“Pilot” (October 1, 2003)

Even NBC tried to replicate the success of America’s first popular gay sitcom, and this week we’re joined once again by Steven Capsuto to discuss an attempt to bring same-sex parents to prime time. It’s All Relative only lasted a season, but that’s actually longer than most LGBTQ-inclusive sitcoms that followed in Will & Grace’s wake, and for what it’s worth, its pilot shows a lot of promise.

Read GEE's write-up in Emmy magazine, which is basically the same thing as actually winning an Emmy.

Buy the revised edition of Steven’s book, Alternate Channels: Queer Images on 20th-Century TV.

Listen to Steven’s previous episode, about Tony Randall’s Love, Sidney.

Drew is pulling quotes from the following articles:

• “The gaying of TV / Advertisers step up as more shows step out”  (SFGate, Aug. 24, 2003)
• “Review: It’s All Relative” (Variety, Sep. 28, 2003)
• “It’s profitable to be a little bit gay” (LA TImes, Aug. 27, 2003)
• “Gays on TV: Hardly a Trend” (Chicago Tribune, Aug. 12, 2003)

“Hope ’n’ Mic Night” (November 10, 2024)

Long-running animated sitcoms face a unique challenge in having to account for an episode that aired more than a decade previously, and this recent Bob’s Burgers proves that this can be accomplished thoughtfully and deliberately. “Hope ’n’ Mic Night” repeatedly references the season one episode “Sheesh! Cab, Bob?” which introduced Marshmallow to the show but also did a few things that cast trans characters in a less than flattering light. Fifteen years later, the show gives Marshmallow 2.0 the spotlight she’s deserved for while, and frankly it’s heartening to see a show make all the right moves.

Watch the homemade Archer/Bob’s Burgers crossover that got Simon Chong, the director of this episode, a real Hollywood job.

What the video for Paula Abdul’s “Opposites Attract.”

Read the Deadline interview with Jari Jones, the new voice of Marshmallow.

“Homo for the Holidays” (November 25, 1999)

What? An episode of Will & Grace that Drew actually likes? Kind of! This season two episode has Jack coming out to his mother over Thanksgiving dinner, and it’s basically the gayest Thanksgiving episode of any sitcom ever. And it’s a good piece of TV with some thoughtful dialogue, even if a lot of the jokes are very representative of that Will & Grace style, which you either like or you don’t. Also: Is Jack McFarland responsible for popularizing the phrase “platinum gay”?

Listen to previous Will & Grace episodes here.

“Bill, Bulk and the Body Buddies” (May 20, 2007)

Can one illustration of a buff Bill Dauterive change your entire life in an instant? Well, for some people, yeah. This King of the Hill outing manages to stuff in a whole lot of imagery that will be familiar to a certain gay subculture. It’s inadvertent — and specifically this episode also features explicitly gay characters as a counterpoint to the rude, crude muscle bros, but there’s plenty to talk about nonetheless in Bill’s adventures through body transformation.

Listen to our previous King of the Hill episodes here.

 Follow Drew, Glen and Tony on Bluesky!

"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.”