Femmes d'affaires et dames de coeur

One of things that bothered me about Designing Women was the loss of Delta Burke and Jean Smart leaving the show. Saturday Night Live's Jan Hooks and Newhart's Julia Duffy joined the cast but the show was never the same again. Alice Ghostley and Meshach Taylor were regulars in supporting roles. I remember watching this show on Monday nights when it first aired. They were four loud, opinionated, Southern broads with a sense of humor and chemistry. I truly could believe that Suzanne and Julia played by Dixie Carter and Delta Burke were sisters. I didn't care about Suzanne or Delta's weight. It wasn't an issue but people in Hollywood think that weight is a bigger issue than it should be. Anyway, I never saw the four women ever appear to be working. The place didn't look like an office but an actual house. I know they were supposed to be interior designers but I never saw them do any work. Anyway Annie Potts and Jean Smart were great as the divorced mom and single receptionist. I remember the episode in which Julia was a juror and she was invited to meet President Carter and his wife. Well she missed the dinner but they invited her for desert because of her obligations. It was a well-written show too and very well acted.

I just saw an episode of Designing Women entitled "Tornado Watch". In my opinion this was the best episode of the entire series. The writers and actors were at their peak of hilarity when they produced this little gem back in 1990. I've seen it many times and it never fails to make me laugh out loud. This particular episode had all the elements that made Designing Women one of the best television sitcoms in history. Dim-witted Charlene Stillfield makes a home video to send back to her hillbilly clan in Poplar Bluff. Aging beauty queen Suzanne Sugarbaker at her most 'PMS-on-a-diet' bitchy, shrieks "Happy Anniversary, Lois and Shimmy!" into Charlene's camcorder. Sassy single mother Mary Jo Shively is whining about some sexist pig again. Feminist Julia Sugarbaker is her usual cool-collected self but getting more frazzled by the minute. Ditzy senior-citizen Bernice Clifton drops by and so does Daddy Jones, an old mountain man. When Daddy breaks out the moonshine things really get zany. Ex-con Anthony Bouvier and his annoying girlfriend Vanessa groove to motown tunes in the background. It's an all-out madcap party. As Bernice and Daddy Jones dirty dance, Julia delivers the funniest line of the show, "I don't ever wanna see anything like this in my home again." Then, a nerdy client drunk on moonshine, strips down to bikini briefs and proceeds to sexually harass all the women. Luckily, a tornado rips through Sugarbaker's before things get too out of hand. The next day as everyone cleans up the mess, Charlene's outrageous home video airs on CNN...the perfect ending to this perfect episode. Many thanks to Dixie Carter, Delta Burke, Jean Smart, Annie Potts, Meshach Taylor and Alice Ghostley for making us laugh for seven great seasons. Now we can see them all again everyday on Lifetime. Enjoy!

For five seasons this TV comedy was a solid hit starring Dixie Carter, Delta Burke, Annie Potts, and Jean Smart as four friends and co-workers in an Atlanta interior design firm.

They shared their lives in a series of funny episodes that involved their work, family, friends, romance, and the sling and arrows of outrageous fortune.

The semi-regulars during these years included Meshach Taylor, Alice Ghostley, Hal Holbrook, Douglas Barr, and Richard Gilliland.

Starting around season 5, Burke and show creator Linda Bloodworth Thomason started fueding about Burke's weight and the zaniness of her character, Suzanne Sugarbaker. By the end of the season, Burke was out of the show and was soon followed by Smart, who wanted more time with her family.

Season 6 brought in Jan Hooks to replace Smart and Julia Duffy to replace Burke. While Hooks was mostly annoying, Duffy was an outright disaster as the unlikable Alison Sugarbaker. Neither actress came close to capture the warmth and humor of Burke and Smart.

Season 7 saw Duffy gone and with Judith Ivey coming in as a blowsy millionaire widow. An improvement, but the bad writing that plagued season 6, continued into season 7. Stupid storylines and predictable plots defeated anything the cast could do with the material.

Also, by season 6 the women talked about their design firm but their work was virtually erased from any plots. Taylor's character of Anthony also descended from a lovable and hapless man to a smug jerk. They eventually married him off to a Vegas showgirl (Sheryl Lee Ralph) which went nowhere.

Even the beloved and zany character of Ghostley's Bernice went from being loopy to being just one of the women.

In most shows in the last 2 seasons, they just sit around yapping. Meanwhile the production values of the show plummeted with sets that look like high school productions.

An attempt to spin off Taylor and Ralph into their own show, with Della Reese and Sherman Hemsley as her parents, flopped. The hit show went out with a whimper.

This show was funny most of the time--and a might preachy some of the time, but always fun to watch. As long as Delta Burke and Jean Smart were on the show, it really was great, but when these two funny women left the show, it went downhill FAST!! That means that the first five years of the show were the best and should not be missed. Suzanne, Charlene and Anthony were the funniest characters on this show and Julia was too preachy, while Mary Jo was a pain in the neck--always whining about something!!

Designing Women was WAY before it's time! It is relavant to the Women's Tell All Movement of today. The show should have gone to the big screen with such a great cast and the stellar performances they gave and with no profanities! Bring it back so the audiences can see good humor with the correct language.