The Funniest Episodes of the Golden Girls

seasons two three and four are the best. After season four it lost it's luster.

It was never funny. It was considered lame-o TV at the time, down there with Webster and Alf. They only kept it running in deference to Bea Arthur, so as not to embarrass her with a flop.

The endless threads on here about this forgotten 80s sitcom are bewildering.

The Case of the Libertine Belle is my favorite but all mentioned are excellent.

R1 Season 2, 4 and 5 are the best.

When Dorothy and Blanche are on the talk show and realize they are mistaken for lesbians.

Season 7 had some solid episodes.

The lesbian talk show episode, Rusty Anchor episode and the Hollywood game show episode.

Season 5, Triple Play, brought out the best in all four of them. The plotting was superb. The jokes and delivery spot on.

It gets my vote.

I wonder which episode the Yvonne troll will choose?

I think seasons 2 and 4 have the best episodes, while season 3 has the best one liners.

Rose's talk show

The hardest I laughed was when the three were making fun of Blanche dating the guy who thought her grandbaby was her baby and Blanche says that she's not ready to have another baby. Dorothy says wait until your 65 and medicare will pay for it and Sophia says "Why wait? Have it now and the Enquirer will pay for it."

Season 7, Episode 18 "Journey to the Center of Attention" is worth watching. "Blanche is upset when Dorothy becomes popular with the patrons at her favorite bar, the Rusty Anchor."

Let's be honest: it's just not that great of a show on its own merits. Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty were very good, and Betty White and Bea Arthur were genuine old pros with crackerjack timing. And there are sequences, especially with the latter two women, that are very funny and deserve being watched in clips on youtube.

But there are very few episodes that are good all the way through. The writers were lazy, and could not sustain continuity for the characters, and they kept repeating the same jokes and the same situations over and again. Plus they wanted to slip in heavy-handed messages in sometimes that were dear to their hearts. Some of these were really admirable (loneliness among old people, gay and lesbian acceptance, the nastiness of anti-Semitism) but some were ridiculous (chronic fatigue syndrome).

Dataloungers love this show not so much because it was a brilliant and sustained show, like I Love Lucy or Mary Tyler Moore, but because it was/is comfort food. They don;t remember brilliant writing so much as loving the actresses (which is reasonable--I love them too) and the idea of just sitting around yakking about your sex life or your past.

Puh-leeze, r14. Let me guess. "Caroline in the City" was appointment tv for you.

As far as petty ad hominem attacks go, r15, those are pretty feeble.

The hardest I ever laughed was the Great Herring War. I guess it was because Rue and Bea broke character while Betty stayed in character. According to comments on YouTube, at one point you can hear Estelle laughing off camera.

I eat piles and piles....and PILES of shit!

Let's face it -- "The Golden Girls" is limited.

The episodes at the link are all great except for “Three on a Couch,” which isn’t one that I care for. The Barbara Thorndyke episode is great. Another favorite of mine is “Till Death Do We Volley,” from season 4, I think.

[quote] I guess it was because Rue and Bea broke character while Betty stayed in character.

Neither Bea nor Rue broke character. They were laughing IN character at the ridiculous story Rose was telling. Don’t forget, this was seconds before they decided that, in spite of their differences, they think they can make the arrangement of living together work.

R20 "Three on the Couch" wouldn't be in my top either, although the scene where Rose puts Dorothy's ad in the personals is fucking funny. Though if I was going to pick one of those "flashback" episodes, it would be "One for the money" with the dance competition.

R14 = Coco

They dumped you, get over it.

This is actually a great list, surprisingly enough. I wouldn’t choose Three on a Couch either, but fuck if that personals flashback isn’t funny as hell.

Season 2 and 7 I think hold up the best, 6 is great too. I think the middle seasons are the weakest (though this list has what’s easily the best S5 episode), and the new writers the last 2 seasons were a welcome change because the show — while still solid — has gotten a little tired. I know some die hard didn’t like the zaniness of those later episodes but I freaking love it.

R14 Prefers Mr Belvedere

Yesterday I watched the one where Rose's new beau buys a boat to sail around the world.

It had the great joke where they are all drinking champagne and Dorothy goes, "I love champagne. It just makes me want to kiss every man in sight."

Then you hear a splash and someone yell, "MAN OVERBOARD!"

Patrick Vaughn! He melts my Haagen Daz. That’s a cold sack of chestnuts.

Something to watch

Some of the jokes were pretty mundane, you or I could probably write them. Set up, punchline etc. But the combined talent of the Girls really did elevate such material. And some of the writing was sublime.

Ugh, Dorothy's ad was $8 an hour, not $10. Do your research, Daryl. And no way in hell does that episode even belong in the top 50. The rest are good choices. I maybe would've switched out Journey to the Center of Attention for the Freida Claxton episode.

The episode where the Girls act in community theater and Dorothy is cast as the town sheriff.

The episode where Lazlo, the Italian sculptor comes to town.

Both episodes involve one man having secret affairs with all three Girls. (The play director, Lazlo.)

I like when they were in therapy or sitting around the table telling stories. Some of best scenes were not centered around a complete episode... Like the dance contest they all entered, when they brought condoms for their trip, when they accidentally went to the nudist colony.

R25, not R14, but I loved Mr. Belvedere😉

[quote]The episode where Lazlo, the Italian sculptor comes to town.

Hungarian!

[quote]The episode where Lazlo, the Italian sculptor comes to town.

Hungarian!

The community theater episode was another good one.

Love “Joust between Friends”, where Dorothy gets a job at the museum where Blanche works and quickly becomes teacher’s pet with the boss. Blanche’s jealously eventually leads to one of her best lines, “Eat dirt and die, trash”!

Nowadays I find all the after-school specials pretty amusing. Like Rose has been addicted to painkillers for 30 years but you never noticed? Sophia, who is supposedly mentally impaired from a stroke, gets recruited into an assisted suicide?

[italic]Dorothy, in the episode in which her and Stan get into trouble for being bad landlords, receives encouragement from her mother Sophia.[/italic]

[bold]“Don’t you worry, Dorothy! I’ll get you the best lawyer Social Security money can buy.“[/bold]

R37 classic Sophia and classic season 7.

And see, this will probably be a minority opinion as well, but..,I loved Sophia the first 2 seasons, where she was this breath of fresh air, unabashedly hilarious, and convincing as an old lady who had had a stroke, or whatever. And I loved her in the last two seasons when she was just a total fucking cunt. When I didn’t love her were during the middle seasons , when it seemed to be about: oh look, Sophia is 85 but she really acts like she’s 35! Even a day at the supermarket can be adventurous! And look she’s fluent in pop culture too! It’s hard to explain but she just got a little too precious. But then in the very late seasons she got so nasty that she became funny again.

Great analysis, r38.

I couldn’t put my finger on it either, but that sounds like a lot of it.

[quote])though this list has what’s easily the best S5 episode)

I’m curious as to which one is your favorite from that season.

R40 The Accurate Conception, the same one they listed in the article (the sperm bank one).

I also really like The Mangiacavallo (sp) curse, I think that’s great and underrated.

Ugh, I HATE the Mangiacavallo episode. Bottom 5 for me.

Me too, r42.

Thanks, r41 for satiating my curiosity.

I don’t necessarily agree with that one, but that’s OK.

It started going downhill as Marc Cherry started getting involved. Season 7 was the worst and his name is all over it!

Totally disagree. Season 7 has some of the funniest episode (Libertine Belle, Mr. Gordon, Jeopardy, Nurse DeFarge) and some of the funniest lines.

R45 totally disagree as well. I think the middle seasons were the weakest and the change in writers and slight change in tone have the show the shot in the arm it needed to have a really funny last two seasons (especially the last season).

Great show. But don't touch the episodes where the girls go looking for a jacket at a homeless shelter nor the Empty Nest episode. Yuckville

Sophia was an old bastard

R47

Don’t forget the episode when Mary, who we’ve never of and never see again, is a pregnant teenager. Loads of laughs.

What about that little boy, upon meeting Dorothy, "It's the Bride of Frankenstein!"

The way he delivers that line always makes me laugh.

The only character I thought was funny on The Golden Girls was Sophia, to me she stole the show. However I didn't watch and still watch The Golden Girls so much for the laughs but for the warm feeling the show gave me. It was so unusual to have a show about older people, TV tends to ignore older people or just give them bit parts. Each of these women reminded me of my grandmother in their own way and it was just a corny feel good show for me, not so funny but very enjoyable.

R49, the Meryl B-story was great though.

The biggest laugh for me was when Blanche's gay brothers say's his partner would " Bend over backward" for him and Dorothy grabs Sophia, gaging her with her hand as she was about to say a retort. That made me laugh for weeks.

Mel Busman awaits.

Sophia was actually not that funny.

Marc Cherry wrote the Sophia becomes a nun episode! He should have been fired on the spot!

Yes the nun plot was fucking ridiculous though the poster with Jesus on one side and some by-gone stud on the other was funny.

[quote] was when Blanche's gay brothers say's his partner

Oh, dear!

R57, it’s not like sitcoms of that era didn’t have ridiculous plot lines on occasion.

If the writers came up with enough jokes, they’d twist shit into a pretzel to figure out how to put a character in that situation.

R56 fuck I love that episode!

Really tired of Sophia's fart jokes. You just know they added it for all the young guys watching

R61 agreed — except for one great one in The Popes Ring ep, but actually Rose delivers the line.

I loved the nun episode too. I thought it was hilarious.

Apparently a lot of old men tuned in to get titilated by Blanche's sex stories and wished they could take her on the floor of the Rusty Anchor's bogs

Agree that Sophia was not that funny. Boring stories. Also when did personal insults replace wit?

The nun episode is funny! I like the idea that Sophia joins the convent and turns the other nuns into gamblers lol.

Sophia wasn't charismatic enough to convert a nunnery, she could barely remember her lines!

R62, you reminded me of the one where Rose knocks on Sophia’s door. Exasperated, she says, “I’m not in leave a message.”

“Hi, Sophia, this is Rose....”