“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 hr 49 min•Season 5Ep. 39
“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 08, 2022•1 hr 55 min•Season 5Ep. 38
“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 wrote this...
Jun 01, 2022•1 hr 45 min•Season 5Ep. 37
“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-timer ...
May 25, 2022•1 hr 48 min•Season 5Ep. 36
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 addr...
May 18, 2022•1 hr 29 min•Season 5Ep. 35
“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 this w...
May 11, 2022•1 hr 25 min•Season 5Ep. 34
“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 04, 2022•2 hr 8 min•Season 5Ep. 33
“#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 hr 31 min•Season 5Ep. 32
“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 hr 39 min•Season 5Ep. 31
“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 could ...
Apr 13, 2022•1 hr 32 min•Season 5Ep. 30
“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 06, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Season 5Ep. 29
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 hr 34 min•Season 5Ep. 28
“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 the ...
Mar 23, 2022•1 hr 30 min•Season 5Ep. 27
“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 Bau...
Mar 16, 2022•1 hr 28 min•Season 5Ep. 26
“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 09, 2022•1 hr 39 min•Season 5Ep. 25
“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 02, 2022•1 hr 32 min•Season 5Ep. 24
“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 g...
Feb 23, 2022•1 hr 53 min•Season 5Ep. 23
“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 hr 32 min•Season 5Ep. 22
“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 c...
Feb 09, 2022•2 hr 2 min•Season 5Ep. 21
“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 02, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Season 5Ep. 20
“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 matter h...
Jan 26, 2022•1 hr 30 min•Season 5Ep. 19
“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 hr 13 min•Season 5Ep. 18
“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 holida...
Dec 22, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 5Ep. 17
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 hr 9 min•Season 5Ep. 16
“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 hr 17 min•Season 5Ep. 15
“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 o...
Dec 08, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Season 5Ep. 14
“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 01, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Season 5Ep. 13
“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 b...
Nov 24, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Season 5Ep. 12
“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 hr 34 min•Season 5Ep. 11
“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 hr 1 min•Season 5Ep. 10