Gayest Episode Ever

"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, but it’s nonetheless interesting to see how a progressive show handles queer things fairly explicitly in the 1960s.

Listen to the Monday Afternoon Movie episode about the Ted Bessell thriller Scream, Pretty Peggy.

“And Then There Was Shawn” (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 to the Unknown groundbreaking analysis of the Scary Movie franchise, SCARMUTO.

Listen to William’s narrative horror podcast Blackwood.

And if you want to read more about the Scream 3/Harvey Weinstein connection, read this Slate article.

Watch the new season of Glen's show, Ninjago: Dragons Unleashed!

Listen to Drew discussing 16-bit horror video games on Retronauts.

Episodes what we mentioned:

• Guide to the Unknown, “Mommy Watched Scream”

• Guide to the Unknown, “Scream, Queen! / Freddy’s Revenge”

• Gayest Episode Ever, “Boy Meets World Accidentally Does a Trans Episode”

• Gayest Episode Ever, “The Terror of Zombie Sandy Duncan”

• Gayest Episode Ever, “Two Guys, a Girl and a Post-Scream Slasher Halloween”

• Gayest Episode Ever, “The Facts of Life Goes to the Twilight Zone”

• Weirdest Episode Ever, “Family Matters Fights and Evil Murderous Puppet”

• Monday Afternoon Movie, “Summer of Fear with John Arthur Hill”

“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 to previous episodes, so here are all of those, for your listening pleasure:

• The previous GEE about Bewitched (but honestly this new episode is better)

• Our episode about I Dream of Jeannie

• Our episode about The Addams Family, which deals with similar themes of ethnicity/culture erasure

• The GEE/Monday Afternoon Movie crossover episode about the Paul Lynde Halloween Special

• The Monday Afternoon Movie episode about The Legend of Lizzie Borden, which starred Elizabeth Montgomery and Katherine Helmond

• And finally the Monday Afternoon Movie episode about the Star Wars Holiday Special, with special guest Bruce Villance

Finally, the Hollywood Squares zingers all come from this YouTube compilation.

“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. But how many adults watching TV in 1990 knew who Harvey Fierstein was?

Remember when I did a supercut of all the LGBTQ jokes on The Simpsons? It still lives, even if you have to go to YouTube to watch it now for stupid homophobic reasons. It has 3.7 million views so far! I just think that's neat!

Also listen to the most recent Talking Simpsons take on this episode here.

“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 Different World on our Vimeo.

Listen to Stacey's appearances on Sam Pancake Presents the Monday Afternoon Movie discussing the made-for-TV horror films The Possessed and The Strange and Deadly Occurrence.

“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, which is currently on hiatus.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Lost Gals and specifically their episode about Drop Dead Fred

• The Best Movies Never Made and their episodes about all the Beetlejuice sequels that never were

• Guide to the Unknown and their episode about A Nightmare on Elm Street 3

• What Went Wrong and their episode about the making of Beetlejuice

• Cracked’s oral history of the Beetlejuice cartoon

“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 interpretations of the narrative in the dance sequence!

Watch the dance sequence in question here.

Read Vulture’s analysis of “Mac Finds His Pride.”

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 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 Drew’s video of the 1982 Night of a Thousand Stars fashion show, which features Ann Jillian looking like her most Debbie Harry ever.

Gawk in awe at:

• The opening to Mr. Smith
• The opening to Double Trouble
• The opening to Mr. Merlin
• The opening to Down to Earth
• The opening to Ann Jillian
• Ann as the Red Queen in the live action Alice in Wonderland + the very scary Jabberwocky scenes

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 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 Freevee via Amazon Prime. WATCH IT NOW!

Please, watch this episode (and other Brothers episodes!) on YouTube. The posting we used to do this episode only had 36 views as of the time this GEE first went live!

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! 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 supporting characters on sitcoms only show up to be gay and do nothing else.