Golden Girls: Classic or Dud?

Lloyd Bochner as Patrick Vaughn is a favorite, mostly because the one woman's excessively drawled "It sho' is Biff" has become something of a catchphrase for me, to the point that my bf looks about ready to strangle me whenever I answer any of his questions with it these days (ie - "do you have my car keys?" "i sho' do Biff," and so forth).

― Public Brooding Closet (cryptosicko), Tuesday, 9 April 2013 22:41 (6 days ago) Permalink

amaaaaaaaaazing there need to be more people in the world like you

― surm, Sunday, April 14, 2013 8:07 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It sho would Biff.

lol

xp well coco was around but it was when dorothy was talking about getting older, and she says something like " well, i looked in the mirror and i didn't even recognize the woman staring back at me "

and rose goes " who was it? "

Rose's first punch line!

A+ joke

Coco had a couple good lines iirc.

Dorothy: "Rose, Charlie's dead."
Coco: "Why tell her?"

I keep forgetting about Coco.

The wedding coordinator was a much more grating stereotype. I can't even watch that scene anymore.

Still, the show wins back a lot of gay cred with Blanche's brother Clayton. And Dorothy's lesbian friend whose name I forget.

Jean.

NOT LEBANESE, BLANCHE

incidentally both the actress who played jean and blanche's 2 sisters have been on more than one Murder She Wrote episode, fun fact

Right! Also lead to that great exchange:

BLANCHE: I don't think you should tell [Rose that Jean is gay]. She's not as worldly and sophisticated about these things as I am.
SOPHIA: Yeah, if she found out Danny Thomas was a lesbian, it would break her heart.

I have seen the Jean episode 3x this week.

<3

I'VE JUST BEEN KICKED OUT OF AN UNAYTHORIZED ELVIS PRESLEY FAN CLUB, I'LL TRY TO PUT THE PIECES OF MY LIFE BACK TOGETHER

Sophia: too trill

lol dorothy is great in that scene

I MEAN THERE MUST BE A SUPPORT GROUP FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME

The one where Dorothy's friend is in love with Rose was on this afternoon. I think the whole scene where Blanche finds out (from "isn't Danny Thomas one?" to "to think she'd prefer Rose over me?!" to Sophia's diss at the end of the scene) is my fave Blanche moment in the entire series run.

I love it when the writers get slap happy and show their hand on this show

as a Lebanese gay man the general public's intense appreciation of that Blanche moment means a lot to me

the episode was just on where Rose tries to seduce Dorothy's date to get him to show his true (vile) colors. she's p good at it

Haha

REX HUNTINGTON

"No, that was my MINOR point. My MAJOR point was..."

Yikes - Huntington was from a different episode, he was an asshole Blanche was dating until Dorothy made it apparent just how big an asshole he was.

Anyone ever notice how Sophia's sister Angela morphed into her brother Angelo in the later seasons?

Yeah

Because the actress playing the sister died and they couldn't bear to hire another actress to replace her

God, they could've just recycled Frieda Claxton/Philomena for one more round, or something.

I wonder which ones contributed most to this track. I'm thinking mostly Dorothy and Blanche with Sophia twiddling a few knobs and Rose making coffee runs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MOhRBfIOY4

4 a.m. cheesecake eternal

(Beyond 3 a.m. because these girls have seen the sun rise more times than a flock or roosters.)

The pilot is so damn painful to watch, mostly because the script turns Bea Arthur in likable, Blanche wasn't fully Blanche, plus lame-o gay cook

Keep forgetting this existed. Cheech Marin! Don Cheadle!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wT8A-nupU

(quite a few other episodes are on YouTube as well)

Golden Girls dollhouse

No lanai?!

That'll be part of the expansion pack, along with the turnstile at the end of the hall by Blanche's bedroom.

That wasted triangle space in the middle of the house? Surely that wouldn't be up to code.

Someone needs to pull a Room 237 on the faulty floor plan of that house.

02. "Ebbtide's Revenge" (S6, E12) -- It's no secret that Sophia is my least favorite of the four main characters, but in this case her antagonism just makes the moment she lets the facade drop all the more powerful. Structurally, this is a replay of the "Good Times" episode when Florida seems to be refusing to cry for her dead husband, but this episode goes much deeper into the nature of grief beyond the denial stage. Even beyond the obviously touching GLAAD Award-ish affirmation of Phil's cross-dressing, the episode taps into that regret we feel about the feelings we withhold from people, only to realize too late that they were standing in the way of fully realized relationships. Rue McClanahan, Betty White and Bea Arthur were all consistently great in the show. But none of them ever delivered a moment as unexpected and raw as Estelle Getty's admission of parental shame. I've admittedly never been a "drama trumps comedy" personality, but that's about the only explanation I can think of why this heartbreaking episode didn't flat-out take first place.

Been sorta hoping to catch this one ever since Eric posted this, as I don't think I've seen it in twenty-some years. Estelle Getty's closing scene, the only thing I even remembered about the episode from the first time around, is indeed a heartbreaker. Better still, the episode makes up for years of treating the never-seen Phil as a punchline, even if the clear establishment of him as a heterosexual transvestite all along was an unexpectedly progressive gesture.

But the scene with the priest cracking wise at Phil's expense and eventually giving up on his sermon ("No charge") is rather shockingly mean, the kind of thing that suggests that the show still maintained a certain discomfort with the subject matter. Still, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that bits like this are in there to keep the episode from skewing too far astray of the sitcom format, particularly as its ramping up to that finale.

I saw this one last week! I swear to God I've seen them all at least 3x times now. I hadn't really thought about the priest bit but I guess it was kind of mean! I kind of wanted to see the teddy tbh.

Yeah, I agree that some of the jokes aimed at Phil were/are a little too barbed, but they at least serve a specific function in this episode -- to put Sophia's secret sense of mortification and responsibility into a legitimate social context.

Probably my biggest glitch with the episode is how the writers oversold what could've been the funniest punchline, when Blanche sees the guys from Phil's Thursday night poker game and says, "This is too funny. I have to get my camera from the car." The second line would've implied the first line, and the first line is so on-the-nose that it nearly kills the effect.

You know what's the best? Coming home from walking the dog and finding that the Patrick Vaughn episode is on.

"Sorry ... must be the heat."

"There's something rotten in the state of Denmark."

"It's their cheese."

"They refuse to use preservatives."

Rose, did any of your relatives star in Deliverance? sorry, i know it's not in that scene but i had to

"Help. The outlook is drear."

ftw

Waiting for the used price of the complete series on DVD to drop juuuuust a little bit (still over $60) and then I'm probably gonna get rid of my cable

lol <3

my friends newborn stops crying when she puts GG on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWVCqV63krw

yesss.

even better http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pTGoe9KN97A#t=243

"This is the last drop of that perfume Big Daddy gave me on my 21st birthday. I want to see if it still has its fragrance. After all, that was 20 years ago."

"Oh, Blanche. If your 21st birthday was 20 years ago, you'd only be 41."

"That's right."

"Gee, you look terrible for your age."

haha. o god is that big daddy's little lady? one of my favorite episodes of all time

"Say hello to Big Mommy."

I deeply regret not putting that episode in my top 10. So much good stuff floating around in there.

I should attempt a top ten of my own one day. Right off the top of my head, Patrick Vaughn and Barbara Thorndyke ones would likely be close to the top, but I'd have to revisit quite a few episodes before assembling a list.