Extras

It all started when Caroline Goodson took us to a live taping of her father's game show "Card Sharks" for her birthday party. I would guess I was in 3rd or 4th grade, which would make it 1985 and me 8 or 9 years old. I thought it would be fun to go to a taping of my favorite TV show at the time, the Golden Girls. I remember that some other shows were debated, Family Ties, Cosby Show, but GG won out. It was my birthday in October and I invited about 10 girls. Living in LA and going to a "celebrity" kid school no one was much impressed by big birthday parties, but I felt pretty cool about this choice. My dad called to get tickets to the taping only to find out that they didn't allow children into tapings of live shows. My dad then bribed the ticket people with some REO stuff (he was the drummer for REO Speedwagon) and, voila, tickets were produced for an 8 year old's fantasy birthday. We arrived at the NBC studios and were quietly ushered onto the set. We sat in bleachers above and I remember thinking how cool it was to see GG's living room right there in front of us. The audience warm up guy was talking to everyone and getting us pumped for the show and he was very confused by the children in the audience. My dad had told me all the trouble he had taken to get us in so I was very nervous about being kicked out. The guy was asking us who we knew and who's kids we were and I quietly answered "nobody". My dad wasn't there he says (somehow my family has no collective memory of most of these one time childhood events. Things we did every year and the catastrophe we remember, but unless it was videotaped who knows what we were up to in the 80's) so that means that my mom was there with the kids by herself and she probably brought my younger brother and sister with us (she was and still is an everything-has-to-be-equal-and-fair-and-inclusive mom). The episode had camping in it because I clearly remember a tent sitting on the front porch of the ladies' condo. I didn't realize how many stops and starts there is with a live TV show and I remember it being a very long day. It was a funny episode though and we laughed and had a lot of fun. I loved seeing the ladies in real life. Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia right in front of me, just as hilarious as they were on TV. My jaded friends were quite impressed and I thought I was pretty awesome. It was discussed on the playground for days afterwards.

So that is my Golden Girls memory. What I can remember of my memory at least.

Now that you've practically seen the pilot episode of Golden Girls (or, at least, the most important parts: the outfits!), you may wanna start wondering about Coco, the Gay Cook who lived in the G'Girl's kitchen for the pilot and then mysteriously and completely disappeared forever from the world. (Note: The authors didn't include any pictures of him in the 'zine! :()

Coco liked to wear appropriate attire for a man in Florida: billowy Hawaiiany shirts, flowing white chinos, and a muffle of chest hair. But since Coco the Gay Cook disappeared from our lives with no explanation, we're left all sad and lonely and wondering what's up. To respond to your concerns, I took it upon myself to solve the mystery through the power of writing fan fiction! Mystery solved now, because I just wrote it to explain what happened in Casa Dorinda (and I just named their house Casa Dorinda! see, fan fiction is fun!) after the first episode ended but before the second episode began.