"After being in the business for such a long time, I've done everything but rodeo and porno."

May 13, 2008 4:22 PM

Oh happy day! It's Bea Arthur's birthday! Best Week Ever celebrates by posting her Top Ten Greatest Moments.

10. Premarin PSA - She's not kidding.
9. Sniff Swig Puff with Rock Hudson
8. Family (from Dreamgirls) with Barbara Eden, Nell Carter, Charlotte Rae, Punky Brewster (Soleil Moon Frye), Alfonso Ribeiro, and Marla Gibbs
7. Whoa
6. Doing a comedy bit with a seal
5. No, Rose. Hookers!
4. Maude theme song
3. Sex and the City
2. Star Wars Holiday Special - Cantina Song
1. Talking about Anal Sex (NSFW)

posted by spec80 (34 comments total)

Oh my god. This is amazing. That song with Rock Hudson transcends awesomeness. Oh, Bea Arthur...love her!
posted by youarenothere at 4:26 PM on May 13, 2008

I remember a parody of Jeopardy! in Mad magazine when I was a kid.

A. TV's talking horse.

Q. Who is Bea Arthur?
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 4:31 PM on May 13, 2008

"After being in the business for such a long time, I've done everything but rodeo and porno."

I don't know about the rodeo, but the porno ain't gonna happen. There isn't anyone who would fuck Bea Arthur's dick, even with Andy Dick's pussy...

Apologies to Jeffrey Ross Metafilter...
posted by hincandenza at 4:34 PM on May 13, 2008

Don't forget the time she wrassled a velociraptor! I heard she did it for sniff, swig, puff if you know what I mean. Damn, she freaky.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:34 PM on May 13, 2008 [4 favorites]

BEA ARTHUR IS MY JESUS.

/not fucking kidding
posted by SassHat at 4:36 PM on May 13, 2008

Malcolm in the Middle, dancing to Abba's "Fernando" with Dewey
posted by milkrate at 4:38 PM on May 13, 2008 [2 favorites]

Ambrosia Voyeur, that is awesome. It would be my new desktop, if not for the fact that it is broken up into minipics. Faved for screencapping at work tomorrow.

I love Bea. I hear she's good friends with my other favourite old dame, Angela Lansbury. A lunch date with the two of them would be heaven. In other news, I am the gayest man alive.
posted by yellowbinder at 4:41 PM on May 13, 2008

Oh my goodness, to hear Bea at the Pam Anderson roast in the #1 link talk about reach-arounds and trying to hold in a fart...

Nice list - I was going to post the immortal Star Wars Holiday Special appearance, but it's clear Best Week Ever did their homework.
posted by porn in the woods at 5:03 PM on May 13, 2008

spec80, you wonderful girl, thanks for the chance to give love to Bea Arthur. When I am sick or just blue there is only one thing that infallibly cheers me up and that's The Golden Girls and mainly, that's because of her. I wish that there was a Golden Girls channel, honestly (Lifetime doesn't count). It might cure cancer.

Here's a pretty good interview with her (in five parts).

Happy birthday and live forever, Bea. We need you. There just aren't enough hilarious, salty, and right on old broads in this mean old world.
posted by melissa may at 5:16 PM on May 13, 2008

Does Not Fempute!
posted by ND¢ at 5:31 PM on May 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

By odd coincidence, I learned just today that Bea Arthur is a former Marine.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 5:50 PM on May 13, 2008

Oh hell yeah. I <3>grande dames like Bea.
posted by loiseau at 6:11 PM on May 13, 2008

That should have said:

Oh hell yeah. I (heart) you, Bea Arthur.

Watching those clips and then turning on the TV in this day and age, it's even more clear just how vapid the majority of today's stars are compared to grande dames like Bea.
posted by loiseau at 6:13 PM on May 13, 2008

The Sex and the City thing was brilliant. I was afraid to watch the #1 video.
posted by grouse at 6:35 PM on May 13, 2008

My wife does not understand my love for Golden Girls but Bea Arthur has the greatest deadpan delivery in TV history.
posted by Mick at 6:35 PM on May 13, 2008

See. Look at what TV did. TV is schizophrenic entertainment for a schizophrenic society.

90% of our populace swears and drinks and fucks like sailors. Many Americans us smoke pot. Most of rent porn. But you wouldn't know that by our broadcast entertainment. Good GOD aliens must think we are the most boring thing in the universe.

TV makes us pretend there is this other reality where people are mostly bland and puritanical and one dimensional. It forces us to kowtow to that tiny fucked up idiot minority that think a naked tit or the word "fuck" is the worst thing on earth. in fact people get punished severely when they defy the edicts of this false reality. How fucked up is that?

TV took people with great free talent and wonderful foul mouths and gave them shit loads of money to be inane and dull.

And despite the fact that this dualistic goody-two-shoes behavior defies reality and everything we understand about human behavior only a few people were in the know — IOW: most people are surprised when Bea Aurthur says "Ass fuck."

When I bet my dear Mefites she has done it, or something deliciously as perverted, more than most of you combined.

But maybe this is good. Maybe it makes us appreciate our true and colorful reality that much more. Maybe that's why we love it when Bea Aurther talks about butt fucking.
posted by tkchrist at 6:46 PM on May 13, 2008 [2 favorites]

Quien Es Mas Macho? Ricardo Montalban o ... please don't kick my ass or mock me Bea.
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:47 PM on May 13, 2008

BEA ARTHUR BUILT MY HOTROD.

It's a love affair. Mainly between Bea Arthur and my hotrod.
posted by Afroblanco at 7:28 PM on May 13, 2008 [2 favorites]

"The Star Wars Holiday Special Cantina Song" is possibly the most insane thing I've ever seen.
posted by ornate insect at 7:41 PM on May 13, 2008

One would think that maybe her turn as Yente in "Fiddler on the Roof" might rate mention, seeing as how it's ... ya know ... the high point of her career and all.
posted by RavinDave at 9:43 PM on May 13, 2008

Oh my god, when I made my Star Wars-obsessed kindergartner watch my bootleg of the Christmas special, she was all "Who's the grandma?"

And I said "That is the universal grandma who lives in all our hearts".

Despite being the slut of my social group, I'm still the Dorothy Sbornak of us all, and that shall never die.

And then, there is Maude.
posted by padraigin at 10:35 PM on May 13, 2008

lol! Love Bea Arthur. Now I need to watch some re-runs of the Golden Girls...
posted by I_love_the_rain at 11:29 PM on May 13, 2008

90% of our populace swears and drinks and fucks like sailors. Many Americans us smoke pot. Most of rent porn. But you wouldn't know that by our broadcast entertainment. Good GOD aliens must think we are the most boring thing in the universe.

Interesting comments... for another thread.

The program "Maude" challenged that thinking by discussing things like abortion and homosexuality when it was still taboo. A character in a prime time TV program having an abortion was edgy stuff in the 1970s. Bea Arthur's "Maude" brought some reality of the social change that was going on into prime time TV and it made a lot of people uncomfortable. By so doing, she became part of that social change.

Broadcast entertainment might reflect the lowest common denominator, but it would be wrong to think it doesn't have both positive and negative influence.
posted by three blind mice at 12:14 AM on May 14, 2008

Most of rent porn.

Who rents? What is this 'renting'? Have you no internets?
posted by grubi at 1:27 AM on May 14, 2008

Good lord. Was this woman ever not old?
posted by Sparx at 2:53 AM on May 14, 2008

Bea Arthur, not old.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 4:46 AM on May 14, 2008

I want to be Bea Arthur when I grow up. She's good friends with Angela Lansbury and she hates Betty White? There's just no end to her awesomeness.
posted by orange swan at 6:15 AM on May 14, 2008

thanks for sharing this. all these stars together in one post! and Rock Hudson singing about poppers. freakin' hilarious!!
posted by kuppajava at 6:44 AM on May 14, 2008

Bea Arthur is totally awesome. It's unkind how she's become the butt of jokes (lol, she's old and sort of masculine). She's an amazing performer, can sing or do comedy or even do serious. She's not too proud to do something silly like Futurama or the Star Wars thing if the pay's good. She'll ham it up or play it straight or go maudlin, and do it professionally for your entertainment. And she's always totally groovy.

That drug song with Rock Hudson is absolutely amazing. They're not just holding stiff drinks, they're taking sips from them while singing about drugs. Also: Rock Hudson said "amyl nitrate". Pretty sure they understood that only 10% of their audience was gonna get that. The 10% who would be absolutely enraptured of a duet between Rock Hudson and Bea Arthur.

Happy birthday, gal.
posted by Nelson at 8:31 AM on May 14, 2008

What? Is Bea too good for porn? Betty White did it.
posted by dasheekeejones at 9:24 AM on May 14, 2008

Pix or it didn't ha-


what am I saying?!?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:25 PM on May 14, 2008

here's to bea! what a great dame.

my god, that drug song.
posted by rmd1023 at 3:41 PM on May 14, 2008

What? Is Bea too good for porn? Betty White did it.

Oh dear God, tell me you're joking.
posted by orange swan at 6:19 AM on May 15, 2008

Orange Swan

No, I'm not. She said she did it for money (pics only I believe). And yes, you can find them on the net. Depending on how you look at things, either it's neat or like seeing Goatsee for the first time. :)
posted by dasheekeejones at 10:12 AM on May 15, 2008