From Lucy and Ethel’s spirited attempts at sorting chocolate to Ross, Rachel, and Chandler’s attempt to move a couch up several flights of stairs, sitcoms have routinely placed their characters in wildly outrageous situations for the better part of seventy years.
That welcome staple of the sitcom has kept audiences in stitches for decades, and perhaps no sitcom did it better than the ‘80s gem The Golden Girls. For four senior citizens approaching the twilight of their years, the Girls found themselves in many zany circumstances that were hilariously bizarre.
The Electric Blanket Incident
Due to visiting relatives both beloved or bemoaned, remodeling, or the need to have a late-night chat, the Girls have had ample opportunity to share beds over seven seasons. But, there was only one time where all four of them shared a bed, and that’s when the heater went out during a particularly brutal cold snap one winter.
Aside from wondering how cold it could actually be in Miami to require four roommates to share a bed, the scene is particularly outrageous for the sheer comedic value of the banter between the principal leads. Sophia’s quip about “doing what she wants as long as she’s in her own bed” was particularly side-splitting.
The President Is Coming!
Although it’s somewhat rare to see in this day and age, clip shows were par for the course in television’s yesteryear. Comprised of sequences from previous episodes strung together by a framing story, clip shows were a cost-effective way of keeping the audience entertained without breaking the budget.
The Golden Girls made frequent use of clip shows during their run, but one of the more memorable ones involved then-President George W. Bush visiting the house while on a tour. It’s not every day a sitting president visits a residential home, which was definitely out of the norm for the Girls.
Grab That Dough
Only a select few have had the honor—or indignity—of participating in a game show, and the Girls can be counted among them. Yet, the fact that they embarrassed themselves attempting to answer questions and grab as much cash as possible in a cylindrical vacuum was not as outrageous as the circumstances that led them to appear on Grab That Dough.
Between Sophia’s mismanaging of the tickets, Rose’s snafu with the hotel, and the Girls’ schism at the onset of the taping, the pratfalls on the game show itself was the cherry on top of an outrageous excursion.
The Sky Is Falling
As a substitute teacher, Dorothy wasn’t the most wealthy of the Girls and often had to supplement her income with odd jobs or accept positions at schools and in subject areas that weren’t her specialty. One such instance resulted in one of the more visually memorable escapades the Girls had, a costumed production of Henny Penny performed for elementary school children.
Rose, Blanche, and Dorothy’s bird costumes were anything but foul, as they hilariously complemented each of their characters. Each of the Girls revealed themselves as the play unfolded, prompting bales of laughter in the audience from their ostentatious attire.
Kid Pepe
Sophia was undeniably one of the gems of The Golden Girls, as her wickedly biting and snarky remarks made her an instant fan-favorite. Yet, for all her wit and old-world charm, she often made poor decisions, especially when it came to finances. Spending the Girls’ investment money on procuring an amateur boxer definitely qualifies as a poor financial decision.
However, it was worth it just to see Dorothy attempt to train him by sticking and moving. Having a Cuban boxer who turned out to be a classically-trained violinist live with them for a few days was definitely one of the Girls’ more outrageous misadventures.
Visiting St. Olaf
Some of the funniest parts of the show were Rose’s St. Olaf stories. Told in the form of a long and drawn-out yarn that had no discernible point, Rose’s constant mentioning of the town made it the stuff of legend.
The Girls actually got to visit it when Rose was nominated as St. Olaf’s Woman of the Year. Aside from the ridiculous circumstances that garnered her the award, the lengths the quartet had to go to reach the town, including riding a tiny plane, train, and horse and buggy, were hilariously outrageous.
Bringing Up Baby
It’s not entirely uncommon that, when someone dies, a relative or friend agrees to take in the surviving children and raise them as their own. What is uncommon, however, is to raise a three hundred pound pot-bellied pig in a suburban Miami home, as the Girls attempted to do when Rose’s uncle died and willed the pig, Baby, to her.
It’s outrageous to think that the Girls were willing to deal with cleaning up after an animal who, to quote Dorothy, “has burps that smell like four burning tires.” What was even more unfathomable was their decision to send the pig to another relative despite the one-hundred thousand dollar stipend that came with it.
Jailbirds
Sitcoms often rely on a comedy of errors to propel their narratives. That conceit formed the premise of every Three’s Company episode for its entire, successful eight-season run. The Golden Girls often followed suit, to similarly hilarious results.
This was evident in the episode where the Girls won tickets to meet Burt Reynolds. Deciding to make a weekend out of it, they booked a stay at a hotel they didn’t realize was a brothel. Arrested and thrown in jail, the wildly out-of-place trio was bailed out by Sophia, who in her traditionally blunt way highlighted the outrageousness of the situation with her trademark, hilarious one-liners.
Meeting Gorbachev
Former President George W. Bush wasn’t the only major world leader the Girls brushed up against in their lives. In a twist that was emblematic of the state of world affairs in the 1980s, Rose garnered the attention of the leader of the U.S.S.R. Mikhail Gorbachev.
The ludicrousness of the plot was rooted in Rose’s concern over a potential nuclear holocaust, leading her to write a letter to the Communist leader to plead for disarmament. A dream sequence in which the Girls watch Rose deliver a speech in Red Square was the height of outrageousness in this episode.
Stranded On A Deserted Island
The Girls have never shied away from taking a vacation when they needed it, but their sojourn to a tropical island turned out to be anything but paradise. Tricked into renting a crummy hotel room, the Girls grew livid when they found themselves sharing a bathroom with three obnoxious male guests.
The plot thickened when those three men took the Girls on a midnight cruise as a way to make amends for their behavior, but they ended up stranded on a deserted island. From Rose’s take-charge attitude to the Girls’ hilarious confessions, this was the most outrageous situation they ever found themselves in.
