ABSTRACT
During 1965, teenage girls seemed to take over the airwaves: Patty Lane and
her Scottish cousin Cathy as well as Gidget, Karen, and Tam m y joined
screaming Beatlemaniacs, girl singers, and the Shindig dancers as America fell
under the spell of teenage girl culture. Although television had offered teen
fare before The Patty Duke Show debuted in 1963, most of these shows were cen
tered on aspects of male adolescence like the “many loves” of Dobie Gillis, the
maturation of Ricky and David Nelson, or the problems of juvenile delin
quents.1 In contrast, Patty Duke focused on the consciousness of teenage girls,
starting a trend that continued throughout the mid-1960s. While not a simple
celebration of teenage femininity, Patty Duke certainly highlighted the values
of its female protagonist(s) by contrasting her with the awkward figures of
her vapid boyfriend Richard and her “geeky” bespectacled younger brother
Ross, thus ensuring youthful audiences’ identification with Patty-or her
identical but m ore reserved Scottish cousin, Cathy.
