Weirdest Episode Ever: Darkwing Duck Goes to Twin Peaks
Release Date: 04/28/2023
My Two Dads Can’t Escape the Gayness of Its Title
Gayest Episode Ever
“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 Full House. They debuted the same week, and unlike Full House, My Two Dads actually acknowledges that gay people exist. In this episode, the judge who awarded them custody of their daughter is persecuted in the press as being an activist judicial who is changing the definition of a family. Read the New York Times piece from 2022 . Listen to , which also...
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Gilligan’s Island Does a Body Swap Episode
Gayest Episode Ever
“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 enough to get our attention, even without the mad scientist bad guy with perversely vampiric sexual energy. Follow: • • Listen: • And yes, we do have ! We even have courtesy of . Our logo was designed by . This episode’s art was designed by .
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Curb Your Enthusiasm Acknowledges That a Child Seems Gay
Gayest Episode Ever
“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. Fox may be using Parkinson’s to get away with bad behavior while also insisting that his latest love interest’s seven-year-old child is gay. It’s a lot, but here’s the thing: Larry is often not wrong. Read the 2000 New York Times piece on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
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Sailor Moon Meets a Beguiling Genderfluid Villain
Gayest Episode Ever
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 — at $1 for subscribers but it can also be purchased for $3 for non-subscribers. But we're putting last year's Sailor Moon ep, about the villain Fisheye, on the main feed. Important note: Due to recent political events, we’re giving all of our Patreon proceeds for this month to the . “Shadow of Evil: The Trio's Last Chance” (September 23, 1995) It’s a new year, and you’re getting a new Sailor Moon. This time, we are...
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The Grand Unified Theory of Why Frasier Seems Gay
Gayest Episode Ever
“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 Frasier’s second season, which the show used to tell viewers definitively that no, despite all appearances otherwise, Frasier Crane is not gay. We’re joined again by , who also helps us recount Frasier’s entire history of seeming kinda gay, from being metaphorically born from Diane Chambers all the way until the reboot. Buy Anthony’s new...
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It’s All Relative Was ABC’s Attempt at a Will & Grace
Gayest Episode Ever
“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 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 , which is basically the same thing as actually winning an Emmy. Buy the revised edition of Steven’s book, . Listen to , about Tony Randall’s Love,...
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Bob’s Burgers Gives Marshmallow a New Voice
Gayest Episode Ever
“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,...
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It’s a Will & Grace Thanksgiving!
Gayest Episode Ever
“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 .
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King of the Hill Accidentally Explores Muscle Gainer Subculture
Gayest Episode Ever
“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 . Follow , ...
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That Girl Meets the Cross-Dressing Cops
Gayest Episode Ever
"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...
info_outlineThis is a preview for the Weirdest Episode Ever about the time Darkwing Duck did a parody of Twin Peaks. The full episode is an exclusive for patrons pledging $5 or more a month, but this preview is going on the free feed both as an enticement and also because I share some quotes from Tad Stones, creator of Darkwing Duck, about how this strange piece of TV came to be. If you want to hear the full episode, head over to our Patreon and pledge at the $5-a-month level; you’ll not only get all WEEs so far but also every episode of the new miniseries, Backdoor Pilots, launching next month.
Let’s get dangerous!