and dig into the overnight ratings for the hit sitcom that aired in Saturday time slots for the entirety of its 1985-1992 run.. “She liked to have a good time at work. We laughed a lot. She was just the best.”
“We had a lot in common,” Thomas recalled. “We shared a lot of interests. She and I would go over the ratings very closely. She knew more about all of that than the other ladies.” One of White’s signatures in the guise of her “Golden Girls” character, the good-hearted Rose Nylund, was her wacky anecdotes about strange customs and locals she knew growing up in St. Olaf Township, a fictional Norwegian farming town in Minnesota. When writers and producers saw how well White delivered the first-ever tale crafted about St. Olaf, the immediate reaction was “oh, we have to lean into this,” Zimmerman recalled. “She told the stories in such a fun, innocent way.
Thomas credits the skill of the “all-star team” of stars for the remarkable longevity of “Golden Girls” as a pop culture touchstone. He notes that every so often, a new generation finds the show on cable, or nowadays on streaming platforms.