Despite any alleged on-set feuding, the two shared an enduring friendship worth revisiting. And the joking that had them both in stitches is good evidence of that.
Rue McClanahan and Betty White ‘adored each other’
White and McClanahan worked together on Mama’s Family before The Golden Girls. “We adore each other,” White once said of her co-star (per E! News).
After White died, rumors re-emerged that her co-stars didn’t like her. If it was true, it didn’t often show in how they spoke publicly about each other.
“I love both Bea and Betty and got a huge kick out of each of them,” McClanahan wrote in her memoir My First Five Husbands…and the Ones Who Got Away. However, she did add, “Their relationship with each other wasn’t all I wished it could be, but it never interfered with their work.”
Meanwhile, Arthur told E! News, “It was a brilliant working relationship, everybody. There wasn’t a weak link in the whole thing.”
Rue McClanahan told Betty White a dirty joke about a man, a dog, and a pig
In a clip initially obtained by TMZ, White sits beside McClanahan on the famous wicker couch between takes on The Golden Girls.
We think fans of the show will delight in seeing them laugh together. However, these NSFW jokes won’t amuse every audience. So, fair warning before watching! White even tells one particularly raunchy one that prompts McClanahan to say to her, “Oh, Betty! Bite your tongue!”
However, White defers blame on that one. “Bea! That was Bea! Don’t blame me,” she giggles, claiming it was one Arthur initially reminded her of, showing the two were friendlier than some think.
Then, McClanahan says she heard a good joke that starts with a man, a dog, and a pig getting shipwrecked on a deserted island. That’s as far as she gets before White can hardly contain her delightful giggling. “I like it already,” she says long before hearing the punchline.
To summarize, the man in the joke thinks the “pig starts to look pretty good” in an intimate sense after some time, but the dog keeps attacking him when he gets too close. So, when a “beautiful blonde … world-class woman” unexpectedly shows up on the island, he says, “Will you help me? Will you hold that dog for me?”
