Gayest Episode Ever

Drew Mackie & Glen Lakin

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Back in the day, a major sitcom doing a gay episode was a big deal. A proper gay episode would get headlines, but it would get the attention of two young guys who were still figuring things out — sexuality-wise and culture-wise. Gayest Episode Ever has screenwriter Glen Lakin and stay-at-home journalist Drew Mackie going through the great and not-so-great gay episodes of sitcoms past.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Does a Body/Gender Swap Episode

“Switching Places” (October 4, 1993) If you’re reading this and deciding that Power Rangers is not a sitcom, you’re correct! We’re doing it anyway, and as elder millennials who were just a little too old for MMPR when it originally aired, we’re bringing in a ringer in the form of Sina Grace — artist, writer and bonvivant. whose work in the comics world has included writing for these very teenagers with attitude. In this episode, Billy and Kimberley swap bodies and so David Yost and Amy Jo Johnso

Apr 16, • 2:13:46

Mork Is the Mommy, Mindy Is the Daddy

“Mama Mork, Papa Mindy” (November 5, 1981) Thus far, we have not attempted the Happy Days universe of TV shows, and we’re starting with this season four Mork & Mindy that has our interspecies marrieds creating a baby that redefine their gender roles. Essentially, Mork hatches an egg from which comes a child that puts a shocked Mindy in the role of father. It’s silly, but as returning guest Diamond Feit helps us explain, it’s also modelling parenthood outside typical gender conventions. Listen to

Apr 9, • 2:28:55

Mary Hartman Meets a Gay Couple

This week, in a first-ever solo episode, Drew talks you through not just one episode of the cult series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman instead the whole of the show’s art for its two gay characters, Ed and Howard. What’s remarkable about this nuanced portrayal of a same-sex couple is that by virtue of airing before the AIDS crisis, the showrunners didn’t need to make these two characters angel gays. They’re as neurotic and complex as any of the straight characters on the show, which means it’s an ex

Apr 2, • 1:35:36

The Great North Pushes Aunt Dirt Out of the Bunker — and Out of the Closet

“Bear of Beeftown Adventure” (April 7, 2024) About a hundred episodes later, this podcast is pleased to report that The Great North got even gayer with the season four addition of Aunt Dirt, voiced by Jane Lynch. She’s been living in a bunker for sixty years and in this episode she learns about what it means to be a lesbian in the 2020s. Listen to our previous episode about The Great North and our interview with Charlie Kelly, who wrote both the episodes we’ve covered. We have episode transcri

Mar 26, • 1:14:44

Mr. Belvedere Meets a Kid With AIDS

“Wesley’s Friend” (January 31, 1986) Yes, it’s this episode. If you’ve seen any bit of it, it’s probably the one line delivered by the focus character, and while we will admit it’s a major groaner, it’s not representative of this whole episode. No, this is a Mr. Belvedere “very special episode” that has its heart in the right place and which mostly lands well all these years later. This is our second Mr. Belvedere outing, and yes, the first one really is about Mr. Belvedere discouraging a teenag

Mar 19, • 1:28:42

Titus Is the Real Star of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

“Kimmy Goes to Her Happy Place!” (April 15, 2016) Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a funny show. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a flawed show. These two things can both be true simultaneously, and you can not like the plotline given to Jane Krakowski’s character, where it turns out she’s actually Lakota posing as white, and still enjoy other elements of the show. Case in point: Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess) is exactly the kind of messy, selfish, desperate gay character people want to see realized

Mar 5, • 1:39:17

What’s With All the Orphans in 80s Sitcoms?

If you grew up watching TV in the 80s, you may have noticed that there was a preponderance of… if not shows about orphans specifically then similar shows where the care of children was entrusted to people who weren’t their parents and maybe didn’t know how to raise kids. We’re talking Diff’rent Strokes, Rags to Riches, Punky Brewster, Webster and Gimme a Break, but also The Facts of Life, Charles in Charge, My Two Dads, Full House, My Sister Sam, Silver Spoons, The Hogan Family and more. Sure, a

Feb 26, • 1:02:32

My Two Dads Can’t Escape the Gayness of Its Title

“The Family in Question” (May 9, 1988) It might seem like a joke today, that a show called My Two Dads is about two very hetero bachelors. But don’t let that stop you from appreciating My Two Dads for being a smarter, funnier version of Full House. They debuted the same week, and unlike Full House, My Two Dads actually acknowledges that gay people exist. In this episode, the judge who awarded them custody of their daughter is persecuted in the press as being an activist judicial who is changing

Feb 19, • 1:31:46

Gilligan’s Island Does a Body Swap Episode

“The Friendly Physician” (April 7, 1966) Sure, Gilligan’s Island may have skewed family-friendly, but its love of genre parody meant that it did a body swap episode in which all of its female characters end up in male bodies. Horny! That’s enough to get our attention, even without the mad scientist bad guy with perversely vampiric sexual energy. Follow: GEE on Bluesky • Drew on Bluesky • Glen on Bluesky Listen: Apple Podcasts • Spotify And yes, we do have an official website! We even have episod

Feb 12, • 1:40:22

Curb Your Enthusiasm Acknowledges That a Child Seems Gay

“Larry vs. Michael J. Fox” (September 11, 2011) For better or worse, Larry David is a truth-teller, and the fictional version of him can help but to poke at social taboos. In this Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, Larry suspects that Michael J. Fox may be using Parkinson’s to get away with bad behavior while also insisting that his latest love interest’s seven-year-old child is gay. It’s a lot, but here’s the thing: Larry is often not wrong. Read “The Great and Wonderful Wizard of Odds,” the 2000 N

Feb 5, • 1:57:47

Sailor Moon Meets a Beguiling Genderfluid Villain

We are keeping our tradition of making our first post of the new year about Sailor Moon. That ep, about the debatably trans Sailor Starlights, is now live on Patreon — at $1 for subscribers but it can also be purchased for $3 for non-subscribers. But we're putting last year's Sailor Moon ep, about the villain Fisheye, on the main feed. Important note: Due to recent political events, we’re giving all of our Patreon proceeds for this month to the Transgender Law Center.  “Shadow of Evil: The Trio'

Jan 22, • 1:53:09

The Grand Unified Theory of Why Frasier Seems Gay

“The Matchmaker” (October 4, 1994) Whelp, it’s our 250th episode (sort of), and we’re celebrating by going back and reexamining our first-ever episode and, really, the reason this podcast exists in the first place: “The Matchmaker” from Frasier’s second season, which the show used to tell viewers definitively that no, despite all appearances otherwise, Frasier Crane is not gay. We’re joined again by Anthony Oliveira, who also helps us recount Frasier’s entire history of seeming kinda gay, from b

Dec 24, 2024 • 2:21:20

It’s All Relative Was ABC’s Attempt at a Will & Grace

“Pilot” (October 1, 2003) Even NBC tried to replicate the success of America’s first popular gay sitcom, and this week we’re joined once again by Steven Capsuto to discuss an attempt to bring same-sex parents to prime time. It’s All Relative only lasted a season, but that’s actually longer than most LGBTQ-inclusive sitcoms that followed in Will & Grace’s wake, and for what it’s worth, its pilot shows a lot of promise. Read GEE's write-up in Emmy maagzine, which is basically the same thing as ac

Dec 18, 2024 • 2:06:04

Bob’s Burgers Gives Marshmallow a New Voice

“Hope ’n’ Mic Night” (November 10, 2024) Long-running animated sitcoms face a unique challenge in having to account for an episode that aired more than a decade previously, and this recent Bob’s Burgers proves that this can be accomplished thoughtfully and deliberately. “Hope ’n’ Mic Night” repeatedly references the season one episode “Sheesh! Cab, Bob?” which introduced Marshmallow to the show but also did a few things that cast trans characters in a less than flattering light. Fifteen years la

Dec 11, 2024 • 1:31:47

It’s a Will & Grace Thanksgiving!

“Homo for the Holidays” (November 25, 1999) What? An episode of Will & Grace that Drew actually likes? Kind of! This season two episode has Jack coming out to his mother over Thanksgiving dinner, and it’s basically the gayest Thanksgiving episode of any sitcom ever. And it’s a good piece of TV with some thoughtful dialogue, even if a lot of the jokes are very representative of that Will & Grace style, which you either like or you don’t. Also: Is Jack McFarland responsible for popularizing the ph

Nov 27, 2024 • 1:20:41

King of the Hill Accidentally Explores Muscle Gainer Subculture

“Bill, Bulk and the Body Buddies” (May 20, 2007) Can one illustration of a buff Bill Dauterive change your entire life in an instant? Well, for some people, yeah. This King of the Hill outing manages to stuff in a whole lot of imagery that will be familiar to a certain gay subculture. It’s inadvertent — and specifically this episode also features explicitly gay characters as a counterpoint to the rude, crude muscle bros, but there’s plenty to talk about nonetheless in Bill’s adventures through b

Nov 20, 2024 • 1:32:04

That Girl Meets the Cross-Dressing Cops

"A Muggy Day in Central Park" (November 14, 1968) A contemporary of Bewitched, That Girl aimed for a more sophisticated audience than most sitcoms of its era. Not only does it look more cinematic, in a way that sitcoms generally wouldn't until the 2000s, but it's also more clearly a feminist show, where Marlo Thomas plays a woman braving big city life on her own. This episode does that tired thing where gay men, cross-dressers, trans woman and drag queens are conflated down to a single thing, bu

Nov 13, 2024 • 1:19:53

Boy Meets World Does a Scream Parody

“And Then There Was Shaun” (February 27, 1998) Somehow, Boy Meets World got ABC to say yes to a parody of Scream within the confines of the TGIF lineup. That’s wild enough, but it’s even more surprising what this “it was all a dream” episode lifts directly from the 1996 slasher. Joining us to discuss this unlikely intersection of franchises are the hosts of the Guide to the Unknown podcast, Kristen Anderson and her little brother, Will Rogers (not the gay beach). Happy Halloween! Listen to Guide

Oct 30, 2024 • 2:13:32

Bewitched Unleashes the Gay Scourge That Is Uncle Arthur

“The Joker Is a Card” (October 14, 1965) Nearly two hundred episodes later, we’re finally returning to Bewitched to give Uncle Arthur a proper introduction. And while he’s a big part of Bewitched’s gay fandom, Paul Lynde brings a lot of baggage to the role that taught Americans to laugh at eccentric gay weirdos everywhere. Watch the new season of Glen's show, Ninjago: Dragons Unleashed! Listen to Drew discussing 16-bit horror video games on Retronauts. This episode featured a lot of references

Oct 23, 2024 • 1:37:08

Karl Is the Simpsons' First Gay Friend

“Simpson and Delilah” (October 18, 1990) Not only the earliest gay-themed Simpsons episode we’ve ever done, this one is also the first gay-themed episode The Simpsons ever did. And while the enigmatic Karl doesn’t get to be explicitly gay, we argue whether having a gay-coded character might have been the show’s way to — in its second season and at the height of Simpsons mania — signal to grown-ups that no, despite the t-shirts, this was not a show for kids and it could operate at a higher level.

Oct 16, 2024 • 1:36:10

A Different World Meets a Possible Lesbian

“Wild Child” (February 4, 1988) Officially, A Different World never did a gay episode and there were no queer students at Hillman. Nestled in the middle of the Bonet/Tomei season, however, is an interesting episode about a girl named Cougar, who happens to be easily read as a lesbian and interact in interesting ways with both Denise and Whitley. Entertainment journalist Stacey Yvonne joins us to discuss this episode and why A Different World still matters in 2024. You can watch this episode of A

Oct 9, 2024 • 2:14:06

The Beetlejuice Cartoon Is Weird, Gross and Very Queer

“Pranks for the Memories” (September 18, 1991) and “Beetlebones” (September 27, 1991) Sure, we’ve all thought more about Beetlejuice in the last few weeks than we have in the last few decades, but we come to you today not to discuss the sequel film but the animated spinoff. Henry Giardina returns to explain why this more kid-friendly version of the Tim Burton ghoul lends itself to trans and queer readings. Listen to Henry’s movie podcast, I’ll Watch Anything, and also subscribe to Totally Trans,

Oct 2, 2024 • 2:12:02

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Stops Being Funny to Be Gay Instead

“Mac Finds His Pride” (November 7, 2018) Twelve seasons in, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia stopped giving Mac the Smithers treatment and let him be gay, but it’s the season thirteen finale we’re talking about because it highlights Mac’s sexuality without making jokes, at least for the third act. The episode received wide praise, but did it also jeopardize the show’s comedic tone in order to make a statement? Thanks to Dr. Alfred Smith, David Russell and Ally J. Shivka for offering their inter

Sep 25, 2024 • 1:56:51

The 80s Gay Fantasia That Is Jennifer Slept Here

This is the second-to-last of our summer reruns; new episodes back Sept. 18 on the Patreon feed and Sept. 25 on the main feed! For this one, we're taking a break from looking at the ways that sitcoms advanced American discourse about LGBTQ people and instead gawking at campy 80s fluff — because that is also a thing that is important to gay people. “Jennifer: The Movie” (October 29, 1983) We’re celebrating both Halloween and week two of our celebration of Ann Jillian with an episode about how the

Sep 4, 2024 • 1:29:54

How Do You Write a Sitcom About a Gay Bashing?

Yep, we are still in summer reruns — but to return with new episodes in September! This one is out second look at the Showtime sitcom Brothers, which I feel too few listeners know about. Let this episode be your primer, however! And your jumping off point to watching the entire series on YouTube! “It Only Hurts When I’m Gay” (October 25, 1985) On paper, the idea of a sitcom taking on the subject of gay bashing seems like the worst idea, but somehow Brothers — TV’s first gay sitcom — manages to t

Aug 29, 2024 • 1:22:07

The Complete History of Leon Carp, Roseanne's Gay Nemesis

This is a summer rerun of an episode that originally went live in May 2023. We know that no one likes to reflect on how Roseanne used to be awesome, but we get through that emotional baggage as quickly as we can to discuss why Martin Mull's character is openly gay but also tweaks certain gay stereotypes.  “The Driver’s Seat” (November 30, 1993) We’re giving another shot to Roseanne, because perhaps it’s been long enough that you all want to listen to stories about this iconic series. Perhaps not

Aug 21, 2024 • 1:49:48

Green Acres Meets a Woman Named Ralph

This is a summer rerun of an episode that originally went life in May 2023. It's good even if you think you don't care about Green Acres, we swear! “What’s in a Name?” (February 16, 1966) On a show all about the zany inhabitants of Hooterville, Ralph Monroe (Mary Grace Canfield) stands out because the most unusual thing about her is her name. She works as a carpenter and dresses for her work, but that name alone is enough that most Hootervillians don’t know what pronoun to use for her. As we dis

Aug 14, 2024 • 1:54:50

Tori from Saved by the Bell Is a Lesbian Icon

“The New Girl” (September 19, 1992) Tori Scott is more than just the mysterious seventh Bayside High student who exists in a fractured Saved by the Bell timeline in which Jessie and Kelly don’t exist. She’s also really gay in the tradition of Jo from The Facts of Life, and not only because Leanna Creel, the actress who played Tori, came out in real life. Erin Fletcher returns to explain why she’s actually a better match for Zack than Kelly or AC Slater… because Zack Morris is the Blair Warner of

Aug 7, 2024 • 2:27:15

The Gay History of Mama's Family

Leading up to our return in September, we are doing summer reruns, which is our way of repurposing episodes that with a little configuring (and retitling) might get more listens than they got back in the day. First up: Mama's Family! And next week, you'll be getting a full-fledged new episode about Saved by the Bell! Enjoy! “There Is Nothing Like the Dames” (February 17, 1990) Believe it or not, Mama’s Family has a deeply queer history. While the final result of — the syndicated revival that ret

Jul 31, 2024 • 1:32:54

Community’s Gay Dean Is Not Actually Gay

“Queer Studies and Advanced Waxing” (March 31, 2015) In its sixth and final season, Community decided to explore the series-long running joke about Dean Pelton’s mysterious, complex sexuality. Henry Gilbert once again joins us to discuss how the dean is not actually gay — he may be a pansexual imp, after all — but in forcing him to pick a tidy label, this show does a good job showing how many queer people end up pigeonholing themselves in a way that doesn’t fully express who they are. Listen to

Jul 3, 2024 • 2:45:52

Drew Carey Has a Cross-Dressing Brother Who Just Might Be Trans

“Drew’s Brother” (November 19, 1997)  We finally did it! We not only found the perfect guest for this episode — writer, performer and UCB alum Joan Ford — but we also got the chance to tell the world that The Drew Carey Show deserves to live it. It’s not only the most successful Friends clone but also the only one that sustained a whole series about working class young people. And in its third season, it introduced Drew’s brother Steve (John Caroll Lynch) who is a cross-dresser who might just be

Jun 26, 2024 • 1:59:12

The Associates Meets a Gay Joke It Doesn’t Like

“The Censors,” (April 10, 1980) James L. Brooks followed up the hit Taxi with another workplace ensemble that skewed decidedly fancier: The Associates featured a young and unknown Martin Short among a group of fresh hires at a Wall Street law firm. The show didn’t work and is almost forgotten today. But its second-to-last episode did feature a trip to the Hollywood set of a sitcom where a producer battles an overzealous censor. There’s a gay sublot, but the overall story is a cautionary tale tha

Jun 19, 2024 • 1:18:24

How I Met Your Mother Meets a Gay Brother

"Single Stamina" (November 27, 2006) Now that HIMYM has been off the air for a full decade, it’s worth considering how this show holds up better than most from the early 2000s did. Not only did it give us Robin Sparkles, it just might be the only TV show to compare equally well to both Friends and Lost, as improbable as that sounds. This episode has Wayne Brady playing a gay character in a bit of stunt casting that worked a lot better before he came out, but it also just might be the thing that

Jun 12, 2024 • 1:36:38

What’s Gay About Jeopardy(!)?

What if we broke format to discuss America’s favorite smartypants game show? Well, we did it. And special guest Emily Heller joins us to discuss Amy Schneider, who became Jeopardy’s second-longest-running winner ever — and as a result became a household name and a trans icon.  Listen to Emily’s Jeopardy podcast, What Is…? A Jeopardy! Podcast on Apple or Spotify! Listen to Peaches Christ and also Drew on Matt Baume’s new My So-Called Life podcast! Follow: GEE on Facebook • GEE’s Facebook Group

May 29, 2024 • 1:30:47

Amen’s Closeted Sitcom Star Smackdown

“The Courtship of Bess Richards” (October 4, 1986) The second episode of Amen concerns Sherman Hemsley’s Ernie trying to land his choir a new singer in Nell Carter’s Bess, and the result is a comedy of errors in which both he and she perform romantic interest that neither is capable of actually feeling. The result is a WWF-style wrestling match between these two iconic sitcom stars, and we’re joined once again by Dr. Alfred L. Martin to discuss how this is rendered all the stranger because Hemsl

May 22, 2024 • 1:57:36

Mary and Phyllis Date a Possible Homosexual

“Menage a Phyllis” (November 2, 1974) In the third-season episode “My Brother’s Keeper,” Rhoda famously said the word “gay,” turning a plot about her association with Phyllis’ brother on its head. Two seasons later, Phyllis shows up in another episode that discusses gay issues but weirdly doesn’t say that word. Regardless, there’s perhaps more to be made of the newsroom’s opinions about what codes as gay, and Dan Steadman returns to discuss this and what we’ll call the “Murray Slaughter problem.

May 15, 2024 • 2:23:18

Facts of Life Does a Covert Gay Episode With Cousin Geri

“Cousin Geri” (December 24, 1980) Fun game for listeners: Take a shot every time Drew mentions the phrase “gigantic bitch” in connection with Lisa Welchel’s Blair, who is in rare form this episode as she shuns her disabled cousin Geri for reasons that aren’t the ones you’re probably assuming. In this discussion, we bring up why Geri Jewell is a trailblazer as far as being queer and also one other thing and also why “actress recurring on Deadwood” is lowkey code for lesbian. Erin Fletcher, we wan

May 8, 2024 • 1:43:23

Drawn Together Forces Xandir Out of the Closet

“Gay Bash” (November 10, 2004) For better or worse, Drawn Together represents a very real trend in mid-2000s humor. It specifically sought out to tell the most offensive jokes it could get on air, but that’s what makes it surprising that the episode where Xandir admits he’s gay isn’t the parade of easy jokes you might expect. The B plot sucks rancid balls, to the point that we don’t even use clips from it in this discussion, but you might be surprised how this animated reality show makes its tok

Apr 24, 2024 • 1:51:51

Daria Should Have Kissed Jane Instead of Tom

“Dye! Dye! My Darling!” (August 2, 2000) Spend a little time in a Daria fan community and you’ll find folks who ship the title character with her best friend, Jane. The show actually never does a gay episode and only gets the slightest bit queer in the first movie, Is It Fall Yet?, which has Jane affirming her heterosexuality despite how very queer she might seem. In this episode, we’re discussing the nonetheless existent lesbian vibes between Daria and Jane — and who better to offer input on th

Apr 17, 2024 • 2:28:28

Lucy Meets a Drag Queen

“Lucy and Jim Bailey” (November 6, 1972) Basically, Lucille Ball did a solid for one gay performer, but in doing this, she also helped make gays a little less scary for America. Jim Bailey was a female impersonator who who had already made appearances on late night TV for this uncanny ability to turn himself into female celebs. Lucy, however, gave him a showcase on her popular prime time sitcom, showing her viewers that not only were drag queens not scary, but in fact they can be a lot of fun. W

Apr 10, 2024 • 1:37:02

A Queer History of SNL, Part Four: The Lost Years

People use the term “the lost years” differently when speaking of Saturday Night Live, but this podcast is using it specifically from the time Lorne Michaels left the show after season five up until season eleven. Aside from Eddie Murphy’s presence on the show, these are the sketches that are less remembered today because they weren’t rerun on Comedy Central in the 2000s as much and they’re largely absent from the cache of episodes preserved online today. And that’s too bad, because this is when

Apr 3, 2024 • 1:49:34

Sex and the City Meets an Effeminate Heterosexual

“Evolution” (August 19, 1999) If you came of age in the late 90s or early 2000s, you live in a world informed by Sex and the City — whether you realize it or not. It’s probably one of the most influential TV shows to air during our lifetimes, and so it’s more than time that we look at one of its many LGBTQ-themed episodes. Joining us to discuss Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte is returning guest Gwynedd Stuart, who has big feelings about why this show matters. Listen to Gwynedd’s previou

Mar 13, 2024 • 2:21:20

Newhart Meets a Gay

"Homes and Jojo" (May 1, 1989) Newhart is a show about white people who live in the snow, and while 70s-era Bob Newhart sitcom is the one pop culture remembers better, this is the longer-lived, more-Emmy-nominated of the two. What the 80s-era Bob New1hart sitcom has working in its favor are future Simpsons showrunner David Mirkin, who gives a host of wacky townspeople not unlike what you’d find in Springfield, and the duo of Julia Duffy and Peter Scolari, who male a perfect yuppie couple worthy

Mar 6, 2024 • 1:39:11

Jerri Blank is a Pansexual Sex Predator

“Blank Relay” (August 13, 2000) Honestly, we could have picked just about any episode of Strangers With Candy to focus on for this podcast about queer themes, but we ended up deciding on the one where we see Jerri Blank at her most girl hungry. It’s light on Mr. Noblet and Mr. Jellineck, but we can always circle back to this one in another two hundred episodes, right? Watch the Exit 57 “Down in the Basement” sketch, which does not translate especially well to an audio-only format. Watch The Trip

Feb 28, 2024 • 1:27:15

Gimme a Break Transformed Into a Lesbian Perfect Strangers

“Joey’s First Crush” (January 28, 1987) Few other shows changed as much as Gimme a Break, which began as a fish-out-of-water sitcom that had Nell Carter playing mom to three white girls in California but ended up with Nell and her best friend, Telma Hopkins’ Addy, co-parenting two white boys in New York. Minus the kids, it’s basically a female-female twist on Perfect Strangers, only they don’t get steady boyfriends. Perhaps in an effort to make the show seem less gay, they tossed in a happily ma

Feb 21, 2024 • 1:39:37

The Simpsons Does a Riff on Lesbian Cult Classic

“Lisa the Drama Queen” (January 25, 2009) So here’s an interesting one. In its twentieth season, The Simpson did an episode inspired by Heavenly Creatures, the 1994 Peter Jackson movie that has Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey playing schoolgirls who flee into a fantasy world and also each other. More than a decade later, this story would play out again, only with Lisa Simpson and a new character voiced by Emily Blunt, and that might seem like a strange combo, especially because the Simpson vers

Feb 14, 2024 • 1:43:13

How Does a Conservative Sitcom Do a Gay Episode?

“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (November 29, 2011 Yes, Tim Allen’s follow-up to Home Improvement got branded as the most conservative sitcom on network TV, but is that fair? We’re honestly not sure, because the ninth episode of Last Man Standing’s first season features a gay couple. We’re mostly good with how this plays out, but we also think this show changed in its second season. We’re also skimming over the second-season episode “Bullying,” which ended up arguing that it’s okay to say “gay.

Feb 7, 2024 • 1:39:54

The Gay Origins of Mister Ed

“Sorority House” (February 8, 1961) A few times on this podcast, we’ve bent over backwards to find a gay interpretation of a sitcom that never did anything gay, but this is not one of those. Mister Ed was developed by Arthur Lubin, a closeted gay director who was married to a woman but eventually ended up cohabitating with a male companion. It’s interesting, then, that he’d be into making a TV show out of a story about Wilbur Post, who’s married to a woman and who’s outwardly a traditional guy e

Jan 31, 2024 • 1:35:44

Frasier Has Two Daddies

“Fathers and Sons” (May 3, 2003) And we’re back! Our first regular episode of the new year returns to the first-ever show we discussed: Frasier. It’s the episode where David Ogden Stiers plays an old colleague of Frasier’s late mother who acts more like Frasier and Niles than Martin does. This is the final time the series put a spotlight on the series innate queerness, and in selecting Stiers, it also tacitly endorses the notion that his M*A*S*H character helped inspire Frasier Crane. Listen to

Jan 24, 2024 • 1:34:37

Sailor Moon Meets a Lesbian Couple

“Coldhearted Uranus: Makoto in Danger” (May 14, 1994) It’s a new year, and we’re giving you a new episode of Sailor Moon — now with 200 percent more lesbian content! This third-season episode not only showcases Haruka/Sailor Uranus and Michiru/Sailor Neptune, but also uses them as a way to explore how Makoto/Sailor Jupiter is the most queer-coded of the core five Sailor Guardians. What’s most notable about this episode, however, is the fact that the Viz dub of it actually re-writes the original

Jan 11, 2024 • 1:31:00

Sailor Moon Meets a Lesbian Couple

“Coldhearted Uranus: Makoto in Danger” (May 14, 1994) It’s a new year, and we’re giving you a new episode of Sailor Moon — now with 200 percent more lesbian content! This third-season episode not only showcases Haruka/Sailor Uranus and Michiru/Sailor Neptune, but also uses them as a way to explore how Makoto/Sailor Jupiter is the most queer-coded of the core five Sailor Guardians. What’s most notable about this episode, however, is the fact that the Viz dub of it actually re-writes the original

Jan 11, 2024 • 1:49:49

Bob’s Burgers Celebrates Christmas at a Gay Rave

“The Bleakening” (December 10, 2017) We’re closing out 2023 with a two-part Bob’s Burgers Christmas mystery that also happens to be the last episode a cult favorite trans character, Marshmallow, appeared in before vanishing from the series for six years. This is basically our way of discussing the “Sheesh! Cab, Bob?” episode without having to drag you all through it, because for all its flaws, it did give the world the cherished treasure that is Marshmallow. Happy holidays! Watch the Bob’s Burge

Dec 22, 2023 • 1:41:59

Frank’s Place Makes Hanukkah Gay

A new episode on a Tuesday?! Well, the way our schedule ended up working out was that we are finishing the year with two Christmas episodes, and we figured it would be better to get those both out before the actual holiday, so you’re getting this today and then our second Christmas ep (and the last ep of 2023) on Friday. Enjoy, we hope! “Season’s Greetings” (December 14, 1987) Perhaps you haven’t heard of Frank’s Place. All the incentive you need for this episode is that Frank’s Place is that it

Dec 19, 2023 • 2:04:15

Suddenly Susan Meets a Gay

“A Boy Like That” (April 24, 1997) Heads up: We briefly discuss suicide episode in discussing on of this show’s cast members. If you’re experiencing suicidal thoughts, the U.S. hotline to call is 988. Well, it took us 214 episodes, but we finally arrived at Suddenly Susan. You might dismiss Brook Shields’ entry into the post-Friends landscape as an also-ran, and you are maybe right, but this first-season gay episode manages to give more depth and consideration to its one-off gay character than i

Dec 13, 2023 • 1:41:34

A Queer History of SNL, Part Three: The “Not Ready for Prime Time” Era

Welcome to the first of our in-depth looks at LGBTQ humor in specific eras of Saturday Night Live. Of course, we’re starting at the beginning, in the classic era, and yeah, some of them are better than you’d guess and some of them are so much worse. It’s a real grab bag, but there are lessons to be learned about how SNL came to be what it is today and how American humor has evolved since 1975.   Buy Josh Trujillo’s new book, Washington's Gay General: The Legends and Loves of Baron Von Steuben.

Dec 6, 2023 • 1:51:20

Gimme a Break Meets Yet Another 80s Orphan

“Nell and the Kid” (April 28, 1983) As if network TV didn’t have enough sitcoms about non-biological parents stepping in to care for parentless children, Gimme a Break — itself a show about a woman acting as a substitute mother for three girls — has a second season episode in which Nell Carter’s character meets a spunky orphan (LaShana Dendy) and then entrusts her to the care of the neighborhood deli owner (Don Rickles). It didn’t end up becoming its own series, but Drew and Glen are pretty sure

Nov 29, 2023 • 1:26:58

We Can Be Sad About Matthew Perry Dying and Still Think Friends Is Homophobic

“The One With the Memorial Service” (March 13, 2003) Since Matthew Perry died, the tone of conversations about Friends has shifted from looking at all the reasons it wasn’t so great to trying to focus on the reasons we like it. That’s fair. Grief does that. But in seeking comfort in Friends, let’s not rush to thinking that Chandler Bing was something more than one long-running gay panic joke. Matthew Perry was a great comedic actor and we enjoy him delivering a one-liner with perfect timing, but

Nov 21, 2023 • 1:45:34

The Complete History of George Costanza’s Homosexuality

“The Note” (September 18, 1991) Seinfeld kicked off its third season with a rather risky premiere about George’s dick twitching during a massage from a man. What follows is a more earnest exploration of gay panic than you might expect from a Must See TV sitcom, and it happens to be the most in-depth look at George’s complex sexuality, though we will also be discussing every other time that Seinfeld implied that he’s something other than straight. An unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality?

Nov 15, 2023 • 1:58:11

The Sarah Silverman Program Has Gigantic, Orange Gays

“Muffin’ Man” (March 1, 2007) You know what’s super complicated? The Sarah Silverman Program. It’s funny, but just talking about why it’s funny in 2023 necessitates a lot of discussion of controversial topics including but not limited to ironic racism, straight dudes playing gay characters, January 6 and several people who are now canceled. Nonetheless, Drew (and not Glen, because Glen is not in this episode) is joined by Henry Gilbert to discuss why this show’s queer representation was novel an

Nov 8, 2023 • 3:15:21

Benson Literally Plays a Game With Death

Happy Halloween! You're getting this week’s episode one day early because it is, in fact, a Halloween episode. “The Stranger” (October 25, 1985) Benson may have been a more conventional sitcom than Soap, the show it spun off, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t have its exceedingly weird moments — including this final season Halloween special in which Benson must play a trivia game with death personified in order to save the lives of 41 hapless schoolchildren. It’s basically the last moment in time

Oct 31, 2023 • 2:05:33

Two Guys, a Girl and a Post-Scream Slasher Halloween

Want to watch this episode, which is not streaming and is hard to find online? You can do that right now on the GEE Patreon! “Two Guys, a Girl and a Psycho Halloween” (October 28, 1998) It didn’t want to be Friends. It really tried to give the cast real jobs, at the very least. But in the end, Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place lost the workplace setting and added three more characters, essentially becoming another Friends wannabe. Along the way, however, it had some genuinely funny episodes and

Oct 28, 2023 • 1:09:08

Family Matters Does Dracula

“Dark and Stormy Night” (October 28, 1994) We’ve talked before how Family Matters has a more liberal take on typical hijinx than most sitcoms, but the show’s sixth season Halloween episode went full on Dracula — by which we mean Francis Ford Coppola. It’s really ambitious! And Hariette has never looked sexier! And we’re very stoked to have Michael Varrati on hand to discuss it because not everyone would be able to spot this darkling little gem hidden in the 1994 TGIF lineup. Listen to Michael’s

Oct 25, 2023 • 1:48:08

Ghosts Has a Gay Revolutionary War Ghost

“D&D” (November 18, 2021) Beware the gay ghost!  What are the odds that when your friend writes a book about Baron von Steuben, allegedly gay Revolutionary War hero, there would also be a current sitcom that features a gay Revolutionary War character? Pretty slim, we’d say! But this happy coincidence allowed us to not only promote Josh Trujillo’s new book, Washington's Gay General: The Legends and Loves of Baron Von Steuben, but also to dive into Ghosts, the CBS sitcom that is one of the more p

Oct 18, 2023 • 1:57:12

Fine, We Will Cover Ellen’s Big Coming Out Episode

“The Puppy Episode” (April 30, 1997)   After a great deal of self-reflection, we decided that maybe it was worth discussing the most famous episode of Ellen Degeneres’ 90s sitcom, even if it is the most analyzed piece of LGBTQ-centric television ever. Whether we were correct in thinking this remains up to you, but we nonetheless have offerings of talking points about this hourlong coming out extravaganza, including but not limited to how much of this show’s latter existence was dedicated to met

Oct 11, 2023 • 2:19:28

A Queer History of SNL, Part Two

And here is the second half of our two-part opener for this new season. In this episode, we look at LGBTQ-themed recurring Saturday Night Live sketches airing in the year 2000 and beyond. Basically, this one gets us from The Girl With No Gaydar to Bowen Yang, and that’s actually a pretty good synopsis for the evolution of queer-inclusive humor of on this show. Our next installment will be the first deep dive into a specific era of SNL, starting with the “Not Ready for Prime Time” era, and tha

Oct 4, 2023 • 2:10:19

A Queer History of SNL, Part One

Welcome to a new season of Gayest Episode Ever. It will be a Saturday Night Live-centric season. Among the regular, sitcom-focused episodes, we will be doing periodic deep dives into the LGBTQ-focused sketches that ran on the show during its various eras.  To kick it off (and to kick off the new season), we are starting with a two-part look at the various queer-adjacent recurring sketches from SNL. This first episode covers the launch of the show until the mid-90s, and next week’s episode will g

Sep 27, 2023 • 2:20:50

Barry’s NoHo Hank Is a Great Gay Villain

“it takes a psycho” (April 30, 2023) Barry is not a sitcom, though it was frequently one of the funnier shows on TV. We’re doing a bonus summer episode about it anyway because its gay character, NoHo Hank, is a rarity on TV because he’s both a villain and a person who doesn’t let his sexuality define him. That’s not necessarily a good thing, but we’re all about complex, messy queer characters, and this is one people should be talking about. Special thanks to Emily Heller for sharing her recollec

Aug 22, 2023 • 1:51:47

​​Punky Brewster and Cave of Horrors

“The Perils of Punky” (October 20, 1985) This might be the most famous weird episode of any TV show ever, and with good reason: it is utterly inexplicable how this parade of horrors came to be. It would be weird for any sitcom to deliberately scare its viewers, much less a show that catered specifically to kids. Wait, is the shared trauma of this Punky Brewster the reason why millennials can’t stop talking about old TV? No, really — is this why??? This is an episode of our Patreon bonus podcast

Aug 8, 2023 • 1:39:00

Golden Girls Tries to Spin Off the Neighbors Next Door

“Empty Nests” (May 16, 1987) Happy summer! This is an episode of Backdoor Pilots, our summer Patreon series looking into the times famous sitcoms attempted to use a backdoor pilot to launch a spinoff. This particular example is one of the most interesting, since what aired on Golden Girls ended up being very different from the spinoff that made it to air, Empty Nest. Here is the full list of Backdoor Pilots episodes, with links to the ones that are currently live on Patreon. More to come!  Gold

Jul 25, 2023 • 1:37:39

Moe Szyslak Is Gay for Pay

“Flaming Moe” (January 16, 2011) Today, LGBTQ characters on The Simpsons get to be more than walking gay jokes, and, really, this is one of the first episodes that shows Smithers as a (mostly) out member of the larger community in Springfield. It’s not perfect, however; there’s an homage to the 2008 film Milk that lands strangely, there’s a hetero love subplot for Skinner that takes acts two and three, and there’s a trans joke that underscores how advances in representation for LGBs didn’t inclu

Jul 11, 2023 • 1:55:54

The Honeymooners Meet a Sexually Ambiguous Latino

“Mama Loves Mambo” (May 3, 1956) While Ralph Kramden never met an out gay character on screen, he did once tussle with a new neighbor, Carlos Sanchez (Charles Korvin), who embodies all the traits of the “latin lover” stock character type. This includes being perceived as a threat to women while also being sensitive, empathetic and emotional — or in the midcentury binary, effeminate. We’re joined by Nu Julio himself, Tony Rodriguez, to discuss why this classic sitcom strikes a different chord tha

Jul 5, 2023 • 2:17:08

American Dad Puts on a Play

“Blood Crieth Unto Heaven” (January 27, 2013) Yes, we’re giving you two American Dads this season, with this one representing how this show uses high-concept premises better than most other sitcoms. In this one, the show presents itself as a stage play, complete with all the restrictions and encumbrances that come with denying itself the ability to do quick cuts, and what results is as funny as it is bizarre. Here to discuss why this episode is a stand-out is Johnny LaZebnik, who sings the prais

Jun 28, 2023 • 1:57:45

Alex Mack Is a Lesbian Icon

“Bad Girl” (November 12, 1996) If you were not the target audience (and target age) for this live-action Nickelodeon series, you may be shocked to find out that The Secret World of Alex Mack is a sci-fi show. It’s basically Spider-Man with a baby gay lead protagonist, played with remarkable aplomb by Larisa Oleynik. We’re joined by Katie Mathewson, screenwriter on Hawkeye and the breakout hit Jury Duty, to discuss how very queer this show is — and in particular this episode, which plays out like

Jun 21, 2023 • 2:21:31

The Evolution of Coming Out Episodes

This week, we’re joined by Matt Baume, author of the new book Hi Honey, I’m Homo, about the history of LGBTQ representation on American TV. Instead of a single episode, we’re talking about several, including some we’ve covered previously on GEE and some we have not! All in the Family, “Judging Books by Covers” (February 9, 1971) Soap, “Episode 1.8” (November 8, 1977) The Golden Girls, “Isn’t It Romantic?” (November 8, 1986) and “Sister of the Bride” (January 12, 1991) Ellen, “The Puppy E

Jun 14, 2023 • 1:53:16

Ranma Is a Girl Sometimes

“I Love You! My Dear, Dear Ukyo” (May 18, 1990) This week, we’re pivoting away from traditional sitcoms to discuss Ranma ½, a long-running anime that combines martial arts, romance, mysticism and… zany misunderstandings that are actually very sitcom-like, when you get down to it. This series focuses on the title character, a teenage boy who due to a curse turns into a girl when splashed with cold water, so there are a bajillion ways to analyze the gender dynamics. Here to discuss this with us is

Jun 7, 2023 • 2:34:20

Leon Carp Is Roseanne’s Gay Nemesis

“The Driver’s Seat” (November 30, 1993) We’re giving another shot to Roseanne, because perhaps it’s been long enough that you all want to listen to stories about this iconic series. Perhaps not! Regardless, this show offered us Martin Mull’s Leon, who goes unsung in the annals of gay supporting characters. He’s a villain, though much of his evildoing has nothing to do with his sexuality, and in this particular episode, his gayness doesn’t even come up — which is unusual, because usually gay supp

May 31, 2023 • 1:47:45

Kath Thinks Kim Is Gay (American Version)

“Gay” (November 20, 2008) The reviews would have you believe that NBC’s attempt at an American redo of Kath & Kim was without merit and appealing to no one. We’re not so sure, and the fact that its one season on air came around the same time franchises like Real Housewives and RuPaul’s Drag Race were revving up means that there actually an audience for two women who dress trashy but who think they’re hot stuff and whose banter vacillates between friendly and bitchy. It’s not as successful as the

May 24, 2023 • 1:43:43

Kath Thinks Kim Is Gay (Australian Version)

“Gay” (May 23, 2002) A smash hit in its native Australia, Kath & Kim focuses on two suburban women joined by their lack of both good taste and any sort of a clue. The second episode is just titled “Gay,” and to discuss it, we were joined by Glenn Charlie Dunks, a real-life Australian homosexual who’s spent a great deal of time thinking about art, culture and the differences between Australian and American media. He also taught us several vocabulary lessons, because as we learned, we speak Englis

May 17, 2023 • 2:31:44

Two and a Half Men Meets a Trans Man

“An Old Flame With a New Wick” (March 1, 2004) Despite the preconceptions you might have about Two and a Half Men, the fact remains that its first season features an episode centered on a trans man... when few other sitcoms ever bothered to tell a story about someone who’s trans and male. In fact, the previous sitcom of note to do a trans man storyline was the previous episode we had guest Henry Giardina on for: the Golden Girls episode with Gil Kessler. In this installment, we discuss why sit

May 10, 2023 • 2:12:02

Green Acres Meets a Woman Named Ralph

“What’s in a Name?” (February 16, 1966) On a show all about the zany inhabitants of Hooterville, Ralph Monroe (Mary Grace Canfield) stands out because the most unusual thing about her is her name. She works as a carpenter and dresses for her work, but that name alone is enough that most Hootervillians don’t know what pronoun to use for her. As we discuss with special guest Josh Trujillo, Ralph is not a trans character, but this episode about her seeking a new name so she can get married, offers

May 3, 2023 • 1:52:52

Weirdest Episode Ever: Darkwing Duck Goes to Twin Peaks

This is a preview for the Weirdest Episode Ever about the time Darkwing Duck did a parody of Twin Peaks. The full episode is an exclusive for patrons pledging $5 or more a month, but this preview is going on the free feed both as an enticement and also because I share some quotes from Tad Stones, creator of Darkwing Duck, about how this strange piece of TV came to be. If you want to hear the full episode, head over to our Patreon and pledge at the $5-a-month level; you’ll not only get all WEEs s

Apr 28, 2023 • 35:22

Bosom Buddies Never Did a Gay Episode

“Sonny Boy” (February 12, 1981) Is it surprising that TV’s most famous drag sitcom never dared to do anything actually gay? It shouldn’t be! And for all that could end up going wrong with this premise, this episode, concerning Peter Scolari’s character having to explain to his mother why he’s wearing a dress, weirdly (and probably accidentally) gets a lot right about coming out. It’s a story about someone saying it doesn’t matter whether anyone understands your decision. As Billy Joel once said,

Apr 26, 2023 • 1:54:34

Parks & Recreation Marries Gay Penguins

“Pawnee Zoo” (September 17, 2009) Okay, fine, we did the Parks & Rec episode you asked for, but here’s the thing: The one were Leslie Knope marries gay penguins is not the pro-gay piece of TV history you think it is. Nowhere in this episode does Leslie ever say she gives a dirty squirt about gays or same-sex marriage. The episode never takes a position, and the fact that it won a GLAAD Media Award makes it all the more galling that “Pawnee Zoo” plays out as Leslie liking positive attention but n

Apr 19, 2023 • 1:33:53

John Goodman Played Gay on Normal, Ohio

“Caught on Tape” (November 15, 2000) John Goodman’s follow-up sitcom to Roseanne was Normal, Ohio, which only lasted seven episodes before Fox yanked it from its schedule in late 2000. Unfortunately, the take-away from its failure was that audiences wouldn’t buy a guy like Goodman playing gay, which is perhaps not one of the problems this show needed to fix? This week, special guest / homosexual academic Hollis Griffin joins us to discuss why this show didn’t work and why it’s still worth discus

Apr 12, 2023 • 2:10:16

Brothers Brings a Sitcom Sensibility to Gay Bashing

“It Only Hurts When I’m Gay” (October 25, 1985) On paper, the idea of a sitcom taking on the subject of gay bashing seems like the worst idea, but somehow Brothers — TV’s first gay sitcom — manages to tell a real story about violence against gay people while avoiding the hokey “very special episode” tropes. We’re as shocked as anyone how good this turned out, and what’s more, it’s genuinely funny without underselling the gravity of the attack. You can now watch Glen’s movie, Being Frank, on Fre

Apr 5, 2023 • 1:23:24

Barney Miller Protects the Rights of Gay Parents

“The Child-Stealers” (January 24, 1980) A hundred episodes and one pandemic later, we’re finally returning to the least offensive police precinct in TV history. This sixth-season episode sees the return of Marty and Daryl, the recurring homos at the center of the previous Barney Miller we covered. What results is an interesting look at how police are able and sometimes unable to intervene with homophobia keeps a parent from seeing their child. Listen to our previous Barney Miller episode. Regar

Mar 29, 2023 • 1:24:34

Miss Piggy Is a Gay Icon

“Miss Piggy’s Hollywood” / “First Show” (May 14, 1989) Better known by the segment title, Miss Piggy’s Hollywood, this mostly forgotten bit of TV history aired on NBC in 1989 and more or less works out to be the thing Drew and Glen dreamed into existence: The Comeback but with Miss Piggy. In this half-hour, you see Miss Piggy repeatedly try to assert herself in Hollywood, only to be knocked down every time. Gee, is there a reason gay men are drawn to this character who’s seeking acceptance from

Mar 22, 2023 • 1:48:03

Weirdest Episode Ever: Lucy Gets Eaten by a Dragon

“Lucy Goes to Scotland” (January 6, 1956) It’s our second I Love Lucy episode and also our second “It was all a dream!” installment of Weirdest Episode Ever. So what is to be made of a dream sequence where Lucy Ricardo is ultimately fed to a dragon? Perhaps not much, but if you want to approach it from a perspective of dream analysis, it’s very likely that Lucy’s sacrifice has something to do with Lucille Ball’s impending divorce and her allowing celebrity to triumph over her personal life. And

Mar 15, 2023 • 1:27:28

Weirdest Episode Ever: The Cosby Show Has a Nightmare — This Time With Muppets!

Heads up! We’re talking about The Cosby Show in this episode, and therefore we’re talking about Bill Cosby’s alleged sexual misconduct. We don’t spend too much time on it. That’s mostly addressed in a different Patreon-online episode, which people supporting us at the $5 level or higher can listen to here. This is actually the tenth installment of Weirdest Episode Ever, our newest bonus miniseries. It’s going on the main feed for scheduling reasons I explain in the intro but also this will serve

Mar 8, 2023 • 1:27:42

Night Court Did a Trans Episode, But Let’s Talk About This Episode Instead

“Bull Gets a Kid” (November 8, 1984) For our second look at Night Court, we opted not for the so-so trans episode “Best of Friends,” which doesn’t really improve on the “my buddy is in town and it turns out is trans” plotline done so well by The Jeffersons. Instead, we are looking at a non-gay, non-trans episode guest starring Bobby Hill herself, Pamela Adlon, as a young girl who pretends to be a boy. There’s actually a lot going on here about gender norms that makes for a more interesting talk

Mar 1, 2023 • 1:33:10

Before Balki, Bronson Pinchot Played Gay on Sara

“You Can’t Win ’Em All” (February 27, 1985) Sara is a one-season sitcom that first came to our attention via a gag on The Simpsons, the context being that it wasn’t a show worth remembering. The Simpsons was wrong, however, and this Geena Davis vehicle does a lot of what we think ’80s sitcoms don’t do. Namely, it has an out gay character who is allowed to have a sex drive. He’s also more than a set of stereotypical mannerisms but he still reads as gay. And Bronson Pinchot, who one year later wou

Feb 22, 2023 • 1:31:25

Golden Girls Celebrates Valentine’s Day With Gay Guys, Dick Jokes and Condoms

“Valentine’s Day” (February 11, 1989) Consider this a special Valentine’s present from us to you: your regular weekly episode, one day early! Feb. 14 marks a truly terrible holiday that we’d normally encourage you all to ignore. However, it so happens that just in time for 2023’s Valentine’s Day we were reminded of a Golden Girls episode that spins not one but four tales about this wretched holiday. Believe us: They do it about as good as any TV show ever could. Watch Matt Baume’s video that ins

Feb 14, 2023 • 1:28:43

A Gay Alien Makes American Dad a Good Show

A heads up: This episode discusses sexual assault in the context of it being something that would get referenced in mid-2000s shows as a marker of being “edgy.” Also, there is a discussion of anal probing in the context of alien abduction, not to be funny but to try and understand why this is a concept that shows up on sitcoms.  “Roger ’n‘ Me” (April 23, 2006) As a follow-up to last week’s Great Gazoo episode, we return to American Dad to try to explain why Roger the alien is such a successful c

Feb 8, 2023 • 1:43:06

A Gay Alien Ruins The Flintstones

“The Great Gazoo” (October 29, 1965) Not only did the Great Gazoo mark the “jumping the shark” point for The Flintstones well before that was a term that meant anything in TV studies, but also there’s a whole queer backstory for this green imp, who’s allegedly inspired by a guy who taught a legendary class of CalArts animators who went on to make most of the top-grossing cinematic cartoons of the last fifty years. The fact that there’s next to nothing available online about Bill Moore only makes

Feb 1, 2023 • 1:51:37

Kramer Gets Bullied by Mean Gays

“The Sponge” (December 7, 1995) You know one thing Seinfeld did right that many of its metropolitan sitcom imitators didn’t? It had mean gays — specifically Bob and Cedric, a gay couple that shows up three times throughout the series run to exert queer menace on Kramer. They figure into a plot that’s otherwise centered on Elaine’s birth control, and their demand that Kramer wear an AIDS ribbon allows us to discuss various issues related to virtue signaling, talking talks vs. walking walks and ge

Jan 25, 2023 • 1:40:18

The Cartoons That Made Us Gay: Sailor Moon

“The Shining Silver Crystal: The Moon Princess Appears” (November 28, 1992) It's the only Sailor Moon episode of a podcast you will hear this week featuring a surprise cameo by Mia Farrow. About a year ago, we covered Sailor Moon on our bonus podcast, The Cartoons That Made Us Gay. We kicked off 2023 by returning to Sailor Moon, and so we decided to pop the original one onto the main feed. This one is all about the first-season same-sex couple, Kunzite and Zoisite, but if you’re into it, right n

Jan 12, 2023 • 1:52:37

Weirdest Episode Ever: The Facts of Life Goes to the Twilight Zone

Greetings! We are combatting the dead zone that is the holidays with a bonus episode: the fourth of Weirdest Episode Ever, our new Patreon series looking at sitcoms that venture into sci-fi, horror and fantasy. If you like this, you can listen to three other episodes on Patreon, with another six to come in early 2023. They’re available for people supporting us at the $5 level or higher. Here’s the full list of episodes we have done/will be doing: The Cosby Show, "The Day the Spores Landed" (a.k

Dec 30, 2022 • 1:17:23

It’s a Will & Grace Christmas 2: The Revenge

“Jingle Balls” (December 13, 2001) We are closing out the year by returning to the only sitcom whose every Christmas episode is also gay: Will & Grace. It’s not great, people. And while this Laura Kightlinger-penned season for ep shows promise, it ultimately pulls back from exploring subjects that it could have done interesting work with: Will’s apparent embarrassment at dating a more effeminate man and Jack’s misguided belief that being gay means he can do design work. At least Parker Posey sav

Dec 21, 2022 • 1:29:17

The Goode Family Meets Two Types of Lesbians

“A Tale of Two Lesbians” (June 19, 2009) It’s not exactly incorrect that you can summarize The Goode Family as “What if King of the Hill but liberal?” But that description makes it seem like Mike Judge’s follow-up to KotH didn’t have potential. It did, and just a few episodes in, it was world-building in a way few other series did, by giving viewers not just one lesbian couple but two — and they were nothing alike either! Imagine! Multiple representations of female queerness onscreen at the same

Dec 14, 2022 • 2:02:46

We Finally Do Soap

Content warning: In discussing plotlines on Soap, we do bring up suicide and, very briefly, sexual assault. "Episode 4.1" (November 12, 1980) * Finally! It's one of the biggest cult favorite sitcoms of all time *and* it's also a show famous for having a LGBT character in the main cast. The only reason it's taken us this many years to tackle Soap is that it's so much more serialized than mostly anything else we cover, so while we focus on one particular episode, we're also discussing the entirety

Dec 7, 2022 • 2:36:39

Who’s the Boss? Just Basically Admits That Jonathan Is Gay

“Jonathan the Gymnast” (November 18, 1986) Technically, Who’s the Boss? never did a gay episode, but because Danny Pintauro’s sexuality looms large over this sitcom, many episodes seem a little gayer as a result — and this episode especially so. In it, Tony and Angela step into the kitchen to have a frank discussion of why Jonathan is not like other boys, and it really comes off like Who’s the Boss? is asking viewers to overlook this aspect of the character. It’s fucked up that this happened, an

Nov 30, 2022 • 2:00:06

Wings Flies Its Gay Character Back to Nantucket

“Sons and Lovers” (January 16, 1996) This is an honest-to-God follow-up to our previous Wings episode, which was all about the series antagonist, Roy Biggins, finding out his son was gay. Five seasons later, someone at Wings thought to ask “Hey, what if that gay character didn’t cease to exist the moment that first episode ended?” This episode marks one of the few times that a one-off gay character actually got to return. And yeah, we’re re-joined by Massachusetts correspondent Jonathan Bradle

Nov 23, 2022 • 2:20:12

The Crew Was Fox’s Queer-Inclusive Alternative to Friends

“The Man We Love” (June 30, 1996) Last week, we looked at Married… With Children’s take on an anti-Friends. This week, we decided to look at the last episode of a show that aired the previous season on Fox. While it was not designed as a response to Friends, it nonetheless managed to solve some of that show’s major problems. Namely, it’s racially diverse, there’s a queer character in the opening credits, and the characters actually work. It’s also funny, and having been co-created by writers who

Nov 16, 2022 • 1:43:43

Backdoor Pilots: Married… With Children Tries to Make the Anti-Friends

“Enemies” (April 14, 1996) You may recall a late-series installment of Married… With Children that shifted focus away from the Bundys and onto an apartment of young sexy people who apparently despised each other. This was “Enemies,” a kinda-sorta send-up of Friends that never saw the light of day beyond this one episode. Our theory is that it was a reformatted spinoff that at one point was going to star Christina Applegate and that also features a guy who’s totally a stand-in for Matt Le Blanc.

Nov 9, 2022 • 1:48:05

Weirdest Episode Ever: Dick Van Dyke vs. Space Aliens

“It May Look Like a Walnut” (February 6, 1963)   It’s not the first “weird” episode that a sitcom ever did, but it’s probably the most famous: the second-season installment of The Dick Van Dyke Show where it departed from the usual formula and became a sci-fi B-movie. It turns out to be a dream, of course, but you actually aren’t sure until the final moments, and it’s still one of the stranger sequences you’ll ever see on a mainstream sitcom.   This episode is not all that gay but it is the f

Nov 2, 2022 • 1:39:20

The Addams Family Considers Conversion Therapy

“Morticia and the Psychiatrist” (September 25, 1964) This year, we’re celebrating Halloween with one of the two most Halloween-tastic TV families of all time — and no worries, because we talk plenty about the other one too. Joining us to discuss the second episode of The Addams Family is Ted Biaselli, director of original series at Netflix, who shares some of his experience developing the new Addams Family reboot, Wednesday, and his lifelong relationship with the creepiest and kookiest family in

Oct 26, 2022 • 2:16:10

Modern Family Meets a Gay Clown

“Fizbo” (November 25, 2009) People have been asking us to cover this show basically since we started the podcast, and so this week we finally decided to cover it… by looking into an episode no one wanted us to do. In our heads, the most interesting part of the show is Cam and Mitchell, and the most interesting part of Cam and Mitchell is Eric Stonestreet’s portrayal of Cam. He’s straight, but we say he delivers a nuanced character who both embraces and defies stereotypes. Also, he’s a clown, it

Oct 19, 2022 • 1:53:45

Archie Bunker Goes to a Gay Bar

“The Boys’ Night Out” (February 13, 1983) More than a hundred episodes later (of All in the Family but also of this podcast), we return to the Archie Bunker primary universe to find out if everyone's favorite bigot got over his homophobia. The answer: kind of? But that is probably just the result of season after season of broadcast TV sanding off his rougher edges. Check out our sponsor, Spaces! And join our spaces for Gayest Episode Ever and Cartoons That Made Us Gay. Listen to Drew talk Stree

Oct 12, 2022 • 1:33:53

The Gay Pre-History of Mama's Family

“There Is Nothing Like the Dames” (February 17, 1990) Believe it or not, Mama’s Family has a deeply queer history. While the final result of — the syndicated revival that returned to TV after NBC canceled the it — bears little of that, this episode goes over all the ways a recurring sketch on The Carol Burnett Show originally told the story of a queer-coded artist who can’t relate to his family back home. It’s all the stranger to consider that Mama’s Family never did an explicitly queer episode,

Oct 5, 2022 • 1:33:10

30 Rock Questions Its Sexuality

“Cougars” (November 29, 2007) As comedically successful as it might be, 30 Rock is a very straight show. That’s why our best pick for a queer episode is one where the sexually interesting narrative is the C plot and it ends with Judah Friedlander’s Frank convincing himself he can’t like guys because he doesn’t fit prescribed definition of gay. This episode is ultimately harmless but indicative of some traps later Tina Fey efforts would fall into. But hey — it’s got “Muffin Top.” Check out our sp

Sep 28, 2022 • 1:41:03

Nikki Explores the Gay Side of Pro Wrestling

“Stealing Nikki” (November 26, 2000) Go figure: It’s our longest episode yet, and it’s about a show you might not even remember! We were fortunate enough to get Talking Simpsons co-host Henry Gilbert back for a second go-around, and we decided to make use of his encyclopedic knowledge of professional wrestling. Lucky for us, there is in fact a sitcom that discusses pro wrestling and queerness in the same context, and it’s Nikki Cox two-season comedy series, which could not be more early 2000s. E

Sep 21, 2022 • 3:05:55

Bill Dauterive Is Gay for Pay

“My Hair Lady” (February 15, 2004) Welcome to season six of Gayest Episode Ever! True, season don’t really mean anything on this kind of podcast, but we are back from our summer hiatus and we’re super eager to get back into talking sitcom queerness. We’re kicking off this season with our fourth look at King of the Hill. It’s an interesting one in that it has (presumably) straight writer Wyatt Cenac telling a story about Bill pretending to be gay, yet it’s pretty well done, in that both Glen and

Sep 14, 2022 • 1:38:23

Wings Meets a Gay

Hi. This is the fourth and final installment of our summer rerun series wherein we send out old episodes that we think are good but perhaps didn’t get all the attention they should have. This Wings episode is actually our least-listened-to episode, and we’re pretty sure that is a result of Drew naming it originally “Roy Biggins Has a Big Gay Son.” We’re betting that forefronting the fact that it’s Wings will help more people listen to it, because you’re more likely to know what Wings is than you

Aug 24, 2022 • 1:26:10

Married With Children Lets Its Out Star Play Gay

It's another summer rerun! This time, of our 17th episode, which never really pulled in the numbers we thought it should. We swear it doesn't suck! “Lez Be Friends” (April 28, 1997) For many kids watching sitcoms in the 90s, Amanda Bearse would have been one of the first actors they would have known to be openly gay. That’s what makes this episode so special. She’d put in her time on Married… With Children season after season, playing Al Bundy’s sparring partner, Marcy D’Arcy. So it’s sweet that

Aug 17, 2022 • 1:08:29

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy Are Domestic Partners

This is a summer rerun of an episode that originally aired July 30, 2018. We're posting not only because Harley and Ivy went from subtextual lovers to full on romantic partners on the HBO Max series but also because we've got a new Batman: TAS episode of Cartoons That Made Us Gay, which you can listen to here. Excuse the echo! It was 2018 and we didn't know better! "Harley and Ivy" (January 18, 1993) In GEE’s first bonus episode, Glen and Drew focus on something that's not a sitcom but is noneth

Aug 3, 2022 • 51:58

Sanford Arms Meets a Gay — And He’s Black!

“Phil’s Assertion School (September 23, 1977) Sanford Arms was NBC’s attempt to continue the world of Sanford and Son without either Sanford or the Son. It didn’t work, and of the eight episodes produced, only four ever aired. That said, it’s second ever installment not only introduced a gay character but also it became the first black cast sitcom to ever do a gay episode with an out gay person of color. So while this attempt at a Sanford spinoff didn’t work, it still landed its place in history

Jul 27, 2022 • 1:45:02

Sanford Thinks His Son Is Gay (And Vice-Versa)

It's our first-ever summer rerun! And we're doing this one in preparation for a full-length, main feed bonus episode next week, where we're talking about Sanford Arms, the sequel series to Sanford and Sun. Enjoy! “Lamont, Is That You?” (October 19, 1973) Norman Lear for the win! This podcast probably won’t go in depth on ’90s classics like Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Family Matters or A Different World because many black sitcoms of that era didn’t do gay episodes. Back in 1973, Sanford and Son did,

Jul 20, 2022 • 50:09

Al Borland Is a Model for the Modern American Gay Bear

“Roomie for Improvement” (November 4, 1992) Al Borland is not gay. This episode makes a point of saying that he is a heterosexual, despite how many of his (comparatively) immasculine qualities might indicate otherwise. However for some, Richard Karn’s sensitive flannel man is an example of a kind of guy some of us would grow up to like and some of us would grow up to be: big, bearded, and free to be ourselves regardless of where on the gender spectrum we ended up being. Nick Del Prince joins Dre

Jun 29, 2022 • 2:03:07

The Nanny Has Bad Gaydar

“A Fine Friendship” (February 6, 1995) One hundred episodes later, we return to The Nanny to find out what happens when Fran Fine mistakes a straight guy for a gay guy. This episode essnetially works as an inverse to the first Nanny episode we covered, right down to Fran being horrified by a gay-seeming person being straight rather than delighted by a straight-seeming person being gay.  Watch Matt Baume’s video on LGBTQ representation on The Nanny Watch Fran Drescher’s TikTok on why The Nanny

Jun 22, 2022 • 1:29:09

NewsRadio Never Did a Gay Episode

“Halloween” (October 30, 1996) Considering that every other major Must See TV sitcom did at least one gay episode, it’s surprising that NewsRadio didn’t — especially when you consider the fact that its lead actor, Dave Foley, jumped straight to NBC from Kids in the Hall, which experimented with gender and sexuality a lot more freely. This episode was as close as we could find to a real gay episode. And while it does feature Dave Foley donning drag once again, there’s a lot more weird stuff going

Jun 15, 2022 • 1:48:41

Rosa Diaz Is Bi... And Brooklyn Nine-Nine Is Copaganda

“Game Night” (December 12, 2017) Right off the top of the bat, we need to admit that yes, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a show about cops. There’s no getting around that. We try our best to discuss how to weight its copaganda status against every other aspect of the show, and while we’re not going to try to sell anyone on this show, we will say that dismissing it means skipping over one of the better episodes of a sitcom ever to address bisexuality head-on. Speaking of addressing bisexuality head-on, we

Jun 8, 2022 • 1:54:58

Troy McClure Isn’t Gay, But…

“A Fish Called Selma” (March 24, 1996) In this episode, The Simpsons send up the glass closets of Hollywood and what some actors are willing to do to pass for “normal.” Troy McClure explicitly says he’s not gay, but the way the industry treats him for not fitting the leading man mold and what he does to find success anyway parallels what a lot of gay stars have done and what some are still doing.   Read: The strange history of the 2019 film Yesterday and Jack Barth, the screenwriter who w

Jun 1, 2022 • 1:45:07

Janet from The Good Place Is a Nonbinary Icon

“Janet(s)” (December 6, 2018)   Spoiler warning: We totally spoil The Good Place, so if you have not seen it and want to go in fresh, go do that!   It seems weird that The Good Place was a show on a broadcast network at all, much less one that ran for four seasons and gave viewers so much to think about. Perhaps one of the more surprising aspects was D’Arcy Carden’s Janet, who rose above “Busty Alexa” status to become one of the more interesting characters. Janet is not nonbinary, but as five-

May 25, 2022 • 1:47:39

The 150th Episode Spectacular: Hot Takes

It’s our 150th episode, and we’ve decided to celebrate this milestone with something different: a hot takes episode, where we share our pop culture hot takes and we also share hot takes submitted from our listeners. Disclaimer: we cannot guarantee that you will find all takes equally hot, nor can we guarantee that you will find this episode to be spectacular.   We did not, in the end, have time to get to every hot take submitted by listeners, but we thank you for submitting anyway and hope to

May 18, 2022 • 1:29:12

Coach Meets a Gay Guy

“A Real Guy’s Guy” (October 25,1991)   Hear us out here: Coach is a good sitcom even if you don’t like football. In fact, Drew likes Coach even though he actively despises football. This fourth-season episode has Craig T. Nelson’s character reacting to news that one of his players is gay, and it’s actually pretty flawless in terms of what a gay episode can be: a sympathetically written one-off queer character + a realistic model for how someone who isn’t comfortable around LGBTers can admit th

May 11, 2022 • 1:24:35

Girlfriends Hosts a Lesbian Baby Shower

“And Baby Makes Four” (November 3, 2003) Before she was the literal mom on Blackish, Tracee Ellis Ross was the glue holding the figurative family together for eight seasons on Girlfriends. Drew and Glen are joined by Jennifer Eden to discuss why Ross is maybe one of the better examples of showbiz royalty and why this episode of TV is unique in offering viewers two black queer women in a relationship (guest stars Dawnn Lewis and Samaria Graham). Also: William is THE WORST. When they reunited for

May 4, 2022 • 2:07:30

Madame’s Place Was TV’s First Gay Puppet Sitcom

“#001” (September 20, 1982) Look, Madame’s Place wasn’t a good sitcom, but it was the gayest puppet-focused sitcom and also a contender for one of the first gay sitcoms, on account of its draggy sensibility and the fact that the man behind Madame was one of the first openly gay entertainers. Drew and Glen discuss how weird this show is, including the fact that its antagonist is a TV executive who’s literally missing a face and who can control the weather. All this plus dick jokes. Read a 1985 L.

Apr 27, 2022 • 1:30:43

Just the Ten of Us Almost Did a Gay Episode

“Betrayal” (September 13, 1989) You might classify Just the Ten of Us with rest of the TGIF also-rans, but trust us: this show was better — funnier, edgier and with two actual, explicit gay jokes that ran on the same night as Urkel, to say nothing of the fact that its four sexy teenage daughters gave little gay boys a favorite no matter what kind of diva they’d end up worshipping. Frankie Frascatore joins us to talk about the Nightmare on Elm Street connection, the WandaVision connection, how th

Apr 20, 2022 • 1:39:03

3rd Rock from the Sun Goes to a Gay Bar

“World’s Greatest Dick” (November 10, 1996)   Sally Solomon is a straight, cis character, but for the first two seasons of the 3rd Rock from the Sun, there was this queer or trans aura around her. This episode dispels it, for the most part, and allows the writers to craft storylines and jokes that are no longer different versions of the “man trapped in a woman’s body” trope. Drew and Glen disagree on exactly what the gay man trying to date her thinks is going on with Sally, but for all that co

Apr 13, 2022 • 1:32:01

Peggy Hill Had Sex With a Gay Guy

“Luann Virgin 2.0” (March 11, 2001) We’re very happy to return to Arlen, Texas, to discuss a King of the Hill episode that has a small gay subplot: Peggy technically lost her virginity before she met Hank to a friend who needed to figure out if he was gay. However, in having that thread introduce a discussion of what’s reason enough for good, red-blooded heterosexual Christians to get married, this episode (accidentally?) also makes a good argument in favor of the reasons same-sex couples wanted

Apr 6, 2022 • 1:18:49

The Cartoons That Made Us Gay: Gargoyles

Yes, we said there was no episode this week, but then we realized that we had all these bonus episodes just lying around on Patreon, so here is one of those. BTW, listen to more queer readings of old cartoons here for just $1 a month. “The Mirror” (September 11, 1995) It is technically possible that someone could have watched Gargoyles and not realized that it was one of the horniest animated series ever. We think this episode — which has a very fey Puck teaming up with Demona to turn our heroic

Mar 30, 2022 • 1:33:44

Oscar From The Office Comes Out

“Gay Witch Hunt” (September 21, 2006)   Whelp, you asked enough so we finally did it: we covered The Office, despite the fact that its entire series run came and went during the age of online recaps and extensive online coverage. This is one of the most requested episodes we've gotten since we began this podcast. It’s up to you to decide what we can add to discourse about this mid-2000s phenomenon — which, BTW, was not as big of a hit as you might remember — but we can at least point out that

Mar 23, 2022 • 1:30:07

Gomer Pyle Writes Gay Love Letters

“Love Letters to Sarge” (January 29, 1965) Not only is this the only installment of a podcast that will explain the gay history of Gomer Pyle and the man who played him, but also it’s the only discussion of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C to feature relevant clips from both The Simpsons and Sailor Moon, because that’s the kind of show this is. Special thanks to listener Robyn Pavlakovich for suggesting this episode.  Watch this great explainer video on Gomer Pyle and Jim Nabors by friend of the show Matt Ba

Mar 16, 2022 • 1:28:11

Becker Meets a Trans Woman

“He Said, She Said” (November 1, 1999) The legends speak of a forgotten volume of lore known as… Becker. Allegedly a hit CBS television series starring Ted Danson, it is apparently a victim of the same magic spell that befell Wings, making it all but forgotten from pop culture discourse today. However, as guest Jasmine Friend brought to our attention, Becker did a 1990s twist on the “old friend in town turns out to be trans” trope we discussed in our recent Jeffersons episode. This will likely b

Mar 9, 2022 • 1:39:21

Philip J. Fry Has a Gay Grandpa (Repost fort Apple Podcasts)

I guess Apple Podcasts didn’t like the original title for this episode, and so now I have to post it again. Fun! “Roswell That Ends Well” (December 9, 2001) Equal parts sitcom and sci-fi epic, Futurama has some deep lore, and at the core of one of its most important storylines — that Fry is genetically destined to save the universe — is the fact that he also accidentally kills his gay grandfather and impregnates his own grandmother. Which is a lot, we realize, but in this episode we try to expla

Mar 2, 2022 • 1:31:47

Philip J. Fry Accidentally Kills His Gay Grandpa (But Saves the Universe)

“Roswell That Ends Well” (December 9, 2001) Equal parts sitcom and sci-fi epic, Futurama has some deep lore, and at the core of one of its most important storylines — that Fry is genetically destined to save the universe — is the fact that he also accidentally kills his gay grandfather and impregnates his own grandmother. Which is a lot, we realize, but in this episode we try to explain why Futurama is great and why dead, gay Grandpa Enos is vital to the cosmology of the show. If you like deep d

Mar 2, 2022 • 1:31:47

The Jeffersons Meet a Trans Woman

“Once a Friend” (October 1, 1977) Often cited as TV’s first sympathetic portrayal of a trans character, this episode of The Jeffersons introduces Edie Stokes as someone who, unlike other trans characters in earlier portrayals, is not at a point of crisis. She’s transitioned, she’s living the life she wants and she’s merely reaching out to her old Navy buddy to say hi — not to get his approval. Drew and Glen are joined by Marsha’s Plate host Diamond Stylz to discuss why this episode is not only

Feb 23, 2022 • 1:53:10

Ross Geller Brings Gay Panic to The Single Guy

“Neighbors” (November 2, 1995) So it’s been a hot second since we talked about friends, and to be honest, we can’t mentally deal with the combined phobia attack that is Friends so instead we are offering everyone a glimpse of a forgotten, perhaps even lost fragment of the Friends would tour of terrible, that being Ross Geller’s pitstop on The Single Guy, where he helped bring about gay panic. Honestly, this episode is not actually all that bad, and it makes a guy wonder why this show failed when

Feb 16, 2022 • 1:31:56

I Dream of GEE-nnie

“Indispensable Jeannie” (November 25, 1968) We’re as surprised as anyone that we’ve found an episode of I Dream of Jeannie that we can cover on this podcast. All credit goes to Brett White, who’s not only host of the Must Have Seen TV podcast but also the guy currently writing a book on the life of Hayden Rorke, who played Dr. Bellows on Jeannie but also was openly gay to the show’s cast and crew — and who pulled some important strings in TV history. This episode is even more interesting when co

Feb 9, 2022 • 2:01:45

Happy Endings Explores Gay Subcultures

“Ordinary Extraordinary Love” (January 8, 2013) Bears, twinks, otters, wolves, panthers, yetis and bunniculas. The breadth of subcultures that gay life offers is both wide and weird — and a subject rarely approached by mainstream sitcoms. However, Happy Endings brought this to broadcast in the mid-2010s, all centered around the uncategorizable Max. The content warning that wasn’t: In the original intro clip, Max references a trans slur that, if we’re being responsible, would have gotten a warnin

Feb 2, 2022 • 1:18:37

Rose Nylund vs. the Stigma of AIDS

“72 Hours” (February 17, 1990)   We figured the only proper way to start this season would be to say goodbye to Betty White — and a great way to do that would be to discuss a Golden Girls episode where Rose takes an HIV test. Not only does it showcase a wider range of Betty’s acting chops, but it’s also a great kickoff to a new sort of episode we’ll be covering on GEE in the future: very special episodes about HIV and AIDS. Even if there are no LGBT characters in this episode, the subject mat

Jan 26, 2022 • 1:29:57

The Cartoons That Made Us Gay: Jem & The Holograms

“The Bands Break Up” (September 28, 1987) We’re not *quite* ready yet to swing into regular production, so we’re tossing up an episode of our Patreon-only bonus podcast, The Cartoons That Made Us Gay, onto the main feed. It’s the Jem and the Holograms episode that is titled “The Bands Break Up” but would me more accurately titled “Kimber and Stormer Are Gay Lesbians Making Beautiful Queer Music Together.” Intentionally gay or not, it is hard to dismiss these girls’ relationship as just platonic,

Jan 10, 2022 • 1:13:20

It’s a Will & Grace Christmas!

“A Little Christmas Queer” (December 8, 2005) Lest you be tempted to believe that Christmas miracles aren’t real, we finally found an episode of Will & Grace that Drew doesn’t hate. This one, from the final season of the show’s original broadcast run, focuses on Will and company spending Christmas with his family and the problems posed by the fact that Will’s nephew seems so very gay. It’s actually a more nuanced look at the difficulties of being gay and leaving your life to spend the holiday wi

Dec 22, 2021 • 1:07:51

Totally Trans Talks All in the Family and Beverly LaSalle

Special presentation! The Totally Trans podcast is covering the All in the Family character of Beverly LaSalle in a three part series this week because it marks a pairing of trans representation on a sitcom with the Christmas season. In an effort to promote this in-depth look at All in the Family, we’re posting the first part on our feed. Have a listen — and then subscribe to Totally Trans to hear parts two and three as well as everything Ada-Rhodes, Henry and Katie will be discussing in 2022. S

Dec 21, 2021 • 1:08:33

Out of This World Does a Gender Swap Episode

“Evie Stevie” (December 16, 1989) Whether you remember it as the show with the talking geodesic dad cube or the one with the girl who could freeze time, Out of This World has been relegated to the further reaches of 80s nostalgia. You might even believe some naysayers that it wasn’t a good show; however, it was exactly as good of a show as you could hope for about a half-alien teen girl whose supernatural powers cause wacky, zany hijinx. It’s not Norman Lear, but you know what? Neither were ALF,

Dec 15, 2021 • 1:16:36

Mad About You Hijacks a Coming Out Storyline

“Ovulation Day” (January 7, 1996) Mad About You was one of NBC’s major sitcoms in the 90s, but it hasn’t left a legacy the way many of its Must See TV mates have. We talk about why in this episode, which is actually the part one of a two-part crossover with the queer film podcast A Piece of Pie, where we’re also discussing Helen Hunt’s Oscar-winning turn in 1997’s As Good as It Gets. Listen to Drew and Glen guest on A Piece of Pie’s discussing of As Good as It Gets here. Subscribe to A Piece of

Dec 8, 2021 • 1:12:32

Empty Nest Uses the F-Slur

“Single White Male” (January 7, 1995) Even if you were the kind of person who watched all of NBC’s Saturday night sitcoms back in the day, the following things may surprise you: 1) Empty Nest is a solid sitcom. 2) Empty Nest was a strong ratings performer that often beat the show it spun off from, The Golden Girls. 3) Empty Nest was still on in 1995. 4) When it uses the “f”-slur, it actually uses it appropriately — to mark someone as being heinously gauche. Watch the interview where Rita Moreno

Dec 1, 2021 • 1:20:52

Bob Belcher Is Bi

“Turkey in a Can” (November 24, 2013) Why did the fourth-season Thanksgiving episode of Bob’s Burgers make some people think Bob Belcher is bisexual? In short, it’s a single line — “I’m mostly straight” — but the real answer is a more complicated one that has to do with the show’s queer sensibility, its overall gentle nature and the fact that Bob is a TV patriarch who operates differently than Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin. Who's the real sloppy bear? Read the Mary Sue’s piece on Bob Belcher

Nov 24, 2021 • 1:17:11

Michelle Tanner Meets a Yankee Doodle Dandy

“The Play’s the Thing” (November 17, 1992) The big joke with Full House never did a gay episode despite being a show about three men cohabitating and coparenting in San Francisco. However, the fifth season introduced Derek (Blake McIver Ewing), a new friend for Michelle who’s well-mannered, soft-spoken and really good at showtunes. We’d argue that Derek, while young, still comes off as a queer-coded character, and the fact the actor himself would later come out makes the performance all the more

Nov 18, 2021 • 1:33:30

Smithers Has a Boyfriend (Interview with Rob and Johnny LaZebnik)

“Portrait of a Lackey on Fire” (November 21, 2021) Either we traveled to the future or the showrunner of The Simpsons reached out and asked us if we want to preview a new Smithers-centric episode airing this Sunday. Maybe both? This new episode happens to be written by Rob LaZebnik (a straight) and Johnny LaZebnik (his son, a gay), and we spoke with both of them about how they write together, what it’s like growing up gay in the shadow of Smithers and what it means that Helen Lovejoy is down wit

Nov 16, 2021 • 1:01:25

Jo Polniaczek Is a Lesbian Heartthrob (Re-Upload for Apple Podcasts)

Not to gunk up your feed with too much from us this week, but some of you have been having problems getting the track to play on Apple Podcasts. If you are, delete that first version of the episode and listen to this one. If you didn't have a problem, just delete this one. Sorry for the confusion! “The New Girl, Part One” and “The New Girl, Part Two” (November 19 and 26, 1980) True, the first episode of The Facts of Life is the one that comes closest to addressing LGBT issues, but so much of Jo

Nov 10, 2021 • 2:12:57

Jo Polniaczek Is a Lesbian Heartthrob

“The New Girl, Part One” and “The New Girl, Part Two” (November 19 and 26, 1980) True, the first episode of The Facts of Life is the one that comes closest to addressing LGBT issues, but so much of Jo and Blair’s relationship treads close that we are returning to discuss Nancy McKeon’s two-part introduction to the show. Librarian and Facts of Life scholar Erin Fletcher joins us to discuss the many layers to Jo and many lines that, upon second thought, seem like they might be double entendres. Li

Nov 10, 2021 • 2:12:57

The Cartoons That Made Us Gay: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

“Michelangelo Meets Mondo Gecko” (September 14, 1991) It’s finally here: The Cartoons That Made Us Gay, our new Patreon-exclusive bonus podcast, focused on queer readings of the cartoons of our youth. While this series will comprise ten episodes only available on our Patreon feed, we’re putting the first part of the first episode on the main feed to show off what we’re doing.  To listen to the full version of this episode, all you need to do is pledge $1 a month on Patreon and subscribe to the P

Nov 9, 2021 • 34:16

Paul Lynde Makes Halloween Gayer

The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (October 29, 1976) It’s the first TableCakes crossover! But is Gayest Episode Ever making an appearance on Monday Afternoon Monday or vice versa? Who cares! The point is that Sam Pancake — actor, comedian and host of MAM — is discussing The Paul Lynde Halloween Special with Drew and Glen in all its vintage bonkers badness. If there is one significant difference in this episode, it’s probably that it’s light on clips because 1) the jokes aren’t great and 2) Sam

Oct 27, 2021 • 1:28:39

Weirdest Episode Ever: The Terror of Zombie Sandy Duncan

“Nightmare on Oak Street” (November 23, 1987) We had to break format to do it, but at long last, we are talking about The Hogan Family… a.k.a. Valerie, a.k.a. Valerie’s Family. And yes the history of how this one sitcom had three different names is explained, but more to the point we ask why a show that killed off its title character would choose to confront its young viewers just a few weeks later with zombie horror — and worst of all, the Zombie Sandy Duncan. The Associates, the lawyer sitcom

Oct 20, 2021 • 1:30:01

Gloria Vane Is a Part of Frasier’s Queer History

“PIlot” (1993) This unsold pilot, featuring JoBeth Williams as an aging actress in 1930s Hollywood, represents writer Joe Keenan’s attempt at selling NBC a TV series with a gay sensibility back in 1993. And while Gloria Vane never made it to air, its legacy lives on in Frasier, as Keenan joined the Frasier writers’ room and ended up penning some of the series queerest and most farcical episodes. Even without that Frasier connection, however, Gloria Vane would still merit its own very special epi

Oct 13, 2021 • 1:04:09

Mr. Furley Tries to Convert Jack

“The Love Lesson” (Jan. 22, 1980) Heads up: The gender politics in this one are all fucked up, and a lie results in a character getting misgendered in a way that won’t be funny to every listener. However, it’s not the whole of the episode. When Mr. Furley catches Jack necking with a woman, Jack lies and says this woman is actually a man. Naturally, Mr. Furley offers to teach Jack how to be heterosexual. Listen to the What a Cartoon episode on Laverne and Shirley in the Army and get a nice prime

Oct 6, 2021 • 1:14:55

Frasier’s Dad Is Dating Frasier’s Brother

“Out With Dad” (February 10, 2000) It’s been far too long since we did a Frasier episode, and so we’re returning with a good one, in which Martin (John Mahoney) plays gay and pretends that Niles (David Hyde Pierce) is his boyfriend. It’s a great farce, and as special guest Anthony Oliveira points out, it’s one of the best Joe Keenan-penned episodes of the show. Beyond Sunset is live! Buy issue one here! Listen to Anthony’s Patreon podcast, The Devil’s Party. Watch the pilot for Gloria Vane, a Jo

Sep 29, 2021 • 1:42:26

The Other Two Finds a Daddy

EDIT: Apologies for the original file cutting off early. It has since been fixed. “Pat Connects With Her Fans” (August 26, 2021) The Other Two is not a gay show, necessarily, but one of the two titular characters is gay, and through him this sitcom explores aspects of gay life that most shows don’t. Its current season has Cary (Drew Tarver) explore what kind of gay man he wants to be, and this episode in particular does that through a wacky sitcom misunderstanding that’s both expertly crafted an

Sep 22, 2021 • 1:14:24

Elaine Dates a Gay Guy

(“The Beard,” February 9, 1995) And… we’re back. Welcome to season five of Gayest Episode Ever, which is a lot like the previous seasons but with a few streamlining improvements. Our first episode looks at an Elaine-centric Seinfeld in which it’s supposed that a straight woman can cure a gay man if she tries hard enough and Melrose Place is a show that heterosexual men watch only in secret. Listen to our previous Seinfeld episodes: Susan’s Dad Had an Affair With John Cheever and Jerry and Geor

Sep 15, 2021 • 1:21:31

He-Man Fights a Gay Bunny-Man

“Quest for He-Man” (October 5, 1983) A thousand gay nerds debating on a thousand twitter threads could come up with any number of candidates for the gayest episode ever of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, but the one we’re talking about with Talking Simpsons co-host Henry Gilbert is the one where our hero travels through a swirling rainbow hole to an alternate dimension ruled by a gay-seeming bunny-man who loads a phallic rocket full of his precious, life-giving fluid, and no, we’re not m

Aug 17, 2021 • 2:20:18

Did Fraggle Rock Do an Episode About AIDS?

”Gone But Not Forgotten” (February 16, 1987) Surprise! We’re back! And we brought Fraggles with us! In the final season of Fraggle Rock, the episode “Gone But Not Forgotten” features Wembley making a new friend in Mudwell the Mudbunny, who knows he will soon die. Mudwell’s passing and Wembley’s grief serve as not only a general life lesson for young viewers but also a parallel for the life of Richard Hunt, the openly gay Mupetteer who voices Mudwell, who lost his own partner to AIDS not long bef

Aug 4, 2021 • 1:43:19

Marge Simpson Is a Homophobe and a Transphobe

“There’s Something About Marrying” (February 20, 2005) Gayest Episode Ever would not exist without The Simpsons — mostly because we stole Talking Simpsons’ podcast format and applied it to LGBT episodes of classic sitcoms, and Talking Simpsons would not exist without The Simpsons. But cultural and personal importance aside, there comes a time to point out when a thing you love screws up, and this episode — the one that should be about Marge disapproving about Patty marrying a woman but ends up b

Jun 30, 2021 • 2:04:14

Peter Griffin Becomes a Gay

“Family Gay” (March 8, 2009) Is it anticlimactic to say that this episode of Family Guy is not as terrible as you might expect? It concerns Peter being injected with the gay gene and becoming temporarily gay, and for the Seth MacFarlane of it all, this one gets some stuff right, lands a few decent jokes, biffs some bad ones and sometimes sacrifices laughs altogether to shock, horrify or offend. In short, it’s typical Family Guy. Listen to Drew and Glen on You’re Making It Worse. Listen to the s

Jun 23, 2021 • 1:50:17

The Naked Truth Has Two Pretend Gays (Zero Actual Gays)

“Woman Gets Plastered, Star Gets Even” (January 23, 1997) There was a time when two different networks were trying to push Téa Leoni as a sitcom star. The Naked Truth’s three seasons spanned ABC and NBC, and while it didn’t launch Leoni to TV success at this point in her career, Glen and Drew share a love of all things Téa with our guest, comedian H. Alan Scott. This episode is one of the more forgettable gay sitcom episodes sure, but there’s something to learn from the sitcoms that manage to ma

Jun 16, 2021 • 1:44:16

Boy Meets World Accidentally Does a Trans Episode

“Chick Like Me” (January 31, 1997) Rider Strong’s Shawn Hunter is not canonically a trans character, but there is a season-four episode of Boy Meets World that gives you all the evidence you’d need to conclude that Shawn might be. For this extra-long episode — possibly our longest! — we are joined by Faati the Street, who explains why this one episode speaks volumes about the trans experience, even if it was not the intention of anyone involved in the episode’s creation. Read Faati’s Twitter thr

Jun 9, 2021 • 2:41:27

Kate & Allie Meet a Lesbian Couple

“Landlady” (October 15, 1984) Right at the top of its second season, Kate & Allie did the thing so many sitcoms do and put out an episode that explicitly says “No, these characters aren’t gay.” In this case, CBS had allegedly worried that viewers might suspect Susan St. James and Jane Curtain’s characters are anything other than platonic friends. On hand to discuss the show’s lesbian underpinnings is Leah Kopperman, the queer woman of our dreams and the winner of an exhaustive nationwide search

Jun 2, 2021 • 1:55:53

Love, Sidney May Just Be the First Gay Sitcom

“Alison” (May 16, 1983) Most of you haven’t had the chance to watch Love, Sidney, the the NBC series that ran from 1981 to 1983 and which featured Tony Randall as the title character — a gay man who is out to everyone but the audience. The show features queer themes more than you’ve been led to believe, perhaps, and interestingly it’s the hourlong episode “Alison” that showcases Sidney’s sexuality by giving him a female love interest. What results is poignant, personal and more progressive than

May 26, 2021 • 1:51:01

Family Matters Never Did a Gay Episode

“Dr. Urkel and Mr. Cool” (November 12, 1993) Yep, we finally figured out a way to talk about Family Matters. When Laura asks Steve why he is the way his is, he says he’s born this way — but then he uses science to become someone else. The metaphors are easy to make, even if the writers probably didn’t have anything gay in mind when they made this episode. Prepare for an overview of all the Family Matters lore you forgot you knew. Listen and subscribe to your new favorite classic RPG podcast, Squ

May 19, 2021 • 1:42:47

Batgirl Is a Little Gay Boy’s Fantasy

“Enter Batgirl, Exit Penguin” (September 14, 1967) The final season of the 1966 live-action Batman series saw the debut of Batgirl, a twirling, high-kicking female hero created to get more  girls invested in the series — and more dads to keep paying attention. But Batgirl’s creators didn’t count on the fact that they were creating the exact kind of character that little gay boys would become obsessed with. Thanks in part to Yvonne Craig’s spot-on performance, Barbara Gordon (a.k.a. Batgirl) beca

May 12, 2021 • 1:42:13

Brothers May Just Be the First Gay Sitcom

“You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me” (August 16, 1984) Heads up: In this episode we use the “F” word — no, not that one, but the gay one — but only because the subject matter itself uses it. This week, we look into Brothers, which ran for five seasons and 115 episodes on Showtime, 1984 to 1989. The show revolved around one of the three titular brothers coming out, and therefore it has a legit claim to being the first gay sitcom, and its second-ever episode featured Uncle Phil himself, James Av

May 5, 2021 • 1:39:21

Interview: Great North Writer Charlie Kelly

In April, we gave an endorsement to The Great North episode “Pride and Prejudance Adventure” for giving the show’s gay character, Ham Tobin, a love interest just six episode into the show’s first season. Today, we’re interviewing Charlie Kelly, the writer of this episode, to find out how he has approached writing for Ham, how he came to voice Drama John and what it’s like to work on a show that might be the nicest on TV right now but is no less funny for being that way.  Follow Charlie on Insta

May 3, 2021 • 24:35

Bob Newhart Treats a Gay

“Some of My Best Friends Are…” (October 9, 1976) The fifth season of The Bob Newhart Show has a gay episode functions differently than most other show’s gay episode. For one thing, its central gay character is one who’d been on the show before; it’s just that no one — neither on the show or watching the show — knew he was gay. For another thing, it’s not the last time we see this character; unlike most LGBT guest characters on sitcoms, his existence does not end with the one episode that revolve

Apr 28, 2021 • 1:25:46

The Great North’s Ham Tobin Is a Well-Rounded Gay Teen

“Pride & Prejudance Adventure” (March 14, 2021) The Great North is not Bob’s Burgers with snow. Okay, it is a little bit, but the show has its own vibe and, more importantly for our purposes, an out gay teen as well. In the show’s sixth episode, Ham not only meets a love interest but actually gets to kiss him full on the lips — and that is neither remotely controversial nor is it the only queer plot thread in this episode. Yeah, we’re fans of this new show and we think you should be too.  End-of

Apr 21, 2021 • 1:42:52

Is It Transphobic? Talks King of the Hill

Hey, remember when Drew and Glen discussed that one episode of King of the Hill where Peggy meets a drag queen and halfway through we realized there was a trans reading to this character that probably should be explored in greater depth than two cisgender guys were capable of? Well, we had always regretted falling short in that respect and had even talked about revisiting the episode with a trans guest. However, this weekend Is It Transphobic? — the podcast hosted by previous GEE guest Ashley L

Apr 19, 2021 • 27:04

Jason Bateman Played a Gay for Five Whole Episodes

“Pilot” (February 28, 2001) In the wake of Will & Grace’s success, the other broadcast networks each made efforts at their own homo-centric TV shows, and the CBS twist on this formula was Some of My Best Friends, which lasted only five episodes. The show was an adaptation of the indie comedy Kiss Me Guido, and it starred Jason Bateman and Alec Mapa as its resident gays. Guy Branum — stand-up comedian, funny book-writing person and all-around good opinion-haver — joins us to talk about this pop c

Apr 14, 2021 • 1:50:42

Liberace Hosts The Muppet Show

“Liberace” (October 14, 1978) After a suggestion by Drew’s heterosexual acquaintance, we’ve decided to discuss the gayest episode of The Muppet Show we could find. Tony Rodriguez joins us for a discussion of Muppets but also a fairly obscure FCC ruling that shaped prime time television for every child who grew up in 80s and 90s America, plus a rundown of why Liberace is awful. There is a lot going on in this episode, but that seems appropriate given the bonkers chaos that is the Muppets. Yes, th

Apr 7, 2021 • 1:57:56

Drew and Glen Don’t Talk About Any Episode in Particular

Whelp, we’ve made it: one hundred episodes. By which I mean that we actually hit that mark several episodes ago, by various standards, but this is when we are actually observing that this is a thing we have done repeatedly over a set amount of time. For this episode, Drew and Glen talk about what this podcast has ended up doing in contrast to how they thought it would work when it launched. Also discussed: WandaVision (finally!) in some depth that you may regard as spoilerish if “Agatha All Alon

Mar 31, 2021 • 50:04

Did Gayest Episode Ever Get Tony a Job on The Simpsons? (Yes, It Totally Did)

We are very pleased to congratulate Tony Rodriguez, our friend and the most-frequently occurring guest on Gayest Episode Ever on his new job: voicing Julio on The Simpsons. Tony is a gay Cuban-American and Julio is a gay Cuban-American, so it’s just too perfect that the former made his debut on The Simpsons on last Sunday’s episode, “Uncut Femmes.” Before he goes too Hollywood, we managed to get him to talk with us about how he became the new Julio, which we are calling “Newlio.” Follow Tony Rod

Mar 30, 2021 • 34:01

Rest in Peace: Phyl Petrillo, Dorothy Zbornak’s Trans Sister

Heads up: This episode revolves around a funeral for a character that we are reading as trans. The humor had at the expense of the deceased may be difficult for some audience members to hear.  ”Ebbtide’s Revenge” (December 15, 1990) If you’re reading this episode title and saying, “I’ve seen every Golden Girls, and I’m pretty sure Dorothy doesn’t have a trans sister,” we’ve got a guest to respond with “Are you sure about that?” Dr. Ada-Rhodes Short, mother of robots and co-host of the Totally Tr

Mar 24, 2021 • 2:06:53

Doogie Howser’s Best Friend Is a Homophobe

“Spell It M-A-N” (January 6, 1993) You might be surprised to learn that Doogie Howser M.D. only lasted four seasons and 97 episodes, but perhaps because Neil Patrick Harris has continued to be famous ever since, the show casts a lot longer of a shadow than it might otherwise. This fourth-season episode deals with Vinnie (Max Casella) being horrified to learn that his college roommate is gay, and because NPH is himself an out gay man, it plays out a lot different today. All this plus a special ap

Mar 17, 2021 • 1:48:09

Al and Peg Bundy Meet a Gay Couple

“The Dance Show” (October 21, 1990) Given the reputation of Married… With Children, you might be surprised to know that its treatment of a same-sex married couple is actually rather progressive. But yeah, in spite of his many hang-ups, Al Bundy seems unbothered by the prospect of two guys being married, even if the part that impresses him most is dedicated food preparation. We’ll take what we can get, and at least comedy-wise, this fifth-season episode is firing on all cylinders. Listen to Smart

Mar 10, 2021 • 1:34:24

Cybill Befriends the Gay Waiter

“Three Women and a Dummy” (May 13, 1996) Alongside Murphy Brown, Designing Women and The Nanny, Cybill was one of CBS’s female-forward heavy-hitters in the 1990s. It didn’t last as long as the other three — and yes, there’s quite the story there — but in its four seasons it did manage to give us the Waiter. Played by Tim Maculan, he’s one of the more important queer characters to recur on a popular sitcom in the decade. We discuss this, plus Alan Ball’s involvement, the whole Cybill vs. Baranski

Mar 3, 2021 • 1:47:26

Interview: Demetrius Andre Bady

What does it take to get a teen-centric show like Moesha to do a gay episode? Well, we talked to the writer of “Labels,” Demetrius Andre Bady, who explains how the idea arose, how the final product differed from the original script, and what he thinks the legacy of the episode is today. Even better? He tells us which of the Moesha cast members pulled him aside to praise the bravery it took to push for this gay-inclusive script. Dr. Alfred L. Martin returns to ask questions and jokingly accuse D

Feb 26, 2021 • 48:59

Moesha Meets a Gay Guy

“Labels” (October 1, 1996) It’s the tale of two sitcom episodes. Depending on who you are, this is either an episode about Moesha meeting a gay teen who’s scared to come out, or it’s an episode about the dangers of gossip. Maybe it’s both. We are joined once again by Dr. Alfred L. Martin Jr. to discuss the importance of Moesha, why this episode of TV is utterly unique and who the cutest boy at Crenshaw High School is. (Spoiler: It’s Omar.) Listen to our previous outing with Alfred, about Roc’s

Feb 24, 2021 • 1:57:50

Roseanne’s Friend Is a Lesbian (Later Bi)

“Ladies’ Choice” (November 10, 1992) Ninety episodes later, we dared to venture back to Roseanne. How does its legacy of LGBT advocacy hold up all these years later — and in light of the show’s namesake’s hard right turn into all manner of Trumpy badness? Glen and Drew have their takes, but that ultimate decision is up to you. However, this episode represents a milestone in representation as it makes Sandra Bernhard’s Nancy a queer part of the show for seasons to come. Listen to our previous ep

Feb 17, 2021 • 1:22:31

Phyllis Dates a Homo

“Out of the Closet” (November 1, 1976) Rest in Peace, Cloris Leachman. She leaves behind a legacy that includes such sitcom greats as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Facts of Life, The Simpsons, Malcolm in the Middle and Raising Hope, as well as a great body of other acting work. For two seasons, she also starred in a spinoff to Mary Tyler Moore that had Phyllis Lindstrom starting over in San Francisco. And in the second season of that show, she dated a man who turned out to be gay. Listen to ou

Feb 10, 2021 • 1:35:33

Patty Bouvier Has a Girlfriend + Every LGBT Joke on The Simpsons Ever

“Livin’ la Pura Vida” (November 17, 2019) The Simpsons are going to Costa Rica! Gayest Episode Ever returns for its fourth season with an installment of The Simpsons that demonstrates how much the show has evolved in 31 seasons. But that’s not all! In addition to discussing Patty’s first functional relationship, we’re also introducing a new side project: “Smithers & Beyond: Every LGBT Joke on The Simpsons Ever.” Assembled over the course of the last year by Drew, it shows not just every “Smither

Jan 28, 2021 • 1:18:18

Frasier Dates a Gay Guy

“The Doctor Is Out” (September 30, 2003) Three episodes into its final season, the gay subtext of Frasier comes to a climax, so to speak, when a dashing opera director played by Patrick Stewart becomes infatuated with Dr. Crane — and Frasier goes along with it about as far as a confirmed hetero can. This is our final episode of the year! We did so many episodes! Isn’t it amazing what you can do when sex and socializing are completely off the table? AUGH! Listen to our previous Frasier episodes:

Dec 23, 2020 • 1:09:09

Will & Jack Embrace Every Gay Stereotype

“Fagmalion, Part Two: Attack of the Clones” (January 30, 2003) We’re covering part two of a four-part Will & Grace arc, but it actually make sense in that this itself is part two of two-part crossover with Kyle Getz and Mike Johnson from the podcast Gayish, which is all about the stereotypes that surround gay identity. Is this Will & Grace a carnival of gay horrors? Yes, but that doesn’t mean this show isn’t worth examining. If you’re Gayish-curious, check out their late bloomers episode or th

Dec 16, 2020 • 1:44:48

A.C. Slater Was Gay for Zack Morris… for Five Seconds

“The Zack Tapes” (December 2, 1989) What’s gay about Saved By the Bell, aside from Slater’s singlets and Tori’s leather jacket? Well, there is one episode that very briefly demonstrated that same-sex attraction was a thing — on Saturday morning, no less. It’s all he more surprising because the new Saved By the Bell manages to make amends for all the things the original series did wrong except feature any kind of same-sex love. And yes, we’re doing this episode because we really dug the reboot an

Dec 9, 2020 • 1:10:07

The Golden Girls Meet a Trans Man

“Strange Bedfellows” (November 7, 1987) The Golden Girls is beloved by many in the queer community, and for good reason, but the series is not batting a thousand when it comes to LGBT representation. This third season episode features a character who may just be the first trans man character on American TV. It’s… not great, but not wholly a disaster, and writer Henry Giardina is here to offer the perspective of a GG newbie. Listen to our previous Golden Girls episodes: Glen Writes a Golden Gir

Nov 25, 2020 • 1:49:14

ALF Never Did a Gay Episode

“We Are Family” (May 2, 1988) Finally, at long last, ALF! This is the first in a new series where Drew and Glen discuss shows that never did a gay episode. “But wait, Drew and Glen! You have done episodes that weren’t explicitly gay before,” you may be saying. This is true, but at the very least we could pretend that the writer maybe-kinda-sorta had some gay metaphor in mind. This new series is for all the shows that never even treaded that far, but we think there’s something to talk about anywa

Nov 18, 2020 • 1:21:59

Spin City Stumps for Same-Sex Marriage

“Grand Illusion” (October 29, 1996) Because this is either the episode you’re getting immediately before the election (if you’re on the Patreon feed) or directly after (if you’re on the main feed), we decided we’d try for something political. No, we don’t know why we attempted this, but we ended up picking the first LGBT-themed episode from Spin City, which is arguably the most politically focused sitcom of late. And while this episode should focus more on the out gay character, Michael Boatman’

Nov 11, 2020 • 1:17:49

Jennifer Slept Here Is a Little Gay Boy’s Fantasy

“Jennifer: The Movie” (October 29, 1983) We’re celebrating both Halloween and week two of our celebration of Ann Jillian with an episode about how the 1983 NBC series Jennifer Slept Here is both so very weird and also a little gay boy’s fantasy — because it pairs an awkward boy with glamorous ghost, and that’s secretly what every little gay boy wishes he had to guide him through his awkward years. This is peak 80s, but also it has one of the best sitcom themes ever, regardless of decade. Watch D

Oct 28, 2020 • 1:28:01

It’s a Living Waits on a Trans Woman

“Gender Gap” (January 11, 1986) Heads up: Initially, at least, Drew thought the episode being discussed was more transphobic that most, but special guest Ashley Lauren Rogers pointed out the ways the one trans episode of It’s a Living isn't a total wash — and since Ashley happens to be the host of the Is It Transphobic? podcast, that counts for something. Whatever you think, this episode offers a glimpse at the proto-Golden Girls sitcom that Drew has been talking about for weeks and weeks, as we

Oct 21, 2020 • 2:01:04

Penelope Alvarez Is the Mother of a Queer Teenager

“Pride and Prejudice” (January 6, 2017) The new One Day at a Time gets major points for focusing on a Latin family, for successfully re-inventing a Norman Lear classic and for giving us another reason to love Rita Moreno. Most important for this podcast’s purposes, however, is its nuanced handling of teenage Elena’s coming out. This week, Tony Rodriguez joins us to discuss how this story arc is more interesting for having put the spotlight not on Elena but on Penelope, her mom, who is liberal bu

Oct 14, 2020 • 1:29:32

Julia Sugarbaker Dates a Possible Homosexual

“A Toe in the Water” (September 23, 1991) What is Designing Women minus Delta Burke and Jean Smart but plus Julia Duffy and Jan Hooks? An interesting beast that is different than the Suzanne/Charlene years, yeah, but still pretty damn interesting. This episode is a showcase for Duffy’s anti-Diane Chambers, Allison Sugarbaker, who only lasted a season but it wasn’t her fault? Jonathan Bradley Welch makes his second GEE turn to talk Sugarbakers and his new podcast with Stonewall Democrats. Listen

Oct 7, 2020 • 1:39:38

The Dream On Guy Has a Gay Dad

“Pop Secret” (June 23, 1993) The HBO sitcom Dream On got a rep for being both a more grown-up take on sitcoms... and also a showcase for boobs. But this show’s fourth-season gay episode lands pretty well today. It’s all about series protag Martin Tupper (Brian Benben) finding out his dad is gay and processing it more realistically than other characters on other sitcoms would. The Entertainment Weekly article “HBO’s ‘Dream On’ Is the Sauciest Show on Television,” which describes how the show cam

Sep 30, 2020 • 1:06:13

Rachel Kisses a Lesbian

“The One with Rachel's Big Kiss” (April 26, 2001) Welcome back Emelie Battaglia for another go-around with America’s favorite homophobic sitcom, Friends! This episode has “Chandler is gay” jokes aplenty, even if he’s about to marry Monica, but the focus is actually on Rachel, who encounters a college acquaintance (Winona Ryder) with whom she once shared a kiss. This episode features two more woman-on-woman kisses than the one where Carol and Susan get married — ahem — and Drew eagerly reveals th

Sep 23, 2020 • 1:44:00

Diane Chambers Revisited (An Episode That Glen Can Actually Listen To)

”The Boys in the Bar“ (January 27, 1983) If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a bit, you may be aware of the fact that Glen refuses to listen to it. Drew thinks this is too bad, because this really seems like the kind of podcast Glen would really enjoy. In celebration of Glen’s birthday month, Drew asked Sam Pancake and Tony Rodriguez to do a reading of one of the best episodes we’ve done: Episode 10, “Diane Chambers Is an LGBT Ally,” based on the Cheers episode “The Boys in the Bar,,” D

Sep 21, 2020 • 1:19:05

Mike Seaver Actually Said the Word ‘Gay’

“Mike’s Madonna Story” (November 5, 1985) Yep. We’re actually doing Growing Pains — specifically because of one scene in a first-season episode in which Kirk Cameron’s character tosses of the line “Maybe I’m gay.” It might seem small, but it’s crazy to consider the word “gay” even being spoken on this quintessential 80s family show, much less by a character played by a guy who’d shortly thereafter become a born-again Christianity and who’d eventually disclose some seriously homophobic views. Gle

Sep 16, 2020 • 1:27:57

Norm Peterson Is Gay for Pay

“Norm, Is That You?” (December 8, 1988) If we told you this episode features George Wendt’s character pretending to be gay, you’d probably imagine that Wendt would go really big with that performance. Most sitcoms would if a straight actor were playing a straight character playing a gay character, but Cheers doesn’t, and in fact this is an episode about gayness where it goes oddly not remarked upon — and not spoken about outright.  Listen to our previous Cheers episodes, Rebecca Howe Suffers Fr

Sep 9, 2020 • 1:12:10

In the House Made RuPaul Play a Heterosexual

“Boys II Men II Women” (December 4, 1995) Twenty-five ago, long before he’d become a media mogul and the face of an international franchise, Rupaul made 1995 his most mainstream year yet. Not only did he have his mainstream debut in The Brady Bunch movie, but he also did one-off guest roles in a number of network sitcoms. But only In the House had him playing a drag queen who was an avowed heterosexual. Drew talked with In the House creator Winifred Hervey about her time on Golden Girls. Read hi

Sep 2, 2020 • 1:06:53

Introducing the Shelley Longcast!

Welcome to the first installment of the Shelley Longcast, the only podcast (that we know of) dedicated to the cinematic work of Shelley Long. You’re seeing this on the Gayest Episode Ever feed because it’s the the Patreon-exclusive bonus series we’ve launched and we decided you listeners might enjoy this first, more TV-related episode: The Brady Bunch Movie, a 1995 classic that we think this movie is really funny — and we think playing an iconic TV character such as Carol Brady was a daring choi

Aug 31, 2020 • 53:35

Finch’s Buddy Is Trans

“Brandi, You’re a Fine Girl” (November 16, 2000) Finally! It’s Gayest Episode Ever’s first trans episode. Glen and Drew decided to start with a 2000 episode of Just Shoot Me that features Jenny McCarthy as the childhood friend of David Spade’s character who rolls into town with some surprising news. It’s not great, largely because edgy humor does not age well, but more than anything else, this episode’s shortcomings demonstrate how the general conversation about trans folks has evolved in the pa

Aug 26, 2020 • 1:40:02

Alice Dates a Homo

“Alice Gets a Pass” (September 29, 1976) Why on earth was this the second episode of this show? When a former football star-turned-movie actor comes into town, Linda Lavin’s Alice is happy to take him out on a date, but she and everyone else are surprised to learn that he’s gay. Of all the episodes we’ve discussed so far, this one more than others captures a very particular flavor of homophobia: it being masked as maternal concern about predatory men. John Forget, this one is for you! Listen to

Aug 19, 2020 • 1:13:45

Eric Forman’s New Buddy Is a Homo

“Eric’s Buddy” (December 6, 1998) Trigger warning: The episode we’re talking about doesn’t bring up sexual assault in any way, but because it’s That 70s Show, the subject comes up. Skip from the 25-minute mark to the 29-minute mark if you want to listen to the episode without that discussion. Debate among yourselves whether That 70’s Show qualifies as a classic sitcom, but you can’t say it wasn’t a successful show, running eight seasons and then forever in syndication. In its first season, the s

Aug 12, 2020 • 1:07:21

Trailer 2.0

Since you’re apparently subscribed to the feed already, you don’t have to listen to this new teaser for what GEE is all about. You *can* listen to it, but you don’t have to. This is for promotional purposes only. Support us on Patreon! Follow: GEE on Twitter • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Twitter Listen: iTunes • Spotify • Stitcher • Google Play • Google Podcasts • Himalaya • TuneIn • SoundCloud And yes, we do have an official website! And we even have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Ou

Aug 8, 2020 • 1:32

Superstore Is Queerer Than You Think

“Gender Reveal” (April 12, 2018) This week, Glen and Drew are joined by Karen Tongson, chair of the Gender and Sexuality Studies department at USC and the co-host of the Gen X pop culture podcast Waiting to X-Hale. We asked Karen what show she’d most like to discuss, and she chose Superstore, the current NBC ensemble comedy. Not only does it have a queer Asian lead character, but as Karen points out, there’s a lot of ambient queerness on the show, in addition to one of the more diverse casts on

Aug 5, 2020 • 1:42:48

Mr. Belvedere Discourages a Teen from Being Gay

“The Competition” (February 13, 1987) Yes, we did do an episode last year in which we summed up Mr. Belvedere are a whole and said it never did an outright gay episode. We were wrong, and thanks to two different listers who politely exposed our ignorance, this week you are getting Drew and Glen talking about the one where Heather convinces her boyfriend he’s gay and Mr. Belvedere convinces him he’s not. It’s a weird bit of TV, but it’s also one of the very few family-focused sitcoms of this er

Jul 29, 2020 • 1:16:45

M*A*S*H Saves a Gay

“George” (February 16, 1974) And finally we arrive at the show that back when we were kids was what informed us that the kids’ block of syndicated TV had been turned over to the grown-ups. Now grown-ups ourselves (sorta, kinda), we still can’t get into M*A*S*H, but regardless of our personal feelings we weigh in on why this show was important, even if this second-season gay-themed episode gets a B/B minus. Apologies to the M*A*S*H diehards out there. Subscribe to Jonathan Bradley Welch’s new pod

Jul 15, 2020 • 1:10:28

Roc Has a Gay Uncle

“Can’t Help Loving That Man” (October 20, 1991) Looking at the various 90s-era Fox shows that focused on black characters, Roc was the one with the reputation for tackling social issues with the most gravitas. Early in the show’s run, Richard Roundtree — Shaft himself! — guested as the title character’s uncle, who comes bearing the news that 1) he’s gay; 2) he’s getting married; and 3) his beloved is a white man. To discuss the various layers of this Roc episode, Drew and Glen are joined by Univ

Jul 8, 2020 • 1:39:10

Too Close for Comfort Does an Episode About Male Rape

Content warning: In this episode we talk about sexual assault. “For Every Man, There's Two Women” (July 20, 1985) This week, we’re not talking about an explicitly LGBT-focused episode of TV. No, we’re talking about the episode of Too Close for Comfort in which a male character, Monroe, is sexually assaulted by two women. No, really. Jim J. Bullock, the actor playing that character, is gay in real life, and because Monroe is coded as queer as well, this episode serves as a bizarre example of not

Jul 1, 2020 • 1:19:16

I Love Lucy Makes the First Gay Joke in Sitcom History

“Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her” (November 5, 1951) Can we do a whole 52-minute episode that is essentially about one single joke? Hell yes we can. The fourth episode of I Love Lucy sure seems like it might feature the first gay joke in the history of sitcoms. And although we are open to arguments otherwise, it’s nonetheless interesting to think that the show that wouldn’t allow its married leads to share a bed onscreen would slip even a small gay joke past the network censors. Visit

Jun 24, 2020 • 51:57

GEE TV

GEE TV is a weird little art project that Drew felt compelled to do. It’s six 80s-era NBC sitcoms in a three-hour block, complete with of-the-era commercials. In order: Silver Spoons, The Facts of Life, Gimme a Break, 227, Empty Nest and Night Court. Hit the audio to hear Drew explain it all to Glen, who’s being a good sport about this. Watch the video here. And it’s on Vimeo here. Episodes, in order: Silver Spoons, “Me & Mr. T” (October 16, 1982) The Facts of Life, “Cousin Geri Returns” (Dece

Jun 18, 2020 • 12:29

WKRP LGBTQ+

“Les on a Ledge” (October 2, 1978) For reasons we can’t imagine, WKRP in Cincinnati decided its third episode should feature a trans-themed B plot alongside an A plot about one of the characters contemplating suicide because people think he’s gay. It’s a lot. And while that plot synopsis might seem like a recipe for disaster, this one is funnier and more progressive than you might expect. Don’t get us wrong: It does things that today’s audiences will probably roll their eyes at and might even sh

Jun 17, 2020 • 1:09:01

American Dad Steals a Gay Couple’s Baby

“Surro-Gate” (December 7, 2007) Okay, hear us out. Some of you may be surprised that we’re doing American Dad or that Glen and Drew are both fans of it. We put forward the case that it’s a different sort of show than Family Guy is. This episode follows a previous gay-themed installment, and it demonstrates how bringing a homophobe around to respecting queer people as equals isn’t a one-and-done thing; it’s a continual process, and lots of people who think they’re tolerant need to realize when th

Jun 10, 2020 • 1:02:43

Herman’s Head Meets a Lesbian

“Sperm ‘n’ Herman” (September 20, 1992) At long last, we’re finally talking about the series that you’ve been dying to hear about… if your name is Drew or Glen. Yeah, we both have memories of liking Herman’s Head. And while its one gay episode does some things right and some things wrong, it’s the first sitcom we’ve discussed that tackles the complicated issue of being queer and also being a parent. It also allows us to talk about all the crazy stuff happening on Fox back in the early 90s. The J

Jun 3, 2020 • 1:19:14

Maude Goes to a Gay Bar

“The Gay Bar” (December 3, 1977) And then there’s Maude — for a second time! In this final-season installment, Maude battles Arthur (Conrad Bain) over his opposition to a gay bar that’s just opened up in town. It’s basically Arthur having conversation after conversation in which other character break apart his justifications for homophobia. But funny! Listen to Happy History, the new podcast Drew produced. Check out the work of Norn, the talented artist who contributed some original art to a fo

May 27, 2020 • 1:24:32

Old Christine Is Married to a Woman

“Unidentified Funk” (December 10, 2008) and “Happy Endings (December 17, 2008) The New Adventures of Old Christine may not rank among the sitcom heavyweights, but hey — if it’s good enough for TV Land, it’s good enough for us. In 2008, this CBS series managed to skewer homophonic-leaning companies like Chick-fil-A with an episode won an award from GLAAD. Airing immediately post-Prop 8, the episode features not only a newly out Wanda Sykes but also Megan Mullally playing against type. And while t

May 13, 2020 • 1:05:22

Drew and Glen Rank Instrumental Sitcom Themes

Do you ever feel like some songs have too many words? Well, good news: instrumental music eliminates that very problem! In this episode, Drew and Glen each list off five sitcom theme songs that they think are good despite their glaring lack of lyrics. Spoiler: many of them actually do have lyrics, it turns out. But still! If you like this episode, you may also like Singing Mountain, Drew’s other podcast, which works a lot like this but with video game music. There’s even an episode with Glen! Wa

May 8, 2020 • 56:55

What’s Gay About Scooby-Doo?

If you listen to this podcast, you’ve probably noticed that Scooby-Doo’s resident brainiac, Velma Dinkley, can read as a little queer. It’s all subtext and implication, really, but what if we told you there is a canonical connection between Velma and lesbian pop culture? Listen as we unmask her, in true Scooby-Doo style, to reveal that Velma is actually Zelda Gilroy, a character on the 1960s teen sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis — and Zelda, in turn, is Sheila Keuhl, all-around badass, a qu

May 6, 2020 • 49:11

Hank Hill Goes to a Gay Rodeo

“My Own Private Rodeo” (April 28, 2002) Hank finds Dale’s long-estranged father at a gay rodeo, and we’ve gotta say: for a conservative guy, Hank takes this news rather well. In our second King of the Hill episode, we’re happy to find that the show once again hits that sweet spot between red and blue, progressive and conservative, goofy and bittersweet. BTW, the four season 13 episodes that only aired in syndication are “The Honeymooners,” “Bill Gathers Moss,” “When Joseph Met Lori, and Made Out

Apr 29, 2020 • 1:06:16

Night Court Has a Night With a Gay

“The Blizzard” (December 6, 1984) Night Court aired on the same Thursday night block that included The Cosby Show, Family Ties and Cheers. And while Night Court never received as much prestige as the other three did, it ran for nine seasons, it landed joke after joke and it demonstrated a better understanding of its characters than most sitcoms do. In its second season, it pit its prissy, debatably gay-seeming character, played by John Larroquette, against an actual homosexual in a way that’s fu

Apr 22, 2020 • 1:06:16

Barney Miller Meets a Homo

“Discovery” (October 30, 1975) Somehow, Barney Miller managed to make comedy in gritty, 1970s-era New York City, and it managed to address the rampant crime of the day even though the action never left the precinct office. In this episode, a man has to overcome his fear of homophobic police officers in order to report that he was harassed, threatened and extorted because he was gay — yet it’s still funny. Because it never hurts to point it out, the number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotl

Apr 15, 2020 • 1:10:51

Mr. Humphries Is a Poof

“The Apartment” (November 9, 1979) And now for something slightly different. Katherine Spiers, TableCakes CEO and our first-ever heterosexual guest, joins Drew and Glen to talk about the British sitcom Are You Being Served? and in particular its resident homo Mr. Humphries. It’s also our first remote guest, because this was recorded during pandemic times, so please forgive the fact that this outing has less-than-optimal sound quality. We will do better next time. If you can hang with Zoom-level

Apr 8, 2020 • 1:21:52

Will Smith Is Uncomfortable Playing a Gay Character Onscreen

“As the Will Turns” (April 10, 1995) This is as close to a gay episode as Fresh Prince of Bel-Air ever got. And while it’s not necessarily the funniest piece of TV ever, it makes for a hell of a discussion of Will Smith’s personal life. This episode has some weird parallels with actual events in Will Smith, real-life actor. We’d say it’s unprecedented for a rapper-turned-actor to seemingly confront rumors about their sexuality in a network sitcom, but it plays out remarkably similar to the Livin

Apr 1, 2020 • 1:18:59

The Nanny Meets a Lesbian

“Oy Vey, You’re Gay” (October 23, 1995) With her over-the-top outfits and bigger-than-life persona, Fran Drescher has a certain queer appeal. In fact, more than a few little boys probably turned a love of Fran Drescher and Fran Fine into a love of drag. However, the show didn’t necessarily mine its Broadway theater milieu for a ton of gay storylines. In its third season, it did give us Catherine Oxenberg as a potential rival for Mr. Sheffield’s affections, were it not for a plot point that’s giv

Mar 25, 2020 • 1:09:45

What’s Gay About Perfect Strangers?

Happy Friday! Or maybe just tolerable Friday. Since everything sucks, we decided to give you an extra episode this week: a Patreon exclusive that we decided the general audience might want to listen to in case you’re needing extra entertainment. We’re still giving you a regular episode this next coming Wednesday, but meanwhile please enjoy this.  America or burst! For most of us ’80s babies, Perfect Strangers is a quintessential sitcom of the era — it looked ’80s, it had a perfect ’80s opening t

Mar 20, 2020 • 33:57

Drew and Glen Answer Listener Questions

It's a GEE Q&A! Following the Golden Girls table read, we decided to take a week off, and it turns out we needed one more before we jump into the cycle of actual “episode” episodes. So in lieu of that, Drew and Glen answer a bunch of questions we've been sent by listeners over the past two years. We swear it’s actually content! Call us and leave a message on the TableCakes Hotline at (209) 566-CAKE. No, really. Listen to the two “lost” episodes that SoundCloud took offline but which are live aga

Mar 18, 2020 • 56:44

Glen Writes a Golden Girls

“Vince Meat” (February 22, 2020) Have you seen that one Golden Girls where Blanche accidentally sexes a man to death and the girls have to hide the body? Well, your answer should be no, because that episode didn’t air back in the day. It's a script written by our own Glen Lakin and then, for the purposes of this episode, read by a host of our actor friends. It’s fucked-up and funny, and we couldn't think of a better way to celebrate our fiftieth episode. Cast: Dorothy: Meghan Parks Rose: Tony Ro

Mar 4, 2020 • 37:44

¿Es Joe Un Homo?

“Joe Goes to Heaven” (Date Unknown, 1979) The United States’ first bilingual sitcom and PBS’s first attempt at a 30-minute comedy, ¿Que Pasa USA? proved to be a regional hit in Miami, where a local PBS affiliate created and produced the show, and then across the country as a whole. Overall, it plays out like a lost Norman Lear series centered around a Cuban-American family, and this episode revolves around the possibility that strapping young Joe may be gay. GEE regular Tony Rodriguez makes his

Feb 26, 2020 • 1:35:32

Frank Lambert Is Worried His Son Is a Hairdresser

“Frank & Son” (October 18, 1991) Is Step By Step a classic sitcom? Glen says yes, but Drew says no. Listen to an episode that a different podcast that prompted us to examine paternal homophobia and a long-running but perhaps non-classic TGIF sitcom, which Drew prefers to shorthand as “shitbag Brady Bunch.” Listen to the episode of You’re Making It Worse that inspired this episode. Support us on Patreon! Follow: GEE on Twitter • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Twitter Listen: iTunes • Spotify • Stitche

Feb 19, 2020 • 1:17:15

Drew and Glen Rank the Sexiest Sitcom Dads

Two announcements: No. 1, Drew is tired and he is wanting to take a week off with an episode that requires less editing; and and No. 2, this podcast is launching a series of Patreon-only episodes where Drew and Glen discuss subjects unlikely to arise in their typical episodes. In this one, they both list off their picks for the hottest dads in sitcom history. And if you’re seeing this for the first time on the main, non-Patreon feed, then there’s already another one of these ready for your rabid

Feb 12, 2020 • 46:59

Grace’s Father-in-Law Is Gay… And Also Dead

“Emmet’s Secret” (December 6, 1995) and “Emmett, We Hardly Knew Ye” (December 20, 1995) Even those of us who came of age in the 1990s might be surprised to find out how big a deal Grace Under Fire was in its day. The show was a huge hit, and even if it burned too bright and too quickly, it deserved its popularity because it was funnier and more heartfelt than a lot of longer-lived TV series. In this installment, we talk about two consecutive episodes that outed Grace’s father-in-law and then kil

Feb 5, 2020 • 1:26:12

Edith Bunker’s Cousin Is a Lesbian… And Also Dead

“Cousin Liz” (October 9, 1977) After two years and more than a few negative comments, Drew and Glen once again focus their gaze on All in the Family, a sitcom about America’s favorite ignoramus. This episode is a sweet and it is elegant, and it shows how readily Jean Stapleton’s Edith can accept that love between two women isn’t at all different from her love for her husband. There’s no B plot and only three characters, yet this is one of the best episodes GEE has reviewed so far.  If you haven’

Jan 29, 2020 • 1:06:38

Susan’s Dad Had a Gay Affair With John Cheever

“The Cheever Letters” (October 28, 1992) Poor Susan Ross. If she only knew what her association with George Constanza would ultimately cost her, she would have run screaming. Early in the show’s fourth season, Susan got a glimpse of what George was capable of when he indirectly caused her dad to be outed — if not as gay then at least certainly as a one-time lover of John Cheever. Mike Ciriaco joins Glen and Drew to discuss how this episode is a Seinfeld sleeper classic, both because of and in sp

Jan 22, 2020 • 1:32:08

Homer Moves Into the Gayborhood

“Three Gays of the Condo” (April 13, 2003) Six seasons after its inaugural gay episode, The Simpsons revisited the subject matter in the age of Will & Grace, and the end result sent Homer to live with two guys in Springfield’s gay district. This one exemplifies what it meant to do a gay sitcom after the point in time when it was no longer enough to just showcase straight characters being surprised that gay people exist, but is this a worthy successor to “Homer’s Phobia”? Drew and Glen talk thoug

Jan 15, 2020 • 1:15:10

A Very Brady Christmas Is Gay Enough, Say Drew & Glen

We’re celebrating the holidays and closing out 2019 with one of our all-time favorite Christmas specials: A Very Brady Christmas, a 1988 TV movie that reunited all of the original cast that matters. If you’ve seen this special, you may be wondering what’s gay about this family holiday outing. Some stuff, we say, but perhaps most subtly the use of racecar-driving as a metaphor for Bobby Brady’s reckless homosexual lifestyle. Just go with us on this one. Listen to our interview with Stan Zimmerma

Dec 18, 2019 • 1:31:51

Ross’s Lesbian Ex-Wife Gets Lesbian Married

“The One With the Lesbian Wedding”(January 18, 1996) Carol and Susan forever! In our previous look at Friends, we concluded that the ten-season sitcom put homosexuality in a bad light. Around the same time, everyone else concluded that as well, but what if season two’s “The One With the Lesbian Wedding” actually doesn’t suck so hard? Emelie Burnette Battaglia Balenciaga returns to talk about the episode the second Friends episode that ties LGBT issues with a recently deceased old lady. “So Was F

Dec 11, 2019 • 1:32:15

Everybody Loves Raymond’s Possibly Gay Brother

“What’s With Robert?” (January 10, 2000) Drew had never seen an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond before Glen pulled a gun on him and forced him to watch this one. To Drew’s surprise, this ostensibly family-friendly CBS sitcom handles gay panic a lot more thoughtfully than other shows of the era, even if it hinged around the ridiculous proposition that a man as tall as Brad Garrett might be homosexual. Support us on Patreon! Buy or rent Glen’s movie, Being Frank, on iTunes Listen to Underbelly

Dec 4, 2019 • 1:06:38

Gayest Game Show Ever

No, this is not a deep dive into Paul Lynde’s most salacious innuendos. Instead, GEE is bidding farewell for a few weeks because Drew is heading to Japan, and we thought it would be cool to do an episode based around classic sitcom trivia, and Drew is hosting while Glen is pitted against special guest contestants Tony Rodriguez (who has guested before!) and Katherine Spiers (who hasn’t!). It’s fun, we swear, if not *actually* all that gay. Katherine’s podcast, Smart Mouth Tony’s podcast, Spanis

Nov 13, 2019 • 51:46

Gimme a Break’s Gay Evening

“The Chief’s Gay Evening” (November 13, 1982) Though beloved to a certain age range of 1980s babies, Gimme a Break doesn’t get its due praise for its “serious issue” episodes. This one, in which the Chief finds out that one of his officers is gay, handles the subject matter better than many more-acclaimed sitcoms would in the years that followed. In fact, our only complaint is that this series sole gay-themed episode doesn’t feature enough Nell Carter, whom we will remind you was a star. We miss

Nov 6, 2019 • 1:11:36

Endora Turns Darren Into a Homo

“Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall” (November 7, 1968) When it came time to pick a Halloween special for Gayest Episode Ever, the only real choice was Bewitched, a seasonally appropriate sitcom that also happens to be one of the gayest things ever broadcast on network television. In this fifth-season outing, Endora curses Darren to become hopelessly vain, and Dick York makes the decision to play his newly narcissistic character as pretty damn gay. Comedian, actor and classic TV superfan Chase McCown j

Oct 30, 2019 • 1:17:03

Caroline’s Assistant Is a — Wait, He’s Straight?

“Caroline and the Gay Art Show” (October 5, 1995) Okay, hear us out. I know you’re seeing that we did an episode about Caroline in the City and asking yourself why we would consider it a “classic” sitcom,” but there’s actually a lot going on here. Malcolm Gets played Caroline’s assistant, Richard, with a flair befitting a theater vet, but his chemistry with lead Lea Thompson didn’t read as romantic to many viewers. So why did they make Caroline and Richard pair off? And why did the third episode

Oct 23, 2019 • 1:11:51

Suzanne Sugarbaker Accidentally Dates a Lesbian

“Suzanne Goes Looking for a Friend” (April 9, 1990) The previous Designing Women made Drew cry, but this one is far tamer and far more in line with what we’d consider sitcom-ish. In this Delta Burke showcase episode, Suzanne Sugarbaker attempts to make a friend outside Sugarbaker & Associates — and ends up finding a former pageant friend who’s now an out lesbian. This episode does gay panic from the female perspective and largely holds up today… except for the episode’s final line. Buy the DVD o

Oct 16, 2019 • 1:02:25

Ellen Comes Out*

“Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” (May 7, 1997) At long last, we’re bowing to audience requests and giving you the one where Ellen comes out… to her parents. No, it is not “The Puppy Episode,” the one where Ellen came out to Laura Dern and also the world; it’s the episode that aired one week after that one, when she came out to her parents. “The Puppy Episode” is a part of TV history, but this one is maybe a more realistic look at the ongoing, constant process of coming out. The Los Angeles LGBT Cent

Oct 9, 2019 • 1:11:09

Dinosaurs Uses Vegetarianism as a Metaphor for Homosexuality

“I Never Ate for My Father” (October 2, 1991) When Robbie Sinclair fails to kill his first live prey, he begins to wonder if he might be more herbivorously oriented — and that fits in really well with this episode’s extensive use of vegetarianism as a metaphor for homosexuality. (But also drug use and communism, because America.) Buy the DVD of Glen’s movie, Being Frank Buy or rent Being Frank on iTunes Check out A Love Bizarre, Los Angeles’ new queer art space. Support us on Patreon! Follow: GE

Sep 11, 2019 • 59:32

The Gayest Saturday Morning Cartoon Episode Ever

”Odyssey of the Twelfth Talisman” (September 28, 1985) Once upon a time, there was a Saturday morning cartoon based on Dungeons & Dragons, and in its final few episodes it had one of its male characters hit it off with a one-off NPC who was witty and matched him, insult for insult. This one-off also happened to be male, and whether by accident or whatever, the resulting episode plays out kinda like a male-on-male romcom that just happens to be situated in medieval fantasy setting. Don’t worry if

Aug 28, 2019 • 1:07:50

The Golden Girls Had a Gay Live-in Cook

“The Engagement” (September 14, 1985) The pilot to Golden Girls features a fifth roommate who did not make it into the rest of the series: Coco the gay live-in cook, played by Charles Levin. The actor recently died, and in part because it’s timely and in part because Drew feels bad about his jokes that Coco was lost at sea, our first off-season episode is a Coco-centric look at this first-ever Golden Girls. Read Drew's interview with Golden Girls writers. Buy a copy of Jim Colucci’s awesome Gold

Aug 7, 2019 • 1:08:56

Frasier Has a Gay Dream

“The Impossible Dream” (October 15, 1996) The finale to the second season of GEE begins how the first one began: with Frasier. Two years after the episode that said, “No, Frasier isn’t gay,” the show backed up a little and asked “But what would you say if he was maybe?” Also it’s revealed that Gil Chesterton has a more toned chest than any of us would have expected. Check out A Love Bizarre, Los Angeles’ new queer art space:  Support us on Patreon! Follow: GEE on Twitter • Drew on Twitter • Glen

Jul 16, 2019 • 1:00:33

Everyone Thinks Chandler Is Gay

“The One Where Nana Dies Twice” (November 10, 1994) Hey, have you heard about this show called Friends that’s about people who are friends? Emelie Burnette returns to talk about how the first gayish outing of this landmark sitcom gets some things right, some things wrong. We don’t settle the “Is Friends homophobic or transphobic?” debates but we do at least find an answer to the “Is Rachel Green Jewish?” debate?  “Homophobic Friends,” compiled by Tijana Mamula Why Friends is “Hugely Transphobic,

Jul 9, 2019 • 1:18:23

The Living Single Girls Throw a Lesbian Bridal Shower

“Woman to Woman” (March 21, 1996) Don’t think of it as another Golden Girls or Designing Women, because Living Single is actually the show that originated the model for Friends. Yeah, Friends is just an all-white Living Single, and this episode proves how the original can handle a coming out story a lot better than its imitator. Dr. Justin Young joins Glen and Drew to talk Tootie, Latifah, Cousin Pam and Dr. Mary. Watch Justin’s movie, That’s Me on the Right Check out A Love Bizarre, downtown Lo

Jul 2, 2019 • 1:17:52

Will and Jack Kiss on Live TV

“Acting Out” (February 22, 2000) In this episode, Drew tries really hard not to not trample your warm, fuzzy feelings about Will & Grace. But even if you don’t think this show lands its jokes often enough, you can’t argue that it did a lot to increase the visibility of gays — white, male, metropolitan, wordplay-loving gays. Megan Mullally for president. Check out A Love Bizarre, downtown Los Angeles’ new queer art space Support us on Patreon! Follow: GEE on Twitter • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Tw

Jun 25, 2019 • 1:00:27

The Gang From Taxi Meets a Bisexual

“Elaine’s Strange Triangle” (December 10, 1980) Elaine is digging her new boyfriend, but it turns out her new boyfriend is also digging Tony. This, the first episode to address the subject of bisexuality, is often a more thoughtful and nuanced exploration of straight characters’ discomfort around anything queer… but then Tony and Alex go to a gay bar and the episode takes a hard turn. Oh, and were you aware of how hot 1980-era Christopher Lloyd was? Check it out. Check out A Love Bizarre, downto

Jun 18, 2019 • 52:57

Interview: Glen Lakin, Hollywood Screenwriter

Glen Lakin is more than a mere podcast host. He’s also a screenwriter whose first movie — Being Frank, starring Jim Gaffigan and Logan Miller — opens in theaters today, June 14, in Los Angeles and New York. (More cities to follow, don’t worry.) Yes, we’re using this podcast to let Glen talk about his movie, but take solace in the fact that Drew had to twist his arm to do it. This short promotional interview has Glen talking about how he came up with this story about a suburban dad’s second famil

Jun 14, 2019 • 22:06

What’s Gay About Mr. Belvedere?

This series about a British butler managing an American family ran on ABC for six season and for several years more on weekday afternoons in syndication. And while the show is fairly well-remembered today, some viewers might not realize how very gay this show is: from its premise to its lead character to its lead actor to the history of the Mr. Belvedere character going back forty years before this sitcom debuted. Child Celebrities Opposed to Kirk Cameron The opening credits to Jennifer Slept He

Jun 11, 2019 • 41:56

Mr. Roper Has a Gay Awakening

“Strange Bedfellows” (October 4, 1977) Some people think of Three’s Company as being a show that hinges on zany misunderstandings that could be solved if one character just said one thing. That’s not the case with this second-season episode, in which Mr. Roper wakes up in bed with Jack, who, we should remember, has told his landlords he is gay. What follows is actually a tighter-plotted TV episode than you might expect. Check out A Love Bizarre, downtown Los Angeles’ new queer art space Support

Jun 4, 2019 • 1:00:48

Murphy Brown Has a Gay Co-Worker

“Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are” (March 9, 1992) Just when you think Murphy Brown’s take on a gay episode is overstuffed with heteros sharing bad information about alternative lifestyles, the last scene gives the one-off gay character some earnest, heartfelt lines. In the end, Murphy Brown did the gay character good. Queer culture impresario Matt Baume joins Glen and Drew to talk Candice Bergen, Faith Ford and gunge. (Look it up.) Culture Cruise, Matt’s YouTube series about gay pop culture

May 28, 2019 • 1:16:52

Blanche’s Homo Brother Wants to Get Gay Married

“Sister of the Bride” (January 21, 1991) The Clayton Hollingsworth story comes to an end with an episode about same-sex marriage before even the term “commitment ceremony” came into the popular lexicon. Tony Rodriguez joins us to discuss the ways that this episode shows how The Golden Girls was ahead of its time in so many ways, “ah so” notwithstanding. Read Drew's interview with Golden Girls writers Check out A Love Bizarre, Los Angeles’ new queer art space  Support us on Patreon! Follow: GEE o

May 21, 2019 • 1:14:13

The Cartoons That Made Us Gay

Warning! Warning! You are encountering an atypical installment of this podcast. Instead of the discussion of sitcoms, this one concerns the discussion of 1980s cartoons — and with none other than leading ’80s cartoon authority and Netflix director of original series Ted Biaselli! Animated conversation includes but is not limited to He-Man, She-Ra, Jem, ThunderCats, Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, Beverly Hills Teens, SilverHawks, TigerSharks, Paw Paw Bears, Kidd Video and Dungeo

May 14, 2019 • 1:25:27

Blanche’s Brother Is a Homo

“Scared Straight” (December 10, 1988) When Blanche’s brother comes over and comes out, Blanche shows that southern hospitality has its limits. It’s a classic story about homosexuality being accepted — but only to an extent. Burgeoning podcast star Tony Rodriguez joins Glen and Drew to talk about the best-ever gay-focused episode of a sitcom to also have a B plot about a death premonition dream. Read Drew's interview with Golden Girls writers Check out A Love Bizarre, Los Angeles’ new queer art s

May 7, 2019 • 1:07:44

Maude’s New Friend Is a Homo

“Maude’s New Friend” (December 2, 1974) And then there’s Maude! Bea Arthur teaches us all a valuable lesson about how liberals can also be prejudiced in this third-season episode that’s all about Maude trying and failing to celebrate a newfound homosexual acquaintance. This episode is pretty wild, as Glen puts it, and it holds up better than a lot of TV airing ten and twenty years later. #breadsandwich Check out A Love Bizarre, Los Angeles’ new queer art space  Support us on Patreon! Follow: GEE

Apr 30, 2019 • 1:02:04

Roy Biggins Has a Big Gay Son

“There’s Always Room for Cello” (December 14, 1990) What smells like Wario + Newman + extra farts? It’s Roy Biggins, the chuckling villain of Wings, an NBC sitcom that is a solid B but which has a reputation for being a C minus. In the second season, Roy’s son came out and Roy was given — and totally biffed — a chance to act like a grown-up. Jonathan Bradley Welch, host of that *other* gay TV podcast, A Special Presentation, is on hand to discuss growing up in Massachusetts, the charms of Crysta

Apr 23, 2019 • 1:24:34

What’s Gay About the Dick Van Dyke Show?

“The Ballad of the Betty Lou” (November 27, 1963) In this shorter episode, Gayest Episode Ever is looking at The Dick Van Dyke Show, a beloved series that is never explicitly gay but it occasionally features some implicitly gay elements — and may also once made a semen joke. Watch a clip of the apparent semen joke Check out A Love Bizarre, Los Angeles’ new queer art space  Support us on Patreon! Follow: GEE on Twitter • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Twitter Listen: iTunes • Spotify • Stitcher • Goog

Apr 16, 2019 • 36:45

Marcy D'Arcy Has a Lesbian Cousin

“Lez Be Friends” (April 28, 1997) For a lot of ’80s kids, Amanda Bearse was one of the first gay people they ever heard about. And while Bearse came out in 1993, she got to put LGBT themes in the spotlight in a 1997 episode in which she plays both Marcy D’Arcy and her lesbian cousin, Mandy. It’s a product of its time, for sure, but at its heart is a fairly thoughtful depiction of a happy, function person who’s better off for having come out of the closet. Bonus points for Elaine Hendrix. Watch t

Apr 9, 2019 • 1:05:46

Sanford Thinks His Son Is a Homo (and Vice Versa)

“Lamont, Is That You?” (October 19, 1973) Norman Lear for the win! This podcast probably won’t go in depth on ’90s classics like Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Family Matters or A Different World because many black sitcoms of that era didn’t do gay episodes. Back in 1973, Sanford and Son did, however, and the result is classier and more interesting than what you’d see on shows ten and twenty years later. Check out A Love Bizarre, Los Angeles’ new queer art space:  Support us on Patreon! Follow: GEE on

Apr 2, 2019 • 48:31

Joey Lawrence Has a Gay Secret Admirer

“Double Date”(January 31, 1994) Whoa. Blossom was famous for two things: hats and Very Special Episodes. And while its gay episode is suspiciously lacking in hats, it seems like its several Very Special Episodes rolled up into one. In addition to featuring Joey Lawrence’s character as the recipient of a love letter from his male teammate, it also features teaching moments about childhood racism and butt touching (respectively). Does it work? Kinda no, but it’s interesting how much it packs in an

Mar 26, 2019 • 1:00:43

Peggy Hill Meets a Drag Queen

“The Peggy Horror Picture Show” (January 28, 2007) When Peggy Hill mistakenly shops at a store for drag queens, she gets mistaken for one. And while that might seem like hokey sitcom setup, this eleventh-season King of the Hill episode manages some real emotions and some perspectives on gender you wouldn’t have seen on TV at the time.  Sam Pancake’s podcast, Monday Afternoon Movie TalKing of the Hill’s first episode What a Cartoon’s King of the Hill episode  The model sheets cautioning against

Mar 19, 2019 • 57:33

Rebecca Howe Suffers From Gay Blindness

“Rebecca’s Lover... Not” (April 23, 1992) Gayest Episode Ever kicks its hiatus into the gutter with the first installment of it second season. And yes, we’re back in Boston with Cheers, but it’s a very different show in its tenth season — and featuring not Shelley Long but Kirstie Alley as the barmaid having to address her feelings about homosexuality. Harvey Fierstein guest stars in an episode that has connections to both She-Ra and Fright Night, and that makes for a big gay win Listen to Drew

Mar 12, 2019 • 53:01

Fresh Off the Boat Outs the Girl Next Door

“A League of Her Own” (November 17, 2017) For the second of the “off season” bonus episodes, Drew and Glen wanted to compare how a modern day, family-friendly sitcom compares with the classic versions they discussed in the first season. They picked ABC series Fresh Off the Boat, which in its fourth season had a prominent character — Nicole, the “Winnie Cooper” of this flashback series on whim the lead character has a crush — come out as a lesbian. The storyline is handled very well, and what’s m

Oct 15, 2018 • 56:09

Interview: Stan Zimmerman

A veteran sitcom writer, Stan Zimmerman is one half of the duo that penned the script for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the episode of Roseanne in which the main character is kissed by a lesbian. In this interview, Stan talks about the process of writing that episode and riding through the controversy surrounding it, but he also offers behind-the-scenes insight from his time on Golden Girls, the gay-centric Showtime series Brothers, his efforts to get his sitcom project Silver Foxes on a screen near

Oct 1, 2018 • 1:13:28

Harley and Ivy Are Domestic Partners

"Harley and Ivy" (January 18, 1993) In GEE’s first bonus episode, Glen and Drew focus on something that's not a sitcom but is nonetheless pretty damn gay — the Batman: The Animated Series installment that put a lesbianish aura around Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, which extended to the comics and ultimately made the duo a full-fledged couple years later. Support us on Patreon! Follow: GEE on Twitter • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Twitter Listen: iTunes • Spotify • Stitcher • Google Play • Google Podc

Jul 30, 2018 • 50:20

Diane Chambers Is an LGBT Ally

"The Boys in the Bar" (January 27, 1983) When Sam Malone makes a show of supporting his newly out former teammate, the regulars at Cheers worry that bar will suddenly go queer. It's another case of straight hysteria and straight histrionics, but luckily it's Diane Chambers to the rescue. The first season of Gayest Episode Ever closes out with a remarkable installment of one of Drew and Glen's favorite shows and singing of the praises of Shelley Long, patron saint of suffering creatives everywher

May 10, 2018 • 57:16

Jerry and George Aren’t Gay, Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That

“The Outing” (February 11, 1993) Seinfeld won a GLAAD award for this episode all about how even the most well-meaning straight people would be horrified to be mistaken for gay. It helped popularize “not that there’s anything wrong with that” and, to a lesser extent, “single, thin and neat” as 90s-era gay catchphrases and also managed to spin a whole half-hour with minimal presence of actual LGBT characters. Emelie Burnette, copy editor to the stars, joins Glen and Drew to talk about what this ep

May 3, 2018 • 1:18:29

Julia Sugarbaker Plans a Gay Funeral

"Killing All the Right People" (October 5, 1987) In one of the most devastating sitcom installments ever aired, Sugarbaker & Associates plans the funeral of a young gay man dying of AIDS. This is *VERY* *SAD* episode, and we want you to know that it might choke you up, should you be the type who listens at the gym. That said, there's a lot to learn from this episode of Designing Women, both in what a TV show had to do in 1987 to make straight audiences pay attention to AIDS and how TV has evolve

Apr 26, 2018 • 1:04:37

Homer Simpson Is a Homophobe

"Homer's Phobia" (February 16, 1997) Hot stuff, coming through! At long last, Homer Simpson asks the difficult question, "Hey, what if Bart is a homo?" This episode has none other than John Waters on hand as the primary non-Smithers Springfield queer, and the result is one of the better gay outings of the entire '90s. Learned person Dr. Bryan Wuest is on hand to help Glen and Drew talk through camp, kitsch and all manner of gayness. Support us on Patreon! Follow: GEE on Twitter • Drew on Twitter

Apr 19, 2018 • 1:18:15

Blair Warner Is a Homophobe

"Rough Housing" (August 24, 1979) You probably remember The Facts of Life, but you may not know that the show's first season introduced a whole slew of characters who wouldn't make it to season two and also that the first-ever episode dealt with Blair's homophobia toward a tomboyish classmate that didn't even turn out to be a lesbian. Playwright and Supernatural writer Steve Yockey joins Drew and Glen to talk whether Blair is a monster, whether Mrs. Garrett crosses a line addressing Blair's mons

Apr 12, 2018 • 1:07:48

Mary and Rhoda Meet a Homo

"My Brother's Keeper (January 13, 1973) Actor and comedian Sam Pancake joins Glen and Drew to talk about this third-season episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which the last-minute revelation that Phyllis' brother is gay gets the biggest laugh of the show. That said, this is a sweet take on a gay episode that aired when most sitcoms didn't do them. Topics discussed include Bridget Loves Bernie, "Ode to Billy Joe," Murder by Death, the theme song to Phyllis' spinoff and how Gavin MacLeod's c

Apr 5, 2018 • 1:23:05

Archie Bunker Meets a Homo

"Judging Books by Covers" (February 9, 1971) At the very least, the fact that Richard Nixon hated this episode of All in Family should motivate you to consider why it's actually good. In it, Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) fails to learn a lesson about who's gay and who seems gay. This Norman Lear-penned script has one of the first positive portrayals of an LGBT character ever in an American TV series, and Glen and Drew's discussion covers everything from TaleSpin to Carol Danvers to Luke and L

Mar 29, 2018 • 55:13

Dorothy's Friend Is a Lesbian

"Isn't It Romantic?" (November 8, 1986) An award-winning Golden Girls outing does in the mid-1980s what many '90s sitcoms failed to do by introducing a nuanced LGBT character who's not just a prop for the hetero regulars. Lois Nettleton scored an Emmy nom for her turn as Dorothy's friend Jean, who falls for Rose and who is introduced to the audience as being 100 percent comfortable with her sexuality. Everyone else? Not so much. Actor and comedian Tony Rodriguez joins Glen and Drew to talk about

Mar 22, 2018 • 1:11:45

Roseanne Gets Kissed by a Lesbian

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (March 1, 1994) Roseanne's kiss with Mariel Hemingway wasn't the first instance of liplock between two women on American TV, but it was the most controversial. More than two decades later, Glen and Drew talk about this episode and how it discusses sexual gray areas, how Laurie Metcalf's Aunt Jackie always seemed kinda lesbian-y and why Roseanne was a pioneer for LGBT diversity... even if she's crazy now. Support us on Patreon! Follow: GEE on Twitter • Drew on Twitter • Gl

Mar 15, 2018 • 56:57

Frasier's Boss Is Gay

"The Matchmaker" (October 4, 1994) Shortly into Frasier's second season, one episode made it clear once and for all that despite appearances otherwise, Frasier Crane was not gay. The episode features Eric Lutes as the dashing station manager who thinks he's going on a date with Frasier, and this first installment of the podcast has Glen and Drew talking about how the show slut-shames Roz, how Niles should have come out and why this particular episode got awards for doing a gay episode the right

Mar 9, 2018 • 53:20

Trailer

Gayest Episode Ever is a podcast hosted by Drew Mackie, a journalist, and Glen Lakin, a screenwriter. Each installment focuses a different LGBT-themed episode of a classic sitcom. Support us on Patreon! Follow: GEE on Twitter • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Twitter Listen: iTunes • Spotify • Stitcher • Google Play • Google Podcasts • Himalaya And yes, we do have an official website! And we even have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This is a TableCakes

Mar 2, 2018 • 1:29