Patty Duke for Social Security

Have you seen the series of PSAs for the Social Security Administration, starring our baby boomer TV favorite Patty Duke -- star of course of the classic sitcom The Patty Duke Show -- reprising her Patty and Cathy Lane characters? The spots encourage seniors to go online to conduct their Social Security business.

I guess I've been out of the loop, evidently not watching enough U.S. TV in the wee hours to catch public service announcements, but just this morning I caught one of the five spots. Honestly I didn't pick up on the Patty Duke connection (or even that it was Patty Duke) until they reprised the iconic theme song in the last moments of the PSA, but I've since found out all about them, mainly that they've been around since the beginning of last year. They are cute spots, with enough knowing references to the series that fans won't be rolling their eyes bemoaning their lameness.

And here they are:











I did a post here almost two years ago (!) about The Patty Duke Show, so take a look at that if you want to see the original show open that so charmed us all back in the 1960s. Patty Duke did a fair amount of publicity for these PSAs, and one nice interview is here, and I think you will be heartened to know that Ms. Duke volunteered to do these spots, good citizen that she is. (If you'd like to visit the SSA site and watch the vids online, go here.) There is supposed to be an additional spot featuring the remaining castmembers of the show coming up, and we'll be looking forward to that. In October of last year Patty appeared in a spot with flu shot information, also available at the SSA site.

Fans of Patty Duke -- and who isn't, and I mean that -- will want to check out the well-informed website Call Me Anna: The Official Patty Duke Website for the latest on Patty.