In West Hollywood in the 1980s, every Saturday night at 9:00 pm, you could hear "Thank You For Being a Friend" coming from every apartment:
Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down a road and back again
Your heart is true
You're a pal and a confidant
as gay men sat down for a surcease from the AIDS crisis to watch the adventures of The Golden Girls, four golden-aged ladies sharing a house in Miami. Somehow they always ended up with cheesecake, and we did too.
Then they would head out to the Rage or Mugi or the Faultline, hoping to end up like Matt Bomer in the top photo.
180 Saturday nights with cheesecake, hookups, and Sophia's one-liners. I'm misting up.
From left to right: Ditzy Minnesotan Rose, beset-upon Dorothy, horny Southern belle Blanche, and hanging back because the kitchen table only seats three, wisecracking Sophia.
Hulu has just dropped a 2025 homage to The Golden Girls, except it is set in Palm Springs rather than Miami, and it features gay men: ditzy Jerry (Matt Bomer), horny Arthur (Nathan Lee Graham), beset-upon Bunny (Nathan lane), and wisecracking Sybill (Linda Lavin). Lavin died in December 2024, but she appears in all ten Season 1 episodes.
I'm going to review Episode 1.6, "Maid Serviced," in which the guys hire a "sexy but unqualified" housekeeper.
Scene 1: I watch with the sound off to avoid annoying laugh tracks, but I'm imagining "Thank You for Being a Friend" as we zoom into Bunny's mansion (Bunny? what kind of name is that for a guy, regardless of how swishy he is?). It's the kitchen where the Girls ate cheesecakes, but now it's Arthur and Bunny at the table, Jerry cooking. Arthur complains about the leaky sink; Bunny, busily sorting his pills "by Jew," ugh, assures him that a plumber is working on it now, and Jerry says that he dated a plumber once, with no details or dirty double entendres. Come on, Blanche, say something about your pipes!
The pill-sorting turns into a girl-group song: "He had it coming." This is painful to watch. Why is it that gay guys on tv act nothing like any gay guy I've ever met in real life?
Scene 2: Jerry asks if it's ok to store his energy drinks in the fridge. Arthur: "I can answer for her. Miss Havisham wants everything arranged like it was when she still had hope." Calling gay men she? Come on, is it 1958?
Left: Jerry's junk.
Mom enters and announces that the housekeeper quit. She said she didn't sign up to clean for three men. "I told her, what three men ? They're gay. Together they barely add up to one." Being gay makes you a woman, I get it. The Will and Grace gang used to say the same thing.
Bunny wants to prove that it's the other guys' house, too, so he suggests that the three of them work together to hire a new housekeeper. Mom: "What about me? Did women lose the right to vote?" Not right now, but by summertime, probably.
Scene 4: Interviewing an applicant who podcasts about her cleaning hacks. "I'm obsessed with cleaning. My friends say I'm a little anal." Jerry: "My friends say that, too." He has gay sex, har har.
She demonstrates her trick for opening a jar. "There's nothing too tight for me to open." Looking at you for a dirty double entendre, Jerry. Nope, Arthur says it.
"We're all impressed, and think you would be perfect..." The next applicant, hunky Bo (Adam Hagenbuch), comes in..."Sorry, the job is filled." I saw that joke coming a mile away. Jerry, I said "coming." Where's your dirty double entendre?
The complement him: "You're so handsome, you should have a one-man show, Bo on Broadway. People would come to that. I'd come every night." There it is.
The interview: He's been in Palm Springs for two months. He came with his boyfriend, but they've broken up, so he's single.
Gay and single! The guys squeal and shriek with absurd over-eagerness, as if they've never seen a hot guy before. Come on, this is ridiculous.
They're ready to hire him, but he's confused. "What about the push-ups? In every other job interview, I have to do push-ups." Naturally.
While they are watching with absurdly over-eager glee, Mom calls Bunny into the kitchen and warns, "Never hire someone that you want to schtup." It's ok if you don't pressure them into it. Bunny insists that he is the best qualified.
More after the break. Caution: Explicit.
Scene 5: Morning. The guys are wearing sexy or elegant outfits to impress the new housekeeper. He enters and flirts with Arthur but not Jerry, which actually turns him on. "Wow, moist as a Bundt cake," Bunny comments. I would have no idea what this means, except that I've seen "The Righteous Gemstones," where Judy mentions her "moistness" frequently.
So Jerry is attracted to men who ignore him, Bunny to men who think he is butch), and Arthur if they have a bubble butt. Hunk, eavesdropping, gets a sneaky idea
Right: Reputedly Hunk's Junk.
Scene 6: As Bunny leaves the shower (in a caftan, with his hair bundled up), he sees Hunk in his bedroom. "I..um..was just cleaning up." He gets Bunny to help him lift the mattress, and complements him on his muscles. "Do you lift?" Bunny proudly displays his 5-pound dumbbells, har har.
Then: "It's cool that you don't mind living with two gay guys, as a man," har har. Buny swoons. Someone thinks he is straight! An amazing complement. So being straight is much better than being gay. Who are you, Quentin Crisp?
Scene 7: On to Jerry in his spiffy pilot's uniform. He apologizes for not being around today to show Hunk his responsibilities, but Hunk says "Oh, were you gone? I didn't notice. Bye."
Inside, Jerry wonders why he's turned on by being ignored. Maybe because winning a reluctant guy is an accomplishment? Arthur suggests it's because of his self-hatred: he thinks he deserves rejection. "If only we didn't hate ourselves quite so much" -- "Boys in the Band," 1969.
Scene 8: Hunk lounging around when Mom shows up , yells at him for eating her cottage cheese with pineapple (ugh), and wonders why he isn't working. He explains that he doesn't want to clean, so he just "keeps the house happy" by playing to what the guys find attractive. Hey, you didn't do Arthur's fetish. Mom doesn't like this, but Hunk notes "I don't work for you. I work for the guys."
Scene 9: The guys in the hot tub. Jerry wonders why Bunny never takes his shirt off. "I took off my bottoms. Winnie the Pooh is all you get." He's not shy about his dick, but his chest is off limits?
Left: Nathan Lane in his first starring role, a heterosexual college student in the sitcom "One of the Boys" (1982). Dana Carvey plays his roommate.
They agree that Hunk is great, aside from the fact that he never cleans. Uh-oh, each thinks that Hunk is "obviously" into him, and the others are delusional They decide to ask which he wants to...um, date.
Scene 10: They call for the Hunk, but the Podcast Applicant from Scene 3 comes out instead. She complains that the Hunk was hot, but not very good in bed. What -- he was straight all along, just pretending to be gay to get a privilege denied straight people? That is so 90s.
Mom enters and announces that she fired the Hunk and hired the Podcaster, because "There are four people living in this house, not three." More specifically, "Women my age have to fight to be seen." So do gay men, girlfriend. "And I'm not going to be invisible in my own home. I may not be queer, but I'm here, so get used to it."
Kicker: To make up for her feeling invisible, Bunny gives Mom a gift: a replacement cottage cheese and pineapple to make up for the one Hunk ate. But can't she make more anytime? And she gives him something horrible in a call back to a joke I didn't record because it was too disgusting. The end.
Beefcake: Two of the three guys take their shirts off. Hunk doesn't.
Other Sights: None. The show is completely housebound. No other sets, no exteriors. This was commonplace in the 1980s, but now it looks old-fashioned and claustrophobic.
Gay Stereotypes: Way over-the-top swishy, Jack from Will and Grace tripled. But more concerning is the undertone -- sometimes blatant -- of self-hatred. Being gay is a problem that you have to overcome.
Plot Holes: The Podcaster references sleeping with the Hunk, but when did she have time? It sounds like Mom l fired him and then hired her, so they never even met.
Mom complains about Hunk not doing any work, but fires him because she feels invisible. Well, which is it?
Story Structure: Something is wrong here. The Hunk only worked on two of their interests: he should have done a third sexy thing for Arthur, and then something for Mom, like cook some Jewish delicacy. They built up a scene where they ask him to choose, but it didn't happen. So many missed opportunities!
Left: Jerry staring through Mom's legs. Why are they doing The Graduate? She is not trying to seduce him.
I don't really see distinctive personalities coming through. You can tell instantly which line came from which Golden Girl, but these guys are interchangeable. They're all horny queens who make the same kind of double-entendre comment. And Sybill's zingers do not zing at all.
My Grade: B.
Left: Linda Lavin as Alice (1976-85), who found fulfillment as a waitress at Mel's Diner, with her son Tommy (Philip McKeon, who grew into a hunk and dated one of my friends)
Ready for more nostalgia:
There's a new girl in town, and I'm feelin' good.
Got a smile, got a song, for the neighborhood.
And this girl's here to stay
With some luck and love, life's gonna be so sweet
See also:
Modern Family, Episode 5.6: Gloria's crush on Adam Devine, Phil's three-way and a nude Matt Risch. Also Nathan Lane.
Who is Bradley Cooper, and why is he ultra-famous. Played Matt Bomer's boyfriend
Mario Lopez: The hottest celebrity, the nicest celebrity, or both. He was on "Golden Girls"
I thought it was a funny show and the wondering hunks does not hurt either
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