Hey everyone, PushingUpRoses here and today we’re looking at another episode of the
Golden Girls; to get you into the holiday spirit, whatever that means to you, I’m
covering a holiday themed episode called Twas The Nightmare Before Christmas.
There was another episode on the table called “Have Yourself A Very Little Christmas that
I also considered covering, but that one was heartwarming.
Not that there’s anything wrong with some yuletide cheese, but this episode gets a little
weird and I sometimes prefer that, so I had to choose: heartwarming, or weird?
Short haired Dorothy, or long haired Dorothy.
Profound Moral, or no moral at all?
I chose NO MORAL because clearly I’ve lost the holiday spirit and just want to fuck up
some shit.
I’m not going to explain the premise of the Golden Girls because I’ve gone over
it a couple times in previous videos, so if you feel inclined I recommend watching those
videos as well.
Though I’m not sure how you could possibly be unfamiliar, not with all these memes goin’
around.
As we begin, we see the ever insatiable Blanche bringing home a man, as she usually does.
It’s not any man, though.
It’s SANTA.
I think they might do more than just kissing underneath the mistletoe that night.
Is it just me or is this a poor excuse for a Santa Claus?
Where’s his white hair and spectacles?
Put some effort into it man.
Apparently Blanche really has a thing for the man in red,and the entire lore of Santa
Claus in red in general.
Blanche: “Maybe it’s the warmth of all that red, hot, sweaty flannel.”
This seems to be a recurring theme for Blanche, having a fondness for fantasy inspired characters.
Remember her spiel about princes and codpieces from the Henny Penny episode?
Blanche: “A handsome prince with a big old codpiece and deep, dark eyes…”
Not to mention the 7 dwarves.
Blanche: “Seven Lonely Men… living in the woods, needin’ a woman…”
Rose and Dorothy get home early from Christmas shopping, and Dorothy lamets that the holidays
don’t mean anything to her anymore because they’ve gotten so commercial.
Rose gets upset at Blanche for fooling around with Old Saint Nick and promptly throws him
out of the house.
Rose: “The only thing that better be on your mind is giving people what they want
for Christmas!”
Dorothy: “He was trying to, Rose.”
I’d like to focus a minute on Dorothy’s amazing stare - she is the queen of this particular
expression, a mix of bewilderment and snark.
They are even better than Sheriff Metzger’s expressions, or Metzpressions as I like to
call them, and I’d like to believe that Tommy Lee Jones was channeling Bea Arthur’s
energy with this fantastic look.
Sofia also gets home from shopping; I love that throughout the series, Sofia is shown
as very active and independent.
Even though she lives with Rose, Blanche, and her daughter Dorothy, she’s never portrayed
as unable to live her life in her older years.
After learning how much money everyone spent on Christmas gifts, Dorothy expresses that
the materialistic nature of the holidays is really bringing her down, and in an attempt
to bring some humanity back to it, suggests that they all return the pricey items and
make gifts for each other instead.
Good idea, I am a big fan of handmade presents.
Unfortunately all I can make right now skulls and spikey hearts; surely someone’s grandma
likes Hellraiser, right?
Pinhead: “We have such sights to show you.”
Rose makes Dorothy a maple syrup spigot!
I mean, that’s pretty impressive!
Granted I’ve never seen one, or used one.
Unless you count Stardew Valley, I was definitely using at least 5 at a time in that game, but
still!
Rose widdled it for hours!
I was a little disappointed to see that they only featured Rose and Blanches homemade presents,
I was pretty curious about Dorothy’s artistic skills, but Blanche’s is the only one that
matters.
Rose: “The men of Blanche’s boudoir!”
She makes them a NAUGHTY CALENDAR featuring her male suitors.
I love how much effort went into this; I’ve never thought of making anyone a calendar
of ANY theme before, so I am impressed!
It has hardback binding, and a snazzy cover with Blanche’s photo on it, titled with
a nice font…
I appreciate the effort.
Sharing is caring.
If I were going to make a calendar, it’d probably be the sexiest photos of Robert Smith,
then a quote from a Cure song next to it, in like… the Curlz font.
After talking about what the holidays are like in their hometowns and expressing happiness
that they all leave in the morning to see their families, they turn in.
Rose reminds them that she has work, and will need to be picked up before they head to the
airport.
The next morning we see Rose at work, which is a rare occurrence.
I think it’s interesting that we don’t commonly see the women at their jobs; they
talk about it when they are at home for the evening but there’s not a lot of emphasis
on it unless something important is going on with their careers - Rose seems to be the
exception, who has several jobs throughout the series and we get a glimpse of them every
now and then.
In the early seasons, Rose works at a crisis center, helping those with various issues.
It should be noted that not everything involving mental health is in good taste on The Golden
Girls - the show is still a net positive in how progressive it was, especially at the
time, but they definitely miss some marks.
Sofia: “...And she may have noticeable trouble digesting raw vegetables, but one thing she’s
not, is mental.”
However, Rose IS non-judgemental, and always willing to help the patients to the best of
her ability.
She is also the queen of rocking flannel dresses.
Blanche: “Hot, sweaty flannel!”
Just as they are about to leave, Santa strolls on in.
Blanche sees him, and because she finds men in Santa costumes totally arousing, she stops
for some festive flirtation.
Much to everyone's surprise, he whips out what appears to be a gun and holds them up.
Dorothy, terrified, shoves her purse at him and says he can have all of her money, but
he doesn’t want that.
He wants to force them to spend Christmas with him because he was lonely.
Playing Santa Claus is Terry Kiser, who was on another episode of The Golden Girls as
a Beatles Impersonator, and yes, it’s as silly as it sounds, but you may recognize
him from Carol and Company, or Weekend at Bernies.
Yep.
He played Bernie.
Do you remember that movie?
What the hell was that?
Santa tries to force them to open gifts and Rose just about loses it.
She’s normally very kind to people in need, but she will not stand by someone trying to
ruin Christmas for her.
He explains that nobody ever gives him presents or visits him around the holidays, so his
idea of getting what he wants is to force people to give it to him; what an entitled
D-bag.
He also mentions he chose the crisis center because when he quote, “had problems before”
this place always helped him.
So yeah, he fell out of therapy and into his old crappy ways, and instead of getting help
for them, he chose to dress up as Santa and harass people into opening presents.
Sofia, who was waiting in the car, wanders on in and asks what is taking so long.
She notices Santa has a gun and nonchalantly yoinks it from his hand.
*hard jab sound effect*
Sofia: “Dorothy, you call yourself an Italian?
You can’t tell the difference between a toy and a REAL PIECE?”
*jab*
Santa opens up and starts talking to Rose about his desperation and loneliness, and
actually ends up staying at the crisis center to talk to one of the therapists.
Good for him; never break your therapy routine just because you’re feelin’ better.
Shout out to my therapist.
Now the ladies can make it to the airport to get home and see their families.
They get there within 5 minutes of their flights taking off, start to board their planes, and
then…Announcer: “All trips from Miami have been canceled.”
The weather decides to rebel and the ladies find themselves stuck in Miami; on the way
home their car breaks down, and they end up at a roadside dinner on Christmas Eve.
Albert, the man working there gives them free cheesecake, and even though cheesecake is
the food of the gods, Blanche is depressed about not being able to see her family.
She decides to tell everyone a riveting story to cheer herself up; as she regales everyone
with her sordid tales, the owner drops by and asks them how it feels to be able to spend
the evening with family, implying that he believes they are related.
They say they aren’t, and Albert is bewildered.
He also tells them that he wishes he could be home with his family, but he needs to stay
and watch the diner.
Albert is played by Teddy Wilson, who was known for his role in Good Times and his prolific
acting career up through the 70s and 80s.
The ladies realize that yes, they are indeed family.
It’s a little too obvious and blunt for my tastes, but I do like a “you can choose
your family” or “your friends can become your family” type of scenario.
They’ve been living together for a couple years at this point so you’d think they’d
already consider each other family, but sure!
Christmas is a good time to figure it out I suppose.
I mention that this episode doesn’t really have a moral and I think that’s still true;
they weren’t really learning about good versus bad behavior, just coming to appreciate
each other as a family in a less than ideal situation.
Since they have each other, they decide to watch the diner for just a little while so
that Albert can spend some of Christmas Eve with his family.
After he leaves, Sofia notices it snowing outside, and they all go over to the window
to observe.
Rose decides to put on some holiday music and ends up pushing the wrong button on the
jukebox, and the episode wraps up to a rousing rendition of Surfing Safari.
Music: “Let’s go surfin’ now, everybody’s learnin’ how, come on a safari with meeee…”
Rose: “I think I pressed the wrong button.”
We’re all sick of Christmas music anyway, even though there is one song, the BEST song,
I love around the holidays.
Step Into Christmas by Elton John.
If anyone from the Lite FM in Chicago is listening, this song needs WAY more radio play, and Marshmallow
World needs way, way, way less.
I’m going to be honest, I don’t often watch The Golden Girls Christmas specials
- there are a few I revisit EVERY year from other shows I like; in particular the ones
from Hey Arnold, The Monkees, and I enjoy my fair of TV specials: A Muppet Family Christmas
and A Garfield Christmas.
I don’t even like Garfield but I watch this damn thing every year.
This episode of the Golden Girls, though fitting for the season, is a little lacking for me.
I think it’s because this show was still finding its groove in season 2 and there was
just a lot of weird shenanigans that I found kind of distracting, but there are some fantastic
lines from Dorothy in this episode, and I love seeing Rose lay into people.
I also like that even though the girls had each other at the end of the day, nothing
really went right for them.
Typically in a Christmas special, everything works out somehow, and people get to be with
their family.
Characters ALWAYS make it home for Christmas even under bizarre circumstances - that’s
the premise of every Hallmark holiday special.
That wasn’t the case here; they went through a lot of sitcom BS and didn’t meet their
end goal, but it was still a happy ending.
It’s definitely fun enough for me to want to put on alongside other holiday specials,
but when I go holiday, I go hard.
Yeah.
That’s right.
I watch The Mistle-Tones and MURDER, SHE BAKED, a Plum Pudding Mystery.
Like I mentioned earlier, the Golden Girls did have another Christmas episode in season
5 called “Have Yourself a Very Little Christmas”, and it’s a little more serious and grounded
in reality.
Plus Dorothy’s hair got a lot more fabulous and that makes my heart happy.
If you have an episode of the Golden Girls you’d like to see me cover, then leave a
suggestion in the comments.
Every now and then I read one, point at it, and say “Yes.
THAT is the one.”
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, or just a wonderful day no matter what you’re
doing, and until then, thank you for being a friend.
Hey everyone, thanks for watching my video on The Golden Girls - if you liked this one,
I have a couple more, but first: If you’re feeling the holiday spirit a little more than
usual and you want to donate to this show, consider becoming a patron on my Patreon campaign.
And if not, it’s cool.
It’s the holidays so I don’t expect people to throw money at me, but if you could be
so kind, a like, comment, and share would be a rather wonderful gesture.
If you aren’t sure if you want to subscribe and you need more content to base your decision
on, may I suggest a couple of my other videos?
On the left we have another Golden Girls breakdown, and on the right we have a video about Murder,
She Wrote.
I hope you consider giving them a view.
As always, I’ll see you in the next one.