'The Golden Girls' Premiered 35 Years Ago — And The Show Is Still Relevant Today

Sep 17, 2020

Thirty-five years ago, the hit show The Golden Girls premiered on NBC, leading to seven groundbreaking seasons of hilarious television. To commemorate the 35th anniversary of the show's premiere, we’ll look back on its history and its most memorable moments.

In many ways, The Golden Girls was an unlikely success. After all, a show about a group of single geriatric pals living in Miami doesn’t exactly sound so interesting, let alone funny. What’s more, the show was, as USA Today reports, incredibly progressive for its time. Not only did the show consider LGBTQ+ relationships, but the show’s very premise centered entirely on older women who weren’t afraid to talk about their love lives. And perhaps that’s partly why the show was so successful.

Golden Girls was a hit not despite its unlikely premise but because of it — because it was a show that was unafraid to tell new stories in a fun and interesting way. For those who aren’t familiar, Golden Girls focuses on the lives of four older women — Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur), Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty), Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan), and Rose Nylund (Betty White) — who are all either divorced or widowed. From Betty White’s naive, gullible portrayal of Rose to Bea Arthur’s role as the ever-sarcastic Dorothy, each of the women had a unique and fun personality that kept the show fresh — fresh enough to win four golden globes over the course of its seven-year run.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the award-winning show got its start by chance in a Burbank studio back in 1984. Warren Littlefield, who was NBC’s senior vice president of comedy development at the time, told EW he got the idea while watching Doris Roberts and 63-year-old Selma Diamond argue with each other while they were filming a skit to promote Miami Vice.

Apparently, Diamond kept referring to the show as Miami Nice, which ticked Roberts off enough to lead to what must have been a pretty funny argument. In fact, the argument was so funny that it got the studio executives thinking: what about a show with a little geriatric humor?

Upon first receiving the script for the show, White is quoted as saying:

“It was the best script that I’d read, maybe, in life. You get so many bad scripts sent your way in this business, so many dogs. And I shouldn’t use that term because I love dogs.” And the rest, as they say, is history.

As the show turns 35 this month — September 14 to be exact — White is the last surviving actress of the series at the age of 98 years old. And earlier this year she released a statement regarding the show, writing: "It was always great fun shooting each episode," she wrote "[I] truly miss everyone involved."

But while most of the cast is gone, the memory of Golden Girls will forever live on in the hearts of fans and in the 180 golden episodes that we continue to watch today.

Happy 35 years, Golden Girls! Who is your favorite character from the show? Do you have a favorite episode? Let us know, and be sure to pass this on to keep the memory of the four Golden Girls alive!