Image by cactusdude666 via Flickr
“Pedal to the metal, baby!” shouted Joanne Hauncher, 63, as she swerved wildly through traffic on a busy street in this Phoenix suburb. A truck driver slammed on his brakes and stared — she was driving a golf cart, after all — as Ms. Hauncher completed an illegal U-turn.
“Rules are made to be broken,” she muttered, arching a painted-on eyebrow. “I’m too old to be spanked. Wait. Scratch that!”
Ms. Hauncher, along with eight other retirees who live here, star in a new reality show on the WE tv network called “Sunset Daze.” How did the producers find her? “I was out with the Ho’s” — her term for her female posse — “and I guess we looked like fun,” she said. Her only stipulation for signing on? “I didn’t want to come off as a lunatic senior.”
Too late. “Sunset Daze,” which makes its debut on Wednesday night, pushes just that button as it tries to hold its own in the boozy, oversexed reality TV genre. The first episode has commentary on vibrators and going “commando,” slang for not wearing underpants. WE positions the series as “The Golden Girls” meets “Jersey Shore,” the ribald MTV series that spawned Snooki.
The media business often overlooks the importance of older folks — here including the first of the baby boomers — with all of the talk about attracting young viewers and racking up huge ratings in the 18-34 demographic. Yes, “Gossip Girl” is fine. But in some ways, “Golden Girls” is even better. And the country seems to be in the midst of a senior revival, with Betty White riding a wave of Internet lobbying to become guest host on “Saturday Night Live,” Cloris Leachman becoming a “Dancing With the Stars” darling at 82, and the late Bea Arthur showing up in advertisements for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
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