RIP, Sophia. This slice is for you.

Estelle Getty, Sophia Petrillo, on the golden girls has “gone to the big lanai in the sky” (according to TMZ).  She was 84 years old, just 3 days shy of her 85th birthday.

IRF reveres our favorite Sicilian and perhaps we need to go back and review IRF’s Tribute to the Golden Girls. 

I think all of us will sit around the kitchen table tonight, in our robes, having a slice of cheesecake in your honor.

A Tribute to the Golden Girls

Each Golden Girl fan has identified his or her own personal Golden Girl.  I had a few college roommates who used to fight over who got to be Blanche (Rue McLanahan).  No one ever campaigned for the title of Rose (Betty White), but the Roses among us are always all too obvious.  I have the utmost appreciation for Dorothy (Bea Arthur).  My heart, however, will always belong to Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty). 

 

Everything I need to know in life, I learned from The Golden Girls.  My education blessedly continues every time I tune into Lifetime, Television for Women.  Out of the mercy of my heart, today I share with you the important life lessons that I have learned from the quotations of Dorothy, Sophia, Blanche, and Rose.

Birth:

Dorothy: [the girls visit a birthing center] What kind of idiot would want to give birth here?
Rose: This place makes me want to run out and get pregnant!

Game Show Host: For one hundred dollars, complete this famous phrase: “Better late than…”
Blanche: Pregnant!
Game Show Host: No, Blanche, that’s incorrect… though not entirely untrue.

Death:

Dorothy: We’re here to pay for a funeral.
Mr. Pfeiffer: Oh, the three of you planning ahead for mother?
Sophia: [walks a little bit closer] Hey Puh-feiffer, how would you like a punch in your puh-face?

Religion/Spirituality:

Blanche: I swear with God as my witness, I will never pick up another man!… in a library… on a Saturday… unless he’s cute… and drives a nice car… Amen 

Rose: Belief can be powerful. I had a sty once, and every night I would close my eyes and think about it getting smaller and smaller until it went away!
[Sophia leans on the fridge with her eyes closed]
Dorothy: Ma, what’s wrong?
Sophia: Nothing. I’m just trying to make Rose go away.

Parenting:

Blanche: I’ll give you anything. I’ll give you one of my sons.
Dorothy: Blanche.
Blanche: Dorothy, I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’ve had 3 sons, I’ve never had a Mercedes. Which one do you want? Biff, Doug, Skippy? No, don’t take Skippy, he’s got asthma.

Beauty/Makeup tips:

Blanche: We just rented that movie Aliens, it scared us half to death.
Sophia: I found it scary too. That Sigourney Weaver is a sweet girl but she really shouldn’t go without makeup. 

Blanche: What was your first impression of me?
Rose: I thought you wore too much makeup and were a slut. I was wrong. You don’t wear too much makeup.

Fashion/Dressing for any occasion:

Sophia: Why do blessings wear disguises? If I were a blessing, I’d run around naked.

Dieting:

Dorothy: [to Sophia] You’re a furry little gnome and we feed you too much.

Food/Cooking:

Sophia: If this sauce were a person, I’d get naked and make love to it. 

Rose: Mmmmm, Sophia! The kitchen smells wonderful. Is it Chef Boyardee?
Sophia: [Sophia holds up a knife] Stick it in my heart, Rose, it’ll hurt less!

TV/Film:

Rose: I just found out I’m the most boring on Earth.
Sophia: Did something happen to Regis Philbin? 

Rose: I wonder what kind of movie this is…
[Off-camera sounds of woman screaming in horror and roaring chainsaw]
Dorothy: It’s a musical, Rose. 

Dorothy: I hate watching what this is doing to her.
Blanche: I hate watching what this is doing to you.
Rose: I hate watching those FBI warnings at the beginnings of rented videotapes.

Politics:

Sophia: I hate communists.
Dorothy: Of course Ma, that’s because you were raised a fascist.

Foreign Relations:

Blanche: Oh girls… I’m just in ecstasy. My body is tingling all over. You will never guess what just happened.
Sophia: We know what happened. Let us just guess what part of the
Middle East he’s from.

Literature:

Blanche: I have writer’s block. It’s the worst feeling in the world.
Sophia: Try ten days without a bowel movement sometime. 

Dorothy: Well Blanche is certainly taking her sister’s novel better than I would. I would kill my sister Gloria if she ever wrote about my sex life.
Sophia: You would kill your sister over a pamphlet?

Comforting friends in their time of need:

Rose: How long were Jean and Pat married?
Dorothy: I think about eight years.
Rose: I wish there was something I could do… I know! I’ll make my world-famous ice cream clown sundaes! You know, the kind with the little raisin eyes and the sugar cone caps.
Dorothy: Wow, Rose, if that doesn’t fill the void, nothing will.

Personal grooming: 

Rose: Blanche, did you really start shaving at eleven? That seems so young!
Blanche: Oh, I did it on a dare. You know, back where I come from, everybody thought that once you started shaving your legs, why, you’d become loose. So I shaved ‘em!
Rose: What happened?
Blanche: Oh, it was an old wives’ tale. I didn’t become loose for another year and a half.

Dorothy: Anyway, Ma told me that once I started shaving I’d never be able to stop. I mean, she said I’d regret it for the rest of my life because my legs would have bristles.
Sophia: I was right! By the time you were sixteen I could grate cheese on your knees!  

Blanche: You know, a lot of those European girls don’t shave under their arms.
Rose: Is that true?
Blanche: They just let it all hang out.
Rose: Really?
Blanche: Bushy as can be.
Rose: Well, what do they look like in a strapless dress?
Dorothy: Like Milton Berle.  

Rose: When men see that you shave your legs above the knee, what does that say to them?
Blanche: Hopefully it says, ‘”Touch my leg!”
Dorothy: That’s in case they miss the tattoo that says the same.

Cherishing Old Friends:

Dorothy: Ma, do you remember Helen Kolquist?
Sophia: Was she that tremendously fat woman with a wooden leg and a totally hairless cat named Cincinnati Jake?
Dorothy: No.Sophia: Then I don’t remember.

I encourage all of you homage by leaving comments with some of YOUR favorite Golden Girls quotes. 

 

Miller Monday – The Opiate of the Masses

Have you ever wanted to make your very own Lifetime Original Movie but thought you never could?  Well now is your chance!  With my simple 4 step program you will be able to create movies just as exciting and ‘Original’ as your favorite Lifetime classics!

Step 1

You need to find a washed up 80’s actress, preferably someone who has not worked in at least 15 years.   Your choices range from Valerie Bertinelli to Becca from Life Goes On.     Make sure that she still has some charm although she is likely 20-30 pounds heavier.  You may want to add glasses.  That seems to help.  She should be both a successful business women and mother, top of her game.

Step 2

Choose a subject matter that is offensive and stupid.  Make sure that it is something that some people are forced to deal with although nobody certainly wants to.  Some sample choices include:

• Addiction to Prescription medication
• Rape
• Child abuse
• Divorce
• Death/murder

Choosing the right subject matter is your path to dramatic gold.

Step 3

Chose an antagonist who is a man.  This is critical.  If at all possible he should be an attractive man who are heroine falls in love with but turns out to be the source of all her drama, ie, addiction to prescription medication, rape, child abuse, divorce, or death.

Step 4

Watch the magic unfold.

There is a name to my pain, and it is the Lifetime Original Movie.  I am completely and totally aware that I am about to isolate all three of the women who actually might peruse through my postings on a weekly basis, but please I beg of you, hear me out.  Both my wife and my mother are amongst you.  That means some of the most important people in my life share your same disease.  I come with a syringe full of hope.  Tomorrow is a brighter day.

I used to come home from work to see my wife glued to some two-bit Lifetime Original Movie on a regular basis.  As I pulled into the drive way I could feel the cold weepy mood emanating from the cracks beneath our doors and out of our window panes.  Before even entering the room, I could smell the half-eaten carton of Ben and Jerry’s and I could literally feel the burn of cheap tissue underneath my tear ducts.  I wonder what my neighbors must think.  I fear for my posterity.  I don’t want my son to approach me one day and ask me, “Daddy what is wrong with Mommy.”  Yes, my wife shares your addiction.

Before you accuse me of not knowing what I am talking about, I have sat down on occasion to see what on earth my beloved could possibly be watching.  I solemnly testify that every second I sat there, gazing at the retardo-box made my Mr. Y Chromosome feel like he was dying inside.  I now know that such programming is not good for anyone, male or female, old or young, bond or free, black or white, etc. 

In hopes of weaning any of you who are suffering off of these movies I have provided a sample mad lib for you to try out.  It is to be used just like nicotine gum.  You might need to use it 3 or 4 times a day initially, but with time you should be able to reduce your usage until you are able to make it a full day with out some mundane drama in your life.

script.doc

And please, don’t lose hope.

Yours truly,

Joe Miller