26: What’s Gay About Mr. Belvedere?

This series about a British butler managing an American family ran on ABC for six season and for several years more on weekday afternoons in syndication. And while the show is fairly well-remembered today, some viewers might not realize how very gay this show is: from its premise to its lead character to its lead actor to the history of the Mr. Belvedere character going back forty years before this sitcom debuted.

Read the transcript for this episode here.

Listen to Drew’s episode of Smart Mouth, GEE’s sister podcast, in which he talks with host Katherine Spiers all about those disgusting midcentury marvels, TV dinners.

This episode’s outro song is “Dead Man’s Party” by Oingo Boingo.

Marilyn Monroe, Clifton Webb (Mr. Belvedere No. 1) and Laurette Luez.