Transcript for Episode 24: Murphy Brown Has a Gay Co-Worker
This is the transcript for the installment of the show in which we discuss the Murphy Brown episode “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are.” If you’d rather listen to Glen and Drew than read what they say, click here. The transcript was provided by Sarah Neal, whose skills we recommend wholeheartedly.
This is the transcript for the installment of the show in which we discuss the Murphy Brown episode “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are.” If you’d rather listen to Glen and Drew than read what they say, click here. The transcript was provided by Sarah Neal, whose skills we recommend wholeheartedly.
Frank: Miles, I don't quite know how to say this, but you've just describe the classic homoerotic dream.
Miles: Get out of here!
[audience laughs]
Corky: Miles had a sex dream about another man?
Miles: I did not!
Frank: Miles. Really, there's nothing to be embarrassed about. Lots of people have homoerotic dreams.
Miles: Have you?
Frank: Are you kidding?
[audience laughs]
Miles: What about you, Corky?
Corky: Nope. Murphy?
Murphy: Not that I can remember. Jim?
Jim: Absolutely not. I have never had a dream in my entire life.
[audience laughs]
Drew: Hello, and welcome to Gayest Episode Ever, the podcast where we talk about the LGBT-focused episodes of classic sitcoms. I'm Drew Mackie.
Glen: I'm Glen Lakin.
Drew: And today—I normally say, "If you couldn't tell by the intro theme song, we're going to be talking about this show," but this show actually does not have a theme song. So we're just going to go into it. We're talking about Murphy Brown today, and our guest is Matt Baume. Hi, Matt!
Matt: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
Drew: Matt, you're kind of an expert in this field, by which I mean that when we started this podcast we were kind of poaching on your territory [laughs].
Matt: No. I think we're colleagues. We're in the same line of work. We're having a little convention right now.
Drew: That's what it is. Yeah.
Glen: That's why there's donuts.
Matt: Yeah [laughs].
Drew: Matt, what do people know you for most: Sewers of Paris, the videos, or the D&D stuff?
Matt: It really varies, depending on context. So I'm in L.A. right now for two things. There was a Dungeons & Dragons event last weekend, and next weekend is DragCon, and those two things really combine just who I am. So I do a show called Queens of Adventure—that's drag queens playing Dungeons & Dragons—but I also do a podcast called The Sewers of Paris where I talk to queer folks about entertainment that's important to them. And I have a YouTube series called Culture Cruise, where I talk about queer episodes of TV or movies or games or culture, basically.
Glen: And you wear a cute hat.
Matt: And I wear a cute little—toot toot!—sailor hat. Yep.
Drew: He's wearing it right now.
Matt: [laughs] In my mind.
Glen: You can lie to the audience. It's fine.
Matt: Yeah. We're actually on a boat right now. Yeah.
Glen: Honk!
Matt: [laughs] In the videos, I always insert a little foghorn sound that is from "The Love Boat Theme," as sung by Amanda Lear. I don't know if you're familiar with this performer.
Drew: I'm familiar with those two separate things—not together.
Matt: Yeah. She did a Love Boat theme, and her voice is so deep so she's like, "Love, exciting and—" It's amazing. And there's foghorns throughout.
[The Love Boat theme by Amanda Lear plays]
Drew: So that's actually a little preview because Katherine Spiers is my business partner and host of the food podcast Smart Mouth. She's going to be doing an episode with us later this year about Absolutely Fabulous. Amanda Lear is rumored to be and is probably partially an inspiration for Patsy.
Matt: Oh, absolutely. I can 100 percent see that. Didn't she—Amanda was, I think, romantic partners with Dali or something like that?
Glen: Oh, my god [laughter].
Drew: She was a muse.
Matt: She was a muse. Yeah.
Drew: I don't know if it was necessarily sexual or not, but her romantic life and sexual identity are hotly debated, and yeah. If you don't know who Amanda Lear is, you're going to very soon. That'll be the close-out music for this episode. It'll be Amanda Lear. Great. That settles that.
Matt: Perfect.
Glen: I'm sure she'd love that.
Matt: I can't believe how quickly we got started talking about this obscure gay shit.
Drew: That's what this show basically is.
Glen: Yeah. I'm not surprised at all.
Drew: The episode of Murphy Brown that we are talking about today is "Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are," which originally aired March 4, 1992. Murphy Brown, in case you somehow do not know, was a show that ran from November 14, 1998, to May 18, 1998—247 episodes in total, 10 seasons, plus the revival which I don't really count because I don't think anyone watched. Did you guys watch the revival at all?
Matt: Only as much as I had to. There was a tiny gayish episode of the reboot, and it was like, "If I must."
Glen: I choose not to answer.
Drew: What was your guys' relationship with this show?
Matt: Oh. That's a great question. I loved it. I was born in 1980, so I was sort of middle school into high school, watching. And it was educational to me in that way that television seems educational to young people that's like, "Oh. This is how the world truly is because they're referencing stuff that I don't really know about." And I'm like, "Oh. Now I know about something that I didn't know about before, but I'm getting a very skewed sitcom view of it."
Glen: Yeah. It was a political show before political shows were really a thing, and it was skewering a culture I had no idea about. We were not a CBS family growing up. We'd watch it sometimes for The Nanny and sometimes Murphy Brown, and I don't have distinct memories about the show in general, except I do remember this episode. Corky's heel test that we'll talk about. I vividly remember that, and it became something I was aware of going to school.
Drew: How you check your heels?
Glen: Yes.
Drew: Oh.
Glen: It was something I continued to look out for, for a couple years, being like, "Am I doing this right? What other tells am I giving?" And so when I saw this in the episode, it was severe PTSD for 12-year-old Glen trying not to be gay in middle school.
Drew: It's weird how that kind of stuff really does imprint on you very strongly at that age, and now you'd be like, "Well, that's stupid. That's not a thing."
Matt: Yeah. But it's like I was saying, you learn about something you didn't know about before, and you think, "Now I know." But you don't, really.
Drew: You don't. Yeah. I don't know this show at all. This is actually the only episode of Murphy Brown I have ever seen. We didn't get CBS where I grew up because I grew up in the country and the channel wasn't broadcast far enough so we could actually pick it up at my house. And I've never seen Murphy Brown in syndication anywhere ever, and it's streaming absolutely nowhere right now, and it is just kind of a cultural blackhole to me, to the point that—even the people involved with it, I haven't really seen them in other stuff, either. Faith Ford, I know who she is, but this is the only thing I've ever seen her in. Most of the actors on this show were isolated to this experience. It's like Australia.
Matt: Later in the series, Paul Reubens is on it.
Drew: I know him. I saw him at a bar once. It was weird.
Matt: Yeah. So the network head was played by Garry Marshall—
Glen: Also played a network head in Soap Dish.
Drew: That's true.
Matt: Oh! Well, how do you like that? Okay. And so he was very funny. Those are people that—I knew Paul Reubens as Pee-Wee, but then he popped up after being away for a while in this role not doing Pee-Wee, and it was very strange to me to see him as just a person.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Glen: The role of Murphy's secretary, which is always changing, was also a good vehicle to get in a bunch of guest stars, and part of my awareness of Murphy Brown before probably watching it was Seinfeld making fun of that, when Kramer played her secretary [laughter].
Drew: That's as close as I got to watching another episode of the show. Why does she have so much trouble keeping a secretary?
Glen: Because she's—I was going to say bitch, but I'm just going to say she's a very demanding boss.
Matt: There are some gender politics of the show that do not age particularly sympathetically to today's eye.
Glen: That's a much better way of saying it.
Matt: [laughs]
Drew: So knowing very little about the show other than that, she is an investigative journalist working for a TV news enterprise. Why is her name Murphy? Why is that a woman's name?
Matt: Oh, what a good question! Never thought of that!
Drew: Why is Corky—the other female lead is named Corky. Why did they give the female characters boyish names?
Glen: Well, Corky, I think, was just supposed to be a very bubbly name because she's a former beauty queen.
Matt: And wasn't there—around that time, I want to say there was some very bubbly news personality. I think that was a comment on how news was shifting from the Walter Cronkites to the—I don't know—Jane Pauleys and stuff. And again, there was a very sexist read of "How dare attractive women read the news to us?"
Drew: Mm-hmm. How dare they?
Matt: Yeah. You see that dichotomy on the show, actually. There's the Jim character who's very old-fashioned.
Drew: He's the anchor?
Matt: He's one of their anchors, and he's one of the—he's the guy that was very buttoned-down and straitlaced and no-nonsense and humorless, and the humor is he's kind of a Sam Eagle in that. The joke is that he doesn't get the joke.
Drew: That's who he is. I was thinking Ted Baxter from Mary Tyler Moore, like "There's someone else—" It's Sam the Eagle. That's really good.
Matt: Yeah. And then you've got the new generation of the kids. Miles, who we'll talk about, is a 29-year-old producer who is bossing around some very seasoned news people—
Drew: I had a question about that as well. That is a dynamic that everyone's aware of, that that's awkward and weird that he's their boss?
Matt: Yes.
Glen: I think I had a crush on Sam the Eagle growing up.
Matt: Oh, that's a good one! I like that.
Drew: [laughs] Is that why you date so many Republicans?
Glen: I do not do that. That is a lie, podcast audience.
Matt: I had a thing for Scooter.
Drew: Did I think any of them were attractive? Janice. I thought Janice was pretty. I still kind of do. Sometimes when I see—what's her name?—Tiffany Pollard/New York, I'll be like, "She's pretty in the way Janice is." So Candice Bergen, also, I've barely seen anything she was ever in. The only other thing I have seen her in is this movie called Soldier Blue, which is a revisionist Western about a massacre of Indians that is a metaphor for the Vietnam war. She plays a blonde, Caucasian maiden who has gone to live with the Indians and is very sexualized and very unlike Murphy Brown.
Matt: Wow.
Glen: She played Mayor of New York in Sweet Home Alabama, and my understanding of modern politics came from her when she says, "I love poor people. I'm a Democrat. That's who votes for me." She says something along those lines.
Drew: Wait. Why is the Mayor of New York a character in Sweet Home Alabama?
Glen: Because her son, Patrick Dempsey, is in love with Reese Witherspoon, and they're going to be married. Candice is concerned and wants to know about Reese Witherspoon's past because she's very secretive of it and doesn't want any skeletons in her closet.
Drew: Oh. Okay. That makes sense—in as much as a romantic comedy has to make sense.
Matt: Candice Bergen is on an episode of The Muppet Show—bringing it back to The Muppets—because her father is one of the most famous puppeteers to have ever lived.
Drew: Edgar Bergen. It's a very weird—I guess that technically is a showbiz dynasty, but it's weird that there was a time when having your dad be a ventriloquist could get you jobs.
Glen: Also, part of her revival post-Murphy Brown was her role on Sex and the City playing Carrie Bradshaw's editor at Vogue and representing one future life that Carrie could take.
Drew: Oh. Interesting. I did not know that.
Glen: And in the later seasons, the dichotomy of party girl versus professional was presented to us in two characters. The party girl fell out a window.
Drew: Kristen Johnson.
Glen: Correct.
Drew: We learned that from Drag Race, in case you forgot. Matt, have you seen The Group?
Matt: Yes, I have. Starring Major Nelson from I Dream of Jeannie, I think? And Candice Bergen—
Drew: And Jessica Walter.
Matt: Oh. What?!
Drew: And also Joan Hackett from—the one who's not Raquel Welch or Dyan Cannon in The Last of Sheila.
Matt: Oh, my god.
Drew: It's about a bunch of—what is it?
Matt: Sorority girls.
Drew: Yeah, Vassar girls who all graduate and go separate directions. Candice Bergen plays a lesbian, which is very progressive for that time.
Matt: Nineteen-sixty—I want to say 1964. There's a great scene where she and—God bless this actor, I can't remember his name—Major Nelson are driving the car, and they're getting at the innuendo, and she says something, and he's like—it's one of my favorite lines. He looks at her with this glower and he goes—
Mr. Peterson: Just how close were you and Kay?
Lakey: You ought to have asked Kay that.
Mr. Peterson: I knew you were rotten. That was a filthy lesbian trick.
Matt: —"Another filthy lesbian trick." It's just great [laughs].
Glen: I would put that on my tombstone.
Drew: I think that should be a podcast [laughter]. Lesbians, if you're looking for a podcast name, take that one. Yeah. Young Jessica Walter is so cute. If you've never seen Lucille Bluth look cute and adorable and nubile, it's very strange.
Matt: Wow. She's on an episode of Murder, She Wrote as well. She's very fun.
Drew: Mm-hmm. I love her. So this episode is "Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are," aired in 1992, same day as the premiere of a TV series called The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. That was the premiere date. It actually beat this show out. Also, two days before this, another show called James Bond Jr. premiered for the first time.
Glen: [gasps!]
Drew: Glen likes James Bond Jr.
Glen: I sure do.
Matt: I've never heard of it.
Glen: Oh, my god.
Matt: Was there anybody of note?
Drew: It was a cartoon.
Matt: Oh!
Glen: With some very attractive teens.
Matt: I have no memory of that whatsoever.
Glen: James Bond Jr. chases SCUM around the world.
[James Bond Jr. theme plays]
Drew: SCUM is an acronym.
Matt: Of course it is. Huh. Wow.
Glen: And it's called James Bond Jr., but he's actually his nephew.
Matt: Oh. That's how that works. Yeah.
Drew: It doesn't make any sense. Also, James Bond is an orphan, so he doesn't have any—but whatever. This episode was watched by 20.4 million people, which means more people watched this than watched the series finale of Game of Thrones last week.
Matt: Wow.
Drew: And Murphy Brown was doing very, very well. It was the fourth most-watched show of the season below Home Improvement and above Murder, She Wrote. It's directed by Lee Shallat Chemel who is a director who's directed Diff'rent Strokes, Family Ties, Benson, Full House, Brothers, Newhart, Head of the Class, The Nanny, Spin City, Arrested Development, Bernie Mac Show, Happy Endings, Raising Hope, and The Middle. Also, female director.
Glen: That's one of my favorite names and resumes.
Matt: Yeah. Wow.
Drew: Written by writing partners Gary Dontzig and Steven Peterman who were also producers on the show, wrote several episodes of Murphy Brown, and also created a show called Suddenly Susan.
Glen: God bless them.
Matt: Wow.
Drew: Mm-hmm. I don't think we're going to talk about Suddenly Susan on this show, even though it takes place in—maybe Season 6, 7, 8—it takes place in San Francisco.
Glen: I will talk about the show on this show.
Drew: So this episode opens up—keep in mind, this is the first thing I've ever seen of an actual Murphy Brown episode, and it opens very strangely.
Matt: Oh, my gosh. If this is your first—[laughs]. Do you want me to describe—[laughs].
Drew: Yeah. Describe what happens.
Matt: The elevator doors open to some dramatic terror music. There's low lights and fog curling everywhere, and Murphy Brown in a ridiculous fat suit.
Glen: It's like a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory level fat suit where she is just round.
Matt: And there's no noise. There's no sound of what's going on in the room. Everyone is just reacting to her as though in terror. It's like a silent film with the music playing over everyone's noises. She's waddling around the room in a giant maternity thing. Somebody's trying to feed her to lure her away from something else, and she crashes into someone, and then they're replaced with a cardboard cutout of themselves on the floor. And so that's the opening.
Drew: It reminded me of Ally McBeal, which I did watch. It's a very fantasy, escapist thing. I was like, "Maybe this show is different than I thought." No. It's just a random dream sequence.
Matt: Yeah. And I have to say—because Murphy Brown didn't have theme songs. It had Motown songs, and they would play a different one, which is why it's not streaming or syndicated anywhere because of the rights. So it goes straight from some up-tempo Motown song into that scene. It's—yeah. Quite a total shift.
Glen: Well, in "Glen's Reach-Around Corner," I read this dream sequence as towards the theme of: Our repressed desires are not harmless to the people around us.
Drew: That is true.
Matt: That's not bad.
Drew: Glen reaches further but often makes connections that I wouldn’t have made on my own that also sound kind of obscene. So then it shifts to the gang in the office, sitting around a table and talking about, "It was just the craziest dream I had," which is a weird thing because that doesn't really make for good conversation, to talk about stupid, pointless dreams you have. But also, Murphy Brown is now wearing a giant blue sweatshirt folded around her neck. And she's pregnant at this point. This is the season when she was the single mother and it was very controversial.
Glen: And Dan Quayle hated her.
Drew: Yeah, which is absolutely insane. But I tried to reach back. In 1992, someone thought that was an okay look for their lead to have, like, "She looks good."
Glen: It's the early '90s. There were a lot of looks that got approved that looking back on it were crimes against all of us.
Drew: I guess so. The guest character looks good all the time. But, yeah.
Matt: Yes. He has some Lion King hair. It's quite a mane.
Drew: I think we call it the—when we did the Eric Lutes episode of Frasier—what do you call it? Liberal professor hair? I can't remember what we called it. But it is like that. So springing off Murphy's apparently very interesting telling of a very insipid dream Miles, played by Grant Shaud—I actually don't know how to pronounce that last name—describes what we'll cut in very shortly, and it is very clearly a homoerotic dream.
Miles: You all want to talk about weird dreams? I had a crazy one last night.
Jim: Morning, all.
Miles: Jim, you've got to hear this. It's hilarious. You all know that new network publicity guy we met the other day, Rick?
[characters chatter affirmatively]
Miles: Okay. So in this dream I'm giving him a tour of Washington. All of a sudden, he gets really excited, and he starts pointing at the Washington Monument. The next thing I know, we're racing each other up the stairs, running faster and faster until we just shoot right out the top.
[audience laughs uncomfortably]
Frank: You shot out of the Washington Monument?
Miles: Like we were blown out of a cannon, just like "Pew!" And then—and then! Instead of falling, we started to float, all the way down to the reflecting pool. And when we hit the water, Rick turns into a dolphin. We swam. We frolicked [laughs]. It was incredible.
[audience laughs]
Matt: You know, it is homoerotic, and it isn't. One of the characters refers to it as "the classic homoerotic dream," and I'm like—I don't know if I'd call that "classic," exactly.
Glen: The classic homoerotic dream is—well, I'll just stop there. It usually involves naked men.
Matt: Yes! That would help [laughs].
Drew: The classic homoerotic dream for me when I was growing up was a combination of sports dread but also getting tackled by a rugby team. That was not a proper dream. That's a more explicitly—this is metaphorically a homoerotic dream.
Glen: Mine was and still is—impossible bathrooms, is how I describe it: pipes mazed everywhere, very hard-to-reach urinals that are usually overflowing. So I guess between the cartoon episode where I'm a furry and now my golden showers admission, I guess we all know what my repressed kinks are.
Matt: Wow. I have to say, I think—what you're making me think of is—I think the classic homoerotic dream is something that blends fear and desire, that we are afraid of the thing that we want because that is the gay experience. And yeah, Miles's dream is just he squirted out of the phallic symbol and frolicked with a dolphin, which is cute. But yeah, I don't know. If anything, he describes Rick—the character that we're going to talk about—turning into a dolphin, and I'm like, "Maybe you're a furry. Maybe you just like some sort of Cetacean character. What's your fur-sona?"
Drew: I guess there would be furries that are into whales and dolphins.
Glen: Sleek animals.
Drew: Yeah, that aren't necessarily—do they still call themselves furries?
Matt: I think—probably. There's a whole orca pool toy thing that I don't fully understand. But that's a whole subcommunity within a subcommunity.
Drew: Tell us more. Tell us during the commercial break. So the guy he is participating in all these metaphorical activities with is a new hire in the office. And when he's done talking about this, Frank Fontana—played by Joe Regalbuto—I think it's "Reg-el-boot-o," but it's literally spelled "Regal-butt-o"—says, "Oh. It's because he's gay." Real quick. Joe Regalbuto I actually have seen in—
Glen: Porn.
Drew: He's the jerk who's dating Blanche's daughter who's heavy in Golden Girls, and he makes fun of her for being fat and useless and they have to scare him off. He also plays—he's in this movie called Invitation to Hell, which I encourage everyone to look up on YouTube. It's a Wes Craven movie that stars Robert Urich, Joanna Cassidy, and Susan Lucci about—you know the Simpsons where they go—
Glen: Oh. I've seen your edit of it.
Drew: They leave Evergreen Terrace for that weird, perfect city up in the Pacific Northwest?
Glen: Yeah. That's the Scorpio episode.
Drew: It is exactly that. Susan Lucci is the leader of this place. She is the devil. And there's this family—he plays the neighbor. He's married to the little girl from The Bad Seed. Their daughter is Kathy Santoni from Full House. Their kids are Punky Brewster and the little kid from The NeverEnding Story.
Matt: Wow. What?
Drew: And there's a scene where Robert Urich gets attacked by all of them in succession. So you see Robert Urich punch out his wife, punch out Punky Brewster, then punch out the little boy from The NeverEnding Story because they're all possessed. It's directed by Wes Craven. So good.
Matt: Wow. That cast really sets it in time.
Drew: Yep. Never could have happened any other time.
Matt: Yeah. Oh, my god.
Drew: Sorry. I might actually cut all that out. This Frank—Frank Fontana—what is his character exactly?
Glen: He's a sportscaster.
Drew: Oh. So he's the bulldog but less—
Glen: Yes. He's slightly less.
Matt: I'd say he's a little neurotic.
Glen: He's neurotic, not as big of a misogynist, but still very masculine.
Matt: It's interesting that he's the one who brings this up, now that I think about this.
Drew: He causes this whole problem for everybody.
Matt: His character is often involved in feelings of inadequacy. Obviously, the sitcom never really talked about "Frank, the inadequate one," but yeah. I'd say that that's often a character note for him is feeling a need to compensate.
Glen: Yeah, because he's not seen as the real news. He just does sports, and so people don't view him as a serious journalist whereas Corky, who is the former beauty queen—she embraces her weaknesses more than Frank does, and so she's a bit more of a fun character and doesn't really drag herself down whereas Frank is usually his own foil in a lot of ways.
Drew: Yeah. You see it in this episode, kind of. Mostly Murphy objects to his characterization of the new guy as gay because—it's a weird thing where he's getting criticized for being like, "Oh. This person is obviously gay based on these superficial characteristics I observed."
Frank: Miles. Miles, I wouldn't worry about this if I were you. There is a logical explanation for all dreams. Now, you probably picked up on the fact that Rick was gay, and then your subconscious just—
Murphy: What are you saying? Wait a minute. Rick's not gay.
Frank: Well, of course he is. Come on, Murph. You were standing right next to me when we met him. Don't tell me you didn't notice anything.
Murphy: Well, like what? Was he wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a woman on it with a big red line through her?
Drew: I think he's the one that brings up matching—he matches. He color coordinates.
Matt: He's like, "The matching socks to his tie and he wears his watch on a certain wrist."
Drew: Which I have never heard before.
Matt: There's something about—not the watch, but it's the earring. I feel like that was just a misremembering of the earring on ear versus the other.
Glen: Yeah. This scene is very reminiscent of its time, the early '90s, where everyone was coming up with their own gay test and how to figure out if someone is gay beyond just asking them. That's what I was saying earlier. This is a scene where Corky has her heel test.
Corky: I never heard such nonsense in my life! You can't tell if someone's gay from things like that.
Murphy: See?
Corky: If you want to find out, you just tell him he's got something on his heel. If he looks at it like this, he's straight. If he looks at it like this—
[audience laughs]
Glen: If they put their foot forward and check, they're straight. If they turn around and do a little pose and look, then they're gay.
Matt: Sure. Sure, like they're Mary Martin flying away; that means they're gay.
Glen: Yeah. Usually, these litmus tests always come down to masculine versus feminine, and if someone takes the more feminine option they are clearly gay. We know now that's not actually correct.
Matt: No indeed.
Drew: So Frank is criticized for that, but Murphy is saying that you're not allowed to interpret signs as whether someone is gay or not. Is that what she—is that her counter argument?
Matt: So Miles has had this dream that he's frolicking with the new guy at work. Frank says the new guy at work is gay. Murphy says, "No, he's not. I'm a woman. We can always tell," which is an interesting—that also alarmed me as a child when I saw this because I was like, "Oh, no!"
Drew: "They know! Oh. They all know."
Matt: Yeah. "I have to watch myself around women, apparently," which I feel like feeds into a little bit of gay misogyny as well, but—we don't have to talk about that.
Drew: No, we do.
Glen: We do, actually. We do. Let's talk misogyny.
Matt: [laughs] Okay. Okay. Let's talk about that.
Matt: And she also—good grief. She uses the phrase—she makes fun of Frank, and she uses—she says something like, "What, do you have some sort of Frank Fontana Gay-O-Meter?" And we've got a word for it. We've got "gaydar." We know what it's called.
Drew: Did that word exist back then? I wonder when "gaydar" actually went into use.
Etymological Drew: Hi. This is Drew interrupting with a brief but important message about etymology. According to EtymOnline, the only free etymology website worth a diddly-fuck, the word "gaydar" can be traced back to 1996 in printed gay literature. That's four years after this episode of TV aired. It's possible the word was in use back in 1992, but etymologists just can't find any record of it. Also, Matt is going to mention an antique dictionary of gay slang in a moment. That book is by Bruce Rogers and is variously titled The Queen's Vernacular and Gay Talk. It is available on archive.org, and there's a link in the show notes. Also, I'm going to mention a podcast that did an episode about Polari, a type of British queer-code language. That podcast is The Allusionist, and I'm linking to that, too. This has been Drew Mackie with important etymological information.
Matt: From Gay-O-Meter to gaydar, what was it called?
Glen: Just write a book. I'll buy that book.
Matt: That exists. There's a book called—well, it is out of print. Long out of print. There's a book called The Queen's English that's all about gay slang.
Drew: Oh. That's a good title.
Matt: It's from the '60s, so it's a bit dated.
Drew: Okay. That needs to be updated.
Matt: Yeah. There are some great—if you look it up, you can find it on I think archive.org, and you can look through it. There's some really, really fantastic, extremely dated gay slang.
Drew: There's a great linguistics podcast, and they just did an episode all about Polari.
Matt: Oh, my god. I love it.
Drew: It was really good. Yeah. So they're both wrong, though. These two straight people arguing about perceived gayness are both wrong, correct?
Glen: Not in the results but in how they were talking about it, you mean?
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Glen: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah. Their gaydar is terrible. Straight people don't know what they're talking about—surprise. They think that they're—Murphy's tells a wrong, Frank's tells a wrong, and it completely bedevils both of them when they finally meet the guy.
Glen: And you were just talking about the rightness of even having this conversation. Nowadays, co-workers gathered around the water cooler discussing the sexuality of a new co-worker would be frowned upon in this day and age.
Drew: Yeah. It would be weird in most offices in Los Angeles. Maybe in other smaller places it might still be a topic of gossip. But we could just ask them or look them up on Facebook and be—any gay man can look at a man's Facebook. "Oh, he's gay. Look at that."
Matt: I remember when Friendster got started around 2004, maybe? Maybe 2003? And I was living in San Francisco, and it was just like all the Burning Man gays, and so that's how we could all find each other. I wasn't one of those. But yeah, discovering gay people was extremely easy all of a sudden in a way that it hadn't been before.
Drew: I remember that. What a great time.
Glen: My tell for social media gays and figuring out their sexuality was how rudimentary their Photoshop skills were just to highlight shadows on them. If they attempted Photoshop without being good at Photoshop, they're probably gay.
Drew: We're supposed to be the artists, though.
Glen: Well, it doesn't mean we're good.
Drew: Okay. That's true.
Matt: We were trying to do Facetune before Facetune was—
Glen: Mm-hmm.
Drew: Do it ourselves. So the interesting thing about this argument is that yes—listening to what they're saying, I think it is probably not the most productive thing to look at someone's mannerisms and appearance and be like, "They're probably gay." However, every gay person when they meet anyone, the first thing they do is look for signs that they personally would use to try to identify this person as gay or not, male or female. It's a weird thing that—we all do it. I guess we just don't like when straight people do it.
Glen: Well, because for us it's a survival mechanism, like "Who are my allies in the room? If shit goes down, who do I feel safe with?"
Matt: It's both that and also a mating call, so we're trying to decide, "Is this person going to kill me, or are we going to go back to my place?"
Drew: Right. It could be both.
Glen: Why not both? [laughter]
Matt: Yes. We fear what we desire.
Drew: So they make a bet.
Murphy: In fact, I have such confidence in my intuition that I will stake my entire reputation as a female on it.
Frank: Oh, you're on. And if I'm wrong, I'll—what? What—I'll go down to the lobby and do my impression of Ruth. Oh. This is going to be so easy.
Glen: And also, none of these are good stakes for a bet. No one really gets anything.
Drew: Money, even for $5, is better than either of these stakes.
Matt: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Reputation as a female? Okay, Murphy, I guess. There goes your reputation. And Ruth Gordon, of all people? Okay.
Drew: Yeah. She's not the most—
Matt: And here's a heterosexual man who has a Ruth Gordon impression, which also is like, "Uh-huh."
Drew: Right. Yeah. I tried to determine the sexuality of the men who wrote this episode, and I couldn't tell. I think they may be straight people trying to dream up what gay stereotypes might be.
Matt: Oh. Perhaps. Yeah.
Drew: We've run into that problem a few times on the show where it's like, "A gay person did not write that." Next scene. Corky is escorting Rick into the office. He's played by Brian McNamara. Where do you know him from, Glen?
Glen: Well, I know him from a ton of stuff, but I think the role that stands out most is the older brother from Dream Date with Ethan Hawke. It was a movie where Ethan Hawke impersonates his charming, handsome older brother to go on a date with his dreamy neighbor. Mob hijinks ensue. But generally I just know him as being the other handsome guy in a thing.
Drew: You know him from at least two other things. The first one is he plays Alex's friend who dies on Family Ties.
Glen: Yes! Yes, yes, yes.
Drew: Second, he plays Ally Sheedy's shitty boyfriend in Short Circuit.
Matt: What! Okay.
Glen: I saw that. I saw he was in Short Circuit. I'm not even going to try and rack my brain for who he was in that because I'm going to start thinking about handsome '80s Steve Guttenberg.
Drew: I googled pictures of him, and I was like, "Yep. That's who he is." He's exceptionally good-looking, and even though he looks very '90s, there's nothing about the way he presents himself that would be in any way out of style or not fuckable today.
Matt: I guess. Not my type, exactly. A little too—
Glen: Oh. I absolutely would. In every scene, in every line—yes.
Matt: I find him very put together and successful, and so not interested.
Drew: It's kind of a Scott Speedman quality—no. Scott Foley. Scott Foley from Felicity. I get them confused still.
Matt: [laughs] For a second, I was combining Kids in the Hall in my brain, and I was like, "What?!"
Glen: He glows more than either of the Scotts you mentioned. There's just a very handsome sheen to him.
Drew: Yes. We're clearly into it. We can fight over him while Matt watches [laughter]. They basically go into his bag and pull out magazines.
Frank: So, what'd you pick up down at the newsstand? Ah. House Beautiful. You get this, don't you Murph? Anything interesting in here? I myself have never read one.
Rick: Well, they've got some terrific decorating ideas. And since all I've got right now is a bed, a television, and a lamp I carry with me from room to room, I figured I could use the help.
Murphy: Hey, what's this? Road & Track. So you're one of those guys who's really into cars, huh?
Rick: Only one car—'59 Corvette. It's a good thing I have a job, or I'd spend all my time hunting down spare parts.
Corky: You have an old Corvette? So does Frank.
Murphy: Hey, Frank. Looks like you guys have something in common.
[audience laughs]
Matt: At a time when being queer was illegal in a lot of the country. They're exposing him to risk. They're essentially trying to out a person, and that's one of those straight-person things that they don't realize how dangerous it is.
Drew: This actually takes place in D.C., right?
Matt: Yeah.
Drew: When was it okay to be gay in D.C.?
Matt: It was decriminalized in '93.
Drew: So he actually would technically be breaking the law. But when that happens—they would never actually arrest someone—
Matt: No, no, no. You wouldn't just be arrested for walking down the street, but if you were having sex with somebody in the privacy of your own home, you could be.
Drew: Yeah. Weird.
Matt: Yeah. So what's crazy about this episode is D.C. outlawed employment discrimination in '73. So you couldn't be fired for being gay, but you could be arrested.
Glen: Which would also result in you losing your job.
Drew: So homosexuality being illegal isn't specifically an anti-sodomy law? Does it actually say—
Matt: Oh, no. I believe the way that it was codified was—I don't know what' D.C.'s specific thing was, but usually it's somehow connected to sodomy or crimes against nature or some phrasing like that, or infamous moral turpitude or something [laughs], some weird phrasing.
Drew: Okay. I always wondered about that.
Glen: Some Indiana—Drew, I think I sent you this link. Some Indiana politician today has asked that Pete Buttigieg denounce fisting and rimming [laughter], which is funny because those don't actually go against sodomy, I don't think.
Matt: Straight people can do that, too! [laughs]
Drew: Yeah, and often do. Probably there's more straight people doing that than gay people, just by the numbers.
Matt: What the what?
Glen: I just love we're back into the degrees of homosexuality argument that I think for a time we stepped back from, but there's "too gay" now. You can be too gay.
Matt: Oh boy, oh boy. Okay. Oh, boy.
Drew: Too gay, and also not gay enough. Yeah. We just can't leave people alone.
Glen: Speaking of not leaving people alone—
Matt: How could this person possibly exist? How can someone contain such multitudes that they carry them—first of all, what a time that this was that you could just carry magazines around. That was just a normal thing for people to do.
Glen: I miss magazines.
Matt: House Beautiful and Road & Track.
Drew: And Frank is unnerved by the fact that this possible homosexual also has an interest in cars because he likes cars, and "If this guy who might be gay likes cars, what does that mean for me?"
Matt: "Oh, no! Now I can't like cars anymore!" Yeah. There's a lot of gay panic in this one.
Drew: Gay panic is the through line for this entire podcast series—not ours, but the characters in the shows.
Glen: But that's also the times [and] how we view them because there weren't a lot of gay role models. I don't know that society had a specific way of how you were supposed to react to gay people, and so straight men usually saw the introduction of a gay man into their lives—fictional or otherwise—as a mirror of their own masculinity or sexuality. So it was strange.
Matt: Miles looks so miserable in this scene. There's a gay man standing there, and he looks like he's going to burst into tears.
Drew: He looks miserable basically the entire show, and keep in mind I have no previous interaction with this character. You guys probably have seen him in other episodes before this, so you might kind of care more about him. I fucking hate Miles. I really don't—I don't care about his panic at being perceived as gay, and I just—it's painful for me to watch him. Also, he kind of reminds me of that actor who played Liz's underage manager on 30 Rock [laughter].
Glen: Mm-hmm. Like a seat that was too big for him?
Drew: Yeah. He reminds me of that guy.
Glen: But that's what his role sort of was is he is in a position that sort of overwhelms and outsizes him, and so he always comes across as a whiny little boy.
Matt: Yeah. He's a punching bag for the other characters. He's always the butt of the joke.
Glen: Ha ha ha, butt.
Drew: Corky tries to try her heel trick and he looks at both heels, so that doesn't tell them anything. And he finally tries to escape and go down the elevator, and Murphy is like—
Murphy: "Wait. There's still so much we don't know about you, like where were you born?
Rick: Born in Maryland. Graduated Northwestern—and yes, I'm gay.
[audience laughs]
Drew: So he knew what they were doing. He was very well aware of the fact that all the straights wanted to find out if he was gay or not. So good for him. He took the upper hand in that situation. I think that's—is that the ad break right there?
Matt: No. I feel like there's—Miles yells at them.
Glen: Yeah. Then Miles shames them for—
Matt: Bothering this guy and intruding into his life.
Glen: Yeah, because he just wants to change the subject. And then Corky does sort of change the subject to Miles being gay.
Corky: Miles, now that I've seen Rick again, I can understand why you'd find him attractive.
Miles: I don't find him attractive. It was just a dream.
Corky: Uh-huh.
Glen: And then it cuts to that series of scenes of Miles at different therapists looking for the answer he wants.
Drew: They all sounded very reasonable interpretations of the dream. I was behind, like, "Oh. Those all sound right." [laughter]
Glen: But then the joke being then they say, "Or it just means that you're gay." And then, of course, the final therapist does not offer that until Miles brings it up [laughter].
Drew: And he's like, "Oh. Strange that you bring that up." [laughter] We're going to talk about more gay panic after these messages.
Glen: Messages about gay panic!
[Gayest Episode Ever promotes A Love Bizarre and Neon Altar's Spellcast]
[Gayest Episode Ever promotes their Patreon]
Drew: Do you want to say "and we're back" this time?
Glen: And we're back.
Drew: You did a good job. So we're back at the office, and Frank and Miles were talking about how Miles is actually now worried that he might be gay because he has never had a stable relationship with a woman, number one; and number two, he's more relaxed around men than he is around women.
Glen: And enjoys chasing them around and slapping their butts.
Matt: Well, in the context of football, to be fair. So sure. Sure, you do.
Drew: I think it's interesting that depending on how you look at it, a man preferring the company of men and a man preferring the company of women could be viewed as gay either way. It's just a very silly thing that we do to people, and we don't know what the hell we're about.
Matt: Sure. It's a reminder that people are people, and also, the fact that there are more genders than two.
Glen: Wait. Are we saying that gender is a construct?
Matt: I would go that far, yes.
Drew: We haven't gotten to that sitcom episode yet [laughs]. I think sitcoms haven't really gotten to that sitcom episode yet.
Matt: Yeah. Gosh, has there ever been a non-binary character on a sitcom ever?
Drew: Yeah. In the last season of—the final season of One Day at a Time, the daughter dates a person who I believe goes by "they" and just is non-binary.
Matt: Hmm! All right.
Glen: Anime has been doing it for a while.
Drew: Sure.
Matt: As soon as I said that, I thought about Pat from Saturday Night Live, and I'm like—they're have been representations that have not been great.
Glen: I thought about Fisheye from Sailor Moon Supers.
Matt: [laughs] That's better.
Drew: What happens in this conversation that Frank leaves in a panic because now he's worried that he's gay, too? Do you remember what the conversation is?
Glen: Well, it's just because everything that Miles is saying about not having a stable relationship with a woman, enjoying the company of men, and especially in the context of sports it all rings true for Frank, and I think this happened in a lot of sitcoms in the '80s and '90s where there'd be an episode where everyone points out that the bachelor character [or] the womanizer might just be that way because they're so clearly gay—repressed gay.
Drew: That makes sense.
Matt: Yeah. So he's—I will also point out, in this scene the framing of the shot over Miles's shoulder, there's an extremely cuppable ass behind him the entire time.
Drew: Yeah, there was—in Dockers or something. Yeah. Maybe that was really good direction? How does that work?
Matt: It was not, in fact, because that actor got in touch with me.
Drew: Oh!
Glen: The Ass?
Matt: The Ass [laughter].
Drew: Wait. How did that happen? Wait!
Glen: Pause! Pause podcast [laughter]. What?
Matt: So I put up a video months ago about this episode of Murphy Brown.
Drew: For Culture Cruise?
Matt: It was part of Culture Cruise on YouTube, yeah. And so I mentioned the ass in that video, and the actor who played that extra just walking around on the set, somebody passed the video along to him and he wrote to me to be like, "Thank you for the very kind words about my butt. It was not intentional. I didn't realize that I was in the shot, but there I am. So thank you for noticing."
Drew: Huh!
Glen: Is he gay?
Matt: He is. No, wait. Is he? Yes, I think—actually, yeah. I think he is.
Drew: With a butt like that, he should be.
Matt: Yes. Let's say yes.
Glen: Is he happy?
Matt: He is, I want to say, no longer an actor. No. Actually, there's somebody else that I was thinking of who—so many people who are extras and acted in things—
Glen: So many butts email you.
Matt: There are so many butts, so little time. No. I think he still is. If you want to pause, I can look it up and see what he's doing now.
Glen: I don't need to know if he's an actor. I just want to know that he's happy.
Matt: Let's say yes. If I'm thinking of the same person, I looked him up and he is, I think, living with his partner somewhere outside of Los Angeles, and they seem to be doing just fine.
Glen: Drew, invite them over for dinner.
Drew: Yeah. I should do that. They'd be our special guest and talk about his butt, circa 1992.
Matt: But it's so weird to have that ass hanging there while they're talking about preoccupation with sexuality and stuff, and I'm like, "There's a very sexy man's ass right over your shoulder, and the fact that you're not noticing it really says something to me."
Drew: Yeah. That's a good point because all of the things he takes as signs that he might be gay are just real weird stretches, and none of the obvious things, really—which is the lesson he eventually learns at the end of the episode. So then anchorman Jim Dial, played by Pat Kimbrough—who I have never seen in anything else, but I recognize his voice. Do you guys recognize his voice?
Matt: No.
Drew: He's one of the two male gargoyles in Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Matt: Oh! Oh, good for him.
Drew: He has that sort of voice. So, yeah. Sam the Eagle.
Glen: I prefer a different brand of Disney gargoyles.
Drew: We know.
Glen: Okay.
Drew: Yeah. We could—no. We can't do an episode of that, can we?
Matt: It's all subtext on that show. Lexington is so clearly a sensitive individual, and there's also a lot of kink on that show, bizarrely. Like tentacles come up and weird mukbang stuff.
Glen: Xanatos's gargoyle armor would be a great kink.
Matt: Oh, my god. Yeah. There's a lot of body horror, and the werewolf stuff. So Gargoyles, an extremely kinky show.
Drew: Mukbang?
Matt: How to describe it? It's like gunge. Does that make sense?
Drew: No [laughter].
Matt: It's sloppy stuff.
Drew: Oh. Like slime? Or sloppy—
Glen: You know, kids who really got off on You Can't Do That On Television.
Matt: We're getting a little outside of—
Drew: We do. We get off track a lot of times.
Matt: I was going to say, we're getting outside of my field of expertise. I've written extensively about pups and about mermaid communities and stuff like that. But yeah, the sloppy stuff is not so much my—let's see.
Drew: How do you even spell "gunge"? Is it like "grunge" without an "R"?
Matt: Oh, you know what? Actually, it's G-U-N-G-E—gunge.
Glen: You were right.
Drew: Do you know what it is?
Glen: No. Your spelling. Do mermaid gays live in cold-weather states, or can they only exist where it's pool season year-round?
Matt: They're everywhere. We have a lot of them in the Pacific Northwest. There's a big community in Portland and Seattle. When the weather's nice, you can find them out. There's a big fountain in Portland that they like to hang out at—this big, brutalist concrete thing, and there's a lot of pools and levels and things. So they'll hang out there. There's one in Seattle. There's an individual in Seattle who works at a maritime museum on a boat by day and also lives on a boat of their own.
Glen: I love when people's professional and personal lives can overlap like that.
Matt: There's another one that I spoke to who's getting a PhD in something connected to oceanography, and so she will go to ocean clean-up events in her mersona and will be the mascot of cleaning up the beach and stuff and educate people about ocean wildlife. And so the merfolks are not just in it for the sex.
Glen: I hope the Splash reboot addresses this.
Drew: Mmm! Yes.
Matt: Oh, my goodness. Yes.
Drew: So I according to Google, it's G-U-N-G-E. You always have that risk of when you google something, like, "I don't know what's going to come up."
Glen: Yeah, like Penny from Inspector Gadget.
Drew: It literally is just people getting slimed, so it's—that's fairly PG. It's nothing—it's what you think. I'm like, "Oh. Okay." But that's a sex thing?
Matt: Everything's a sex thing to somebody. Yeah. Sex can often involve slime and viscous-ness [laughs], so that people might take it to an extreme is not surprising to me.
Drew: No. I guess it shouldn't be.
Glen: So Jim has a dream.
Matt: [laughs] Speaking of which!
Glen: And it's his first dream in 55 years.
Matt: Yeah. First dream he's ever had.
Glen: It's just a very mundane dream of him going to the shoe store.
Jim: I had a dream last night. My first dream in 55 years! And just like your dream, it involved a fascinating experience with another man.
Miles: Really, Jim? You had one, too?
Jim: He was a salesman in the shoe department at Hecht's. I told him to bring me a pair of black wingtips, but when he returned, I noticed with dismay the shoes he was carrying were brown. I told him I had no interest in brown. I wanted black. Without saying a word, he returned to the stockroom and brought me what I'd asked for. I paid for them. Left the store.
[audience laughs]
Miles: Yeah? What happened then?
Jim: Nothing. I woke up.
Miles: I can't believe this. I tell you the deepest part of my psyche, and you're telling me a dream about getting lousy service at Hecht's!
Jim: Sorry we didn't strip down to our shorts and smear each other with boot cream, but that's still no reason to be insulting. I had a breakthrough, damn it, a breakthrough! And I'm proud of my dream.
[audience laughs]
Matt: I am also a little incensed that we did not dive deeper into Jim's dream about preoccupation with foot protocol in a service context. I would like to know more about that and how quick he was to bring up smearing each other with boot cream.
Drew: It did jump to his mind very quickly.
Matt: Yeah. So I definitely want to know more about that, in part because I'm here in Los Angeles for DragCon, which is next weekend—the same weekend as International Mr. Leather, and I'm very resentful about this hate crime that I have to miss that.
Glen: I would actually say that Jim's dream sounds more homoerotic to me than Miles.
Matt: I think so, too! I think so. That he's ordering this man around to bring him the correct footwear—my goodness that's exactly what's going to be happening in the dark rooms of the InterContinental in Chicago in just a few days.
Drew: Hmm. Yeah. I didn't think about that, but you guys are right. Also, I like how—he seems like he has his feelings hurt a little bit that Miles is like, "Your dream is very boring," and he's like, "I like my dream."
Matt: Jim says, "I had a breakthrough." I feel really bad for the guy.
Glen: I think the joke is that his anchor persona carries into his real life. That is not an act. He is just that sort of stand-up, traditional American man, on camera and off.
Matt: He is uncomplicated, and a lot of the humor with Jim derives from when things become complicated and he is either unequipped to handle it or he handles it in a way that is so perfunctory and absolutist that it's ridiculous.
Drew: That's the last we see of him. He walks away. He's very sad. And then Corky intercepts Miles and tries to fix him up with her minister.
Corky: But I think it's better to face something head on than to just run away from it. That's why I think you should go see my minister.
Miles: Corky, I'm Jewish. Why would I go see a minister?
Corky: Because he's gay.
[audience laughs]
Miles: You got a gay minister?
Corky: Yes, and I found he offers the most wonderful guidance. I really think you should talk to him, Miles. Would it make you feel uncomfortable if I had the two of you over for dinner?
Miles: Oh, gee. Corky, I—
Corky: Nothing big! Just the four of us. And if he can't offer you any peace of mind, maybe you'll hit it off.
[audience laughs]
Drew: Which I guess is very nice of her. She's being very pushy with this whole thing. She's not dumb. She's just dingy, right?
Matt: She's Rose, here.
Drew: She's Rose. Okay.
Matt: Yeah. She's got great intentions, and she knows what's going on. And I think part of the joke is that you would expect Corky, a Southern beauty queen, to be a little more conservative about this. But I think there's a joke in that she's just cool with it all and she loves it.
Glen: Yeah. I think the direction they took with her character is that—there was that study many years ago that attractive people are nicer, and it's usually because the world treats them much better. And I think her character has just not experienced a lot of hardship, and so I don't know that she navigates other people's hardships well because things always work out for her. And I think she thinks that if someone just tackles whatever issue they have and just go forward with it, it'll be fine because it's been fine for her.
Matt: That's a really interesting read. Yeah.
Drew: She is the character of all of them that I want to know the most about just having watched this one episode. Like, what is her weird thing? I didn't know she was Southern. That does make sense, though.
Matt: I also want to point out in the scene that she's dressed like a lumberjack pirate. She's got this plaid —very Pacific Northwest, honestly—blazer, and then a very froofy, frilly—her jacket is like a picnic blanket. It's the kind of material you'd see at—I don't know—a Grateful Dead concert or something. And then underneath she's wearing something that looks like it's from Downton Abbey, this very frilly thing that looks like it's going to pop out of the sleeve of a French dandy.
Drew: With the late '80s and early '90s, I often struggle to find the words. I'm sure this is a look that could be summed up very quickly if you know fashion more than I do, but I got no words for that.
Glen: I just describe the '80s and '90s fashion as extra fabric.
Matt: [laughs] Yeah. That absolutely covers it. Yes.
Drew: So Miles goes straight from Corky into Murphy's office, and he's like, "Murphy, I got to talk to you."
Miles: I want you to look at me. From your perspective as a member of the female persuasion, do you see a regular guy? Or do you see someone who deep down inside wants to frolic with a dolphin?
[audience laughs]
Glen: And I'm just shaking my head on this podcast, but no one can see.
Matt: That line. Yeah.
Glen: Yeah. "Regular guy"?
Matt: What person doesn't want to frolic with a dolphin? That sounds great.
Drew: Yeah.
Glen: Well, dolphins are very horny and can get very aggressive.
Matt: Same [laughter]. Every time I've seen a friend go on a vacation or someplace where they can swim with dolphins, they look like they're the happiest they've ever been. So I think it's irregular not to want to frolic with a dolphin.
Drew: Yeah. You should be at least dolphin curious. Murphy's response is good. She basically says, "You're a hypochondriac."
Murphy: Okay. Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that you are gay. What would that change? As far as I'm concerned, nothing. You'd still be a brilliant producer. And, as much as you drive me crazy, we'd still be friends.
Drew: And again, this is this weird thing where watching as a gay person I'm like, "That is true. That is also absolutely not true." And it bugs me to hear a straight character say either one of those things because they're both wrong.
Glen: Yeah. I'm trying to—because I was also sort of—I was sort of angry at Murphy's interaction with Miles here. I didn't expect her to jump on his use of "regular guy" and say, "Well, there's nothing not regular about being gay," because it's '92 or whatever year it is. But also, yeah. When you come out, there is that juggling of do you want people to treat you the same as they've always treated you, or do you sort of crave some sort of acknowledgement of your unique struggles up to this point—perhaps some sort of changed engagement? Because you're being more honest as a person, you'd hope that maybe your relationships can change after that. And I know that's not going to come across in a sitcom, necessarily.
Drew: From 1992, especially. But we're talking about how this reads to us today, too. Yeah.
Matt: I think it's another instance of homosexual privilege where Murphy's like, "What's the big deal? You'd be the same person you always are." And that's true, but the big deal is you could get arrested, or you walk into the wrong neighborhood and you could get killed. So yeah, it's a big deal, and Murphy minimizes it in a way that I don't think is entirely fair.
Glen: Yeah, and I think it also gets to—it seems like the first thought Murphy has and a lot of straight characters on sitcoms have is reasserting their approval of their friend or family member, saying, "Oh, don't worry. I won't treat you any different," as if that would be the largest concern that Miles has, and not any of the things you listed or issues they could [have] addressed in a later scene in this episode. And so—we've talked about this on the show before, that inherent to the times and the sitcoms that most of these gay issues get framed from the straight person's perspective.
Matt: Also, Miles has a moment—and it's not addressed—where he says something that I think is genuinely interesting.
Miles: I've spent my entire life looking at myself in a certain way, and now I suddenly realize I might be somebody completely different. I met Rick once and I had a dream about him. What's going to happen when we work together all the time? One day, I'll find myself picking the lint off his jacket. The next thing you know, we're ordering sconces for our living room!
[audience laughs]
Matt: That is a really interesting crisis, and the show goes nowhere with it.
Drew: No. They just kind of let that one drop. But that is an interesting thing to say.
Matt: I think the reason is because he really would have to be gay in order for that to go anywhere and get more interesting.
Drew: Well, not having ever seen another episode of the show, I was wondering what is this actually building to because—
Matt: Nothing.
Drew: But to me, I'm like, "Oh. Is he going to come out at the end of this episode?" He does not. But knowing nothing else, I was given some evidence to think they might actually go that way. They just didn't.
Matt: Nope.
Glen: I think even today, in the times we live in, we forget that most people go through their lives without the opportunity or impetus to reevaluate who they are, and they never actually question, like, "Is this a thing I want to do with my life? Is this the kind of person I want to date?"
Drew: Yeah. For people that aren't queer or trans, a lot of times that has to result from a bad thing happening, like a breakup, a divorce, getting very sick, being in an accident and having to be like, "Oh. Things changed. I'm going to approach things differently." Not always, but sometimes.
Matt: And things get very inappropriate in Murphy's office very fast.
Drew: Yeah.
Murphy: I really wish there was something I could do to help, but I have to tell you I'm at a loss here.
Miles: Actually, there is something you can do.
Murphy: What?
Miles: Look sexy.
[audience laughs]
Murphy: Excuse me?!
Miles: I still find women attractive. I know I do! Toss your hair. Point your lips!
Murphy: No!
Miles: Work with me here, Murphy!
Murphy: This is ridiculous.
Miles: Oh, you're right. I can't get turned on by you. You're as big as a house.
Murphy: Hey!
Matt: Yeah. He should be fired [laughs]. Human resources needs to get involved.
Drew: Oh, studs! He talks about Studs. He's like, "Oh. Rita in the art department, she's hot," and is like, "Listen to me. I sound like a contestant on Studs," and I'm like, "Oh, yeah—
Glen: I watched that.
Drew: Studs is a thing that I have not seen. Are you aware of Studs?
Matt: Not at all.
Drew: It was this show where there was two men and they'd each go on a date with these three women, and based on the comments the women make, the guys have to be like, "That one was Lisa. That one sounds like she had a good time—that was Amanda." And if they're right, they get something. I don't know what they get.
Glen: Another date—another date at the Sybaris Pool Suites.
Matt: That's the weirdest game show I've ever heard of. So they go on the date, internalize as much of the other woman's personality as they can, and then make judgments about who would have said what—that's so strange. Are they asked—is it to see if they can recall the things that they said on the date?
Drew: It's to see if they—well, the non-sexist angle of it is you had to listen to the way she talks and remember what you did and also to see was your experience of the date matching up with hers. But also, it's a Fox show, and it has an audience full of hooting garbage people [laughs]. And it has been immortalized in—there's a Simpsons where Homer's watching. I think it's called Dudes. And he's like, "Well, that one's Stacey because she liked making bacon on the beach," and then Homer imagines actually cooking bacon on the beach.
Matt: Oh! I know that scene, and I never knew what that was a reference to.
Drew: I think there's an episode of Married… with Children where they go on a show very—it was something that got parodied a lot at the time and then was just gone, and we're like, "Okay. We're not going to do that anymore."
Glen: Studs! [laughter]
Drew: So Miles exits and is immediately intercepted by Rick who takes him to lunch because he's been trying to get ahold of him, and Miles has clearly been avoiding him. And Murphy's like, "Where did Miles go?" and Corky's like, "On a date!" Very enthusiastic about this. This is my favorite part of the episode, not just because I liked a lot of what Rick said, but I thought the writing was pretty good in this part.
Matt: It was the best part of the episode.
Drew: Yeah. Who wants to lead off on talking about this lunch meeting?
Matt: Well, they go to the local bar where they always hang out. There's a good gag about the Supreme Court Justices.
Phil: Miles, I got a waitress out with the flu, and the Supreme Court's tying up two booths trying to convince Clarence Thomas the new guy always picks up the check! Oh. Nice to meet you, Rick. Hey, hey, hey, hey! I told you guys no gavels on the table!
Drew: Clarence Thomas joke that is not the Clarence Thomas joke you'd expect.
Matt: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah. They didn't go for the obvious joke there, I guess.
Matt: I have a feeling they'd run that into the ground previously.
Glen: But yeah, Miles's hesitation is easily read, and Rick mistakes it as concern that his being gay makes Miles uncomfortable.
Matt: Which it does.
Glen: Yeah, but not for the reasons that Miles is uncomfortable but because he is worried that it's going to cost him his job.
Rick: Look, Miles. We've got to talk about this. Now whether you admit it or not, you've got a problem with me. I spent a lot of years pretending I was someone else because I was afraid—afraid of all the whispers, afraid of losing my job. But when you've been to as many funerals as I have lately, you realize life is too valuable to spend hiding in a closet. So you're going to have to deal with me as I am because I'm not going to change.
Matt: Which that's very real.
Glen: Yeah. Rick goes into a list of very real-world early '90s concerns for a gay man from losing his job, being arrested, going to his friends' funerals, which was—
Drew: It's good they put that in there. It would have been weird if they didn't, right?
Glen: Yeah. We always say it's weird if they don't address it.
Matt: Yeah. And it's a really poignant line. He says that he's gay, and he's not going [to be] apologetic about it, and he says, "When you've been to as many funerals as I have, you learn that life's too short to deny who you are and to live someone else's life."
Glen: Yeah. "Life is too valuable to spend hiding in a closet."
Matt: Yeah. So that, I think, is basically—if Miles isn't ashamed of himself at that point, then he should be because he's been having all this worry about "What does this mean?" And it's like—there are people with real problems.
Glen: And Miles does, after that, clarify that he's uncomfortable around Rick not for those reasons but because he is questioning his own sexuality, and Rick immediately falls into a very supportive gay role to a new gay.
Rick: Oh, man. No wonder you're stressed out. Look, Miles. I want you to know that I understand what you're going through. I came out kind of late, too.
Miles: Hey, I'm not out yet. I'm in. Way in.
[audience laughs]
Rick: It's okay. I didn't mean to push it. Believe me, I fought it for a long time myself. I don't want to pry, but I just hope that whatever recent experience you had, you made sure it was safe.
Miles: Oh, don't worry. It was completely safe. I was alone at the time.
[audience laughs]
Rick: I think I just missed something here.
Glen: Which then leads Rick to question what is going on with Miles, and it basically comes down to are you attracted to men or are you not.
Rick: Wait a minute. Are you saying that you think you're gay because you had a dream? I mean, come on, Miles. There's got to be something more than that.
Miles: Like what?
Rick: Well, an attraction to other men might help. Look around the bar. Is there any man here that you find attractive?
Miles: Not really.
Rick: Actually, neither do I. Okay. Forget that. Is there any man anywhere that you find attractive?
Miles: I've always wanted to be Kevin Costner. Does that help?
Rick: You're not getting this. If you want to be with Kevin Costner, then it counts.
Miles: Do you want to be with Kevin Costner?
Rick: Oh, Miles. Contrary to public opinion, gay men do not spend all their time fantasizing about other men. I mean, do you have sexual thoughts about every woman in your office?
Miles: Well, yeah.
[audience laughs]
Rick: Okay. Let me see if I've got this right: You're not attracted to men; you are attracted to women; and so far, your total gay experience consists of one dream? Miles, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but don't expect to be Homecoming Queen in next year's Gay Pride Parade.
[audience laughs]
Miles: Oh, man. You must think I'm such an idiot.
Rick: It's okay. You know, sexuality can be pretty complicated, especially with the messages we get. You do a TV show with two men having a meaningful conversation in bed and people go nuts. But you do a show with two guys tearing each other up with machine guns, those same people watch it at dinner with their kids.
Glen: Yes. Fact. True.
Drew: Still has not changed. Yep.
Matt: It's exasperating. That felt to me like the writers just talking directly to their bosses.
Drew: Mm-hmm. Is that the point where Miles fesses up that "Actually, the guy I had the dream about was you"?
Matt: Mm-hmm.
Miles: Look. Cards on the table. The guy in my dream was you, and I was afraid that if we spent any time together something might happen.
Rick: [laughs uproariously]
Miles: It's ridiculous, isn't it? [laughs]
Rick: It's hysterical! [continues laughing uproariously] I mean, you're not even my type!
[audience laughs uproariously]
Drew: The line I was expecting to follow it up with was, "Oh, no, no, no. I'm way out of your league." Not what they did. They went a different direction, which is a kinder—I guess that's not as mean as "I'm out of your league," though he is clearly out of his league [laughter].
Matt: I like that joke. It has been used on a lot of shows. It's in the Mary Tyler Moore episode.
Drew: "Not my type" or "out of my league"?
Matt: "Not my type." Rose says, "He's not my type," and then Phyllis gets offended—"What do you mean he's not your type?" And it's also on Designing Women when—have you covered this one on the show? I can't remember.
Drew: We did the gay funeral one, and that's the only Designing Women we've done so far.
Matt: Oh, no. So there's a lesbian one where—I forget the name of the characters. The beauty queen on Designing Women?
Drew: Suzanne.
Matt: "Suzanne Goes Looking for a Friend" is the title of the episode. She has a lesbian friend and doesn't realize she has a lesbian friend, and someone points it out to her. And then the culmination of all this is the lesbian friend saying, "I'm not desperate enough to go barking up the wrong tree. Do you know what I'm saying?" And Suzanne goes, "Yes. You don't think I'm attractive."
Drew: [laughs] That's a very good Delta Burke impression.
Matt: Oh, thank you!
Drew: We should do that one for our next season. That sounds good.
Matt: Yeah. It's actually a really good episode. There's a lot to talk about in that one.
Drew: Okay. Good. Good, good, good.
Matt: I like the trope of the homosexual suddenly taking offense that gay people aren't interested in them anymore.
Glen: Yeah. Al does it with the Mandy episode, too, I believe.
Matt: Oh, yes [laughs].
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Glen: Again, it's all viewed through the lens of "What does a gay person's experience mean to me, a straight person?"
Matt: Mm-hmm. And something else that I note about this episode of Murphy Brown is that it's another case of gay people solving all of the problems that straight people create for themselves. They kind of queer-ize Miles.
Drew: And then vanishing because he never comes back again after this.
Matt: No. Nope. He's yet another—
Glen: Well, maybe his publicity pitch wasn't actually that good [laughter].
Drew: Yeah. Maybe he sucks at his job.
Matt: Yeah, maybe he was really bad [laughter].
Glen: And then they end on a joke about Frank being presumed gay.
Rick: One question before we do. My friend Jeff thinks that somebody on your staff is really attractive. Do you think maybe you could help me set something up?
Miles: I'll try. Who is it?
Rick: Frank.
[audience laughs]
Miles: Frank? Franks' not gay.
Rick: Come on.
[audience laughs uproariously]
Drew: I understand why that's a funny way to bring it back to the beginning, but there is nothing about Frank that seems even remotely gay, and maybe that's the point. But no gay man would look at Frank and be like, "I think he's gay." He could be gay; he just doesn't appear to be gay.
Glen: It's not like the version that Frasier did where—but Niles is definitely gay.
Drew: Yeah. Niles appears gay.
Matt: And there have been misunderstandings in that episode that would lead him to think that. Nothing about Frank would lead him to think.
Drew: Does he just think that guys who like cars are all gay? Because that's not how that works.
Matt: [laughs] Maybe that's it. Yeah. It's a good symmetry on the episode, but it doesn't totally—it's not logical.
Drew: And that's it, right? End credits. No over-the-credits part.
Glen: Nope.
Matt: Fade to black.
Matt: There is actually another episode of Murphy Brown where Frank is presumed gay. He writes a play. Let me think if I can remember this one because I haven't covered this one on Culture Cruise. Frank writes—
Drew: Well, we'll do it first [laughter].
Matt: Frank writes a play that is being staged by this director who's clearly a Harvey-Fierstein-alike, and they can't make the play—they can't cast the part and they can't find the right actor, and Frank is absent from the production for long enough for them to cast a male actor as a romantic lead against another man, and suddenly everyone thinks that Frank is gay.
Drew: That's not how that works.
Matt: No. No. But there's, I think, something about Frank—
Glen: Wait a minute. I wrote a movie, and that is how it works.
Drew: Okay. That's true.
Matt: I think Frank is like, "Oh, it's deeply autobiographical," and so they think that that's Frank's way of coming out to them.
Drew: Oh! I'd be down to watch more Murphy Brown episodes. I'm not opposed to it. It's just so weird to finally experience this thing that was a huge pop cultural thing for a decade.
Glen: She won many Emmys.
Drew: A lot of people won Emmys. Diane English as the creator won quite a few Emmys, and I've never seen anything else she's done.
Glen: Well, read all the stories about Les Moonves and you'll understand why.
Drew: Oh. Oh, yeah. That's right. I wasn't thinking about that when I made that statement. But, yeah.
Matt: Yeah. Not a great environment that workplace, apparently. Maybe there's a reason that that scene in Murphy's office was so inappropriate. Culture at CBS, apparently.
Drew: Hmm. What a jerk. Do you have anything else to say about this episode or Murphy Brown or Candice Bergen?
Matt: I would just point out there's yet one more gay episode of Murphy Brown where Jim Dial, the very straitlaced anchor, opens a bar, and it turns out to be a gay bar. And there's some great gay history in that episode where they talk about Christopher Isherwood and Quentin Crisp.
Glen: Stop ruining all our future episodes! [laughter]
Drew: Wait. He opens a gay bar, and it turns out to be a gay bar?
Matt: No. He opens a bar that he just thinks is going to be—
Glen: He doesn't know. He probably buys it and doesn't know it's a gay bar.
Matt: Yeah. Some Barney Frank jokes in there. Yeah.
Drew: Oh. Oh, okay. That's interesting. I'd be down to do both of those. Thank you for suggesting that we do a Murphy Brown because now I have other stuff to research about and learn about.
Matt: It connects. There's a web.
Drew: A web of gay culture. Speaking of which, Mr. Baume, where else can people find you online?
Matt: All over the place. Listeners of this podcast may be interested in my YouTube series Culture Cruise where I talk about—oh, gosh. I've talked about the gay episode, much like what you guys do here. I talk about a gay episode of The Simpsons. I talk about The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I'm working on an episode about Maude right now.
Drew: Ooh, which Maude?
Matt: I think it's the one, actually, that you just did. It's the—yeah.
Drew: It's really good.
Glen: So listeners can watch both and then comment which is better [laughter].
Matt: Yeah. Gosh. What else have I done? Oh, DS9 and Queer as Folk. Coming up in June, there's one gay episode of Queer as Folk that touches on Pride.
Glen: There's just one gay episode of Queer as Folk? That makes no sense.
Matt: There's just that one. Very hard to find episodes of any TV show that involves Pride at all. Can you think of any other episode of TV that's set at a Pride Parade?
Drew: I can think of a single joke on The Simpsons where they are "Come on, Lisa. You got us to march in that Gay Pride Parade," and then you see a headline like "Gay Family Marches in Parade." [laughter]
Glen: There also was a Gay Pride Parade where Smithers and Marge's sister were on the closet float.
Drew: That's true. I remember that. There is that. But that's a jumping off point for something else.
Glen: I don't know. I don't remember.
Matt: It's like a blink-and-you-miss it kind of thing.
Drew: Yeah.
Matt: Anyway. So there's a Queer as Folk that takes place at Pride, so I did a video about that and what Pride is and why we have it and all that stuff. So anyway, that's Culture Cruise. I've also got The Sewers of Paris, my podcast where I talk to gay men about the entertainment that has affected their lives. Recently—oh, gosh. I've had so many great guests on there. I had Dan Savage on. I had Guy Branum—the delightful Guy Branum, Lewis Virtel—
Drew: Drew Mackie.
Matt: Drew Mackie [laughs].
Glen: I didn't listen to it.
Matt: Yeah. Lots of—I'm on episode 230-something now.
Glen: Jesus!
Matt: Yeah. I've talked to a lot of—a lot of gays. It's a pretty complete—
Glen: You're going to run out soon.
Matt: I'm going to talk to every gay man, and then what'll I do?
Drew: What handles on Twitter should people check you out at?
Matt: You can just follow my name. It's @MattBaume—M-A-T-T B-A-U-M-E. And you can also check out yet another show, Queens of Adventure—drag queens playing Dungeons & Dragons—that's @DungeonDrag and queensofadventure.com.
Drew: We'll put links to all your projects in the show notes for this. If anyone wants to click on those things, you can see them there.
Matt: Yay! Thanks.
Drew: Glen, where can people find you?
Glen: Oh, Jesus. On Instagram you can find me @BrosQuartz—that's B-R-O-S-Quartz—and on Twitter I'm @IWriteWrongs—and "write" is with a W-R-I-T-E. I did it!
Drew: You did it. I'm @DrewGMackie on Twitter—M-A-C-K-I-E—and you can follow this podcast on Twitter @GayestEpisode, on Facebook @GayestEpisodeEver, and all the previous episodes at gayestepisodeever.com.
Glen: And our Patreon.
Drew: And once again, if you want to pledge money to our Patreon, we encourage you to do so. Please go to pateron.com/gayestepisodeever. It's the name of the show. And that's everything. Matt, thank you again for being here.
Matt: Thanks so much for having me. I've been wanting to do this for a long time. I love the show, so I'm very excited.
Glen: Aw!
Drew: Yay! End of episode.
Glen: Bye forever.
Drew: Bye.
["Tomorrow" by Amanda Lear plays]
Katherine: A TableCakes Production.