A middle-aged adult female wearing a white lace top with brown patterns and long sleeves, standing in an indoor kitchen or café setting with bright, natural lighting. 20:29
Throwback TV Clips channel icon Throwback TV ClipsOriginal creator 122K views Save

Mary Jo's best comebacks on 'Designing Women'

Mary Jo Shively is divorced, raising a daughter and back on the dating scene, and she has a comeback ready for all of it. more

Annie Potts plays her as a working mother with a dry answer for everything. Her comebacks come fast and from an odd angle, which is why more than a few fans name her as their favorite of the four.

Dating after a divorce gives her plenty to answer. When one man asks her out, she tells him she couldn't have asked for a more insulting invitation. What people expect of a woman in her spot is where a lot of her trouble starts, and a lot of her best lines.

A seated woman with dark hair, in a black top with a bow, looks off to one side. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Dating after divorce, and one invitation she rates as an insult.

At the Atlanta design firm, she trades lines with Suzanne, the flamboyant one. Mary Jo can make the most ordinary day at work funny.

Then there's the look. Fans love the hair, the outfits and the houses, and the prints and the earrings do a lot of the work.

A woman with curly hair, a patterned top and earrings looks up and to one side with a slight smile. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Hair, prints and earrings, the look fans love along with the jokes.

Linda Bloodworth-Thomason created the show, and it ran for seven seasons on CBS. Dixie Carter, Delta Burke, Annie Potts and Jean Smart played the four women. People who watched it then still miss the original four.

The boldest experiment is a padded bra. Mary Jo tries one, and it turns out funny and a little thoughtful at the same time. When she tells someone to go ahead and feel for themselves, the pass she gets back is the line fans repeat most.

A middle-aged adult female wearing a white lace top with brown patterns and long sleeves, standing in an indoor kitchen or café setting with bright, natural lighting. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Mary Jo Shively is divorced, raising a daughter and back on the dating scene, and she has a comeback ready for all of it.

The quiet moment belongs to her daughter, Claudia. Claudia tells her mother how she sees dating, and the talk turns honest. It's a sweet scene between the two of them.

Work, motherhood and her own life all run at once. She handles them the same way, phone in one hand and a note in the other.

A woman with curly hair in a red jacket holds a phone to her ear while reading a piece of paper. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Phone in one hand and a note in the other, with work and motherhood running at once.

Ask what people miss about her and it always comes down to those comebacks, dry and quick. Annie Potts makes each one look easy.