“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...

“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 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...

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...

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...

“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...

“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...

“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...

“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...

“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...

“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...

“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...

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...

“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...

“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...

“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...

“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...

“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...

“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,...

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...

“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...

“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...

“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...

“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, ...

“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. ...