If I said that until a few days ago I had never seen The Golden Girls, I would be lying. It was on a ton and I’m sure I had. I knew it was the one with a post-Mary Tyler Moore Show Betty White, and that it had a proto-Samantha, and that it was some old ladies with one even older lady. I remembered it as set in a retirement community, and—remember that my recollection of the show was preserved in amber when I was about 11—assumed the show was about the elderly, like Waiting for God, the 1990s Britcom that I could recite all 5 seasons of. (Stephanie Cole was in her late 40s when cast but was playing 70-something.)
I’m watching it now because we had to get Disney Plus for kid-reasons and why not lean into second-childhood while at it. Did you know that the Golden Girls aren’t even retired? My mind, so very blown.
The best by far by far is Estelle Getty’s Sophia, who is 80 and lucid but medically incapable of self-censorship. She is Grandma Yetta from The Nanny but with a bigger role. One of the other women cops to feeling lonesome and she says, in the pilot episode, “Get a poodle,” and I swear I fell in love.
Bea Arthur’s Dorothy, the sarcasm is a bit catchphrase-y. It grates. But she’s the show’s Daria and I don’t hate it.
Rue McClanahan actually had 500 husbands in real life, a detail I appreciate, and that somehow saves her from the fate of the sitcom-trope nyphomaniac caricature.
Betty White is like if Sue-Ann Nivens were the thing she pretends to be when playing The Happy Homemaker in The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s show-within-a-show. Why? Is she underutilized here? But I do like her dresses, and would wear them, as makes sense because at 40 I am basically a Golden Girl myself.
Bea Arthur and Estelle Getty playing southern Italian rather than Jewish—as they both so obviously are, as if I needed Wikipedia for this, though I did confirm—such things are always a choice. Their Italianness does seem developed, at least, not like an offhand see they’re not Jewish don’t worry. But I don’t love it. I am literally right here cancelling everyone in a 2015 think-piece running on Thought Catalog or whatever, just kidding, I am going to watch all seasons of this show as readily as my schedule permits.
I loved this show! & these characters! More than you, weirdly enough, but I started watching during 90's reruns and it could be the early shows weren't quite up to what came later.
Definitely one of my top 5 sitcoms from back in the day, maybe my favorite. Hope you keep enjoying!