Welcome to the latest installment of Flashback to the Present. I’ll be your contributing writer, Charles Knauf.
Other than me shoving my undeserved opinion into your eye-holes, the whole point of these articles is focusing on a program or movie that no one remembers. That way, I can introduce something to people that they may not have checked out before.
However, this week I feel the need to spread the word of a show you should all know…
The Golden Girls.
In case you’re oblivious to this series, The Golden Girls is the greatest comedy program ever to grace television. Oh? You think Orange is the New Black, The Office, Parks and Rec or 30 Rock is better?
Well, you’re wrong (and then I’d slap you).
The situation is simple: four sassy women in Florida, closing in on their golden years, deal with random issues.
I know, you’re wondering, “In a world of reality TV and sex tapes, how in the hell does a comedy about menopausal women get on air?” Four names…
Betty White, Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty.
These women are TITANS of comedy.
As mentioned above, The Golden Girls is a situational comedy about four single women trying to make it through the twilight of their lives. The ever-passionate Blanche Devereaux (McClanahan) owns the coolest house and rents out the rooms to the ditzy Rose Nylund (White), sarcastic Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak (Arthur), and Dorothy’s sassy mother Sophia Petrillo (Getty).
But really, who doesn’t know about The Golden Girls?
Anyway, if you’re still in doubt over the validity of my claim that The Golden Girls is straight-up, mind-blowingly epic remember: the stats don’t lie.
During its run The Golden Girls had 68 Emmy nominations, 11 Emmy awards, all four lead actors won an Emmy (only All in the Family and Will & Grace have done this), four Golden Globe Award nominations, and three Golden Globe wins. At its height, The Golden Girls was viewed in over 20 million homes and six out of seven seasons had it ranked in the top ten programs during its timeslot.
Oh, that’s right – it was on for SEVEN seasons and had 173 original run episodes (180 total) and it started as a sketch.
The idea for a comedy around older women was one of the sketches called “Miami Nice” in a 1984 television special produced to introduce NBC’s 1984-1985 season schedule that was a satire about old women living in Miami, Florida. NBC senior vice president Warren Littlefield dug the sketch and met up with producers Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas. Littlefield asked if they wanted to do “Miami Nice” but they passed; however Witt agreed to ask his wife, Susan Harris to deliver.
Harris, who had a number of successful projects under her belt, thought it would be interesting because “it was a demographic that had never been addressed.” Littlefield LOVED the script, greenlit the pilot and hired The Cosby Show director Jay Sandrich (who worked with Harris, Witt and Thomas on Soap) to direct.
Dorothy was always considered by Harris as “the Bea Arthur-type,” and Estelle Getty was chosen to play Sophia after she was seen playing an elderly character in a Broadway play. Rue McClanahan and Betty White were chosen as Mama’s Family ended, but were originally going to play opposite characters; McClanahan as Rose and White as Blanch. After a suggestion from Sandrich to swap roles, they obliged and The Golden Girls was born.
So in conclusion dear reader, thank you for being a friend and indulging me in my love for The Golden Girls.
Take my word for it and watch this kickass show – it’s available for free on YouTube. Hell, you can do what I do: crack a beer or three, grab a slice of cheesecake, pull up a chair in the lanai, and watch it under your oil painting of the girls circled around the kitchen table.
