Filthy Rich

Unfortunately, the storylines from the third episode forward didn't keep up the standards. First, they replaced Slim Pickens as the late "Big Guy" Beck with Forrest Tucker. Although a great actor, Forrest just didn't come off as funny as Slim did. (Unfortunately, I believe they had no choice, as that was about the time Slim passed away.) The banter between Delta Burke and Dixie Carter was incredible, and the addition of Nedra Volz as "Big Guy's" ex, whose elevator didn't go to the top, whose porch-light was on, but nobody was home, helped as well. If only the story-lines kept up the standards set by the first two, maybe the series would have lasted.

Even with that being said, this series should be released, as the first two episodes make the whole series worth having. (I was beside myself when Dixie Carter told Delta Burke to "shove her Mary Ann Mobley act into a hatbox and hit the road.")

I remember watching this show during the summer. It was truly hilarious, especially if you were a fan of "Dallas" and "Dynasty" and other nighttime soap operas since this show was a spoof of them. Dixie Carter, Delta Burke, Nedra Volz and Ann Wedgeworth were are all hysterical in their roles and made the show the side-splitting comedy it was. We all know Delta Burke and Dixie Carter went on to play the Sugarbaker sisters on "Designing Women." Nedra Volz was a guest star on many shows and played one of the maids on "Diff'rent Strokes" for a while. Ann Wedgeworth played Dan Conner's mother on "Roseanne" and also played sex-starved neighbor Lana on "Three's Company" for one season (1979-1980); she was always hitting on Jack Tripper. (She was probably added to fill the void left by Mrs. Roper, who was also sex-starved, when the Ropers left "Three's Company" for their own spin-off show.) Like many others posted here, it would be great to see this show again.

I would also like to see "The Nutt House" with Cloris Leachman (Phyllis from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show") and Harvey Korman (from "The Carol Burnett Show"). This show ran on ABC for about one month in 1989. If you blinked, you missed it! If you liked "Filthy Rich" you would most likely enjoy this show, too. It was full of funny and witty dialogue, zany sight gags and screwball antics. But it never got a chance. I think both shows were, unfortunately, way ahead of their time in their type of humor and just did not catch on with most viewers.

It's a shame both of these shows did not run for years. Hopefully, they will show up soon somehow. DVD releases would be wonderful. I'm hoping that the great cable channel TV Land will at least trot them out for a mini-marathon. Are you listening, TV Land??? :)

There's no way to italicize Dixie Carter's delivery of the word "serve" with this particular forum, so that I will have to characterize it in prose. When Bootsie Westchester (breathily played by Ann Wedgeworth) worried aloud about what she would have to do if she got "a piece of gristle" at an upscale dinner party, Carlotta Beck (Dixie Carter's never been more caustic and haughty, but fun...) did a slow burn, and said, "We don't (shudder) *serve* gristle."

This sums up the basic us vs. them premise of "Filthy Rich." However, there were really two different rivalries for control of the family's wealth. Carlotta and Stanley were the Established, Recognized members of the family, but hated the gold digging Kathleen (Delta Burke, in her first former beauty queen-with-a-penchant-for-tiaras-at-the-dinner-table role), who was married to the recently departed "Big Guy." The second family feud was between these three "legitimate" characters and the "trailer trash" Westchesters, who recently discovered that Wild Bill was the Big Guy's illegitimate son,

and was in line for an inheritance, if they could all get along...

As a raw parody of "Dallas" and other night time soaps, the show was absolutely perfect in its timing. It appeared as a summer replacement program and was wildly popular. Critics hated it, but audiences demanded that the network put the show in its regular lineup in the fall.

Unfortunately, the show couldn't maintain the level of interest that it generated in the slow, dull, dog days of summer. Maybe the show was too "one joke" to sustain extended audience interest, plus the competition was providing new material, and it was no longer the only new fish in the pond.

The writing was bawdy, brilliant, and satisfying when U.S. audiences couldn't get enough of oil-rich families fighting and trying to out-maneuver one another. It's a shame that it never got the chance to grow.

I'm watching a few episodes of Filthy Rich right now, going through an old stockpile of VHS tapes. It is excellent! This would make a great addition to TV Land or Brilliant but Canceled.

I'm also amazed at how far backwards we've traveled, as some of the lightweight scenes of this comedy would never be permitted in the overly PC world of 20 years later. And that's sad.

Dixie Carter is great, Delta Burke is her perfect foil. The entire cast seems carefully crafted and perfectly chosen. The overly opulent sets are just as overblown as anything on Dynasty. The dialog is quick, the plots just ridiculous enough. I'll bet reruns of this would even have flown during the writer's strike, moreso than reality shows.

This show was utterly hilarious--one look at the cast list alone shows how much talent they had at their fingertips: Dixie Carter, Delta Burke (pre-"Designing Women") Forrest Tucker, Ann Wedgeworth, Slim Pickens, etc. The knives-and-dagger dialog between Carlotta (Dixie) and Kathleen (Delta) was some of the funniest and most quotable I've ever heard, including my favorite shot of all time (which happens to be missing from the IMDb quotes list): (Carlotta)"Yes, Kathleen has beautiful skin. It's from all that fresh air she gets on those early mornin' cab rides home." The style and characters remind me of other camp-filled projects, like Del Shore's play/film "Sordid Lives," or even BBC's series "Absolutely Fabulous." Maybe it was just ahead of its time. This show well deserves to be brought back on Nick at Nite or on Trio's Brilliant But Cancelled, or even DVD.