The Weirdness of THE GOLDEN GIRLS

You knew this was coming. What I can't understand is, why did they almost never talk about their children?

• What I can't understand is why they said they loved each other but spent their time insulting each other all day long.

  Phyllis%20Hammerow

• How much was their rent? Did it vary depending on room size?

• Why did they wear sweaters, long sleeves and layers when living in such a warm climate?

• Why they were all in their sixties during the pilot epiode, but we're all of a sudden in their fifties during the next episode. How Blanche could have thought she was pregnant in season 2?

• Where did their gay houseboy go to? The white party?

• Why Mr. Burt Reynolds and Mr. Julio Iglesias would go out with the likes of Sophia when they could have someone much, much younger and sexier like me.

  Blanche

• Old women are like that, R1. My grandmother and her circle of friends were straight up bitches to one another -- gossiping and just being insulting all the time -- but they seemed to still enjoy the friendships and ultimately had each other's backs through tough times.

• Was Stan rich or poor? In some episodes, he was a gigolo landlord living large and in others he was penniless and crashing with Dorothy.

• Dd Dorothy have fibro, chronic fatigue, Epstein-Barr, or Lupus?

  Dr. Weston

• No one ever seemed to do chores, yet the house was always immaculate. Did they have a cleaning lady?

• Rue M. was 52 or 53 during the show's second season, making it plausible that her character could be entering menopause. Blanche was meant to be a little bit younger than Dorothy and Rose. As for weirdness ... what about their diets? Could you imagine joining with two other people and eating an entire cheesecake after midnight? On a regular basis?

• We made Sophia do it. We ground her face in the toilet if she didn't.

  Blanche

• If you watched the plot line Stan was rich and poor. There were episodes where Stan lost all his money, then he invented a bake potato opener and got rich. Then he fudged his taxes and owed money and so did Dorothy, so his finances went up and down but it happened accordingly with the story lines. Rue was 51 in real life when the show started so she could be pregnant. I imagine Blanche was supposed to be a few years younger, so that plotline wasn't a stretch. And Blanche was supposed to be like 10 years younger than the others. Unlike on Maude where they were the same age, though Bea Arthur was 12 years older in real life. Estelle Getty was born in 1923 while Arthur and White were born in 1922 The gay houseboy was only for the pilot. He was done away with when Sophia became a regular. Sophia was intended to be a recurring character, not a regular. She would just pop in and out. After the pilot aired her character was so well received by test audiences they wrote the gay guy out and Sophia in. Notice Blanche's room in the pilot is on the other side of the living room. We don't find out what each woman pays, but Sofia pays her own rent and Blanche did not report any of the rent as income. You will also note the actual layout of the house is impossible as the garage conflicts with where the bedrooms would be. The Golden Girls is notorious for having huge number of plot holes and continuity errors

• How did they afford those extravagant wardrobes that kept them clothed in forever new outfits of multicolored chiffon?

• Remember when they bred minks in their laundry room? And in the next ep...no minks. Sophia must have worked them into a recipe.

• The next time someone here derisively makes a comment about a "comic book movie," I'd like to remind them about the number of times we've picked over ILL, DW, and GG - you guys would give any trekkie a run for their money on a good day for obsessive nitpicking.

• [quote]How did they afford those extravagant wardrobes that kept them clothed in forever new outfits of multicolored chiffon? I don't know, but it wasn't like they were wearing machine-washable clothes either. Their dry-cleaning bills must have been outrageous.

• I guess the writers of the show they figured the audience wouldn't care about inplausibilites and continuity; after all it's just a sitcom. Boy, were they wrong! The dans of this show (it had a large gay fanbase) paid great attention to what was going on in the episodes. One incident that sticks out in my mind is the one where Dorothy's twenty-something ne'er do well artist son brings his fiance to meet Dorothy and Sophia; his lady love is a black woman in her forties. Dorothy and Sophia both are shocked and appalled, as is the family of the black woman. Everyone is opposed to the union until the fiance makes her announcement: she's pregnant! After that everybody makes nice with each other, problem solved. Dorothy and the mother of the fiance set aside their differences and make up because they both "want to see the baby." But there WAS no baby. I heard that at some point Michael popped in again and it was revealed that his middle-aged girlfriend (did they ever get married?) had kicked him out. Did she have the baby? Was it a boy or a girl? Was Michael (I think that was his name) so much of a loser that his fiance kicked him out even though it left her a single mother? What happened with all that? I always wondered. I guess the writers figured viewers had forgotten about that brief plotline. But I do know this: Dorothy never "saw" the baby.

• They just did whatever they wanted with the relatives, adding on more when it suited the plot. Remember Blanche's brother played by Ned Beatty in The Golden Palace? Similarly, in SATC, nobody talks about their parents. Until they need to kill one off of course, in Miranda's case.

• Golden Girls is pretty normal compared to its progeny, Sex & the City.

• Carrie Bradshaw was one of the most unlikeable characters in TV history. Ugh.

• Rose's daughter Kiersten was supposedly a brainiac, too good to be with Dorothy's loser son Michael. It seems odd that Rose's daughter wasn't mildly retarded.

• Why didn't Sophia have even a hint of a Sicilian accent? I believe she left Sicily as a young woman, so she likely would have retained a bit of an accent, but she doesn't.

• Sophia was in her 80s and still having sex. I don't care what any of you say, that shit is weird.

  Freida%20Claxton

• Dorothy married Stan because she was pregnant, yet neither of her kids were in their late 30s.

• Dorothy was so clearly not Italian. Sophia could pass, but barely.

• The number of children and grandchildren Rose, Dorothy and Blanche had varied depending on the episode. I always wondered why something that simple wasn't kept consistent. Sophia having two daughters and a son was the only thing that didn't change. And why the hell did nobody ever call before coming over to the house? At all hours of the day and late into the night, people would just show up and ring the doorbell, and they were usually people the girls barely knew or didn't know at all. Outside of immediate family members, would you ever just show up at somebody's front door without calling first? That was just weird.

• OP, your mother doesn't talk about you either.

• Why didn't Dorothy just get a back alley abortion like other girls in her situation? I'm sure Blanche had a few.

• So, whose daughter was Gina? If they had blood tests that proved that Gina was not their daughter and Dorothy was really Sophia's, then there are a couple of ladies out there in long ago sitcom land with the wrong parents. I used to cringe when they had Estelle speak Italian. Yikes.

• The real Golden Girls were intended to be Dorothy, Blanche and Rose. Sophia was supposed to be older one and technically not a Golden Girl. A supporting character. Anyway, the promos and even the intro shows this and yet Sophia is always referred to as a Golden Girl and eventually became one of the group. It's all confusing and weird.

  http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/19700000/The-Golden-Girls-the-golden-girls-19704708-2560-1705.jpg

  Diana%20Ross%20and%20the%20Supremes

• [quote]And why the hell did nobody ever call before coming over to the house? At all hours of the day and late into the night, people would just show up and ring the doorbell You've never seen a situation comedy before?

• Was the lanai their whole backyard? You'd a house that size would have a pool.

• Dorothy mentioned that the girls had a pool *just once* on that much-derided 1987 Rita Moreno-as-Renee "Empty Nests" pilot/episode.

• Good question, r10.

  Marguerite

• What about Blanche's daughter Becky? In one episode she's really fat and going to marry that douche bag. Then in other episodes she's skinny and going to have a baby by artificial insemination.

• R18, I think "dans" should be the new term for gay fans.

• Thank you for fucking my end Fucked me once or twice and then again You're heart is true your a pal not a stupid Jew And if you threw a party Invited everyone but Jews You would see Every damn Is-ray-al-ee Would say "Oy vay I'm so oppressed, plant trees in Is-ray-al"

• [quote]What about Blanche's daughter Becky? In one episode she's really fat and going to marry that douche bag. Then in other episodes she's skinny I guess you have never heard of someone going on a diet

• [quote]Why didn't Dorothy just get a back alley abortion like other girls in her situation? Ever here of a "good" Catholic

• [quote]Why didn't Sophia have even a hint of a Sicilian accent? Helen Reddy and Rick Springfield don't have Australian accents.

• The interior of the house as compared to the exterior was like an MC Escher painting.

• Sometimes the girls would pick up a relative at the airport. Other times, they would have that relative fend for themselves to get to the house.

• [quote]And why the hell did nobody ever call before coming over to the house? At all hours of the day and late into the night, people would just show up and ring the doorbell Has never had a booty call

• [quote]It seems odd that Rose's daughter wasn't mildly retarded. Why would you think that? Would you think Einstein's parents or children would be geniuses as well? Intelligence has nothing to do with heredity. Or are you too stupid to understand that

• How did Dorothy get knocked up at 18, yet still went to college, get a teacher's degree and live with a college Roommate? (Jean from Isn't it Romantic)

• Loved how, whenever a car would pull into the driveway in an establishing shot, the driver-side door would open but you'd never see anybody get out, not even a leg.

• R41, Portia de Rossi doesn't have an Aussie accent, either, strangely. She grew up in Australia and didn't move to the US until her 20s. Charlize Theron is another who has adopted an American accent. Though Embeth Davidtz was born in the US, it was to South African parents, who later moved back, but she and Charlize don't sound anything like. Davidtz sounds British-like.

• I'm not a big fan of sit-coms and have never seen an entire episode, but whenever I did catch snippets of it here or there I was always struck by the same thing: how cheap it looked. Cheap looking furniture, sets that could have done double duty for some public access channel, even the grade of video tape seemed inferior. I dont get it. This show was a big hit and made a ton of money for the producers, yet it looked like it was thrown together and the budget comprised of whatever pocket change was laying around.

• R49, I agree. Not only that but if you watch the opening credits you'll see that the show had about a dozen producers, most than any other program, and when the cast demanded more money even though the budget was tight many episodes were written with the idea of having the least amount of extra actors as possible so it was always the same characters involved and the show ended up looking like a dog chasing after its tail. Pretty cheap.

• It was on while I was getting ready for work this morning. For some reason, this struck me as very funny: Sophia insisted on calling her daughter-in-law, Angela (Brenda Vaccaro), "Big Sally."

• Whenever they would need a bunch of old men in a party scene, none of them had lines so they didn't have to credit them. It was like the girl's were stuck in a room full of mutes.

• The look of the show was weird, something about it was so glaring and bright. I guess it was the videotape? Why didn't Cheers look like that? Is one filmed like a movie on actual film, and the other on video tape? The harsh brightness wasn't flattering to any of the ladies and gave a claustrophic feeling. On the flip side of claustrophobia, didn't their lanai seem huge? It seemed to go on forever, with layers and layers of greenery and flowers.

• R53 There are different grades of videotape, just as there are different grades of film stock. And there are different types of video cameras. It appears with GG they used the cheapest tape and cheapest cameras available.

• They always sat on the lanai and never, ever bothered with the area beyond the glass doors- which did appear to have tables and chairs. Probably because the lanai, which became so important, was not in the pilot but was Blanche's bedroom. Also, the set was built with lots of odd curves and angles.

• Bitches stole our kitchen.

  Patty Duke and Richard Crenna

• R48, you can't tell me that there isn't a difference from adjusting from one variant of English to adjusting to an ENTIRE DIFFERENT LANGUAGE.

• R57, Theron's first language is Afrikaans, but she does a hell of an American accent, which other foreigners have trouble doing. She even speaks in her American accent in daily life.

• Yes R55, that always struck me too. Like there were so many hidden interesting spaces, something my 8 year old self would have delighted in. The Brady Bunch house had spaces like that too, like under the stairs. Was the GG's lanai enclosed? I thought lanai could mean any sort of outdoor room whether enclosed or not. In their case, I thought it was not. But then again, the buggyness of Florida probably prevents outdoor unenclosed seating at night. Dorothy's scrunchy boots were weird. She must have been so hot in them.

• r56 LOL and how true.

• Did any of the Girls ever fart? Which episode?

• R61, in "The Audit" (Season 3), Rose takes a Spanish class and vows to only wear Spanish clothes, eat Spanish foods, etc. In one scene, Rose walks into the living room and says, "Buenos Dias, Dorotheo! That means 'Hello, Dorothy" in Spanish." Dorothy shoots back, "You've really taken command of the language, haven't you, Rose?" And Rose goes, "Si. That means 'yes.'" And Dorothy says sarcastically, "Gee, Rose, if I closed my eyes I'd swear I was in Ecuador." Meanwhile, Sophia has walked by Dorothy and says, "Sorry, that was me," which implies she cut one. Another time they're bundled up in Sophia's bed 'cause the heater isn't working and they're all freezing (in Miami?!), and at one point Blanche asks, "Did you hear that?" and Sophia goes, "Yes, and as long as it's my bed, I'll do what I want!"

• Try wearing cowl-neck sweaters and suede boots in Miami sometime. You'll collapse in a puddle of sweat in five minutes.

• The Girls used to buy clothes wear them once and return them.

• r61: Oh, you heard that? I thought I was safe, backed up against these pillows.

  Sophia Petrillo

• bump w/ a fart LOL

• R62, thanks!

• R63, that's the laugh I needed.

• R18, on the Michael question, in the first episode where we meet him and he sleeps with Rose's daughter, Dorothy says he is 28. In the later episode where he dates the older woman, Dorothy says he is 22. He was apparently Benjamin Button.

• More weirdness: Ricky's publicist plants stories in the paper about Ricky fucking his dancers.

• Nothing on the Golden Girls is as strange as Chuck Cunningham, Richie's brother, who went upstairs and never came down again.

• You only think he never came out because they cut the tag in syndication. In the full episode you see Blanche and Dorothy and Rose digging in the backyard and Sofia says, "Make sure you cover him up all the way. As long as we stay on the lanai and never step here, we'll get away with it."

• I still get sad watching it because they're all gone now. Well, except Betty, but let's face it, the way the Grim Reaper has been operating lately, it will only be weeks.

  Stan%27s%20traffic%20cone%20monkey

• I loved the episode of the Golden Girls where they adopt the pig. And Sophia cooks it.

• Are we supposed to think that Rose and Dorothy rented a piano so they could write their "Miami, Miami" song? Or was the piano always there, just never in the shot? I hate how the furniture and decor screams "We're in Florida!" just like TV beach houses always use shells and nautical images as artwork for emphasis. Audiences aren't that stupid--a leather couch won't confuse us as to the location of the house.

• R74, wasn't that a rooster who could play the piano and Sophia cooked some fry chicken...

• It was a chicken... and it was Aunt Angela who supposedly cooked it.

• r64, If I were you, I'd take my dishonesty elsewhere.

  Dorothy Zbornak

• I wonder who "Mr. September" was, in "The Men of Blanche's Boudoir" calendar. I bet it was horse-hung Mel Bushman.

• [quote]Are we supposed to think that Rose and Dorothy rented a piano so they could write their "Miami, Miami" song? Or was the piano always there, just never in the shot? It was used again when Dorothy and Sophia dressed up as Sonny & Cher to rehearse for the Shady Pines Mother/Daughter Beauty Pageant. We're supposed to assume it's there in the corner somewhere.

• It's called a fourth wall and the piano is up against it. Look I thought data loungers were at least as smart as Ryan Lochte but it seems 99% of you are hovering at Michael Phelps level.

• In Florida, even old women wear sleeveless shirts and dress in cotton. I know Miami is a little different but seriously, THEY always had sweaters on! Ridiculous.

• Miami is different from Florida? WTF? Miami is IN Florida, at the very tip in fact. Very hot and humid there. No excuse for sweaters and boots.

• No. Miami IS different then most of Florida. The women there, dress up and wear makeup. In most of florida, people never get out of their shorts and t-shirts.

• BUMP for Golden Girls weirdness.

• Why, whenever there was a repair to be done on the house, were all the girls screaming about having no money when 3 of them were renters and had no obligation to pay for repairs? (Obviously this was before Blanche made them co-owners).

  Preston Bougainvillea

• Also, while the furniture and accessories screamed Miami, this is really how homes in Miami are, tropical, colorful, wicker, etc. When the girls went to the psychiatrist, a clip show, when they felt they were no longer able to live together, Sophia tells a story: "Picture it, 4 women share a house in Miami...the only one on the block without a pool, I might add," so this was addressed. Also, it's weird that in the pilot, Rose called her husband Charles, and not Charlie, and Dorothy is from Queens, not Brooklyn.

  Susan%20Harris%2C%20writing%20for%20a%20%27Bea%20Arthur%27%20type

• Yes, no pool was kind of odd. But some people really hate the upkeep of a pool. Pretty weird, since it's not hard to take care of a pool.

• How come not jokes about Dorothy's big feet?

  Berthe%20aux%20grands%20pieds

• I still can't get over the UFO episode where Rose says "Planes don't fly over residential areas!"

• r81: Frida Claxton. Mrs. Claxton, if you don't like it just Drop Dead!

  Rose Nylund

• Killed another one huh Rose

• To me, the "weird" part was that the show just wasn't all that funny. I thought Bea Arthur was much funnier as Maude, and Betty White—OMG!—she was awesome as Sue Ann Nivens on the Mary Tyler Moore show. Betty's character on GG was just, well, stupid. And Rue McClanahan's character seemed equally one-dimensional.

• Die in a grease fire, R93!

• Ooh, R94. Did I hit a nerve?

  R93

• FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE SHIT IN MY MOUTH!

  R93

• r93 = Barbara Thorndyke

• I never could understand all the family weddings/funerals of family members in Miami that were rooted in other places in the country. Blanche's father was the only exception. By the way, wasn't it strange that Big Daddy was entombed just hours after his funeral with no signs of a recent burial.

• Big Daddy was a closet Jew if you remember.

• "Sometimes the girls would pick up a relative at the airport. Other times, they would have that relative fend for themselves to get to the house." I'd say most times the guests had to fend for themselves - it was extremely rare that the girls ever picked anybody up from the airport, no matter how young, old, or foreign the guest might be. And it's not like there was ever the excuse of, "Oh, so sorry, but at the time your plane lands the three of us will be at work, and only Sophia, who can't drive, will be home." No, the girls were inevitably just sitting around the living room waiting for the guest. And then when the visit was over, the guest was once again expected to pay for their own cab back to the airport.

• How about the time Blanche didn't know a lesbian from a Lebanese? Blanche would have known.

• I like when Sophia says, "Why do you all eat so much god damn cheesecake. You're way too fat already." And Dorothy says "Shady Pines, Ma," and Sophia replies, "Enjoy your cheesecake, I'm off to the hardware store to buy some more rat poison."

• Apple is worth more than TWICE the value as the second most valuable company, EXXONMobil iphones forever, android never AirMacs forever, win8 never Bye bye Gates and Jewerberg

  Apple%20Rocks

• Why did Blanche stuff her sweater with those balloon boobs when she was going for the acting role with Patrick Vaughan? ("The moon is looking pretty tonight, isn't it Busty?" - or something like that....) Hadn't he seen her earlier without giant knockers? He would have known they were falsies.

  Phyllis%20Hammerow

• Why did the Golden Girls never use iPhones? You would think they'd want something so advanced. I'm sure Sophia would've bought Apple stock. After all Apple is the #1 company in the world. There has NEVER been a company EVAH valued so high. It's worth TWICE as much as EXXONMobil the number two company. Apple could buy ExxonMobil chew it up, spit it out and still be on top I gotta phone my friends about this, but not just phone them iPHONE them.

• How were they constantly being picked to head up fancy charity galas when they A) had no female friends except each other (Sophia was the exception who did have female friends, but for the other three, the only people they were ever seen socializing with were the men they dated) and B) were too poor to afford basic expenses like a new TV set? Aren't most big-city charity galas run by women who are both well-connected in the community and rich enough to give big donations and attract their rich friends to donate too? What charity board is like, "We really need this year's gala to be a smashing success - let's get that substitute teacher to be our chairwoman"?

• "How much was their rent? Did it vary depending on room size?" This is a good question, since Dorothy's original agreement with Blanche was that she would be moving into the bedroom which is now Rose's, and Dorothy was peeved on move-in day when she arrived and found it already occupied by Rose. Rose then agreed to a coin toss to decide the room's occupancy, which Dorothy lost. But Blanche's response to the problem was just "Whoops", without any mention of a reduction in the agreed-upon rent now that Dorothy had to take the less desirable room. And this brings up the whole question of bathrooms, and which rooms had attached, private bathrooms and which didn't. Rose's room apparently didn't have one in Season 1, when she was working with Dorothy to install a new toilet in the bathroom they shared, but then magically got one in Season 2 when Jean the Dyke is seen emerging from an attached bathroom in Rose's room. The most egregious outrage on this point comes in the two-part "Sophia's Wedding" episode, when Sophia's room has an attached bathroom in Part 1 (which Sophia locks herself in when she decides to call off the wedding due to Dorothy's objections), but then in Part 2 the writers expect us to have forgotten its existence when Max and Dorothy are using the shower in the same bathroom and the girls are complaining that Max forgets to lift the toilet seat when he pisses.

• well r107 maybe Max was using the other bathroom b/c Sophia was in theirs

• r102, maybe that is what caused Dorothy's Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

• r99, I remember.

  Blanche Feldman Devereaux

• This is awesome. (Hope the link works)

  http://m.tennis.com/news/2012/08/venus-first-felt-effects-sjogrens-2007/39031/%23.UDoUbIl5mc0

  Dr.%20Harry%20Weston%2C%20still%20saving%20lives

• [quote]Aren't most big-city charity galas run by women who are both well-connected in the community and rich enough to give big donations and attract their rich friends to donate too? Run by, yes. But the grunt work is done by women like the Golden Girls.

  Helen%20Hokinson

• Maybe the girls took to "peeing in the closet" as Sophia told the undercover cops who moved into the house. BTW, how come Blanche didn't put the moves on George Clooney as he lay gorgeously spread out on the bed in one of their bedrooms? He reminded her of her son? Yeah, right. How soon she forgot her attraction to her personal trainer. "In what, Blanche...dog years?"

• r6, beat it, you 50-year-old mattress.

  Sophia Petrillo

• r112 Blanche worked at a very upscale art gallery, like three hours each day, sometimes four days a week. She would've known rich socially connected people.

• r105 The new iPhone has just sold record numbers YET again. iPhones forever Android never Unless you're poor

• Hello everyone! Send my regards to Madge. Anything for a friend. Ciao!

  Barbara Thorndyke

• R115 Blanche worked at a museum.

• I just realized there's a dirty joke in the Henny Penny epidode. Sophia is introducing Dorothy as Turkey Lurkey and calls her, "Poor, lonely, dateless, self-basting..." I never caught that one before.

• r103 HA HA Apple had to bow before Google and Google Maps greatness

• r119, I have to remember to stop using your towels.

  Dorothy Zbornak

• It's starting to get a little bit depressing looking at GG these days. Sometimes I'm watching a scene with some guest stars in it and I realize that they are all dead except Betty.

• Don't worry, r122, the clear solution is to only watch my episode! George and I are still alive and kicking, and we're still working on our crappy marriage! Although I admit I do get depressed sometimes now that I no longer have Dorosee here to confide in...

  %22Renee%22%20Moreno

• and how old were they supposed to be? always references to them being just in their 50s, right? was this for convenience sake, could people not believe that women would still be working in their 60s into retirement age? (if they didn't have jobs, that would have done away with a lot of plot lines)

• Why does Rose have the biggest bedrooms, meanwhile, it's Blanche's house?

• The girls routinely switched rooms.

• R3 nailed it, thread closed. I always wondered why Rose wore thick sweaters and Dorothy always had about 7 layers on at all times, yet they made much mention of bring in Miami, where high temps can reach the 90s in January.

• Why couldn't they just call it a patio?

• It was technically a patio. A lanai has mesh screening. Everyone in Florida calls it a lanai... If it is a lanai.

• R45, the fact is that every single person we ever come across on the show that has anything to do with St. Olaf is presented as dimwitted. Why would all of Rose's children be portrayed as "normal" when they were raised in St. Olaf? Or are you too stupid to realize that?

  Ulf the Umbrella King

• Couldn't Dr. Budd afford a better toupee? He was supposed to be one of the top infectious disease specialists in the country.

  Bibi Besch's throwaway appearance

• "It's starting to get a little bit depressing looking at GG these days. Sometimes I'm watching a scene with some guest stars in it and I realize that they are all dead except Betty." I'm still alive at age 99, r122! Though sometimes I wish I were dead - the money in Blanche's bosom account ran out years ago (as did Blanche), so I've been living in the homeless shelter with Ida Perkins ever since!

  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0016687/%3Fref_%3Dtt_cl_t5

  Lillian

• r130 You'd have a point there, except you're wrong. Rose's sisters aren't dumb. Flo was blind but smart and she had a great reputation before that. And Inga Svenson, wasn't nice but she was not stupid either.

• My name was HOLLY!

  Inga%20Swenson

• Did they ever address why they had to all live together for lack of money? Dorothy should have a good pension from teaching and Blamche arrived well. 55+ plus communities in Florida are plentiful and cheap. Especially in the 80s Speaking of the 80s, this show just brings me back to that time period.

  Is%20this%20show%20on%20Netlix%3F

• [quote] 55+ plus communities in Florida are plentiful and cheap. Who are calling 55+? I'll have you know I was Miss Angie Dickinson's body double.

  Blanche%20Devereaux%20

• Must have gotten the part after that adventure you had in a men's club, with a vine rope and a bottle of absorbine junior.

  Dorothy%20Zbornak

• [quote]Dorothy should have a good pension from teaching Dorothy was a SUBSTITUTE teacher. She never knew how much or if she was going to work. Subs make less pay, have no pension and no security. Add to that she often says, Stan's business would fail, the take off, then fail again. It seems they had insecure income all the time. Add to that Dorothy supported Sofia and while her sister had money her tranny brother didn't. Rose's husband was a success as a person but a failure as a business man. As for Blanche, "Thank God, I had the foresight to marry money."

• Dorothy got over her lady disease pretty quickly.

• Blanche couldn't have married THAT much money if she had to take in boarders. And if you're a middle-aged empty nester who can't afford the mortgage payments on a house, wouldn't it make more sense to sell the house and downsize to a condo instead of having to share the house with strangers? (Remember, the girls weren't her first tenants.) It's not like she needed the space - she had tense relationships with most of her children so they rarely came to visit. And wouldn't Blanche have been happier in a swinging condo complex anyways, where she could have been picking up eligible men?

• "And wouldn't Blanche have been happier in a swinging condo complex anyways, where she could have been picking up eligible men?" I should clarify that once she experienced the miracle of finding tenants who could be her best friends, I'm sure she was happier in the house with them. But I'm saying before, like after her bad experience with those two stick-in-the-mud ladies from Minnesota, didn't she think of moving?

  r140

• Seeing how difficult it was for her to sell a portion to each of the other girls in a later season, imagine how hard it would have been for her to consider selling it to a stranger and walking away.

  r141

• Get over yourselves ..... Tv on DVD wasn't known then and the writers probably care much for continuity at that point. You take the good with the bad in this show and if your a true fan, you don't care for the pot holes .... Just seeing these four ladies on-screen is good enough for me. As for the climate and the question of their clothing, yeah they were meant to be in a warm climate despite the fact it was filmed in a studio in LA, the show was then targeted for a specific audience (as most shows are) and I personally love what the wore. Estelle Getty was the youngest golden girl despite playing the oldest and Betty white is the oldest of them all, now the only living gg left. Rest in peace Bea, Rue & Estelle. You'll never be forgotten. Lots of love. JJ

  JJ

• No, Rue McClanahan was the youngest Golden Girl!

• [quote]Tv on DVD wasn't known then and the writers probably care much for continuity at that point. No, it is and was then, standard practice to keep a "series bible", which would detail facts such as: Who was born where, how many children each had and how old those children were. Continuity on TV shows didn't just come about with the advent of DVDs.

• R145 Yes, because they've had reruns since the "I Love Lucy" days. DVDs didn't change anything.

• Jean ate my pussy while I slept.

  Rose

• In what, r144? Dog years?

  Dorothy Zbornak

• They were outside on their lanai at night a lot. Now this was supposed to be in Florida, where if you spend much time outside after dark you'll be eaten ALIVE by the mosquitoes, not to mention all the other bugs. I suspect the writers never visited Florida or lived there at any time of the year. I guess you could be outside at night on your lanai if you live in SoCal, but never in Florida.

  Florida%20Native%20and%20One-time%20Resident

• The horrible "Renee" episode is on this morning. I can't look away.

• "Doroshee!"

• "Dot" I didn't remember hearing that guy call her that in the episode.

• in her one woman show, AT LIBERTY, Elaine Stritch claims that she was the first choice to play Dorothy. However, she was drinking at the time and, at a read through, she claims that she insulted the writers and producers and subsequently lost the part to Bea Arthur. Is there any evidence to her story or does the story exist only in her imagination? It would seem logical; she and Estelle Getty seem more like daughter/mother combination than Arthur and Getty. She is Catholic, albeit from an upper middle class background; yes, I know Getty is Jewish. On the other hand, Stritch is primarily a theater actress and wouldn't have been known to a much wider television audience. I do know that she performed on television when the medium was in its infancy

• R150 I saw it too. Love how they had Dorothy, Blanche and Rose say "Renee" every second word almost.

• R49, ALL Susan Harris sitcoms (Benson, Soap, Empty Nest, Nurses, It Takes Two) had cheap sets, blinding lighting and cheap segue music which all sounded like it was from the same musicians. It was her trait.

• Renee's daughter unexpectedly shows up at the front door after flying home from college in NYC. Her boyfriend apparently has a thing for blondes. Dot and crew were also sitting in the living room when this happens. All they did was coddle her about following her boyfriend to college and being a victim. Nothing about education, career, self-worth, etc.

• I'll never understand why so many people loved this show. It's OK but hardly something to fuss about. [quote] Just seeing these four ladies on-screen is good enough for me. MARY!

• R16 needs to be murdered in the next SAW franchise film. But for real.

• As does R157!

• The one where guest, Ken Howard's character goes to Blanche's bedroom. The room was huge. Blanche had all those sex contraptions and toys. Then, after he proves to be an innocent, naive and sweet man, his effect is such that Blanche tells Rose that she has been made to feel like a lady. Even Rose smiled at the notion. It didn't last long. Also, no mention of std's for someone with such an active sex life with strangers.

  anonymous

• That wasn't Blanche's bedroom, they were at a "Notell Motel" type of place. They did a whole show on Rose maybe being exposed to HIV through a blood transfusion. Blanche confides that she has been tested too to help Rose cope.

• [quote] in her one woman show, AT LIBERTY, Elaine Stritch claims that she was the first choice to play Dorothy. However, she was drinking at the time and, at a read through, she claims that she insulted the writers and producers and subsequently lost the part to Bea Arthur. Elaine did indeed read for the part, but she's taken dramatic liberties if she's saying she was first choice. Bea was the first choice but said no a number of times. I think her initial "no's" were in part because at that time, Rue was being considered for Rose and Betty for Blanche, so if I recall the story correctly, Bea was worried it would be "Maude, Vivian and Sue Ann." Apparently when she heard the two had switched roles her interest was piqued. Elaine apparently auditioned somewhere between those points.

• Why aren't there sitcoms like this anymore? I also wonder how the show would be different if it would take place right now? How would they handle the internets? Blanche would look up naked photos of Steve McQueen and Dorothy would say "woah!"