Picture it, Sicily, 1923….

Actually, picture 1985. This was the year The Golden Girls, a very funny, very well-acted sitcom started its seven year run. I can remember distinctly watching it as part of the NBC Saturday line up, big bowl of popcorn, family assembled. Weird show for three kids and their parents to gather round and watch, but we did. At least for a few years. The Golden Girls ended the year I graduated from high school and I can’t remember watching it too much then. Or maybe I did. I didn’t get out much in high school. In any case, I was struck with a real feeling of nostalgia with the passing of the hilarious Estelle Getty this week. I was reminded how good The Golden Girls were- both the show and the cast.

Nostalgia may sound weird. The Golden Girls is ubiquitious on Lifetime, so it’s not like we can’t stop by and visit. And the show about aging women - fittingly- has aged pretty well. Just yesterday I walked into a room where it was playing and laughed out loud at something Getty’s character, the sarcastic Sophia Petrillo, deadpanned to her daugther, Bea Arthur’s Dorothy. Plus I wanted to know how the episode ended: The Golden Girls always had that funnily effective sitcom mix of one-liners and just a touch of story drama….a disease this week, a messed up relative the next. (Trivia note: writers of the show, created by Susan Harris, included people like Arrested Development’s Mitchell Hurwitz and James Vallely, Frasier’s exec producer Christopher Lloyd, and Desperate Housewive’s Marc Cherry…). Yeah, sometimes it could be a little over the top with Rose’s drug problem or Sophia’s transvestite son dying (??!). But the comedy always kept it rolling. It was a great show with wonderful actors: Getty, Arthur, Rue Maclanahan as the saucy southerner Blanche, and Betty White as the gullible Rose. And wow- what roles for women. Show me a traditional multi-camera sitcom in the last 15 years that’s done as well by females. (No, neither Friends nor Girlfriends counts. Nice try though…)

What I think is notable about the Golden Girls is, old skewing as it was - and is -it’s really become part of pop culture. SNL, The Daily Show- they still reference the show - like when they rip on Bea Arthur for being manly - poor woman - and that’s not because they all saw her in Mame. It’s because they all watched The Golden Girls. The Golden Girls is iconic. Yeah, sure, 80s might have people of my generation thinking Cosby and Family Ties, or maybe your second tier shows like Growing Pains or Different Strokes (there’s an apostrophe in there, but, whatever…) . But me, I’ll take the Girls. They’re my 80s show. In the family, we still bring up the ‘picture it, Sicily’ or the “Miami, you’re cuter than….an interuterine….” In fact, I have a friend from high school I’ll email today and leave that quote. Which is weird. My mom, now heading towards Dorothy and Blanche and Rose age herself, still watches the reruns. And hey, so do I.

In the midst of this nostalgia,along with the big bowl of popcorn, there’s another Golden Girls memory I’ll always remember. I was at my grandmother’s house just maybe three or four years ago. She’s since passed, my grandmother, but at the time, she was recovering from an illness and needed someone to stay with her a few nights. So there I was. And we had on a Golden Girls rerun, a show we could both tolerate. In the midst of it, she turns to me, she’s about 85 years old, and says, “Isn’t it funny how they make Blanche a slut?” Ill always remember that, especially my grandmother’s childlike grin. It was a nice shared moment with one of the real-life Golden Girls of my life.

Anyhow, if you come across a Golden Girls rerun these days, maybe it’ll spark some nostalgia in you, too. The show can still make people laugh. And no small part of that is due to Estelle Getty’s rendition of a tough, wiseass octogenarian who was often the funniest one of the four. I was reading Getty’s obit and she sounded like she had a tough time working as an actor; I’m glad she stuck with it. TV in the 80s wouldnt have been the same without her. How must she have felt when she became a TV star somewhat late in life. What an interesting story: in her sixties, playing a woman in her 80s, a star for the first time. In the process, she created a character for the books and comedy that will amuse future generations. Not a bad way to spend your golden years.

Thanks for the memories, Ms. Getty.

-Beth Danesco