Clueless Starring The Golden Girls Is The Best Parody You Probably Forgot

With awards show season comes highs and lows, snubs and upsets, and more telegenic celebs than you can shake a stick at. Awards shows of years past have also produced some of the best parodies committed to the small screen, in part owing to the jarring mash-up of pop culture touchstones. The MTV Movie Awards are especially known for their parodies, whether it was "Sex and the City" meets "The Matrix" in 2000 or when "The Brady Bunch" cast reenacted "Basic Instinct" in 1993.

The 1996 MTV Movie Awards featured the unlikely, hilarious combination of beloved sitcom "The Golden Girls," which aired from 1985 to 1992, and Amy Heckerling's 1995 film "Clueless." Thanks to a viral TikTok, the clip is experiencing a renewed burst of interest. Unsurprisingly, the comment section is full of fans wondering how they are possibly learning of the parody for the first time.

In the video, Estelle Getty — otherwise known as Sophia — plays Cher, Betty White, who played Rose on "Golden Girls," plays Dionne, and Rue McClanahan, who played Blanche, appears as Tai (though she also recites some of Amber's dialogue). The result is the elderly high school mash-up you never knew you needed.

The "Golden Girls" gals hit a lot of the same beats as "Clueless," emulating their characters' style (Betty White even dons Dionne's braids) and reciting rote dialogue from the movie as familiar needle drops from the "Clueless" soundtrack play in the background. "But seriously, I have a way normal life for a teenage girl," says Estelle Getty in voiceover as she flips a long blonde wig.

As expected, much of the gags stem from the actors' ages. "A C for a class on World War II history," quips Getty as she reads the grade on her paper. "Christ, I lived through the damn thing!" Her dad would be totally pissed, she guesses, if he were still alive. The ladies also feel right at home rattling off then-contemporary slang. "This whole grade thing is making me totally postal," says White's Dionne.

The clip also finds some common ground between the "Golden Girls" characters and their "Clueless" counterparts. "The 411 on Tai is that she's a big slut," says Getty as Rue McClanahan walks on screen in a curly wig. On "The Golden Girls," McClanahan's Blanche was similarly teased for her promiscuous reputation.

Given that "Clueless" and "The Golden Girls" alike are decades old, they have both maintained a multi-generational cult following, which certainly explains the TikTok's popularity. Fans gather annually for the Golden-Con fan convention in Chicago, and "Clueless" is still prominent enough in the cultural imagination that it was the subject of a Rakuten Super Bowl ad in 2023.