Golden Girls trivia-a story of success

Most of the episodes of 'The Golden Girls' had a somewhat similar plot though the performances by the lead characters made them look different. The plots start with the four women who face conflicts in their lives. The conflicts centers round problems involving family members, men in their lives and so on. Usually the discussions start among the women when they are eating or preparing food or sometimes when they retire in the night. Once the discussions start it would continue endlessly till someone either finds a solution or gives up in despair. There is nothing heavy or serious about their talks as generous doses of humour are always there to lighten up things.

The episode begins when one of the characters start telling the story of her life. Her story would have some sort of connection to the problem that is being discussed. Of course there were exceptions when the story had nothing in common with the problem faced by one of the characters. This happened when the story comes from the character of Rose. On the other hand nobody believed the stories told by Sophia as they all thought that she made up her stories just for the heck of it. When Blanche tells her story she tries to include the numerous romantic encounters that she experienced when she was back home in the south. Even Rose included her hometown experiences in her stories. Thus it was basically a flashback sort of thing. The interesting part was that by the time their stories ended the characters could find a solution to their conflicts.

So it was actually a simple storyline conceived by an NBC executive named Brandon Tartikoff and brilliantly created by Susan Harris. No one thought that the Golden Girls would become such a runaway hit though Tartikoff was very confident. It did and changed the fortunes of NBC in the realm of television entertainment. It was aired on Saturday night at prime time and soon established a cult of loyal fans. It left the other channels far behind in TV ratings though they tried every conceivable entertainment trick to heighten the competition