My wife and I have been watching the Golden Girls straight through from the first episode, and enjoying it for the most part (accommodating even for the old jokes and storylines that don't age well), but when we reached this episode we thought the writers and producers must have been taking a break that week and handed it over to the B team.
The guest acting is very poor overall (the hotel worker and gameshow lady hammed it up so bad we were cringing), and there are very few laughs. The only saving grace is the gameshow host who has the perfect tone and a few good lines. Not sure why folks find this funny unless they are diehard fans who like everything they churned out.