. Tivo's "Wish List" and "Season Pass" makes the box do the searching for you. It's much easier and more reliable than scanning the weekly TV listings. Best of all, if you're searching for an active starlet like Dakota Fanning, the Tivo will ferret out guest star gigs as well as the well-known motion picture roles, without making you scan every single episode of painfully lame shows like "The View."
A priceless source of info about Happy Girl starlets is, of course, the Child Starlets web site. It's a treasure trove of "vidcaps," that is, still frames captured from video feeds. The quality isn't great since traditional video is only a few hundred pixels high, but it's enough to see what's in the movie or TV show.
So here is my own list of starlets, in order alphabetically by first name. For each starlet, I give the birth year and the years of their "prime career" as a Happy Girl.
The number of stars gives my personal rating, backed up a little commentary. I give 4 stars to slender young girls who wear short skirts in numerous well-shot scenes. If the girl is less attractive, or wears less interesting clothing, or appears in fewer scenes, then they lose stars.
For those who don't use Tivo, here are a couple of important terms to understand: The "Wish List” is used to list your favorite actors, actresses, directors, and words that show up in either favorite show descriptions or in their titles. You can browse entries in your "Wish List" and get a list of all upcoming shows that match one of the entries. A "Season Pass" is a command to Tivo to automatically record every show with a particular name or every show that matches a "Wish List" entry. I limit my Season Passes to only the most important or elusive shows and starlets, since otherwise the machine fills up with shows and starts throwing the older ones away before I have time to look at them.
Here's a name that few might recognize and, in fact, my Tivo doesn't always recognize it. Alexa plays Nicole, who was Jamie Lynn Spears' boarding school roommate in the first couple of seasons of "Zoey 101" (2005). I was sorry to see her disappear from the show, though Zoey has never had a shortage of Happy Girl roommates.
Why is Alexa a Happy Girl? Well, she has long, straight hair (which I love, compared to Jamie Lynn's shorter hair), she's a year younger (it shows), and she's more likely to wear a skirt. She plays the clueless, boy-crazy preteen perfectly.
"Zoey 101" isn't Alexa's first work. She's done guest roles on TV shows since she was 7, but I haven't seen any of them so far.
Someday I may add Zoey's two later roommates to this list: Erin Sanders (playing Quinn, the ongoing geek-girl character who moved in when Nicole left, allegedly for being too "boy crazy") and Victoria Justice (who moved in second season). Both are slender Happy Girls with long hair, long legs, and a pleasing tendency to wear short skirts.
Perhaps Dan Schneider's first Happy Girl success was to create "The Amanda Show" (1999). Dan also worked with Amanda on the show "All That" (1996). Tall and slim, Amanda still looks great in a short skirt, even past her teens. Both of her early shows had fine Happy Girl moments. "The Amanda Show" is 100% about being silly, and she wears short skirts pretty often while doing it (though not quite enough to earn a 4th star). She's a bit too old to be a Happy Girl in "What a Girl Wants" (2003), but she has a terrific wardrobe. Perhaps Amanda would get a 4th star if they would show reruns of her in "All That."
Okay, I don't remember seeing Brooke prance around in short skirts in any of her movies, but she's worn her share of lingerie in front of the camera, some of it delightfully short. For reasons passing comprehension, Brooke's mom arranged for her preteen daughter to pose in short nightwear, frilly lingerie, and even nude, for several "fashion" photo shoots. While this isn't something you'll capture on your Tivo, it's worth knowing about. Prints crop up regularly on eBay.
On video, a favorite Brooke scene appears towards the end of "Pretty Baby" (1978) where she's sitting on the porch step eating a sweet roll while wearing an A-line chemise whose ruffled hem falls several inches short of her knee. While at 15 she's getting kind of old to be a Happy Girl, I also give her some credit for the time she spends wearing satin camisoles in "Endless Love" (1981). As for her role as Emmeline in "The Blue Lagoon" (1980), I prefer the scenes played by the younger girl, Elva Josephson.
How can we describe Miss Dakota Fanning? The wunderkind of Millennial Hollywood, perhaps? Actually, she hasn't played Happy Girls very often in her many films. She wears some terrific skirts in "Uptown Girls" (2003) but her character is too crabby to be a Happy Girl. She wears a nice little school uniform and a cute swimsuit in "Man on Fire" (2004) but the movie is too dark for a Happy Girl. In "Dreamer" (2005) she plays an appealing character but too often her skirts are worn with heavy tights or even pants underneath. That's fine for the stable, but that's not Happy Girl fashion.
Some of Dakota's best Happy Girl stuff actually hasn't been for formal productions as such. It's been in her talk show appearances and a few red carpet events. Go visit the Lovely Dakota web site and browse the photo gallery. You'll see what I mean: she wears these lovely, short dresses of silky fabrics. If the dress is longer she twirls for the cameras! Now that's a Happy Girl!
Emily appears in the series "Hannah Montanna" (2006) as Lilly, the best friend to the title character (played by Miley Cyrus). Lilly's character is a blonde with nice, long legs. A favorite scene is from the episode "Mascot Love" (episode 1.8) where she's dressed in her short little cheerleader skirt and sitting on the sofa with her long, slim legs stretched out on the coffee table.
Neice to Julia Roberts, Emma is notable for her show, "Unfabulous," though she's been in a couple of movies, too. "Unfabulous" is about a tween entering junior high with a couple of friends, lots of angst, and a tendency to write songs when something bothers her. She wears some nice, short skirts on occasion. A favorite scene (from the "Book Club" episode, I think) has her sneaking out of the house through the dog door, wearing a nice, short skirt, which gets snagged on the way out.
I only wish she wore skirts on "Unfabulous" as often as her middle school gal friend and her mean-girl classmates. There aren't quite as many gorgeous young girls in the background of "Unfabulous" as there are on "Zoey 101," but after all it's not set in southern California.
Emma has some early movies out there I haven't seen. The only one I've seen is "Grand Champion," in which she sports a short little cheerleader outfit and dances around appropriately.
Evan has two or three interesting bits of work that I've seen. In "Down Will Come Baby" (1999) she plays a preteen who is stalked by the mother of a friend who dies. Not much with short skirts, but she wears a two piece swimsuit in one scene, and runs around in a knee-length ruffled nighty later on. She's so cute that I have to overlook the movie's creepy events. For a slender Evan in short skirts, go see "Little Secrets" (2001) where she's a junior high graduate who provides an odd service to younger children in the neighborhood.
I suspect she's got more interesting stuff out there, but I haven't seen it. In "Digging to China" (1998) she plays a precocious kid who hangs out with a retarded young adult - not really a Happy Girl movie, but interesting anyway. I've never seen her TV series work in "Profiler" (1996) or "Once and Again" (1999).
OK, some people might be asking "Where's Marcia?" since I'm listing Jan Brady and skipping her notorious big sister (those who ask probably haven't read my stories of The Real Brady Bunch). Anyway, think about it: Marcia always played Little Miss Perfect. She was whiny, but she was rarely awkward or clumsy, and that's half the charm of young girls. If Sherwood Schwartz was going to dress a girl in a short skirt, perch her awkwardly atop a bicycle, and crash her into a wall, it had to be Jan (Episode 3.13, "The Not-So-Rose-Colored Glasses").
The kid sister of pop superstar Britney, Jamie got her start on "All That" (2002). Then Dan Schneider stepped forward and created the TV series "Zoey 101" (2005) for her. The series follows a group of preteens attending a private boarding school named Pacific Coast Academy (PCA). Like most girls at PCA, the character Zoey often wears short skirts to class and around campus (that is, when not in a swimsuit trying to get a tan on the roof).
There's something a bit too tomboy about the young Jodie Foster: her face isn't very girlish and her low voice has always had a bit of hoarseness to it. In fact, she's the voice of Pugsly Addams (the little boy!) in an animated version of "The Addams Family" from the mid 70s. 'Nuff said there.
But she wears ridiculously short little girlie dresses in "Napoleon and Samantha" (1972). Then she strips naked and hops into bed with her boyfriend when playing a 13 year old in "Little Girl who Lives Down the Lane" (1976). And don't forget those posh satin gowns she wears as a moll in "Bugsy Malone" (1976). Okay, yeah, I should mention that she plays a hooker in "Taxi Driver" (1976) but I've never been a fan of hooker clothing, especially the short shorts Jodie wears in that film.
Jodie isn't on my Season Pass list because she's too successful - I'd like to skip the later stuff but I can't. And, in any case, you can get all her best stuff on video these days.
I might never have known about Margaret O'Brien except that the creator of the Child Starlets web site is so clearly a fan. His collection of vidcaps from her movies made it obvious she played a Happy Girl.
Rumor has it that directors loved to hire Margaret because she could cry convincingly on cue. Despite this, she's a quintessential Happy Girl. Most of her characters were adorably happy. In keeping with child fashions of the 1940s, she always wore really short dresses. Perhaps my favorite of her movies is "The Unfinished Dance" (1947) since it follows the lives of some preteen ballet dancers through the theater, the locker room, and the outside world. One of the locker room scenes includes a catfight between girls wearing slips, of all things.
OK, they're rich and they just about invented the tween media market. Kudos for that.
On the other side, they almost never wore short skirts! At times I wondered if they were hiding something. There's a cute scene in "It Takes Two" (1995) where one of them wears a satin nighty, but even that garment is ankle length. Most of the time they're wearing pants, shorts, or calf-length skirts. Who wears calf length skirts, except overweight 40somethings? When I watch their videos, especially "School Dance Party," I find myself admiring the other girls in their short little skirts, and getting annoyed when one of the "starring" Olsen Twins gets in the way. There are some nice moments in "New York Minute" (2004), but you have to forget they're 18 years old.
Let me pay homage to the first princess (queen?) of the silver screen. Mary Pickford played a huge range of roles, but some of her most popular were as little girls: "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," "Little Annie Roonie," "Pollyanna," and so on. The 'magic of the silver screen' (and the low quality film of the time) helped her play child parts into her thirties.
To be honest, I haven't seen her in a true Happy Girl role, but her work in "Daddy Long Legs" and brief clips I've seen from "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" give me great hope in that direction.
The world of the preteen makes so much sense after "Clarissa Explains it All" (1991). She wore more than her share of nice skirts, and managed to look like a preteen Happy Girl even the last season when they were supposed to be graduating from high school. One of the other treats she appeared in was the TV movie "Family Reunion" (1995) in which she played a young girl running away from her scheming family. MJH and her romantic costar come across as junior high kids in the movie, though to tell the truth, both were closer to high school graduation.
MJH is almost a Happy Girl in the first season of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" (1996) but she's really a shade too old. When I search for her on my Tivo, all I seem to see are "Sabrina" reruns. If her earlier stuff was on more often, she might get that 4th star.
Miley Cyrus stars (with her father, CW star Billy Ray Cyrus) in the tween sitcom "Hannah Montanna" (2006). Am I the only one amused by the fact that Dakota Fanning's first name is Hannah, and that the Dakotas are just east of Montana? Coincidence? Conspiracy? People want to know!
Miley is delightfully slim and not afraid to wear short skirts. I fell in love with the show during the pilot when Miley sat down on the wide steps leading up to the family piano, with those long, slender legs stretched out in front of her from that short little skirt.
I haven't seen all of her work, but "The Innocents" (1961) was an interesting film worth mentioning, as was her role in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1969). In the latter she's a nineteen year old who does a reasonable job of playing a much younger girl: in an early scene she's a preteen being hit on by her art teacher, and in a later one at "sixteen" she's the teacher's mistress. In the mistress scene we see her start out nude and then dress herself in her school uniform. Not a short skirt, and it involves dark stockings, but I'm counting it anyway.
Pam Ferdin was never in a series, nor was she a regular on the silver screen. But I recorded her on an episode of the "Odd Couple" (1972, episode "Good Bad Boy") where she wears a cute dress to a preteen dance. Preteen dance scenes are always worth checking out. Also, I like the birthday party episode ("Surprise, Surprise"). She's also been in a "Green Acres" episode. A not-so Happy Girl role of hers was in "The Beguiled" (1971). Set at a southern girls' school during the Civil War, Pam played a precocious preteen who spent camera time in her nighty (unfortunately long and of cotton).
Here's the child star we all remember from the earliest days of talking movies. Her best Happy Girl scene is probably the courtroom dance sequence in "Little Miss Broadway" (1938) when she's tap dancing across the fake skyline in a breathtakingly short, pleated babydoll dress.
The only thing running against dear little Shirley is that her thighs are a bit too plump for my taste. Counterbalancing the plumpness, though, is that the whole world knows how plump her thighs are, thanks to those short little babydoll dresses she made famous.
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