Golden Girls' Golden Moments

[LoveNDino]

[samhexum]

Golden Girls' Golden Moments

One of my favorite bits of GG dialogue came right before this clip; Rose was describing HER best sex ever... the night Charlie died. She said, "there was something wild about him that night... though I did think it was strange when he started yelling, Rose-- I'm going, I'm going!" (Dorothy's reply: "Talk about your mixed emotions!")

Edited November 18, 2017 by samhexum

[maninsoma]

I still love the Golden Girls. One of television's best comedies ever. Even though some of the jokes are dated, I can tune in one of the channels that runs GG marathons on the weekends (TVLand, Logo) and know I will have some laugh out loud moments.

[bostonman]

It does seem to be on a number of channels, lol. Hallmark runs it also, when they aren't doing their nauseating binge of treacly Christmas movies, lol.

 

Hallmark, the home of the also nauseating "Home and Family" show, edits "objectionable" moments out of the classic sitcom. There's an episode where Dorothy meets and befriends a female author who turns out to be a horrible snob and a potential racist - and Dorothy ends the relationship by saying "go to hell." That line is cut from the Hallmark version of the episode. Really - imagine that even in 2017 "go to hell" is that offensive??

[longtime lurker]

It always amazed me how this show managed so many jokes in a mere five minutes of time, something that hadn't been achieved since the Jack Benny Program went off the air... on the radio!

 

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

Magenta

[+ WilliamM]

It always amazed me how this show managed so many jokes in a mere five minutes of time, something that hadn't been achieved since the Jack Benny Program went off the air... on the radio!

 

As a physical comic, few people got more laughs and higher ratings than Lucille Ball in "I Love Lucy." I was too young to watch the first few seasons of ILL, but certainly the later seasons. It's possible I did not have a TV when "Golden Girls" was on the air.

 

In real life Jack Benny and Mary Livington lived next door to Lucy and Desi Arnaz for many years on Roxbury Dr. in Beverly Hills.

Edited November 29, 2017 by WilliamM

[bostonman]

Growing up with Maude in its initial run (which featured both Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan), I have more of a fondness for that show and those characters. But of course the addition of Betty White in particular does make a huge case for enjoying The Golden Girls. And Estelle Getty was no chopped liver either.

 

Interesting that originally White was slated as Blanche, and McClanahan as Rose - but because those roles were more similar to their earlier shows (McClanahan as the dippy Vivian on Maude, White as the would-be sexpot Sue Anne on The Mary Tyler Moore Show), they switched.

[samhexum]

It does seem to be on a number of channels, lol. Hallmark runs it also, when they aren't doing their nauseating binge of treacly Christmas movies, lol. AMEN, sister! Hallmark edits "objectionable" moments out of the classic sitcom ...imagine that even in 2017 "go to hell" is that offensive??

 

Bitch gets edited out, too. But all the jokes about Blanche's sleeping around are morally okay, I guess.

 

P.S. I loved the A VISIT FROM LITTLE SVEN episode. I had a minor crush on Casey Sander ever since he played a self-defense instructor (whose outfit revealed a hairy chest) on VALERIE, which later became THE HOGAN FAMILY. There was a great moment when Sander (as Vince, the instructor) was instructing Edie McClurg... he grabbed her from behind and put her in a bear hug. Instead of struggling and fighting back, she started cooing with lust. He said to her, "Mrs. Poole, you're not struggling." Her response: "Not directly, no..."

 

Of course, McClurg had a classic moment on GOLDEN GIRLS. She played a nurse who'd worked at Shady Pines

when Sophia was 'incarcerated' there. Dorothy hired her to take care of Sophia when she'd hurt her ankles & was confined to a wheelchair. Sophia started teasing Dorothy by calling the nurse 'daughter' and having the nurse call her 'ma.' But it went too far when...

[samhexum]

Magenta

 

LOVE that moment, too!

[samhexum]

It always amazed me how this show managed so many jokes in a mere five minutes of time, something that hadn't been achieved since the Jack Benny Program went off the air

 

One of the things that annoyed a little me about GG is that, as the show went on, Bea Arthur seemed to adopt Benny's mannerism of putting her hand to her cheek and looking aloof or disinterested when something offputting was said.

 

BTW, was anybody else annoyed at the way the ladies' kids' names & ages always seemed to change?

Dorthy's daughter was played by 30 year old Lisa Jane Persky in the first season (2nd episode), & by

31 year old Deena Freeman in Season 2 (episode 23). So who was Dorothy pregnant with when she had to get married, considering the show began 2 years after the end of her 38 year marriage? Surely not her son Michael, who was 29 in the first season, 23 in the second when he married Rosalind Cash (who was preggers) and 30 in the third season, when he mentioned splitting up with her, but said nothing about the child.

 

Then again, how could I expect Dorothy to be able to keep up with her kids' ages when she didn't even notice that her son had a nose job between his first and second appearance?

http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/family-affair-episode-7-pictured-marilyn-jones-as-bridget-nylund-as-picture-id138386895

 

http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/mixed-blessings-episode-23-pictured-rosalind-cash-as-lorraine-scott-picture-id138357062

BTW... Some Scott Jacoby trivia... he has a piece of LGBTQ history... he played Hal Hobrook's son in the groundbreaking TV movie THAT CERTAIN SUMMER which portrayed Holbrook's relationship with Martin Sheen.

 

Also, his half-brother Billy played Blanche's grandson in the first season's 6th episode. (So Blanche & Dorothy were kinda related!) He was billed as Billy Jacoby, since Scott was well-established in show biz & Billy's mother thought that would help him. He later changed his show biz moniker back to its original Billy Jayne.

Edited November 29, 2017 by samhexum

[samhexum]

It always amazed me how this show managed so many jokes in a mere five minutes of time, something that hadn't been achieved since the Jack Benny Program went off the air... on the radio!

 

My favorite episode is Girls Just Wanna Have Fun... Before They Die, in which Blanche gives sex advice to Rose & Sophia. Watch the 5 1/2 minutes of rapid-fire punchlines from 7:15-12:46. Note how Blanche's voice quivers when she's supposed to sit down on the couch whilst saying her line, but hits the wicker armrest on the way down (at the 11:26 mark).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNv1ddJccJw

[longtime lurker]

This line is so awful in taste and sensitivity (typical 80s), but it is so rapid fire that you can't help but laugh. "All right... girls, I want to present Blanche Devereaux's latest creation!! I took an 84 year old woman and made her look like a 65 year old drag queen. Then I said to myself, 'Blanche, too much rouge'..."

[bostonman]

And sometimes things felt a bit too "rehearsed" or overdone - the shudder-y "eww" reaction to the idea of the sperm bank insemination, for instance. Or, those moments when you really have to suspend all disbelief, like when they all, all of a sudden, start singing the "Miami" contest song that they don't really know yet - but it sounds like they've known it for years lol.

 

But, that episode is all worth it for Rose's laughably awful attempts at writing lyrics - the whole "thrice" bit - and "your cuter than / an intrauterine..."

[samhexum]

And sometimes things felt a bit too "rehearsed" or overdone - the shudder-y "eww" reaction to the idea of the sperm bank insemination, for instance. Or, those moments when you really have to suspend all disbelief, like when they all, all of a sudden, start singing the "Miami" contest song that they don't really know yet - but it sounds like they've known it for years lol.

 

But, that episode is all worth it for Rose's laughably awful attempts at writing lyrics - the whole "thrice" bit - and "your cuter than / an intrauterine..."

 

My former roommate liked, but didn't love GG. She was in the hospital after a very serious accident when the songwriting episode aired (its summer rerun on NBC). She & her nurse were watching and she got a very big (and very needed) laugh at the intrauterine line. To this day, if one of us sings "Miami... you're cuter than..." the other will answer "An intrauterine..."

[maninsoma]

A lot of TV shows don't hold up under intellectual scrutiny, but perhaps Golden Girls is worse than most. It's best to completely suspend disbelief when watching it and just enjoy the jokes.

[longtime lurker]

And sometimes things felt a bit too "rehearsed" or overdone - the shudder-y "eww" reaction to the idea of the sperm bank insemination, for instance. Or, those moments when you really have to suspend all disbelief, like when they all, all of a sudden, start singing the "Miami" contest song that they don't really know yet - but it sounds like they've known it for years lol.

 

But, that episode is all worth it for Rose's laughably awful attempts at writing lyrics - the whole "thrice" bit - and "your cuter than / an intrauterine..."

 

A lot of shows performed in front of a live audience tended to look rather rehearsed. This may explain why so many recent shows have stopped in order to get better performances and remove the "stagey" feel. There had always been comedy shows shot like movies with just a camera crew before, yet the trend of virtually all being done this way really took after Friends and Seinfeld, which probably marked a climax in staged live performances. Practically all sitcoms are done differently today, although the performances can still be "stagey" at times.

 

Also working against it to a degree was the fact that the actresses were all veterans with so much stage and TV experience. This was wonderful in many ways since they were all in peak performance. Yet they may have been TOO professional to come across as genuine "average" ladies you would actually meet living together in Miami.

 

I have to agree with the "ewww" thing, because women going to sperm banks is really no big deal, but the 1980s really was a very repressed decade compared to today. You have to count the forward-moving blessings with this show. It was, after all, among the first to feature a same sex marriage (Blanche's brother Clayton). Then there was the speech from Blanche to Rose, who thought she might have HIV from a blood transfusion, that AIDS "is a not a bad person disease"; this episode being among the first to also show heterosexuals subject to it as equally as gays. It was a very liberal show, even more so than All In The Family a decade and a half before it.

[samhexum]

GOLDEN GIRLS (specifically Sophia) took several shots at DESIGNING WOMEN over the years. I also enjoyed that show. One of my favorite scenes:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5fJVMdMelw

[LoveNDino]

[escortrod]

I love it when Rose occasionally asserts herself.

 

[samhexum]

And sometimes things felt a bit too "rehearsed" or overdone - the shudder-y "eww" reaction to the idea of the sperm bank insemination, for instance. Or, those moments when you really have to suspend all disbelief, like when they all, all of a sudden, start singing the "Miami" contest song that they don't really know yet - but it sounds like they've known it for years lol.

 

But, that episode is all worth it for Rose's laughably awful attempts at writing lyrics - the whole "thrice" bit - and "your cuter than / an intrauterine..."

 

Hallmark cuts out that entire intrauterine scene. They tend to cut whole scenes to get the episode down to 20 minutes, whereas Lifetime used to cut a line here, a line there.

[samhexum]

Now that Hallmark Channel's inane, annoying, endless, horrible, suicide-inspiring, (seemingly) year-round Xmas extravaganza has ended, the girls are back. Yay!

 

One of my favorite Dorothy being sarcastic scenes:

[samhexum]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jKBYYTLvZI

[samhexum]

 

I always notice the moment in this scene when the girl with the bad accent turns away to avoid showing she's laughing after Sophia says "good luck with the lean, mean Swedish machine." It happens at the 1:00 mark of this clip.

[maninsoma]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jKBYYTLvZI

 

Another funny Rose story about herring.