Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Party Girl: Cast Photo

Party Girl aired from September 9-30, 1996 on Fox.

Lust in the library. Mary ( Christine Taylor) was a free-spirited young woman living the Manhattan social life to the hilt. At night she partied with her friends, but during the day she worked as a clerk at the New York Public Library for her late mother's uptight best friend, and her surrogate mother , Judy ( Swoosie Kurtz). Also working for Judy was Wanda ( Merrin Dungey), who found Mary's flower child attitude a bit hard to take and training her in the Dewey Decimal System almost impossible. Mary's artsy friends included Derrik ( John Cameron Mitchell), a cynical gay assistant fashion stylist who ogled Mary's dates and Oneal ( Matt Borlenghi), a rather dense one-time boxer working as a bartender at the neighborhood restaurant where Judy and her friend hung out.

Based on the 1995 feature film of the same name.

Party Girl by Night, Library Clerk by Day

By CARYN JAMES
Published: September 9, 1996

Whatever anyone imagines about young partygoers in downtown Manhattan, one thing's for sure: they don't come with a hokey Hollywood laugh track. ''Party Girl'' is a sometimes appealing but sanitized sitcom about Mary, party creature by night, library clerk by day. The relentless laugh track is the first clue that the series has more to do with Hollywood than SoHo.

The show (which begins tonight on Fox), is based on a small independent film of the same name, which was never terribly daring to begin with. Any sharpness has been smoothed away for television. Mary and her friends talk endlessly about drinking, but never get drunk; they make knowing references to long-ago loss of virginity, but never seem to have sex. ''Party Girl'' is as sweetly innocent as ''Clueless,'' the film that seems to provide its true inspiration. (ABC's official spinoff, called ''Clueless,'' comes along next week.)

Mary is played with a good deal of charm by Christine Taylor (Marcia in the ''Brady Bunch'' movies), who even looks a bit like Alicia Silverstone in the film version of ''Clueless.'' The characters share a sense that a wardrobe can be an art form.

In tonight's episode, Mary goes to work for her godmother, Judy (Swoosie Kurtz), at a branch library, and has trouble learning the Dewey Decimal System.

''A trained monkey learned it on PBS in a matter of hours,'' Judy says impatiently.

''But you never hear about the monkeys who died trying,'' Mary says, in one of the show's better, fresher lines.

More often, Mary is surrounded by cliched characters. ''I'm tired of fabulous,'' says her friend Derrick (John Cameron Mitchell), a fashion stylist.

Next week's episode is better, suggesting the series has promise. Ms. Kurtz comes into her own as the librarian, with comic body language that reveals her lust for books. Mary gets stuck in a medieval chastity belt on exhibit at the library. All the sexual innuendo is handled in a clean-cut way. The show is most likely to appeal to very young teen-age girls, to whom Mary will seem older and more glamorous than life itself.

For a Website dedicated to Christine Taylor go to http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/4229/christinetaylor.html

For more on Party Girl go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_Girl_(TV_series) and for the feature film go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_Girl_%281995_film%29