The Golden Girls Wouldn't Exist Without A Classic '80s Crime Show

There's a whole lot to love about the late 1980s NBC sitcom "The Golden Girls," which followed four single older women who all lived together in Miami, Fla. It's full of crude humor that helped reshape norms about female sexuality as women age, showing that they can still be sexy, filthy, and funny all with equal greatness, and it's really no surprise that it's become a sitcom staple. What is a surprise, however, is that "The Golden Girls" wouldn't have existed without another NBC series — one that was quite a bit more serious.

According to a 2005 Entertainment Weekly retrospective that interviewed most of the surviving cast and creative team, including series creators Susan Harris, Tony Thomas, and Paul Junger Witt, "Golden Girls" came to be after a 1984 network promo skit for "Miami Vice" tickled executives, featuring older female characters from "Remington Steele" and "Night Court" getting confused and calling it "Miami Nice." The idea of a series about older women in Miami was born, and as wild as it seems, none of it would have happened without "Miami Vice." 

"Miami Vice" was a serious and fantastic crime drama about undercover detectives Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) and Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) trying to fight the drug trade in 1980s Miami, which is a pretty far cry from the silver-haired hilarity of "The Golden Girls."

According to the retrospective, Witt and Thomas pitched a series to NBC about a female lawyer that didn't go anywhere, but the exec asked Witt if his wife, Susan Harris, would be interested in making a pilot, fleshing out the concept of "Miami Nice." Initially, Witt thought his wife would turn it down, but Harris was intrigued by the idea of writing a series about older women, and the rest is history. 

Harris ended up writing the pilot for what would become "The Golden Girls" right away, and while it broke quite a few sitcom conventions, it ended up being a huge winner for NBC, premiering at No. 1. Over its seven seasons, the series won 11 Emmys, including awards for "Outstanding Comedy Series" and one acting nod each for stars Betty White, Rue McClanahan, Bea Arthur, and Estelle Getty, and it has become a cultural touchstone referenced in everything from "Saturday Night Live" to "Arrested Development." It's truly hard to believe that we might never have gotten to hang out with the most fun old ladies in existence if it weren't for the effortless 1980s cool of "Miami Vice," but this is television after all, and weirder things have happened.