Gayest Episode Ever
Film, TV & Pop Culture
About
Back in the day, a major sitcom doing a gay episode was a big deal. A proper gay episode would get headlines, but it would get the attention of two young guys who were still figuring things out — sexuality-wise and culture-wise. Gayest Episode Ever has screenwriter Glen Lakin and stay-at-home journalist Drew Mackie going through the great and not-so-great gay episodes of sitcoms past.
Episodes
- Married… With Children Meets a Beach Gay
The Gayest Episode Ever podcast discusses the Married… With Children episode "Life's a Beach" from May 21, 1989. The hosts reflect on the season finale, mentioning the presence of a gay couple and the overall significance of the Bundys.
- Dear John Meets a Gay
This episode of Gayest Episode Ever reviews a 1989 Dear John episode that introduced a gay character. The discussion covers Cleavon Little's Emmy-winning performance and the episode's dated elements.
- Jennifer Slept Here Is a Little Gay Boy's Fantasy
This episode, a rerun from 2019, revisits the 1983 NBC series "Jennifer Slept Here." It explores the show's unique qualities and its interpretation as a "little gay boy's fantasy" due to the pairing of an awkward boy with a glamorous ghost.
- Star Trek Isn't a Sitcom But It Sure Is Gay
The Gayest Episode Ever podcast discusses the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Offspring," focusing on the character of Data's daughter, Lal. Friend Mike Gizienski joins the hosts to explore the episode's LGBTQ+ relevant themes.
- Dinosaurs Uses Vegetarianism as a Metaphor for Homosexuality
This is a rerun of a 2019 episode from Gayest Episode Ever. The episode analyzes the TV show Dinosaurs, specifically an episode where vegetarianism serves as a metaphor for homosexuality, drug use, and communism.
- Ned & Stacey Is Secretly the Prequel to Will & Grace
"The Gay Caballeros" (February 19, 1996) Full disclosure: We didn't come here to say nice things about Debra Messing. What we will say is that she's forever trapped in sitcom mode, to the point that the laffer that preceded the gay one has…
- Happy Days Puts Richie Cunningham in the Closet
"You Go to My Head" (October 1, 1974) We're kicking off our final season by discussing what's arguably the most important sitcom that we haven't profiled yet: Happy Days. Technically, Happy Days never did an episode, but what's surprising…
- Gayest Episode Ever: The Final Season
Yes, we're wrapping up the podcast. Is it Heated Rivalry's fault? Kinda! We had a really good go, but after a lot of conversations about this, we have decided that we will end Gayest Episode Ever with one last ten-episode season. The below…
- Sailor Moon Meets the (Trans?) Sailor Starlights
"A Night Alone Together: Usagi in Danger" (August 17, 1996) In our fourth look at Sailor Moon, we're discussing the final season, which features the Sailor Stars. Canonically, they're female superheroes who magically become boys in order t…
- Ellen Won't Say Gay on Christmas
"Ellen's First Christmess" (December 17, 2001) Yes, we're closing 2025 with a lump of coal rather than a sugarplum fairy. Believe it or not, Ellen Degeneres had a second sitcom between her first one and her reign as the iron-fisted queen o…
- The Golden Girls Meet a Gay… for the Final Time?
"The Artist" (December 19, 1987) Over the years, we've shared a lot of laughs with the girls on the laini, but our journey with the four horniest seniors in the history of Miami has come to an end, as "The Artist" is the final gay episode…
- Happy Endings Comes Out for Thanksgiving
"More Like Skanksgiving" (November 20, 2012) Here you have it: the one other gay-themed Thanksgiving episode of a sitcom. Three seasons in, this one reveals heretofore-unheard canon that the Happy Endings characters exist as they do solely…
- The Gay Subtext of Dobie Gillis, TV's First Teen Sitcom
"The Ruptured Duck" (October 10, 1961) On the surface, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis tells the story of a teen boy who falls in love with every girl except Zelda Gilroy, who pines for him hopelessly. All of this is complicated by the fact…
- Marge Simpson Meets a Drag Queen
"Werking Mom" (November 18, 2018) Yes, The Simpsons did a drag episode, and you might be interested to know that the idea did not originate with "Hey, let's do one about RuPaul's Drag Race." In fact, co-writer Carolyn Omine provided some b…
- Small Wonder Celebrated an 80s Kid Who Was Different
"The Neighbors" (September 14, 1985) "Victor / Vicki-toria" (February 14, 1987) "The Bad Seed" (November 7, 1987) Ignore whatever you might have heard about Small Wonder and focus instead on how the show spotlighted Vicki (a.k.a. V.I.C.I),…
- Fired Up Had the Best Gay Character on Must See TV
"Truth and Consequences" (September 29, 1997) Though it didn't even get a chance to finish out its second season, Fired Up was one of the rare Must See TV sitcoms to feature two female leads. What's more, the recurring gay character, Shann…
- Not Just Bugs Bunny in Drag! (Seven Very Gay Looney Tunes Shorts)
It may not be news to listeners of this podcast, but the Looney Tunes cartoons can be very gay. In celebration of the nearly 800 shorts being hosted on Tubi, Drew, Glen and returning guest Tony Rodriguez look at some of our favorites that…
- The Critic Is Very Gay (Even If Jay Sherman Is Not)
"Siskel & Ebert & Jay & Alice" (March 12, 1995) Finally, we get around to discussing one of our more formative comedic experiences, and it's one shared more or less exclusively by elder millennials: The Critic, which somehow managed to be…
- Laverne & Shirley Check Into the Honeymoon Suite
"Honeymoon Hotel" (February 22, 1977) You innocent TV Land watchers may not have suspected that there was anything queer about Laverne & Shirley, a show about two women who share an apartment and work at a brewery. Sure, they're boy crazy,…
- The Cleveland Show Whiffs a Potentially Great Bi Episode
"Terry Unmarried" (February 20, 2011) The second season of the Family Guy spinoff makes the surprising decision to have Terry, Cleveland's womanizing coworker buddy, come out as not straight. And while that's good, it's sort of weird how n…
- Rebecca Howe Is Not a Lesbian (But Kirstie Alley Did Save Cheers)
"A Kiss Is Still a Kiss" (December 3, 1987) We're supporters of Shelley Long on this podcast, but in advocating for the Diane years of Cheers, we've overlooked the Rebecca years. As such, we're bringing Jonathan Bradley Welch back in to sp…
- Ventures Bros. Is a Very Gay Show, But…
"Handsome Ransom" (October 25, 2009) Let's say this at the top: We are both fans in general of The Venture Bros, but this extremely homosocial show has a tendency to tiptoe up to being full-on gay and then laughing it all off as a joke. It…
- Schitt's Creek Gets a Pansexual Love Triangle
"The Throuple" (January 17, 2017) We're back! Officially, but also now bimonthly — or biweekly, depending on how you want to look at it. And we are coming back in grand Canadian style by doing a show that Drew for years refused to do: Schi…
- Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Does a Body/Gender Swap Episode
"Switching Places" (October 4, 1993) If you're reading this and deciding that Power Rangers is not a sitcom, you're correct! We're doing it anyway, and as elder millennials who were just a little too old for MMPR when it originally aired,…
- Mork Is the Mommy, Mindy Is the Daddy
"Mama Mork, Papa Mindy" (November 5, 1981) Thus far, we have not attempted the Happy Days universe of TV shows, and we're starting with this season four Mork & Mindy that has our interspecies marrieds creating a baby that redefine their ge…
- Mary Hartman Meets a Gay Couple
This week, in a first-ever solo episode, Drew talks you through not just one episode of the cult series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman instead the whole of the show's art for its two gay characters, Ed and Howard. What's remarkable about this…
- The Great North Pushes Aunt Dirt Out of the Bunker — and Out of the Closet
"Bear of Beeftown Adventure" (April 7, 2024) About a hundred episodes later, this podcast is pleased to report that The Great North got even gayer with the season four addition of Aunt Dirt, voiced by Jane Lynch. She's been living in a bun…
- Mr. Belvedere Meets a Kid With AIDS
"Wesley's Friend" (January 31, 1986) Yes, it's this episode. If you've seen any bit of it, it's probably the one line delivered by the focus character, and while we will admit it's a major groaner, it's not representative of this whole epi…
- Titus Is the Real Star of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
"Kimmy Goes to Her Happy Place!" (April 15, 2016) Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a funny show. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a flawed show. These two things can both be true simultaneously, and you can not like the plotline given to Jane Krak…
- What's With All the Orphans in 80s Sitcoms?
If you grew up watching TV in the 80s, you may have noticed that there was a preponderance of… if not shows about orphans specifically then similar shows where the care of children was entrusted to people who weren't their parents and mayb…
- My Two Dads Can't Escape the Gayness of Its Title
"The Family in Question" (May 9, 1988) It might seem like a joke today, that a show called My Two Dads is about two very hetero bachelors. But don't let that stop you from appreciating My Two Dads for being a smarter, funnier version of Fu…
- Gilligan's Island Does a Body Swap Episode
"The Friendly Physician" (April 7, 1966) Sure, Gilligan's Island may have skewed family-friendly, but its love of genre parody meant that it did a body swap episode in which all of its female characters end up in male bodies. Horny! That's…
- Curb Your Enthusiasm Acknowledges That a Child Seems Gay
"Larry vs. Michael J. Fox" (September 11, 2011) For better or worse, Larry David is a truth-teller, and the fictional version of him can help but to poke at social taboos. In this Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, Larry suspects that Michael J…
- Sailor Moon Meets a Beguiling Genderfluid Villain
We are keeping our tradition of making our first post of the new year about Sailor Moon. That ep, about the debatably trans Sailor Starlights, is now live on Patreon — at $1 for subscribers but it can also be purchased for $3 for non-subsc…
- The Grand Unified Theory of Why Frasier Seems Gay
"The Matchmaker" (October 4, 1994) Whelp, it's our 250th episode (sort of), and we're celebrating by going back and reexamining our first-ever episode and, really, the reason this podcast exists in the first place: "The Matchmaker" from Fr…
- It's All Relative Was ABC's Attempt at a Will & Grace
"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 Relati…
- Bob's Burgers Gives Marshmallow a New Voice
"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…
- It's a Will & Grace Thanksgiving!
"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…
- King of the Hill Accidentally Explores Muscle Gainer Subculture
"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…
- That Girl Meets the Cross-Dressing Cops
"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 u…
- Boy Meets World Does a Scream Parody
"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" episo…
- Bewitched Unleashes the Gay Scourge That Is Uncle Arthur
"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 ba…
- Karl Is the Simpsons' First Gay Friend
"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,…
- A Different World Meets a Possible Lesbian
"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 Couga…
- The Beetlejuice Cartoon Is Weird, Gross and Very Queer
"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 se…
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Stops Being Funny to Be Gay Instead
"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…
- The 80s Gay Fantasia That Is Jennifer Slept Here
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…
- How Do You Write a Sitcom About a Gay Bashing?
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 j…
- The Complete History of Leon Carp, Roseanne's Gay Nemesis
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'…
- Green Acres Meets a Woman Named Ralph
This is a summer rerun of an episode that originally went live in May 2023. It's good even if you think you don't care about Green Acres, we swear! "What's in a Name?" (February 16, 1966) On a show all about the zany inhabitants of Hooterv…