Why do I ❤️ Designing Women?

I do too, OP. But I hate it when the episodes move into the Julia Duffy/Jan Hooks years. I'd rather get my beauty sleep when that happens. And the Judith Ivey episode give me nightmares, so I make sure to skip those.

What's Fetv? Feh-TV. TV for people who are not impressed?

Julia Duffy’s character, Allison, was extremely unlikable. Yes, obnoxiousness was part of the Allison character, but she had no redeeming qualities. Everyone hated her. I liked Judith Ivy’s character, but at that point the show was unsalvageable. Once Delta Burke and Jean Smart left the show, it was ruined. The saving grace, however, Alice Ghostly. She made the show more watchable. Annie Potts and Dixie Carter did the best they could do, with the lousy scripts. The last show, with the Scarlett O’Hara theme, was a disaster.

You sound cute OP.

Which of the principal cast are you most like? Me? Bernice

I agree 100%, r3. There was a general mean quality during Julia Duffy's season that hadn't been there previously. Duffy's character was obnoxious I felt like all the characters became unlikable. I think the writers and actors were burned out by the very public Delta Burke feud and departure and the characters just crossed over into nastiness. The show recovered somewhat during Judith Ivey's season but by that time it was way too late.

I watch it on Hulu all the time

The first few seasons are among my favorite episodes of all time.

I love the season 5 episode when Bernice gets a pig nose job

I don't think that episode IS funny at all.

"So, Bernice ... how about another nose?"

What kind of fish is it?

It's compressed fish. It's 89 cents. What do you think?

I love it when Bernice hosted her own cable access talk show!

"Calling all cars ... calling all cars ... oh, this is fun!"

I always loved it when Bernice sang “black man” to Anthony.

OP, DVR is your friend.

Cindy... Cindy Birdsong

And that, Marjorie, is the night the lights went out in Georgia.

I will only watch the Suzanne-Anthony centric episodes.

DW wasn't same after Delta Burke was forced out/left. Things only got worse after Charlene (Jean Smart) left as well.

Series really should have ended then on a high note, but sadly as with many other television series it was dragged out for long slow (and painful) death.

Without Suzanne DW just didn't work...

[quote] And that, Marjorie, is the night the lights went out in Georgia.

Oh, honey. If we're going to do this, let's do it right.

(clears throat)

I gather from your comments there are a couple of other things you don't know, Marjorie. For example, you probably didn't know that Suzanne was the only contestant in Georgia pageant history to sweep every category except congeniality, and that is not something the women in my family aspire to anyway.

Or that when she walked down the runway in her swimsuit, five contestants quit on the spot.

Or that when she emerged from the isolation booth to answer the question, "What would you do to prevent war?" she spoke so eloquently of patriotism, battlefields and diamond tiaras, grown men wept.

And you probably didn't know, Marjorie, that Suzanne was not just any Miss Georgia, she was THE Miss Georgia. She didn't twirl just a baton, that baton was on FIRE. And when she threw that baton into the air, it flew higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before, hitting a transformer and showering the darkened arena with sparks!

And when it finally DID come down, Marjorie, my sister caught that baton, and 12,000 people jumped to their feet for sixteen and one-half minutes of uninterrupted thunderous ovation, as flames illuminated her tear-stained face!

And THAT, Marjorie - just so YOU will know - and your children will SOMEDAY know - is the NIGHT the LIGHTS went out in Georgia!

My favorite episode is when Julia got her head stuck in the banister of the governor's mansion on inaugural night.

My next favorite was time they went on the wilderness adventure with Denny Dillion as a lesbian dwarf.

Oh, I also love the time they went to a designer's conference in New Orleans. That was a classic!

My favorite episode is ‘Tornado Watch’. I love Dub Taylor as Daddy Jones.

I hated the show as a kid and I still hate the show today. It was so prissy and felt like a show for old people.

One of my favorite episodes is when they went bowling and Suzanne did not want to give up her Maude Frizon designer high heels and exchange them at the bowling alley desk to put on rented bowling shoes that were stained by the sweat of 60,000 poor people.

R3

Julia Duffy's character on Newhart was pretty much same not so likable. You wanted to whack her with a croquet mallet each time she appeared.

Love the fact that Jean Smart and her husband are still together. Always thought he was hot when he played Mary Jo's boyfriend.

I hated it really. Julia Duffy is a great actress, though; her character and season were the only ones I came close to liking.

Also from DW were husband and wife Gerald McRaney (Dash Goff) and Delta Burke (Suzanne Sugarbaker)

Hal Holbrook (Reese Watson) and Dixie Carter (deceased) ( Julia Sugarbaker)

For my money "hunk" on DW was Charlene's bf and later husband Col. Bill Stillfield (Doug Barr)

Allison was the most likable, I thought. She was the only one who wasn't cartoonishly dumb or shrill.

DW ladies at hotel in New Orleans where Suzanne thinks a drag queen is a real woman.... Episode is a hoot!

Final scene!

If you love it so much, get Hulu and watch as much as you want whenever you want for $6/mo.

Can't watch it the same way now that I know Dixie was a Republican

Delta is too.

Dixie was always a progressive Republican, though. Socially progressive, fiscally centrist. No resemblance to today's wackadoodles.

Delta, on the other hand, has gone in the Jesus-y quasi-Trumper direction that her husband espouses.

She was a Republican right to the end. Had she lived she would've voted for Trump.

But Stephanie was funny, r26. And through the run they made her (at least a bit) less shallow. And...she was funny. Go to 18:10....

Delta Burke always was hilarious.

'Excuse me! Excuse me!!'

Delta Burke was funnier in the early episodes when she was a sarcastic snob. When she gained weight the character ended up being rewritten as a Charlene Mk. II.

It's the fact that Julia would give these impassioned speeches that we now know Dixie didn't believe is the scene killer for me. You can be socially progressive but if you still vote Republican than you destroy any chances of that progress happening.

She was gay friendly but beyond that I don't know if she was that socially progressive.

Some Southern women are like that though. And plenty of fraus like their gays as accessories who exist only in their orbit to ego-fluff, which I assume was her relationship with Marc Cherry.

I don’t give a fuck about their politics. It’s funny!!! Loosen your vaginal muscles girls.

I don't know OP. Couldn't stand the show, mainly because it was so damn PREDICTABLE. That and the fact that Dixie Carter was in real life a conservative cunt, the exact opposite of the character she portrayed on the show. She said repeatedly over the years how much she disliked having to give those 'liberal' speeches as part of the show.

Julia seems so right-wing actually, just in her manner.

Anyone else see gay couples in the supermarket, thinking immediately of Suzanne? I actually brought it up with one couple who had not heard of that episode, but thought it was a real hoot!

Julia was A CHARACTER.

Some of you need help.

I did tell Kyle Westheimer's parents that he was, in fact, a bisexual.

Yes, Julia was a character, but Carter was no Meryl Streep.

So we can discuss that.

She was fabulous.

She's dead.

Let her be.

R49

You just have to love Suzanne Sugarbaker logic she uses to justify her actions.

Julia Sugarbaker : Something wrong, Suzanne?

Suzanne Sugarbaker : Yes, something is wrong. I'm driving down the street this morning, the sun is shining, I'm young, I'm beautiful. I look in the rear view mirror and what do I see? There is a hair growing out of my chin. I mean, have you ever in all your life? I simply could not believe my eyes. Here I am, hardly 30 years old, and there's this hair sticking out right here. It's unbelievable. Obviously, I'm being punished for some heinous sin, like telling Kyle Westheimer's parents that he is, in fact, a bisexual. But all I know is, whatever it is, I did not merit this.

Mary Jo Shively : You told some guy's parents that he's a bisexual?

Suzanne Sugarbaker : That's right. I always tell the parents. And I'm not sorry either. I don't believe in bisexuals. I figure the rest of us have to choose, so why shouldn't they?

Charlene: I asked this Northern woman, "Where are ya'll from?" And she said, "I'm from a place where we don't end our sentences with prepositions." So I said, "Okay, where are ya'll from, bitch?"

It’s okay to believe that a woman who was a big Reagan fan at the height of the The Plague is someone we can dislike.

Not every Republican is personally homophobic, but overt homophobia was a well-worn part of their electoral strategy by the end of the eighties...

R52

I hate that lengthy monologue from Suzanne.

DW was just way too talky. It took them twice as much dialogue to get to the joke as GG.

[quote] I mean, have you ever in all your life? I simply could not believe my eyes.

This is superfluous and should've been cut.

R 55 A lot of Southern women do talk like that.

That's right, R57. But it doesn't make good television.

I'm thinking of things like Charlene's Ann Blyth speech... just dragged on.

Charlene's Ann Blyth speech is damn funny, r58.

No, it had that same gossipy tone that a lot of the show's 'funny' moments did but they never really worked.

It seems to be building to a joke, but the joke is just that she keeps talking, ever more stupidly...

That was a Charlene "thing", r60.

And Carlene and Bernice and Anthony and (from season two onwards) Suzanne.

R45 = Gary Coleman’s ghost

In every episode Julia gave at least one self righteous condescending lecture.

I never got the camera work. Compare this with the Golden Girls; the colors on the Golden Girls seem so much more vibrant and fresh. Designing Women just seems so run down.

Cheers and Roseann seemed to use a similar style which I also dislike, but at least it matches the tone of the show better.

[quote] Designing Women just seems so run down.

That’s because the shoot-on-film-and-edit-it-on tape method does not look good on modern DVDs or streaming set ups. Supposedly the masters Hulu got look significantly worse. If Sony still has those film negatives and remastered them, it could look spectacular. They did the same for [italic]Seinfeld[/italic]. You want to talk about a show that looks terrible on DVD independently of the quality of the content, the Region 1 DVDs of [italic]LA Law[/italic], also from Shout! Factory, are a disgrace.

The first season of [italic]The Golden Girls[/italic], especially the pilot, was almost drab enough to look like [italic]All in the Family[/italic]. Part of this is because Disney almost ran out of money fighting off greenmailers a year earlier. Eventually, the visual quality improved, and towards the end it looked like they made the switch from analog to digital tape.

[quote] I mean, have you ever in all your life? I simply could not believe my eyes.

Ma'yam? MA'YAM?

[quote]Designing Women just seems so run down.

Even the main set did.

They were interior designers and THAT'S what Julia's house looked like?

How did they ever get any clients?

It looked so... unconsidered.

Blanche's house at least looked like she put some thought into it.

Suzanne: Let me get this straight. He’s never had a girlfriend, he knits sweaters, and he works at the beauty shop?

Charlene: Well, he goes to Three Rivers Junior College, too. What are you gettin’ at?

Suzanne: Well, I don’t mean to get personal, Charlene, but has it ever occurred to you that maybe Odell is involved in some HOMASECKSHUL activity?

Charlene: SUZANNE! I mean, just because a person is sensitive and artistic doesn’t mean he’s gay. Not that that would matter to me anyway.

Julia: Well, I think he sounds like an interesting and talented young man.

Suzanne: I think he sounds like a woman.

[quote]Charlene: SUZANNE!

I notice that something else the character keep doing.

They were always trying to telegraph the writer's (yes, singular; check it out) desire to be outrageous and provocative whilst really being a conservative frau.

Hence the constant use of the line, "XYZ, I cannot believe you just said that!"

[quote] In every episode Julia gave at least one self righteous condescending lecture.

Not the episodes where she got to sing, which were the payment for those lectures.

It WAS very talky, which felt more real to some of us than the Borscht Belt delivery on GG, which was about as fresh as a rotting corpse.

I’m glad they didn’t make Anthony into Julia’s ventriloquist dummy and actually allowed him to disagree with her on certain points.

R66 Drab! Thank you! That is exactly the issue; it looka drab.

What is the type of film style used in DW verses GG? Was one favored over another?

[quote] It WAS very talky, which felt more real to some of us than the Borscht Belt delivery on GG

More real, yes, but far less funny.

[quote]"XYZ, I cannot believe you just said that!"

Did anyone else notice they kept using this one line over and over. I think every main character said it at one point or another.

[italic]Golden Girls[/italic] was on tape because all of the Witt-Thomas-Harris shows were on tape. The lower cost made it more attractive to Disney, especially once Michael Eisner took over. Even that they can do more with now that they’ve managed to squeeze Blu-rays out of [italic]Fraggle Rock[/italic] and [italic]Monty Python’s Flying Circus[/italic].

Most shows shot on film were also edited on film up to this point, but this was the point where it changed. This was also a cost-cutting measure.

I don't know, a 6' tall black man, dressed as Hazel, setting out to defraud the United States Government. What could possibly go wrong?

Season six was the best. That's when they fully abandoned the meandering dialogue of the earlier seasons and started writing like The Golden Girls.

The fact that Borscht Belt was used in the negative shows that R72 has no taste.

Allison was a much needed addition. The show needed someone to cut through everyone else's BS. That was actually how Suzanne was intended to be.

Julia righteously barking* "SU-ZANNE!" gives me life. *For lack of a better word.

R80: that stuff still has more of a sense of professionalism to it than the long unfunny awkward pauses and painfully drawn out gags that constitute much of comedy today.

Dixie Carter was best in small doses.

R80 is 162 years old.

Honey, if you hold DW up as the height of sophisticated comedy you have no place calling someone else old.

I still use the phrase, “big ole country girl”.

Bernice: Look what I found in the ladies' room ... DONNA JO KARNS!

Charlene: Oh, Bernice, put her back!

I just never found the show's most iconic lines -- black man, Christmas tree skirt, some white girl -- all that funny.

And Alice Ghostley was incredibly grating. Not just on DW but in everything. I hated that quivering voice of hers and her knowingly dumb delivery of every line after a pause.

R76, the one that stood out for me was having a character (usually Mary Jo) enter in a rush and say, “Sorry I’m late. I was [fill in the excuse].” I’m sure it’s a TV writer shortcut to introduce a character into the scene but if you ever binge watch the series it’s noticeable how often they relied on it.

Yes, R90! I noticed that too.

Linda BT wrote almost every episode of the first three seasons.

Not just got a title but wrote them.

"Sorry, I'm late. I had to give Quint a flea bath!"

"That's alright, Mary-Jaw...."

Dixie is cringeworthy in her AIDS speech.

In some things she could be okay BUT she needed to be reined in.

DailyMotion, my friend. Agreed that the first 5 years are only episodes worth watching.

Season six is my favorite. The show seemed it bit smarter, a bit edgier. And they finally had someone to stand up to Julia (Allison).

The great Julia Duffy was too good for that show and how she was treated is sad.

The episodes used to be on YT a few years back. Gone now.

The show is actually really hard to find online.

It’s on fetv every night. I love Bernice Cliffton!

DW had a frau mentality.

GG had a gay male mentality.

Before this and after [italic]Newhart[/italic], Julia Duffy got stuck in a truly terrible ABC sitcom called [italic]Baby Talk[/italic], one that inspired a lawsuit from the makers of [italic]Look Who's Talking[/italic]. Columbia, who produced them both (the movie was through TriStar the same year they released [italic]Steel Magnolias[/italic], which crashed and burned as a sitcom pilot), knew she was too good for that shit, so they moved her here. It still didn't quite work out.

Alice Ghostley always took the weirdest pauses in the middle of her lines. I don't know if she had a thing about risque dialogue, or she wanted to call greater attention to it.

Yes, she was always taking awkward pauses...

I don't know if she thought that was funny or...

[quote] Dixie is cringeworthy in her AIDS speech.

It's one of the best things they ever did! Her delivery is flawless there.

"You would be at the free clinic ALLLLLL the time!"

Yes, the scene does try to fit in a few clunky bits of info, like when Suzanne responds to Imogene. But it was based on reality (LBT's mother died of AIDS).

r27, they were separated for a while. I saw Jean Smart interviewed on The View and a question was asked about her husband that she misunderstood, and let the cat out of the bag that they were separated at one time. When trying to recover, she also let it out that she was briefly married before as well.

Richard Gilliland was a hot piece of ass back in the day.

When Jean was on Who Do You Think You Are? she was so warm, funny and charming. She may not have been Southern, but she shares some of the same lovable warmth that Charlene had.

I really love Jean and Annie - I wish they'd be in a show together or, if they did A DW reboot, have them appear together with their daughters.

It was good shit

I wanted to be Mary Jo. That bitch had Ted AND J.D. - the kind of hairy daddy types I lusted after in my neighborhood.

Wanna buy my used toilet paper?

Is it the big hair?

Four white women and a black man driving through the dark Georgia night? I don't think it looks right.

r108 JD was a hairy daddy?

Well, he can't compete in a hairy contest with walking furball Scott Bakula (ted) but yes, he was DILFy.

He's aged terribly, sadly.

I mean.....that waist....that ass

[quote]It's one of the best things they ever did! Her delivery is flawless there.

No, her delivery is totally overblown. She just shouts every single syllable in that way hers in which she puts EM. PHA. SIS. ON. EV. ER. RY. SING. LE. SYL. LAB. BLE.

I don't even like the speech that was written, and Carter didn't help that. What was she thinking when she was screaming "PEE-EEEEEEEEEE!"?

So many of her speeches were just Emmy-bait or soapboxes for LBT.

She had plenty of moments louder than but never had a moment more powerful than Dorothy confronting the doctor who dismissed her.

I was too young to see it on first airing but saw it for the first time when I was about fourteen. I was at that point already familiar with GG and thought it would be similar.

I enjoyed it when I watched it then. I was at home cheering along when Julia would give a speech, but in retrospect I don't think I actually laughed that much. When watching GG there were plenty of episodes when I never stopped laughing (Blanche's Little Girl, Grab That Dough).

I must've had fond enough memories (rekindled by DL too) to try and give DW a rewatch a few years ago.

I couldn't.

In fact, I couldn't believe I'd ever liked the show. There are simply so many long, unfunny stretches. Suzanne's devolution into a jolly fat lady robs the character of any bite. Julia, who I used to love, I now find myself disagreeing with and clearly needing anger management therapy. Dixie Carter needed to be told louder isn't better. Julia's just unbearably shrill and the show unbearably preachy.

And, strangely, I find the show so oddly conservative. In pretty all of its big 'liberal' moments (AIDS episode included) I draw the opposite conclusion.

It really must've been written by a frau who thought she was edgy.

There's an echo to the sound on DW whenever a scene takes place on the main set.

Does anyone get that?

The closing of the front door sounds so crisp.

GG could've been a bland sitcom. It was uniquely brilliant though, and had no real worldview.

DW was pathological. Watching it reveals a lot of whoever was working behind the scenes.

Yes Dixie Carter was ALWAYS grating on the nerves, even though she was very attractive in a Southern MILF type of way

Even during her two year stint on Diff'rent Strokes, she came across as extremely annoying (and LOUD) as Maggie Drummond and don't get me started on the son of hers on there, the hated Sam McKinney

Bloodworth got bored of the show and moved on to Evening Shade and Heart's Afire which hurt Designing Women a lot

I don't hang around with poor people at home, so why should I do it on vacation?

Look-a here, he's sitting on my purse strap! Excuse me! Excuse Me!

Betty White was smart in choosing to play Rose as eternally naive.

Charlene quickly became annoying as the character changed around the second season to become more stupid and celebrity obsessed because it made for easier jokes.

The way Dixie gives the speech the meaning changes from being about I'm-o-jeen's homophobia to her bragging about her children.

Maybe that was her intent, but Julia is more outraged over her how Payne compares than the actual AIDS comments.

Bea Arthur had a way with a line.

Dixie Carter had her way with her lines.

Shame so many probably only know Ms. Alice Ghostley from DW or perhaps Bewitched as well, the lady had a long and varied career.

She had a long career but not a varied one. Once TV came about she spend decades doing the same unfunny act.

Mr. Paul Lynde and Ms. Alice Ghostley were great friends, going back to their stage theater days together.

Because you're old? Because after the late 1980s you said "Fuck it, I'm not keeping up any more"? Because - and bless your heart - you just don't know better?

As a Republican, Dixie hated those soapbox tirades of Julia's and worked out a deal with the Thomasina that she got to sing on the show once in a while to compensate.

*the Thomasons* (sorry)

The Thomasons were wholly responsible for destroying Designing Women as they were not particularly good TV producers. The likes of Norman Lear and Witt Thomas Harris knew how to manage multiple TV productions at once, over seeing staff writers and actors and making sure the machine stayed oiled.

The big issue started when Delta Burke got together with Gerald McRaney who was appearing on Simon and Simon and then Major Dad. McRaney started fuelling Burke saying she was the star of the show, but also the production was a shambles. Some tapings would go on till 3am! The goal for a good sit-com is the cast get out by 10pm on taping nights!

The truth was, Suzanne was an incredibly popular character with the audience and Burke was correct to identify this. Around this time Roseanne had just successfully got producers replaced on her show, when these producers had been trying to get the network to fire her. The difference was John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf stated they wouldn't continue with the show if Roseanne was fired and it had to be re-booted. That is now ironic history!

The problem Burke faced was the show wasn't called 'Suzanne' but 'Designing Women' and had a title that would enable it to be continued without being re-booted. Carter then wouldn't support Burke, as her husband was employed by the Thomasons on Evening Shade. So both of them were under the control of Mozark. Burke was also suffering extreme metal health issues which Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth simply regarded as 'Diva Drama'. In the end Burke went on TV with Barbara Walters and revealed all this publicly. I think had she not done that, the network would have supported her and removed the Thomasons from the production. They were already trying to do this, as they appointed a new producer in the fifth season.

But you only need to notice how few successful sit-coms the Thomasons went on to produce after Designing Women, to see it was the ensemble of those four original women that held the magic for the show, and not the format they produced.

Informative, R133. That's what happened.

As I said, I actually preferred the later seasons (six in particular) in which LBT was less involved.

Her taste was like Susan Harris': it tended towards the twee and messagy.

That's also why season one of the GG (the only season Harris was directly involved with before moving on to other shows) is my least favorite.

The show was never better:

What politics did you think a woman named Dixie would have?

"In a twenty second conversation he manged to work in Ida Lupino!"

[quote] In the end Burke went on TV with Barbara Walters and revealed all this publicly. I think had she not done that, the network would have supported her and removed the Thomasons from the production.

Of coarse ABC went along with it because they were not going to turn down the opportunity to make CBS look bad.

Bloodworth-Thomas wanted John Ritter for JT I believe and met with him. A few years later they cast him as their lead in Hearts Afire

It would have been interesting to have Jack Tripper on Designing Women

Maybe DW would have done some slapstick with him, which the show never really did

DW did do slapstick.

HEADSHOT!

I really think Annie and Jean are the underappreciated backbone of the show.

They were also apparently in an ABC pilot the season before DW started.

Charlene and Mary Jo's panic at the salad bar after Mary Jo lost Suzanne's pearls reminded me of something that would happen to Lucy and Ethel.

I watched DW for the Delta Burke and Meshach Taylor episodes. If the episode did not feature then I just was not interested.

There were very few times where the entire cast made the episode work.

r141 She kind of looks like Elizabeth Ashley in that photo.

R143 "Is this French or Thousand Island? I can never tell."

Didn't Alice Ghostley win an Oscar in the 70s?

R134 Actually DW Season 6 has the best writing of the entire 7 seasons. Each episode is well crafted, the dialogue flows brilliantly and there are a lot of funny lines. the problem was Jan Hooks was just too much on the goofy side and Julia Duffy was a Seinfeld type character, so it felt like a completely different series to when the four original women had been on.

Also in relation to your comments about Susan Harris. Harris was a brilliant show creator and had an ability to write pilots that sold and established a series brilliantly. But she also had a habit of being able to create shows that could be equally well written (later on) by other writers. This was also part of her skill as a Producer. She could work this into the production machine. Her husband Paul Hunger Witt is also a brilliant sit-com producer. So together they could create good comedy that could stay on the air. Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner also had the same skill.

Linda Bloodworth-Thomason was a truly outstanding comedy script writer. However, she is a lousy producer. Her husband is also a bad producer. There is a reason Designing Women only ever won one Emmy over 160 episodes! The network would not get behind the series due to the way the production was run. Burt Reynolds also had issues with the Thomasons on Evening Shade and that show ended up folding when it was reasonably young.

If you observe carefully, you will notice the bigger problems in DW being preachy are not in LBT scripts. Yes LBT scripts always had a Julia rant and a setting the worlds to rights tone. However, she could write these and still be very funny. Usually with Suzanne making comments that would now be looked upon as Larry David like. Meaning, we are laughing but she actually makes a valid point! However, the problem came when the Thomason's brought on other writers who had all been vetted to make sure they held all exactly the same opinions. You then get these faux Julia rants where the writer is simply trying to please the Thomason's and not actually being authentic to the character. Pam Norris episodes are the worst for this. Pam Norris was effectively taken on, so LBT wouldn't have to keep writing all the episodes. But if you notice, it will be Pam Norris episodes that contain a Julia rant that can be a little annoying. The worst episode for this is 'Julia Drives Over The First Amendment' in season 3, where Julia keeps driving her car into a news stand selling porn. The whole episode has all the women ranting about porn and even Suzanne gets in on the act. However, the episode is entirely ill conceived and does not quite know what it is supposed to be saying. Julia ends up coming across like a lunatic and I still don't understand why the publishers of a porn magazine would get involved with legal action to do with a news stand that is selling their products?

I am very sad Dixie Carter has passed away, as the original foursome held the ultimate potential for the best reboot of a TV series. Back in 1989,90 and 91 these women were ranting about Trump! Can you imagine what Julia would make of him being President! There was also so many storylines for these women in the sixty plus age bracket. They announced two years ago that Linda Bloodworth-Thomason had been commissioned to write a script for a Designing Women reboot. However, nothing more was mentioned about it. LBT claimed the series would focus on a new generation of Sugarbakers/Designing Women with appearances from the old members. I thought at the time that idea stunk! Imagine the collection of whiny, woke millennials LBT had created to serve as a mouth piece for her latest view points! The script must have been truly dire for the network to pass and not even commission a pilot in the 2019 season! Unless it will be made next month in the 2020 pilot season.

I think that the networks will pass on a DW reboot, since almost every other reboot has not done well or not been sustainable.

If anything, Netflix or Amazon (or Hulu, since they have the episodes now) should do a six part reboot. Something short, sweet and to the point.

R142 Annie Potts and Jean Smart appeared in guest roles on another Linda Bloodworth-Thomason show called Lime Street. They played two sisters who were diamond thieves. Linda Bloodworth-Thomason had previously created and written Filthy Rich where Delta Burke and Dixie Carter played bickering relatives, when that show was cancelled Linda Bloodworth-Thomason promised DB and DC she would write something else for them. When LBT saw Jean Smart and Annie Potts acting on Lime Street she also wanted to create a show for them. She then merged the Delta/Dixie pairing and Annie/Jean pairing in her mind and realised if she had the four of them in "in a room just talking" there would be a great show. She had no format, no name and no idea why the four women would be in a room together, but got a pitch meeting with CBS and Columbia Pictures.

A major part Linda Bloodworth-Thomason always leaves out of the story is it was Barbara Corday (who co-created Cagney and Lacey) who was then President of Columbia, that worked with Linda Bloodworth-Thomason on the idea of the four actresses and carved the pitch into a show and got a pilot commissioned. She gave them the name 'Designing Women' and said they could be decorators.

There is another aspect Linda Bloodworth-Thomason always leaves out when she tells the origin story. She claims she was sat in her office at Columbia and had this idea to pair Delta/Dixie Jean and Annie. That's rubbish! She was sat in her office at Columbia on a writer contract, and a brief had gone out that CBS were looking for scripts that featured an all women cast! Ideally four women cast members. This was late 1985/early 1986. There is a reason why ABC and CBS would have suddenly wanted sit-com vehicles that featured four women after the fall season of 1985!

[quote] The worst episode for this is 'Julia Drives Over The First Amendment' in season 3, where Julia keeps driving her car into a news stand selling porn. The whole episode has all the women ranting about porn and even Suzanne gets in on the act. However, the episode is entirely ill conceived and does not quite know what it is supposed to be saying. Julia ends up coming across like a lunatic and I still don't understand why the publishers of a porn magazine would get involved with legal action to do with a news stand that is selling their products?

I REALLY hate that episode. It's DW at its worst.

DW had gotten too preachy and sappy in the latter Delta Burk years, like when she goes to the high school reunion and they all snicker at her because she's fat. Or the one where Charlene has her baby and Dolly Parton is the angel.

Season 6 was like a totally different show, with Julia Duffy being a snotty New York conservative giving Julia her comeuppance. And Jan Hooks with all of her goofy, wide-eyed country mouse remarks. I guess I'm in the minority of people who liked Season 6. The final season was meh, like they had totally given up. Except I did enjoy when Mary Jo dated her himbo, Patrick Warburton (Putty from Seinfeld).

I think ratings were sliding by the end of the sixth season. The network wanted to know why and the producers choose to blame Julia Duffy, new and much more reserved than Jan Hooks. She's nothing like Allison actually. They needed a scapegoat and she was the easy target. They never wanted to hire her in first place but CBS pushed her on them. I don't think she was popular with the other actresses.

At least that's what I've come to over the years.

Allison wasn't really a conservative.

[quote]And Jan Hooks with all of her goofy, wide-eyed country mouse remarks.

Looking back, even if you were someone who didn't know that show was in decline, you could guess from her performance. The role -- 'Carlene' replacing 'Charlene' (that sounded a death knell) -- wasn't as big a problem as how she played it. She played it like a smart person pretending to be dumb.

R149 I totally agree. A quality Designing Women reboot on Netflix and just consisting of 6 episodes would work really well. I have thought about this and I believe the only way it would work is if Delta, Jean and Annie all came back to the Sugarbaker house to undertake a design project in Julia's honour. Such as a Julia Sugarbaker Women's Refuge Centre etc. I would never want to see Julia's character replaced with some outspoken niece. Instead, the biggest tribute to Julia would be for Suzanne, Mary-Jo and Charlene to all have moments of displaying Julia's personality traits, demonstrating how she had influenced them. The only new addition I'd love to see is a feisty young black actress play Anthony's adult daughter who is now a decorator and running the original business and living in the house. Danielle Brooks from Orange is the New Black would be brilliant in such a part and I'd love to see her with a lot of Suzanne's original snap combined with Anthony's dry non nonsense. But it should be super simple, the three original women, Anthony's daughter as the fourth and different storylines threaded by one arc of the women working together on this key project.

Sadly (and as said previously) I have a terrible feeling Linda Bloodworth-Thomason would never go down the above route and instead create this shocking woke, millennial whinge fest where privileged young white girls sit around complaining how hard done by they are and discussing their Me too moments. Fine if she wants to do this, but she might as well write a new show and leave us to remember Designing Women as it was. Personally, LBT would be doing far more by creating a vehicle for three women who are all in their sixties and still showing they have a voice and purpose in society!

R154 I recall Allison and Julia fighting to the death over Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill.

One thing I prefer about GG -- and this is true for any TV show -- I like being able to just watch an episode. Any episode, regardless of season, and enjoy it.

DW is one of those shows where you have to know when an episode is from before you'll know if you like it.

I hate having to sift.

Filthy Rich

R156.

I think that was more about her claims and trying to antagonize Julia than actually having any deep political views herself.

A bit like the role Judith Ivey played in the following season. She was really more a sounding board when convenient. Though the characters shifted a lot in the later seasons for storyline requirements.

You can't really have 3D characters when they only exist to respond / provoke Linda Blo... sorry... Julia.

[quote]Didn't Alice Ghostley win an Oscar in the 70s?

No, she accepted for Maggie Smith, who wasn't present to win for [italic]The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.[/italic]

R153 You are spot on, they blamed Julia Duffy but it wasn't her fault at all. In fact, the issue was down entirely to Linda Bloodworth-Thomason who had created a half baked replacement for Suzanne. Duffy was actually very good but her character did not fit the show. The writing on season 6 was really good, but they had also lost Jean Smart and the dynamic was askew.

Julia Duffy was a trade-off so the Thomason's could get rid of Delta. Delta was causing a mutiny by late 1990 and was trying to get the network to intervene over the Thomason's behaviour. There is a misconception that Delta was fired. She wasn't. The four women's 5 year options ended in 1991. Jean Smart chose not to renew. The other three actresses were renegotiating which is what happens with every single successful sit-com actor when they reach the 5 year mark. However, Harry Thomason made out Delta Burke was some kind of greedy Diva for wanting more money and more network projects. This is why Delta then went on Barbara Walters, as she knew the Thomason's so her popularity as a huge threat and were trying to oust her. I think Delta thought if she told the public she was facing the axe she would be saved by the network, but it kind of backfired. The Thomason's then went to the network saying they did not want to continue with Burke and did not want her re-engaged. Even evoking some nasty kangaroo court where they made the cast and crew vote on if she should stay or go! They were really brutal to get her out! They also demonstrated how idiotic and lacking in business acronym they were, as Burke was a golden goose on that show.

The network had already moved another Producer onto DW to get The Thomason's off the running of the show and keep Burke. But they then negotiated with Harry Thomason that if they did not renew Burke's option, they had zero say over who replaced her and it would be Julia Duffy. Julia Duffy was under paid contract to CBS and wasn't working. Had Duffy not been under contract to CBS and being paid by them, I think Burke would have stayed on the show and the Thomasons been moved off.

They (The Thomasons) then hoped Duffy would fail so they could replace her with an actress of their choosing. They wanted Bonnie Hunt but she wanted nothing to do with the show. So Judith Ivey was brought in. But this kind of behaviour towards Burke, then Duffy did not do the Thomasons any favours in their TV production businesses. Ironic that a woman (Bloodworth-Thomason) who claims to bestow every virtue of feminism and fighting for rights for women, would have a Bubba husband who bullied and intimidated his actresses on set!

Annie Potts had signed for two more seasons around the time Delta was being offed from the show. However, she was so unhappy with the way the series was going she told CBS she would not be renewing if there was a season 8. This is why they moved Designing Women into that Friday night death slot, as they simply couldn't have another of the original actresses replaced. They all knew season 7 was the end.

R162 Thanks for the insight. I can only imagine how this would've played out if they had social media back then. YIKES!

I'll have to go back and catch Season 6 again, R148. I didn't like most of the episodes I saw, although the spend-the-night party at Carlene's scary apartment was pretty good.

Season 7 was bad in a trainwreck way—it was compelling to watch precisely because it was so bad. It really was like everybody just said "fuck it." The characters became cardboard cutouts, particularly Julia. BJ Poteet was just godawful, badly conceived and a waste of a great actress in Judith Ivey. (Ironically, most of those episodes were written and directed by David Steinberg, a comedy veteran.) The one sort-of-fun part was that they let Bernice go completely off the rails.

R162 Ah good point, but you have to remember that if there was social media back then, the network would have had to intervene very early on and Delta would have been able to stay on the show. By season 3 Delta was suffering terrible anxiety and if SM had been around would have been tweeting all sorts of strange stuff. It would have been evident she was unwell and the network would have pulled her off the show and given her time off. Instead, Harry Thomason used her anxiety as a weapon to call her a Diva and told the network she was unreliable! Imagine what it must have been like suffering extreme panic attacks, comforting eating, gaining vast amounts of weight and having the tabloids constantly call you a cow, to then have a TV producer boss who is no better than a redneck hick claim you are playing up!! The Barbara Walters interview is on You Tube watch it. The Thomasons respond with a statement saying "We are exhausted by the daily trials and tribulations of Delta Burke". This gives you a flavour of the attitude they had towards her.

Annie Potts has nicer things to say about DW now, and said she'd love to do a guest appearance on a DW reboot should it appear, but she's under contract to Young Sheldon so it would indeed need to be a guest star kind of thing.

R164 Watch Season 6 again, as if it's been a while since you've seen it I think you will notice how well written it is. They manage to combined a Good A and B storyline in nearly all episodes, the dialogue flows well and the storylines are quite varied.

You are totally right about Season 7. It is truly terrible. I watched it again only recently and thought it can't have been as bad as I remembered. It was worse. The episodes seem far shorter (almost skit like), there is often not even a B plot. and Julia and Mary-Jo seem to merge into one character. A lot of the storylines (like BJ talking to her dead husbands crypt) are ridiculously twee. The only belly laugh I had (in the whole season) was the scene where Bernice talks about her parrot Pixie Clifton.

By the time season 7 was in production, Bill Clinton was in the last leg of his Presidential candidacy and the Thomasons had literally abandoned their TV shows DW, Evening Shade and Hearts Afire (which had only just started) and were spending all their time in Washington with the Clintons. I think because DW was the oldest of their shows, it got neglected the most. Plus they knew it was set to get cancelled as Annie Potts had told the network she wouldn't renew after 7. It's like you said, nobody is even bothering!!

R165 To be fair, I think Burke was a challenge to work with. We understand better now that it was likely mental illness, and the Thomasons worked with her again (on Women of the House), but it's hard to see clearly from either side when you're in the middle of the storm, so to speak.

R166 Yes, they were all pretty much off not discussing the show for a long time. Linda Bloodworth-Thomason repaired the damage with Delta in 1995 by giving her Women of the House. Then in the late 1990's Dixie and Delta made up. Then in the early noughties the retro stuff all started and the four women would all appear on TV shows talking about DW. What is really weird is from this point they completely erase the last two seasons from all mentions and only talk about the original foursome.

All four women were actually discussing doing a theatre version of Designing Women (whereby Linda Bloodworth-Thomason was going to write a stage script), but sadly Dixie got cancer and died before it could come to fruition.

[quote]You are totally right about Season 7. It is truly terrible. I watched it again only recently and thought it can't have been as bad as I remembered. It was worse. The episodes seem far shorter (almost skit like), there is often not even a B plot. and Julia and Mary-Jo seem to merge into one character. A lot of the storylines (like BJ talking to her dead husbands crypt) are ridiculously twee. The only belly laugh I had (in the whole season) was the scene where Bernice talks about her parrot Pixie Clifton.

I didn't watch S7 until the show was in reruns on Lifetime, and my jaw just dropped at how awful it was. The worst episode to me was when Mary Jo saw the face of Elvis in the shovel in her garage and started charging admission.

I don't know if a DW reboot would work in today's environment. Yes they could rail against Trump, but who would be representing the conservative side? A Meghan McCain type? I think that'd totally flop, having to listen to a deplorable vomit up right wing talking points against righteous anger over children in cages, etc.

That's where Murphy Brown went wrong, with some of the over the head kind of political talk, I think.

And in fact DW was boring when it did that in later years.

There's a way to touch on it without swimming in it, and DW was good at that in the first few years.

I bet Julia's a Republican now.

R168 I agree with you. Burke would not have been easy. I also find it concerning her mental health seemed to go to shit when she married Gerald McRaney. Even today, her career has never fully recovered. Back then, people just thought she was nuts but even in the 1980's employers (as the Thomasons were) had a responsibility to understand what was happening. It was obvious something wasn't right, she gained literally 50lbs in the space of 2 years! Watch the episode Dash Goff the Writer (where she first begins dating McRaney) then the episodes that follow. With every episode her face gets fuller and fuller, as McRaney got her to come off of living on diet shakes. She was also a long term user of amphetamines for weight loss and I think this probably screwed up her mental health long term.

But listen to some of Bloodworth-Thomason's dialogue Julia says to Suzanne in early episodes (when Burke is slim). This is dialogue in season 1! Julia makes comments about Suzanne's fat butt, eating pate, eating generally, it's really quite disturbing how much LBT slyly writes digs about Delta being fat long before she even was. LBT now makes claims the weight was never an issue for her. But Burke claimed she was always being told to mind her weight, as Suzanne was supposed to be an ex beauty queen. Again, watch very early episodes and hear this for yourself in the dialogue from Julia. Its no wonder Delta started going unhinged and crash dieting!

Jackée Harry, who loves to gossip on Twitter, has said that she and Dixie didn't get along and insinuated that Dixie may have had a hand in her not being invited back for the last season ... which is probably just as well.

[quote] Of coarse ABC went along with it

Oh, DEER R138

I always thought it would have worked better had Julia Duffy and Jan Hooks switched roles.

Duffy brought zero warmth to Allison, and she didn't gel at all with the other three. I agree that the season had some well written episodes, but it's all in spite of Duffy. It's similar to how Megan McCain interacts with the other ladies on The View. The chemistry is just off.

Hooks was better but she still played Carlene way too country bumpkinish, and that horrible haircut did her zero favors. Smart got cartoonish towards the end of her run, but there was always a sly sexiness that was completely missing from the cartoonish Carlene.

Season seven is just terrible and one of the worst seasons of any major television show.

I think Hooks could have made Allison more sympathetic (and funnier) to viewers.

And Duffy could have given hardened Carlene around the edges a little more and given her more depth. Plus Duffy and Smart would have been more believable as sisters than Hooks and Smart, who looked nothing alike.

Jan Hooks' decaying corpse will get RIGHT on these suggestions, y'all!

As luck would have it, in 20 minutes I shall be watching:

SEASON 1 • EPISODE 7 • PERKY'S VISIT • COMEDY / SITCOM • 61 METASCORE

A visit from Julia and Suzanne's mother and suspicions of murder make for an exciting Thanksgiving Day. Anthony: Meshach Taylor. Bernice: Alice Ghostley. Julia: Dixie Carter. Suzanne: Delta Burke...

Currently I'm watching:

It's a Living

SEASON 1 • EPISODE 8 • UP ON THE ROOF • COMEDY / SITCOM

The staff must set a good example when a fire alarm prompts an excruciatingly slow evacuation. Nancy: Marian Mercer. Lois: Susan Sullivan. Herb: Mark Lonow. Jan: Barrie Youngfellow. Molly: Eda Zahl. Dot: Gail Edwards. John: Philip Sterling...

^ I forgot to mention:

and Barry Youngfellow as Jan

It's a shame Suzanne left before the show could pull the trigger on her and Anthony as a couple. It was inevitable, in my opinion. Also, Mary Jo had probably the sharpest decline of the characters in the last two seasons. Annie Potts had okay chemistry opposite Jan Hooks, but Mary Jo and Carlene never really had the best friends dynamic that Mary Jo and Charlene had.

OK ... let's bring It's a Living into DW territory.

Susan Sullivan - Julia

Ann Jillian - Suzanne

Gail Edwards, Crystal Bernard, or Wendy Schaal - Charlene

Barrie Youngfellow - Mary Jo

Paul Kreppel - Anthony

Not sure what to do with Sheryl Lee Ralph, Marian Mercer, Bert Remsen, or Richard Stahl

Marian Mercer is Bernice, of course.

And Sheryl Lee is the easiest one!

What's odd is that I think a lot of the season 6 episodes play better nowadays than they did then. Julia Duffy is hilarious, but the comedy style is a lot more uncomfortable and cringe-worthy which wasn't DW's usual style. If that had been the show's first season, maybe it could have worked, but it messed with the previous seasons and felt too different for most viewers. The final season was the truly awful one. I can't remember a single episode of that season except the one where Mary Jo thought she saw Jesus on her shovel or something and, of course, the god awful finale.

yes, we get it, season 6 was underappreciated

Prior to DW Delta Burke and Dixie Carter starred in a short lived CBS 1982 sitcom called "Filthy Rich".

Show lasted only one season but Delta and Dixie became good friends and rest as they say is history.

More from "Filthy Rich".

Delta Burke pretty much played same character as she would Suzanne Sugarbaker.

We're the incredibly Elite Bona Fide Blue-Blood Beaumont Driving Club. Normally you have to be born or marry into our club, but we do make exceptions on occasion.

Actually this has been the most original DW thread ever on DL. More discussion of the problems of the earlier years and the highlights of the later ones. Instead of the usual hackneyed phrases: Bernice! Suzanne got funnier as she got fatter! Suzanne and Anthony! Suzanne and Charlene leave and show ends! Julia so liberal! Dixie actually just kept crossing wrong box when she voted!

I basically feel the opposition to all the convential wisdom about the show.

Allison wasn't SUPPOSED to be warm and sympathetic. (Yet, Duffy, with her natural charm, did still make her seem like she had *some* heart when called for.)

And that's a good thing.

Sitcoms NEED conflict and the show never really work without her.

Allison was never a major cunt on wheels -- I wonder if the people who think that are even watching the same show -- in actuality, she was closer to early Suzanne than later Suzanne was.

And it's a testament to the brass' success at spreading that story that somehow Allison/Duffy was the cause of the ratings decline.

Of course, they were projecting their dislike of Duffy onto the character.

Many of the best GG episodes feature inter-Girl conflict.

DW never really did that. It was usually one Woman or all four up against an external enemy.

Suzanne was conceived to be a snobby financial backer who Julia had to endure because she controlled the money and for her share would court clients.

Once she gained weight she just became another one of the girls.

That kinda happened with Charlene too: in the early episodes she was provincial but smart, then they turned her into a People magazine obsessed bimbo.

And, though was just a dramatic device, Julia never challenged Mary Jo's constant lateness. Quint/Claudia/flea-bath were in every episode.

Anthony changed too.

Originally he had actually committed the crime but was trying to move on. The joke was he was a big black man working for a design company.

As time when on his criminal involvement was revised away. And Mesach Taylor started playing it increasingly... flamboyantly. To cut through the blackness. Then, once that became too much, they gave him a girlfriend to cut through the gayness.

That was the basic problem with the show's political commentary: LBT thought she was more liberal than she was.

Happier times after everyone had made up.

Jean at Dixie's funeral.

Annie, Delta & Gerald at Dixie's funeral.

Adios Anthony

Not with Julia Duffy though, R196. I assume they all still don't like her.

Yet Jason Bateman couldn’t be bothered to show up to see them bury Valerie Harper.

That episode where they get stuck under a bed should've been good, but it wasn't. It was a LBT original.

And now for a word from our sponsor.....

And now some breather exorcises

Dixie was supposedly great in Master Class.

She could be really bad on DW. Sometimes she worked, other times her voice was like nails on a chalkboard and she was just mercilessly scenery chewing.

Julia Duffy was the only actress who was able to give a pitch perfect performances in every episode.

I loved DW with the original cast, once they started adding other regular characters they lost me. It went from being very funny to just ridiculous, they went for the cheap laugh instead of the thought out laugh.

As was mentioned above, I HATED when Dixie got the show to add a song to an episode's script. Then, the episode ground to a halt while Dixie vainly sang a song that had NOTHING to do with the plot. (It was a very Linda Lavin type thing to do.) I remember an interview where Dixie claimed that she hated delivering Julia's soapbox speeches. She said that she'd try to bargain with Linda, "I'll do this speech if you let me sing another song."

[quote] I remember an interview where Dixie claimed that she hated delivering Julia's soapbox speeches. She said that she'd try to bargain with Linda, "I'll do this speech if you let me sing another song."

Yes, this is a very, very well known fact.

Dixie HATED being on Diff'rent Strokes and had conflict with Gary Coleman constantly on that show

NBC cancelled it in 1985 , so Dixie was able to get out of her 4 year contract with the show, she did two years

ABC picked it up for the 85-86 season and offered Dixie a new contract but she declined, Conrad Bain was a friend of hers and really wanted her back, they recast with Mary Ann Mobley, who oddly enough appeared on DW in scenes with Dixie Carter

Also there were tabloid rumors at the time (1985) that Charlotte Rae was already waiting to leave The Facts of Life, she left in 1986, so NBC (realizing Dixie was still under contract for the now cancelled DS) were gonna bring her on FOL as a new character, Mrs. Garrett replacement, figure to the girls, she was supposedly gonna be Blair's rich Aunt from the South

But because DS and FOL exist in the same universe and Mrs. Garrett even appeared with Dixie Carter/Maggie on DS in the two part wedding episode, NBC decided against it and a year later Cloris Leachman joined FOL

[quote]Dixie HATED being on Diff'rent Strokes and had conflict with Gary Coleman constantly on that show

I find this so funny to imagine.

Whatchu talkin' bout, Dixie?

I like to imagine he tried to look up her skirt and she decided to hang a Confederate flag outside her dressing room.

I know Coleman wasn't as young as the character he portrayed, but he was still a kid. And he'd been on that show from Day 1. How could she have possible hated him...I wonder what happened?

She probably didn't like playing second-fiddle to a 14-year-old, R212.

Gary had lots of issues and didn't get along with most of the cast after the first few years.

Dixie on The Facts of Life would have been interesting, since she was younger than Charlotte, she would have been more of a friend type to the cast

I remember reading her character was gonna be a three time divorce from Texas who was insanely rich and very sardonic and visits Blair and the girls and realizes that she has nothing to show for her life, as she had no children, and has a mid life crisis, so as Mrs Garrett falls for and marries Bruce, Dixie's character was gonna settle with the girls and "slum it" in Peekskill and buy the shop, Over Our Heads, feeling that her life would now have purpose

Pats R24 on the head.

The only time I liked Dixie singing was when she did How Great Thou Art at the end of the episode where Charlene was upset that women couldn't be preachers. That was very moving. And the episode where she sang Sweet Georgia Brown at Payne's wedding after getting drunk was sort of amusing, because it showed a different, more fun side of Julia that was desperately needed.

The more I rewatch the show, the more Julia comes across as one of those insufferable far right One Million Moms or far left Twitter keyboard warriors. No nuance in her arguments or soap box jamborees. She just shrieks the loudest, hoping that will sell her point. The one where she kept crashing into the magazine stand because of the porn was her at her very worst and I kept hoping she'd crash the car one too many times and end up killing herself.

R217 - YES. How Great Thou Art was the one time it actually really fit into the script.

The whole 40's fantasy thing would have worked better if she had only sung a bit of it. Singing the whole song slowed everything down.

I usually liked Julia's tirades - at least early on, until they became almost like her catchphrase - but the porn one was one of the worst. They made more sense when they were rooted in something personal.

R177 Yes, I remember at the time thinking Jan Hooks hair was bad. That kind of bob was really unfashionable in the very early 90's and it didn't suit her character who would have sported a home done Ogilvy home perm!!

I just don't think Linda Bloodworth-Thomason put any effort in creating either Alison or Carlene. She even picked a name for Carlene that had not previously existed as one of Charlene's many sisters! She could have had Darlene, Marlene or Harlene and still felt the need to make a new name up! Duffy's character wasn't remotely southern.

Thinking about it, R178 is probably right. The whole thing would have worked far better if Julia Duffy had played Carlene and Jan Hooks a different creation. Even Suzanne's exit was ridiculous. Suzanne would never have gone off to live in Japan. It would have been far better to have Suzanne re-marry off screen, and start season 6 with it being revealed she gave her shares in the company to her new sister in law, played by Hooks. Hooks was pretty good at playing a variety of characters. She would have been far more comical as a pushy inept business woman who kept trying to turn Sugarbakers into a fortune 500 company.

There are a handful of good Julia tirades.

The first, also the best - protecting her sister.

The AIDS one - despite the clunky data statistics spoken by other characters, it's fabulous when Julia calls out Imogene's hypocrisy.

The one where she quietly tells the young lawyer after Reese that she has her number (Compost!)

And either of the ones where she has a rant about how Southerners are perceived - once on a voice mail message, and once with the Tour of Homes.

[quote] The one where she quietly tells the young lawyer after Reese that she has her number (Compost!)

What I love about this one is how Mary Jo, also in the powder room, watches the whole thing in the mirror and then, after Julia strolls out, tells little miss hussy, "Around the office, we call her the Terminator."

How Great thou Art also has a very touching behind the scenes story. Dixie Carter had wanted to be an Opera singer when she was a child and her Mother had encouraged this and tried to help her. But she suffered a medical issue with her throat and it and put a stop to any dreams she had of being a professional opera singer. Linda Bloodworth-Thomason wrote 'How Great Thou Art' for Dixie off the back of her having to do the episode 'The Candidate' in which Julia had to come up against a republican congressman. However, after Dixie taped 'How Great Thou Art' her Mother was very ill and dying in hospital. Dixie then got to show her Mother (on the TV) that she did end up becoming a professional high vocal range singer and Dixie stated it meant so much her Mother got to see her sing in that way right before she died. Now, whenever I watch that episode and see the final few seconds, I always imagine Dixie Carter's Mother watching it from her hospital bed and seeing her daughter sing as she had hoped she would as a child.

Meg Wyllie played two roles on "Designing Women", four roles on "Golden Girls" and three roles on "General Hospital". Anne Haney, who played Dorothy's hospital roommate, was on two "DW" episodes as Bill's aunt, and Anne Nelson, who attended Sophia's fake funeral, was the nanny that Julia and Mary Jo interviewed who was once tied up by her previous employer's kids. Meshach Taylor was the cop in the first episode of "GG", and Alice Ghostley played Stan's mother. ("Yeah right.....")

And Marc Cherry (who went on to create Desperate Housewives) worked on The Golden Girls and was also Dixie Carter's assistant on Designing Women.

R224 He also created "The Five Mrs. Buchannan's" which had a similar theme to both shows. Judith Ivey played one of the wives, and Nan Martin (aka Freida Claxton) played Eileen Heckart's hated mother-in-law. ("From you, it just sounds dirty and wrong", she tells Emma Buchannan as to why she didn't allow Mother Buchannan to call her Nana.)

R224, I thought The Five Mrs Buchannan's was quite a witty show. Harriet Sansom Harris and Eileen Heckart where particularly good in it. But it's format was really stunted for a network show. It just focussed on the five women together kind of like a stage play. I really liked it, but I didn't think it would be able to last long.

Harriet Harris's character of Vivian Buchannan on "The Five Mrs. Buchannan's" was practically identical to the mother of the groom in "It Shoulda Been You". One episode has her winning a free make-over and she is upset because the hairdresser turned out to be straight. Her mother in "It Shoulda Been You" had hoped that her son would be gay, taking him to Sondheim musicals as a kid to push him "that way". She was hysterically deranged. Vivian wasn't like any of the characters on "Designing Women" or "Golden Girls", maybe closer to C.C. on "The Nanny".

Harriet Sansom Harris would have been fabulous on DW.

I can’t continue in life knowing there is a Julia Duffy troll on this site

AND a DW Was Much Better In Season 6 Troll, too!

Nan Martin was 8 years younger than Heckart, r225. She was good in Toys in the Attic.

[quote] Marian Mercer is Bernice, of course. And Sheryl Lee is the easiest one!

Louise Lasser could be Bernice. (We forgot about her season.)

There have been unlikeable characters in comedies who still have redeeming qualities. The problem was that Allison for the first half season had none of those, so by the time she started to show some warmth in the later part of the season, the audience was over her. And people HATED her character. Duffy even seemed unhappy at times playing her. Which given the backstage turmoil at the time, might be true.

It reminds me of that joke on Golden Girls about Shelley Long (whom I also think audiences didn't particularly care for, BTW). But it also applied to Duffy.

I don't think Duffy has ever spoken of her time on the show. I remember some interview she gave when she was doing that stupid show with the two female frau comediennes where they asked her about Designing Women, and she refused to talk about it.

R229 = Jennifer Holmes

Characters don't have to have redeeming qualities. They can be people you'd never want to spend time with and still be entertaining.

I'm skeptical anyway as whether people did hate Allison. She was the only character I could stand. Oddly, the show seems to have achieved its best ever ratings that season.

I do suspect Duffy's time onset was unhappy though. I read an interview, I think LBT with People, which she seems to allude to CBS telling her to cast Duffy.

It's unfair to lay blame at her door anyway. Any show that loses half its main cast in one swoop might have issues. None of the other women have ever talked about her.

But why create a bitchy snob and then bemoan the audience thinking she's bitchy and snobby. I doubt their audience was as sophisticated as GG's but...

[quote]Characters don't have to have redeeming qualities

In a drama, no. But in a lighthearted situation comedy, they do.

[quote]Oddly, the show seems to have achieved its best ever ratings that season.

Because of the controversy surrounding the previous season which made entertainment headlines for months. And because it came on after Murphy Brown, which was the number three show in the country at the time.

[quote]But why create a bitchy snob and then bemoan the audience thinking she's bitchy and snobby

Because Allison wasn't just bitchy and snobby. Allison was completely unpleasant and didn't gel with any of the other characters.

I thought Julia was completely hard assed and shrill in the first season, but even she had moments where she let her guard down and showed the others that she cared about them. That didn't happen with Allison until the end of the season, when people were just over her.

[quote]It's unfair to lay blame at her door anyway.

Who's laying blame at her door? It was a poorly developed, one note character. I said Hooks might have done a better job playing it, but maybe not. Allison just wasn't interesting enough to watch.

I find it hard to believe that the public at large could like all those other harpies and not like Allison.

I’m the other way.

Duffy’s take on the role was probably too mature for most of DW’s audience. I guess they prefers Jan Hooks’ lip smacking and winks at the camera when she was pretending to be dim.

Nobody prefers either of them or any season after season 5

B.J. Poteet might have been a better character if the Thomasons hadn't left the show for dead to go stump for Bill and Hillary.

Judith Ivey did her best with what they gave her.

Richard Gilliland was in some terrible show that only lasted for an episode or two because he had a genie who was played by an African-American actor and there were loud cries of racism. But it is forever etched in my mind because RG was in a towel for a good part of an episode.

The early seasons are the worst.

I think it could’ve worked if they’d recast all the main actors (bar Duffy).

Someone less smug as Julia.

Someone less folksy as Suzanne.

Someone a little sharper with lines as Charlene.

And really ANYBODY other than Alice Ghostley. Maybe Charlotte Rae if they really wanted all lines said in that wavering vibrato.

Suzanne was not “folksie”

Buy the DVDs, OP, so you can sleep nights. You can probably get a used set on Ebay.

[quote] But it is forever etched in my mind because RG was in a towel for a good part of an episode.

Yum!!

I'm just loving the idea of Gary Coleman and Dixie Carter having beef on the Diff'rent Strokes set. What a battle for the ages that must have been.

"And that, Gary, just so you know.....means you can kiss my entire ass!"

Catching up with today's posts ... I'm wondering how Bonnie Hunt would have done as B.J.

Allison was occasionally entertaining, but explaining her behavior as "Obnoxious Personality Disorder" was just stupid.

My favorite episode with her was the one where she roasted Julia for dating Mark, the guy who gave off foghorn signals of gayness (but turned out to be straight despite loving Judy and Ethel).

Her joke about Ida Lupino was the show's funniest ever line.

Not the stupid 'black man', Christmas tree skirt, or Cindy Birdsong.

Allison was a typical self-hating Southerner who went up North and only came back down to the South to complain and tell everybody what to do. She was great in [italic]Newhart[/italic], but what worked there just didn't work here.

Yes, that's what was great about the character she created conflict.

R210 That's ironic. Dixie Carter always reminded me in some ways of Marj Dusay who played Blair's socialite mother. Would they have been sisters, or would she have been Nicolas Coster's sister? Dixie subbed for Nancy Pinkerton as Dorian on "One Life to Live" before she joined "The Edge of Night", and later had a guest starring part on "The Doctors" as a socialite friend of Doreen Aldrich's. Both Marj and Dixie were often directed to bray their lines on sitcoms and soaps, but for some reason, I liked them both in spite of that.

r240 I really want to see Richard in his towel

R240: The show was called [italic]Just My Luck[/italic] and the black genie was T.K. Carter, who later played Punky Brewster's teacher.

R210: Mary Ann Mobley was on [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic] first as Arnold's teacher, so that helped her get the recast. If the Drummond/Jackson/McKinney family had gone to Mrs. Garrett's wedding, it's she who would have been there.

And to whoever mentioned Meg Wylie: she was on [italic]Facts of Life[/italic] before either GG or DW in the Mexican restaurant episode, the same episode with the bald fat guy who went on to play Mr. Ha-Ha. She hit the trifecta!

I have heard Julia Duffy make one comment about her time on DW. She said "That set was not the easiest place to be on and I was glad when I didn't have to go back". To be fair, it was always said it was a mutual decision. Duffy wasn't fired or 'let go'. She would have been under a contract that retained her rights to remain on the show had she wanted to. But both sides have said it would be better to end it. This would have been Linda and Harry Thomason's plan from the moment Duffy was forced upon them prior to Delta not being signed up to season 6.

As I explained in a previous post. The DW set/production was a notorious shambles and this is was one of the reasons Delta Burke had started making complaints to the network by Season 4. In the first few seasons the four women were quite united, and apparently Jean Smart was the mouth piece and tended to be speak for the group. But I guess by early season 3 she knew she was pregnant and kept away from any shop steward activity. This is probably why the actor unit started to weaken. Then by the time Julia Duffy got on set the actors were likely off set in their dressing rooms most of the time without any unity at all.

Interestingly, I have now heard so many TV actors say the one of the secrets to a show being a success is unity of the cast and total tightness. A tactic of TV producers used to be to attempt to cause disharmony and resentment between cast members, to prevent them from being too chummy off the sound stage. Once actors on a show become friends they start 'negotiating' as a unit and they can actually get networks to remove producers and head writers from shows. Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly have said how they made a point from day one to work together both on and off camera to prevent producers dividing them. When 'Friends' started, Courtney Cox (who had appeared on Family Ties) became the group leader and told the other 5 they always had to work as a unit off camera to prevent producer divides from being orchestrated. Larry Hagman also kept the cast very tight on Dallas as he had done battle with the producers at the time of the JR shooting and won. Interestingly, this was the same production company who several years later fired Valerie Harper from her own show and brought the rest of the cast back in a re-booted show!

By causing a divide in the original cast of DW, the producers would have created a cold and paranoia ridden production. It is likely that by Season 7, the set on DW was so utterly terrible that most of the original crew and behind the scenes creatives had left. This would be why Season 7 is so truly abysmal. The producers who were supposed to be managing the production had swanned off to Washington and thought they were official political advisors.

Did audiences really hate Duffy or did they hate that Delta was gone?

I hated how they always made out Anthony to be handsome

He was ugly, fat and pudgy.

Duffy asked to be released from her Baby Talk contract too citing the disorganization behind the set as being something she wasn't able to deal with.

[quote] Did audiences really hate Duffy or did they hate that Delta was gone?

To some extent, at least, they were clearing trying to attribute the show's problems to Duffy.

So the 'hate' for her was at least partly manufactured by TPTB.

Maybe avoiding those midnight tapings is why Julia Duffy has barely aged while the rest of the girls look like a cross between drag queens doing them and Costco shoppers.

It's wrong to think Delta leaving caused all the problems. It was also Jean Smart going. It was damn arrogant of the producers to think they could change 50% of the original cast and expect audiences to keep loving a show they had watched for 5 years. It just wasn't the same show, it's energy was completely different. It would have gone equally askew had Annie Potts and Dixie Carter left, and Delta Burke and Jean Smart remained with new actors. That was kind of evident with Women of the House.

I wonder how much the dynamic would've changed without Annie Potts. She and her character seemed a little more bland.

I can, actually, imagine GG working without Estelle Getty (both secondary in the show's structure and the show's only less than perfect actress) but not without the other three girls.

r259

Yes, he wasn't even attractive and he was out of shape, hardly the "stud" every woman on the show made him out to be

[quote]I can, actually, imagine GG working without Estelle Getty (both secondary in the show's structure and the show's only less than perfect actress) but not without the other three girls.

See: "The Golden Palace."

Ironically, Estelle's character lived on longer than the rest, since she ended up on "Empty Next" after both "Golden" shows were history.

I think a GG continuation series could've worked. If they'd packed Sophia off with Dorothy, and created a more Dorothy-like character (maybe played by Cloris Leachman a la The Fats of Life).

Dorothy was essential. The whole show hinged on her sarcasm and bringing the other characters down to reality with a single line in a way Arthur was great at.

Duffy performed the same function on DW and the show never worked without her.

The show's refusal to address Delta's weight gain was very frauy. That could've been a comedic goldmine.

R256 Charlotte Rae/Mrs. Garrett returned to Diff'rent Strokes for the 2 part wedding episode between Mr. Drummond and Maggie in 1984, she's introduced to Maggie by Willis, Arnold and Kimberly

That's where she shared scenes with Dixie Carter

Chrissy Metz should play Suzanne on any reboot.

[quote] Ironically, Estelle's character lived on longer than the rest, since she ended up on "Empty Next" after both "Golden" shows were history.

And you could tell she was losing her faculties because her scenes were getting shorter and shorter.

Years ago I met a guy who had worked on Designing Women as a low level PA or something. I asked him how he liked it and if he had any good stories. He said it was the worst job he’d ever had on a set and that all the actresses were horrible to deal with. He said only Meschach Taylor was sometimes okay but even he could run hot and cold. He worked there in the final two seasons after Delta was gone so apparently she wasn’t the only problem on the set.

[italic]Diff’rent Strokes[/italic] dropped the ball on cannabis by acting like it was no different than crack or heroin. They never considered the possibility that it might have helped keep Gary Coleman from barfing over the place. During the Sam and Maggie years is when he had to have another kidney operation. None of that explains why they had to make Sam such a jerk or why they directed him to talk like he always had a cold.

WEHT Sam from Different Strokes?

I wonder how the show would've been had it stuck to its original premise: Suzanne thinking she was better than the others; Charlene being a smart businesswoman even though she was from a small-town; Julia being a opinionated liberal but not 'The Terminator'; Anthony actually being guilty; Mary-Jo being a genuinely realized, rounded everywoman character.

They got away from *that* quickly.

R275 Charlene, you're thinking again!

R273 DS and FOL were both created by Norman Lear, believe it or not, but his production company Embassy was credited for both shows, he himself decided not to take a credit

In one of the rare interviews where Dixie discusses DS, she said that Norman Lear "personally" asked her to join the cast as he had been a longtime fan of hers, same thing happened with Lear and Bea Arthur for Maude

Both shows also started Conrad Bain

[quote]Allison was occasionally entertaining, but explaining her behavior as "Obnoxious Personality Disorder" was just stupid.

That was like something Dorothy would say: "Please excuse my mother she has OPD."

A one-liner and that's it.

DW took it seriously and kept referring to as though it were a real DSM label.

The OPD jokes about Allison got stale pretty quickly. And upon rewatching the show on Hulu this month, it's amazing how many times they give Mary Jo the "I can't come/I'm sorry I'm late. I have/had to give the dog a flea dip" excuse. She says it 500 times and it never gets a big laugh, so you have to wonder why the hell they kept trying to make that line happen. I can just see some idiot in the writer's room trying to work that line into as many scripts as they can because they find it hilarious. Were they trying to make that her catch phrase? It just seemed lazy after awhile.

R279 Wasn't Brownie, Mary Jo's dog, also having plaque removed from his teeth as well on a regular basis? Apparently, Annie Potts had said that if the series had been renewed for an eighth season, she would not have returned.

There was a drag version of "DW" several years ago where Julia was going off on all the people walking around texting and taking selfies. It was set 20 years after the show, Charlene and Suzanne were back, only a brief mention of the others who had been there, and Bernice was still around making her wacky comments wearing a ratty Christmas tree skirt. The play was genuinely awful (which is why I never went to see the drag "Golden Girls"), but the Julia rant about texting and walking did make me applaud very loudly.

Ah, yes. The plaque was also a typical Mary Jo excuse. How filthy was that dog supposed to be?

Maybe Dixie's political views were part of the reason so many of her big rants didn't really come off.

Her AIDS one I don't like because Dixie puts the emphasis on I'm-o-jeen's (were they told to pronounce it that way?) bragging about her son. The emphasis should've been on the Gay Men who were dying and Dixie kind of made it about Payne and P.E.

That was such a serious topic though I don't think it was overdone -- just badly done -- but on so many of the other ones she's just way too much.

I remember remarking once that had Anthony kept acting like her the police would've been called and he'd be forced to do mandatory anger management classes if he was lucky enough not to go back to jail.

Lawn jockeys was another joke they kept reusing.

I liked the episode where Bernice wore the Xmas tree skirt to the hospital. Hilarious!

[quote] I liked the episode where Bernice wore the Xmas tree skirt to the hospital. Hilarious!

No, anything but.

R284

It would've been nice to have a non-crazy character to call the others out on their BS prior to season six.

Why exactly do Bernice keep hanging around with them.

That's kinda like if we saw Martha Lamont every week.

R287 I think this is why I actually liked Allison. She just came too late to the party and after the show was bleeding out after two of their original cast members had jumped ship.

The closest friendships from the set were Dixie and Annie followed by Delta and Meshach. All of them were very close when the show started, but as Jean said, it became difficult once everyone was forced to choose sides in the feud. But things got better after Dixie and Delta reconciled and they all got closer again.

Dixie had Jean's wedding at her house, and I think she also did a birthday party for Meshach one year as well. All of them went to Delta's wedding to Gerald McRaney. The women and the Thomason's showed up for Dixie's funeral, And Delta and Hal Holbrook went to Meshach's. Delta spoke at Meshach's funeral about their friendship and how he was like family to her.

It's a stark contrast to Golden Girls, where only Betty and Rue were really close, but they pretty much all had their own social lives that didn't include any of the others.

Meshach with his closest friends

Of course the GG were older and mostly had more experience that the DW. They were all (except Getty) established pros. The GG set was more top-down and structured. They did their lines and went home. DW’s set on the other hand sounds less businesslike.

GG set didn’t have the civil war DW’s had. And the attempts to find someone to blame for the show’s later problems.

GG went out respectably, in ratings and quality. They had the decency to use a different banner when one of their girls left.

R288

Bernice Clifton was best friend of Julia and Suzanne's mother, Perky Sugarbaker. When "Perky" moved to Japan she asked her daughters to look in/after her friend, and that was how Bernice was introduced.

Suzanne from start never liked Bernice (often calling her "goofy"), but clearly both women knew Bernice from when they were young girls through their mother. Julia being the more responsible child constantly reminded Suzanne from start that Bernice was a friend of "mother"; which in the south means something .

Much like "Esmeralda" on Bewitched Bernice just sort of took off and began getting more screen time. In essence becoming almost "fifth" designing woman.

Like Bewitched DW as it went on needed to add characters in order to break things up; otherwise it was just Julia, Suzanne, Charlene, Mary Jo, along with Anthony facing various issues every week. Bernice also was one of the few women (besides Julia) that could keep Suzanne in line.

When Suzanne calls Bernice's new BF and "old hillbilly" and wonders why she is going out with him anyway; Bernice replies "he's the same age as all your boyfriends.... you just want him for yourself".

How exactly does somebody become a Julia Duffy troll?

Bernice hates Anthony’s girlfriends. Calls them “she-beasts”!

I used to always forget how they knew Bernice and I'd just assume she was some local friendly mental patient who showed up unannounced all the time.

R291, Delta Burke looks like Chrissy Metz after gastric bypass surgery in that photo.

Going down the freeway of life with her dress tucked into back of her pantyhose.

Now be honest, haven't we all been there (metaphorically speaking for men) at least once?

I was always bothered by the episode where Julia and Suzanne's crazy brother dropped by. They gave some stupid story about how their father divorced Perky after Julia was born, had this son, then went back to Perky and had Suzanne. Why make things so complicated? Just make him the oldest brother, or don't even explain...he's their brother. Enough.

Speaking of Perky, why only have her on once? Was it because she was so boring?

Oh and how can we forget those stupid nieces? They had Julia and Suzanne's exact personalities. I'm surprised they didn't put dark wigs on them and make them identical nieces like other sitcoms did with family members.

At least Payne showed a little sweatpants bulge when he brought home the old lady he was dating. She was supposed to be 41, but the actress was actually younger than that. (Though I would have put her at 45.)

R300

There's more to it than that...... Mr. Sugarbaker had a dalliance with a Radio City Rockette that ended up with her being in a family way. Being a proper southern gentleman (or whatever) he divorced Perky Sugarbaker and married the Rockette long enough for her child not to be born some backstairs by-blow. Once that was settled Mr. Sugarbaker promptly divorced his second wife, went back to Perky resulting in a "reconciliation" baby, Suzanne.

Yes, it is complicated but so is real life; more to the point we're talking about a sitcom here; Clayton's various "issues" likely stem from his parents messy marriage which reflects on himself as a father to his two daughters.

Also we don't see much of Perky Sugarbaker, but Suzanne and Julia are always mentioning "mother". Besides there is only so much room for recurring characters. Seeing how Bernice Clifton was Perky's best friend, and lived with her at Leisure Land retirement village (where both women felt stifled), we can pretty much guess they are very similar (one sandwich short of a picnic basket) in ways.

Just as with Bewitched after Dick York got replaced with Dick Sargent, chemistry and energy of DW changed; something viewers noticed. This lead to eventual decline in ratings, and rest as they say is history.

Whatever squabbles were going on behind scenes, fact remains without Suzanne and Charlene DW just wasn't same any longer.

Dixie Carter and Delta Burke had a certain chemistry evident in earlier work on sitcom "Filthy Rich", the two played off each other wonderfully. That is something very unique and difficult to recreate.

I could be wrong, but didn't Perky Sugarbaker end up moving overseas or something? I know (or think I know) that Suzanne did. Also, one wonders if Alison's Victoria's Secret franchise was all it was cracked up to be in the end.

DW reboot should be an all or mostly male cast including if not mostly gays.

It is no huge secret gays are a huge part (if not dominate in certain areas) interior decorating; with right cast there is trunk loads of comic material.

We already had part of this with "Grace Adler Designs" from W&G; so expand upon that and go with it. A "Karen Walker" type is perfect as some rich bitch self absorbed but non-working assistant who is only kept on due to her connections that bring in clients.

R303

Yes, see above comments.

Perky Sugarbaker didn't like living at that retirement community so she just up and moved to Japan. That is why (and how) Julia and Suzanne get involved with Bernice, she was their mother's best friend and she asked her daughters to look after Ms. Clifton.

Sending Perky off to Japan works as plot device as chances of her just dropping in were remote; with that kind of distance between mother and daughters Perky was almost like Serge (Ab-Fab), Sheridan (Keeping up Appearances), and countless other sitcom characters we know much about but never actually get to see. That was until LBT decided Perky was going to show up in the flesh for a visit.

I'm not sure if anyone has asked yet, does Julia Duffy's pussy stink?

The dialogue never really flowed when Alice Ghostley was around. The characters would always look to her a little too early before she said her lines which she would always take a while to begin.

It gives it a very TV feel.

I mostly consider characters (really just plot devices) like Bernice a sign of bad writing. Simply having a 'friend' who has no particular reason to turn up to (in this case and in the case of the later seasons) the interior design firm as often as any of the staff just so they can say 'wacky' things always comes off as forced.

That's what was good about Allison: They were forced to engage with her because she was the majority shareholder.

[quote] I'm not sure if anyone has asked yet, does Julia Duffy's pussy stink?

No, but Jan Hooks' did.

Big, black beautiful buck. Hmph. I'm just gonna call the NAACP and turn her name in. I mean, that's a racial slur if I ever heard one.

I know the name of every man in this city who has money. I know the names of the men who are thinking about having money. As a matter of fact, I even know the names of little boys who are good at playing Monopoly. So don't be telling me about the men who have money in Atlanta, okay?

Given that they created 'Carlene' and I'm surprised they didn't create 'Puzanne' and cast Camryn Manheim.

Suzanne's sex life was non-existent from at least season three on.

Which probably suited sex-hating LBT.

What was with LBT's or just DW in general fascination with Japan anyway?

Perky Sugarbaker ups and moves to Japan. One of Charlene's first boyfriends (Mason) ups and leaves Atlanta for Japan. Finally Suzanne Sugarbaker herself moves to Japan. Had no idea so many people in Atlanta even knew where Japan was much less want to move there.

R313

Suzanne's sex life had been discussed, and otherwise done to death in first few seasons. DW overall began taking a different focus by season three and four, and by five Delta Burke was gone.

Think you'll find much focus started to move towards Charlene (dating then marrying Bill), then her pregnancy, decision to leave DW, buying a house, etc....

LBT gave Suzanne other issues to face in her remaining seasons; losing all her money, weight gain, her pig running away, finding out her best friend from pageant days is a lesbian.....

Well, no, R315, sex was supposed to be part of the character, the only reason she went from loving sex to hating it was because of Delta’s weight gain.

In the pilot Julia jokes about arches over her bed, that joke would’ve hit too close to home in the later seasons.

R314, some of it might just have been the general US fascination with Japan in the mid to late eighties.

Beyond that probably because of the value of coming up with somewhere the total opposite of Georgia where a character could still conceivably move to.

R310 That episode featured Leann Hunley (Anna DiMera, "Days of Our Lives"), Constance Towers (Helena Cassadine, "General Hospital") and Lloyd Bochner (Cecil Colby, "Dynasty", various characters on "Golden Girls", treasuring his chair that he pumps up and down), and it is ironic because Towers, as the wife, seems so sweet and devoted and Hunley so self-centered and blase', but then it twists later on as the circumstances are revealed to be quite different. It was the episode right after the hour long "Last Day of the 20th Century" that is considered a classic. In real life, Meshach was married to Bianca Ferguson who played Claudia Johnson Phillips, the token black best friend on "General Hospital" for nearly a decade. Several episodes paired him with Mariann Aalda (Didi, "The Edge of Night") as Lita who was basically a black version of Allison. Julia Duffy came from the soaps too, appearing as a child on "Love of Life" before being Elizabeth Hubbard's teen daughter on "Love of Life" and a brief Karen Wolek prior to the casting of Judith Light.

The girls of course couldn’t resist slut shaming and nosing around.

The premise — man hires for wife and mistress — should’ve been funny but just ended up pearl clutching.

Blanche: Nancy, honey. Now I don't generally like to throw my name around but you really leave me no choice. It so happens that I am Miss Angie Dickinson! And now, if you don't mind, I would like two rooms.

Nancy: You don't look like Angie Dickinson to me.

Blanche: I know, I have altered my appearance for a very important movie role.

Dorothy: Yeah, it's about a woman who eats her way from behind the Iron Curtain.

R319

That episode was just stupid from start.

First of all Suzanne called it right out of gate; predicting Julia, Charlene and Mary Jo wouldn't be able to mind their own business and not be judgmental.

Two no interior decorator (firm or person) in south is going to get into a client's business way Sugarbaker's did with Ancel's mistress and wife. No wonder those women were always scrounging around for clients/work.

It is not uncommon even in New York for a man to hire same set of decorators for both his mistress and wife, after all both are (in theory) doing their homes in some part to please and make him comfortable. Any decorator or firm that got a reputation for not minding their own business would be blacklisted; no one would trust them, same as with other servants/services.

LBT was always doing this with DW; inserting her liberal or whatever values into the show making things totally unbelievable. Julia calling her bf at end looking for "comfort" was a stretch. You'd have thought she out of all the women would have realized what was at stake and behaved accordingly.

....

The premise was interesting. But, like so many other episodes, instead of playing them for laughs they decided to go down the Making A Statement route.

And the whole episode is just soaked in LBT's sex-hatred. The twist of course being that the wife who knew is The Bad Person.

One of the very best post-Delta/Jean episodes was the one where they visited Carlene's apartment.

There was nothing good about the post Delta/Jean years. The characters of Julia, MJ, and Anthony became cartoonish. Jan Hooks and Julia Duffy were awful

Carlene's apartment was my favorite Season 6 episode.

When the black dudes are outside screaming and then Allison screams at them.

So, is LBT asexual? Or does she get off on her own superiority?

R326 Carlene's homemade potpourri and an episode of Helltown was filmed in the basement of her apartment building. This was also one of my favorite DW episodes.

RIP Jan Hooks, you were hilarious.

That's part of the reason why Julia Duffy comes off so well: She's the only person who isn't playing a cartoon.

This is hard to explain, but the characters themselves feel dated. And it's hard to imagine any of the existing outside of the DW universe.

All except Allison. Julia Duffy's performance still feels like it would work on TV today and I can imagine her character working on any number of '90s sitcoms after she leaves Atlanta at the end of season six.

Love the opening of Season 6 where Jean Smart is like LET ME GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!

[quote] So, is LBT asexual? Or does she get off on her own superiority?

Under those circumstances, if Bill had women on the side, I wouldn’t put the idea past Harry Thomason.

They seemed willing to accommodate her maternity. I wonder if she had other reasons for leaving...

Most women hate sex. LBT isn’t unique.

The first time I ever saw Alice Ghostley was in the movie "Grease" (1978).

She had her schitck which she did in everything. Maybe okay in a small role, but in the later seasons she became a main character. But unlike Rose and Dorothy there was nobody to call her out on her idiocy.

Season six was the only season they had a straight man.

Stop trying to make season 6 happen. It sucked! Hard!

No, seasons one through five and seven were worse.

Yeah, that’s why the main cast was beloved and it was quickly cartoonish and cancelled when 2 of them left 🙄

So sad, R335, that you never saw Alice Ghostley disappear as Esmeralda.

Just watched the OP's linked episode. It's rather ironic how Julia decries the ever growing lack of interpersonal action between "Burger Guy" and its customers with the drive-thru menu. all this before the time of APPs that allow us to remain home and have the fast food delivered to us!

One of my favorite episodes was the one where the gang accompanied some poor schmuck to his high school reunion. He was embarrassed (I think) that he was only a teacher. When asked what he did by a classmate, one of the gals replied, "He's helping to change the face of tomorrow. What do you do?' Loved the line. I use one of Suzanne's lines when dealing with telephone solicitations..."You have me confused with somebody who cares."

That show was a Queen's paradise!

[quote]"He's helping to change the face of tomorrow. What do you do?'

Cringe. That was the sort of frauy dialogue they were always coming out with.

True enough, R342, but it wasn't just the fraus. There were a few men on sitcoms who could be just as cutting or preachy in their remarks. Judd Hirsch on "Taxi" comes to mind.

I never thought Jan Hooks was good. She really embraced all the cartoony nature of the character.

Alice Ghostley was perfection as Bernice. She really saved the show, which had become stale before her character was introduced. This idea that something was wrong with her line delivery is just wrong-headed.

The character that almost ruined the show was Anthony's obnoxious and unfunny girlfriend.

I'm happy to see Julia Duffy and the Allison character finally getting their due. I could never understand all the hate thrown their way. I've also been finding her season one of the more watchable ones on Hulu. Judith Ivey never got the hate thrown at her that Duffy did and, if you ask me, she was way worse and that entire season was a big shit show.

Some of the hate was encouraged by the producers.

Certainly was strange for them to create a character that was supposed to be unlikable and then complain when the audience allegedly found her unlikable.

The show was never as well-balanced as it was by Allison during season six.

Applications are on the table in the entry, R295.

Discussion of DW always seems so hiveminded. GG generates lots of different takes, which the scale of the fan base helps. But that can’t totally explain the very hackneyed repeating of phrases every time DW is mentioned. (In reality, Suzanne became much LESS funny when have got fat.)

Some fresh air is welcome.

The actual trolls are more likely to be coming up with increasingly strained and unconvincing explanations for Dixie’s politics.

We don’t need to dwell on her, but Delta and hubby are big Trump supporters.

Julia Duffy was great in Newhart and terrible in this! Terrible! The fault lies in the writing and acting.

R330

Well characters would feel "dated"; the 1980's was forty years ago.

To be honest much of DW from fashions, hair styles, set decoration on down could be seen as dated for same reason.

All this being said DW called out certain things that still remain largely true today. The hypocrisy of social conservatives (especially white religious), fact that United States still is pretty much a (white) man's world. Race relations haven't changed that much since 1980's; and while places like Beaumont Driving Club are fewer (and those surviving are seeing dwindling membership), they still are out there, and so it goes.

R346 hi Julia!

[quote]Well characters would feel "dated"; the 1980's was forty years ago.

No, that's not what dated means. GG ran around the same time as DW and doesn't feel dated at all.

[quote] Julia Duffy was great in Newhart and terrible in this! Terrible! The fault lies in the writing and acting.

I think she did very well with the material. She tried far harder than Jan Hooks to resist the schlocky nature of some of the stuff and embed the character with some humanity. She made Allison seem like a real person in a TV show that had become increasingly full of people who seemed like sitcom characters.

The show was actually quite conservative. Before her big AIDS rant Julia says some pretty slut-shaming lines about "how the one good thing about this is Hollywood will stop showing people sleeping around". Then there's the anti-porn episode, the Monette episode, the mistress and wife episode, the anti-woman minister episode...

And that episode where Julia runs for the council and says she actually prays first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Then -- and maybe it's Dixie Carter's way of playing it -- and starts showing very aggressively at the black man she was running against. Yes, he was awful. But they obviously cast a black actor to make a point and I don't think even they were sure what it was. Still there was just a bit too much zeal in it.

[quote]Beaumont Driving Club

Interesting how GG seemed capable of dealing with that same issue -- if that how you want to put it -- so much more deftly than DW.

Dorothy's New Friend is such a great episode, probably one of the best of any sitcom ever.

Just as with Georgia Tent and Awning (yes, it does exist), there is a Piedmont Driving Club in Atlanta, which is probably where DW got idea for Beaumont.

Piedmont admitted their first black member in 1994.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Delta's not as fat as I remember her on the show.

She's the same size as Christina Hendricks not Chrissy Metz.

[quote]There were a few men on sitcoms who could be just as cutting or preachy in their remarks.

It wasn't just sitcoms. Jack Klugman turned [italic]Quincy, M.E.[/italic] into his own personal soapbox.

R324: Somebody on this show must have seen [italic]Just the Ten of Us[/italic] — and/or took pity on them for getting pushed off ABC for something else Miller/Boyett pulled out of their asses — because that's the name of their theme song.

One of the best episodes of the series (Ep. 2, The Night the Lights Went Out in GA) is followed by one of the most unfunny (Fat dude Mason, ready to play Chris Christie any time that episode comes up.) They laughed at his self deprecating fat jokes, but they make him come off as pathetic and actually pretty nasty.

That episode is interesting in retrospect.

Suzanne was quite snobby, ironic since she would later become so fat herself.

And they did treat fat men and fat women differently.

R362: Coca-Cola still owned Columbia for the first three seasons, so they're ones to talk about being fat, especially when they had all their dealings with Bill Cosby.

One thing that has not aged well is one of Anthony's early appearances praising [italic]The Cosby Show[/italic] as a positive black role model. I think it was the Thanksgiving episode.

Damn you, DL!

Making me order seasons 6 and 7 off Amazon.

Season six is good.

The worst episode of season six is where they all gang up on Allison and make her cry when deciding if she can stay.

Uh... isn’t she the majority owner?

You're right, R365. You should have gotten them off of eBay.

Columbia knew Julia Duffy was wasted in that talking baby show on ABC, and she knew it, too. Keeping her there would have been a greater waste.

Never seen it but it keeps being recommended to me by Hulu. Is it worth the watch?

Very much so, R370, but not the way Hulu presents it.

Julia Duffy was good in Newhart only. She was awful on designing women

Because the character of Alison was completely wrong for Designing Women. It would be like putting a Karen Walker into Friends, it just couldn't work. Similarly, everything about Alison Sugarbaker was totally wrong for Designing Women. For a starter, she wasn't even southern sounding! But the Thomason's had to agree to swapping Delta for Duffy if the network were not to renew Delta's contract for season 6.

I came for Annie but stayed for Ms. Ghostley.

“The Mistress” and “Blame it on New Orleans” are the funniest episodes.

DW...one of the best shows ever.

“Miss Trial”, the episode where Julia gets stuck at jury duty, still holds up well. Both that main plot line and the ‘B’ plot line (Charlene wins a radio contest and enlists Suzanne to help her clear out a record store) were very funny.

I like so many episodes from Season 4 including the Proxy Pig and Foreign Affairs.

The Allison character, was a bitch with no warmth, charm or humor. You just wanted to slap the hell out of her. Julia Duffy played it excellently, but the character didn’t fit into the Southern sensibility of the show.

R96 Count me as another who enjoyed Season 6 and liked the Allison character.

Incidentally, I felt so bad for Julia Duffy when her only son and youngest child killed himself last year.

[quote] Why do I ❤️ Designing Women?

BECAUSE YOU ARE A GIGANTIC HOMOSEXUAL.

Delta Burke stole every scene she was in. No wonder everyone hated her.