How The Golden Girls Evaded Network Censorship With Dialogue About Mr. September's Manaconda

I know its July, but last week I saw a calendar which made me think of a Golden Girls episode. I explain how in just a minute. I've blogged about "The Golden Girls" already, and in particular how the layout of the house (which was really just a set in a television studio) presents some inconsistencies. Catch that post HERE.

A memorable but incredibly funny part of the holiday-themed episode of "The Golden Girls" (Season 2, Episode 11 entitled "T'was the Nightmare Before Christmas") was during their gift exchange with one another. A bit more on that in just a second.

Anyway, to set this up, in this particular episode of the classic sitcom, Blanche opens the episode by having a gentleman caller named Ed who's dressed in a Santa suit. When Dorothy arrives, she says that the crowds in the stores had made her Christmas shopping a nightmare. She also discovered that her mother, Sophia, had been using her credit cards to buy expensive gifts from Neiman Marcus that she cannot afford. She concludes that Christmas doesn't mean anything anymore because it has become too commercial.

In response, Rose suggests to the girls that they have an old-fashioned Christmas kind of like they do in her hometown of St. Olaf, Minnesota before they return home. Upon the suggestion, Dorothy was very quick to respond that she had absolutely no intention of drinking eggnog while wearing a cast-iron brassiere. Rose responds humorously by saying "We don't do that at Christmas! We do that at Easter."

Although the each of the Golden Girls are planning to spend Christmas day with their respective families, before they each go home to their families, they want to have a Christmas gift exchange with one another. But they agree with Rose and decide to return the expensive gifts and instead give each other homemade gifts (except for Sophia, who sticks with her Neiman Marcus gifts paid for by Dorothy).

The gift-exchange between the four Golden Girls was perhaps one of the sitcom's more memorable moments, not only for the episode and the show, but for holiday-themed TV episodes overall, many of which follow a well-rehearsed script of the sort outlined in the book the now out-of-print book "Christmas on Television" by Diane Werts (ISBN 9780275983314).

As for The Golden Girls "T'was the Nightmare Before Christmas" episode, R. J. McBowlan, who was the Head Writer for that particular episode said in an interview (see https://thegoldengirlsreviewedby.com/2014/01/30/season-2-episode-11-twas-the-nightmare-before-christmas-as-told-by-an-oral-history-from-the-writers-room/ for more):

"We wanted to do a Christmas episode that wasn't like any others. We had thought about doing a 'Christmas Carol' version with the ghosts of the pasts of all the ladies, but then I thought, let's go edgier! Let's add some really scandalous moments. The result was a holiday episode of "The Golden Girls" that was one of television's better scripts, and it was acted exquisitely by the Emmy-winning cast.

Crispin Daly, the Story Editor said: "I thought, how would Blanche react to Christmas? Just like she always does, by acting like a sex-crazed maniac! It was just so simple. And you know what they say in comedy: double-down. So Blanche gives the other gals a calendar called 'The Men of Blanche's Boudoir'. Because she's such a slut! It's hilarious that such an old lady can be a slut. Can you imagine?"

McBowlan added "Yea, I really didn't think NBC would go for it, but they did."

When the girls' celebration arrives; Rose's gift to Dorothy is a whittled maple syrup spout.

But Blanche gives her roommates a calendar which she titles "The Men of Blanche's Boudoir", and she gives the same gift to each girl saying how she thought it was such a cute idea.

Dorothy opens the gift from Blanche, and she says "Oh, Blanche. Oh, honey, this is so thoughtful ... whoa!”

To which Blanch responds "September?"

Dorothy responds by saying: "Yep."

Sophia's line was really ground-breaking, because immediately after Dorothy says yes, she adds: "I'm surprised you were able to walk in October."

A YouTube excerpt can be see (for the time being, anyway) below, or at https://youtu.be/KqUxbTd8DKo.



The viewer is really left to presume that Blanche's Mr. September is really gifted with what might be called (in urban slang) a "manaconda" between his legs. (the term "manaconda" is a contraction of the two words "man" and "anacanda" which is the longest snake in the world). Draw your own conclusion.

Anyway, following Rue McClanahan's death in 2010, it became known that Rue had a LOT of memorabilia saved from her work in television; in fact she had saved so much that she ended up renting several storage units to save it all. She also had a provision written into her contract for "The Golden Girls" whereby she was permitted to keep all of the clothes that were worn by the character Blanche in the show. They were all custom-made outfits for each actress/actor in the show.

Rue also had kept the supposed "gift" from that episode: 'The Men of Blanche's Boudoir' calendar. In an auction following Rue's death, we learned that there was a little more to 'The Men of Blanche's Boudoir' than racy photos of naked men that television viewers never got to see. Some actual photos of that particular prop taken from an auction (the price was $4,000) of her vast collection. The actual 'The Men of Blanche's Boudoir' calendar measured 9 1/2 x 11 1/2 and was signed to her from the guys in the prop department for the show. The website for Rue's the estate sale can still be viewed at http://estateofrue.com/catalog/original-the-men-of-blanches-boudoir-calendar-sold/.

For the record, Rue's copy of that prop, rather than containing photos of completely naked men (which Rue very likely would have liked), the sale revealed that the cut-up duo who ran the props department for the show had loaded the mockup with real photographs of various crew members in compromising positions. When presented with the prop during a taped rehearsal, the ladies' reactions quickly brought the scene to a halt! For the record, not all of the items from the Rue's estate sale have sold and some can still be purchased, but this one was one of the items on the "sold" list!

Regardless, it is worth noting that "The Golden Girls" being a top-rated sitcom that starred older women were able to get away with risque jokes that did not fly in other sitcoms of that era. Hence, jokes about Mr. September's manaconda were approved when the fifty-something Golden Girls said them, whereas sitcoms with younger actresses would find the network censors cutting similar lines. Indeed, NPR's Terri Gross asked Bea Arthur about that in an April 2007 interview, although Bea Arthur's response was merely "I guess so".

The relevant dialogue was as follows:

Terri GROSS: That's an episode of "The Golden Girls," with my guest, Bea Arthur, along with Rue McClanahan and Betty White. Were you able to get away with a lot of sex jokes on "The Golden Girls" because it was about older women?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. ARTHUR: I guess so, I guess so. Yes, the first time you saw women - I hate that expression - of a certain age well-groomed and having active sex lives and great earrings, I remember.

The interview can be listened to below, or by visiting https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9847148.

Still, we can thank "The Golden Girls" for pushing the proverbial envelope on jokes that a generation earlier would have been banned completely.

Vicki Lawrence Re-Emerges on TV as Margaret on "The Cool Kids"

A while back, I shared in a post (see HERE) I did about the "Dead Celebrities Cookbook" (and its sequel "Christmas in Tinseltown"), mentioning that I visited Vicki Lawrence's personal website after buying the DVD set of "Mama's Family", where I encountered a recipe which she shared from another dead celebrity: the late Dinah Shore. The recipe was good, but comedienne and actress Vicki Lawrence is on another career high as of late. She stars as the character Margaret in the new sitcom on Fox television (the broadcast network now owned by Disney) called "The Cool Kids" which premiered in September 2018. The series co-stars Martin Mull, David Alan Grier and Leslie Jordan.

"The Cool Kids" follows three male senior citizen friends at Shady Meadows Retirement Community (a joke on the show was that Allison, the head of Shady Meadows Retirement Community told the residents that they were in Shady Meadows voluntarily, to which they responded "We are? Our kids never told us that!") who are the top dogs until they're blown out of the water by the newest member of the community, a female rebel named Margaret who's ready to challenge their place – it's kind of like high school, only with 70-somethings. In case you hadn't guessed it, the female rebel is played by Vicki Lawrence (age 69 as of 2018).

The cast of "The Cool Kids": Martin Mull, David Alan Grier, Vicki Lawrence, and Leslie Jordan at the 2018 Fox Network Upfront at Wollman Rink, Central Park on May 14, 2018 in New York City.

"The Cool Kids" turned into a sleeper-hit for the Fox broadcast television network, opening to impressive ratings drawing over 9 million viewers, making it the most-watched new series launch on Fox since "New Girl" debuted back in 2011. That initial success prompted the network to order a full season for the show after its trial run.

Vicki Lawrence told the entertainment magazine Vulture that "They were casting this right when we were doing the 50th anniversary of the Burnett reunion. I didn't want to go [to the audition], because I just wanted to go over to CBS and see Carol, hang out, see all my old friends, and visit with all the cool guest stars she was gonna have on there. I could not be bothered. My agent kept calling me saying, 'But this is perfect for you!' And I went, 'It's cute, but really, I'm so tired of going to auditions.'" Of course, she was ultimately persuaded to join the cast.

Vicki Lawrence's Entertainment Career Resume Is Surprisingly Short Due to the Longevity of Her Work

Aside from Vicki Lawrence's 11-season tenure on the ever-popular "The Carol Burnett Show", she has surprisingly few television credits to her name except for the long-running spin-off from that show called "Mama's Family" (I wrote about "Mama's Family" HERE) which ran for six seasons over a seven-year period. That show was produced by Joe Hamilton and began on network television, but was taken off the air after a two season run on NBC, but was subsequently rebooted even more successfully in syndication with a number of modifications, running for six seasons from 1983-90.

Vicki was just age 24 when she first played the abrasive, Southern senior citizen matriarch character of Thelma Mae Crowley Harper, better known as simply Mama, which first emerged on "The Carol Burnett Show" back in 1974. "The Family" as it became known on "The Carol Burnett Show" was so consistently popular that it became one of the recurring skits to endure on the Burnett Show. In "The Family", Carol Burnett played the main character of Eunice Harper Higgins (an emotionally-needy character who often goes off on rants about her lot in life), while Harvey Korman played Eunice's husband Ed Higgins; Betty White occasionally played Eunice's snobby older sister Ellen Harper-Jackson (at least in a few episodes both on "The Carol Burnett Show", as well as on the network television run for the spin-off) along with guest-stars such Roddy McDowall (who portrayed brother Phillip in nearly as many episodes of "The Family" as Betty White did the character Ellen, although Betty White played in both "The Carol Burnett Show" and the network run of "Mama's Family"), Tom Smothers, Alan Alda, William Conrad, Jim Nabors, Maggie Smith, Joanne Woodward, Madeline Kahn, Chuck Barris, Jaye P. Morgan, Jamie Farr, Allen Ludden and Craig Richard Nelson.

Anyway, with her latest character Margaret on "The Cook Kids", Vicki Lawrence plays a character who not only appears much younger than Thelma Harper, but also behaves younger. Indeed, the entire show challenges the notion of aging. In many respects, the series is similar to the way in which "The Golden Girls" upended traditional television depictions of aging, representing characters who were vibrant, and not requiring a young character to carry the show.

When producer Charlie Day pitched "The Cool Kids", he said that Fox pressed him to inexplicably include a younger character in the main cast. "I said, 'That's ridiculous.' Young [viewers] can relate to older characters. Don't make me force in a young character that doesn't fit. And they were kind enough to relent to my yelling."

AARP's monthly magazine introduced "The Cool Kids" this way (see the article HERE):

"Could Hollywood's next movement be #AgeismToo? Consider this: 'The Golden Girls' (which I blogged about HERE), that classic sitcom centered on three 60-something women and one feisty octogenarian, was a Top 10 ratings hit for six of its seven seasons (1985-92). But it's still taken 26 years for mainstream network honchos — at youth-obsessed Fox, no less — to deliver another comedy strictly focused on seasoned types."

In her interview with Vulture, it was noted that "The Golden Girls" did great with college kids. Vicki Lawrence responded by saying:

"We tested really well with the younger audience. Because God knows, they love to laugh at their grandparents. And yeah, I knew many young people that were in love with 'The Golden Girls'. The young audience loved 'Mama's Family'. When I first started doing my road show, I assumed that my audience was gonna be an older crowd from the Burnett Show, and I was really surprised by the fact that so many young people showed up."

Mama's Family Also Did Well With Young Audiences and Gay Audiences

Truth be told, the sitcom "Mama's Family" did much better with younger audiences in its resurrection in syndication. Part of the reason was because NBC repeatedly changed the time-slot for the show in during its initial network run, making it difficult for fans to find it on television. Among the other key changes in its successful syndicated resurrection were a closer focus on just a few cast members; several left the show (or were never permanent cast members to begin with) in order to join (perhaps not surprisingly) "The Golden Girls". Notably, Rue McClanahan left the role as Fran Harper on "Mama's Family" to permanently play Blanche Devereaux on "The Golden Girls" and Betty White who was only a guest star as Ellen Harper-Jackson on "Mama's Family" also joined "The Golden Girls" as a permanent cast member on "The Golden Girls" who played Rose Nylund on that show.

Golden Girls Overlap

"Mama's Family" aired around the same period as "The Golden Girls", managed to draw many of the same viewers (particularly among younger and gay audiences). Other changes to the resurrected "Mama's Family" was a new set, the elimination of the two of characters who were Vinton Harper's two children with his first wife Mitzi (a character never seen on the show), and replacing them with one younger character who was sister Eunice Harper Higgins' son Bubba Higgins. The character Bubba was a key reason the resurrected show did so well in syndication (the time slot where it frequently ran in syndication was another, typically airing early evenings around 7:00 or 7:30 PM). Bubba was played by the buff, ginger actor Allan Kayser. The character of Bubba Higgins always wore extremely tight-fitting jeans, and numerous teenage girls (and gay boys) watched the show mainly to see Bubba and the bulge in his tight-fitting jeans as eye-candy. The other important new character in the resurrection was that of neighbor Iola Boylen played by actress Beverly Archer, who was central to many plots. The character of Iola was a regular in the reboot. Iola was the neighbor and best friend of Thelma, who was written into the show as a replacement for deceased Aunt Fran. Iola is an old maid/spinster who is the same age Naomi, whom she is jealous of for her marriage to Vinton. She is known for being able to knit little trinkets out of dryer lint, and other assorted "crafts", as well as her domestic cooking skills.

By comparison, "The Cool Kids" is a bit crass (by design), and it is also a bit braver with its main characters than "The Golden Girls" was, with a core cast consisting of both men and women (including Vicki Lawrence and her castmates who are men: Martin Mull, David Alan Grier and Leslie Jordan), caucasian and black (David Alan Grier is the black character best known for his work on the early-1990's Fox television hit "In Living Color", and on that show, one of his recurring characters was a skit the show called "Men on Film" where he plays an effeminate, gay, black man named Antoine Merriweather), as well as straight and gay (Leslie Jordan's character is gay, just as the actor himself is in real life) characters. To a large extent, the cast resemble their characters. In many ways, this also reflects broader changes in American society, and although "The Golden Girls" fearlessly addressed most of those issues, they weren't part of the show's core cast.

While "The Cool Kids" isn't quite a "Golden Girls" reboot it comes pretty close. AARP noted "Kids may not yet handle its inevitable jokes about irregularity and, yes, Alzheimer's disease with the finesse of The Golden Girls, but it's heartening to know that the show refuses to treat its characters like doddering fools. The show is less William Shatner in 2010's flop $#*! My Dad Says, thank goodness, and more Betty White as Elsa in Hot in Cleveland."

In the end, success for "The Cool Kids" may teach the lessons "The Golden Girls" should have taught television thirty-five years ago, but they simply did not remember. To some extent, as Vicki Lawrence acknowledged, networks aren't run by old guys in suits anymore. She says "They're just young and adorable." Maybe they are, but the networks are still struggling. Today they compete not only with cable, but with streaming services (both paid and free). The explosion in content has changed what we think of as television.

Vicki Lawrence acknowledged that in her Vulture interview.

Well, everybody's going everywhere. We had that whole meeting with all those people. I’m like, "You're from what, now? What in the hell is Roku?" Then after this meeting, we did these promos: "If you missed The Cool Kids on Fox, don’t forget to check us out on Netflix. Don't forget to check us out on iTunes. Don’t forget to check us out on Roku. Don’t forget to…" At the end of the meeting, I said, “I’ve got a question. How in the hell do you do the ratings anymore?" They said, "Oh, it's very complicated and very different." Television is not like television was at all, anymore.

She's not kidding on that!

You can have a look at the preview for "The Cool Kids" below, or by visiting https://youtu.be/T1-lhUD9YfE. That's followed in the playlist below with an interview by The Paley Center for Media in September 2018 with "The Cool Kids" producer Charlie Day and the cast of "The Cool Kids". That interview can be seen in the playlist below, or by visiting https://youtu.be/wJb5ziNYsas. I've created a shortcut for the entire playlist which can be visited directly at https://tinyurl.com/y27ns6ey.



As for watching "The Cool Kids", it runs on Friday evenings on Fox broadcast television, or it can be viewed on demand (typically free) on most digital cable systems, or even streaming directly on Fox television's YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=EL8p86Z2CBJH-mhmqfMNhcBQ channel, or on other digital channels, including Fox's website for the show at https://www.fox.com/the-cool-kids/.

Author P.S.: A Belated Tribute to Ken Berry

On December 2, 2018, there was the sad news that actor/dancer Ken Berry had passed away at age 85 (see the obituary at https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2018/12/02/ken-berry-star-f-troop-mamas-family-has-died/2183492002/ for details). Ken Berry played the dim-whitted son Vinton Harper on the hit syndicated sitcom (which was initially a network show) that Vicki did with Ken known as "Mama's Family" for six seasons after its 1983 debut. Vicki Lawrence herself acknowledged his passing on her Instagram feed https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq5eVoelrOC/ In addition to his appearances on "Mama's Family", the "F-Troop", Ken Berry was also a frequent guest star on many TV shows, game shows, daytime talk shows, etc. He also did a television commercial for the now-defunct seventies national shoe retailer known as Kinney Shoes which can be seen at https://youtu.be/h8aAFHhaIKc which is a great demonstration as his less-appreciated skill as a dancer. R.I.P. Ken Berry.

Author P.S., Fox Does Not Renew "The Cool Kids" for Season 2:

There was news on May 10, 2019 that Fox television, under new ownership with Disney, did not renew "The Cool Kids" for a second season. Deadline reported that like many sitcoms, "The Cool Kids" started out with solid numbers, but apparently those numbers did not continue as the rest of the season progressed. Still, TVLine reported that the show had solid ratings, even if the show did not have tremendous buzz among youth. It had an average a 0.85 demo rating, meaning "The Cool Kids" ranked fifth among Fox comedies this season, behind only "The Simpsons", "Last Man Standing", "Bob's Burgers" and "Family Guy". Excluding animated sitcoms, it only outranked the previously cancelled "Rel". However, as Vicki Lawrence herself admitted (see above), the manner in which network executives today measure success or failure is "all over the place" with Nielsen ratings being just one component of success, but less quantifiable measures such as social media shares, internet viewership and other factors now playing a role in business decisions. Those, however, are very much a function of a network's financial support to promote a show via those channels. It is unclear what (if anything) Fox did to promote "The Cool Kids" via alternative channels.

Golden Girls Still Golden, 3 Decades Later

Television's "The Golden Girls" sitcom, was first introduced to the world on September 14, 1985 and ran on NBC from 1985-1992.  Although Cynthia Fee's rendition of the theme song became better known, it was licensed from Andrew Gold's song which was released a few years earlier (see https://youtu.be/voNEgCKzves for the original artist's release which got some radio airplay back in 1978).  The show was set in a (fictitious) ranch house owned by the character Blanche Devereaux, at least until Season 7, Episode 4 ("That's For Me to Know").  In that episode (S7/E4), Blanche supposedly shared ownership of the house with her two longtime roommates (Dorothy Zbornak and Rose Nylund).  The decision to share ownership was prompted by Blanche's plans to install a hot tub, but she gets more than she bargained for when a city inspector (whom Rose notified) tells her that she either has to lose a renter or make modifications to her home which would cost more than $10,000, which she said she couldn't afford  without raising the rent.  Dorothy suggests selling her and Rose a share of the house as a way of getting around the burdensome zoning restriction.  Blanche finally agrees to make Dorothy and Rose co-owners of her house in order to skirt the law, although nothing more was made of the change of ownership beyond that.

The address for that home was supposedly 6151 Richmond Street, Miami, FL (although no such Miami address exists in the real world, hence no real-life zip code exists).  Viewers must therefore speculate on the actual Miami neighborhood where the home was supposedly located.  We know it was not in Miami Beach, because the girls decide to stay in a Miami Beach hotel as their regular home was fumigated for termites in Season 2, Episode 2 (S2/E2) in the episode entitled "Ladies of the Evening" (in which the girls are mistaken for prostitutes and arrested).

Several different episodes mention various Miami locations, including Biscayne Boulevard, arguably a major north-south avenue transversing the entire city, while another episode mentions Pompano Drive, and in yet another, Rose asks Dorothy and Blanche if they’d like to go to Coconut Grove for lunch (her treat) to celebrate their friendship.  These clues suggest a house located somewhere between Coconut Grove and the affluent suburb of Coral Gables.  However, the reality is there was never a stated area of town they live in, and the homes in the area are neither particularly grandiose, historic, nor is the neighborhood particularly ethnic (ruling out neighborhoods such as Little Havana or Little Haiti).

In real life (at least in the first season), the exterior scenes of the home were filmed at a real house located at 245 North Saltair Avenue, (West) Los Angeles, CA 90049, in the hills of Brentwood (see photo above), although the landscaping of the house is known to look a bit different today. (Its located just west of the 405 highway and just north of Sunset Blvd.)  From the second season onward, exterior shots were actually filmed at the Walt Disney World Hollywood Studios theme-park in Orlando, FL (see photo below) where they built an exact replica of the house, which also became part of the studio tour there, at least until it (the replica) was torn down in 2003 and replaced with a new attraction.

Source: Flickr Partyhare, from Disney Hollywood Studios

'
Tearing down theme park attractions is a fairly routine matter; Universal Studios Orlando once featured a full-scale reproduction of the "I Love Lucy" apartment set at the park.  Although the retail store still existed for my last visit, it had been downsized considerably and I believe could be removed to make room for future attractions (if it hasn't been done already).

6151 Richmond Street House Layout Subject to Some Dispute

"The Golden Girls" home layout is also the subject of some dispute, since the actual set routinely only focused on just 2 rooms: the living room and the kitchen.  Occasionally, some episodes featured a bedroom, a bathroom or even a garage, yet those rooms were never part of the show's primary set.  One thing is clear: until "The Golden Girls", the Hawaiian term "lanai" (defined as a veranda, particularly a furnished one) had never become mainstream in the American English language.  At best, people knew of "Aloha" and maybe "Mele Kalikimaka" (Merry Christmas, which was made famous by singer Bing Crosby), but thanks to "The Golden Girls", a new Hawaiian term entered the American lexicon.  Scenes from the actual lanai were relatively few but occasional appearances emerged during the show, including the first season.  But the location of the lanai is, shall we say, open to debate?

Indeed, much like the actual Miami neighborhood, the precise layout of the house was never made clear.  Now, before I get too far, I should note that the actual house layout has been the subject to considerable debate due (in part) to discrepancies observed throughout the series.  The best discussion of these inconsistencies is observed in The Golden Girls' Wiki, which can be found at http://goldengirls.wikia.com/wiki/6151_Richmond_Street.

Different people have come up with varying ideas of the floor plan based on descriptions of the house from the series itself.  Even that can be subject to debate, although people can generally agree on how the rooms looked inside.  Occasional discontinuities are more likely to happen when a show runs for so many seasons.  I've placed several layouts below, or at http://bit.ly/1appwkQ.

For example, in the opening scene (Season 2, Episode 1 [S2/E1], "End of the Curse") shows the outside of the house, and the garage and driveway are on the left side of the house, whereas in the show's intro, the garage is on the right side.  In that episode, the girls raise minks in the garage, which is accessed from the back corner of the kitchen, hence the garage is actually on the opposite side of the house.  Furthermore, the lanai seems to be surrounded on 3 sides by the house, but the hallway leading to the lanai (and the way the girls enter from the left) would put it on the very front corner, surrounded by nothing.  There were also references in the show from Blanche that she could sunbathe in the nude on the lanai without any neighbors noticing.  Among the other inconsistencies include the following:

• The door in the kitchen that supposedly lead to the "garage" was really a passageway to the back hall (where the Girls' rooms were located) to get backstage

• Blanche's room, if you look back at the end of the hall in some episodes, was actually a door to backstage

• In the Pilot episode, the Lanai is located right in back of the living room and Blanche's room is back off to the left beside the lanai

• In other episodes, the Lanai is back off to the left of the living room, and Blanche's bedroom is at the end of the hall

Inconsistencies aside, the fictitious house feels like a second home (much as Lucy & Ricky's apartment did) for an entire generation of viewers.  We know for a fact it was a Hollywood set, as the photo below shows:

Photo of the studio set for "The Golden Girls"

Now, 30 years later, the show's decor seems dated (although a search through Flickr shows that some have found similar furniture for sale, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/skinnytie/4643140232/sizes/z/ for details); it was supposed to be themed like Miami during the 1980s, although wicker was popular nationwide at that time.  In Season 1, Episode 2 (S1/E2, "Guess Who's Coming to the Wedding?"), we see our first glimpse of the lanai when Dorothy confronts her ex-husband Stanley and tears off his toupee while out on the lanai, with occasional scenes in different episodes also out on the back veranda.

2012-2013 Era: Artisians on Etsy.com Bring "The Golden Girls" Home

During the summer of 2013, a scale model (scaled at 1:72) of the main set was made available for the primary set on Etsy (see http://www.etsy.com/listing/108583630/golden-girls-house-scale-model-6151).  The producer got a lot of positive reviews, and came back with several more, which were available for sale about a month later.  The producer sold out quickly on both the original and the subsequent items, suggesting he could find it lucrative making reproductions of the house, although it also suggests that the market for commercial producers could potentially mine for gold with old TV set miniatures, although its unclear whether Disney or any toy companies have much appetite for it.  He has since started selling reproductions of Lucy & Ricky Ricardo's apartment.

Shortly thereafter, another budding craftsman created a set of Lego people (see https://tinyurl.com/3y2n84wv for the news) with the four main castmembers of "The Golden Girls" and sold in on Etsy.com complete with a wicker purse for Sophia, a coffee mug for another, and a Lego cheesecake for all of them to share.  Although the Lego Golden Girls were cute, the price was  higher than the scaled version of their ranch house in Miami, though the scale model of the house sells for more now than it did originally.

Both are selling briskly, suggesting that the market is still healthy for these items.  The point is that these are evidence the show has touched several generations and is therefore likely to remain around for a while longer.

This show, perhaps more than others of the same era ("Family Ties" comes to mind, catch my post on that show at http://goo.gl/DRmhw) seems as timely today as it did nearly 30 years ago when it premiered.  Some of the reason can be attributed to the fact that it has never left the TV airwaves.  Few shows aside from "I Love Lucy" can make such a claim.  The show's origin is attributed to former NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff, who Parade magazine said (see http://ow.ly/scb2r) got the idea for the series while visiting an elderly aunt. His aunt's neighbor was also her best friend, and he was amused at how they constantly bickered with one another, yet they always remained pals.

Origins for "The Golden Girls"

However, it was really "Soap" creator (not to mention "Benson" and a few others) Susan Harris who actually brought the idea of "The Golden Girls" to life for NBC television.  Harris was already an experienced sitcom writer who had previously written scripts for "Love, American Style", "All in the Family", and "The Partridge Family" to name a few.  She also wrote the groundbreaking abortion episode for the Bea Arthur-starring (and Rue McClanahan) series "Maude" in the 1970s which won Harris the Humanitas Prize.  She and her then-husband started a company in Los Angeles to create television programming on behalf of networks.

Ms. Harris had a reputation for being difficult to work with (and for), although her involvement was somewhat limited once the show was turned over to the network.  Susan Harris also had a reputation of creating shows and then leaving them, and she admitted to a reporter:

"It's true. I'm the first to admit that.  My [then] husband has referred to me as a creator-deserter."

However, she added some of the reasons for that.

After "Soap," for which she was constantly writing, she said "I vowed I would never do that to myself again. But it doesn't mean I just write the pilot and take off", adding "I write notes, read scripts. I'm around."

But the show's success can really be attributed to the writers and the cast.

Core Audiences for "The Golden Girls": Beyond Middle-Aged Women

Regardless of the show's origins, it drew audiences from well beyond the core, middle-aged women it was originally intended to target.  For example, a 2005 study by Simmons Market Research determined that more gays and lesbians watched "The Golden Girls" than the general population in any given week.  The show touched on homosexuality more than once: Blanche's brother came out as gay in one episode (and later came back with his soon-to-be husband in another episode), In another episode, Dorothy's college friend was a lesbian who fell for Rose.

Actresses Rue McClanahan (Blanche) and Betty White (Rose) and one of "Golden Girls" writers Marc Cherry revealed what they thought made the show so appealing to the gay community in a meeting at the Paley Center in Los Angeles several years ago (Rue McClanahan passed away on June 3, 2010).  You can catch that short video clip below, or by visiting http://youtu.be/EeW-G1vBKkY:



Taking "The Golden Girls" Off Broadway

"Thank You for Being a Friend: The Musical" was an UNauthorized musical parody inspired by the beloved TV sitcom "The Golden Girls" which premiered in New York back in 2009 and starred a cast of drag queens, but and ended up being pretty successful for an off, off, off Broadway production. (see http://goo.gl/GJmhLo for more background on the show itself).  In fact, there is news that "Thank You For Being A Friend", the unauthorized musical based on "The Golden Girls", will return to the New York stage for several weeks starting on January 8, 2014 until February 12, 2014 (see the news at http://ow.ly/sbP8I).

The parody show is/was unapologetic about the fact that it was borrowing from the original, although it took creative license which also makes it immune to most legal challenges.  For example, the characters' names were Blanchette (described as the varicose-veined vixen) instead of Blanche, Dorthea (described as the brainy ball-buster) instead of Dorothy, Roz (described as the lovable airhead) instead of Rose, and Sophie (described as the wisecracking spitfire) instead of Sophia.  They’re spending their golden years together in a Miami bungalow, and Sophie recently left a nursing home known as "Shady Oaks" (instead of Shady Pines).

The storyline goes as follows: When a closeted, gay (former) pop superstar (originally, it was Lance Bass, although the more recent version supposedly features Ricky Martin; both of whom have since come out publicly) moves next door, and his loud, outdoor sex parties keeps the quartet of cheesecake-loving retirees awake at night. The solution pits the gays against the girls at the Shady Oaks annual talent show: if the women win, then no more sex parties; if the gays garner top prize, the sassy seniors must serve as the party's clean-up crew.

The website for the show (http://www.goldengirlsthemusical.com/) has several YouTube clips, including the opening song number, which can be viewed at http://youtu.be/dTO7HkndFLk or below:



To be sure, the New York parody featuring drag queens as the Golden Girls is not the only one.  Similar shows have been produced in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Boston, Ft. Lauderdale and elsewhere.  Clearly, this is an audience that appreciated the show, but never got to see the reunion they were hoping for.

There have been periodic talks of rebooting the show (including a funny cartoon version featuring the Superfriends, catch my post on that at http://goo.gl/aZkMS for details), but none have yet come to fruition!  While variations of shows featuring four primary castmembers have already been very successful on TV (for example, "Sex and the City" followed the same pattern back in the 1990s), there are now talks that ABC television is looking into developing a new comedy about a few (three) older guys (e.g. retirement age) rather than girls.

Golden Puppets Headed to Off Broadway in Autumn 2016

Laughter, spectacular put-downs and familiar friends as Miami's four favorite Golden Girls - Dorothy, Sophia, Rose and Blanche - all reunited as puppets for a lovingly hilarious live tribute/parody show!

In July 2016, there was news that the show was running in Toronto (Ontario, Canada), and Canada's radio network CBC had a nice interview with Australian writer and director Jonathan Rockefeller, who created the show.  Visit http://bit.ly/2bT36Cv for the CBC interview.  The show originated in Australia (it has a website at http://www.thankyouforbeingafriend.com.au/ which might be worth looking at for more).

But Americans won't have to wait too much longer to catch the Avenue Q-like show in New York, as there is news (see http://bit.ly/2aXFeuZ and http://logo.to/2bDNuky for more) that it will appear at the Daryl Roth's DR2 Theatre (located on East 15th Street) in New York, and will run from September 19, 2016 to December 11, 2016 (though the show was subsequently extended), with opening night scheduled for October 3, 2016.

The show's U.S. website can be found at http://www.thatgoldengirlsshow.com/.  For the record, Playbill reports that the set and lighting was designed by David Goldstein whose work is found at http://www.davidgoldsteindesigns.com/ in case you're interested.

Author P.S., October 20, 2016:  A playwright named Thomas Duncan-Watt of Australia accused Jonathan Rockefeller of fraud, claiming his North American puppet-production "That Golden Girls Show! A Puppet Parody!" was a blatant rip-off of his work (see the news at http://nyp.st/2exN9ko for more details).  "We strongly deny these claims and we look forward to vindication in court," Mr. Rockefeller said in a statement.  The lawsuit had not yet been heard by the courts as of this update.