200: Moe Szyslak Is Gay for Pay

“Flaming Moe” (January 16, 2011)

Today, LGBTQ characters on The Simpsons get to be more than walking gay jokes, and, really, this is one of the first episodes that shows Smithers as a (mostly) out member of the larger community in Springfield. It’s not perfect, however; there’s an homage to the 2008 film Milk that lands strangely, there’s a hetero love subplot for Skinner that takes acts two and three, and there’s a trans joke that underscores how advances in representation for LGBs didn’t include the Ts. But this episode, penned by future showrunner Matt Selman, shows the series is learning and evolving.

Watch Drew's supercut of every LGBTQ joke on The Simpsons (season 1 through 31) to get that view count over 4 million.

Watch the new season of Ninjago: Dragons Rising June 1 on Netflix! And if you don’t know what a Ninjago is, watch Ninjago Decoded, starting here.

You can now watch Glen’s movie, Being Frank, on Freevee via Amazon Prime — and now also on Apple TV. WATCH IT NOW!

Episode artwork by Ian O’Phelan.