The 'Friends' Set and 'Golden Girls' Set Have a Crazy Connection

No wonder Sophia and Monica were such trendsetters.

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Remember oh, roughly seven months ago, when Jennifer Aniston announced she'd be down to reprise her role as Rachel Green from Friends in a Golden Girls-inspired reboot of the show? This was in light of the news that Netflix was shelling out $100 million to keep all 10 seasons of the sitcom on its streaming platform. Well, in light of even more recent news—that the series will be leaving Netflix in spring 2020 to air on the upcoming streaming service HBO Max—a surprising connection between the two shows has emerged. And it's one every design aficionado can appreciate.

Friends and Golden Girls both had the same production designer. It's true: John Shaffner, the very man who helped bring Blanche Devereaux's Martinique banana leaf-covered bedroom to life also worked on Monica Geller's famously purple apartment. Both sets have ignited plenty of fanfare over the years—including plenty of questions about every detail in the decor.

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Golden Girls and Friends' Sets Took on Lives of Their Own.

"It's funny how people scrutinize things over time that at the beginning had no significance whatsoever," Shaffner told Jim Colucci in Golden Girls Forever.

He was referring specifically to the "exclamation point" many viewers pointed out on the living room door in Golden Girls (which he admits had no deeper meaning; it was just the way the paint dried), but it could just as easily apply to Friends. In fact, the inspiration behind an entire episode—the one about Monica's messy closet, called ahem, "The One With the Secret Closet"—was written to finally explain why there was a random door between the bathroom and balcony in Monica's home. A full eight seasons after it debuted.

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"We put a door all the way up this hallway, and we really didn't say where it went to," Shaffner said in an interview with Great Big Story. "I said, 'Why don't we just wait and see where the story's taken?'"

You can also credit Shaffner for suggesting to paint Monica and Rachel's apartment purple—he had originally imagined a white set, but the lilac walls helped anyone flipping through channels immediately recognize what they were seeing, encouraging them to stop and watch. And, under the direction of Ed Stephenson, Shaffner dreamed up some of the hallmarks of Blanche's house, like picking out the curved rattan sofa from Harvey's in Los Angeles (it was a sectional he had to "wire together," he told Golden Girls Forever). He's also the man who slept with Blanche's bedspread for a summer, out of paranoia someone would steal it in between shooting the pilot and the first season of the show.

There's One Friends/Golden Girls Fan Theory Worth Starting.

Many production teams have been known to share props among shows (the art deco wool rug in Golden Girls's living room was originally from a short-lived series called Condo, for example). There's no evidence that Shaffner reused anything GG-related when he worked on Friends, but there's one reference in Friends that had me spiraling down my own absurd fan theory: Could Ross and Monica's grandmother be none other than Dorothy Zbornak?! Or Dorothy's mom, Sophia?!

After all, in season 3, episode 6, Monica quickly explains what some deemed the biggest plot hole of the show: How the chef owns such a massive pad in Manhattan.

"This place is really my grandmother's. I got it from her when she moved to Florida. Otherwise, I could never afford a place like this," she says.

PLOT TWIST! The Golden Girls live in Miami. Dorothy and her mother, Sophia, are New York transplants.

Friends fans will note that Monica's grandmother is named Althea, and they met her when she died—twice—in an episode. But diehard fans, like CQ Director of Content Operations Lindsey Ramsey, will counter that Althea is not the grandmother who moved to Florida.

Let's cite the evidence:

  • Exhibit A: In "The One Where Nana Dies Twice" (season 1, episode 8), Ross and Monica rush to their grandmother Althea's bedside to say goodbye to her. All six friends attend her funeral, and they're back at their go-to coffee shop in Manhattan, Central Perk, the next day, reminiscing about Nana. This implies that Althea lived in New York (likely Long Island, since that's where Ross and Monica's parents lived), not Florida.
  • Exhibit B: At Monica's wedding, her mom says she wishes Monica's grandmother had lived to see her walk down the aisle. "She's right there," Monica says, to which M's mom replies: "Not that old crone! My mother," proving that Ross and Monica's grandmother on their father's side is alive and well. Even if she is a crone.
  • Exhibit C: Sophia is eightysomething on Golden Girls, and Monica does mention that if the landlord asks, she's really an 87-year-old who's scared of her VCR.

    And, since we've never met the living grandmother, who knows who she could be. Indeed, even the fanatics at list Jack Geller's mother as "unnamed." Out of everyone on the GG cast, Sophia's age aligns most closely—and she is from New York. Maybe Dorothy is Jack's sister he neglected to mention. Maybe they're estranged, and that's why Sophia never mentions them, either. (After all, Monica's mom did sound pretty bitter about the "old crone.") It's a longshot, sure, but in terms of fan theories, it's not the absolute most absurd one ever created. Maybe.

    To quote the philosopher king Lloyd Christmas: "So, you're telling me there's a chance!"

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    Okay, maybe that's taking things a smidge too far: What, there can only be one woman in her 80s who moved from New York to Florida?! But still, what a connection that would be. And such a seamless transition to that Golden Girls reboot.

    Cue the new theme: Thank you for being on Friends.

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