If you threw a party...

June 30, 2003 12:27 PM

Thank you for being a friend... (NYT req)... "Forget 'Sex and the City.' The Lifetime network has a hit on its hands with 'The Golden Girls.'" Everyone's favorite geriatric gabfest is the 3rd highest rated show on syndication. What makes those Miami bombshells so universally appealing and how fun is their website?
posted by adrober (19 comments total)

Rose. The answer is Rose.

And, this might be the funniest image I've seen in a long time (from the "Which Golden Girl Are You?" quiz at Lifetime).
posted by gramcracker at 12:46 PM on June 30, 2003

"Golden Girls" is one of the few remaining reasons I still have cable.

And according to their quiz (in the 2nd link), my inner Golden Girl is Sophia. I always thought, though, that each of the girls represents an aspect of personality that, when combined, creates a balanced woman: Sophia for her wit and vigor, Dorothy for her sensibility, Blanche for her sexuality, and Rose for her naive sweetness.
posted by ferociouskitty at 12:47 PM on June 30, 2003

The NYTimes itself ran an article last week on the eerie GG's/Sex+The City parallel...i personally find the GG's theme song much more compelling, but there's way less awful 80's pastel on HBO. i would love to see Miranda in Dorothy's frumpalicious wardrobe, though...oh wait...
posted by serafinapekkala at 12:54 PM on June 30, 2003

Alright young journalism students, read closely, lines like these are the stuff that will make or break your career:

"Besides the seven weekday airings, Lifetime shows it twice on Saturday. On Sundays, the ladies rest."
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 12:55 PM on June 30, 2003

To some of us, this is old news as we spent most of college watching pretty much every episode ever. No duh, New York Times!

I take sick pride in the fact that we were so well-versed in the Golden Girls canon that we could pick out plot inconsistency at the drop of the hat. And sing the "Miami, Miami, You've Got Style" song.

Some things for the other fans out there to mull over:

1. Rose dated the same guy twice and didn't appear to notice. Arnie and Miles were played by the same actor.

2. Blanche's daughter Rebecca appeared early on as an overweight girl who was about to marry a jerk. Later on, she appears as a very thin woman (who wants to have a baby via artifical insemination). What diet did she use???

3. The reason why Sophia came to the US changed a few times, including evading an arranged marriage.

Oh well. So many things to nitpick, but so many things to love.
posted by stefnet at 1:46 PM on June 30, 2003

holy crap. for me, this is a sure sign of the apocalypse. nice knowin' y'all!
posted by o2b at 1:52 PM on June 30, 2003

this beats the mighty Law and Order in terms of popularity?
posted by ph00dz at 2:02 PM on June 30, 2003

Stefnet, let's see what you're made of:
"Miami is nice, so I'll say it twice..."
take it away!
posted by adrober at 3:14 PM on June 30, 2003

Hmm, until I read this post I had no idea that Sex and the City was a prequel to Golden Girls, but now it all makes sense:

...Sophia (Carrie) for her wit and vigor, Dorothy (Miranda) for her sensibility, Blanche (Samantha) for her sexuality, and Rose (Charlotte) for her naive sweetness.
posted by Ty Webb at 4:24 PM on June 30, 2003

an anonymous wag once sent this obscene golden girls postcard to me.
posted by quonsar at 4:30 PM on June 30, 2003

Here's a link to a painting of Bea Arthur wrestling velociraptors.
posted by mr_roboto at 4:30 PM on June 30, 2003 [1 favorite]

Mr_Roboto, those are some awesome paintings. Best I've seen since Miguel Calderon's (not MiguelCardoso) painting in "Royal Tenenbaums."
posted by Frank Grimes at 8:07 PM on July 1, 2003

"Miami, you're cuter than, an interuterine..."
posted by kayjay at 9:00 PM on July 1, 2003

I once met Bea Arthur, who's in my husband's family. She was quite gracious and friendly, and has the strongest handshake I've encountered from anyone -- male or female, any age. It practically stunned me. She could indeed take down some velociraptors.
posted by lisa g at 11:59 PM on July 1, 2003

Have you guys ever heard the Rufus Wainwright story about how he loves Bea Arthur (she's even mentioned in his song "California"). He bumped into her one day in a store and he told her how he and his grandmother used to watch "The Golden Girls" all the time and that she was his grandmother's favorite and that when his grandmother died, he'd watch "The Golden Girls" and think of Bea as a surrogate grandmother. She was quiet for a moment and then said: "I'm not your fucking grandmother."
posted by adrober at 12:19 AM on July 2, 2003 [1 favorite]

*The Miami Song*

I have to say what I feel
Miami has so much appeal
A great place to get a seafood meal
MIAMI
Miami Miami you've got style
Blue skies, sunshine, white sand by the mile
When you live in this town, each day is sublime
The coldest of winters are warm and devine
There's ball clubs and night clubs all within reach
Dance the Samba till morning then lay on the beach
Each view is a postcard each day a great time
The Cream of the crop it's the top of the line
Miami Miami you've got style
Blue skies, sunshine, white sand by the mile
MIAMI you've got style!
posted by stefnet at 8:14 AM on July 2, 2003

I wrote it all out, decided it didn't work, but feel compelled to give the punchline (not mine) to the joke told in her presence: "Yeah, she's pretty hot, but I wouldn't nail that skank with Bea Arthur's dick."
posted by NortonDC at 9:16 AM on July 2, 2003

I remember the golden girls as a pretty forgettable show, but I like the SITC / GG crossover analysis. I share my name with the SITC character I also probably most resemble; the golden girl analogue is, of course, bea arthur. (I do have a pretty strong handshake, and that online gender test a few weeks ago said I was really a man, so maybe it all makes sense...)

Anyway, just now I took the little test they offer at Lifetime, but the questions were so unrelated to personality issues that I was pretty sure the answers I was giving were going to equate me with rose or blanche. But somehow, I came up Dorothy after all. Whaddyaknow.
posted by mdn at 9:33 AM on July 2, 2003

1. Rose dated the same guy twice and didn't appear to notice. Arnie and Miles were played by the same actor.

Actually, Arnie and Miles were the same character. You can't tell from the Lifetime airings, but everything about the two was the same, he just changed names over the course of a summer hiatus. Of course, neither was his real name, as all GG fans know, he wasn't Miles Webber, mild-mannered and tight-fisted college professor at all. He was Nicholas SomethingItalianICan'tRememberRightNow, bookkeeper for mafia don "The Cheese Man"!

"I'm not your fucking grandmother."

To my brother and his partner, Ms. Arthur said "You gays really seem to love me. What the hell is that about? I think you need better obsessions. Why not Pia Zadora?"
posted by Dreama at 2:16 AM on July 3, 2003