The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls is an American sitcom created by Susan Harris that aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, to May 9, 1992, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes, spanning seven seasons. With an ensemble cast starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty, the show is about four older women who share a home in Miami, Florida. It was produced by Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions, in association with Touchstone Television. Paul Junger Witt, Tony Thomas, and Harris served as the original executive producers.
For the 1995 Hong Kong film, see The Golden Girls (film). For other uses, see Golden Girl (disambiguation).The Golden Girls
"Thank You for Being a Friend" performed by Cynthia Fee
"Thank You for Being a Friend" (instrumental)
United States
English
7
180 (list of episodes)
- Susan Harris (24 episodes)
- Paul Junger Witt
- Tony Thomas
22–24 minutes
September 14, 1985 –
May 9, 1992
The Golden Girls received critical acclaim throughout most of its run, and won several awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series twice. It also won three Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy.[2] Each of the four stars received an Emmy Award, making it one of only four sitcoms in the award's history to achieve this. The series also ranked among the Nielsen ratings' top ten for six of its seven seasons.[3] In 2013, TV Guide ranked The Golden Girls number 54 on its list of the 60 Best Series of All Time.[4] In 2014, the Writers Guild of America placed the sitcom at number 69 in their list of the "101 Best Written TV Series of All Time".[5] Terry Tang of the Associated Press reported that the series continues to attract new fans in the 21st century and characterized it as an example of a sitcom that has aged well.[6]
Reception[edit]
Critical reception[edit]
On Metacritic, the series has an overall score of 82 out of 100, based on 6 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[72]
During the NBC upfronts, the preview screening of the show got a standing ovation. The show promptly received a full order of 12 episodes.[73]
In 2013, TV Guide ranked The Golden Girls number 54 on its list of the 60 Best Series of All Time.[4] In 2014, the Writers Guild of America placed the sitcom at number 69 in their list of the "101 Best Written TV Series of All Time".[5] In 2023, Variety ranked The Golden Girls #18 on its list of the 100 greatest TV shows of all time.[74] Terry Tang of the Associated Press reported that the series continues to attract new fans in the 21st century and characterized it as an example of a sitcom that has aged well.[6]
Ratings[edit]
An instant ratings hit, The Golden Girls became an NBC staple on Saturday nights.[75] The show was the anchor of NBC's Saturday line-up, and almost always won its time slot, as ABC and CBS struggled to find shows to compete against it, the most notable being ABC's Lucille Ball sitcom Life With Lucy in the beginning of the 1986–87 season although it aired at 8:00, an hour earlier. The Golden Girls was part of a series of Brandon Tartikoff shows that put an end to NBC's ratings slump, along with The Cosby Show, 227, Night Court, Miami Vice, and L.A. Law.
The show dealt with many controversial issues, such as coming out and same-sex marriage,[76] elder care, homelessness, poverty, HIV/AIDS and discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS, US immigration policy, sexual harassment, teenaged pregnancy, artificial insemination, adultery, bad medical care, sexism, miscegenation and interracial marriage, antisemitism, age discrimination, environmentalism, addiction to pain killers, problem gambling, nuclear war, death, and assisted suicide.[77]
Writer and producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason created a sitcom with this kind of image as a "four women" show, which became Designing Women on CBS. Designing Women began competing against The Golden Girls.
At the request of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who was reputedly a big fan, the cast of The Golden Girls performed several skits as their characters in front of her and other members of the British royal family at the 1988 Royal Variety Performance in London.[78]
Distribution[edit]
Syndication[edit]
Beginning July 3, 1989, NBC added daytime reruns of the show, replacing long-running Wheel of Fortune (which had moved to CBS) on the NBC schedule at 11:00 am(EST); it ran until September 1990. At this time, syndicated reruns began airing, distributed by Buena Vista Television (now Disney–ABC Domestic Television), the syndication arm of Disney, whose Touchstone Television division produced the series.
In March 1997, the Lifetime cable network acquired the exclusive rights to repeat the episodes of The Golden Girls in the US until March 1, 2009. Many episodes were edited to allow more commercials and for content.
Both the Hallmark Channel and WE tv picked-up the reruns in March 2009. As of February 2013, WE tv's rights expired and Viacom networks' TV Land, home to Betty White's last series Hot in Cleveland, purchased them,[82] as did Logo TV.[83] In 2020, CMT purchased the rights to the series.
In Australia, the show airs Weekends on FOX Comedy. As of 2019, every episode is available for streaming on Stan. As of December 1, 2021, every episode was made available to stream on Disney+.
In Canada, Corus Entertainment's digital specialty channel, DejaView, aired reruns of The Golden Girls until 2017. As of September 8, 2021 all 7 seasons of The Golden Girls were made available to stream on Disney+ in Canada.
In Germany, airing of the show started in January 1990, only months before the German reunification, by German public broadcaster ARD in the late evening programme on their main channel Das Erste. The show was aired as a bilingual broadcast using a two-channel sound system (Zweikanalton). If technically supported by the home television, this system allowed their audience to watch the show either in the dubbed German version (by default) or the original English version. After reruns on different regional channels of the ARD Network, the show later aired on private channels RTL, VOX, Super RTL, Disney Channel and RTLup. While RTL initially chose to cut some scenes for time, some of the gags remain incomprehensible for their broadcast and all subsequent reruns, only to be restored partially for the release of DVD in 2005. As of September 15, 2021, every episode was made available to stream on Disney+ in Germany and Austria.
In Italy, the series aired on Rai Uno (or Rai 1) as Cuori senza età (Ageless Hearts) from 1987 until 1994.
In Southeast Asia, Rewind Networks began airing reruns of The Golden Girls on its HD channel, HITS, in 2013.
In New Zealand, the series aired on TVNZ and is replayed on public holidays and on Sunday afternoons. It was shown on Jones!.
In the United Kingdom, the series aired on Channel 4, Living and Disney Channel. Another brief run of the show began on 27 April 2020 till summer 2020 on Channel 5, but only showed episodes up to the season-four finale and is returning to Channel 4 starting from early 2022.
In Ireland, the series has been airing on TG4 since 2021.
Every episode of The Golden Girls was made available to stream on Hulu on February 13, 2017.[84]
Film[edit]
Forever Golden: A Celebration of The Golden Girls released in select movie theaters across North America via Fathom Events on September 14, 2021, marking the show's 36th anniversary. The film featured five episodes from the show: "The Pilot", "The Flu", "The Way We Met", "Ladies of the Evening" and "Grab That Dough".[85]
Adaptations[edit]
Stage[edit]
The Golden Girls: Live! was an off-Broadway show that opened in the summer of 2003 in New York City at Rose's Turn theater in the West Village, and ran until November of that year.[112] The production ended because the producers failed to secure the rights and received a cease-and-desist order by the creators of the original television show. Featuring an all-male cast in drag, The Golden Girls: Live! consisted of two back-to-back episodes of the sitcom: "Break-In" (season one, episode eight) and "Isn't It Romantic?" (season two, episode five).
The Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue opened with an all-male cast in drag on December 14, 2023 in Los Angeles. The production stars Christopher Kamm, Adam Graber, Ryan Bernier, and Vince Kelley. The play was written by Robert Leleux and directed by Eric Swanson.[113]
The cast of The Golden Girls, Sophia, Dorothy, Blanche, and Rose, have been even further immortalised in two puppet parody shows Thank You For Being A Friend[114] and That Golden Girls Show: A Puppet Parody, both created by Australian screenwriter Thomas Duncan-Watt and producer Jonathan Rockefeller.[115]
Animation[edit]
Golden Girls 3033 is an animated pilot created by Mike Hollingsworth. The pilot takes audio from the sitcom and sets it against a futuristic background inspired by The Jetsons.[116]
Restaurant[edit]
In 2017, a Golden Girls-themed eatery, Rue la Rue Cafe owned by Rue McClanahan's close friend Michael La Rue, who inherited many of the star's personal belongings and in turn decorated the restaurant with them, opened in the Washington Heights section of the New York City borough of Manhattan.[128] The eatery closed in November 2017 after less than a year of operation.[129]
Further reading[edit]
Colucci, Jim (2016). Golden Girls Forever: An Unauthorized Look Behind the Lanai. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-242290-3.
White, Betty (2010). Here We Go Again: My Life in Television. New York: Scribner. ISBN 978-1-4516-1369-8.