FAQ

Unfortunatly it is not known why "Nurses" was cancelled, the ratings actually increased in it's last season. The actors of "Nurses" are still alive so a new season can happen.

This was probably due to the old age and health problems of lead actor Richard Mulligan, who died in 2000.

Thank you for being a friend. Travel down the road and back again Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidante And if you threw a party, invited everyone you knew, you would see the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say thank you for being a friend. The later seasons, as shown on Lifetime, featured a shorter theme song, without the bridge beginning with "and if you threw a party." Instead, it cuts straight to the final line. This is due to Lifetime's editing.

Yes and no. Bea Arthur was not the only choice to play Dorothy (although the character of Dorothy was described in the script as a "Bea Arthur type"). Lee Grant was considered for the role, but she didn't want to play someone old enough to have grandchildren. Elaine Stritch was also considered but said she "blew her chance" somehow. Rue McClanahan was originally intended to play Rose (a variation of the dimwitted Vivian she played on "Maude"), and Betty White was to play Blanche (a variation of the vampish Sue Ann Nivens she played on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"). Initially, Bea Arthur rejected the show because she had no interest in doing a show about "Maude Finlay and Vivian Harmon meeting Sue Ann Nivens", but it was then suggested that White and McClanahan read for each other's part which led to the switch.

The show's creator, Susan Harris, decided to drop the character after the first episode was shot because she felt he was unnecessary. Sophia proved to be a strong character, and with four major characters there just wasn't enough room for Coco. It wasn't mentioned onscreen, but when Sophia moved in, she took over the majority of the cooking. Other changes made from the pilot include Sophia's appearance (she was made up to look less severe) and the arrangement of the house (Blanche's bedroom was in the hallway near the Lanai in the pilot).

Blanche needed extra money to pay the mortgage, so she posted an ad for roommates on a supermarket bulletin board. Rose and Dorothy answered the ad and moved in. Sophia moved in after the Shady Pines retirement home that she was living in burned down. In one episode, Blanche also revealed that Rose and Dorothy were not her first tenants.

No, but there is a liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota known as St. Olaf College. There is also a St. Olaf Township thats located in Otter Tail County, Minnesota in a different part of the state.

The show ended because Bea Arthur announced that she was leaving at the end of the seventh season. The ratings had slipped (from 10th place in the 1990-1991 season to 30th in the 1991-1992 season), partly because NBC moved it from 9:00 PM to 8:00 PM, but the show was still a hit. So much so that CBS then decided to continue the show as a spin-off called The Golden Palace, with all the main cast except Bea Arthur, but this was not successful.

There are two main reasons for the inconsistencies throughout the series. The main reason is that there were two writing teams throughout the course of the series: one for the first three seasons, and another for the final four seasons, and some of the writers had not watched the show before joining the writing team. So they simply missed something from the previous episodes. Another is that, rarely, writers would decide to ignore a piece of information for the sake of comedy. For example, if a joke that contradicted history was funny, they'd leave the joke in. In the pre-Internet days, all shows tended to have more continuity errors, but The Golden Girls was particularly prone to them, largely because of the mostly verbal nature of the humor. Many of the funny lines made reference to family members or the characters' pasts; these were often forgotten in later episodes. But with the advent of DVD and the internet many of these mistakes are noticed and discussed at length, but it must be taken with a grain of salt due to the age of the show.

Yes, all seven seasons are available on DVD. They are distributed by Buena Vista Home Entertainment.

The Golden Palace was not picked up for a second season. It wasnt picked up for another season because the ratings kept slipping throughout the first season, mainly because many viewers thought that without Bea Arthur, the show wasnt as good and didnt have the same dynamic as The Golden Girls.

It is from the "Break-in" episode. They didn't include that clip in the episode, but it is from the scene after the alarm salesman left the house, and they were all sitting on the coach talking. Same with the clip of Dorothy biting her fist in the opening credits, it is from "Break-in" as well. After she and Sophia were playing scrabble, she bit her fist, just a little differently than they use in the opening. The scene with them playing scrabble is on the DVD.