Hi, Jennifer Smart.

Hi, Patrick Hein.

Hi, Cheese. We made it to episode 2, girl. We did it. We did it.

We're here. And we're done. Bye. Thank you. No, we got a long way to go.

Cheese, I just want to let anybody who's new here, if you don't know, here's what we do on the Girls Deep Dive podcast. Each week, going in order from episode one, we are doing funny and hilarious and beautiful recap of everyone's favorite sitcom, The Golden Girls.

Then at the end, we do a fully researched deep dive about something from the Golden Girls universe.

Right. We've got this amazing full-time researcher. So he gives us a dossier on the episode. So we've got all this trivia about the episode all the way through it. So it's not just us being funny. It's us. You're going to win Golden Girls Trivia with your friend. And then at the end of the episode, we do a fully researched deep dive on something from the Golden Girls universe. So in episode one, I did a deep dive all about the actor Charles Levin, who played Coco, the gay chef.

And this week?

So it's me again. I promise it's not going to be me doing the deep dive every week.

I know, but you were so excited about this one. It had to be you.

I know. So this week, at the end of this episode, I'm doing a full deep dive on B. Arthur and her career and how she got the gig on the Golden Girls. Can you give us a little something or other? Well, I'll tell you this. I once got to spend a weekend with B. Arthur. She came to receive an award at my college, and I was asked to be her host for the weekend, and she was not nice to me. I was obsessed with and she wasn't nice to me.

I need to hear more.

You're going to hear more at the end of this episode. But also, Cheesecakes, we'd like you to connect with us.

Yeah, please. We have Instagram and TikTok and an Instagram at Golden Girls Deep Dive in both places. Then our Facebook discussion group, please come there. It's the Golden Girls Deep Dive podcast discussion group. We want to discuss.

We want to discuss. We want to hang out with you. That's where you're going to have access to us. We're going to be in there all the time. We're going to be hanging out. We're going to be talking- We got to discuss with us. Are you going to come in there and discuss stuff with us? Yes, I'm going to... Why do you think I said discuss Disgust with us. Should we get Murch that says discuss with us?

Disgust with us.

When your nose is slightly stuffed up.

Yes.

I'm going to ask you one favorite cheesecake. I don't ask a lot of you, but would you run over to Apple podcast and write us a review? It really does help get our show out there in the world. It helps other people find us. Give us whatever stars you think we deserve, and then write one sentence about what you think you like about the show and why it works. Cheesecakes. How do you feel about being called Cheesecakes? I love it. Every time I heard it back in our first episode, I laughed hysterically.

Well, I love What's your favorite flavor of cheesecake?

I don't really like cheesecake. I'm sorry.

I'm out. I'm going to see you later.

Did you officially just quit? I did. You just quit. I did. I'm not really a cheesecake. If I'm being totally honest, I'm not really a dessert person. But I can eat an entire Domino's Pizza. I'm a Savory. I like an ice cream. I'm white trash. I'm good solid white trash. I like a caramel. I like a butter scotch. But I'm not like a... Steve, my husband loves pie. I'm not really a pie person. What's your favorite cheesecake?

Well, first of all, I'm a sweet and savory person. If it's food, it's going in my mouth. But my two favorite desserts would be just plain New York cheesecake. Like A Graham cracker crest. None of that. I've seen cake crack. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A very firm cheesecake. Okay. And then I love a pecan pie. All right. This is my new quest to get you to find the flavor of cheesecake that you like. All right. We'll go to Junior's. It's like That scene from Runaway Bride where Julia Roberts tests the eggs and she loves eggs, Benedict. We're going to find you your cheesecake.

All right. I love that.

Yeah, yeah.

Welcome back, everybody. We're doing Golden Girls Season 1, episode 2. It's called Guess who's Coming to the Wedding?

Yes, it was written by Winifred Hervie and directed by Paul Bogart.

It originally aired September 21st, 1985. So according to Jim Colucci's seminal tome of a book called Golden Girls Forever, which if you haven't read, everyone needs to go out and read, this was actually shot to be the fourth episode, but because they thought it was such a good representation of the characters, it introduced Stan really quickly. They shuffled it to episode two.

That's wonderful.

I have one more piece of trivia that I found. Go. I was wondering why this is a show about women created by a woman. A lot of the writers are women. Why is it being directed by men? I feel like that wouldn't happen today. I feel like this would be an all-lady situation.

Well, not only would that not happen today, but also we have some persons of color in the main cast. I mean, yes, of course.

But this director, Paul Bogart, I'm like, Who is this guy? I got to look him up. He directed this episode. He only directed four episodes of the Golden Girls, but he apparently directed 97 episodes of All in the Family. But in looking into him, I learned that his birthday is November 13th, 1919. But one of his parents changed it to November 21st on his birth certificate because they thought 13 was an unlucky number, and both of his parents would later blame the other for the change. On his birth certificate, his birthday is wrong.

That's no therapy for you. No therapy for Paul Bogart. Oh, my gosh. I want to say before we get into the episode proper, I noticed something in the credits for the first time that I think there's a big crack in the driveway.

Is that right?

Look, maybe a couple. But I thought, Oh, is there a crack in the driveway?

That's not a euphemism for anything. It's just a crack in the driveway.

No, it's hard. That happens. You get tree roots underneath.

There's a crack in the driveway. You know I noticed something that you mentioned in the first episode, how truly ugly the cement outside of the front door is. Cinder block.

Cinder block. In this episode, I think they have some birds of paradise out front, so they dressed it up a little.

Yeah, it looks like what the interior walls of an elementary school look like.

Truly. Oh, my gosh.

Well, it opens with Dorothy opening the front door. She is in a snet.

No, she's on brand. She's angry. She's upset.

Oh, Great. Great. Wonderful. My daughter is lost. Oh, I'm just terrible at giving directions. Dorothy, I gave Kate the directions over the phone. And who are you? Rand McNally?

She's upset because she thinks her daughter, Kate, might be lost, and she's beating herself up that she gives bad directions, right? That's what she's saying. Can I also just point out, Patrick, that if you notice, I love this thing. Blanche is reading a magazine, but she keeps turning the same magazine page, and it looks like it's an ad. How captivating is this? To me, that's just Phil.

Totally. You know what I mean? I have another actor question for you down the road in this episode. All right. I wanted to point out two things. Number one, can you imagine or even remember a world without GPS? Kate needed to be given directions from the airport.

She had to write down.

She had to write down the- You had to give Lamaric, like, Turn right at the Derry Queen.

You had to look at your mileage. You're like, Okay, when it gets to thing, that's two miles.

I could never do it.

When I lived in LA for a year, the Thomas Guide, this is what we had. I'm like, How dangerous is that? Let me just flip to my page. Let me just read. Let me just do a crossword puzzle.

I have this memory of before there was GPS in the car, I was leaving New York City in a rented car, and I had written out all of the directions on index cards so I could hold them because I was the only one in the car, so I could hold them in my hand and drive at the same time. Because getting out of New York City is a challenge if you don't have the- It's a challenge.

Because bad signage is a plague. It's the thing. I will say this in the ages that we grew up, remember how our parents, if you opened the glove box, they were spies, like the maps.

The maps and how they could circle to navigate. Can you imagine having to find... Could you get anywhere with a map?

Yes, that's the thing. I could not. Those skills are really dumbed down for us now. I know. Because we had to have them.

I know. You probably don't know any of your current friends' actual phone numbers off the top of your head.

Yes, I do, actually.

What is Megan Hilton's phone number?

Well, it's private information.

But But the other thing I was going to say is that Blanche's Southern accent is fully formed.

That's a very good point.

In their world, it's episode 4, but for the purposes of the show, it's episode 2.

And Rose comes out next, right? She brings a pitcher that we're supposed to think is Iced Tea, but I swear it just looks like glasses. It's so dark. What is that?

What are those tricks? Because you know that that pitcher full of liquid had to be on set all day long.

I mean, maybe it was tea, but maybe it was soda. It might have been Coca-Cola or something. I don't know.

I always wonder when they pour it into a cup and then somebody takes a sip, what does that poor actor actually drinking?

Well, yeah, they don't have real alcohol on set, so that's- On any set? Well, I can't remember the movie that someone wanted to be tipsy in the scene, but generally, no, it's a replacement.

I heard from somebody who has firsthand knowledge that apparently B. Arthur was known to have a nip on set here and there.

Is anyone surprised? I don't see it. And also she's so... Let's just talk about it. It goes there. Her friends put up a lot. She's abusive.

Totally.

There's dry, acerbic, and then there's... Actually, you need therapy or you need to move out.

I know. There's a one moment in this episode where Blanche tries to sit next to Dorothy on the couch and Dorothy shows. Not there. I love a good shut up, Rose, and I love a good no, Rose. I also love a good you're circling the airport, Rose.

Oh, yeah. We're going to get a lot of those. We're going to get a lot of those here.

I said, Dorothy is in a mood. Also, once again, can we talk about the costumes is what everyone is wearing here? Dorothy is wearing a trash bag of a vomit pink overshirt and a white blouse underneath, completely hiding her. They always make fun of her for being ugly and fat, and I'm like, No, I feel like Bjarther's got a rock and bot, but they're always hiding her.

They're always putting her in some third-grade teacher art smock.

That's exactly right. In the khaki pants.

Today, we're doing water colors. Dorothy starts talking about Kate, her daughter, bringing her boyfriend friend home, and that it's the longest she's ever been interested in a man. She's been a man since Paul McCartney, right? Rose, circling the airport confused, says, Kate dated Paul McCartney? Dorith replies, Yes, Rose. They wanted to get engaged, but I insisted that she finished grade school. Here, Patrick, I need you and our listeners to look closely, okay? Because the camera pans away just as it's happening, but Betty White smizes. It's a mistrust smize, which I want us to do right now. It's at 1 minute 47 into the episode where she's just like, I'm not so sure about...

What does she mean by that?

The story is suspect. But she still doesn't quite get it.

No. That's the thing. One of the things that happens in the series, I remember, you were consciously watching over the years is that Sophia is often so mean to Blanche. I feel like Rue McClane has an actor. How would Blanche react to that? Because I feel like a real person. If your roommate's mother called you a human mattress, I feel like you might throw a mug at her across the room, but Blanche can't do that. She usually laughs as though she's in on the joke because like you were saying, Dorothy is so abusive to everybody, and Rose has to decide what's true and what isn't.

We'll get there if children learn from their parents in just a hot second. But we also learn at this moment that Dennis is in fact a doctor. He's a doctor, Patrick.

He's a doctor. Blanche is very impressed. She says, Do you have any idea how much a doctor makes these days? Guess who looked it up? Patrick Hines. From 1983 to 1984, general practice doctors were making $75,579 per year on average. Do you know what that translates to in 2024? Lay it on me. $227,000 a year for general practice. Internal medicine, $85,000 in 1985 money, $251,000 in today money. Dorothy is every reason to be excited that Kate's bagging a doctor.

I would like to say, too, that... Kate has arrived, right? Because we've established that. That's where all this talk comes out. Sophia comes out, and Dorothy's introducing them to the girls, and this is her grandma. I just have to say here that at this point, it seems like Sophia hates her granddaughter. She's like, Don't hug me. Don't touch me. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I totally agree. Dorothy got it from somewhere. I think I'm going to hazard a guess. It's Sophia.

Also, the way this hug happens between Kate and Sophia, because the joke line is Sophia says, enough, you're already the will or whatever. This actress, Lisa Jane Persky, who I'm going to tell you all about in two seconds, she grabs the Celgeti for this hug and is shaking her in a way you never actually would shake an old lady. It looks like it was done for this stage.

Yeah, it was huge.

Yeah.

And speaking of huge, let me just say that in this section, when Kate announced, she has a big announcement, right? It's classic B. Arthur Season 1. The day after tomorrow, Dennis and I are flying to the Bahamas and we're getting married.

Oh, that's too I can't believe it. I am so happy. My daughter is marrying a doctor.

She literally bites her hand with her tongue.

You see, Yes, don't.

I'm like, B. Arthur Season 5 would have just... She just touched her lip like, Oh, here it is.

I got to tell you about this actress, Lisa Ann Persky. Lay on me. I'm like a Googler. I get very curious about people. I googled this actress. This woman has the most unbelievably interesting life I've ever heard of. May I go on a little bit of a tangent? Do it. Lisa Jane Persky, she grew up in Greenwich Villa. She grew up on Christopher Street. Now, if you don't know what that is, Christopher Street is the gayest street in the entire world. There's Castro Street and Christopher Street, but Christopher Street is way gayer. She grew up in 87, Christopher Street. She moved in when she was 11 in 1963, which means... Now, this really blew my mind. She grew up one block from Stonewall. But something else I learned when they moved into this apartment building, her and her family, it was a crappy walk-up building. It's still there. She was 11, and they were supposed to move into Apartment 10, which is on the fifth floor. The family walked upstairs and knocked on the apartment door, and a man answered, and it was the superintendent of the building, and he's like, You can't live here.

We can put you in apartment one on the first floor, but you can't live here because I live here with my wife, who's the co-super of the building. Oh, and by the way, everyone, come on in and meet my wife because in case you need your sink clog, she's who you're going to call. He introduces them to a 33-year-old Yoko Ohno. His wife was Yoko Ohno, and she was one year away from meeting John Lennon. She had just had a baby with this guy, Tony something. When she leaves him for John Lennon, she doesn't see this kid for 20 years. But at the time, in 1963, when Lisa Jane Persky's family moved in, Yoko Ohno was the super of the building. Who knew? Isn't that wild?

That I'd learn all this from episode 2 of The Golden Girls? I was astounded by this story.

I went down a real rabbit hole. That's so good, though.

Also, let's just say this, too. I bet one of the reasons I'm guessing now, that Yoko Ohno left this guy is because he's a liar. What superintendent do you know that doesn't live in the first floor apartment? He doesn't live on 10.

Why would you choose to live on the fifth floor of a fifth floor walkup?

It must have been a better apartment.

It must have been a better apartment. A couple more things about Lisa Jane Persky, just real quick. There was this famous playwright who lived in her building, and the day she graduated high school, he knocked on her door and said, I wrote a play for you. We're premiering it at La Mama this summer. La Mama is this famous, famous downtown alternative theater. Julie Taymor got her start doing shows there. The next season, she co-starred with Devine in Women Behind Bars. If you don't know who Devine is, she's the world's most famous drag queen made famous in all those John Waters movies. Lisa Jane Persky started going to CBGB back when it was like, nobody knew what it was, and she discovered the punk rock scene. She becomes best friends with the band Blonde. They write a song about her, I'm Always Touched by your Presence, Dear, is about Lisa Jane Persky. She goes on to start an alt magazine all about the punk rock scene. She becomes a professional photographer. She's on The Tonight Show. This woman's life is wild.

It's wild. Thinking this here, I think she should be the next spokesperson for Dos Equis. Why? She is the most interesting woman in the world.

She is. I got to tell you, I went down a Lisa Jane Persky rabbit hole. Yoko Ohno was the super of her building. Is that not the wildest story you've ever heard? Yoko Ohno. It actually might be.

Well, getting back to our little wedding here. We learned that the wedding is going to take place in the Bahamas.

Now, a couple of things. Sophia also, she enters this scene looking for her culotte. I love that Sophia wears her house culotte. I cannot wait to be that age. That's all I want in life.

And culotte, it was such a '70s, '80s thing. Totally. A lot.

But yes, Kate announces that she's marrying Dennis, and they're getting married in two days in the Bahamas, to which I wrote, If Daisy Judith did that to me, I would murder her in front of everybody. You're going to marry this person I've never met, and you're going to make it a destination wedding two days from now?

I want to say this. There's a great meme going around right now about this topic. Well, now that you're divorced, can I get a refund for your destination wedding?

Oh, my God. Exactly. Don't do destination weddings, cheesecakes. That's not a night. Unless everybody knows well ahead of time and you're not going to get mad at anybody who can't make it. I was reading a thing on TikTok the other day about a person who did a destination wedding shower that was different from the destination wedding.

Go fuck yourself.

Sorry. Who can afford that?

I know.

But everybody jumps in because everybody… Dorothy wants her to have the wedding here in Miami. That's right. Blanche says they can throw a beautiful reception at the house, and Rose is going to handle the catering, to which I said, Kate could be a little more grateful. They are throwing together a wedding her in two days, and she doesn't even say thank you.

Now, at this point, though, we have also ascertained we brought up Stan at this point, and that he's living in Maui.

Yeah, he's from the pilot. That's Dorothy's ex-husband, Kate's dad.

Right. Kate does say that the reason why it was going to be in the Bahamas was because of this contentious relationship between her parents. Yes. To all of those points, everyone is on board and selling her on it. Dorothy, to her credit, she does say, Listen, if you want to invite your father, I'm willing to keep the peace. Promise, promise. Then it's settled. Now call your father and tell the dirtbag he can come, which is perfect deadpan season 5 delivery.

Absolutely. She's trying it out. She's trying it out here. You know what I mean?

Kate calls her dad and has Dorothy speak to him, right? Hello, Stan.

Dorothy. Dorothy Zbornack, the one who gave you the best years of her thighs. It has been a long time. Yeah, well, after two I figured you weren't coming back. Now, I'll tell you, the reason I'm calling you, Kate is getting married. Yes, married. I wanted to invite you. Can you come? You can. Oh, Chrissy Cant.

This This is the thing I want to ask you about as an actor, because Dorothy has a full-on two-minute fake conversation with Stan. I want to know, as an actor, how hard that is to have to fake a phone call when clearly there's nobody on the other end.

Well, some people do it very well, and some people don't. I think B. Arthur did it very well. She pauses enough to actually... You're buying that there's an actual response. I do love that she says, So Christie can't come. I'm so sorry. She sticks out her tongue. The thing about the tanning bed. She's giving reactions. This is off topic, but probably the worst culprit I've seen not do a phone call right is in the movie Halloween.

Oh, yeah.

My girl with the brunette curly hair. She's just like, I got to call you back. She She hangs up before she's done talking. Annie.

But the other thing about this moment with Dorothy is that it takes her 30 seconds to make Stan understand that it's her. She's like, Dorothy, it's Dorothy. Sparnak. I'm like, You were married for 38 years.

The one that gave you the best tears of her life.

Very good. Yes. But she finishes the phone call and the gals, the girls, they congratulate her for being magnificent.

Yes.

Dorothy, you were magnificent. You certainly were. How did you do it? I just kept telling myself that once he was here, he'd be close enough to kill.

This is one of those row circling the airport things because like Dorothy says, he'll be close enough to kill.

Right. She's serious? I don't know.

Yes, I know. Betty White also has an moment later that we'll talk about. I have that. But the next scene is now we're in the kitchen with Dorothy and Sophia. They're putting together the rice bags.

Baby blue and pink ribboned white tool bundles.

Yeah. And Dorothy is now second-guessing her invitation. She's super pissed that Stan has the gumption to show his face at the wedding. And I agree with this. We know, but it's going to be driven home even further in this episode. They were together for 38 years, and he left her without even telling her he was leaving.

Thirty-eight years. Thirty-eight. We're going to get there. We really are. But Blanche comes in, she calls them wedding elves, and she starts criticizing them for using too much rice. Yes. Sophia says, among other things, she said, I never understood why people throw rice at weddings anyway. You know what, Patrick? What? I know.

Did you look it up?

Because I did a little DD.

Cheesecake.

She did a DD. I did a little didi. A ditty.

A ditty.

I did a little ditty. Deep dive. The wedding tradition of throwing rice at weddings dates back to the ancient Romans. Oh, wow. They would throw rice at the bride and groom because it was thought to bring what you'd think, fertility, wealth, good luck.

Rice screams fertility to me.

They would throw wheat sometimes, too, and other cultures would do other kinds of crops.

Watermelons.

Corn. Rocks. It's actually an urban myth. I was always told that the reason why rice stopped was because it could hurt the birds. But I've researched, and that apparently is an urban myth. Oh, really? . A lot of venues hate any small item like bird seed or the rice or glitter because it's so tiny. It's hard to heat up. I actually researched some alternatives that are out there. Like, flowing bubbles, I think, is a good choice. But this one, Patrick- It's not quite as violent as the rice is. It's not. You know what I mean? Well, speaking of this, I had to hear your reaction to this suggestion that I read about. Okay. Ready? Here we go. Paper airplanes.

Paper airplanes? What could go wrong? I was like, totally.

I mean, unless you put some advice on about marriage on the inside.

Oh, that's good. You shouldn't open a wedding planning business. You're nailing it. But you've got the cheesecake built in. You know your way around a cheesecake. Thank you. Rose enters and asks to speak to Blanche and Dorothy in the living room. She's got a very serious tone to her voice.

Excuse me, but she actually says, which I found interesting, she says, Can I speak to you two ladies in the living room, please? Which means Sophia is what? I know. Not a lady? There are three I love them. It's true.

Well, Sophia is very clearly in trouble because Rose has some distressing news. We're all looking at Rose's face like this could be anything because remember, Rose has hunches. In the first episode, she was ready to break up Blanche's marriage, remember? She was right. But she tells us, Sophia has been pilfering cheeseballs. Dorothy is all of us.

I have some very distressing news. Sophia has been pilfering cheeseballs. What? This morning I made 48 cheeseballs. There are now 26. 24.

That's almost 20 cheeseballs she would have eaten. That's not going to go well. Right.

She comes in and says, 24.

Can I ask you, what is a cheese ball?

Well, this cheese ball looked dark. The one that, I have to say, it looked like squid ink, right?

Yes. When we see the bowl of them later, they're like multi-colors. They're like red and black.

They're multi-coloured. They had an orange one, a cream one. This one was probably covered in black Sesame seeds. If I looked up, why is it so dark? Right.

Is it just literally a ball of cheese?

You have to look it up, Patrick. I'm not sure.

Okay. The doorbell rings, Dorothy goes to answer it, and Kate is here to introduce Dennis. Dorothy just grabs him and goes, Oh, he's beautiful. And he's brought her flowers.

And this is bravo to Winifred, the writer, because I thought this was an excellent joke.

It's a pleasure to meet you. Oh, flowers. Oh, my. Your father used to bring me tulips every time we had a fight. Toward the end, our place looked like Easter in Rotterdam.

So this actor, his name is Dennis Drake. I looked him up. He appeared on Broadway in a play called aloneTogether. He studied acting and directing at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York City. But most importantly, he co-wrote Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde.

Way to go, Dennis. Dennis did it. Dennis did it. He did a ditty.

He did a ditty. My thing is, the actor's name is Dennis, and the character's name is Dennis. And I I always wonder when that happens. I do, too. Is that a coincidence or did they just say, We're going to call him Dennis?

I always think the same thing. I'm like, If they named him that, did that person get the part? Because that's... Yeah.

Or were they like, They just couldn't think of a name. What's your name?

Totally. All right, I'm going to put your name.

What's your experience auditioning for TV? Is it fun or is it pleasant? When you did that episode of Girls 5, how was that?

It was during the pandemic, so it was just a self tape. Oh, yeah. I have to say I'm a fan of the self tape world in the sense that you control your own environment, your own lighting. I mean, yes, it's very time consuming, but not nearly as time consuming as having to travel to here, there, and everywhere. But it's like anything. It's a crapshoot. If you get one thing out of 20, you're doing pretty good.

Like, is there a lot of thought from the creative side on casting the actor who plays Dennis and Kate, or is it just like they see 100 people and they're like, We're just going to go with that one?

Well, I think there's a lot of thought that goes into it. I mean, a little bit of the second part, too, but they absolutely care. They do. Of course.

I love that you're here to answer these questions. This is so interesting. Dorothy introduces Dennis to Rosen Blanch.

And Sophia, who seems to like Dennis more than Kate.

Yes, that is absolutely true. She says she asked him if he brought his stethoscope because she wouldn't mind a freebie. This is where we find out that Dennis is not a real doctor. He's a podiatrist.

Dorothy totally judges immediately. Everybody does.

Everybody does. Is a podiatrist not an admirable profession? We need people looking after our feet, bro.

And he is a real doctor. Right. A hundred %.

But everybody really seems to think this is down market.

I think Blanche is the first one to come around. She's like, Oh, a practice? What is it?

A partnership? A partnership.

Thank you.

But then Sophia cuts right to the chase and just ask them what everybody wants to know, How much do you take home in a week? Yeah. Got to know. But he says he's crazy about Katie. He's going to take great care of her.

Here we have to another really great joke from Winifred when Katie says, Do you think dad will like him? Dorothy says, Of course, as long as he stays young and firm. Patrick, my friend, Dennis, who we've just spent a great deal of time talking about- Future writer of Legally Blonde, too. We love him in this moment because he gives one of those confused sitcom husband takes. He's a brilliant doctor, but he just couldn't quite figure out what Dorothy meant. I wonder, Well, she meant, How long as I stay young and firm?

He takes Betty White aside and says, How do I make one of those faces?

How do I make one of those circular When the airport can feel his faces, I'll try my best.

It's got to be hard when you know you're only going to be in one episode and there's not going to be a lot of character development here because he's very tall. He's one of the only actors we ever see who's as tall as Dorothy. But he also is pushed and pulled and prodded and poked at by every single person on the show. You can see him trying to react, but not overreact, trying to listen, but not listen too much. He doesn't know how much he's supposed to know. I go back to Kate didn't want to come down to Miami for a weekend with Dennis once before deciding she's going to marry him. You know what I mean?

I can't explain Kate.

She's an enigma wrapped in a riddle.

She's just a mystery girl.

Well, Dorothy is very excited, and she wishes them all the happiness in the world. Sophia says, Me too. Maybe one of your children will be a real doctor. Lest we forget, we need to remind the cheesecakes in every episode. Sophia had a stroke that took away that part of her brain. She can't help it.

She can't help it.

The next scene is the day of the wedding. Now, this moment, I have watched it. I watched it 25 times. It is so funny. The doorbell rings, Dorothy walks into the living room. She will talk about her outfit in just a second. Oh, please. Because we got to talk about this moment first, and we'll talk about the outfit. She opens the door.

Hi, it was for you?

Dorothy, it's Stan.

Didn't you recognize me? Of course I recognized you. That's why I slammed the door on your face.

It's so brilliant. It's total deadpan. Very season 5 energy.

Yes, very season 5 energy. Stan Spornack played by two-time Emmy nominee, Herbert Edelman. Both of his nominations were for the Golden Girls, but we'll get more into him.

This, again, comes from Jim's book, Golden Girls Forever. I remember. But he's the most recurring character on the series. When they wrote the episode, they didn't know that he was going to be recurring. They thought it was going to... For this, it was just a one-off. They wanted to cast somebody that B. Arthur would get along with. They asked her for a suggestion, and she mentioned him, and he gets the job. That's amazing. I know. But we got to talk about what Mother of the Bride is wearing.

It is the ugliest pink lace top and pink satin pants I've ever seen. I believe she wears it in several other episodes, too.

Because she's wearing a white blouse underneath it. It's like this multi-wing-tip, wing-tip, manish tuxedo shirt. I didn't realize until the second time I watched the episode that their pants, they are like... How do you describe those pants?

Well, they're Palazzo pants before being known as Palazzo. It's just the most cool shade of Pepto-Bismal pink. Exactly. It's not flattering color for her, in the least.

No.

It's horrible. I know. Speaking of wardrobe, The other girls, as usual, we're in light blue, we're in other pastels. Stan, here's a question about what he's wearing. They have him wearing a lay.

I know.

Which confuses me because am I wrong, Cheesecakes? Tell me if I am, but I think you get the lay when you arrive in Hawaii, not when you leave.

No, but I actually wrote down a timeline of Stan's travel. He would have had to have put that lay on early in the morning for... Now, remember, he's losing time going east. He's been wearing that lay for 29 hours. He put it on, got on the plane, flew to Miami, went to luggage, got his luggage, went to the rental car place, got in the car, drove over to Dorothy's house. He's been wearing that lay the whole time. Right.

Of course, the other side of my brain says, Okay, it's contrived so that we can see that really drive home the point that he lives in Maui now.

Yeah, right. But I'm like, Winafred, give us a little credit. We remember. We're on episode 2, girl.

Stan sees his daughter, Kate, who comes out in the wedding dress. I'd like to say she inexplicably has red hair. Yes, I know. I'm just saying I don't know where in the line she got that from. She's also wearing a high-collared Victorian dress.

She looks like that Annabelle doll from the horror movies. She really does. But also, I want to say that everybody wastes no time going right in on Stan for his toupee.

Oh, Rose, I'd like you to meet my ex-husband, Stan's Bornax. Hello. And this is his It's a pleasure to meet you both. Hello. Who invited Donny Asman? Now, this is Stan. Hello, Sophia. It's the hair. It makes me look different. Makes you look stupid.

Do you ever imagine the moments in the writers room when they come up with lines like that? You know what I mean?

Yes, because once they start to know how the women are playing the characters, it feeds off of one another. Yeah.

The toupey thing is amazing. Susan Harris was saying, or Winifred Harvey was saying that they didn't necessarily need him to be bald, but him being bald just was perfect. It was like the jokes write themselves.

Yeah, exactly.

Poor bald men. Look, I'm fighting the receipt right now as we speak.

I got to tell you, I love a full bald situation.

You do? You like a dome?

I like the full bald. I prefer that to the hanging on for dear life semi bald.

I know. Baby, just give me that rough and tough baldness. Just shave it, baby. You can do it. Commit. I got to tell you, your sexual awakening in your 50s is great for me. I'm really enjoying it.

I'm in my Blanche Devereau face. Thank you.

You are. Absolutely. I wanted to also say, when Blanche enters and she's introduced to Stan, she sees a man she doesn't recognize in her living room. She full on enters with her sexy shoulders.

Yeah, and her sexy hip.

Yes. And Dorothy has to quickly be like, This is My Ex-husband, Stan.

And she puts out her hand like, Just kiss my hand.

It was giving Rose from episode one.

She just can't not be with a man, remember. Exactly. Are we ready to talk about Dorothy snarling like a rabbit dog?

So this is just Absolutely iconic. There's just no way around it. Kate sees her dad. They have an embrace, and she says, Thank you for coming. And he says, this is so well done. He says, Don't thank me. Thank your mother, which is a very sweet sentiment. But then he tells us exactly who he is because he turns to Dorothy and he says, I'm so glad you're here.

Thank you for coming. Don't thank me.

Thank your mother.

There aren't too many women around who could swallow their pride after what went down between us. You're awesome, babe. Absolutely awesome.

We better get to the church.

Don't you think so?

It tells you everything you need to know about Stan, and Dorothy immediately barks.

She barks. She's like a rabid dog. I know. They have to hold her back.

As an actor, where does that impulse to growl come from?

Well, I thought it was a great choice. I thought it was really funny. Absolutely. Well, I would hazard a guess that the anger is so visceral.

But the thing, I love that That is not forgotten. This man left her after 38 years.

I can't. I can't. But finally, after all of this nonsense, Blanche lets her have it, right?

Because Dorothy's decided. Everyone leaves. It's Blanche and Rose and Dorothy, and Dorothy decides she's not going to the wedding, and She's basically saying she's pulling a me. She's like, I'm not not going for any reason other than I'm going to do something crazy and I don't want to ruin the wedding. Now, remember, your poor sweet daughter was going to go get married on the beach in the Bahamas by a priest wearing clam diggers, as Dorothy pointed out. She didn't want this wedding in Miami, Dorothy. She did it for you. You got to go. That's right. Blanche is not having it.

She's not having it. She sets her straight. But she and Rose both are like, How are we going to manage this? But now we have a classic Blanche simile of many in the series. We better stick to her like a tight shirt on a sweaty farm hand.

Then she says, You know the big biceps and the hair chest just glistening. The way she says glistening.

You better stick to her like a tight shirt on a sweaty farm hand. You know the type with the big biceps and the hairy chest just glistening in the hot sun? I'm sorry, what were you talking about?

She says it with her whole mouth. Oh, yeah.

Glottal.

Yes.

Just the glottal of it all.

I just love that Blanche is horny at all. All time. She can't not be with a man. I wish I could. Are you having a moment where you're identifying with Blanche?

I'm identifying with Blanche.

Oh, my God. We're back at the house after the wedding.

After, presumably, the commercial break.

Exactly. Into a really hideous cake topper.

We see lots of extras.

So many extras.

We see a priest. It's obviously a Catholic wedding.

100%. Dorothy is chatting with Dennis, and she says, I don't mean to brag, but Kate was the best Abraham Lincoln in the third grade ever saw. Who comes up with that line? It's so good. You know, Winifred. Winifred. I love her. We need to do a deep dive on Winifred. We got to find out what else she's written.

I'm a fan. This is a very good episode.

Me too. But then there's another two-way joke because Dennis says he can't imagine her as Abraham Lincoln, and Dorothy says, Stan, give me your toupe and hold it up to Kate's chin. Can you imagine a toupe? You know what I mean? Yes. Do they even still make those? Of course. They do?

Yes.

What would you do if you were on a date with a man and you realized he was wearing a toupe? You're a very polite person. Yeah.

I mean, they're so good these days. You probably wouldn't know until the moment of.

Which moment exactly of which are we speaking?

Well, when he's wearing a tight T-shirt. Nothing but the tight T-shirt and his toupee. No, I would think I would I have some softness in my heart because we all know what that feels like. It's very vulnerable, I would imagine.

They make them now that they can snap into your scalp. I've seen this on TV. I'm sorry. Let me just unsnap my hair. Can you imagine you're like, you've done it with a man, and now it's bedtime, and he's like, Oh, hang on. He goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth, and he comes out not only without hair, but with a snap on the top of his head. See, that would bother me.

I want to know before quite a time who I'm actually with.

There are things you do need to disclose. Do you know what I mean? Marital status, hair status.

Also, I'm just going forward to what if you're into couple land, relationship land? You know how women will often fix one another's ties. What is that like? Here, honey, let me dig into your scalp with your two pace clips.

Whose idea was that? Bad idea. Just get the hair surgery. My God.

All right, so now we're at the party. There's lots of people around, and the cheeseballs are, again, front and center. Yes. To your point earlier, we have a variety of colors.

There's so many.

Orange, cream, black.

Yes.

You know what, Patrick? I have another little ditty on cheeseballs. Oh, yeah. You might be wondering who invented the cheeseballs as I was.

I'm very curious.

I'm here to tell you that legend has it. It was in your homeland. It was that they were created in Massachusetts.

Out of Duncan Donuts on Route 132. Probably.

It was a farmer. I think I read somewhere that that farm later got bought by Duncan Donuts. But it's the first cheeseball in recorded history in 1801, and it was presented to President Jefferson at the White House and is said to have weighed 1,235 pounds.

What on earth?

1,235 pounds.

That doesn't make any sense.

Then I keep thinking, Well, then how do you get it to President Jefferson? Because train travel was another almost 30 years. So obviously, it was like a draft horse or two. And then that got me researching how much can draft horse pull.

What is a draft horse?

Like a Clydesdale, right? Like a workhorse. A draft horse, a single draft horse, can pull 8,000 pounds for about six and a half cheeseballs.

That's wild.

Yeah. And you might think like two. I think I read two draft horse. You might think, Oh, they can pull 16,000. No, they actually triple their load.

And What year was this?

This was in 1801.

That's before electricity, I'm assuming.

Well, I only looked up train travel. Let me look it up.

I know. We literally Google, When was electricity invented?

Well, I'm going to look up electricity, and you have to look up what is actually in a cheese ball. Okay.

We'll be back.

Okay. All right. I have an answer here about electricity. All right.

When was electricity invented?

Well, here in America, Some people say Benjamin Franklin created it in 1752, but Thomas Edison- The light bulb guy? The light bulb guy was in 1879, so well after the cheese ball delivery of 1801.

Special delivery for the President. This cheese ball has been glistening.

How did he make this giant cheese ball?

That's a great question. Well, now I can tell you the ingredients of a cheese ball. Cheese balls are traditionally made with two kinds of cheese, cream cheese or another soft cheese like quark cheese, Mars Capone ricotta, and a graded semi-soft or semi-firm cheese like Chedder, Kolby, Monterey Jack cheese or Munster. You just take and you just slap them together?

I'm sure you roll them. Okay. Mix them in a bowl, roll them up.

Did you hear the condescension in her voice, Cheesecakes? What is that second cheese?

What is Cork? Crock cheese? How do you spell it?

How deep are we going on this dive? It's Q-U-A-R-K. Cork cheese.

I got to know what Cork cheese is.

Have you ever heard of Cork cheese? Wait a minute. Cheesecakes. When you signed up for a Golden Girls Deep Dive podcast, you did not really understand how deep the well is. We are.

The thing is, one mystery leads to another. Cork cheese. Look at this. No, no, no.

What is it? Oh, my God. Okay. Cork cheese.

Cork, Cork, or Corg with a G. It's a type of fresh dairy product made from milk. The milk is soured, usually by adding lactic acid bacteria cultures. It's strained once the desired curdling is achieved, it can be classified as She has to send cheese. No.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It makes a lot of sense that nobody but Sophia wants a cheeseball. No wonder the priest was like, I know what I'm giving up for lunch. Because Rose is guarding the cheeseballs because Sophia just keeps eating them to which Blanche says, Smartly, let her have them. Nobody else wants them. Nobody wants that cork cheese. Nobody wants the cork. Oh, my God. After the cheeseball moment, Blanche walked over to Dorothy and Stan and Kate and Dennis, and Blanche asked Stan to get her a glass of champagne, to which Stan responds, and it's always a pleasure to get a glass of champagne for a beautiful woman. Then he turns to Dorothy and says, And I'll get one for you, too, Dorothy. I said, You left her after 38 years. Stop taking cracks at her, please. Real nice. Then Dorothy says to Blanche, Have you ever met a man who pushes all your buttons? Blanche goes, Just once. He was a cabana boy in Pensacola.

In this time of the show, Blanche is trying to help Dorothy out, and she offers a trick that she learned at Ms. Macgyver's Finishing School.

Listen, I know this isn't easy for you, so I'm going to let you in on a sorority It's a silly secret that was passed on to me at Ms. Macgyver's Finishing School. Now, whenever you feel you're about to lose control, just take my hand and give it a little squeeze. I guarantee you'll feel 100% better. And that's the big secret? Oh, no. The big secret was that Ms. Macgyver and Ms. Mckee were sharing a one-bedroom apartment off campus. How will you?

The real secret is that Ms. Macgyver and Ms. Mckee were sharing a one-bedroom off I'm not going to be in campus. Because let's have a lesbian joke.

I had to rewind it. I know. I was like, Wow, is that really a lesbian joke? I love it.

It's interesting for me to hear you say that your opinion is like, That's a good thing. Yes. Because I bet there are some people who didn't like that there was a joke about it.

Oh, sure. But also, if you think about the year that Blanche would have gone to finishing school would have been in the '50s.

Just even talking about it is a good thing.

Yeah. I love that these lesbians were able... To take this joke and make it way too serious, I love that these lesbians in a time in the south were able to find each other and live together off campus like old spinsters, but really, they were doing it every night. I love it. Good. You get it, lesbians. You get it. I'm on the record. Lesbians are my favorite people. I prefer lesbians over all else.

I love you.

I love you, but you're not a lesbian.

I'm not a lesbian, so I'm down in this hierarchy.

The next thing that happens is, for me, a master class once again, in physical comedy.

Yeah. Stan makes a comment to Blanche with an earshot of Dorothy. Yes.

Dorothy, would you like some more derbs? No, thank you, Stan. Stan. Blanche, would you care for something? It doesn't look like you're fighting the battle of the Balves. No, thank you, Stan.

And she yelps. So that's the first set up. Then Stan makes a toast, and he says, To my daughter, Kate, may she be as happy with her new lifemate as I am with mine. And Dorothy squeezing Blanche's hand so hard that Blanche literally falls to her knees. Falls to her knees.

And then has to stand back up. And again, the brilliant part about that is we're filling in the gaps that she has squeezed her hand that hard, right?

Yes. And the look on her face, it works on so many levels because it implies that Dorothy has the strength of a thousand men that she squeezed Blanche- Of a draft horse. Of a draft horse carrying a cheeseball to the President. She squeezing it so hard. But then Blanche is in such physical pain that she literally cannot stand anymore. She falls to her knees. Her facial expression is everything.

As an actor, I will say it's fully on Rue McClanehan to sell this moment, and she does.

Do you think that moment came fully formed, or do you think they worked it out over rehearsal?

Oh, they worked it out over rehearsal. I mean, I'm sure she had an idea of what was going to happen, but what actually happened physically? Absolutely. That was in the moment, figuring it out.

Because the set up with the first squeeze where she goes, Oh, to show that Dorothy is doing the trick that she taught her. Then the second time where Blanche falls through. It is so, so funny. Then we get this whole bit with Sophia saying that the priest is following her around because all priests have a last rights quota they have to go. She can't cut loose under those circumstances. Who invited the priest? I just love the idea of Sophia guzzling bottles of gin under the table if the priests weren't there. Oh, yeah. That's another thing about the time period of the show. The ladies never drink. You know, like Sex in the City, they're always drinking or whatever. You never see these ladies having a casual cocktail after work, a pre-dinner cocktail.

They like their cheesecake.

They save their calories for the cheesecake. Now, remember, Blanche and Rose are supposed to be monitoring Dorothy. They're going to keep her so that she doesn't do something crazy. It's time to cut the cake, and Dorothy walks out of the kitchen carrying a knife. Rose sees it, thinks that she's about to kill Stan, screams, Oh, my God, and wrestles Dorothy into the kitchen.

Pushes her in there. Yes. Dorothy's having fun with this and fun with her, right? Yeah.

Give me that knife. What are you doing? I can't let you go through with this. Do you want to spend the rest of your life rotting away in some disgusting jail cell, bribing screws for cigarettes and toilet paper? Rose, in Miami, it is not a felony to cut the wedding cake. Cut them. I thought you were going to stab Stan. Don't be ridiculous. I mean, do you honestly believe that I would stab Stan at my own daughter's wedding. I would wait until after the wedding. There are too many witnesses. Then she says, Kidding.

And this is where we both notice what we assume is an adlib.

Because Dorothy takes the knife and walks back out into the living room and Rose turns takes to the camera.

Sotto voce.

Is that what that means?

Under her breath, she says, Oh, don't do that to me. I have here, Patrick, and I want to hear what you wrote. I wrote, It makes me wonder if it was an adlib by Betty White. It felt like it.

100% because those lingering shots, they do this in this show a lot where the camera lingers just a couple of seconds too long, and they're just frozen in a tableau and somebody has to say something. In this moment, the camera just lingers a little long on Betty White. She just made up a line, it feels like. The The next scene is in Dorothy's room. The party is still happening in the living room, but Dorothy's decided to take some time for herself. She's sitting on her bed and Sophia enters.

Here we're told that Stan dumped her and how he did it. Sophia gives her advice, If you're so angry, tell him. Anger is a lot like a piece of shredded wheat in your dentures. If you leave it in there, you get a blister, and you got to eat Jello all week. Yes.

It's interesting because we learned in the phone call with Stan that they haven't really seen each spoken in two years, Stan and Dorothy. We know, just from knowing the show, that Stan's going to be a part of her life for the next seven, eight, nine, however many years the show is on. They're in each other's lives pretty consistently. But it's funny that the timeline here is that this is the first time she's seeing him in two years and is really processing her anger towards him in real-time.

I will say this was curious to me, Patrick. I want your thoughts on this, where Sophia says to Dorothy, You want poetry? You listen to Neil Diamond. Not Maya Angelou, not Robert Frost.

That famous poet Neil Diamond.

I know.

I had the same note. I was like, Was Neil Diamond especially popular in 19-We're coming to America today.

I happen to love Neil Diamond. Do you? Yes.

Anyway, yes. It was curious to me that of all the poets she could have named, she named Neil Diamond. It really tells you who they thought their demographic audience was, right? Exactly.

This moment I love when Dorothy grabs Sophia's hand and says, You're the greatest mother in the world. Sophia says, Tell me something I don't know. That is one of the scenes from the opening credits that we talked about last week.

So is when Blanche falls to the floor. It's so funny.

So funny to rewatch where they all came from.

Yeah. So Dorothy goes back out to say goodbye to Kate, and she says to Kate, Be a good wife, be his friend, be his lover, don't be a slave. And Kate just wants her mom to calm down. Mom, I'll call you when I get home.

Yes, they're in their street clothes. Presumably, they're going on the honeymoon.

This is when Dennis comes over, too. Yes.

And this is another brilliant comedic moment. Well, Dennis comes over, and here's a perfect example of comedy in is in threes. They always say, Comedy is in threes. This is up to be Arthur, the expert comedian that she is. She intersperses hugs with Dennis with pointing at him saying, Don't take any guff from her. Take good care of her, because if you don't, I'll kill you.

Also, the actor, Dennis Drake or whatever, he is as tall as Dorothy. We never see that.

I wonder if they're going to have an affair.

Oh, my God. Can you imagine? But he's also like, this is another example of this poor actor just getting pushed and probably throwing this poor die around. But Kate and Dennis leave. What's so funny is when Kate and Dennis leave, they literally somebody says, and everyone else, get out of here, too. The party is over and they want all of the guests out of their house. Then another amazing moment, Stan turns around to say goodbye, and Dorothy throws a thing of rice right in his face.

So funny. It's so funny. Then, of course, Dorothy bravely, as he's trying to leave, reclaims her time. Reclaims her time and takes them to the Lanai for a talk.

She asks If they could go somewhere private for a conversation, he does not want to go. He does not want to go. They get out to the… I can't do it. They get out to the Lanai, and she tells him to take a seat. I was like, damn, Dot. Stan sits down and she goes in.

What can I do for you? The first thing you can do is get rid of that ridiculous toupee. I want to speak to the bald guy who left me. What's the matter with you? You walked out on me, Stanley Zbornak. Now I know why. You walked out on me and you didn't even have the decency to tell me you were leaving. I heard it from some lawyer over the telephone. A stranger, Stanley, a total stranger, told me that my marriage was over. Dorothy, look, things happen.

Things happen. You're damn right, things happen. 38 years happened. 38 years of sharing, crying, dreaming, fighting, loving, and children. And divers and school plays and literally, and worrying if you'd get through your gall bladder surgery and wondering if I'd get through another Sunday dinner at your mother's house. And the lean years. When the business failed, and the good years when the business failed.

And the good years. And the good years. And the happy Christmas.

All those things happen, Stanley, because they happen.

I deserved better than a stinking phone call from my husband's legal representative. You had a choice, Stanley, and you chose the easy way out, and it was a rotten thing to do. But now you're here in front of me, and you can't run away, and I finally get to have what you tried to cheat me out of.

I finally get to say goodbye, Stanley.

Look, Dorothy.

I said goodbye, Stanley.

You really nailed it. You nailed it. The Emmy goes, too. I got to tell you, when she says, I said goodbye, Stanley, she gives him a look, and I'm telling you, I I can feel every minute of those 38 years. I could feel it. Because it was like the Blanche monolog, where the Blanche monolog in the first episode and the look on her face, she's really acting. You get those moments sometimes in these episodes.

For 22 minutes of actual writing, you get some gravitas here that…

Yeah, it's amazing. Then Stan turns and leaves. You get that funny moment where Sophia and Rosen planche have been listening. The fake busy work. We're going to tidy the wedding decoration. He just walks past them without saying goodbye, and he just leaves.

Of course, the girls rush out to the Lanai. Exactly.

They're just checking in with her, and she's like, I'm fine. They tell her she's going to feel a little better every day. Then one day, he'll be out of your life completely.

Dorothy says, not completely. There'll always be a little part of him that stays with me. Rose says, Of course, Dorothy.

After 38 years, there's bound to be some memories that stay with you.

I wasn't talking about memories. I I'm just talking about this.

She holds up the toupee.

It's the perfect subtle delivery, and it's the perfect ending to an episode. It really is. It's a really well… Winifred.

I know.

We're going to do a ditty on her.

Yeah, we're going to do a ditty on Winifred. That brings us to the end of the episode. I had so much fun.

Oh, my God.

I know. Gizge, stay tuned. I'm doing my deep dive on B. Arthur right now.

Oh, let's talk. Let me hear about McQueen.

Mcqueen Beatrice. Will you say her name fancy like you did last week?

Beatrice Arthur.

Is that right? Yeah, because she gets top billing and you thought that was very fancy. Beatrice Arthur.

Very fancy. Beatrice Arthur. Beatrice Arthur. That renowned Shakespearean actress.

Beatrice Arthur. Her Mercutio is of the Ages. All right, are you ready for a B. Arthur deep dive?

So runny.

A DT on the B. B.

I like that.

What am I talking about? I want to say this is like a highlights reel. There's no way I could have done an actual deep dive covering everything in the great B. Arthur's career because otherwise, we would You can make a 20-episode podcast on her.

Exactly. It's not a master's thesis.

Yeah, we're trying not to keep you all here for seven hours. B. Arthur was born May 13th, 1922 in New York City. Her given name was Bernice Frankl, and she says that she She hated her name from birth. She said, I changed it almost as soon as I heard it.

Wow, but what a wild choice to go from Bernice- To be.

To Beatrice. I know. Well, she said she always preferred being called B, and she hated the name Bernice because there was a lot of boys in her neighborhood who were also named Bernice, but spelled with a B-U. Bernice was a boys' name back in the '20s, it seems.

This whole anger management thing that Dorothy had and the mannishness that everyone…

I know.

This is from an early age.

It's true, and it gets worse. But she said she preferred being called B, but she later expanded it to Beatrice because she thought it would look lovely on a theater marquee. Don't I love that as theater people.

For all those Shakespearean roles.

I know. Then professionally, she took her last name from her first husband, Robert Alan Arthur, who was a screenwriter and producer. Growing up, when she was four years old, her parents moved from Brooklyn to Cambridge, Maryland. She described it as a lovely place to grow up, but barren creatively. The people of Cambridge, Maryland are really feeling that one. Growing up, she was shy and sensitive. She felt like an oddity among her peers. But like all of us, she found an escape in performing. She said back then she was always being cast in boys' parts because she was so tall.

Maybe it had something to do with the voice. I mean, I do love that neither of us can imitate her voice because it's so low.

No, I cannot do it. I know. I can't do it.

I mean, of the two of us, I think I stand a better shot. Totally. Just wrap your head around that.

But then this weird thing, at the age of 16, she learned that she was suffering from a rare blood clotting disease. She said this resulted in her going to a boarding school for the last two years of high school, but they'd ever tell us why.

I think her parents lied, and they just wanted her out of the house. It's a blood clotting disease.

It's a blood clotting disease. Come on, Bernice, you're going to the private for the kids with the blood clotting disease. This is my favorite random anecdote about her. She joined the Marines. Did you know this?

No, but it's perfect.

No, it's perfect.

Because of course she did.

Of course she did. On February 13, 1943, approximately two years after the US entered World War II, the Marine Corps put out an advertisement asking women to enlist, making it the last branch of the military to allow women in their ranks. They wanted women to come in and fill non-combat roles so they could send as many men as possible out to the front lines. More than 20,000 women joined up, including B. Arthur, who enlisted just five days shy of her 21st birthday.

Come on, Rosie the Riveter. I know. But we see a lot of Dorothy's season one energy happening here because as part of her enlistment process, B.

Underwent multiple interviews and personality appraisals. We have some of the written records of this. Oh, thank God. One male interviewer described her as, Frank and open, but also argumentative and overaggressive.

I mean, I thought you were just going to stop it, Frank. He described her as Frank.

Then a handwritten note on one of the assessment sheets reads officious, but probably a good worker if she has her own way. I know. But after basic training, just imagine B. Arthur going through the Marine's basic training. Can you just see her crawling under the barbed wire?

Just a rope with knots. I know. One of those net walls.

She flips over the top. She's just like, she's so tall, she just puts one hand and just walks off the wall. She does. I just can see be like, Dorothy.

She meets her demise, though, in the tires. She's so tall, falls down like a giant.

The jokes write themselves. You know what I mean? After basic training, she first worked as a typist in Washington, DC, then as a truck driver and a dispatcher. The look on your face.

It's just the Dorothy Spornack-ness of it. That's what's making me laugh.

The thing is, it's not B. Arthur who enlisted in the Marines. It's Dorothy Spornack who enlisted in the Marines. Oh, my God. I know. But the thing is, she was really patriotic. She wrote to the Marines and was like, I was going to start a different job next week. But you asked me to enlist, I'm going to enlist. She did.

She's a heroine.

She's a heroine. She did two years. She was dishonerably discharged in the rank- Excuse me?

I thought I'd know that. She was dishonerably discharged?

No, sorry. She was honorably discharged in the rank of Staff Sergeant in 1945.

If you edit that out, I will murder you in your sleep.

She was honorably discharged. Oh, God. She left to pursue her acting dreams. Something weird about this, though. When she was asked about her time in an interview towards the end of her career in 2001, she denied ever having served.

How did World War II affect you and your family?

Like everybody else, dramatic.

I had read somewhere that you joined the Marines.

Is that true? Oh, no. No. Shortly after, I think it was 1947, I went to New York and attended dramatic school, which was quite a wonderful experience.

But we know she did because her military personnel file became public record in 2010.

Why? She lied. Did she have some trauma response from the Wolf?

I don't know. I think she knew that when we found out that she was a truck driver for the Marines, that we were going to laugh for 10 minutes, and she didn't want it. She didn't want it, Jen.

She knew I was coming for her.

In 1947, at the age of 25, she accomplishes her lifelong dream of moving to New York City to pursue theater. She enrolled in the dramatic workshop at the New School down in the village. Her classmates included Harry Belafonte, Walter Matthau, Rod Steeger, and Tony Curtis.

Just those hacks.

Just those She describes it as the most exciting time of her life. Listen to this description. She says, I was living in New York City in a cold water flat for which I paid $15 a month with a toilet out in the hall and a bathtub in the kitchen next to the sink. It was the most exciting time of my life because there I was in New York City.

F, yeah.

Isn't that the best? Yes. For those of us who have a very similar experience, you know what I mean? I love people who love New York.

Yeah, that explains why you love me.

That explains why I love She made her professional acting debut in 1947 at the Cherry Lane Theater.

Yeah, that's where I'm.

The cutest little theater down on Cherry Lane in the village. If you've never been to that pocket of the village, you got to go check out it. It's so beautiful. The play was called The Dog Beneath the Skin. She continued to work at the Cherry Lane through the early 1950s. She eventually does a play there with a man named Jean Sacks, who she marries. They later adopted two sons, Matthew and Daniel. Her first big deal acting gig was was a role in the 1953 off-Broadway production of 3 Penny Opera. Amazing. Which is a show I know nothing about.

Right. But now that you say it, I wouldn't have known it was it debuted off-Broadway either because it's so famous.

Yes, it ran on Broadway for a long time. But she said this job changed her life because she got laughs on stage for the first time. She said once she heard the audience laugh like that, she had the bug. She said she knew she was addicted for the rest of her life.

Addicted is the word because it's intoxicating. I know. Power of being able to have that energy exchange with the audience and make them laugh.

I mean, you have this nightly. I know it's a major part of who you are. When Gillian and I did the first time we did our live show at the Wilbur in Boston, which is an 1100 seat theater It's where Streetcar Named Desire premiered in its off-Broadway, in its pre-Broadway run. We were sold out house, 1100 people, and our theme music played, and the roar from the crowd. Then we walked out onto the stage and the energy that came at us. I just remember thinking like, that's it. I now understand what people talk about when they talk about that.

One of the greatest feelings in the world. It's crazy.

It really is a drug. She does 3.0 Opera. She's doing great. She's really making a name for herself on Broadway. She does four Broadway shows before booking the role of Yenta in the original production of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway in 1964. She was cast in the role of Yenta, the matchmaker, but she'd originally auditioned for the bigger role Golda. They said she sunk her chances of getting that bigger part when she read for Yenta because she was the first person who'd auditioned for the role of Yenta to make the creative team laugh. Well, there you go. They said that compared to her, no one else who auditioned came alive at all. Not wild. Bette Midler also made her Broadway debut in the original production of Fiddler on the Roof. I was trying to figure out, she looks like Bette Midler came in in 1967, so three years after it opened. I don't think that she and B were it at the same time, but wouldn't that be a great story if they were? Yes. Oh, my God. Then in 1966, of course, she plays the role of Vera Charles in the original Broadway production of Mame, directed by her husband, Jean Sacks.

She'd originally auditioned for the title role, which would go to Angela Lansbury, and she loved Angela Lansbury, so she agreed to play the supporting role when the casting of Mame went the other way. But it was a good decision because she won a ton of critical acclaim and a Tony Award.

Yeah, I mean, that character, she got to exercise what And arguably, she does best, that dry, deadpan, low voice thing that she mastered.

She said it was the role that launched a million drag shows. And she has this whole speech about how she doesn't understand why she's a gay icon, but she knows she is because drag queens are just always doing her. But she went on to repraise the role of Vera in the movie, which was also directed by her husband. And apparently, the movie was a huge flop. And she said she didn't want to do it. She can't watch it. She hated making it. And she only did it because her husband told her that she owed him. She had to do it. But the movie was a huge flop, but she got a Golden Globe nomination.

Yeah, I know. Angela Lansbury can't watch it either.

Because it was Lucille Ball. Yeah.

Just no offense to the pioneering comedian and television three-camera shot inventor Lucille Ball, but she was woefully miscast. It wasn't successful, unfortunately.

Yeah, I've never seen it. I don't really know Mame that well.

It's a great show, but the movie, let's just say they should have cast Angela. It would have been a different story.

Have you met Angela Lansbury? I did. Is she amazing?

She was. She came to see Shrek, and I got a picture with her that Jenny Anderson took. Wow. My college best friend knew her, and I saw a correspondence that she wrote giving her advice about her singing voice because she did Sweeney Todd with my friend's mother. She was one of the high supremos. Oh, wow. My friend's father was in the hair wig department. I told her the story. She couldn't have been lovelier. At that theater, I was reading one of the murder she wrote books at that time because there was a series that was written because of it. Oh, wow. I talked about it in an interview, and that author saw it and sent me a signed copy of the book.

Oh, my God. Oh, that's so great.

She was lovely. Five-time Tony Award winner, ladies and gentlemen. Wild. Count them. I know. One, two, three, four, five.

Five of them. I It's crazy. She deserved everyone.

She wins.

By the early '70s, B. Arthur's good friend Norman Lear is trying to get her to come to Hollywood. He's saying, I'll write something for you. It's time to make the move to TV. She doesn't want to go, mostly because she's afraid of flying. We almost did not get her on the goal. She almost did not move to Hollywood because she was so afraid of flying that she wasn't going to go. She was also afraid that she was going to hate whatever Norman Lear wrote for her.

Oh my gosh. Control issues. Exactly.

No, but that was not the case. In 1972, she sublots her apartment on the Upper West Side and she goes to Hollywood. Of course, the first thing that we all know her for is for playing Maud Findlay on All In The Family, which was the part that Norman Lear had created just for her. The idea of the character was that it was time for them to have somebody on the show that would kill Archie verbally, somebody that would stand up to him, that could destroy him. Norman Lear created the character of Maud, who was Edith's cousin, so Archie Bunker's wife's cousin. She was a liberal. She was a five times married feminist. She had as many husbands as Angela Lansbury has Tony Awards. The whole idea was that by the time she's on the show, she'd known Archie for a long time. She didn't have good things to say about him, and she wasn't afraid to stand up to him. The character was so popular that the head of CBS himself basically demanded a spinoff show. Mod, the series ran for six seasons from 1972 to 1978. It was all about Mod's progressive politics and liberal guilt, which is funny because over the pandemic, Steve and I watched some episodes.

Once again, she looks way older in Mod than she does at the end of the Golden Girls. But Mod isn't a perfect character. The idea of it is the liberal guilt, and she's a little bit of a virtue signaler, and she wants people to know that she's good and forward-thinking and progressive, and that gets in her way a lot. Obviously, the most famous episode from Mod is the two-parter called Maud's Dilemma, which deals with Maud's decision to get an abortion. I didn't realize this. The character Maud, at the time of this episode, was a 47-year-old grandmother who finds out that she's pregnant. Wow. And so ultimately, she decides to have an abortion. In the aftermath of the airing of that show, a lot of advertisers dropped out of the show. Many network affiliates refuse to air reruns of the two episodes. Interestingly, the two episodes aired just two months before the Supreme Court decided Roe v Wade, which made abortion legal in all 50 states, which I, not being really alive in that time, didn't understand. I I thought Roe v Wade had always been there. I had always thought in knowing about the mod abortion episodes that Roe v Wade was already a thing, but it wasn't.

Abortion was really not a thing that was really being talked about in the way that it was after that. Playing the character of Mod doing the Abortion episodes costs her later, and we'll get into that in just a second. But it was her decision to end the show. She decided that the character had done everything they could do. She didn't want it to be repetitive and get boring or get less edgy.

Which I really That's what I mean. To walk away at the height of success. I think Seinfeld wanted to do the same thing. I think that is a very wise and brave thing to do.

Of course, the highlight of B. Arthur's career, as told by B. Arthur, she thinks the Golden Girls was the height of her career. It was her favorite thing that she did. It came in 1985 when she was cast as Dorothy Spornack on the Golden Girls. From the get-go, the creator, Susan Harris, had B Arthur in mind for the part. Harris had written the Mods Dilemma episodes and knew her. She knew B really well and had written the character of Dorothy Spornack as a B Arthur type. The problem was that B had a very low Q-Score, which the Q-Score measures how much the public likes you. Because even though it was eight years later or something, she was still so closely associated with Mod, who was a very divisive character. She was very liberal, very forward-thinking. The abortion episode, especially, was a thing that people just ascribed to be Arthur. She was a polarizing figure, and the network was like, No, she's too polarizing. They told Susan Harris it was not going to be be Arthur, and they had to find someone else. Famously, they haul in America's grumpiest actor, Elaine Stritch, to audition for the role.

And old Stritchy was a little nervous. The thing, too, that I was reading about is that they set her up for failure because two-thirds of the people in the room only wanted to be Arthur.

Oh, that happens.

Yeah. Elaine Stritch didn't necessarily know that. And she came in, and I think she has said that she got a really cold vibe in the room.

Even if she hadn't done her part in whatever she was responsible for, for self-sabotage, let's say, at the least generous interpretation, whatever portion was hers to own, even if she had been perfection in all regards, she might not have gotten it anyway because of exactly what she said, which is a terrible position to put someone in, to make them a pawn. Horrible. That It's happened to me. It's happened to people I know where you are a pawn in someone else's competitive game to get the person they want.

You want more money? We're going to bring Jen Smart. She can fucking skate circles around this role. I can totally see it. You know what I mean? That's what happened to Elaine Stritch. Wait, you understand what I mean by that, right? I do. That was a compliment.

Okay, good. Oh, yeah. I was listening. No, I was thinking about... It's funny. I don't always look at the camera, but I want them to know that my thought process there was, I have a justice chip and my jaw set like Daniel J. Trevante in Hill Street Blues, just this set angry jaw of the injustice that happens to people all the time. I'm an actor. Okay, there's a lot more injustice in this world, but it's my livelihood. It's time, it's effort. Totally. It's retirement funds. It's all of those things. It's the ability to help my loved ones, my family, have a good future. I don't like disingenuousness. If I'm not really up for this, that's fine. But don't waste my time.

Totally. So Stritchy comes in and she's getting a cold vibe from the room. She had been saying that she wanted to improvise her scene a little bit, and they said, Don't do that. She wanted to drop F-bombs to be edgy and whatever. They told her, Don't do it, and she does it anyway. I don't think Elaine Stritch is a person you say no to. The audition goes horribly. It works in the creative team's favor because they go back to the network and they're like, Look, see, no one's going to be able to do it. No one other than B Arthur is going to be able to do it. We know you're worried about B. Arthur's numbers, but don't worry. It's an ensemble piece. It's not going to be just writing on B. Arthur. All the audience is going to have a favorite, and it's going to be somebody else for everybody, and they're going to play off each other. Can we please just bring her in to read? The network says, Yes, she can come in to read. According to B, everyone in the world knew about this show except for her. That's her story.

Now she finds out every other actress in town had been called in for this role that was described as a B. Arthur type. She goes in and she nails it and she gets the gig and the rest is history. She won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in 1988. At the end of the seventh season, she was the one who decided she didn't want to come back. Here's what she said about it. She said, I stayed with the Golden Girls for seven years, and I suddenly thought, as I did with Maude, that we had done pretty much everything. I didn't think we could top what we had done. I really felt that what we did was so good and so, so terrific I didn't think we could top it. I thought, let's quit on a very high note, which, again, that's noble. I think it's maybe one of the reasons why the Golden Girls has stood the test of time because it never- They never jumped the sharp. They never jumped. It's like the office should have ended when Michael Scott left or whatever, and you got three more seasons of it. Every episode is quality.

Every episode is so good. But my feelings are like, But what if Rue and Betty and Estelle weren't ready yet? You're deciding for everybody.

I know. That's the problem for an ensemble piece like that because it really depended on the magic of the four of them. Yeah.

You can tell because they tried to do Golden Palace without her. It didn't work.

It did not work. No. For those of you who don't know, Jump the Shark is a Happy Days reference. Yes. Sometimes the best thing in a series ends up being the start. You look later, the apex of what was eventually the decline.

Bee's last professional outing was her one-woman show called Just Between Friends, which opened on Broadway in August 2001. It was a collection of stories stories and songs about her life on TV and Broadway. Of doing Just Between Friends, she said, She's now done everything in show business except rodeo and porn, but that this is the first time after all these years that I get to just come out and be myself on stage. Isn't that nice? It is. Then on April 25, 2009, B. Arthur died of lung cancer at home in Los Angeles. I love her.

I love her, too.

I love you.

I love you more.

Jennifer Smart. We got to the end of episode, too. Patrick Hines. Oh, my lad, Patrick Hines.

The map of Ireland on your head.

We're really doing this, huh? Yeah, we are. Are you having fun?

I'm having a blast. #grateful.

#grateful, my son. Cheesecakes, we love you so much. Listen, we're going to tell you a couple of things. Please go join our Facebook group. It's the Golden Girls Deep Dive podcast discussion group on Facebook. Just search it, join it. We're going to be in there. We're hanging out. We're talking. You're going to meet all your best Golden Golden Girls, friends.

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I love the word patooties. On Instagram and TikTok, we're at Golden Girls Deep Dive in both places.

Lastly, Cheesecakes, please go write us a review on Apple podcast. It really does help other people find our show. Just give us the number of stars you think we deserve. Call Jen pretty, and then...

The stars that we deserve, What makes the difference between four and five, I wonder.

You know what I mean?

I think that's like a white glove treatment. Like, did you clean the dust on the baseboard? Let me see your baseboards. Totally. That's the difference between four and five.

I think you're right. But you can't just do the start. You got to write at least one sentence for it to really count. So please go do that. Let's make the Golden Girls Sleep Die podcast a thing.

Jen is hot.

H-a-w-t. W-t-t-t-t-.