Golden Girls: The Complete First Season

Review by: Alexis Tuminello

AlexisTuminello@TheCinemaSource.com

There's A Married Dead Man in My Bed

"You take the good, you take the bad" . . . wait, wrong theme song, let me start again . . .

"And if you threw a party – something, something, something "” the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say 'Thank you for being a friend'"

I've always been awfully suspicious of that theme song. I think the 'friend' just switched the cards so she was the one to give the biggest gift. I've never done that but the thought has crossed my mind. Back to point; watching the first season of Golden Girls brought back a lot of fond funny memories and every person I told that I was reviewing Golden Girls said the same exact thing: "I love that show!". I agreed of course until about twenty hours in. By then I had heard all the wisecracks I could take. That aside Golden Girls in small doses, three or so episodes in a sitting, is still as entertaining as it was upon first viewing.

The four women in their feminine prime each has a trait that provides for both touching and comical moments. Blanche Devereaux, played by Rue McClanahan, is the promiscuous Southern Belle who conceitedly believes she has the wrinkle free complexion and taut body of a much younger woman. (Just a side note "” her character provides my favorite line in episode #1.15, "In a Bed of Rose's" reminiscing about the potato chip eating sheriff who informed her that her husband was dead, "he's eating chips, 'yeah, he's dead, totally dead. Crunch, crunch.'" I guess you just have to see it. That in itself makes season one completely worthwhile.) Rose Nylund, played by Betty White, is the dimwitted Minnesota farm girl who bores her roommates to giggles with her pointless St. Olaf stories but pure heart makes up for any other shortcomings she might possess. Dorothy Zbornak, played by Beatrice Arthur, is the epitome of the bitterly divorced spinster schoolteacher wearing what looks to be a wide array of rejected maternity clothes. Her voice grates every five seconds when it's raised above a whisper and has done nothing to quash the rumors that she is indeed a man. (Ever see Mame with Lucille Ball when Arthur as comes down the staircase singing? proof positive if you ask me,) And rounding out this plucky quartet is Estelle Getty the actresses playing the oldest character, Sofia Petrillo, the memory-challenged matronly figure who spits out candid insults to whomever is in the room between cooking and telling old-world stories always beginning with 'Picture it. Sicily 19-insert appropriate year here'. Yet she has no

trace of an accent "” hmmm, interesting. Let the lesson learning hilarity begin!

Now I had never heard this before but stop me if you have "” Sex in the City is the thirty-something version of Golden Girls just with Carrie added as a narrator and her character is thought to be somehow related to Sophia. (Don't ask me how; I didn't come up with this comparison.) Blanche's promiscuity is supposed to be a subdued depiction of Samantha's chronic bed-hopping, Rose's naïveté is a hypothetical comparison to Charlotte's prudish idea of perfection, and Miranda's brash personality is seen as a blurred mirror to Dorothy's cynical perseverance. The quartet of chocolate cheesecake eating insomniacs in Golden Girls transform into the calorie counting breakfast-and-lunching professionals of the Sex and the City foursome. Oh yeah, and Florida's retirement locale is upgraded to hip and happening New York City. What do think? Think the parallel rings true?

Now back to the show. The Lifetime Channel still airs Golden Girls three to four times daily but who wants to work around their schedule? Besides I can't remember the last time I watched the Lifetime Channel. I didn't know it still existed until I checked it out right this minute. I am sorry to say that is does appear that they are still making those soap-operaish TV movies where the woman triumphs in the big bad world of men. Do men have a version of this channel where the adversity they face is vindictive women? If so I've never heard of it. I got off track again, didn't I? The first season of Golden Girls is still fresh and comic driven even though it first aired in 1985. The jokes actually do stand the test of time. After twenty years twenty, twenty-five, thirty, and fifty-eight year olds laugh at the same jokes and are touched by the same moments. The data you see here is real "” at least as it applies to the women in my family. I say test it on yours and get back to me. I think we could actually get this published as a psychological study. Did I say we? I meant me. I'm trying to get into grad school.

Golden Girls creator/writer Susan Harris knew what she was doing when it came to this show. In the first season it became a hit. It even garnered numerous Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for acting, producing, and other behind the scenes work that made the show a success. In 1986 Estelle Getty won a Best Performance Award at the Golden Globes for this first season. It had to do with every studio employ including a group of talented writers who individually went on

to write for such hits as Married with Children, Wings, MIB II, Frasier, and Gilmore Girls to name a few. Notable guest appearances in this season include Herb Edelman as Dorothy's ex Stan, Harold Gould as Miles, love interest to Rose who returned in 1990 to renew the role for two more years as a principle, and famed psychic Jeane Dixon. Some career sitcom regulars who appeared in the first season of Golden Girls are Meshach Taylor, Jeanette Nolan, Alex Rocco, Hallie Todd, and Kevin McCarthy. In the following seasons Golden Girls went on to spawn the hit television show Empty Nest starring Kristy McNichol and Richard Mulligan.

The finale of the first season of Golden Girls chronicles how the three roommates came to be all through the amazing technology of flashbacks with fuzzy white corners. (Sophia's need for roommate status is explained in the season premiere.) I guess the episode is meant to answer the unanswered questions that no one has. The dynamic between the four has already been well established in the previous twenty four episodes so it can't be for that. No, no, I was wrong. It must be to explain to the television audience why Blanche, Dorothy, and Rose are always up at two in the morning eating all the fatty foods in the house. Good thing to! I've been wondering about that for years. Again another aspect of the show I don't buy. No three women in the world are always up and perky at the same time every night with the craving for all the same foods, especially chocolate cheesecake. I know it's only TV but I have standards!

Please, I don't take any television show or movie that seriously but I do like a small sense of realism in what I watch. Other than the theme song and the group insomnia Golden Girls is a classic for a younger generation. Too old to compare to our mothers when we were growing up and too wacky to ever be our grandparents, these four women lighten the worry of eventual aging. Growing old gracefully loses out to growing up with a sense of humor and an ever-expanding zest for life. What can I say? – Golden Girls still cracks me up.

DVD Grade: B