With the recent passing of Bea Arthur, The Hallmark Channel is showing it’s respects for this extraordinary actor with a “Golden Girls” marathon today.
Known for playing two very liberated, opinionated and in the case of ‘Maude’, controversial characters, Bea excelled at her craft and left the two shows when she felt it was the right time, not when the programs dissolved into cancelation.
I just finished watching episode #66, “Dorothy’s New Friend”. This episode features Dorothy’s new friend Barbara, a snotty literary type who looks down on Rose and Blanche. In an effort to make amends with Rose and Blanche, Barbara offers to take all the girls out to an exclusive club for the evening. Sophia’s date, Murray Guttman, arrives in a powder blue tuxedo. Barbara speaks with Dorothy in the kitchen on the matter, where Dorothy discovers that Barbara won’t take Murray to the club because he’s Jewish. Dorothy realises she has misjudged her new friend and tells her to go to hell.
The line is delivered in the typical Bea Arthur manner: full of confidence and not overstated.
The problem is, Hallmark covered the line up with a really out-of-place, out-of-date laugh track. They censored the line “go to hell”.
Wow.
Bea Arthur chose to play the characters of Maude Findlay and Dorothy Zbornak because she believed in those characters and what they represented. The “Golden Girls” marathon on Hallmark Channel today is a touching tribute to her work, however, I really don’t think that Bea would be satisfied with the way these episodes have been edited.
It’s a shame. I thought Hallmark Channel had picked up the “Golden Girls” from Lifetime because they recognised a classic.
What they apparently recognised was the ad revenue.
