Golden Girls jokes that didn’t land

My favorite!!

I’ve got it! A maitre’d is some kind of waiter!

The Fess Parker and Joe Pepitone references.

“Little balls of sunshine” was awful.

Another one was Dorothy saying to Blanche that she was talking about arranged not deranged marriages after Blanche says she had one of those and tells a story. Blanche responds in a way that that’s what she thought Dorothy meant.

You are the anti-Trump

The few jokes that come to mind are a little too precious and over-written.

The one that sticks out to me the most is the "gaping maw / gaping ma" joke from "The Monkey Show." It's clever wordplay without being all that funny.

The #34 makeup with Enrique Mas.

R8 one reason it fell flat is because that’s such a Rose Nylund line yet it was given to Dorothy, the smart one.

R4, that whole scene was hilarious. Terrific performance by Rue.

R4 Agreed. Atrocious writing and acting.

R4, you’re insane. That scene is a TRIUMPH for Rue!

She was my favorite doll!!

My favorite!!!!!!

Anything from the excremental season 7 would qualify.

The Golden Girls watch the Super Bowl.

This was filmed with the 1989 Panasonic Potato Camera.

The Golden Girls 100th episode anniversary.

Bea looks so happy when Betty is talking.

She’s drunk, R16.

“Three armed Pinkerton guards”.

Betty had a great rack. Bea was angry she no longer had access to it.

Or was it two armed Pinkerton guards? Doesn’t matter. I still didn’t know what.a Pinkerton guard is.

Any of Dorothy’s contemporary references such as Phyllis George or Marblehead Manor or new Coke.

“You’re only going to sit in an inch of water?!”

R20 I think OP meant jokes that fell flat with the studio audience at the time, not with you watching now in 2025.

“I look like the mother of a Solid Gold dancer.”🕺 Solid Gold was such an ephemeral program that it was never syndicated in reruns, as such it’s a lost reference to most of today’s viewers. It’s the reason many of the punchlines seem to garner less laughter as the decades progress.

[quote]Solid Gold was such an ephemeral program that it was never syndicated in reruns

It was syndicated from the get-go and ran for 8 seasons, 332 episodes (1980-1988).

Can you imagine the hair, makeup and wardrobe departments of that show? Must have been half the budget- and in a separate warehouse.

I bet they had to report to work at 3am.

I never understood this joke: The scene starts with Sophia and Blanche sitting on a bench at the mall and Sophia goes, "I don't care what that salesgirl said, I looked good in that bikini. You know, sometimes I wish I did live in Brazil."

R22, they fell flat with me at the time too. Nobody I knew watched or had even heard of Marblehead Manor. Phillis George was a rather niche joke. I got the jokes but felt better cultural references would have landed.

R21 That joke landed and was very funny.

I do find the “I’m surprised you didn’t try to kill the mayor of San Francisco” joke very funny but it sounded like half the audience didn’t get it.

R29 I started watching GG on Lifetime in the late '90s and only got it after watching the biopic MILK (2008) and learning about Dan White and the Twinkie defense.

R23 I had neverheard of "Solid Gold" but I still found it funny, mostly because of Bea's exasperated delivery and I imagined it meant something along the lines of her being aware that she looked garish and flashy. Not everything has to be spelled out to be funny.

When I transferred into a major university and came out in the 1991-92 school year, I met many LBG students -majority women- who would not label themselves. So the episode of “Lesbian Lovers of Miami” with the financial consultants who did not use labels was so timely and funny to me as it aired that same season.

I also believe that the syndicated repeats edit the laugh track so as to air more commercials in the time slot.