Gayest Episode Ever

“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 Burgers-Archer mashup that got Simon Chong a job making art for this show — starting with this very episode. Totally Trans watched that Lady Ballers movie so you don’t have to! Listen to our previous Bob's Burgers episode, about Bob's alleged bisexuality. Go shop at our TeePublic store! Follow: GEE on Facebook • GEE’s Facebook Group • GEE on Twitter • GEE on Instagram • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Twitter Listen: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Google Podcasts • Himalaya • TuneIn And yes, we do have an official website! We even

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 won Emmys, it won critical praise, and it’s still remembered today as a showcase for a type of black American who wasn’t often depicted on the small screen. Despite all that, it only lasted a single season. Brian Cronin joins us to discuss perhaps the only sitcom episode to feature a Hanukkah dinner ruined by a coming out. And BTW, there is a twist ending we are still unsettled by. Read Brian’s work at CBR but also at his website, Pop Culture References, which frequently dives deep into sitcom history. Watch this Fran

“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 its fellow Must See TV alums did. That’s something. Plus Kathy Griffin is here. Here’s the LA Times article cited in this piece, and here’s the Entertainment Weekly piece Buy Josh Trujillo’s new book, Washington's Gay General: The Legends and Loves of Baron Von Steuben. Go shop at our TeePublic store! Follow: GEE on Facebook • GEE’s Facebook Group • GEE on Twitter • GEE on Instagram • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Twitter Listen: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Google Podcasts • Himalaya • TuneIn And yes, we do have an official

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.   Watch all the sketches featured in this episode here.   Here are the sketches, in order: Jamitol (S1E1: George Carlin, Oct. 11 1975) Long Distance (S1E4: Candice Bergen, Nov. 8 1975) Latent Elf (S1E8: Candice Bergen, Dec. 20 1975) Household Hints (S1E16: Anthony Perkins, March 13, 1976) The Snake-Handling O’Sheas (S2E2: Norman Lear, Sep. 25, 1976) Monologue (S4E11: Cicely Tyson, Feb. 10, 1979) The Ex-Police (S4E11: Cicely Tyson, Feb. 10, 1979) Miles Cowperthwaite (S4E18: Michael Palin, May 12, 1979

“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 that this serves as a sort of soft launch for another show that has the same premise and which launched on NBC’s schedule the following fall. You can watch this episode of Gimme a Break on YouTube. Listen to us discuss Gimme a Break’s gay episode. Go shop at our TeePublic store! Follow: GEE on Facebook • GEE’s Facebook Group • GEE on Twitter • GEE on Instagram • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Twitter Listen: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Google Podcasts • Himalaya • TuneIn And yes, we do have an official website! We even hav

“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 we can acknowledge that without giving Friends a pass for its homophobia. Here’s the Slate article that inspired this episode, and here’s the Substack post where it originally appeared, with its original headline. Friends, previously on GEE: Everyone Thinks Chandler Is Gay Ross’s Lebsian Ex-Wife Gets Lesbian Married Rachel Kisses a Lesbian Ross Gellar Brings Gay Panic to The Single Guy Listen to Magnificent Jerk, a great podcast about one woman’s journey to understand how her uncle’s autobiographical movie scrip

“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? Yeah, sure, George. There is a video companion to this episode! You can see all of the clips from the entire run of Seinfeld on the GEE Patreon! And you can view it even if you’re not a patron, because I’m nice and I want you to enjoy this episode. Seinfeld on GEE previously: Kramer Gets Bullied by Mean Gays Elaine Dates a Gay Guy Susan's Dad Had a Gay Affair With John Cheever Jerry and George Aren't Gay, Not That There's Anything Wrong With That Go shop at our TeePublic store! Follow: GEE on Facebook • GEE’s Fa

“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 and still should be important all these years later. And yes, if you’re like “I could swear that Drew said this week would be Seinfeld,” you are correct; that episode will now be coming next week. Stay tuned! Did you know that Henry also has a podcast? It’s called Talking Simpsons, and it’s a lot like GEE just specifically about The Simpsons.  Watch Glen's episode of Ninjago: Dragons Rising, now streaming on Netflix! And if you're not sure what a Ninjago is, watch Ninjago Decoded, Glen's video series that explains the h

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 an otherwise grounded sitcom could get away with this, and we’re lucky to have James Eldred on hand to discuss it. Also he suggested it! Please don’t spoil Poker Face for him. Also give a listen to his Cinema Oblivia podcast — and check out the episodes Drew guested on, about Switchblade Sisters and Troll. The supercut of Kraus yelling “I can hear you” (or some variation thereof) was excerpted from this video on YouTube, posted by Undercover Budget Director. The full version is much longer. Watch Glen's episode of Nin

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 even did a non-canonical Halloween special that killed off the entire cast in the style of Scream-inspired 90s slasher flicks. If nothing else, give them credit for not couching their weird episode in the context of a dream. The logo for Weirdest Episode Ever was designed by Ian O’Phelan. The theme music was composed by Nick Loiacano. Go shop at our TeePublic store! Follow: GEE on Facebook • GEE’s Facebook Group • GEE on Twitter • GEE on Instagram • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Twitter Listen: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • 

“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 podcast Midnight Mass — and in particular listen to the episode all about Prom Night 2. It’s a hoot. Watch Glen's episode of Ninjago: Dragons Rising, now streaming on Netflix! And if you're not sure what a Ninjago is, watch Ninjago Decoded, Glen's video series that explains the history of the Ninjago TV show. Go shop at our TeePublic store! Follow: GEE on Facebook • GEE’s Facebook Group • GEE on Twitter • GEE on Instagram • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Twitter Listen: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Google Podcasts • Himala

“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 popular sitcoms on TV today. We’re happy to report that being a CBS sitcom means something quite different today than it did just a few years ago. You should probably want a copy of Josh’s book. Buy a copy here! Watch Ninjago Decoded, Glen's series that explains the history of the Ninjago series and will help you understand his episode of Ninjago: Dragons Rising. Go shop at our TeePublic store!   Follow: GEE on Facebook • GEE’s Facebook Group • GEE on Twitter • GEE on Instagram • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Twitter  

“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 meta commentary. If nothing else, Ellen — the person *and* the show — understood how people were interpreting all this.   Watch: the supercut of all the foreshadowing leading up to Ellen’s coming out, compiled by Becky Burning so I didn’t have to.   Read: the 1994 L.A. Times piece about the drama going on backstage during Ellen’s first season.   Watch Ninjago Decoded, Glen's series that explains the history of the Ninjago series and will help you understand his episode of Ninjago: Dragons Rising.   Go shop at our Te

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 that will be coming in November. So look forward to that — and meanwhile prepare for a little bit of cultural whiplash.   Listen to part one here.   Here are the sketches, in order: Girl With No Gaydar (S27E17: The Rock, 4/13/2000) Donatella Versace (S30E18: Johnny Knoxville 5/7/2005) Two Gay Guys (S32E4: Hugh Laurie 10/28/2006) Deep House Dish (S32E7: Matthew Fox 12/1/2006) Vincent Price Holiday Special (S34E16: Alec Baldwin 2/14/2009) Stefon (S36E15: Russell Brand 2/12/2011) Right Side of the Bed (S40E19:

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 get us through the current era. Enjoy? Maybe? It’s a lot to take in, honestly, but we swear it’s worth discussion. Here are this episode’s sketches: Anita Bryant (s5e16 — Burt Reynolds, April 12, 1980) Dion (s9e8 — Flip Wilson, December 10, 1983) Nancy Reagan (s11e2 — John Lithgow, November 16, 1985) Coffee Talk  (s16e13 — Roseanne Barr & Tom Arnold, February 2, 1989) It’s Pat (s17e3 — Kirstie Alley, October 12, 1991) Lyle the Effeminate Heterosexual (s17e16 — Mary Stuart Masterson, March 21, 1992) Mickey the Dyke

“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 recollections of working on the show. SPOILER WARNING: We will talk about major plot points from Barry through season three, episode four. Read the New York Times piece on gay villains on TV. Listen to Drew and Glen discuss the Lookwell pilot on Talking Simpsons. Go shop at our TeePublic store! Follow: GEE on Facebook • GEE’s Facebook Group • GEE on Twitter • GEE on Instagram • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Twitter Listen: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Stitcher • Google Podcasts • Himalaya • TuneIn And yes, we do have an official

“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 Weirdest Episode Ever. Listen to the rest of those episodes on Patreon or now also on Apple Podcasts! Check out Drew's video of all the times Brandon the dog was clearly not acting and was, in fact, actually scared of what was happening during this episode. Most of the quotes used in this piece come from this Yahoo TV retrospective on this episode. Watch Drew’s supercut of the Soleil Moon Frye’s pre-Punky made-for-TV horror movie, Invitation to Hell — and listen to the Monday Afternoon Movie about it! The logo for

“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!  Golden Girls, “Empty Nests” Married With Children, “Top of the Heap” Who’s the Boss?, “Mona” Diff’rent Strokes, “The Girls School” Gimme a Break, “Nell and the Kid” Married With Children, “Radio Free Trumaine” 227, “The Audit” The Cosby Show, “Mr. Quiet” The Nanny, “Chatterbox” Who’s the Boss?, “Living Dolls” Support us at the $5-a-month level or higher to get every new episode of Backdoor Pilots in your feed as they go live. Is there maybe some bad blood between Golden Girls creator Susan Harris and Rita Moreno, who almos

“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 include the Ts. But this episode, penned by future showrunner Matt Selman, shows the series is learning and evolving. Watch Drew's supercut of every LGBTQ joke on The Simpsons (season 1 through 31) to get that view count over 4 million. Watch the new season of Ninjago: Dragons Rising June 1 on Netflix! And if you don’t know what a Ninjago is, watch Ninjago Decoded, starting here. You can now watch Glen’s movie, Being Frank, on Freevee via Amazon Prime — and now also on Apple TV. WATCH IT NOW!

“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 than I Love Lucy, what to make of Ralph Kramden’s domestic violence threats and why you maybe didn’t see The Honeymooners in syndication back in the day. Watch Tony's new movie Maximum Truth on Prime Video, Apple TV or YouTube. Watch the new season of Ninjago: Dragons Rising June 1 on Netflix! And if you don’t know what a Ninjago is, watch Ninjago Decoded, starting here. You can now watch Glen’s movie, Being Frank, on Freevee via Amazon Prime. WATCH IT NOW! Go shop at our TeePublic store! Follow: GEE on Facebook • GEE’s