Ultimate Guide to Streaming Betty White

 When Betty White passed away on New Year's Eve she left behind a body of work that dates back to the beginning of television in this county and goes all the way through to a recent blockbuster movie. Thanks to steaming services, we can sample a large portion of her filmography. Here's a sampling of some of the incredible legacy of Betty White that you can easily find and enjoy...

 

The crowning jewels of Betty White's filmography are the two most popular sitcoms she was involved with: The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls. Luckily, the entire run of both of these classic shows can be found on Hulu. Betty White joins the cast of Mary Tyler Moore in Season 4, appearing sporadically and then becoming a permanent fixture on the show for Seasons 5-7. The best introduction to her character Sue Ann Nevins the "Happy Homemaker" is S4E1 "The Lars Affair." Betty is also present for S6E7 "Chuckles Bites the Dust" which is often considered one of the single funniest episodes of a sitcom ever. 

The Golden Girls features Betty White's most memorable performance as Rose Nylund. The show ran on NBC from 1985 to 1992 and was a big hit for the network. Reruns of The Golden Girls have become a staple of late night television over 30 years after it's debut, running on several cable outlets all night - every night. Watching the show on Hulu not only gives you the opportunity to watch every episode in order but my experience has been that the commercials are dropped in the right places. When the show is on television now, it is a re-edited syndicated package where the episodes are slightly trimmed and the pacing is off due to shifting the commercial breaks around. Sitcoms are written and edited with the commercial breaks in mind and having these shows in their pure original form is the best way to experience the brilliance of The Golden Girls, or any sitcom for that matter. 

Hulu has also recently blessed us with The Golden Palace, a 1992-1993 spin-off/continuation of The Golden Girls. When Bea Arthur left the show, the producers switched up the setting and had the remining girls buy a hotel and run it. It aired for one season on CBS before getting canceled and since then has only showed up briefly on Lifetime in the mid 2000's. I loved this continuation when it was originally on and I'm currently making my way through all 24 episodes on Hulu. Many people dismiss this show simply because Dorothy is missing and the first few episodes are a bit unusual and clunky as the show finds it's footing. But by the seventh episode, the show is running fully as an 8th season of The Golden Girls. It's a great show and another 24 funny episodes that most people haven't seen.

While we're on Hulu, let's talk about To Tell The Truth. Betty was known as the Queen of Game Shows, not only did she love playing games but she's appeared on dozens of game shows since TV's earliest days. One of her first game shows to guest on was To Tell the Truth, which was recently rebooted in 2016 with host Anthony Anderson. Betty White is a panelist on the first 5 episodes and those along the rest of the series can be found on Hulu.

Mrs. White also did guest spots on dozens of episodes of shows including the Damon Wayans family sitcom My Wife and Kids. I've never really seen this show before but I just watched S4E26 "The Maid" (guess who Betty plays) and I found it not only very funny but it's also kind of a tribute to the magical nature of Betty White. It's definitely worth checking out. Now is also a good time to mention Hulu is the streaming home of Family Guy and Betty can be heard in S4E24 "Peterotica."

We mentioned Betty White's love of game shows and a cool find to stream is a week's worth of the classic game show Password Plus. Amazon Prime and it's spinoff service IMDb TV has all five episodes from the week of 2/5/1979 available listed as Season One episodes 20-24. Here you'll see her play her favorite game along side her favorite game show host, husband Allen Ludden. I love finding old game shows, especially when they feature celebrities, and these episodes are very fun to watch and play along with, plus you get to see Betty unscripted. 

Another unique find in the Betty White catalog is her 1999-2001 CBS sitcom The Ladies Man, which popped up on free streamers CRACKLE and PLEX late last year. The short lived show stared Alfred Molina as a husband and dad living in a house full of women. The sitcom all-star cast included Sharon Lawrence, Stephen Root, Dixie Carter, Park Overall and even Kaley Cuoco. Watching pros like White and Carter bounce off each other with precision comedic timing is an absolute joy to behold. This show is pretty good although the storylines always revolving around sexual politics gets a little tiresome.

A much more polished and successful sitcom is Hot in Cleveland, the first original sitcom from cable channel TV Land. The series ran from 2010-2015 and stared Valerie Bertinelli (One Day At A Time), Jane Leeves (Frasier) and Wendie Malick (Just Shoot Me) as three middle aged women who make the move from Los Angeles to Cleveland, OH. Betty White originally singed on for a guest appearance in episode one and had so much fun she ended up as a regular for all 6 seasons. Every episode can be found on Paramount+, and what I really love about this show is that Betty White's character, Elka, is usually not at the center of the storyline which allows every single line she delivers to be absolutely hysterical. Pamamount+ also carries The Roast of William Shatner. This off-color 2006 Comedy Central special is credited as the key element in jump starting the resurgence of Betty White's career in the later part of her life.

It's that pop culture breakthough that led her to host a legendary episode of  Saturday Night Live on May 8, 2000. This is a fantastic episode from start-to-finish with Betty appearing in every single sketch including Weekend Update. Although you'll only find an edited version to stream, S35E21 can be found on both Hulu and Peacock.

Life With Elizabeth is a 1953 sitcom staring Betty White. Each episode consists of three vignettes of very gentle humor. It's currently available on Prime Video, The Roku Channel, Tubi, PlutoTV and Plex. There's another 50's sitcom she stared in, Date With the Angels, which I find to be very entertaining. It's on Roku Channel and Tubi.

There's a pretty solid biography called Betty White: First Lady of Television, currently on Peacock. You can learn about Betty's love of animals in the documentary Betty White: Champion for Animals found on Tubi and Hoopla. Betty hosted a talk show about animals in 1971 called The Pet Set, where celebrities would visit with their pets. The series has been unavailable until it was released on DVD and digital earlier last year. You can stream the show for free on Tubi, Crackle and Plex. There's also a 2013 television special Betty White Goes Wild, which deals with Betty's love for lions, tigers and other big cats. The National Geographic special was recently added to Disney+.

Disney+ is also home to a vast library of Betty's voice over work. She played Mrs. Claus in the charming animated short Prep & Landing: Operation Secret Santa. She also lent her voice to the elephant movie Whispers: An Elephant's Tale and animated series Hercules S1E52 "Hercules and the Fiff on Olympus" and Teacher's Pet S2E19 "The Turkey That Came To Dinner". Two episodes of The Simpsons feature Betty, S11E15 & S18E16. Betty plays the old toy Bitey White in both Toy Story 4 and her final credited performance in an episode of Forky Asks A Question S1E5 "What is Love?"

There's another animated oddity you can find over at Peacock, the adult series Father of the Pride about Sigfried and Roy's White Lions. Betty White guested on S1E4 "Donkey" which also features Eddie Murphy reprising his Shrek role.  

Betty White made numerous appearances on The Carol Burnett Show. Tubi carries the syndicated edited episodes, I was able to find Betty hanging out in S10E12 and S11E21. She was also the guest of honor on an episode of Dean Martin's Celebrity Roast S1E4 available on Prime Video.

My last crazy, cool find from the amazing life of Betty White is, what appears to be the only surviving episode of, her brief talk show The Betty White Show. I found the November 29, 1954 episode streaming on a Roku channel/app called ZP TV Direct. Do with that information what you may!

And here's some of Betty White's movie credits that I found streaming...

*Hard Rain (1998) Cinemax

*Dennis The Menace Strikes Again (1998) Hoopla

*Holy Man (1998) Hulu

*Lake Placid (1999) AMC+

*The Retrievers (2001) Peacock, Tubi, Prime

*Bringing Down the House (2003) Prime

*Annie's Point (2005) Up Faith & Family

*Ponyo (2008) HBOMax

*Love N' Dancing (2009) Roku Channel, Tubi, Plex

*You Again (2010) Disney+

*The Lost Valentine (2011) Hallmark Movies Now

*The Lorax (2012) Peacock

*Dog Gone Trouble (2019) Netflix

A new special Celebrating Betty White: America's Golden Girl airs on Monday, Jan. 31 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and will be available to stream on Peacock the following day.

As we all know, things come and go from the streaming services on a monthly basis. These listing are correct as of 1/19/2022

Disney Play - A Disney Streaming Service Wish List

It's been no secret that the Disney Company is planning on launching their own television streaming service and recent details have emerged that the service will probably be called Disney Play and will be available sometime in 2019. The new venture is being hailed as a "Netflix-killer" in that it's going to be the first streaming network to really go after taking a chunk of Netflix's market share.

Of course the biggest hit Netflix will immediately take is that most of the Disney programming on Netflix will be gone at the end of this year and assuredly pop up again on Disney Play once it's off the ground. Disney Play also has announced their plans to provide top-notch, buzz-worthy original programs and films to their service. There has already been a live-action Star Wars series announced, as well as a new Marvel show and a series based on Monsters Inc. The slate of original films they have announced includes a live-action remake of Lady and the Tramp.

While I'm sure the majority of Disney Play's marketing will push the big name movies and original programming, there's also the matter of Disney's vast library of film and television that will hopefully have a home on the service as well. As a huge Disney buff, I'm really hoping that the luxury of not having to worry about ratings and the low cost of using stuff from their own library, will lead Disney to provide some obscure, vintage and off-beat materials from their vault. Sure, I'm excited about seeing the latest hit movies in my living room, but I also want to watch a 1959 television special with Walt Disney promoting the Matterhorn at Disneyland. I realize I'm not the exact market they are going for, but it would be great if Disney Buff's had some extra stuff to look forward to.

This is just a personal wish list; but here's 10 things I'd like to be able to have access to once Disney Play is streaming across the internet!

GOLDEN PALACE - With the surprising cult-like success The Golden Girls has found now 30 years after it's debut, it's no wonder we haven't seen more of the show's spin-off continuation. The Golden Palace aired on CBS the fall directly after The Golden Girls closed up shop on NBC. Dorthy had married and moved away, so of course the remaining three ladies went in together and bought a hotel and worked there. They also hired Don Cheadle and Cheech too!  Obviously the show wasn't quite as good as the original series, but I always thought it was pretty darn good too. It was certainly better than saying goodbye all-together to Blanche, Rose and Sophia. It was just as funny as any other show in it's eighth season, alas CBS gave it the boot after one just one year.  Golden Palace has never been released on home video in any format and reruns on television have been scarce. It seems like the classic series in on TV all day long and that people would want to see 22 new-ish episodes. I think this would be a great addition to Disney Play and something they could actually use in promoting the service.

COMPLETE SEASONS OF WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISNEY - The Wonderful World of Disney was the Disney company's signature show which ran for several decades in one form or another under numerous titles. The show was an anthology series made up of original episodes and often theatrical films shown in multiple parts.  While a few vintage episodes of the series have been made available in recent years, the series as a whole has never been offered because honestly, why would anyone want to watch a movie cut up into episodes and shown in black and white!? Well, I don't know how much it costs to make shows available to stream/download but it seems like the format of having a huge back catalog of programming would make an opportune time to finally release a few seasons in their entirety. Now some of this would be only to the appeal of a die-hard Disney fan but for completest sake it would be really cool to be able to watch an entire season of Wonderful World of Disney with all of Walt's intros and the promo's for the next week's episode. Also casual viewers could just drop in on any episode they choose - if they were looking for some classic Mickey Mouse cartoons or a nature documentary, for example.  According to IMDb there are over 30 seasons of the classic Disney anthology series. Obviously we don't need all 30, but a few early seasons would be nice for starters.

THE LITTLE MERMAID SERIES - From 1992 to 1994, CBS ran three seasons of the first animated series to be based off a smash hit Disney animated film. While The Little Mermaid series did not have the same beautiful animation as the feature film, it did sport the entire original voice cast as well as some pretty good storytelling.  The show has been rebroadcast over several of Disney's various cable channels and was fairly recently available on the now defunct Disney Junior app. My daughter and I started watching it but didn't get too far in before it disappeared. We'd love to finish it up sometime soon.

THEME PARK SPECIALS - OLD & NEW - It used to be fairly customary to broadcast a television special each time Disneyland or Walt Disney World hit another five year anniversary. There were also specials when new attractions opened and some park celebrations for various holidays. I'm not the only one who would love for a chance to see some of this vintage theme park footage as well as some new specials to commemorate new developments and anniversaries at the Disney vacation properties. I'm sure there would be quite an audience for a special all about the new Star Wars Galaxy's Edge opening on both coasts!

THE MOUSE FACTORY - Classic Disney animated shorts staring Mickey Mouse and the gang have to have a place on a Disney streaming service! May I suggest the 1971-1973 syndicated package known as The Mouse Factory? This is a far-out request as the show is very dated, but that's what makes it so good! Each episode consists of a few vintage shorts with a common theme served up by a host, filmed in live-action segments. Don Knotts, Dom DeLuise and even Kurt Russell were just some of the hosts that dropped by The Mouse Factory. This is just good pure fun that we don't see anymore!

MICKEY MOUSE CLUB (ALL 3 VERSIONS) - I don't need all of it (because there is a lot of it!) But I would love to have access to a number of episodes from all three incarnations of the Mickey Mouse Club. There's the classic black and white episodes from the 50's with Cubby and Annette. I want to see the 1977-1979 disco episodes I saw as a child. And I'm a fan of the 90's version, which eventually stared Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake (even though they came after I stopped watching.)

FELICITY - First of all, I love Keri Russell. I first saw her on the Mickey Mouse Club and had a celebrity crush on her ever since. I watched the first season of Felicity when it came on but then bailed in season two, not because she cut her hair but because of whichever guy she chose in the season opener. I don't remember who it was. Anyway, I've always wanted to go back and rewatch season one and then continue through with the other three seasons. Let's make this happen, Disney!!!

EMPTY NEST and NURSES - Empty Nest was a Golden Girls spin-off about the doctor that lived across the street from the girls. Nurses was an Empty Nest spin-off about nurses on another floor of the Empty Nest doctor's hospital. I was never really a big fan of either, but I'm surprised with all the Golden Girls success now that Empty Nest hasn't shown up anywhere in reruns. I'd give them both another look if I had access to them.

THE TORKELSONS/ALMOST HOME - The Torkelsons was a Disney branded sitcom on NBC about a single mother raising a bunch of kids in the south. It was later retooled as Almost Home which added a young Britney Murphy to the cast. Almost Home was ok, but I loved The Torkelsons! If I ever found a way to watch this series again I would jump right in!

Getting this show back would be the most exciting thing to happen to my adult life

THE MUPPETS - The word is that The Muppets will indeed have a home on the new Disney streaming service and that is very exciting. There is some talk of them continuing the very short lived 2015 ABC series which would be amazing or if they do something else similar that would be amazing too. Either way, I would certainly love to have all 18 episodes of the ABC series available to watch again commercial free (they are on the ABC app with advertising). I would also love to see a back catalogue of other Muppets material including specials and the last two seasons of the classic Muppet Show which have still never been released on DVD.

I guess we'll have to wait a year or so to see if any of my wish list has been fulfilled!