"I'm still sucking on a Smith Brothers"

So there's a debate over at the GOLDEN GIRLS board on IMDb about this quote. Some of us think it's a double entendre, and others think it's just a harmless cough drop line. Let me set up the scene: The Girls are sick with the flu but still attend a banquet. Rose's date offers her a Sucret, and she says, "No thanks. I'm still sucking on a Smith Brothers."

Now, my reasoning is, if the writers hadn't meant for that to be sexual, why didn't they just use another brand of cough drop, like, say, Halls? That's why I think it was meant to be an innuendo, but not everyone at IMDb agrees. Some argue that it doesn't make sense, grammatically. Otherwise, they would not have pluralized "brothers," but I reminded them that Smith Brothers is a brand. Rose was innocently talking about a cough drop, but it conjures up an image of fellatio, which is what I and others think the writers intended.

So what say you?

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Is this thread for real?

Isn't EVERY line in GOLDEN GIRLS a double-entendre?

Isn't that sort of the... point? :: Deadpan Bea, realizing what she has just said, instantaneously casting a deadly look and Blanche who raises her hand in protest to say something smuttier::

Nevermind...

P

Updated On: 10/24/09 at 06:29 PM

There's a non-dirty meaning?

I gotta share. Here's what someone just posted on IMDb about 2 hours ago:

"Ok, the joke can be taken either way. Perverts understand it one way, innocent peeps in another. Personally, at first I didn't get it at all because I had no idea what a Smother's Brothers was. lol"

I guess I'm a perv. If any of you are interested, the thread title is called "Another joke I don't get."

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Updated On: 10/25/09 at 01:40 AM

Old Smith Brothers joke: In the 1949 musical HIGH BUTTON SHOES, the lead character Harrison Floy (Phil Silvers) is approached on ther street by his sidekick, Mr. Pontdue, who is in disguise, wearing a long black beard. Floy says to him, "Sorry, buddy, I don't need any cough drops!"

I wonder how many people would get the joke today if the show was revived.

P.S. - I . like many folks over the decades, thought at one time that the first names of the Smith Brothers were Trade and Mark.

Updated On: 10/25/09 at 12:42 PM