‘The Golden Girls’: Why the Underdog Comedy Is Still a TV Classic

Pine no more! For the first time since 1997, The Golden Girls are back on broadcast TV! The beloved 1980s and ’90s sitcom is now airing on MeTV, alongside comedy royalty like Everybody Loves Raymond, M*A*S*H, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Carol Burnett Show. You can reunite with Blanche, Rose, Dorothy, and Sophia weeknights from 10/9c to 11/10c and Sundays at 6/5c, and again on Sundays from 8/7c to 10/9c (for the full schedule and where to watch, visit MeTV.com).

Recently celebrating its 40th anniversary, The Golden Girls has remained vital and hilarious in spite of its years, much like its legendary cast. The series broke barriers by centering four women of a certain age sharing a Miami home: sarcastic and uncompromising Dorothy (Bea Arthur), delightful but ditzy Rose (Betty White), fearlessly flirtatious Blanche (Rue McClanahan), and wise and wisecracking Sophia (Estelle Getty). Where other shows often made women over 50 a punch line, The Golden Girls delivered the punch lines.

Everett Collection

It seems like a no-brainer now, but the success of a show starring four older women was far from guaranteed in 1985. Before The Golden Girls premiered, even TV Guide Magazine thought it faced an uphill battle. “Ours is a youth-worshipping culture,” reporter Cyra McFadden wrote. “TV’s last bunch of highly bankable ‘golden girls’ was Charlie’s Angels. It’s going to take a major shift in perceptions to convince us that women, even more so than men, don’t lose their sex appeal shortly after they lose their baby fat.”

Those perceptions have indeed shifted, thanks in no small part to The Golden Girls. The ladies were at their funniest when toppling the taboos around making love in middle age. And we’re not just talking about Blanche’s raunchy one-liners, though there were many. (An example: “I’m jumpy as a virgin at a prison rodeo!”) There was the “Valentine’s Day” (Season 4, Episode 15) flashback to when the girls failed to buy protection discreetly, leading to Dorothy’s iconic shout of “Condoms, condoms, condoms!” Or how about “Sophia’s Wedding” (Season 4, Episode 6), when Dorothy caught her mother in bed with her old friend’s widower? Their marriage didn’t last, but the laughs carried on.

And who could forget “Ladies of the Evening” (Season 2, Episode 2), when a night out at a Burt Reynolds movie premiere ended with the girls being mistaken for sex workers and sent to the slammer, only for Sophia to score a date with the Bandit himself! Over seven seasons, a litany of screen legends came calling on the ladies of 6151 Richmond Street, including Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, and Leslie Nielsen. But the biggest get had to be Hollywood icon Bob Hope, who appeared as himself, coming in at the last minute to save Rose’s struggling charity fundraiser (Season 4, Episode 17).

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Of course, The Golden Girls wasn’t just witty repartee and flashy cameos. The show’s humor worked so well because it was grounded in real-life issues that were always handled with empathy. We saw Sophia befriend a man with worsening Alzheimer’s, Rose battle an addiction to painkillers, and Dorothy grapple with her student Mario’s (Mario Lopez) deportation. In one of several positive depictions of LGBTQ+ characters, Blanche learned to accept her brother Clayton’s (Monte Markham) homosexuality.

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems silly that anyone ever doubted The Golden Girls‘ potential. Of course, putting four proven, powerhouse comedians in one house worked (as did the terrific writing)! Viewers loved seeing themselves — and their friends, coworkers, aunts, mothers — in the fab four. Plus, it didn’t hurt that the theme song was an all-time banger. After 40 years, The Golden Girls is a sitcom that’s not even close to showing its age. Or rather, it’s one that’s always shown its age — loudly and proudly.

The Golden Girls, Weeknights, 10/9c Sundays, 6/5c and 8/7c MeTV

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