Designing Women

Julia Sugarbaker (Dixie Carter) is an elegant, sophisticated, outspoken liberal who is the co-founder and president of Sugarbaker & Associates, an interior design firm located in her own home in Atlanta. She is partnered with her younger sister, Suzanne (Delta Burke), an attractive, selfish, self-centered former Miss Georgia World, who invested her money but does not have an official position within the business. Naïve but sweet-natured Charlene Frazier (Jean Smart), who worked as a secretary for Julia's late husband, Hayden, also invested half of her savings at Sugarbakers and works as office manager. Charlene's next door neighbor and recently divorced best friend, Mary Jo Shively (Annie Potts), is the main interior designer of the firm and also a full partner.

Alongside the women, there is Anthony Bouvier (Meshach Taylor), an ex-convict who is hired as the company's deliveryman and later becomes a full partner. By late 1986, Julia and Suzanne's mother Perky (Louise Latham) comes for a visit with her outrageous best friend Bernice Clifton (Alice Ghostley). Perky does not stay long and moves to Japan, leaving Bernice in Atlanta, where she begins to spend time with the others.

Until 1991, these women spend much of their time debating about the everyday dramas around themes like being women in the business, the meaning of being southern and many other subjects. These five years show four or five different characters and their singular personalities that were able to deal with many situations, each of them showing progress and changes about their way of acting, never losing their essence.

By 1991, Suzanne decides to join mother Perky and moves to Japan as well, and Charlene moves to England with her husband and daughter, and after that, Julia and Suzanne's obnoxious cousin Allison (Julia Duffy) buys Suzanne's share and rents her house with Anthony and Charlene's sister. With her, Charlene's recently divorced also naïve sister Carlene (Jan Hooks) also accepts a job as their receptionist while Charlene is off to England. This lineup does not last long and Allison decides to pull her money out after one year of partnership, and by that time, the women meet wealthy sarcastic Texan Bonnie Jean Poteet (Judith Ivey), who also joins them. After seven seasons and 163 episodes, Designing Women started to lose its popularity and was eventually canceled by the network.

• Dixie Carter as Julia Sugarbaker, president and founder of Sugarbaker & Associates interior design firm. Elegant and classy, but outspoken and opinionated, Julia is known for her no-nonsense speeches from a feminist and liberal perspective. She is very protective of her sister Suzanne, even though she is usually the first one to criticize her egocentric statements. Julia is notable as a very talented singer, usually performing in her church choir and later on she also pretends to be a cabaret singer under the pseudonym "Giselle".
• Annie Potts as Mary Jo Shively, Sugarbaker's main designer. Mary Jo is a sarcastic but kind person and a devoted single mother of two.
• Jean Smart as Charlene Frazier-Stillfield (seasons 1–5; guest star: season 6), Julia's late husband's former secretary and now office manager of Sugarbaker's. Originally from a large family in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, Charlene is naïve and sweet-hearted, whose ditziness can be annoying for her co-workers. She's one of Elvis' biggest fan, worked with several big names while a secretary in Arkansas, like Sam Walton and Bill Clinton. Eventually, Charlene marries Colonel William Stillfield and they have a baby, Olivia. By 1991, they move to England, leaving her younger sister, Carlene, to fill in for her at Sugarbaker's.
• Delta Burke as Suzanne Sugarbaker (seasons 1–5), Julia's younger sister and a silent partner at Sugarbaker's. A former beauty queen, Suzanne is self-centered and vain. Thrice-divorced, Suzanne usually dates wealthy elderly men who are terminally ill. During the series, she deals with weight gain and confronts issues of body image for women. In 1991, Suzanne sells all of her shares and moves to Japan to live with her mother.
• Meshach Taylor as Anthony Bouvier (recurring: seasons 1–2, main: seasons 3–7), an ex-convict and a law student, who works as Sugarbaker's delivery man until 1990 and then becomes a full partner. Anthony is very close to his co-workers but develops a special relationship with Suzanne throughout the series. After being dumped by his girlfriend, Vanessa Chamberlain (Jackeé Harry), BJ sets up a trip to Las Vegas where a drunk Anthony marries a Folies Bergère singer, Etienne (Sheryl Lee Ralph). Eventually he falls in love with her and tries to make the marriage work.
• Julia Duffy as Allison Sugarbaker (season 6), Julia and Suzanne's conservative cousin who becomes a partner at Sugarbaker & Associates. Allison comes from New York City for a visit after buying Suzanne's shares and decides do move back to the South, taking possession of Suzanne's house as well, which Anthony had been renting. They eventually became housemates, but are always arguing because of her attempts to throw him out. After one year being a partner at the design firm, Allison decides to invest in a Victoria's Secret franchise, leaving Atlanta and Sugarbakers behind.
• Jan Hooks as Carlene Frazier-Dobber (seasons 6–7), Charlene's naïve sister from Poplar Bluff, Missouri who becomes a receptionist at Sugarbaker's after divorcing her car salesman ex-husband, Dwayne Dobber.
• Judith Ivey as Bonnie Jean "BJ" Poteet (season 7), a Texas millionairess who becomes a Sugarbaker & Associates partner after Allison sells her shares. Her late husband James Poteet, a successful tycoon, had a heart attack during their wedding reception, leaving her the control of his Atlanta-based company, Poteet Industries.

Angelo Marre House, Little Rock, Arkansas

The exterior of the house seen in the series as the location of the Sugarbakers' design firm is the Angelo Marre House located in the historic Quapaw Quarter district in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The home of Suzanne Sugarbaker seen in the series is the Arkansas Governor's Mansion, also in the Quapaw Quarter. Both homes are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

When the show debuted in CBS's Monday-night lineup in 1986, it garnered respectable ratings; however, CBS moved the show several times to other time slots. After dismal ratings in Sunday night and Thursday night time slots, CBS placed it on hiatus and was ready to cancel the show, but a viewer campaign saved the show and returned it to its Monday night slot. The show's ratings solidified, and it regularly landed in the top 20 rankings.[9] From 1989 through 1992, Designing Women and Murphy Brown (which also centered around a strong, opinionated female character) aired back-to-back, creating a very successful hour-long block for CBS, as both shows were thought to appeal to similar demographics. The show was a top 30 hit for three seasons, from 1989 to 1992, in which the 1989–1992 seasons made it the most successful of the time and helped CBS, which struggled in the ratings around the late 1980s. A move to the Friday night death slot in fall 1992 caused ratings to fall again and the series to be canceled.[10]

Show creators Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and Harry Thomason were strong supporters of longtime friend and then-Democratic nominee for President of the United States, Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary. In one episode, Julia is stranded in the airport while attempting to attend Clinton's first inauguration. Additionally Charlene mentions working for Clinton during his Arkansas governorship. Yet another Clintons-related joke was the introduction of the prissy character, Allison Sugarbaker, who makes it quite clear to the others that she attended Wellesley College (Hillary's alma mater). One episode revolves around Julia running for commissioner, where she debates on television against a conservative candidate, to whom she eventually loses. In reality, Dixie Carter was a libertarian-leaning Republican who disagreed with some of the liberal views expressed by her onscreen character, although she did become a Clinton supporter. Carter cut a deal with the Thomasons in which Julia would sing a song in a future episode for every liberal-leaning monologue.

Shout! Factory has released all seven seasons of Designing Women on DVD in Region 1.[11]

On September 2, 2003, Sony Pictures released The Best of Designing Women, a single-disc DVD featuring five episodes ranging between seasons one through four: "Designing Women (Pilot)" (season 1), "Killing All the Right People" (season 2), "Reservations for Eight" (season 2), "Big Haas and Little Falsie" (season 3) and "They Shoot Fat Women, Don't They?" (season 4).

On September 28, 2010, Shout Factory released Designing Women, Volume 1, a single-disc DVD featuring seven episodes from the first season: "Designing Women (Pilot)", "A Big Affair", "Design House", "I Do, I Don't", "New Year's Daze", "Monette", "And Justice for Paul".

On June 5, 2012, Shout Factory released Designing Women – 20 Timeless Episodes, aimed for casual fans to enjoy the series without buying full season sets. The 2-disc DVD set included the following episodes, ranging from seasons one through five: Disc 1 – "Designing Women (pilot)" (season 1), "New Year's Daze" (season 1), "Monette" (season 1), "Oh Suzannah" (season 1), "Ted Remarries" (season 2), "Killing All the Right People" (season 2), "Heart Attacks" (season 2), "Return of Ray Don" (season 2), "Big Haas & Little Falsie" (season 3), "The Wilderness Experience" (season 3). Disc 2 – "The Naked Truth" (season 3), "Stand & Fight" (season 3), "Nightmare from Hee Haw" (season 3), "Julia Gets Her Head Caught in a Fence" (season 4), "Julia & Suzanne's Big Adventure" (season 4), "Foreign Affairs" (season 4), "A Blast from the Past" (season 5), "And Now, Here's Bernice" (season 5), "This is Art?" (season 5) and "The Pride of the Sugarbakers" (season 5).

CBS ran reruns of the show in their daytime lineup at 10:00 a.m. (EST) from April 1991 to June 1992. Subsequently, Designing Women aired on the Lifetime cable network for over a decade. Despite its popularity, the show left the network on August 4, 2006. A 90-minute retrospective special, The Designing Women Reunion, aired on Lifetime on July 28, 2003, reuniting Burke, Potts, Smart, Carter and Taylor in which they shared memories from their time on the series, and also featured interviews with the Thomasons and various writers. Actors Alice Ghostley, Hal Holbrook, Gerald McRaney, and Richard Gilliland also took part in the special.

The series also aired on Nick at Nite beginning October 2, 2006; however, it quickly left and later appeared on its sister network TV Land, airing at various late-night and morning times occasionally until the network lost the rights to air the show in 2008. The series also aired on ION Television in 2007, Monday through Thursday at 7:00 & 7:30 pm ET.[12] The show currently airs nightly, Monday through Saturday, on Antenna TV, two episodes back-to-back starting at 11 pm, immediately followed by two back-to-back episodes of Murphy Brown at midnight and 3 am

The program currently airs on the Comedy Gold (formerly TV Land Canada) in one-hour blocks every day at 11 am and 5 pm EST. TV Guide Network also began airing a one-hour block weekdays at 11 am EST in October 2011 and currently airs a two-hour block, weekdays from 3:00 pm (EST & PST) to 5:00 pm (EST & PST).

As of May 2014 reruns air on the LOGO network.

In recognition of the show's 30th anniversary, GetTV began running the series in June 2017 with nightly blocks featuring 30 fan-favorite episodes, after which the series began airing regularly on the network. Also in June 2017, FETV is also showing reruns of the show.

As of August 28, 2019, the entire series is available for streaming on Hulu. The episodes are not the original episodes aired on CBS, but syndication versions, which contain an altered opening credit sequence and choppy edits to allow more time for commercials.

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