The Cartoons That Made Us Gay: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Release Date: 11/09/2021
Drawn Together Forces Xandir Out of the Closet
Gayest Episode Ever
“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 with series creators Dave Jesser and Matt...
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Daria Should Have Kissed Jane Instead of Tom
Gayest Episode Ever
“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 ? Sure, he’s straight, but it turns out that...
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Lucy Meets a Drag Queen
Gayest Episode Ever
“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 . And read the book that details...
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A Queer History of SNL, Part Four: The Lost Years
Gayest Episode Ever
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...
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Sex and the City Meets an Effeminate Heterosexual
Gayest Episode Ever
“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 , who has big feelings about why this show matters. Listen to about Soap. Most of Drew’s background on how SATC ended up at HBO comes from . And here is the 1991 New York Times...
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Newhart Meets a Gay
Gayest Episode Ever
"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...
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Jerri Blank Is a Pansexual Sex Predator
Gayest Episode Ever
“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 ” sketch, which does not translate especially well to an audio-only format. Watch , the 1970 PSA featuring Florrie Fisher, the real-life inspiration for Jerri Blank. Listen to of the Unexplained...
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Gimme a Break Transformed Into a Lesbian Perfect Strangers
Gayest Episode Ever
“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...
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The Simpsons Does a Riff on Lesbian Cult Classic
Gayest Episode Ever
“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...
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How Does a Conservative Sitcom Do a Gay Episode?
Gayest Episode Ever
“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....
info_outlineIt’s finally here: The Cartoons That Made Us Gay, our new Patreon-exclusive bonus podcast, focused on queer readings of the cartoons of our youth. While this series will comprise ten episodes only available on our Patreon feed, we’re putting the first part of the first episode on the main feed to show off what we’re doing.
To listen to the full version of this episode, all you need to do is pledge $1 a month on Patreon and subscribe to the Patreon-only feed for fancy people in your podcast app of choice. It’s easy! You should do it! But we’re biased!
This episode focuses on the 1987 run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — specifically “Michelangelo Meets Mondo Gecko,” which is all 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. In doing this episode, we hoped to make this cartoon series accessible even for people who have never watched the show, but let us know how we did.
Coming up next: Jem and The Holograms!
The logo for The Cartoons That Made Us Gay was designed by Jeff Hinchee.
Show notes that will make more sense if you listen to the full episode on Patreon:
In case you're not familiar with the “Asian cliche” musical motif
Listen to Matt Baume’s interview with Cam Clarke
Was April O’Neil whitewashed?
Queer readings of kids shows, previously:
- He-Man with special guest Henry Gilbert
- Fraggle Rock with special guest Matt Baume
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Dinosaurs
- 80s Cartoons with special guest Ted Biaselli
- Harley & Ivy
Follow: GEE on Facebook • GEE’s Facebook Group • GEE on Twitter • GEE on Instagram • Drew on Twitter • Glen on Twitter
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And yes, we do have an official website! We even have episode transcripts courtesy of Sarah Neal. This episode was edited by Meika Grimm. This is a TableCakes podcast.