Lunch Break Video: “Free to Be … You and Me”

I was watching a rerun of Friends last night with my family and Marlo Thomas was guesting as Jennifer Aniston’s mother. One of my nephews, in his 20s, asked, “Who’s Marlo Thomas?”

My sister: “She was That Girl!” Me: “She’s Danny Thomas‘ daughter!” My sister: “She’s married to Phil Donahue!”

By this time, my nephew had started to tune us out as my sister and I kept talking Marlo which brought us to Free to Be … You and Me, her landmark 1974 children’s TV special and album that any elementary school kid in the 70s is probably real familiar with. It was based on Marlo’s best-selling 1973 children’s book of the same name.

“The message is a rather deep one, that you can choose your own role models, you can fight stereotypes,” Marlo said last year in an interview marking the book;s 35th anniversary. It has never been out of print. Free to Be “was a revolutionary book. Some people were even afraid of it.”

I started watching some of the songs on YouTube last night and it was remarkable that I remembered just about every one! So enjoy this blast from the past. I’ve posted the theme song, the duet When We Grow Up between a teen-aged Michael Jackson and Roberta Flack, A fun mommy and daddy number from Marlo and Harry Belafonte and finally, Circle of Friends by Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge, and Marlo.