Our friend just got some boxed GoldenGirls episodes. My son had never seen this before and he likes it. I am wondering what your favorite episodes were.
I liked the bald men on the airplane one, but really cant recall any others as it was a while ago.
Early last year I worked my way through the whole series and it quickly became one of my favourite shows. I can’t really pinpoint particular episodes, they all sort of run together in my head, but the quality was always really consistent over all seven seasons. I keep meaning to go back and rewatch them all.
I can’t name a favorite episode, I have so many that I love. I love the episode where Blanche’s husband, George, comes back because he faked his own death, and Dorothy is being courted by Sonny Bono and Lyle Waggoner. At the end of the ep, she wakes up but she’s happy because this time, she got to hug George once.
I also love the episode where Dorothy’s sister comes to visit because she’s divorced and she’s lost all her money. Dorothy takes such spiteful joy out of it. It’s hilarious.
Then there’s the ep where Dorothy’s college friend comes to visit because her partner, Pat, had recently died. Pat was a lady, though Rose and Blanche didn’t know that. Then Dorothy’s friend falls in love with Rose. “Lebanese, Blanche! Danny Thomas is Lebanese!”
When their family members show up it’s always pretty good.
Blanche’s gay brother, or Sophia’s sister who she’s been feuding with since before her marriage, or Rose’s daughter, who thinks Rose wasted her inheritance, since Rose doesn’t want to crush her image of her father…
I generally don’t enjoy it, but I rather liked Dorothy screaming in the store, “CONDOMS, Rose, CONDOMS!”
First thing that popped into my head was the time Rose was dating a little person and Blanche keeps putting her foot in her mouth.
“Shrimp?”
I’ve just remembered the episode where they take Dorothy out to a kids restaurant for her birthday, which is one of the most hilarious scenes I think I’ve ever seen. Is that also the episode where we see Rose back in St. Olaf just after her husband died, and it’s her birthday, and she bakes the cake for herself and acts as though he baked it, and talks to him? I’m not ashamed to say that made me a bit teary. Quite a contrast between those two scenes.
I don’t have a favorite episode, but there was always a line that was written and delivered so perfectly …
Sophia walks in, dressed in black, “Everybody ready for temple …?”
“Mom! It’s Tuesday. And we’re Catholic.”
“Oh, OK, so bacon and eggs it is”
I just loved the Sophia’s delightful take on random senility. I hope for everyone around me’s sake my senility is just as funny.
Betty White is pretty much channeling that character in her new series “Hot in Cleveland” – she walks on, insults Jane Leaves then walks off again.
This show used to be on constantly in our house, so much so that certain phrases have become part of our everyday vocabulary. My husband often calls me and says, “Hi, it’s me, Stan.” We begin stories with either, “Back in St. Olaf,” or “Picture it: Sicily, 1928.”
Came up with a couple more:
(Quotes are highly unlikely to be accurate. Apologies for any errors.)
Scene 1:
It’s the middle of winter and their heater’s broken, so they’re all piled in together in Sophia’s bed because she’s got the electric blanket. (Just forget they’re in Miami, k?) Anyway, they’re all grumpy and want to get to sleep, but Rose has forgotten to say her prayers. She climbs out of bed and starts praying when a deep booming voice interrupts,
“Rose, thank you for the lovely prayer. Now go to bed.”
Rose obediently climbs into bed, and Blanche whispers, “Good one, Dorothy!”
Dorothy, of course, says, “What? I didn’t say anything!”
Scene 2:
Dorothy and Blanche are mad at Rose because they read her diary and found out she was writing mean things about them. Rose is mad at them for betraying her trust by reading the diary. So they all go to Sophia for guidance, but Sophia just wants to sleep. Dorothy and Blanche have already barged into her room, and then here comes Rose knocking on the door:
Sophia: This is Sophia’s room. I’m not in right now, please leave a message at the beep. Beep.
Rose, talking through the door: Hi, this is Rose…
Sophia: Rose, get in here!
These don’t seem as funny written out…I think so much of the greatness of the show had to do with the actors and their comedic timing, and their chemistry together. What’s that expression? Lightning in a bottle?
The really funny part is when Blanche finally understands that Pat is a lesbian, and she’s indignant that Pat has a thing for Rose, and not her.
And as for “Hot in Cleveland” . . . it’s like a poor man’s “Golden Girls.” Fewer funny jokes, and everybody is Blanche.
There’s a two-parter where Dorothy is diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, which is a decent storyline not played for laughs; though there is a subplot in the second half where Blanche is trying to write a novel, and breaks through her writer’s block only to stay awake for 48 hours straight filling notebook after notebook with gibberish. The ensuing scene where she’s stumbling around the kitchen, slap-happy and babbling semi-nonsense, is one of my favorites in the series. Rose had earlier been separating eggs and saving the yolks in a baggie “for the homeless,” and Blanche keeps getting distracted from her ranting to fixate on them:
“Rose, what is this? Yella eyeballs are starin’ at me…”
“My god, I’m hallucinatin’. I see little balls of sunshine in a bag!”
“To sleep perchance to dream! Oh, that’s good. I should write that down.”
“I’ve had to suffer for my art, just like van Gogh. He cut off his hair, maybe I’ll cut off mine!”
“Blanche, van Gogh cut off his ear.”
“Tsk. I have too many earrings.”
I watch Golden Girls on Nick at Night every night. It’s an awesome show. I never watched it when it was originally on, probably because I was in elementary school at the time. But now I’ve probably seen every episode at least 5 times.
I recall one wonderful scene, but not the rest of the episode. They are in some art gallery, looking at an impressionists painting.
They say “What an odd looking ear.” Someone says, “Thats not an ear.”
The look on Dorothys face is great.
Rose is a producer of a morning chat show, and invites Dorothy and Blanche to be guests on an episode about women who live together. It’s not until they’re filming that they realize everybody believes they’re lovers.
Sophia in the audience (paraphrased): How much have you embarrassed your poor mother?
Dorothy: I’ll have to ask her tomorrow. At the home.
The retirement home on Arrested Development was also called Shady Pines. I nearly died when Michael said, “Shady Pines, Ma.”
I was beaten to it already, but when they were going on the cruise and had to stop by the drugstore for “Protection”.
Between Lifetime, WE and the Hallmark Channel, I think it’s on pretty much all day. My wife used to watch it when she was unemployed - in the morning when I left for work she’d be watching it, when I occasionally came home for lunch she’d be watching it, when I came home from work she’d be watching it, and when I went to bed she’d be watching it again.
My favorite was from “Golden Moments”, a 2-parter. I don’t remember whether this scene appears in Part 1 or 2…but the ladies are in the kitchen eating cheesecake (of course), and start talking about the first time they shaved their legs. Rose is appalled and unbelieving that Blanche shaves above the knee.
Rose: If you shave above the knee, what does that say?
Blanche: I hope it says, “Touch my leg!”
The conversation turns to the first time they had sex. Dorothy talks about getting pregnant her first time, in the back seat of Stan’s car.
“It was over so quickly…I wasn’t even sure anything had really happened. And then nine months later, when the baby came, I figured that it had.”
Rose says haughtily that her first time it was on her wedding night; Dorothy and Blanche give her a look that says “F-you!” Rose asks if Blanche and Dorothy “ever…you know…during sex”. Rose says something like, “I liked it, once I figured out that that’s what you really were supposed to do, and it wasn’t just some huge joke…it took years before I knew what made your eyes bug out!”
The whole routine is about five minutes long; but the expressions on Bea Arthur’s face are what makes it brilliant.
Better than Oprah, right? 