Episode 1: Who Actually Created The Golden Girls? The Executives and Producers S [0:00-5:00]

Welcome to the Television Academy Foundations, the Interviews Podcast. Founded in 1997, the Interviews, formerly known as the Archive of American Television, has captured hundreds of remarkable stories from television's pioneers, trailblazers, and visionaries. This season, we bring you exclusive insights from the masterminds behind the Golden Girls. In this episode, we're going back to the earliest days of the Golden Girls. Through the eyes of three people who were there at the very beginning, producer Tony Thomas, Disney Executive Richard Frank, an NBC programming executive Warren Littlefield, each offers a unique perspective on how the show came to be and its impact on television. Inside 30 Rock, a young programming executive named Warren Littlefield was changing the game and he would go on to become NBC's entertainment president from 1991 to 1998. He played a pivotal role in developing a slate of groundbreaking series like Seinfilt, Friends, and ER. These days, he's an executive producer on shows like Handmaid's Tale and Fargo. He was interviewed by Dan Harrison in 2011. Talk about the Golden Girls. How did that idea come about? On a hot August night, we were in Burbank, over at NBC, and we were shooting a promotional special for the fall lineup. It's a long boring night, to be honest. And at one point in the night, Selma Diamond and Doris Roberts get up on stage and they're introducing a clip for Miami Vice. Only the bit that they're doing is Selma Diamond starts calling it Miami Nice. And Doris Roberts is like, no, it's not Miami Nice, it's Miami Vice, it's like these hot young cops. And they were hilarious. I mean, they woke us up, perked us up. We were laughing at their banter. Meanwhile, we're shooting this as a promotional special, right? And then they rolled the clip. And shortly thereafter, within days, we'd had a development meeting. It was all internal and Brandon and myself. And we continued to marvel about just the comedic chops and the attitude of these two 50 plus women, these actresses. We kind of married that thought with one of those wonderful little boxes from USA Today, which would say, here's a snapshot of America. And if you're a 50 plus woman, you've got one and a billion chances of ever getting married again, ever this. And I mean, it was just like horrific odds against you. And we kind of asked ourselves the question, how about a positive look at a tough reality? That kind of a catenally-like notion of how do you be a single mom in New York? Well, you do it with your best friend that it's not so hard. Golden girls started as this kind of internal discussion of it doesn't, it doesn't have to suck to be a 50 plus woman in America. If you've got friends, you got people who you care about and love, then that's okay. I had a pitch with Witt Thomas. The writer came in and pitched me a show about a young female lawyer, office comedy. And I was polite and I said, yeah, that's not the show I'm interested in. I said, but I'll tell you the show that I am because I had great respect for Paul Witt and Tony Thomas. I said, here's the show I'm interested in. And the writer went, yeah, no, that's not interesting to me. And I was essentially pitching our Golden Girls idea. They got up and ended the meeting in the door closed. And then Paul and Tony hooked their head back in and said, we really like that idea, even though that writer didn't. And I went, well, we like it too. Once you get Susan Harris, she created soap. It's my favorite comedy of all time. And they said, we'll get back to you. They call me back an hour later. And they said, call Susan this afternoon at this phone number. And I said, really? And they go, she's interested. So Susan Harris never came in to pitch the show. I picked up the phone and I called Susan Harris and said, here's the idea that we're interested in. It has this spirit. It has this kind of philosophy around it. And Susan said, I love it. Will you guys ever put this on the air? And I said, well, Susan, if you love it