by Jim Colucci
COMMENTARY: There was briefly a gay houseboy, there was a lesbian college friend, and there was a gay caterer. But this episode marks the first time someone in one of the Girls’ families has turned out to be Family. Storywise, the episode is very similar to a landmark 1972 episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. In “My Brother’s Keeper,” directed by Jay Sandrich, the gay brother of nosy landlady Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman) pretends to date Rhoda (Valerie Harper) rather than coming out to his sister. That episode ends differently: in a clever twist, Phyllis is not devastated to hear that her brother is gay, because that is at least preferable to him dating “that awful Rhoda.”
It makes sense that the two shows would do similar episodes because after all, playing gay and coming out for laughs is a time-honored tradition. “Scared Straight” writer Christopher Lloyd, whose father, David, wrote for Mary Tyler Moore, remembers hearing how the late Robert Moore, the actor playing Phyllis’s brother Ben Sutherland, had been worried on the night of that episode’s filming that the audience was not going to respond to his gay character. “And his lover said something to him along the lines of, ‘Honey, you’ve got nothing to worry about. They’ve been laughing at fags since Aristophanes. You’re gonna kill ’em.’ He went out there and of course the audience ate it up.”
CHRISTOPHER LLOYD: We frequently rolled in relatives to upset the stasis of the household and be a jumping-off point for stories. A gay relative seemed like a natural idea for the show, and perfect for Blanche. Dorothy is from Brooklyn, so it would have shocked her less, but Blanche is not only the most sexual of the characters, but you could say she is the most fiercely heterosexual. Plus, she’s from the South and rather traditional. And of course, we could play on the idea of Blanche and her brother both liking guys, which we knew would be a fun avenue to go down. We got to have our cake and eat it too in this show: we could do our gay jokes, and then have a nice, tidy, lovely ending where Blanche embraces her brother and everyone is happy. These are women who grew up in an era when they were a little bit discriminated against, when women were second-class citizens. And now they are being re-discriminated against because they’re women in their sixties, who are a little bit outcast in society. So they can speak a message of tolerance, from a place where they know what they are talking about.
“The man’s as gay as a picnic basket!”
—SOPHIA
RICK COPP: During the time I was a writer on The Golden Girls, I didn’t really talk about being gay, but people knew. I remember being very happy during the week of this episode with Blanche’s brother. Clayton was a good portrayal of a gay character—and there were so few on TV at that point anyway that I would have thought that anything remotely positive was a win.
RUE McCLANAHAN: I semi-enjoyed doing this episode. What I mean is, it wasn’t my favorite, because it was very hard to play. I’m not homophobic and Blanche was, somewhat—certainly when it came to her brother. I’m just glad she came around.
MONTE MARKHAM: When I got the script for “Scared Straight,” I thought it was well written and funny as hell. I’d known Betty White and Paul Witt since the late sixties, so doing the show would be like old home week. And I never thought twice about playing gay or being typecast. If I were to do that, then I’d be in the wrong business.
We went through several rewrites, and I actually thought the first draft had had funnier lines. Sometimes they fix these things to death. In the first draft, when Rose finally figures out that Clayton is gay, she had a line, “Are you . . . light in the loafers?” She was obviously quoting things she’d heard that she took too literally and didn’t really understand. And I remember that during a break after the first act, someone in the audience asked the warm-up comic, “Is Monte Markham gay?” The warm-up answered no, and the same guy said, “But he’s playing a gay character!” And I remember the warm-up guy answering back, “If he were playing a murderer, would you think he is one?”
I’ve answered every piece of fan mail I’ve ever gotten about The Golden Girls. People really respond to the dignity of Clayton’s character, and I’d like to say the role was groundbreaking. The word actually reminds me of the only time I ever went to a political fund-raiser, and Billy Crystal was on the dais, back when he was on Soap. Someone introduced him as playing a “groundbreaking gay character.” (I remember he looked over at me and gave his funny smile, shrugged modestly, and said, “It’s a living.”) I’d like to think of Clayton as historic like that.
Clayton (Monte Markham) unloads his secret on naïve Rose.
Photo by NBCU PHOTO BANK via GETTY IMAGES.
EPISODE 88
LOVE ME TENDER
Written by: RICHARD VACZY & TRACY GAMBLE Directed by: TERRY HUGHES Original airdate: FEBRUARY 6, 1989
As Dorothy awaits the arrival of her blind date, she finds out some disturbing news: it’s not with Sophia’s friend’s attractive doctor nephew, but instead a matchup from a computer dating service Sophia saw advertised on the bus. And although tiny, unassuming Eddie (John Fiedler, 1925–2005) initially appears to be a physical mismatch for tall Dorothy, she soon appears to have fallen completely under his spell.
A week later, Dorothy reveals to Rose the secret behind this new relationship: Eddie is the greatest lover she’s ever had. Disapproving, Sophia notes that while casual sex may be fine for some people, she knows her pussycat will eventually yearn for something more. And so Dorothy agrees to break up with Eddie, but finds it’s tough to quit him—as it turns out to be as well for Blanche, Rose, and even Sophia, as all four women fall prey to the irresistible charm that Eddie explains has always been his curse.
Meanwhile, Rose conscripts Blanche to help out with the “Be a Pal” program, which matches mother figures with wayward young girls. At first Rose is happy to befriend Marla (Shana S. Washington), while Blanche warms to Jackie (Stefanie Ridel), who not only knows enough to flatter her beauty, but shares her appreciation of a shirtless Mel Gibson. But the Pal program takes an ugly turn when the little darlings make the Girls the fall guys for their shoplifting, attempting to extort a bribe from Blanche before they’ll agree to tell a judge the truth.
COMMENTARY: Like several other Golden Girls episodes, this one features a B story that bears a strong resemblance to a plot from The Mary Tyler Moore Show—and in this case, it’s even one that had starred Betty White. In the 1975 MTM episode “Mary’s Delinquent,” Mary Richards and Betty’s Sue Ann Nivens also take charge of a pair of troubled teens, with Sue Ann getting so carried away that she shows up at the WJM newsroom sporting a matching blonde version of her “little sister” Celestine’s afro.
Guest star John Fiedler was best known for his recurring role on the original CBS Bob Newhart Show and for voicing the character of Piglet in the Winnie the Pooh movie and TV series. But for those who worked on The Golden Girls, this episode is actually most notable for its behind-the-scenes story, and for a few jokes that the audience never got to see.
RICHARD VACZY: For a long time, The Golden Girls had been making fun of how Bea looked: they compared her often to a man, and to various beasts. So by the time Tracy [Gamble] and I joined the show in season four, we thought for our first Golden Girls script, “Wouldn’t it be nice to do a show where Dorothy is truly attracted to—and attractive to—a man, and has her first purely sexual relationship?” It wouldn’t be about dating, but the guy would find her incredibly beautiful and attractive. And when we wrote it, we thought the script came out well.
The problem with it first arose with casting, which I wasn’t involved with at this point on the show. Instead of bringing in a good-looking George Hamilton type, the casting people chose a little bald guy. When Bea saw him at the table reading that first morning, she was immediately upset. But then it got worse, as we got into the script. The executive producers had rewritten some lines. One of the new jokes said that Dorothy looked like Buddy Ebsen. When we got to that page, Bea broke down crying, right there at the table read, saying, “You’ve been calling me a
man for seventy episodes now!”
By two o’clock that afternoon, she had threatened to quit the show. And I was pretty much packing up my office and preparing to be fired. The irony was, it hadn’t been our fault. It wasn’t our line! It was our first script, and we had been trying to do something nice for her. Eventually, the next season, Tracy and I wound up writing another episode for Bea, “Love Under the Big Top,” where we did bring in a good-looking guy, Dick Van Dyke. And that episode did make her happy.
TERRY GROSSMAN: Bea was having a big problem with this episode. But I reminded her we can’t tear the show apart on Thursday and try to have something completely new to shoot the next day, and we can’t shut down production. I told her, “This will work. Will it be one of the episodes you’re proudest of? I don’t think so, but the audience will love it.”
That next night, when we shot it, the audience response was fabulous. The show got great laughs. Immediately afterward, Bea came up to me, and acknowledged it had worked. Then she said, “But it still stinks.”
DOROTHY:
“Ma, I cannot believe you sent my picture in to a total stranger?”
SOPHIA
“I didn’t send in your picture. I sent in the picture that came with my wallet.”
EPISODE 89
BLIND DATE
Written by: CHRISTOPHER LLOYD Directed by: TERRY HUGHES Original airdate: JANUARY 28, 1989
Ditched once again by her unseen boyfriend Tom Gallagher, Blanche is delighted nonetheless to meet a handsome man on the next bar stool. In fact, John Quinn (Edward Winter, 1937–2001) has been stood up, too. Blanche slips John a napkin bearing her phone number and leaves, satisfied with her flirting—but failing to notice John navigating his way out of the bar with the help of a long white cane.
A week later, after dating John every night, Blanche cancels on him in favor of scoundrel Tom. Blanche admits her insecurity about dating a man with whom she can’t rely on her looks, first to her puzzled roommates and later that night to John. But when John then describes the vision he has of her in his mind, the portrait he paints is so flattering that Blanche can’t help but want him back. They make a plan to connect again the next week—just as Blanche’s young, blonde replacement takes a seat at John’s table.
Meanwhile, ultracompetitive Rose coaches a football team of eight-year-olds and enlists Dorothy as her second in command. But the schoolteacher turns out to be a stickler for the rules, and the Girls quarrel over qualifying their star player Billy (Kristopher Kent Hill) for the big game. In the end, it’s Sophia who leads the team to victory when Dorothy and Rose catch the flu.
BLANCHE:
“Girls, quick, I need some advice.”
SOPHIA
“Wear half as much makeup and twice as much underwear.”
COMMENTARY: With this episode, The Golden Girls takes the opportunity to create a positive portrayal of disability with the character of John Quinn, a blind man with dignity and a sense of humor. The show’s writers were obviously taken with Blanche and her newfound sensitivity—because two seasons later, they would test it again, as Blanche dates a man who uses a wheelchair in the very similar episode “Stand by Your Man.”
TERRY HUGHES: Ed Winter was a lovely guy, with whom I worked many times. It was a very tricky thing he had to do, to play blind and yet not give it away in the first scene with Blanche. Ed did a lot of research, and talked to many people for this role. He was very good, and came very prepared.
CHRISTOPHER LLOYD: I had come up with this story because I was looking for ways to turn Blanche’s character on her head a little bit. What would it be like for a woman who bases her power on her sexuality to date a guy to whom looks mean nothing? And then, how do you break up a relationship or even a friendship with someone who has a disability or is a minority, without it seeming like that is the reason for your doing it?
For the B plot, we’d always liked finding ways to show Rose getting really competitive. It’s such a contrast to the other more innocent parts of her character. Admittedly it’s strange that these older women would be coaching a kids’ team. We could have shown her getting competitive by playing tennis with Dorothy, but it wouldn’t have been as funny as showing Betty surrounded by little kids who come up to her waist, and yet berating them like she’s Vince Lombardi.
EPISODE 90
THE IMPOTENCE OF BEING ERNEST
Story by: KEVIN ABBOTT Teleplay by: RICK COPP & DAVID A. GOODMAN Directed by: STEVE ZUCKERMAN Original airdate: FEBRUARY 4, 1989
Rose’s new man, Ernie Faber (Richard Herd), is a nice guy, and as a corporate lawyer, a good catch to boot. But soon, Rose becomes depressed about her new relationship, perplexed as to why he hasn’t made a single move to get her into the sack. When Ernie whisks her off to a resort for a romantic weekend, he admits his problem: erectile dysfunction. And so, on Blanche’s advice, Rose practices patience. But ironically, just as she professes to Ernie that sex isn’t all-important, their dinner conversation inadvertently turns dirty, and an “excited” Ernie calls for the check. Unfortunately, once cured, Ernie renews his hopes of reconciling with his ex-wife. Rose is hurt, but relieved; when finally potent, Ernie was the worst lover she ever had.
Meanwhile, after Sophia receives an envelope from her cousin Vito in Sicily, containing only a single black feather, she reveals to Dorothy the details of the Venuccio vendetta from generations past. With the feather signifying that Sonny, the last Venuccio, is somewhere in Miami, Sophia vows that it’s up to her to carry out vengeance on behalf of her family. Later, Dorothy reads in the newspaper that the body of a man has washed up on the beach, with a tan bamboo purse found at the scene. And Sophia even admits she probably left her now-missing purse right next to Sonny’s body—right after she finished making love to him one afternoon. Because it turns out, the evil eye and kiss of death she gave Sonny on his doorstep ended up being quite the effective turn-ons for such a Sicilian.
COMMENTARY: Although The Golden Girls usually seems so contemporary, it’s important to remember that the show existed in the days before cell phones—hence that all-important yellow wall model in the kitchen—and before the Internet. (Which is just as well; Dorothy was happy to have an actual, printed newspaper with which to hit Rose over the head once in a while.) This episode predated yet another invention that would revolutionize the lives of a certain generation: Viagra. In 1989, there was no little blue pill to fix what was ailing Ernie. Instead, he was lucky to experience the magical, libido-restoring powers of a buxom blonde from St. Olaf.
KEVIN ABBOTT: As a freelance writer, I met with Paul Witt and Tony Thomas to pitch Golden Girls episodes, and of my two stories, they chose this one for me to write. But I got only as far as writing and submitting an outline when, the very next day, the writers’ strike of 1988 began. During those five months, I was not permitted to write any scripts, including this one I’d sold. And the day after the strike ended, I accepted a job offer from Growing Pains—as it turns out, just hours before an offer also came in to join The Golden Girls, but by then it was too late. Soon afterward, I got a call that the producers wanted to go ahead and have someone write the episode based on my outline. Rick Copp and David Goodman kept the vendetta B story mostly unchanged, and altered the main impotence story a fair amount. They took it and ran with it, and did a great job.
DAVID A. GOODMAN: I was really glad that even though Rick and I didn’t come up with these two stories, we got to develop them in our own way. “The Impotence of Being Ernest” was my title—and it’s the last time I came up with a good title, in my whole career. Many of the individual jokes that went to the table read on Monday were from our original script, which is pretty rare. There had been one scene, though, that we hadn’t quite cracked, and that was the scene with Rose and Ernie in the restaurant, where as they talk he gets sexually excited. Chris Lloyd rewrote that scene, and did a great job making it really funny. But other than that, the episode was ours.
RICK COPP: David and I named th
e character Ernie just so we could use the title. Sitcom scripts are always punched up by the show’s writing staff, but in this case so much of our original script stayed intact. I was really proud of one of my lines where, as Blanche is about to suggest a cure for impotence, Dorothy tells her, “Blanche, dessert toppings are not the answer!” But the best joke in this episode came from Tracy Gamble. I’ll never forget it. Dorothy is talking about how when Stan went through the same problem, they tried eating aphrodisiacs. “I fed that man so many oysters, when he passed a kidney stone, I had it appraised.”
The restaurant where Ernie is finally served up a really potent meal.
Photo courtesy of the EDWARD S. STEPHENSON ARCHIVE at the ART DIRECTORS GUILD.
RICHARD HERD: Impotence was something they didn’t really talk about much on TV, but everybody, especially people my age, knew what it was. And for anyone who saw Tyrone Power in The Sun Also Rises, it was nothing new. I didn’t give the subject matter much thought, because I was more focused on how impressive the script was. First of all, I particularly loved the title! And it was such strong writing, with the bittersweet ending where you think Ernie’s going to propose to Rose, but instead he tells her he’s going back to his wife. That got lots of “awwws” from the audience, because although the relationship had just been created within that one episode, they still felt so bad for Rose.
EPISODE 91
TWO RODE TOGETHER
