“A lot of sitcoms had minor continuity problems but GG seemed to revel in them. It’s like they put Estelle Getty in charge of keeping track of everything.” - Anonymous, Datalounge.com
So I’ve descended back in to the working world again, and I mean descended, cause its’ hellish indeed, despite the fact that I now work in a swanky Park Avenue high rise near the famous Lever House. Oh sure, on one hand, I seem to keep getting placed in jobs where I have like almost nothing to do and can sit and stare at the computer all day, on the other hand I have nothing to do and can sit and stare at the computer all day. My brain turns to mush and I have to push myself when real work is assigned to me. So far I’ve done about three-quarters of an actual normal person’s day’s work, all in the collective span of two weeks.My day usually goes like this – Raisin bagel toasted with butter, Spider Solitaire, Pitchfork, Page Six, New York Times (Dave Kehr’s DVD Reviews on Tuesday’s are a particular high point), Spider Solitaire, Film Forum, Bam, Moma, Walter Reade (any new movies coming out?), Spider Solitaire, Huffington Post, Gawker (by this point I’m desperate, cause I hate Gawker), FourFour, Disco Delivery, SpiderSolitaire…
REPEAT FOR THE REMAINING 8 HOURS
So I was thrilled when my friend Jeremy, who I luckily can IM with while pondering oblivion, told me about this amazing thread on the Datalounge Forums. Datalounge is this really fun gossipy site that’s basically all message boards with topics created and written by fags from the anonymity of their own homes. It’s so popular that you can never access it during what they call “Primetime Traffic” and they always try to get you to donate to it so you can get on it without waiting. They really ought to change the format and put up banners and make the whole thing free, but for some reason they don’t. This site is the best place for unfounded “I swear I know someone who knows someone who fucked him, and he swears he’s a homo” gay actor rumors. And there are lots of great posts about TV Shows and other mindless observations that usually crack me up.
Case in point, the most addictive message board thread ever:
THE GOLDEN GIRLS INCONSISTENCIES
This thread is about all the inconsistencies (not incontinences, jerks!) in the classic sitcom about four old broads played by Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Betty White, and Estelle Getty. The idea is to discuss all of the things that bugged people about the show – things that weren’t possible and which the lazy continuity errors the writers couldn’t seem to keep track of over the years.
For instance:
- “Stand By Your Man”, Season 6- Rose pleads with them to let her keep one of Dreyfuss’s puppies, but Dorothy thinks it would be unfair to leave a dog home alone all day and Blanche insists she will not allow a dog in her house. In “Questions and Answers”, Season 7- Rose is depressed so Dorothy and Blanche buy her a dog.
- Neither of Dorothy’s kids are over 30, although Stan and Dorothy got married when she was knocked up at 17 and they were together for 38 years.
- Blanche and Rose have different kids every time they talk about them.
- Rose said she was allergic to cats, the next episode was about how they all met and she had to move out of her old apartment b/c she had a cat. Rose also questioned how Dorothy could dislike her own sister. Meanwhile another episode had Rose hating her sister (Inga Swenson). The families, especially the kids, were all screwed up.
I could read this shit all day – in fact I have been, and have been thoroughly amazed at both the dead-on accuracy of all the errors pointed out – leading to an actual critical analysis and debate of many of the mistakes, as well as the utter hilariousness of the sheer idiocy of the whole discussion. I live for stuff like this. I have always wondered why most sitcoms keep the appearance of siblings and parents and relatives all very standard. When Colleen Dewhurst showed up in the first season of Murphy Brown, she showed up again every time they wrote her in – but Golden Girls seems to take the opposite approach. Sometimes two or more actresses showed up over the course of the series playing the same part – as if it was a David Lynch movie. And these were bit parts, I mean, couldn’t they have kept this straight? Apparently this irked many other fans on the boards. You will be amazed at the passion that goes into these posts. Some of these are also taken from tv.com’s Golden Girls inconsistencies page, which is a bit more tempered in its emotions, but also user generated.
After the jump are some of my favorites.
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