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EVER SINCE Lucy Carmichael's shocking red hair perked up Mr. Mooney's office, TV secretaries have dressed up the tube with their singularly splashy looks. Plain Jane Hathaway (Nancy Kulp, left) took primness over the top on The Beverly Hillbillies, while Bob Newhart's receptionist Carol Bondurant burst at the seams with outrageousness. ''She wore completely inappropriate clothes for a psychiatrist's office, like really short, orange, lace-up hippie dresses,'' says designer (and fan) Todd Oldham.
Today's TV secretaries provide even kookier counterpoint than before, from NewsRadio and Murphy Brown to Melrose Place. ''They don't wear what I would want my secretary to wear,'' says Bill Hargate, who has costumed more than 70 hapless Murphy secretaries in eight seasons. And on dramas like ER and NYPD Blue, secretaries brighten the sea of sterile hospital coats and gray detective duds. Says Gail O'Grady of Donna Abandando, her NYPD character, ''She's been described as the light in the squad room.''
Khakis, beware. Here's how this year's pool came by its eye-popping getups.
1.RECEPTIONIST: Randi Fronczak (Kristin Minter), ER's desk clerk with attitude. FASHION SHTICK: Often welcomes patients with a view of her navel.
A fashion designer wannabe, Randi makes odd pieces like this neon yellow bathing suit with a studded leather bustier (right). Her selections for the admissions desk are scarcely more conservative: a plunging firecracker-red blouse worn with a leather-collar necklace, tight blue sparkle pants, and silver crop tops. ''Some [things Randi wears] have come out of my closet, things I've thought, 'Oh, that would be cool,' then got home and gone, 'Wrong!' '' explains Minter, who infuses her character with the perfect dose of listless sexiness. ''Randi's in her own world, and the hospital is just kind of around her at the moment.''
2. SECRETARY: Beth (Vicki Lewis), NewsRadio's boyfriend-obsessed redhead. FASHION SHTICK: Trippy print dresses that let her mix but not match.
''Anytime we say no one would ever put those two things together, we know we've got the right outfit,'' says Lewis, whose letter-perfect credentials for playing Beth include stints as Assistant No. 69 on Murphy Brown and George's secretary on Seinfeld. Leaning over the news director's desk and snapping her double bubble, the sarcastic and suggestive Beth wears every animal print in the jungle, from leopard and snakeskin to Holstein. In one recent episode she ran around showing off nude photos of herself. Her skirts are almost as revealing. ''A midriff top on someone else,'' says Lewis, ''is usually my miniskirt.''
3. SECRETARY: Sydney Andrews (Laura Leighton), Melrose's schizophrenic too-dumb-to-be-bad girl. FASHION SHTICK: A retro amalgam of Marlo Thomas and Nancy Sinatra.
Leighton's latest incarnation -- as a secretary with the nasty habit of listening in on conversations -- inspired a flourish of wardrobe changes. ''We do really mod or the whole Laura Petrie look,'' says costume designer Denise Wingate, who's made Sydney an homage to '60s and '70s fashion icons. Pink patent leather boots, Jackie Kennedy pillbox hats, little gloves, and even an A-line dress with ostrich-feather cuffs now overrun her closet. ''In an office as twisted and unethical as Burns/Mancini,'' says Wingate, ''the last thing they are going to do is enforce a dress code.''
