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This project analyzes how the representation seen in The Golden Girls was unlike any other and is what allowed the show to transcend eras and remain a renowned and revered series. This honest representation allows viewers to identify with the series and furthers the impact of the show.

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Inside Edition does a piece on the newfound love of The Golden Girls

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A beloved television series about women in the twilight of their lives is now a big hit with watchers who weren't even born when the show premiered.

The fastest-growing fan base for the 1980s comedy series "The Golden Girls" is viewers who entered adulthood in the early 21st century.

When it first aired in 1985, the 30-minute sitcom was "a way for boomers to think about their aging parents," said Ron Simon, the curator of radio and television at New York City's Paley Center for Media. "And I think the millennials ... are beginning to look at their aging parents. It's a way you can begin conversations about what it means to age in the United States."

For the women in "Golden Girls," aging was a heck of a lot of fun. And full of a lot of snark. There was the hilarious and spacey Rose, lusty Southern belle Blanche, the wise-cracking matriarch Sophia, and the acerbic and strong-willed Dorothy, who was Sophia's daughter.

A sample of some of the show's better-known lines:

Rose: "My mother always used to say: 'The older you get, the better you get, unless you're a banana.'"

***

Blanche: "I treat my body like a temple."

Sophia: "Yeah, open to everyone, day or night."

***
(Discussing a bad actress playing Anne Frank in community theater):
Dorothy: "I mean, for the entire second act, the audience kept yelling, 'She's in the attic! She's in the attic!'"

***
(While trying to move a new toilet into their bathroom):
Rose: "Oh, don't give up, Dorothy. If the ancient Egyptians could move 20-ton stone blocks to build the Pyramids, we can move a toilet."

Dorothy: "Fine, Rose. Get me 20,000 Hebrews and I'll see what I can do."

***

There was plenty of talk about sex by a bunch of old broads who still liked it, and there was a long list of social issues the show was not afraid to tackle during a time when prime-time television shied away from HIV, gay rights, Alzheimer's, elder rights and politics, among others.

It ran until 1992 and produced 177 episodes, according to IMDb. The series lives on in reruns.

H. Alan Scott and Kerri Doherty co-host a podcast called "Out on the Lanai: A 'Golden Girls' Podcast." "They really represented ... the unique perspectives of a sort of woman at that time. And allowing older women to be funny and silly and sexual," Doherty told InsideEdition.com.

"As a gay guy, I think a lot of gay guys responded to that, and the queer community, in general, responded to that because we also were told that we aren't allowed to be sexual."

Their podcast started four years ago, and Scott and Doherty have a memorabilia collection including a "Golden Girls" board game, dolls, prayer candles, pins and temporary tattoos.

"People send us stuff," Scott said.

At one time, there was even a "Golden Girls" restaurant.

The Rue La Rue Cafe was dedicated to actress Rue McClanahan, who played Blanche. Owner Michael La Rue took Inside Edition's Megan Alexander on a tour in 2017.

"I met Rue at Studio 54, and we became friends and when she became sick, she put me in charge of her personal property and her show business memorabilia, and after she died, I started to manage her estate," La Rue said.

"She was a hoarder," he said. "She saved everything." The cafe, which is now closed, featured props from the show. "Rue never stole things, she 'filched' it, that was the word she used," he said.

There was a table that was a replica of the glass-top one used on the show. A 22-year-old George Clooney made a guest appearance and doodled a portrait of himself on Rue's script, which was also displayed in the cafe.

What would Rue, who died in 2010 after having a brain hemorrhage, think of the restaurant?

"Oh, she would love it," La Rue said. "She would love the fact that her things, her personal possessions that she took care of over a lifetime, are on display instead of sitting in boxes molding in some storage area."

Though the cafe is closed, La Rue keeps it just as it was, behind closed doors, until he decides what to do with his friend's belongings. He is currently working on a documentary about her life.

The legendary Betty White, who played the dim-witted Rose, is the only living Golden Girl. Beatrice Arthur, who played Dorothy, died of cancer in 2009. Estelle Getty, who delivered some of the series' best dead-pan lines as matriarch Sophia, died of Lewy body dementia in 2008.

Now 96, White was interviewed a few years ago on the red carpet by Inside Edition's Deborah Norville, who asked the actress, "What does it mean to you to know you've touched so man people in so many different ways?"

"Oh my goodness," White replied, "I don't [happen] to believe that, but it's lovely to hear and everyone's been so wonderful. For an old broad who's going to be 90 in January, you know, it's marvelous to still be in the mix."
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'The Golden Girls' Is Big Hit With Millennials, Who Came of Age Long After the Series Ended

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A beloved television series about women in the twilight of their lives is now a big hit with watchers who weren't even born when the show premiered. The fastest-growing fan base for the 1980s comedy series "The Golden Girls" is viewers who entered adulthood in the early 21st century.

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Bringing the Show to even younger generations

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Bringing the Show to even younger generations

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Cartoon Network's popular show, The Amazing World of Gumball (2011) parodied The Golden Girls in an episode.

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The Golden Girls On The Amazing World Of Gumball

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A few iconic moments from the man crazed Southern Belle.

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In a scene discussing Rose's suddenly at risk status she shows how some considered the disease at that time and is corrected by Blanche

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The Golden Girls - "AIDS is not a bad persons disease"

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White's depiction of Nylund was well received, here are some of her funniest moments as the ditsy character.

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Ron Tom | NBCU Photo Bank | Getty Images

Come Feb. 13, Hulu is hoping some viewers thank them for being a friend.

On that date, the streaming service has exclusive streaming rights to all 180 episodes of "The Golden Girls" - the hit 1980s sitcom about four older women living the single life in Miami - available in its digital library.

More than two decades after its last episode aired, "The Golden Girls" remains a cultural touchstone, and helped turn now-95-year-old Betty White into one of America's enduring sweethearts.

Although "The Golden Girls" was ranked by the Writers Guild of America at number 69 of its 101 best written series of all time, the show is less of a cultural phenomenon than a ratings juggernaut like "Seinfeld" - raising the question of whether the show can pay dividends in the competitive landscape of streaming media.

"The Golden Girls" "has really stood the test of time and is still resonating with audiences. So, when the opportunity came up to license it, we knew we had to take it," a Hulu spokesperson explained to CNBC.

In 2015, Hulu made headlines when it landed "Seinfeld" for an amount reported to be between $130 million and $180 million. The spokesperson told CNBC that as a matter of policy, Hulu does not divulge how much it pays for content licensing agreements, but defended the "Golden Girls" acquisition as a good bet.

"In identifying potential acquisitions, we're constantly looking for TV shows that viewers consistently talk about but aren't yet able to stream," he said.

"It was 'Sex and the City' before there was a 'Sex and the City'-just with an older cast and more wicker furniture." -Emily Taffel, Public relations executive

Fair enough, but can a group of retirees from the 1980s pull in the viewers needed to justify the investment?

"Given the fact that shows like 'Seinfeld' and 'The Golden Girls' run so frequently in syndication, it may seem counterintuitive for streaming services to have such significant interest," said Elizabeth Yuko, an adjunct professor of ethics at Fordham University who has studied the influence of "The Golden Girls" on bioethics.

Hulu's move makes perfect sense in a certain context, Yuko told CNBC. "A lot of the younger generations no longer subscribe to cable ... and therefore don't have access to shows like 'The Golden Girls' that we think of as airing constantly."

Christopher Coby, senior research analyst at 7Park Data, a company that analyzes viewership trends on several streaming media services, including Hulu, said that any streaming service hoping to make a splash with viewers needed a full slate of comedy programs for viewers to choose from. He suspects Baby Boomers - and perhaps their adult children - would glom onto "The Golden Girls" when it becomes available.

"Comedy accounts for the most streams of any TV genre," Coby told CNBC, adding that around 20 percent of Hulu TV streams are comedy, for largely competitive reasons. Streaming giant Netflix holds nearly 40 percent of the streaming market, according to 2015 Nielsen data, while Amazon holds 13 percent. Hulu brings up the rear at 6.5 percent.

"Hulu must defend against Netflix and Amazon," Coby said. "For Hulu, continuing to build on a core of library TV is an important part of the growth picture." Netflix already has a big leg up with some of the more iconic TV franchises of the 80s and 90s, he added, including "Cheers," "The Wonder Years" and "Friends." Currently, Amazon licenses "Family Ties," "Dynasty" and "Sex and the City."

The original 'Sex and the City'

Daniel Malak, an associate at data analytics firm Motionloft, said that the acquisition may be an attempt to court other key groups such as lesbians, gays and bisexuals - a demographic where "The Golden Girls" is wildly popular. Recent estimates place LGBT purchasing power at nearly $1 trillion, making them an attractive advertising target for Hulu, Malak said.

Fordham's Yuko added that the "The Golden Girls" reappearance on a new medium like Hulu has major nostalgic value, and presents an opportunity to introduce a new generation.

For someone like Emily Taffel, a 36-year-old public relations executive who lives in the "Golden Girls'" old stomping grounds of Miami, Hulu's latest deal is an opportunity for both nostalgia and comfort.

"You know how when you're sick, you want something comfortable that you already know? Chicken soup, a hug from your mom," Taffel said, adding that she was already a years-long fan of the show.

"It is one of the best written shows and the humor stands up," she said. "It was 'Sex and the City' before there was a 'Sex and the City' - just with an older cast and more wicker furniture."

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Why Hulu is hoping to turn old 'Golden Girls' episodes into a 21st-century gold mine

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Ron Tom | NBCU Photo Bank | Getty Images Come Feb. 13, Hulu is hoping some viewers thank them for being a friend. On that date, the streaming service has exclusive streaming rights to all 180 episodes of "The Golden Girls" - the hit 1980s sitcom about four older women living the single life in Miami - available in its digital library.

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Creators and producers reflect on the beloved show.

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Three decades after its debut, The Golden Girls is still indelible: midnight cheesecake summits in the kitchen, hushed conversations on the "lanai," snowy memories of St. Olaf, Old World tall tales of Sicily circa 1922, "Pussycat," and even poor Stan Zbornak are all unmistakably Golden Girls. And with all 180 episodes of NBC's juggernaut comedy now available on Hulu, a whole new generation has the chance to fall for Rose, Blanche, Sophia, and Dorothy.

It's an occasion not lost on the creators of the 11-time Emmy-winning series, which ran on NBC from 1985 to 1992 and centered on four "women of a certain age" living together in Miami. Vulture spoke to the brain trust behind The Golden Girls - creator Susan Harris and executive producers Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas, the veteran writing team behind such classic sitcoms as Soap and Benson - about the often bizarre, enduring legacy of their groundbreaking series, how the notion of a show about "older women" has changed since the '80s, their strangest cameos (George Clooney?), the pain of a failed spinoff, and the enduring magic of Betty White.

Tony and Paul, you were actually pitching a different show to NBC before Golden Girls. What was it and how did you ultimately land on the concept of four older women living together in Miami?
Paul Junger Witt: Whatever we were pitching was with another writer, and I don't recall what it was. But I do know the network was not anxious to proceed with it. [ Laughs.] Then some NBC execs told us about an event that had taken place at their affiliates convention in Florida that year - Miami Vice was a big hit at the time - and two older actresses performed a brief sketch for the crowd called Miami Nice. It gave them an idea: What about a show featuring women of a certain age? The writer we were working with wasn't interested, so Tony and I said, "We know someone who might be the ideal for this." I got home, told Susan about it, and that was the start.

PJW:But it turned out to be an embarrassment of riches. There were just too many funny people in the story.

SH:Too many good people to write for in what essentially was 22 minutes a week.

PJW:She faced the blank page alone.

Tony Thomas:The real thrill!

Speaking of casting: Susan, when you were writing the pilot, did you have specific actresses in mind? It's impossible now to envision anyone else playing those roles.
SH:I definitely had Bea Arthur in mind when I wrote Dorothy. I think I even described the character in the script as "a Bea Arthur type." [ Laughs.] When Betty [White] came in, she read the part of Blanche but [director] Jay Sandrich said, "Why have her do Blanche? She already played that character on Mary Tyler Moore. Why not have her be Rose?" So Rue [McClanahan] read for Blanche, and then Tony went to New York and found Estelle Getty for Sophia. He called and said, "I've got her!"

PJW:It was an amazing experience.

TT:Two-thousand people in that ballroom, screaming and laughing.

I've always been struck by how many serious and politically charged topics you tackled in the show, including AIDS, homosexuality, gay marriage, cross-dressing, elder care, and even one where Dorothy struggles to diagnose her own chronic fatigue syndrome. How much pushback or support did you get from NBC regarding these story lines?
PJW:We got a great deal of support. They knew what they had and trusted our capabilities. Having been able to make a comedy that was so real is what makes what's going on with Golden Girls right now possible. It was never just about jokes. Those episodes meant the most to us because we tackled serious subjects that needed to be dealt with on a national level, and this was a safe way for people to see, hear, and absorb them.

PJW: "Take a Valium."

SH:Yeah, exactly. Then Paul read an article in Rolling Stone by a woman who had the same symptoms, and they were calling it chronic fatigue syndrome. He said, "That's you!" So the episode was my way at getting back at all the doctors who didn't believe me; my revenge script for all the people out there who had a disease like that. In the end, it turned out I did not have chronic fatigue syndrome - it was an adrenal issue - but the fact that the episode inspired so many people to go to the doctor was incredible.

PJW:It also got people to stand up to doctors. That was a level of sexism I had never witnessed before. I was appalled.

SH:I walked out of the room a couple times and told Paul, "I can't - you deal with this."

TT:Some people may not remember that the premise of the pilot was that they were breaking up as roommates.

SH:Oh, that's right. Wasn't it that Rose was getting married?

TT:Blanche was getting married, which was a controversial story line to have in a pilot, like, that's how we're starting this show? But Susan pulled it off.

Tony, you grew up in a showbiz family, with father Danny Thomas and sister Marlo Thomas. When did you realize this show had hit the cultural Zeitgeist?
TT:There were two moments. The first was when we first debuted as a new show at No. 3. I was quite surprised, especially with us being on Saturday night. We could have been a flash in the pan. The second moment was around episode six. We were all down on the stage in our chairs, watching the run-through and laughing. The scene broke and we gathered our notes. I remember turning to Paul and Susan and saying, "This is a show that will last forever. It's like I Love Lucy. The comedy is comedy and the real is real. This will go on." I mean, we were tired but the show never was. [ Laughs.]

One thing that hasn't changed in 32 years is that making a hit network comedy is still an absolute grind.
PJW: It's very tiresome.

NBC liked what they saw so much, they kept him on their casting roster until ER.
TT:I don't think his Golden Girls cameo got him that job. [ Laughs.] I just think it kept his insurance going.

When I interviewed Don Cheadle a couple years ago, we talked about his role in The Golden Girls sequel, The Golden Palace. Despite your two successful spinoffs in Empty Nest and Nurses, both of which premiered during Golden Girls' run, Golden Palace didn't work. How difficult was it to try and re-create the magic of the original series, and then see it fail after one season?
TT:We definitely had mixed feelings about doing it, but what we felt more than anything was a responsibility to the crew and staff. We had been employing a lot of people, so to just pull the plug would have meant ending something that provided a very satisfying life for a lot of people. It would be unfair to say it was against our better judgment to do the spinoff because all of those concerns influenced our decision to do Golden Palace. And by the way, Don was amazing. Cheech Marin was amazing. And of course, we still had the other three women. But it was a tough haul. I think we were exhausted.

SH:Did I write it?

TT:Yeah, you must have.

SH:I vaguely remember. [ Laughs.]

The show has been ubiquitous since it first went into syndication in 1990, and now it's reaching an entirely new audience on Hulu. There's even a Golden Girls-themedcafé that just opened in New York called Rue La Rue. I have a lovely set of ceramic Golden Girls coasters I use on a daily basis. How insane does it feel to still be getting attention for a show that premiered 32 years ago?
TT:First to be clear, it's not a Golden Girls-themed café, it's a Rue McClanahan restaurant. Her family asked if they could do that and we and Disney said, "Yes, that would be fine with us." But it's not something we are involved in. [ Laughs.] No, it's all wonderful. So many memories of the three of us working together at the peak of our abilities, of the good fortune of collaborating with those directors and writers, and particularly of those four women coming together and bringing life to Susan's brilliant script. It was seven years of total joy.

SH:I mean, we'd had a very good time working on Soap. But I don't think we ever had such a good time as on Golden Girls.

PJW:It's utterly exciting that our show still commands the kind of audience and affection that it does. And some of our biggest fans today hadn't even been born when we first premiered.

SH:I was out walking about a year ago and a car came by me and screeched to a halt. Someone yelled out, "Susan!" I ran up to the window. It was Betty, and she was driving - at age 94. We talked briefly and then she said, "I gotta go, I'm late for makeup." She is really incredible.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Why Golden Girls Is the Perfect Show to Watch Right Now

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The Golden Girls Creators On Finding a New Generation of Fans

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Three decades after its debut, The Golden Girls is still indelible: midnight cheesecake summits in the kitchen, hushed conversations on the "lanai," snowy memories of St. Olaf, Old World tall tales of Sicily circa 1922, "Pussycat," and even poor Stan Zbornak are all unmistakably Golden Girls.

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The show continues to be hailed for its content today.

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Picture it: Hollywood, 1985. The first episode of The Golden Girls airs, introducingthe world to Blanche Devereaux, Rose Nylund, Sophia Petrillo, and Dorothy Zbornak. The show attracted more than 25 million viewers, becoming the highest-rated program of the week and consistently ranked in the top 10 sitcoms during its run. Over the course of seven seasons, the show racked up 68 Emmy nominations, 11 wins, and is one of only 4 shows in TV history whose principal actors all won Emmys for their roles. Despite Hollywood's obsession with youth, The Golden Girls is still beloved by audiences thirty years after its premiere.

Beyond the fact that the show is extremely well-written and well acted (thanks to Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty, Rue McClanahan, and Betty White), The Golden Girls also stands out for being one of the last sitcoms where progressive values were part of the show's DNA.

In an interview with Out Magazine, show creator Susan Harris explained, "We liked to tackle - not outrageous issues - but important issues. Things that I knew that people went through that hadn't been addressed on television." Harris was no stranger to shows that incorporated political story lines, having previously worked on Norman Lear's groundbreaking All in the Family, and having written the historic abortion episode for Maude, which won her the Humanitas Prize - an award for film and television writing that promotes human dignity, meaning, and freedom. It is not surprising then that Harris brought this tradition to the writer's room of The Golden Girls each week. The following are just some of the reasons why, after 30 years, The Golden Girls is still the most progressive show on television.

A Feminist Show

The very premise of The Golden Girls  - four women navigating life after marriage and finding companionship in one another - is feminist in nature.While the women exchange quips and get into fights, the overarching message of the show focuses on the importance of chosen family, and women supporting other women. Further, we see the women enjoying life after marriage. Over the course of the series, we see the characters focus on career ambitions, new hobbies, and more often than not, their unapologetic enjoyment of sex. So much so that the blog Refinery29 recently tallied how many men each character slept with (naturally, Blanche had the most at 165). What made their love lives particularly important was the fact that television shows rarely portray older women as sexual beings.

The very premise of The Golden Girls - four women navigating life after marriage and finding companionship in one another - is feminist in nature.

"Television is always several steps behind life. When do you see passionate older people on television?" Susan Harris told The New York Times in a 1985 interview shortly after the show's premiere. "There is life after 50. People can be attractive, energetic, have romances. When do you see people of this age in bed together? Eventually on this show, you will. It's kind of pathetic that this show is television's baby steps.''

And the impact this had on audiences was clear. During an episode of The Phil Donahue Show, an adoring caller thanked guests Bea Arthur and Betty White for making her "feel 52 and gorgeous." And the Winter 1989 issue of Media & Values magazine included survey responses from middle aged viewers of the show, such as one woman who responded, "I like this program because it gives me hope that there's life after 50!" Beyond the message of female empowerment, the fact that the characters were older was significant in and of itself for the unprecedented portrayal of aging on television.

Portrayals of Aging

"Probably the single most effective product to come out of Hollywood in terms of turning around the cultural stereotypes about older women was the hugely popular and successful television show The Golden Girls in the late 1980s and early 1990s," activist Ai-jen Poo wrote in her book Aging with Dignity. "Those four women, each with her own distinct history and personality...shattered the silence and the invisibility around aging in the most hilarious and endearing ways."

While the entertainment industry pressures actresses to go to great lengths to maintain or restore their youth, The Golden Girls embraced aging and all the humor, wisdom, and vulnerability that comes with it.

This is evident in the episode " Rose Fights Back,"whenRose is cut off from her deceased husband's pension plan and must find a new job. She is soon faced with age discrimination and the fear of not being able to make her rent. In a poignant scene, Rose discusses often seeing an older woman digging through the trash. She tells the other ladies, "I wondered, what did she do to get herself into a fix like that? I thought, well, she must be lazy, or she must be pretty stupid to let something like this happen to her. The truth is: she's me."

In another episode, Sophia makes a friend, Alvin, at the Boardwalk, but soon discovers that he has Alzheimer's disease. She tells Dorothy, "people think if you live to be my age you should be grateful just to be alive. Well, that's not how it works. You need a reason to get up in the morning and sometimes even after you find one, life can turn right around and spit in your face."

While the entertainment industry pressures actresses to go to great lengths to maintain or restore their youth, The Golden Girls embraced aging and all the humor, wisdom, and vulnerability that comes with it.

Gay Rights

While the show's message about women and aging is tied to its premise, The Golden Girls was often ahead of its time on other social issues. Twenty-four years prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's historic ruling on marriage equality, The Golden Girls defended same-sex marriage before it was a mainstream position. In this episode, Blanche's brother Clayton pays a visit and announces that he is engaged to his partner, Doug. In one scene, Sophia perfectly explains marriage equality to an upset Blanche:

In an interview with Vulture, show writerMarc Cherry recalled, "We were young writers, and we got to say a little something about gay rights and how gay people see themselves. It was about two men getting married, which is something people at the time didn't talk about. And it was a really funny episode."

Off the screen, the actresses were dedicated to advancing the cause of gay rights. At the height of the AIDS epidemic, which tragically hit the gay community, Estelle Getty was a staunch AIDS activist. In a 1989 interview, she explained, "I've been in show business all my life, and the majority of my friends are gay...A lot of my friends have died from AIDS."

The show tackled the stigma surrounding AIDS head on in the episode "72 Hours," and worked to counteract the myth that it was a gay disease or punishment. In the episode, Rose finds out she may have contracted the disease from an operation, and grows increasingly scared and angry. In one scene she exclaims, "This isn't supposed to happen to people like me...I'm a good person!" Blanche argues back, "AIDS is not a bad person's disease, Rose. It is not God punishing people for their sins." The scene manages to be both humorous and raw.

Confronting Race

Much like the show did with gay rights, The Golden Girls confronted issues related to race in honest ways, rather than the imaginary "post-racial" interactions many sitcoms favor today. In one episode, Dorothy's son Michael announces he's getting married to Lorraine, a black singer in his band. The news causes Dorothy to cringe and cry out "Oh God," but she recovers to explain that her race doesn't matter. The scene portrays the complexity of prejudice, and dispels the idea that racism is something only "bad people" are guilty of - a recognition that is necessary in order to truly overcome prejudice.

Rarely is America's complicated history with race woven into a sitcom storyline, much less as part of a white character's backstory.

In another episode, we are introduced to Blanche's "Mammy" from growing up, Viola Watkins. When Viola reveals that she had an affair with Blanche's father, she explains, "In another time and place, we would have been married. But at that time in the South, it wasn't an option." The episode highlighted how often white children grew attached to their black caretakers, while underscoring the racial animosity that existed around them. Rarely is America's complicated history with race woven into a sitcom storyline, much less as part of a white character's backstory.

Disability Visibility

One subject matter that most television shows ignore altogether is disability. The Golden Girls, however,had multiple episodes revolving around characters with disabilities, usually as part of the women's love lives. In these episodes, the women are forced to confront their own prejudices and misperceptions around what it means to be a person with a disability.

According to Lawrence Carter-Long, an expert on disability and media, "The best writing about disability focuses on character. Not a rehash of the same two-dimensional tragic or heroic movie-of-the-week stillness we've all seen a hundred times before."

This sentiment is perfectly demonstrated in the episode "Stand By Your Man." Blanche is nervous about dating Ted, a man in a wheelchair, played by Hugh Farrington, an actor who was paraplegic in real life. In the episode, Blanche gets past her prejudices and discovers that Ted is no different than anyone else, for better or worse. After learning that he has a wife, she says, "It never dawned on me that you could be a jerk in a wheelchair."

In another episode, Rose is dating Jonathan Newman, a doctor at the grief center where she works. Rose is initially embarrassed to reveal their relationship because Jonathan is a little person, but she is determined to make it work. In the end, however, Jonathan breaks things off with Rose because she isn't Jewish.

Fighting Poverty

Finally, as someone who does research and advocacy around fighting poverty, I am often frustrated by the myths and stereotypes that persist in film and television. The Golden Girls is not one of those shows. On many occasions, the show discusses poverty, but there is no better scene that demonstrates how well they did on the subject than in the episode " Have Yourself A Very Little Christmas," when the ladies volunteer at a church to serve Christmas dinner to the homeless. They soon discover that Dorothy's ex-husband, Stan, is among the people in need. The Church's Reverend goes on to perfectly explain how poverty is an experience (rather than a moral failing, which is often the message), how public policy plays a role, and closes the scene with a direct jab at then-President Ronald Reagan:

REVEREND AVERY

You'd be surprised how many people are only two or three paychecks away from being on the street. The suddenly poor are all around us. Once you've been knocked down like that, it's very hard to recover.

What's going to happen to all these people?

REVEREND AVERY

I don't know. There's no affordable housing, the rents keep going up and up, and the minimum wage has been held down.

Seems so unfair.

REVEREND AVERY

Well, that's because it is. There are three million homeless, hungry people in this country.

What bothers me is, those people out there are being fed today because it's Christmas, but what will they eat tomorrow?

REVEREND AVERY

When the great communicator talked about his vision of a city on a hill, I wonder if it included people sleeping on gratings in the street.

Over the past few years, many politicians have credited television for advancing their views on gay rights. And a growing body of research confirms that "as we grow emotionally attached to characters who are part of a minority group, our prejudices tend to recede." In other words, television has the power to change the world. This makes what The Golden Girls accomplished even morecritical. While the show wasn't perfect on every issue, particularly on perpetuating hurtful plot lines around trans characters, The Golden Girls was an unapologetically progressive show. The showgave visibility to older women while using this unique platform to champion a number of progressive ideals that often go untouched by television shows. Not only is this level of progressivism unmatched on the small screen, the entire show was made possible by the understanding that older actresses have value and women can be funny.

The strength of the characters, the incorporation of storytelling, and punch lines delivered with a simple facial expression are among the many devices that make The Golden Girls one of the funniest sitcoms of all time. But it's progressive message makes it one of the most important.

As a loyal fan, I'll be celebrating the show's 30th anniversary with my favorite episodes and a slice of cheesecake.

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30 Years Later, 'The Golden Girls' is Still the Most Progressive Show on Television

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Picture it: Hollywood, 1985. The first episode of The Golden Girls airs, introducingthe world to Blanche Devereaux, Rose Nylund, Sophia Petrillo, and Dorothy Zbornak. The show attracted more than 25 million viewers, becoming the highest-rated program of the week and consistently ranked in the top 10 sitcoms during its run.

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Tony Thomas discusses how the show came to be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u9FJkElQOk

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Producer Tony Thomas on creating "The Golden Girls" - EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG

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Producer Tony Thomas discusses casting the iconic series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vaw5Q1QqK0

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Producer Tony Thomas on the "Golden Girls" cast - EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG

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The show was taped in front of a live audience

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Getty was actually a year younger than her on screen daughter.

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The Kitchen Where most Scenes took Place

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The Kitchen Where most Scenes took Place

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Numerous scenes in the series take place in the kitchen.

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The cast of this sitcom did not look anything like the cast of other sitcoms of their time.