Betty White and Joan Rivers trading shade on the Tonight Show, 1983

Love their back-and-forth here. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the memories.

LOL, two quick wits going at it, great fun!

Thanks for posting this OP.

Here's the People magazine cover that Betty is referring to.

Betty is the true definition of a “good sport.” She can take it as well as she can dish it.

People here always point to her joking around in those GG outakes as some sort of proof that she’s a “secret bitch,” but she’s obviously someone who just really likes to joke around and not take herself (or anyone else) too seriously. She loves a good roast of herself (I’ve seen it on other shows like Match Game too).

I adore Joan as well but we all know you could never criticize her daughter without her flipping out. Her one major blind spot.

Yeah, it seems that because Betty had a lot of TV hosting experience (her own talk shows and 19 years of the Rose Parade), plus tons of appearances on game shows and panel shows (the Today Show offered her the anchor job that went to Barbara Walters after she turned it down) that improv was one of her strengths.

It is weird that people look at those Golden Girls outtakes as "Betty hamming it up for the audience" when improv and audience interaction was just her comfort zone, while Bea Arthur was very much a theatrical, go-by-the-script performer. They just had different approaches, and it didn't have to drive a wedge between the two.