“Gay Bash” (November 10, 2004) For better or worse, Drawn Together represents a very real trend in mid-2000s humor. It specifically sought out to tell the most offensive jokes it could get on air, but that’s what makes it surprising that the episode where Xandir admits he’s gay isn’t the parade of easy jokes you might expect. The B plot sucks rancid balls, to the point that we don’t even use clips from it in this discussion, but you might be surprised how this animated reality show makes its token gay a sympathetic guy. Check out Bradley Smith’s YouTube interview with series creators Dave Jesser and Matt Silvertsein, from which we grabbed a few anecdotes about the development of Drawn Together. Listen to our Cartoons That Made Us Gay episode about the Legend of Zelda cartoon. Listen to the Best Movies Never Made podcast, hosted by Golan the Insatiable creator Josh Miller. 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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

“Dye! Dye! My Darling!” (August 2, 2000) Spend a little time in a Daria fan community and you’ll find folks who ship the title character with her best friend, Jane. The show actually never does a gay episode and only gets the slightest bit queer in the first movie, Is It Fall Yet?, which has Jane affirming her heterosexuality despite how very queer she might seem. In this episode, we’re discussing the nonetheless existent lesbian vibes between Daria and Jane — and who better to offer input on this than Talking Simpsons cohost Bob Mackey? Sure, he’s straight, but it turns out that straight men can relate to female characters too. (We were shocked!) As it turns out, Bob and Henry’s What a Cartoon podcast covers not only the Daria episode that immediately precedes this one, “Fire!” and also “The Misery Chick,” which as we discuss is a crucial turning point in the development of Daria Morgandorfer. This week, Glen and Drew are guests on Talking Simpsons, discussing "Three Gays of the Condo" and why it's not great! If you need more of our voices in your life, have a listen here. 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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

“Lucy and Jim Bailey” (November 6, 1972) Basically, Lucille Ball did a solid for one gay performer, but in doing this, she also helped make gays a little less scary for America. Jim Bailey was a female impersonator who who had already made appearances on late night TV for this uncanny ability to turn himself into female celebs. Lucy, however, gave him a showcase on her popular prime time sitcom, showing her viewers that not only were drag queens not scary, but in fact they can be a lot of fun. Watch the episode of The Lucy Show where Lucy almost drowned on Tubi. And read the book that details both versions of the story on Archive.org. What the episode of the Desilu-produced game show You Don’t Say. 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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

People use the term “the lost years” differently when speaking of Saturday Night Live, but this podcast is using it specifically from the time Lorne Michaels left the show after season five up until season eleven. Aside from Eddie Murphy’s presence on the show, these are the sketches that are less remembered today because they weren’t rerun on Comedy Central in the 2000s as much and they’re largely absent from the cache of episodes preserved online today. And that’s too bad, because this is when the show boasted some legends in the cast — Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Billy Crystal, Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr., Martin Short and Damon Wayans among them, as well as queer cast members Terry Sweeney, Denny Dillon and Danitra Vance. The sketches (and click here if you want to watch them): “SoHo Lesbians” (S6E10: Debbie Harry) “Little Richard Simmons” (S7E1: No host) “James Coburn Is a Homosexual” (S7E11: James Coburn) “Focus on Film: Making Love” (S7E12: Bruce Dern) “Penny Lane” (S10E11: Roy Scheider) “Pinklisting” (S11E1: Madonna) “Mr. Monopoly” (S11E12: Griffin Dunne) Monologue (S11E16: Catherine Oxenberg) “Lesbian Pick-Ups” (S11E18: Anjelica Huston) 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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

“Evolution” (August 19, 1999) If you came of age in the late 90s or early 2000s, you live in a world informed by Sex and the City — whether you realize it or not. It’s probably one of the most influential TV shows to air during our lifetimes, and so it’s more than time that we look at one of its many LGBTQ-themed episodes. Joining us to discuss Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte is returning guest Gwynedd Stuart, who has big feelings about why this show matters. Listen to Gwynedd’s previous episode about Soap. Most of Drew’s background on how SATC ended up at HBO comes from this Vulture article. And here is the 1991 New York Times article about Woody Allen and Mia Farrow waving at each other from across Central Park. Listen to Drew discussing Bowser, King of the Koopa, on the Retronauts podcast. 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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

"Homes and Jojo" (May 1, 1989) Newhart is a show about white people who live in the snow, and while 70s-era Bob Newhart sitcom is the one pop culture remembers better, this is the longer-lived, more-Emmy-nominated of the two. What the 80s-era Bob New1hart sitcom has working in its favor are future Simpsons showrunner David Mirkin, who gives a host of wacky townspeople not unlike what you’d find in Springfield, and the duo of Julia Duffy and Peter Scolari, who male a perfect yuppie couple worthy of mockery. It’s great. Here, learn about it. Listen to Smart Mouth, GEE”s sister show, and in particular check out the episode “Queer Food” with John Birdsall, because if you’re listening to this podcast you’re probably queer and probably also you eat food. 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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

“Blank Relay” (August 13, 2000) Honestly, we could have picked just about any episode of Strangers With Candy to focus on for this podcast about queer themes, but we ended up deciding on the one where we see Jerri Blank at her most girl hungry. It’s light on Mr. Noblet and Mr. Jellineck, but we can always circle back to this one in another two hundred episodes, right? Watch the Exit 57 “Down in the Basement” sketch, which does not translate especially well to an audio-only format. Watch The Trip Back, the 1970 PSA featuring Florrie Fisher, the real-life inspiration for Jerri Blank. Listen to the two-part Rasputin episode of the Unexplained podcast. And we dropped a whole hell of a lot of Sam Pancake Presents the Monday Afternoon Movie episodes. Here are all of them: Angel Dusted with Gedde Watanabe (the one where Helen Hunt doesn’t jump through a window) Desperate Lives with Arden Myrin (the one where she *does* jump through a window) It Happened One Christmas with Sarah Thyre The Cat Creature with Becky Thyre And finally Crowhaven Farm and A Vacation in Hell, both with Rose Abdoo

“Joey’s First Crush” (January 28, 1987) Few other shows changed as much as Gimme a Break, which began as a fish-out-of-water sitcom that had Nell Carter playing mom to three white girls in California but ended up with Nell and her best friend, Telma Hopkins’ Addy, co-parenting two white boys in New York. Minus the kids, it’s basically a female-female twist on Perfect Strangers, only they don’t get steady boyfriends. Perhaps in an effort to make the show seem less gay, they tossed in a happily married character… who was played by newcomer Rosie O’Donnell. This episode, which is the second of Gimme a Break’s outings to feature actual gay characters, showcases a lot of how this show ended up pretty damn gay. … Now that I think about it, maybe the only sitcom that changed as much over its run was Ellen — and that’s pretty notable, right? Listen to our previous Gimme a Break episodes. Learn all about Betty and Barney Hill in the Monday Afternoon Movie episode about 1975’s The UFO Incident. Watch: Andy Gibb dueting with Nell Carter on Gimme a Break Gimme a Break’s famous Motown medley Rosie O’Donnell on Star Search

“Lisa the Drama Queen” (January 25, 2009) So here’s an interesting one. In its twentieth season, The Simpson did an episode inspired by Heavenly Creatures, the 1994 Peter Jackson movie that has Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey playing schoolgirls who flee into a fantasy world and also each other. More than a decade later, this story would play out again, only with Lisa Simpson and a new character voiced by Emily Blunt, and that might seem like a strange combo, especially because the Simpson version nixes the sex and violence of the original, but it nonetheless works. Special thanks to the writer of this episode, Brian Kelley, for sharing his memories of how this episode came to be. For a limited time, you can still screen Heavenly Creatures via the GEE Patreon, but that window is closing. Info here. Listen to Drew on the In Retrospect podcast’s episodes about the “lesbian/Lebanese” joke (part one & part two) 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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (November 29, 2011 Yes, Tim Allen’s follow-up to Home Improvement got branded as the most conservative sitcom on network TV, but is that fair? We’re honestly not sure, because the ninth episode of Last Man Standing’s first season features a gay couple. We’re mostly good with how this plays out, but we also think this show changed in its second season. We’re also skimming over the second-season episode “Bullying,” which ended up arguing that it’s okay to say “gay.” Key takeaway: Tim Allen may be less conservative than Kelsey Grammer. Listen to our Home Improvement episode. Remember a short-lived sitcom from Fox's early days? Tell us about it (there’s a thread on Patreon that’s open to even non-members), and we may cover it for our upcoming bonus miniseries, The Fox Files! 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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

“Sorority House” (February 8, 1961) A few times on this podcast, we’ve bent over backwards to find a gay interpretation of a sitcom that never did anything gay, but this is not one of those. Mister Ed was developed by Arthur Lubin, a closeted gay director who was married to a woman but eventually ended up cohabitating with a male companion. It’s interesting, then, that he’d be into making a TV show out of a story about Wilbur Post, who’s married to a woman and who’s outwardly a traditional guy even if his most significant relationship is with a male — a horse, but a male nonetheless — that he has to keep secret. Primitive though it might be, Mister Ed is actually the blueprint for more traditional magic sitcoms like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. You can watch this episode of Mister Ed for free on archive.org. Want to hear your words on an upcoming GEE? We’re covering the Simpsons episode “Lisa the Drama Queen” and therefore we’re offering patrons a chance to watch the movie that inspired it: 1994’s Heavenly Creatures, which is not easy to watch online nowadays. Details at the GEE Patreon. 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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

“Fathers and Sons” (May 3, 2003) And we’re back! Our first regular episode of the new year returns to the first-ever show we discussed: Frasier. It’s the episode where David Ogden Stiers plays an old colleague of Frasier’s late mother who acts more like Frasier and Niles than Martin does. This is the final time the series put a spotlight on the series innate queerness, and in selecting Stiers, it also tacitly endorses the notion that his M*A*S*H character helped inspire Frasier Crane. Listen to Unsafe Spaces, Josh Hallmark’s new true crime podcast about serial murders in Tampa’s gay community — and while you’re at it, also give a listen to his other podcast, True Crime Bullshit, about serial killer Israel Keyes. Want to hear your words on an upcoming GEE? We’re covering the Simpsons episode “Lisa the Drama Queen” and therefore we’re offering patrons a chance to watch the movie that inspired it: 1994’s Heavenly Creatures, which is not easy to watch online nowadays. Details at the GEE Patreon. Listen to our previous Frasier episodes. 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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.  

“Coldhearted Uranus: Makoto in Danger” (May 14, 1994) It’s a new year, and we’re giving you a new episode of Sailor Moon — now with 200 percent more lesbian content! This third-season episode not only showcases Haruka/Sailor Uranus and Michiru/Sailor Neptune, but also uses them as a way to explore how Makoto/Sailor Jupiter is the most queer-coded of the core five Sailor Guardians. What’s most notable about this episode, however, is the fact that the Viz dub of it actually re-writes the original Japanese dialogue to seem less homophobic than the original version was. Read Drew’s Thrilling Tales of Old Video Games post if you want to know how the connection to Rose of Versailles. And check out the lengthy Twitter thread posted in response to the first Sailor Moon episode, about why it wasn’t surprising to have a same-sex couple in the first season of the show. Watch the clip comparing Molly’s original DiC accent to Mia Farrow’s. And here’s the Reddit thread looking into how the Viz dub played down the homophobia of the original version of this episode. Listen to the first Sailor Moon episode, about Zoisite, on the main feed *or* if you’re fancy listen to the new Sailor Moon episode, about Fisheye, on the Patreon feed.

“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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

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 Frank’s Place (and all episodes, if you want) at archive.org. Read the LA Times piece we cite in this discussion here. 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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

“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 website! We even have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

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) Not for Transexuals Only (S4E20: Buck Henry, May 26, 1979) The Continuing Correspondences of Eleanor Roosevelt (S5E3: Bill Russell, Oct. 20 1979) 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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

“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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.

“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 script became a B-action movie starring Rob Lowe.

“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 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 have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. Our logo was designed by Rob Wilson. This episode’s art was designed by Ian O’Phelan.