Gayest Episode Ever

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 who cause wacky, zany hijinx. It’s not Norman Lear, but you k...

GEE Movie Club: The Nutcracker Fantasy

May your holiday season be colorful and weird.

Yes, we will still be doing Mannequin in the not-too-distant future, but December selection for GEE Movie Club is the bonkers 1979 stop motion film Nutcracker Fantasy, a strange experiment by Sanrio that answers the question "What if The Nutcracker were surreal and terrifying?"

This one is of special significance to me (Drew), who insisted we do it for December, because it's something I was allowed to watch while very young, by a well...

GEE Movie Club: Dance ’Til Dawn

Welcome to the first edition of the video-based, online-online book club we enrolled you in if you’re pledging $5 or more a month! You’re welcome! We are discussing the 1988 made-for-TV movie Dance ’Til Dawn, a prom comedy starring most of the stars of 80s TV, and in this special episode we talk through the film as well as respond to questions and comments that you posted here on Patreon. Enjoy!

Also: This is our first outing with this kind of episode. Let us know what else you’...

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.

List...

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 g...

The Cartoons That Made Us Gay: Jem and the Holograms

Programming note: The regularly scheduled episode of GEE will be released later this week.

In the second installment of this spinoff series, we look at the episode of Jem and the Holograms, titled “The Bands Break Up” even though the bands don’t break up at all and instead Kimber and Stormer pair off to make their own beautiful music. Intentional or not, it is hard to dismiss these girls’ relationship as just platonic, to the point that we don’t have to work hard at all to fin...

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 2021-11-18 21:54:44 +0000 UTC View Post

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 Love...

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 perfo...

The Cartoons That Made Us Gay: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

It’s finally here: our new bonus Patreon podcast, focused on queer readings of the cartoons of our youth. Though you can guess some of the series we’ll be covering, our first episode might be a surprise: It’s from the original 1987 run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — “Michelangelo Meets Mondo Gecko,” about Mike being drawn to the man (or man-gecko) of his dreams, and we couldn't think of a weirder way to kick off this new podcast project.

You patrons made this happen! Than...

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...

GEE Movie Club: Dance 'Til Dawn

Hello and welcome to the first edition of GEE Movie Club, wherein we announce a movie on the first of the month and encourage you all to watch and discuss it, book club-style. And our inaugural selection is... Dance 'Til Dawn, a 1988 film that could not be more on-brand for Gayest Episode Ever but which we suspect many of you have not seen.

What the movie lacks in fame it makes up for in 80s sitcom stars, as it features Christina Applegate, Alyssa Milano, Tracey Gold, Tempestt Bledsoe, ...

Paul Lynde Makes Halloween Closeted, Campy Fun

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 Movie 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. I...

Weirdest Episode Ever: The Terror of Zombie Sandy Duncan

“Nightmare on Oak Street” (November 23, 1987)

We had to bring 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 Assoc...

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...

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 2021-10-01 03:04:57 +0000 UTC View Post

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.

Listen to Anthony’s Patreon podcast, <...

The Cartoons That Made Us Gay

Edit: Please do make suggestions but specific episodes are much more helpful than recommending entire shows.

So we are getting ready to make our 10-episode, Patreon-exclusive mini-podcast about LGBT themes in classic cartoons. Before we finalize our episode list, however, we thought we’d give you, our supporters, all a chance to weigh in on what you’d want to see. After all, our pick for the gayest possible episode of the following shows might not be yours.

So what w...

The Other Two Finds a Daddy

“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 and that could only work in a gay context. We love it, and we think...

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: 2021-09-09 03:56:20 +0000 UTC View Post

We Like to Watch: White Lotus, Beastars, Schmigadoon, Jellystone

First up: Because the Patreon-exclusives have been slower during our hiatus, we're not charging you all for September. (We missed the cutoff point for August, but we're coming back in September, so it all balances out.) In case you wondered what we watched during hiatus, it's a lot!

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 ...

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 Muppeteer who voices Mudwell, who lost his own...

The Cartoons That Made Us Gay

As you may have heard, our new Patreon-exclusive bonus series we're doing is The Cartoons That Made Us Gay, all about cartoons we watched when we were younger that may not have intentionally skewed queer but nonetheless resonated with us as such. We have a pretty good idea of some of the episodes we'd like to cover, but which ones would you want us to include?

The Shelley Longcast: Outrageous Fortune

And here we are, finishing our first-ever Patreon-exclusive bonus podcast. It’s fitting that we’re ending the Shelley Longcast on one of her biggest box office successes but also a movie that doesn’t get the respect it deserves. For whatever reason — misogyny, Bette Midler, cable TV trends, sentiment about Shelley Long herself — Outrageous Fortune doesn’t get ranked alongside the great buddy comedies of the 1980s, but it should be.

We’ve had a lot of fun talking about some...

The Shelley Longcast: Irreconcilable Differences

We're on hiatus this week, but you lucky people get a bonus in this penultimate episode of the Shelley Longcast. We're looking at Irreconcilable Differences, a 1984 film that is ostensibly about a young girl divorcing her parents but is actually a thinly veiled fictionalization of the story of Polly Platt and Peter Bogdanovich... which is weird, because Platt's story was actually an inspiration in how we talked about Shelley Long's path through Hollywood. And that's not even the only striking...

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’ 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 ...

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 all the Seth MacFarlane of it all, this one gets some stuff right, landfs some decent jokes, biffs some bad ones and sometimes sacrifices laughs altogether to shock, horrify or offend. In short, it’s typical Family Guy.

Read the New York Times article 2021-06-19 06:40:21 +0000 UTC View Post

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 her 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...

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,...