The Golden Girls (1985-1993)

Also including The Golden Palace, which ran from 1992 to 1993.

I want to be a Blanche, but I am really a Dorothy.

R2- That's SUCH a Samantha thing to say!

One thing that always bothered me about this show is that there seemed to be all sorts of inconsistencies in the characters' family and background stories, has anyone else ever noticed this? Like in one episode Blanche's middle name is Elizabeth, B.E.D. (LOL!!!!) but Mammy Watkins calls her by a different middle name (forget what it was, LOL!!!) Anyways, just curious if anyone else had ever noticed this.

r4 "LOL" "LOL"

I’ve never heard of this show. Was it good?

I too am surprised that DL has never discussed The Golden Girls. I would have thought that this show would be popular with the hip, young crowd that posts here.

Has anyone considered starting threads about “I Love Lucy” or “Alice”? I suspect those might be in DL’s wheelhouse, but we may never know for sure.

I watched about 5 minutes of Rita Moreno’s show “One Day at a Time.” I heard it was a remake of some old show that starred a “sexy redhead dancer.”

Rita Hayworth?

Okay, I've spent a couple of hours scouring the internet for more information about this show, but came up empty. I think Crystal Bernard might have been in it, but I'm not sure. Are there any surviving episodes of this cult classic?

They should do a reunion special, if it was so good. The fact they won’t says a lot.

This is the show set at a fancy boarding school with 4 girls. They’re called Golden because they’re privileged.

OP’s pic makes it appear they extended the concept/contracts too long, tho, IMO.

In real life, weren’t all the actresses Lebanese? That would explain the chemistry they had with each other. It would also explain why the really tall one, who even though she wore lipstick, definitely was the bull dyke of the lot.

Wasn’t the Golden Girls a spin off from The Hardy Boys?

I get this confused with the bestselling porno THE GOLDEN SHOWER GIRLS. Did they shoot that on hiatus for theaters?

I think it would be great fun to start a thread about an obscure game show that hasn't been broadcast in over 50 years and one of it's even more obscure panelists, Dorothy Kilgallen (whoever the fuck she is).

Do you think it would get much of a response?

[quote]Created by Susan Harris, he series follows four 50+ women as they struggle through their liberty, love, and life.

Liberty?

[quote]Liberty?

Give me liberty or give me cheesecake.

Wow. This show sounds very interesting.

Now, where can I go to find petty arguments about obscure Broadway shows and information about men named Froy?

It’s threads like this that are killing DL and turning us against ourselves. The smug superiority of the posters who claim to have seen this docuseries (ie, the “cool kids”) vs. the older posters who aren’t so in the know.

Why must everything be a contest?

Because, [r20] we are bigger and faster.

We will always beat you.

So don't EVER take that tone of voice with us, MISSY.

I think this show was mentioned in a Madonna thread. Something about a few old bats come home from one of her concerts and start opening fire on a vase.

Has anyone heard of an actress named Mary Tyler Moore? I read in a magazine that she was on a couple of successful shows, but I’d never heard of her!

Wasn’t this the one where the four main characters were Frieda Claxton, a prune Danish loving and arboretum hating malcontent with a voyeuristic streak; Barbara Thorndyke, an anti-Semitic bibliophile with a penchant for free parking and metaphors; Marg-your-reet, a night school law student who cleans houses on the side and is a pathological liar; and Martha McDowell, a jewel thief who loves to give dinner parties for neighbors who harbor undercover cops?

DL would never have a thread dedicated to these old cunts!

Can someone explain the layout of the house, I am confused

Wasn't Doris Roberts in this?

No. You’re thinking of Shelley Winters. She played Blair.

I believe Sada Thompson was in the cast, too. And if memory serves, Cicely Tyson.

[quote] DL did not have thread dedicated to the Golden Girls!

We've had hundreds if not thousands of them.....you FAT WHORE!

R29 Thank you, Rose.

Which child of Dorothy’s was the Solid Gold dancer 🕺? Michael or the shape shifting daughter?

[quote]I was surprised DL did not have thread dedicated to the Golden Girls! Created by Susan Harris, he series follows four 50+ women as they struggle through their liberty, love, and life.

I second what R7 said. I am also surprised. Very surprised. Surprised. Just too surprised.

It’s too bad the show wasn’t allowed to grow and find itself. It barely lasted a season. But that’s the fate of so many mid season replacements.

Still, Ann B. Davis was marvelous as the brash hotdog cart vendor, Maxie, scoring the show’s sole Emmy nom.

I could be wrong, but I believe it wasn’t actually a show. It was just a series of continuously-retooled back-door pilots. They aired during the run of the mega-hit, classic show “Empty Nest,” starring Rita Moreno, Elaine Stritch & Charles ‘Coco’ Levin.

Weren’t they going to try a spin-off focusing on Ann B. Davis’ breakout character, Maxie?

She was to inherit and manage an apartment complex. IIRC, the show’s working title was [italic]Maxie’s Pads.

That Rose is kind of "special", isn't she?

Damn, I missed this show whilst living abroad during those years. I was in a little known region, the Dyatlov Pass. Can you still get copies of this on beta?

So, what was your favorite episode?

the Menopause & Me one was eye opening.

The Vagina Monologues?

[quote]So, what was your favorite episode?

The one where they ate the cheesecake in the middle of the night.

As long as there is no wicker furniture then I’ll watch it. Wicker furniture is so Florida retiree that it wouldn’t suit the show.

Remember the final episode where it flashed forward to how they all died?

Maude getting sucked into a plane propellor was a bit shocking. But God got her for that.

Farrah Faucet, Jaclyn Smith, and Kate Jackson were the stars. I just cannot recall who the 4th was.

R44 Suzanne Sommers ?

My favorite episode was ‘80 for Brady Bunch’ where Blanche threw the football and accidentally broke Rose’s nose just before her big date with George Glass.

Fun fact: Sophia was Sarah Jessica Parker's breakout role!

Wasn't Jon Lovitz the gay cook?

Wasn’t this a musical first?

I like the episode where Rose and Blanche install a shower while Dorothy lights her nose on fire while flirting with Bill Holden.

I loved the episode where they dress in black peignoirs, disembowel a hobo, and then call the four corners in a courageous effort to reanimate the very dead body of James Coco.

Then, it snows and all the iguanas fall from the Lanai frame. Sophia of all people mispronounces her latin! Laughs all around, then icecream.

I liked the Very Special Episode where Rose unwittingly became pregnant and Blanche performed a backyard abortion on the lanai.

R38 the one where Blanche was all horny.

Though that one where one of the girls called Dorothy ugly was up there too, as well as the one where Sophia told that story about Sicily. And the one where Rose said that really stupid thing has ho be mentioned too.

Loved the bottle episode wherein Rose is hiding inside a storage container whisper arguing with Hermi -the twin she partially absorbed in utero.

As Hermi gets excited and bigger, he talks about riding Sophia raw dawg. Rose can’t stand the filthy language or the bulge Hermi makes in her mom jeans.

I’m so glad I saw this thread. I can vaguely remember catching half an episode of this show many years ago but couldn’t remember the name of it, or even what it was about. It’s a shame it didn’t seem to take off and the actresses are not even remembered today.

Was there an episode where they visit nyc and are subjected to that failed liberal city’s RAMPANT VIOLENCE?

I liked the episode where they visit New York and their car gets clamped in front of the twin towers. I think it was called “Rose vs. New York”.

Mein Goldenes Fräulein!

I loved the episode where to start a new business together, they were sourcing base ingredients for their Youth Dew facial cream from the dumpster behind the local Abortion Hut and Olivia de Havilland makes a cameo appearance.

So young!

[quote]There are numerous threads on this already!

Sorry, but I did a search. Were you thinking of another show maybe?

I did not care for Herb Edelman in his role as Stan.

I think Barbara Stanwyck was fabulous in this miniseries, as the substitute school teacher who doesn't suffer fools gladly.

I was always partial to the episode where Secretary of State Henry Kissinger stops by

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago I only caught half an episode. I seem to remember one of them had a deeper gravelly voice, was that natural or maybe she just had a sore throat when that episode was filmed. I think it might have been the one who was maybe an inch or two taller than the others.

I always felt that the Golden Palace was perfect and that the Golden Girls were an unnecessary spin-off. Why did the have to add that unpleasant Dorothy character? It was a pure money grab.

Dorothy was a Cousin Olivier and I mute those episodes and put on a Kenny G record.

Can you really blame them though for trying to grab that dough, r65?

Marilyn McCoo was on Solid Golden Girls. Is that the show we’re talking about?

Has anyone ever discussed The Golden Girls curse? A vast swath of guest stars have passed away in the intervening years. Most notably two of the three actors who were shipwrecked with Dorothy, Rose & Blanche on the good part of the vacation island.

So it was about three prostitutes and their mother?

Dorothy, look what happened to your watch!

R70, Dorothy was a welder by day, a stripper by night, and a prima ballerina on weekends!

They were maniacs!

My favorite episode is where Sophia tries to change homosexual Clayton by having sex with him as part of the talent show that Dorothy refuses to let Sophia be a part of. Dorothy insisted on being Cher from the late 80s and made Blanche dress up like the Bagel Boy. As a sub plot, Rose finds out she has AYDS after having sex with a herring.

[quote] I liked the episode where they visit New York and their car gets clamped in front of the twin towers.

R57 Isn’t that also the episode where they run out of gas in Tuckahoe, knock on a door for help, and a tall woman named Maude tells Dorothy to go to hell and then there’s a battle between them for who can slam the front door first?

I love the episode where the girls decide to become interior decorators. Blanche puts up most of the money and so they set up the business in the house and call it Hollingsworth’s after her maiden name.

Her sister Charmaine comes in as a silent partner who loves to sit around the living room during business hours talking about how beautiful she is. Dorothy does most of the design work and Rose handles the books. They help an Cuban illegal alien and former boxer named Kid Pepe by hiring him as a delivery man with whom Sofia becomes enamored, frequently singing “Latin man, Latin man where have you gone to?”.

I only started hearing buzz about this show towards the end of its run. I had been meaning to check it out, but by the time I’d got hip to it, the show was cancelled faster than Jimmy the Greek.

Unfortunately all that remains of the show is an oral history like this thread.

I like the episode where they work in a chocolate factory.

I'm getting hard for this thread!

Lesbian. Lesbian. LESBIAN. Isn’t that where one woman and..

i love their doorknobs.

I liked the Halloween episode. Unfortunately Rue McClanahan was almost killed so they stopped doing themed episodes.

I LOVE this show!!!! Rory is so smart and cute (I ship her with Jesse omg!) And the mother/daughter relationship between her and Lorelaiis so quirky and sweet! Oh how I would love in a quaint little New England town such as Star Hollows.

I remember many chunky wood necklaces pounding against very mature bosoms.

Patricia Routledge's guest appearance was my favorite, too

Everywhere they show up someone is murdered. You'd figure people would stop inviting them places. Don't get me started on Bee Author's bar scene and her dungarees.

I thought the episode that guest starred Martha Raye and Madge from the Palmolive ads was a little forced and disjointed.

The attempt at a backdoor pilot for Valerie Bertinelli was SO bad.

The Meshach Taylor character Anthony the ex-con housekeeper was a tad too simpering for me. Quite a turn off. He was so servile and put on such airs of chivalry that he makes Adolphe Menjou look like Wallace Beery.

Thank good Susan Harris wrote him out after the pilot.

Oh god R88. Don't get me started on Blanche Sugarbaker's speeches.

Blanche Sugarbaker?! I think you may have gotten your wires crossed there. Been seeing a lot of Mr. Wallbanger tonight?

I wonder if Lt. Sophia ever got tired of saying "hailing frequencies open sir".

Didn’t they all compete to see who would be master of their domain?

Sophia was the first one out after seeing a naked Leonard Barton across the way.

Well, I am stunned. Just stunned. Stunned is the only way to describe how stunned I am.

Stifle yourself, you human luge

Is this a joke, OP? Threads about GG make up about 35% of DL content. The rest are threads about the messhy grim pill.

I think they are testing to see how many stupid posts they can accumulate.

Don't believe that four elderly woman can live together and make it work? Sharing their experience, expenses, and yes cheesecake. Lets follow Skip down to Miami, FL and meet some of the realest women ever!

My favorite episodes were after the lanai fire when the gals had to disguise themselves as old men to live in a YMCA run by René Auberjonois.

Poor Rose tried playing pocket pool and kegel-fan Sophia was shooting pingpong balls through the leg of her basketball shorts.

This Golden Girls thread is a refreshing change from the many DL threads about Step By Step and Family Matters (just can't stand another thread about how talented Jaleel White was as Urkel).

The regular flashbacks to how they’d all known each other in previous lives was charming. I’m speaking particularly of LITTLE GOLDEN WOMEN with Dorothy as a brusque Jo March, Rose as simpering Meg, Blanche as the wily and selfish Amy… and, best of all, Sophia wrapped up in blankets on the couch, caterwauling as that frail hypochondriac, Beth!

It was pure Emmy Bait, sure. But who could turn away?

This show sounds like feminist, misogynistic, heteronormative, white privilege, ageist storytelling. I’m into it.

I always just wanted Carla to haul off and slap the spit out of that stupid Rose. Plus Sam and Roses will they won't they story line really started to drag on.

Wasn't this the show about the girl who lives in Brooklyn Heights and the other girl who's her identical cousin, from England?

No R103 that was Betty Bea Getty McClanahan's first series.

Is it true that Dan Aykroyd voiced all the female leads?

Barbara Eden as Blanche’s blinded sister who was dying of syphilis was unexpectedly moving. What was that episode called?

I Dream of Cataracts. 🍾. 🕶️

Aside fromnthe really old one, weren't they all prostitutes?

Having all the girls dickmatized by Doctor Adam Bricker Whenever he was in port was unbelievable- especially when they used the ship’s horn.

[Quote]Aside fromnthe really old one, weren't they all prostitutes?

Good memory, R108! And the doctor next door from Empty Nest was their pimp.

I just googled The Golden Shower Girls and was not disappointed.

They're going to do a reboot with Kristy Mc Nichol, Dinah Manoff, Park Overall, and Lee Grant as Sophia.

I remember an episode where Blanche burst through the door, gun drawn, while Sophia was taking a bath. Then Blanche offered her a washcloth instead of a towel! This was a very violent show!

OP is truly inspired!

I’ve NEVER seen a Golden Girls thread on here in all my time!

I've heard of this show. I think it was on the BBC.

R112. So missing my Park Overall.

With that name, are we sure she’s not a down-low drag queen?

A lot of people don’t know there were originally 7 Golden Girls. 4 were fired after the (lost) pilot aired, and newcomer Bea Arthur was brought in to round out the main cast to 4.

It was the right decision, despite the disappointment of Sada Thomson, Molly Picon, Shelley Winters, and Cicely Tyson. They’d have to wait a bit longer for their big breaks.

Didn’t one of them have a late-in-life pregnancy?

Yes, R118, Bea Arthur gave birth to a big, steaming turd and left it on the floor of Betty White’s dressing room.

Blanche loved BBC

Big blueberry cheesecake, R120?

[quote]I've heard of this show. I think it was on the BBC.

No. This was a prestige show. This was PBS.

During their pledge week, local PBS stations would break into Golden Girls every five minutes to beg for money. PBS got 60% of its money from pledges made during Golden Girls airings.

The chain of dry cleaners that they owned was a nice touch. Pretty original. But when they bought that girl's school in Peaksville I knew they were running out of ideas.

R117 It was going to be based on Seven Old Broads for Seven Horny Old Farts. The well known MGM musical.

It’s a shame they spent all that money acquiring the rights, then abandoned the concept. But Hollywood’s a crap shot (especially with Bea around!)

The cousin Oliver episodes were THE WORST

You bitches are slipping!

Over 100 posting and no one has mentioned one of the greatest scenes ever in TV history!

How can any forget the episode where Dorothy and Blanche got into a fight in the lily pond. Rose tried to break them up while Sophia was encouraging them to keep fighting

That's because the grape stomping fight was better.

Remember when Dorothy decided to have an abortion? And she wasn’t even pregnant, she just wanted to have one.

Am I the only one that got tired of hearing Rose say "what you talkin' 'bout Dorothy?".

You guys all have lousy memory. It wasn’t Rose, it was RosA. She was Puerto Rican. The San Juan jokes got tired after a while.

It was weird how the fourth roommate, Chuck, just disappeared.

The show went downhill once Benson left

Show went over the top when the season finale had a UFO come down and abduct Rose.

They were way too old to be doing that Schlemiel! Schlimazel thing at the beginning of the show.

And then Rose came back with an English accent! 👽 🌹

I heard that the options being considered as the title for the second movie are:

Golden Girls 2: Electric Boogaloo, or

Lawrence of my Labia

Wait until Mrs. Garrett finds out they snuck out on Saturday night and split a beer.

Winifred Hervey knows of what she speaks...

Who were those guys who lived next door?

Why wasn't Park Overall playing the Dorothy role?

I always knew that it was Sophia who shot JR.

Golden

GIRLZ

The series finale was a stinker — Miles “Arnie” Webber wakes up in the middle of the night to reveal that it had all been a dream…

I still laugh when I remember how Blanche had to eat that whole cheesecake on the flight back from Europe.

Rewatched the pilot recently. That first episode rests on the shoulders of Arthur and White. While Blanche’s story sets it in motion, Blanche does nothing but say a few lines, then walk off stage, say a few lines and walk offstage. All the meaty stuff was Dorothy and Rose.

Sorry. The meat was all Blanches.

R146 I think that was more about Rue Maclanahan being the least "known" actress. It wasn't how the actual show turned out at all.

But speaking of the pilot, I noticed Rose's character was off...she was written more like Dorothy in that pilot, trying to tell Blanche her fiance was a sleaze (and proven right) while Dorothy wanted to shut her up and let Blanche be happy. It almost seemed like the character writing was switched. If that story had gone down a season later, it would deginitely be Dorothy getting Rose's writing.

R148 I thought Estelle Getty was the least known, she was a Broadway actress. By 1985, McClanahan had appeared in Maude and Mama's Family, as well as numerous other TV movies and shows.

The Golden Girls original cast:

Dorothy- Elaine Stritch

Rose- Betsy Palmer

Blanche- Suzanne Pleshette

Sophia- Linda Hunt

They wanted Lucy to be Sophia but Gary talked her out of it.

their maid Florence was so spicy. Marla often stole the show. That's saying something considering the pros she was working with.

Would a restricted club really prevent a Jewish person from dining there or would it just not have a Jew as a member? Either way, it’s shitty but I doubt they did DNA tests at the door.

Also, how restricted were clubs in 1988? I could see it still being an issue in the 1972 “Mary Tyler Moore” episode that GG pretty much rips off but all those years later?

I love the two big, wooden 'G's they had on their living room wall. But that upstairs neighbor Rhoda. Oy, don't get me started.

I'm still confused on the layout of the house.

Because it made no sense, R155.

They’d often enter the kitchen from the garage -which was actually on the other side of the house than from where they’d enter. The bedrooms did not seem to extend out to the side. And the front of the house had a walkway around the wall.

That kid who kept coming in saying "Dynamite" was annoying as hell.

Did I Do That?

I love watching Alexis and Blanche fight. Especially when it's physical.

I liked the crossover episode where the Grief Center was closed for renovation and Rose had to go temp at the Help Center alongside Weezie Jefferson. It was one of those perfect farce / misunderstanding plots where Rose somehow comes to believe that Mother Jefferson is really her biological mother. I swear I almost wet myself when Rose starts donning the afro wig!

It used to crack me up when Archie would tell Blanche to stifle herself.

My personal favorite was the one where Broadway legend Kelly Bishop guest starred as the hippie who befriended Dorothy

I cried during the episode when Miles cancelled date with Rose because she got hit in the nose with a football.

That episode where they decided to start breeding gerbils was a little weird. I realize he was rich as Roosevelt at the time, but did the Girls really think Richard Gere and his friends would keep buying enough of them where they’d eventually turn a profit?

The alien they keep up in the attic is the funniest character on the show.

R165 wasn't he voice by Harvey Korman?

I never understood the running gag of Rose having dreams that she used to host a TV cooking show..

The pilot episode where Sophia is sent to live with her black and rich aunt (Blanche) and uncle (Dorothy) in Bel Air to keep her out of trouble and to help her become a rap artist, was well written. I loved the character of Rose the butler, but I think putting her in blackface was too much.

The Golden Girls original cast:

Dorothy- Elaine Stritch

Rose- Betsy Palmer

Blanche- Suzanne Pleshette

Sophia- Linda Hunt

Recasting the role of Sophia, in the 5th seasons, with Emma Samms was ridiculous. They just should have ended the show.

Truthfully, I never thought any of them were traditionally “hot” enough to play waitresses in a fancy restaurant atop a skyscraper… but at least the corseted uniforms gave them some shape.

Don Ameche as the piano player was grating.

This whole forum is a Golden Girls thread, OP.

I got sick of hearing about Blanche's kidnapped babies.

The initial pilot was horribly conceived, with Sophia being a newly single mom in Indianapolis, and Dorothy and Rose playing contrasting sisters. Hilarity did NOT ensue.

Blanche was the sexy neighbor down the hall and Coco was the building’s superintendent.

No wonder they scrapped that and began afresh.

I got sick of seeing Blanche in her leather jacket, sticking her thumbs up, and say "ayyyyyyy". What the fuck was the point? The way the audience would roar with laughter? I just never got it. I won't even start on the way she called Sophia Mrs. P.