Transcript for Episode 9: Jerry and George Aren’t Gay... Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That

This is the transcript for the installment of the show in which we discuss the Seinfeld episode “The Outing.” 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.

Kramer:  I thought we were friends. 

[audience applauds and laughs uproariously]

Jerry:  Here we go. 

Kramer:  I mean, how could you two keep this a secret from me? 

Jerry:  It's not true!

Kramer:  Ah! Enough lying! The lying is through. Oh, come on, Jerry. The masquerade is over. You're thin, late-30s, single. 

Jerry:  So are you. 

Kramer:  Yeah—[stammers]. 

[audience laughs]

[music plays]

Drew:  You are listening to Gayest Episode Ever, the podcast about episodes of classic TV shows that focus on LGBT-themes. I'm Drew Mackie. 

Glen:  I'm Glen Lakin. 

Drew:  And if that intro didn't tip you off, today we are talking about Seinfeld. In particular, we are talking about the episode "The Outing," which aired February 11th, 1993. 

Glen:  This is the episode where Jerry and George are mistaken as a gay couple by an NYU reporter, and hilarity ensues. 

Drew:  If you're the kind of person who only remembers the catch phrases, this is the one that gave us two Seinfeld catch phrases that both relate to homosexuality: "Single, thin, and neat," and more importantly, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." We're going to be talking about that phrase. I'm going to be talking about that phrase a lot this episode. Before we get into it, though, I want to introduce our special guest, Emelie Burnette. Hi, Emelie. 

Emelie:  Hi Drew. 

Drew:  You're some sort of lady homosexual. Is that right? 

Emelie:  Yes. I believe that's why I was invited here today. 

Drew:  And you're a copy editor, too, and copy editors know everything. 

Emelie:  Ohh, that's—yes. Yes. I mean, kind of. 

Drew:  Well, you have to read so many articles that you just amass a bigger base level of knowledge than most human beings ever need to, really. 

Emelie:  I do. This is true. At the very least, I know more often when to Google something. 

Glen:  If you fact check me, I will flip this table. 

Emelie:  [laughs] I feel like I have good table manners when it comes to this sort of thing—or I try to. I had to learn that the hard way, actually. 

Drew:  It's a card table, so it's fairly easy to flip. Yeah. 

Glen:  Your grandma's card table—so it's haunted. 

Drew:  It is haunted. Yeah. Emelie, what sort of articles do you copy edit nowadays? 

Emelie:  Too many, first, but it kind of spans. It runs the gamut, I should say, from fashion to beauty and then women's lifestyle, which is where things get hairy and I have to edit for things related to—

Glen:  Vaginas? 

Emelie:  Yeah [laughs]. Vaginas, yes. Thank you. Actually, LGBT themes come up a lot, normativity, lots of what some might consider boring things to fix but I find important. 

Drew:  There's a lot of normativity issues in this podcast, so this will be a helpful thing for you to know something about. 

Emelie: I mean, this episode. 

Drew:  Yeah. I also really quickly want to say Emelie and I both worked at the Daily Nexus, which is the school newspaper at UC Santa Barbara. We did not work there together. We just barely missed each other because I graduated. I didn't graduate early, so I was there an extra year and I still missed you. But, yeah. I feel like the Nexus needs shoutouts because it's cool, and they're having the reunion this weekend—and we are not going. 

Emelie:  I know. It was very sad for me. 

Glen:  Does this count as the Nexus reunion? 

Drew:  Sort of. There's two of us here. 

Emelie:  Our own reunion? There's alcohol, so it kind of counts. 

Glen:  Spoiler alert—we've been drinking white wine. 

Drew:  Yeah. Just, like, afternoon drinking. So we are talking about Seinfeld today. Before we get into it, I want to know what is your relationship with Seinfeld. Emelie? 

Emelie:  Ooh. My parents hated it, so I didn't watch it growing up—which it's kind of funny that they hated it because now they're huge Larry David fans, or at least claim to be. 

Drew:  Oh!

Emelie:  So, controversy in the Bataglia household— Bataglia being my maiden name, for clarity. 

Drew:  What didn't they like about it? 

Emelie:  I think my parents were just anti-TV, really. I wasn't allowed to watch MTV, VH1—anything, really, in primetime. 

Drew:  VH1 wasn't very good back then, so that's okay. 

Emelie:  I think that they just clumped it in because they'd heard it all on the same radio warning. 

Drew:  But the joke's on them because Seinfeld very quickly became available everywhere, constantly, and there's never not Seinfeld reruns on somewhere. 

Emelie:  Mm-hmm. And I resent them because I feel like I missed out on a lot of things, and I had to catch up very quickly for the sake of this podcast. 

Drew:  Well, we appreciate the effort. Glen, what is your relationship? 

Glen:  As I mentioned before, my dad and I would watch Must See TV every week. The height of Seinfeld popularity coincided with my parents' separation, and so my dad and I just sort of made a thing of making popcorn and watching Seinfeld in his bed—which sounds weird. But it's not. It was a big bed, and that's where the big TV was. 

Drew:  Yeah. That's not weird. I watched it. This is actually the first episode of Seinfeld I ever saw, which is kind of interesting to think about. I don't think I saw it in 1994. It was probably a rerun in '95 or '96 when I finally got it for the first time, and it was weirdly a show my entire family watched together. I don't know why we did because it doesn't—it would make more sense for my parents to not have liked it like your parents didn't because it's—

Glen:  It's not nice. 

Drew:  It's not nice, and it's weirdly racy, and it's just not something parents in the '90s would watch with their pre-teenage children. But we all watched it together. It was a big deal for us, and I have no idea why this was okay. 

Emelie:  That's really interesting. I would just like to jump in as a correction because I'm pretty sure my mom is going to listen to this. My parents are great and were not—[laughter]. I was not sheltered in any way. They were very non-PC, very much cursing household, so just putting that out there. 

Glen:  All our parents were great—wink, wink. 

Emelie:  Thank you for that. 

Drew:  I don't think I watched this with my parents, which is probably for the best because watching anything with gay characters was a very weirdly painful experience. But I do remember—we'll get to it in a minute. But at one point, George lies and says that his father is gay, which is not true. And getting into the show initially, I thought his father was gay. And it took maybe a season or two to be like, "Oh. That was completely off base. He completely made that up." But that was weird, thinking Mr. Costanza was a homosexual. Not actually a thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's not a really good story. 

Emelie:  Also, if it's your first episode, George lies a lot which you kind of just have to know going in. But if you didn't know that going in, you're more likely to believe him, I would assume. 

Drew:  Because TV would lead you to believe that most characters are decent people, and this is a show about four mild sociopaths bound together through their hatred of humanity. 

Glen:  [stammers]

Drew:  Is that good? Is that right? 

Glen:  Yeah. Actually, I think we should mention that this was the fourth season and one of the more popular seasons of Seinfeld. It's the season where they start writing a show for NBC, and it's very meta. They coin "It's a show about nothing," and so to have this episode air in the height of their popularity probably means nothing, but it's interesting. 

Drew:  I should also point out this is kind of an exception because for the most part there are no gay characters in this episode. There is one gay character who shows up for five seconds, but of everything we are talking about this season, this is almost entirely about straight people's experience of perceived homosexuality and therefore is, I think, an episode about homophobia. 

Glen:  I would say it's an episode about straight histrionics. 

Drew:  Histrionics. Okay. I like that. Yeah. That's a great way to describe the way they react. We almost did "The Beard." That was on the shortlist initially. It's this one where Elaine dates a gay guy to make his office think he's straight, but then she tries to actually date him and convert him to heterosexuality, which does not work. We might do that one in the future because what a weird piece of TV. And then the show has some other major gay themes—including, in this season, George's girlfriend Susan leaves him for a woman who eventually leaves her for Kramer. This episode was written by Larry Charles, who wrote a ton of Seinfeld, and later went on to direct Borat, Brüno, and The Dictator. He was nominated for an Emmy for writing this episode, but he lost to Larry David for writing "The Contest," which is the episode where the main four characters swear off masturbation. It was directed by Tom Cherones, who directed 81 episodes of the show as well as News Radio, Caroline in the City, Ellen, a lot of other things. This show was awarded the GLAAD Media Award— 

Emelie:  Yes, it was. 

Drew:  —in 1994, alongside Angels in America and Philadelphia, and that's—

Glen:  There's a lot of eyerolling and forehead slapping at the table right now. 

Emelie:  The forehead slapping was me. 

Drew:  We're going to talk about why that seems a little weird now and why it may not have seemed weird at the time, but that's just a very odd thing to—oh. Also, it was the year And the Band Played On got nominated for a GLAAD Award. 

Glen:  It didn't win, though, right? 

Drew:  No, it did. It won. So Seinfeld won the GLAAD Media Award that year. According to some sources, this episode won; according to others, it was for the show's overall commitment to showcasing gay characters. But I actually couldn't find the original press releases, and then the news articles said specifically it was "The Outing." But yeah, what an odd thing, right? Of all the shows on TV, this is the one that GLAAD picked. 

Emelie:  I read a piece of trivia that said they were worried the episode was going to be homophobic. And that's why they added the line that is now famous, "Not that there's anything wrong with that," and then they won the GLAAD Award. So even they were aware that this was kind of odd. 

Drew:  Let's save that for when we get to the first mention of it because I have so much I need to talk about—"Not that there's anything wrong with that." This episode was the eighth most-watched episode of TV this week drawing 28 million viewers between Murder She Wrote and Murphy Brown. The number one watched thing on TV this week was an Oprah Winfrey special that aired on ABC in which she interviewed Michael Jackson. Oh, my gosh! Emelie, I forgot to mention. You and I used to work in an office where Larry David was our office neighbor. 

Emelie:  Yes! He spoke to me once. 

Drew:  He spoke to me in the bathroom once!

Glen:  I feel like that's something that he would actually shy away from. 

Drew:  Oh, he did. He did. Wait. Emelie, what did he say to you? 

Emelie:  I was new there, and he came by my desk and it was 3:00 in the afternoon. He was like, "Why aren't you going home yet? It's the end of the day." That was his joke, and then he walked away. 

Glen:  [snickers] It's a funny joke. 

Drew:  I saw him in the bathroom. He finished at the urinal before I finished, and he was washing his hands, and I recognized, like, "Oh. That's Larry David. That's really—it's weird. This is how I'm going to meet Larry David. Okay." And then he was washing his hands, and then he dried his hands with a towel, and then it was one of those pull-handle doors rather than a knob. So he put the towel that he dried his hands with around the handle and tried to open it using the towel so he didn't have to touch the—

Glen:  And it broke. 

Drew:  And it broke. So then he tried it with a smaller section of the towel, and it broke again. And by this point, I have finished washing my hands. I'm like, "Here. I'll get that for you." And he looked at me and whispered, "Thank you," and stumbled back to his office which was right next to ours, unmarked. Did you know he was right next to us? 

Emelie:  No, I didn't. 

Drew:  He was the next door down. 

Emelie:  Drew, I resent you so much for not sharing this information with me while we worked in that office. 

Drew:  I assumed—

Emelie:  I was only there for a  year. 

Drew:  Right. Unless I'm mistaken, he owned that building. 

Emelie:  I don't know the answer to that question. 

Drew:  I believe he did. You see it on Curb all the time. It's the fake Larry David's office on Curb, and so it's like, "Oh, that place. That's where I used to work." We won't say what it is. 

Emelie:  No. We don't speak of it. 

Drew:  No. So this episode opens in George's car where he is trying to break up with Allison, who is a woman we've never seen before on the show. But they've been dating for a while, and she won't let him break up with her. 

[music plays]

Allison:  I don't want to live! I don't want to live!

George:  Because of me? You must be joking! Who wouldn't want to live because of me? I'm nothing!

Allison:  No... You're something.

George:  You can do better than me. You could throw a dart out the window and hit someone better than me. I'm no good!

Allison:  You're good. You're good!

George:  I'm bad. I'm bad!

Allison:  You're killing me!

Drew:  Emelie, do you recognize this actress? 

Emelie:  The actress in the car? 

Drew:  Yeah. 

Emelie:  No, I don't. 

Drew:  Oh, my gosh. We had a little pre-game conversation about Veronica Mars. The actress is Kari Coleman. She had a recurring role on Veronica Mars as the health teacher—the sour-faced, mean health teacher. I believe she's the one that accuses Tessa Thompson of stealing the senior trip funds. 

Emelie:  Oh, my god! 

Drew:  So she's in three episodes—sorry. This is all Veronica Mars. But her husband left her for another man, and she's been left a very bitter person. Also, in real life, she is married to Kyle Secor, who played Lilly Kane's dad. 

Emelie:  You're killing me right now. 

Drew:  I know. There's a lot of Veronica Mars this episode. 

Glen:  Tune in to our Veronica Mars podcast. 

Drew:  Oh, my gosh—can we do that?!

Emelie:  If you don't invite me to that, I will never forgive you. 

Drew:  Oh. Oh, my gosh. Just, like—[sighs]. I could think of things to say. Yeah. 

Glen:  Yadda, yadda, she threatens to kill herself, and they don't break up. 

Drew:  And the role was almost going to be played by Megan Mullally, and then she didn't get it. This woman won out. I know. 

Glen:  Someone denied Megan Mullally?

Drew:  Megan Mullally's early career is all about denial. She didn't get to do hardly anything. You know she was in the original cut of Blue Velvet? 

Emelie:  What!

Drew:  She played Kyle Maclachlan's girlfriend. You can see the scenes online. But she didn't get a break for a long time. She was well into her career before she finally became a big deal. So, hope for everybody. 

Glen:  That's beautiful. 

Drew:  Yeah. The scene switches to Monk's Café, where everyone is shocked that anyone would feel bad about being dumped by George. One of my problems with watching Seinfeld now is how people are dressed. Elaine's wearing a denim jacket—I don't care for it. George is just dressed like normcore, and I don't care for that. Jerry's wearing a purple turtleneck.

Glen:  I have mentioned the turtleneck many times in my notes. I have a lot of thoughts about this turtleneck, and it's very triggering for me because as a pre-gay fifth grader, I was wearing a paisley turtleneck to school, and I got—

Drew:  Oh, my gosh. 

Glen:  I'd love to wear it now. But at the time, I weighed nothing, and I was tall, and I was just mocked endlessly for it. And then years later, seeing this episode, just being like, "Was I gay? Was I a gay fifth grader wearing that turtleneck?" And so turtlenecks just became synonymous with closeted gay men for me, and out gay men, and I swore them off for many years. 

Drew:  I didn't like wearing turtlenecks because I thought they would make me gay, but I don't know why. Emelie, you work in the world of fashion writing. Why are turtlenecks gay? 

Emelie:  Oh, that's a great question. Perhaps you're covering up a lot—shame, perhaps? 

Drew:  Oh, yeah. Yeah. 

Emelie:  I don't know. I also wore a lot of turtlenecks in my youth, in elementary school, and was mocked for them—but probably for different reasons. 

Drew:  We grew up in California. We didn't have to wear turtlenecks. It was warm. 

Emelie:  Yeah. I can't vouch for my shopping choices in the third grade. 

Glen:  But turtlenecks can be thin. 

Drew:  I've avoided—

Glen:  There's turtleneck sweaters, and then there's turtleneck shirts.

Emelie:  Which are very trendy. 

Drew:  Are they? 

Emelie:  Yes. 

Drew:  For dudes? 

Emelie:  Oh. No [laughter].

Glen:  Oh. Okay. I was going to go out and buy one. 

Emelie:  Apologies. 

Glen:  I think that turtlenecks are gay because when you make so much of the body uniform, you are showing off that body, and it's shameful for a man to show off his body. 

Drew:  Is it? Buff dudes do it all the time. But I guess that's kind of gay. 

Emelie:  Yeah. That's what I was going to say. 

Drew:  So he's supposed to meet a reporter at the diner, and she doesn't know what he looks like because the internet doesn't exist at this point, and she's never seen his show. And while he's trying to call her on the payphone, we see her come in and look around for someone and not see him and take a seat in the booth next to where George and Elaine are currently sitting. So this is Paula Marshall. Emelie, is this your Veronica Mars insight? 

Emelie:  This is my Veronica Mars insight. I was thrilled to see her. I loved her arc on Veronica Mars as the guidance counselor-slash-Keith Mars's girlfriend. 

Drew:  Paula Marshall is a very appealing character actress who kind of never really got her big break. She starred in a lot of shows that never took off. She was in this show called Cupid. Do you remember Cupid? 

Glen:  Oh, I remember Cupid. 

Drew:  Cupid was created by the same guy who created Veronica Mars.

Glen:  Oh, I know. 

Drew:  It was Paula Marshall and Jeremy Piven starring together. Yeah. People forget Jeremy Piven's pre-Entourage life. But yeah, a bunch of stuff. She's never had a super successful show. I think of her as kind of like a Carla Gugino where she's gorgeous and she's good at everything she does, she just hasn't become the star that she was supposed to be. 

Glen:  You know they tried to reboot Cupid?

Drew:  With what's-her-face—Sarah Paulson. 

Glen:  Mm-hmm. And what's-his-name from Will & Grace and other things? He dated Will at the end?

Drew:  Bobby Cannavale.

Glen:  Oh. Okay. 

Emelie:  [gasps]

Drew:  Yeah. Sorry. I shouldn't have yelled that. Bobby Cannavale. That's his name. Yeah. After Veronica Mars ended, they tried to redo it again, and it still didn't work. 

Emelie:  Sidebar, I'd love to see a Sarah Paulson/Bobby Cannavale show. Can we make that happen? 

Drew:  Well, you missed your chance. Yeah. No one watched it. Seven episodes—canceled. 

Emelie:  Damn it. 

Drew:  So this reporter works for the NYU Newspaper, and this is a question I have a lot of times: How famous is Jerry Seinfeld supposed to be in the Seinfeld universe? 

Emelie:  I have that same question because not only does NYU write about him, but the AP picks up the story? 

Drew:  And why would the AP pick up a college newspaper story? 

Emelie:  Yeah. So many questions.

Glen:  I also have—you two are journalist-ish. I feel like the AP would have reached out to Jerry Seinfeld for a quote. 

Drew:  They would have done their own version of the story and be like, "Hey. By the way, are you a gay?" We're getting there. But I'm willing to believe that the people who wrote this episode didn't understand how journalism works because also, when the journalism actually happens, she's a terrible interviewer. But we'll get to that. We'll get there. 

Emelie:  Well also, she wasn't nearly thrilled enough at an international byline that would have resulted from that pick-up.  

Drew:  So the fact that—yeah. Jerry's being interviewed by NYU for some reason, and she sits behind them, and she's eavesdropping—she does not realize it's Jerry. She's just eavesdropping on them because they're having a conversation about ugly world leaders. Is that what she's doing? 

Glen:  Mm-hmm. 

[audience laughs]

Elaine:  Hey, who do you think is the most unattractive world leader?

Jerry:  Living or all time?

Elaine:  All time.

Jerry:  Well, if it's all time, then there's no contest. It begins and ends with Brezhnev.

Elaine:  I don't know. You ever get a good look at de Gaulle?

George:  Lyndon Johnson was uglier than de Gaulle.

Elaine:  I got news for you. Golda Meir could make them all run up a tree.

[audience laughs]

Glen:  I mean, I do that. When you hear stupid people talking about stupid things, it’s like, "I'll listen to this." 

Drew:  Oh. Yeah, if you're sitting next to them in a restaurant. I was sitting in a restaurant once and these two girls were talking about—one of them had a boyfriend who was problematic, and she was like, "I just don't understand. He does this, and this, and this." And she's like, "Do you ever think sometimes your boyfriend doesn't know how to read?" And she's like, "No. Well—oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god—he doesn't know how to read." And just listened to this girl walk through all the ways where it's like, "Oh, my god. He always points to stuff. He never reads stuff out loud. He's bad with directions. He doesn't know how to read." 

Emelie:  It's like the original Lea Michele conspiracy theory. 

Drew:  Wait, was it that she—what?

Glen:  Yes. There's a conspiracy theory that Lea Michele does not know how to read. 

Drew:  Yeah. So anyone would listen. But Elaine notices that this woman is eavesdropping, so she thinks it'd be really funny to talk about Jerry and George as if they were a secret gay couple. 

Elaine:  Hey. Come here. Those two girls behind you? They're eavesdropping. 

George:  Really? 

Elaine:  You know, just because you two are homosexuals, so what? 

[audience laughs]

Elaine:  I mean you should just come out of the closet and be openly gay already.

[audience laughs]

George:  So what do you say? 

[audience laughs]

Elaine:  [laughs]

George:  You know you'll always be the only man I'll ever love. 

Jerry:  What's the matter with you? 

[audience laughs]

George:  Come on. Go along. 

Jerry:  I'm not going along. 

Emelie:  I read it a little bit like a cock-blocking thing, like "I hope you didn't want to talk to or hit on these attractive women because they're going to think you're gay now." 

Drew:  Oh, okay. That makes sense. So then they start talking about Jerry's perceived homosexuality where he says people think that he's gay because he's single, thin, and neat. 

[audience laughs]

Elaine:  You're no fun. 

Jerry:  You know, I hear that all the time. 

Elaine:  Hear what? 

Jerry:  That I'm gay. People think I'm gay. 

Elaine:  Yeah. You know, people ask me that about you, too. 

Jerry:  Yeah, because I'm single, I'm thin, and I'm neat.

[audience laughs]

Elaine:  And you get along well with women. 

George:  Guess that leaves me in the clear. 

[audience laughs]

Emelie:  I have a friend who fits that description and he is by far the friend that I have that people ask if he's gay the most, but he's not. 

Glen:  Give him my number anyway. 

Emelie:  I can do that. 

Glen:  For me, for most of my life being a single, thin, neat man in both pre-coming out and after coming out, yeah, it does resonate with me. And I just think it is a statement of the times in the '90s where—I think this was the point where being gay crossed over from being the fun, dramatic person to any man who is well-dressed and single—this is the pre-metrosexual era where being gay suddenly became synonymous with being attractive and single. 

Drew:  Does Jerry dress well?

Glen:  Lord, no. 

Drew:  Compared to George he does, but—yeah. I just feel like most people would be like, "That person's  not gay. Look at how he's dressed." 

Emelie:  Well, George would be cool now. Jerry is still not cool. 

Drew:  Right, with those sneakers. Sneakers and jeans. It's somehow not the right look. 

Glen:  But he's thin!

Drew:  To me, I was just thinking, "Okay. Maybe that's something that would have read that way in 1993." But living in the part of L.A. I live in, I know so many slobby gay guys—which might just be me trying to be friends with guys that make me feel tidier. But I feel like all three of them—single, thin, and neat—aren't necessarily indicative of being homosexuals. They could be coupled, overweight, and slobby, and they're just as gay. But that's my skewed perspective, maybe. 

Glen:  I don't know. Is this the aftermath of gay angel? 

Drew:  Yeah. Gay slob. Yeah. We're working towards Adam Pally in Happy Endings. Yeah. So another weird thing happens, and Jerry's like, "Well, I'm going to go to the bathroom," and George is like, "I'm going to go, too." Especially considering that George is like the Larry David analog in this, I feel like he wouldn't actually want to go pee next to another man. That would be something that would make both of them incredibly uncomfortable. But Sharon, the reporter played by Paula Marshall, is now on the cellphone, trying to get in touch with Jerry, and they walk right past her and she sees them go into the bathroom together. Does she think that they're—is she making anything of the fact that they're going to the bathroom together? 

Emelie:  I actually looked for that the second time I watched this episode, and no, she doesn't have any suggestive reaction. I think probably she just recalls it later when she sees them again. 

Drew:  Oh, that would make sense. Okay. 

Glen:  Actually, I didn't necessarily read a dirty look on her face, but I figured that she would have assumed something. Is this George Michael era? When was he caught in the bathroom and arrested? 

Drew:  After this. Yeah. 

Glen:  Oh. She's a pre-cog. Whatever. 

Drew:  People are getting caught in the bathroom doing that kind of stuff all the time. Yeah. Also, this is not a problem that would have ever existed—this story couldn't happen this way today because everyone has a cellphone and also Facebook, and everyone knows what everyone looks like and can contact them directly all the time. But I guess that makes it more interesting that Elaine's big present for Jerry is a two-line phone, and that's something he's supposed to be excited about—the idea that a phone wouldn't just come that way with like, "Oh, it has call waiting on it." 

Emelie:  Also that two people—spoiler—decided that it was a great gift for Jerry. 

Drew:  I guess, yeah. I guess by not coming of age then, we missed out on really underwhelming houseware as birthday presents. 

Emelie:  Maybe that's just the read on Jerry's personality in general, that this is the kind of gift he would like.

Drew:  He's boring. He's a boring guy. 

Glen:  The next scene is the reporter shows up at Jerry's apartment to talk to him, and before she gets there, George is already in the apartment. They're bantering about whatever, and—

Drew:  About his ugly shirt. 

Emelie:  Sweatshirt. Sweater. 

Glen:  Oh, that's right—which his crazy girlfriend has given him, and Jerry's like, "Yeah. You can stay for the reporter. It's no big deal." But when she shows up, it is a big deal because she recognizes them from the café, and a very, very awkward interview follows where Jerry is catching on to the weirdness of the reporter's questions whereas George—his answers, of course, hilariously lean into the concept that they are a bickering gay couple. 

Drew:  And he talks gayer than he normally does. She pulls out the recorder and he's like, "Oh, I don't like it because they always make my voice sound all high and whiny." And he's not going to even—it's weird that he's even saying any of this because he's not going to hear his own voice on the recorder ever. 

Glen:  It's like that scene in the episode of Frasier we talked about where when Frasier is in a scene where the comedy is someone thinks he's gay, he acts gayer. 

[audience laughs]

George:  Jerry did you wash this pear?

Jerry:  Yeah, I washed it.

George:  It looks like it hasn't been washed.

Jerry:  So wash it.

George:  You hear the way he talks to me?

[audience laughs and applauds]

Sharon:  You should hear how my boyfriend talks to me.

Jerry:  What?

George:  Hey. Let me ask you something. What do you think of this shirt?

Sharon:  It's nice.

George:  Jerry said he didn't like it.

[audience laughs]

Jerry:  I didn't say I didn't like it. I said it was okay.

George:  No, you said you didn't like it.

Jerry:  Oh. Well, so what if I don't like it? Is that the end of the world or something?

Sharon:  So how did you two meet?

Jerry:  Oh. Actually, we met in the gym locker room.

George:  Yeah. Actually it was in gym class. I was trying to climb the ropes and Jerry was spotting me. And I kept slipping and burning my thighs and then finally I slipped and fell on Jerry's head. 

[audience laughs]

Glen:  Maybe George would say these things in an ordinary scene because George is George, but they push it just enough so that the joke is: George, a straight man, sounds gay. 

Emelie:  It's very strange. Why would you do this to a friend who's doing an interview for press for himself? You just keep interrupting? 

Drew:  Because George is the thoughtless asshole. 

Emelie:  All right. 

Glen:  This is also the season, though, where George has already inserted himself into Jerry's career by writing the show with him. 

Emelie:  Good point. 

Drew:  So they have way too much intimate contact with each other because they're working on this thing together. As bad as George is, Sharon's a terrible journalist because the first question that comes out of her mouth is, "So are you just a comedian, or do you do anything else?" That's—I'm glad you're going to journalism school because that's a bad way to lead into a conversation because you haven't done your research, for one, and two, "Are you just a comedian?" is a really loaded way to phrase that. 

Emelie:  Also, yes-or-no questions? Come on. Are we in amateur hour here? 

Drew:  I think she's going to grad school, though, so apparently—

Emelie:  Yeah. Fair enough. 

Drew:  I don't know. So they go back and forth, and George keeps answering in ways that are vaguely gay, and the audience is going wild. And this is one of the points where watching Seinfeld can be an alien experience to me where I watched the show when it was on, I was part of the people who were very excited for every new episode, I used to watch it in reruns—I haven't watched it in a really long time. I don't understand what is—maybe it's just because I'm a brainwashed gay liberal, but watching this, I don't understand what's so funny about the answers that George is giving. The audience is loving it. I don't know what to do with it. 

Emelie:  I feel like these same laugh tracks at people perceiving you as gay exists in sitcoms today. It's still a trope. It has never stopped being funny to normal sitcom watchers—or quote/unquote funny.  

Drew:  I guess I don't watch those shows, maybe? 

Glen:  We're both shrugging at Drew. 

Drew:  Okay. 

Glen:  To be very clear, the audience is laughing at a straight man saying things that are perceived to be gay. That is the joke. That is the entirety of the joke. Jerry's catching on and finally recognizes the reporter from the café, calls her out, and that is when we get to your favorite line. 

Sharon:  And do your parents know? 

Jerry:  Know what? 

George:  My parents? They don't know what's going on. 

[audience laughs]

Jerry:  Oh, god. You're that girl in the coffee shop that was eavesdropping on us. I knew you looked familiar!

George:  Oh, no! No!!

Sharon:  Oh. I better get going. 

Jerry:  There's been a big misunderstanding here. 

George:  Yeah. 

Jerry:  We did that whole thing for your benefit! We knew you were eavesdropping. That's why my friend said all that. It was on purpose! We're not gay—not that there's anything wrong with that. 

George:  No, of course not. 

Jerry:  I mean, it's fine if that's who you are. 

George:  Absolutely. 

Jerry:  I mean, I have many gay friends. 

George:  My father's gay.

[audience laughs]

Sharon:  Look. I know what I heard. 

Jerry:  Heard! It was a joke!

George:  All right, look. You want to have sex right now? Do you want to have sex with me right now? Let's go! 

[audience laughs and applauds]

George:  Come on, let's go, baby! Come on! 

Drew:  What was your first reaction to hearing this line? What can you make of it? 

Emelie:  Well, it's tricky because they're trying to do a good thing. 

Drew:  Mm-hmm. Like you said, they were worried it would be homophobic and they took a step to reduce that. 

Emelie:  I will say that in speaking to another lesbian friend of mine, she was saying growing up that because this show was so popular her conservative family saw this and then took that line to heart in some ways. So if ever gay conversations came up, they would throw that in whether it was in jest or in seriousness, I think because they were getting that read on it. I personally am not comfortable with the line, but I can see how it would have value to some. 

Drew:  At least in 1993, maybe. 

Emelie:  Right. 

Drew:  Right. So one thing that we always try to do when we talk about stuff is, like, "Well, this is what it might have been like in 1993, and this is how it seems now," and for certain listeners, they need us to separate those because if we conflate them they accuse us of not doing our homework. 

Glen:  Yeah. For me, the line is definitely—the words don't match the intention. They're saying there's nothing wrong with being gay, but the overreaction—and as I said, the straight histrionics of it all—is miming to the audience "It's a horrible thing that I have been perceived as being a homosexual." So for all the talk of—and again, in 1993, this is an important point to be made. There's nothing wrong with being gay, and the fact that they had to make that point is, in hindsight, just sad.

Drew:  Sad because mainstream society hadn't reached a point where casual homophobia was considered offensive. 

Glen:  Right. Again, like we talked about in the Designing Women episode, the baseline is gays convincing straight people that they are worthy of acknowledgement and sympathy-slash-empathy. But I can see that in the '90s, the way the line is treated is clearly for a laugh. It's clearly a joke, and the generous reading of it is that Seinfeld is just lampooning the sentiment and saying people who are making this point that there's nothing wrong with it are actually not comfortable with it because their characters who are famously mean and not good people are doing it. And so you could say that the show has a self-awareness to know that this line that they've added in to be a better episode of TV is in itself commentary on the PC culture that is often arguing for the politically correct thing to say in these situations but have not yet embraced the meaning of it. 

Drew:  Right—the letter of the law but not the spirit. 

Glen:  So I think it's nice that it's not lampooning conservatives. It is actually lampooning liberals. 

Drew:  That was what I eventually got to with it. My initial thought was it's a cheat because that's like saying, "Well, I have black friends, but—" and then you say something horribly offensive about black people. It's very similar to that. But then when I watched it the second time, I was like, "Okay. Maybe I can say that they are making fun of the disconnect between what they're saying and how they're acting." 

Emelie:  You really get that read when George makes the lie about his dad because that's very much the overcorrection that liberals make, like, "Oh, my friend is gay," whenever they want to say something that might not be totally PC. 

Drew:  Right, and then confused Young Drew into thinking the most gesticulating man in the entire show was a gay person when in fact he apparently wasn't. So, yeah. So the scene dissolves into another time. We're still in Jerry's apartment, and Elaine's there, and he's describing the whole situation to her and how the story's running in the NYU paper, and she's like, "Well, it's just the NYU paper. It's not going to be a big deal," which is another thing that can't happen today because—back in the day, if a story was printed on newspaper, it would only live as long as the paper survived, and then it was gone. Now that's never, ever going to be an isolated thing. She says that she'll go talk to this woman and try to convince her not to do the story, but she also won't take off her jacket. 

Jerry:  The whole thing is your fault. 

Elaine:  You want me to talk to her? I'd be perfectly willing to talk to her. 

Jerry:  I don't think so. 

Elaine:  Because you know me. I walk into a room—pfft—problem solved. 

[audience laughs]

Jerry:  She said she's going to think about it. 

Elaine:  Well, so what? Even if it does come out, it'll just be in an NYU paper. 

Jerry:  Why don't you take your jacket off? 

Elaine:  Nah. I'm okay. 

Jerry:  I'm going to try her again. 

Kramer:  Oy. Happy birthday! Faruba!

[audience laughs]

Jerry:  Today's not my birthday. 

Kramer:  Well, I beg to differ. 

[audience laughs]

Jerry:  Well, I think I know when my birthday is. 

Kramer:  Yeah. Well, you'd think so, but you'd be wrong. 

[audience laughs]

Jerry:  Maybe he's right. Maybe it is my birthday. Would you take the jacket off? 

Elaine:  Leave me alone. Get off my back about the jacket. 

Drew:  Do you have anything to make about this? 

Glen:  [chanting] I do! I do! I want to introduce Glen's Strange Metaphor Corner. 

Drew:  Okay. You've already introduced that in previous episodes, but now you're naming it. 

Glen:  I'm naming it. For me, the coat is actually a metaphor for coming out and how she's comfortable wearing the coat, she doesn't want the coat to be taken off, and everyone around her is uncomfortable because she won't take the coat off and is trying to force her to take the coat off before she is ready. 

Drew:  Oh. Okay. 

Emelie:  I also got that read. 

Glen:  Yes!

Drew:  Oh! Okay. 

Glen:  Oh, it's not so strange anymore. We're going to high five. 

[Emelie and Glen high five]

Drew:  Oh, that's a good high five. 

Emelie:  My first thought was that she might have been pregnant at this time, but I quickly looked it up and realized that she wasn't, and then I was like, "Oh. This is a metaphor." That was my next stop. 

Glen:  Yes! So Elaine leaves, and Kramer helps Jerry install the two-line phone that he has gifted him, which sort of jumps the gun on Elaine's proposed present. Of course, there's a problem with the two-line phone, and when Jerry—

Kramer:  Hello?

Jerry:  Hello? Hey, it's working. This is great. Thanks a lot. 

Kramer:  Happy birthday, buddy. 

Jerry:  Oh, wait. I got a call on the other line. 

Kramer:  Okay. Later. 

Jerry:  All right. I'll talk to you later. 

[switches line]

Jerry:  Hello?

Sharon:  Jerry, it's Sharon from NYU. 

Jerry:  Oh, hi. 

Sharon:  I was just calling to tell you I'm not going to play up that angle we talked about in the story. 

Jerry:  Oh. Thank you very much. That's great. Hold on a second. I got a call on the other line.

[switches line]

Jerry:  Hello?

George:  Hey. 

Jerry:  Hey. How you doing? You know, I got that reporter from the newspaper on the other line. 

George:  [stammers] So what did she say? 

Jerry:  Oh, she said she's not going to play up that angle in the story. She thinks we're heterosexual. I guess we fooled her. All right. I'll get rid of her. Hold on. 

[switches line] 

Jerry:  Sharon? Hello? Sharon, are you there? 

[switches line]

Jerry:  I'm back. 

George:  You know, I could hear you on the other line. 

[audience laughs uproariously]

Jerry:  What are you talking about? 

George:  I heard what you said—"Sharon, are you there?" 

[audience laughs and ooohs]

Jerry:  You heard me talking on the other line? Are you sure? 

George:  Yes, I heard you!

Jerry:  Well, maybe she was disconnected. 

George:  Maybe she wasn't. Maybe she heard the whole conversation!

Jerry:  All right. Hang on. Let me call Kramer, and see if you can hear anything. Hold on. 

[switches line]

Kramer:  Hello?

Jerry:  Kramer, there may be a problem with the phone. Hold on. 

[switches line]

George:  [hysterically] There may be a problem with the phone. Hold on!

Jerry:  Oh, no!

[audience laughs]

[switches line]

Jerry:  Kramer, this phone's a piece of junk. Goodbye!

George:  [super hysterically] This phone's a piece of junk. Goodbye!

Jerry:  Oh, no! Now she's heard everything. What are we going to do? 

George:  Now she thinks we're gay. Not that there's anything wrong with it. 

Jerry:  No, no, of course not. People's personal sexual preferences are nobody's business but their own!

[audience laughs]

[music plays]

Glen:  And the reporter hears everything, and believes that Jerry and George have tried to pull the wool over her eyes. 

Emelie:  Also, she's so bitter about it she hangs up the phone and then immediately runs with a story she said she wasn't going to run with? 

Glen:  Again, terrible reporter. 

Drew:  They don't know how journalism works. 

Glen:  Jerry has a very rushed line in the panic with George when he says, "People's personal sexual preferences are nobody's business but their own." And of course the delivery of that line is sort of what pushed me over to the fact that they're probably lampooning liberal, PC culture, because there's no sincerity in that delivery. 

Drew:  No. No. No, it's almost like "I have to say this because I'm required to, but I clearly don't believe it because people think I'm gay, and that's the worst thing in the world." As a gay person, I'm trying to think of anything I could be mistaken for that would give me the level of stress that it gives Jerry and George. Maybe if someone thought I was Republican or something. 

Glen:  Yep. That's me. 

Drew:  But here's the thing. I'd be like, "Oh, no. I don't agree with the Republican platform. Here's the things I do believe in. That's why I don't want you to think about this." But it's even harder for them to be like, "I like gay people. However, I absolutely am not." If someone thought I was, like, "Oh. I heard you were Protestant or something," I'd be like, "No. I'm not." I'd be like—there's nothing in my—yeah. 

Glen:  I heard you were a Jill Stein voter. 

Drew:  Oh, my gosh. Oh, my god, no. No. You just alienated the Jill Stein voting segment of our podcast audience. 

Emelie:  Let's also revisit that when you said Republican. We were just waving our arms in the air in agreement. 

Drew:  Right, which I understand. That was where I went to first, but I'm like—but no. I actually would be like, "I disagree with all that." So, I guess, what a tough position straight people must be in to pretend they like gay people and then not want [anyone] to think they're gay. 

Emelie:  Yeah. What hard lives those straight people have. 

Drew:  Yeah. It's tough. So then Elaine goes to Sharon's dorm. It's a very quick scene where Sharon invites her in. And again, Elaine refuses to take off her coat, just makes an angry face at Sharon, and it is assumed that she has blown the chance to clarify this situation. So then we are back at Monk's Diner again, and—

Glen:  Elaine's back-up present to Jerry is the collected works of Bette Midler. 

Drew:  I think my mom liked Bette Midler when I was a kid. She listened to "From a Distance" and the Beaches soundtrack, and this is my first perception that Bette Midler had some associate with gay. Jerry's reaction—he's not that excited by the present. That's the reason, right? 

Emelie:  I believe so. It's also right after he receives the Guys and Dolls tickets from George, so it's just laying it on thick. 

Drew:  Isn't that a lavish Broadway musical? 

Emelie:  And George still doesn't take the read on it for whatever reason. 

Drew:  George is unintelligent. George does not have a lot going for him. He's frequently the dumbest of the four, I would say. 

Emelie:  Which is why it's entirely justified at the beginning Elaine can't believe why somebody wouldn't want to break up with him. 

Drew:  So again, Jerry tries to take Elaine's coat off, and she refuses, and they physically tussle about it in the booth. And the scene ends with these two guys at the counter pointing at Jerry.

Jerry:  What do you got there? 

Man:  Oh, the New York Post. They've got an article about you. 

[newspaper rustles]

Jerry:  "Although they maintain separate residences, the comedian and his long-time companion seem to be inseparable." Oh, no! The Associated Press picked up the NYU story! That's going to be in every paper. I've been outed! I wasn't even in!

[audience laughs]

George: Now everyone's going to think we're gay. 

Jerry:  Not that there's anything wrong with that. 

[audience laughs]

Drew:  I was trying to think—our paper was like piddly-dinks compared to NYU, but they would never just pick up our story, right? 

Emelie:  No. 

Drew:  Yeah. Even when I was covering the murder trial, they never picked up any of our coverage, and we had some of the best coverage. 

Emelie:  I guess the one time they did pick us up was with the Isla Vista shooting that happened, which is by UC Santa Barbara for those unfamiliar. 

Drew:  That was the different multiple-murder incident in Isla Vista. What a terrible place we went to school. 

Emelie:  Yeah. 

Glen:  It's at this point, given the metaphor of Elaine's jacket, that I just had—I don't know if you want to save this for the end, but I just had the crushing moral quandary of the journalistic importance of outing someone. 

Drew:  Oh, yeah. I don't know what the mood was like in the '90s. I feel like we'd be less inclined to do that. I feel like even back then the idea was you would only out—I don't know. 

Emelie:  I have a question about the story itself. Is the point of the story his coming out, like announcing that he's gay? Or do they just casually talk about George and him being partners and living their lives together? Because every time they're reading clips from it, it's those kind of entendres that are happening. 

Drew:  We never understand what the article's about. If the headline is "Moderately-Known Comedian is Gay," that's not a great story. 

Emelie:  Right. If it's coverage of a local comedian and then you just happen to be mentioning his lifestyle preferences, that I could maybe run with journalistically—with permission. 

Glen:  With permission. And that's where—I'll be honest. I come down on both sides of the line, depending on the situation. Like Gawker got a lot of flak for outing Peter Th—Thiel? 

Drew:  I think it's "teel," but it seems like it should be "theel."

Glen:  Well, they outed him, their argument being that "No, no. This is important news because he is a gay venture capitalist, and that's important. It's a powerful position, and he's a good venture capitalist. It's important for representation for people who are gay in this position to be out and to talk about it." Same thing with Tim Cook. Tim Cook was in the closet for a long time and people wanted him to come out. So there are these celebrities that it's a—quote/unquote—open secret. Anderson Cooper—

Drew:  Jodie Foster. 

Glen:  Yeah. Are we doing a service to society when journalists talk about what—quote/unquote—leads have already been talking about and have known? And by sharing it with more people, is it doing a service to society? Or is it violating their rights? 

Emelie:  I think about that often because there's still that journalistic exception about calling out someone's race unless they're the first of something, like the first black CEO of a Fortune 500 company, which makes sense for historical significance in the abstract. But are we ever going to get to a point where that shouldn't be the point of the story anymore? I don't know. 

Drew:  Given that there are celebrities who are still in glass closets who—like, even straight people are aware that a certain rapper whose name sounds like Queef Latina is a lesbian and has been a lesbian for a long time. I would say that the idea is that "We're just not going to run that story because there's more harm than benefit that comes from saying that this notable woman is a lesbian." Everyone knows she's a lesbian. 

Glen:  Kevin Spacey only came out because he was accused of rape. 

Emelie:  I don't want to talk about that. 

Drew:  Yeah, no. We can bleep him out, too. 

Glen:  Okay. So it's jumping the gun, but for me, that's what this episode was about and why I think this episode is important—it's because this story ran in the AP and the nation considered it news, and the conversation hasn't been around whether that is right of the paper to do that. No one actually talks about whether or not the paper is right to print stories about his personal life without his permission. All the jokes are about the fact that there's nothing wrong with being gay—"I'm not gay. Believe me, I'm not gay. But there's not anything wrong with it." 

Drew:  We should point out that the one line we hear from it is—the next scene is they're in Jerry's apartment, and I think Jerry's reading and it says—

Jerry:  "Within the confines of his fastidious bachelor pad, Seinfeld and Costanza bicker over the cleanliness of a piece of fruit like an old married couple." I told you that pear was washed!

[audience laughs]

Drew:  This is an oddly written article. She's taking a whole perspective on it that a seasoned feature writer maybe would do, but not someone who's learning the basics of—whatever. They don't understand how journalism works. 

Glen:  So then there's a big fallout. Jerry gets a phone call from his parents. Kramer also thinks that he's gay. 

Drew:  Yeah. Really quickly, I do like, at least, how Jerry turns it back around on Kramer and is like, "You are also single, thin, and neat," and blows his mind. And we don't really see him again until the end of the episode, which is like, "Okay. Go away, Kramer." 

Emelie:  I do kind of like the way Kramer reacts, though. His first reaction is "I thought we were friends. Why didn't you feel comfortable telling me this?" It felt oddly sincere. I guess he's kind of an earnest guy, if eccentric. But it warmed my heart a little bit that that was his first question. 

Drew:  That he just missed this the entire time, that they were in love with each other? Yeah. And then Mrs. Seinfeld calls. I do like whenever the action cuts away to Del Boca Vista, where the Seinfelds live. I love Mr. and Mrs. Seinfeld. They are very endearing. 

Glen:  The only thing that's really of note in their conversation is that it's a talking point of the parents are blaming themselves. We're still in the nature-versus-nurture era of talking about being gay, and they're very much leaning into nurture because Jerry's father blames his mother for buying him culottes when he was five years old. 

[audience laughs]

Helen:  Jerry!

Jerry:  Ma, it's not true!

Morty:  It was those damn culottes you made him wear when he was five. 

Helen:  They weren't culottes. They were shorts.

Morty:  They were culottes! You bought them in the girls' department!

Helen:  By mistake! By mistake, Jerry. I'm sorry. 

Morty:  Looked like he was wearing a skirt, for crying out loud. 

[audience laughs]

Jerry:  Ma, it has nothing to do with the culottes!

Helen:  Not that there's anything wrong with that, Jerry. 

[music plays]

Drew:  Emelie, as a woman, are culottes more like shorts or more like skirts? Because I did a Google Image search, and I was not able to determine—because it seemed like a lot of things were lumped together as culottes, and I'm—what are culottes? 

Emelie:  Most popularly, they're considered calf-length, wide-legged pants. 

Drew:  So, like, capri pants? 

Emelie:  Capri length—maybe a little longer, actually. Wide legs. They kind of go wide all the way down, so they could look like a skirt. But I feel like now you actually see a lot of jeans that have the culotte vibe with that super wide leg. 

Drew:  Okay. I was looking at two legs of culottes standing together kind of looked like a skirt, and that's why it looked like a skirt. 

Emelie:  They can. Yes. 

Drew:  Okay. So they're not skirts? 

Emelie:  No. 

Glen:  Okay, now explain tennis skirts to me and where the balls are kept. 

Drew:  Oh, I can tell you that, as my mom used to play tennis. There's little loops on the back. There's these elastic loops that go on either hip, and you just put the ball in [and] it stays in there. 

Glen:  Okay, because when I played tennis when I was younger, I would just see women reach into under their skirt and pull out a ball. 

Drew:  Sometimes there's a loop down there, too. But, yeah. 

Emelie:  I'm so glad that Drew knew this because I did not. 

Drew:  Yeah. Tennis—I know a lot about tennis. I don't play very well. I will point out that Liz Sheridan plays Mrs. Seinfeld. She used to be a dancer. You can find pictures of her back in her youth. She looked sort of like a young Anjelica Huston back in her day. She had a brief but passionate affair with James Dean before he went big, and she wrote a book about it called Dizzy and Jimmy. Just google "Liz Sheridan book," "Liz Sheridan dancer." You'll see pictures of them and pictures of her back in her days of an up-and-coming dancer. It's just like—I would not have guessed you had that secret past, Mrs. Seinfeld.

Glen:  Is she Dizzy? 

Drew:  She's Dizzy. 

Glen:  I feel like that's a bad nickname for a dancer. 

Drew:  Lizzy. Liz. Liz, Lizzy, Dizzy. 

Emelie:  Oh. 

Drew:  Yeah. She didn't continue as a dancer. Maybe she got too dizzy. And Glen, she was also on ALF. 

Glen:  Oh, you don't have to tell me. I've been trying to find a gay episode of ALF just so we can talk about ALF, and a gay episode of Small Wonder, and I will find it. 

Emelie:  Fun fact—both of my brothers were in the ALF Christmas movie as extras. 

Drew:  What!

Emelie:  Yep. 

Glen:  Did they get his autograph? 

Emelie:  I think they did get his autograph, and they were each paid $60 for a day's work. 

Drew:  How did they get to work on the ALF movie? 

Emelie:  Their dad is an industry man, so they are all part of the same union. And actually, my sister is in it, too, like lighting and staging. 

Drew:  Oh. That's crazy. Glen, write that gay ALF script for us, pronto. 

Glen:  Oh, I already have it on my computer. 

Drew:  So the next scene is the confrontation between Mrs. Costanza and George at the hospital, and there's a lot going on here. I was going to say the only thing that actually made me laugh out loud—even remembering that it happened before—was her talking about how reading the news that George was gay shocked her so badly she fell off the toilet [laughter]. 

Estelle:  I open up the paper, and this is what I have to read about? I fell right off the toilet! 

[audience laughs]

Estelle:  My back went out again. I couldn't move. The super had to come and help me up. I was half naked!

Drew:  I just think Estelle Harris—Estelle Harris? Is that her last name? Fuck. Estelle—

Glen:  What am I, a wizard?

Drew:  Yes. Estelle Harris. I always confuse her with the grandma on Roseanne, who is Estelle Parsons. Estelle Harris. She's someone who did not start acting until late in life, and she's just such a comedic gift, and everything comes out of her like an explosion of pent-up, manic energy. And she is George's mother. That was the best casting they've ever done on a TV show. They actually almost could even look like they're related. And everything she says made me laugh. 

Emelie:  I feel like a read a fake piece of trivia about this scene. 

Drew:  The Fran Drescher thing? 

Emelie:  Yes. 

Drew:  Yeah. I tried to find it. I can't find it anywhere. I don't even know how that would work. 

Glen:  I'm listening. 

Emelie:  The piece of trivia is that—what is her name? 

Drew:  Estelle Harris. 

Emelie:  The piece of trivia is that Estelle Harris couldn't be available for the filming on set, so they had Fran sit in and do the lines to get the laughs from the audience, and then they just filled in the mom later. 

Drew:  Allegedly, that footage is watchable somewhere, and I couldn't find it. I tried.

Emelie:  Maybe on the DVDs? I don't know. 

Drew:  I don't want to pay for those. 

Emelie:  No. Me neither. 

Glen:  Can we just talk about the sponge bath already? 

Drew:  Yes. So—yeah. There's even a lot going on with the sponge bath. Glen, explain. 

Glen:  So actually, this is a callback to, I believe, an earlier scene in the season where—

Drew:  "The Contest." 

Glen:  Probably. 

Drew:  That is the episode where Mrs. Costanza is confused.

Glen:  Oh, yeah. Yeah, because George can't masturbate. So he was seeing this erotic sponge bath in the next bed behind a curtain—two women. So the callback is it's now two men giving an erotic sponge bath behind the curtain. 

Nurse:  6:30, Scott. Time for your sponge bath. 

[audience laughs and applauds]

Scott:  Oh, 6:30 already? I fell asleep. 

Nurse:  Let me help you off with that. Here. I'll just slip it over your head.

[audience laughs and hoots]

Nurse:  Water's nice and warm, isn't it? 

Scott:  Oh! That feels really good!

Glen:  It had a profound effect on a young, teenage Glen. 

Drew:  What was that effect, Glen? 

Glen:  A boner. 

Drew:  Oh, Glen. I knew you were going to say that. I just wanted to shame you for your boner. 

Glen:  That's fine, but this is why we have these little popped P things in front of the mic, so I can say "boner" and it doesn't pop my B. 

Drew:  That sounds like a metaphor for—

Glen:  Poppin' my B. No, but I think this scene did actually clench in my mind the fact that, like, "I am probably a gay man. I am very aroused by these two men sort of offscreen giving each other a sponge bath," and I caught my mind picturing, like, "What did that one nurse look like without his shirt on?" 

Drew:  He's an attractive nurse. That's true. 

Glen:  Very attractive. 

Emelie:  Is he the one who shows up with Kramer later? Or is it somebody else? 

Drew:  No—it might actually be the same actor because they look so much alike, but they are supposed to be different characters. I tried to figure out who that last guy was, and I didn't find a credit for him. Maybe the casting director just had a very specific type for good-looking men. 

Glen:  I do want to state it's not a terrible thing—it's a terrible thing. Any time there's a stereotype it's a terrible thing. But the fact that gay men in this era had the stereotype of being very attractive? We could have done worse. 

Drew:  Oh, for sure. 

Emelie:  The Gay '90s, right? The Gay '90s. 

Drew:  There is kind of a long history of George questioning his sexuality. There's actually more than one piece of literature online where it's like, "George Costanza is a queer character." I don't know if I would go that far, but there is an episode where he gets a massage from a male masseur. And "It moves," is his way of saying that he had some sort of penile reaction to this contact. And there's another episode where Elaine dates this guy—I think his name is Tony. He's played by Dan Cortese and he's very attractive, and George is just infatuated with Elaine's boyfriend, and they're like, "I think you have a non-sexual crush on Elaine's new boyfriend." And you could be like, "Yeah. Maybe it's not non-sexual. Maybe it's actually a thing." 

Glen:  Drew. Dan Cortese from Veronica's Closet. 

Drew:  Oh! I know him from MTV. He was on MTV, I think.

Glen:  He played basketball on MTV during that VJ basketball game or whatever. 

Emelie:  See, now here we are in my blind spot. 

Drew:  Dan Cortese? You didn't watch Veronica's Closet. It was a top-five show for a hot minute. 

Emelie:  It was the MTV. 

Drew:  Oh. Oh, yeah. You're fine. Who talks about MTV anymore? Is there any more in the hospital scene? She fell off the toilet [laughter]. She was half naked. The super had to come pick her up! It's so funny. 

Emelie:  I also don't know why it's so funny this universal truth of reading things on the toilet, which still exists now. 

Drew:  Yep. 

Glen:  Thank you, iPhone. 

Drew:  Think about how much harder it would be to fit an entire newspaper in a bathroom. That's a fairly confined space. Now it's just on a tablet. 

Emelie:  It also kind of grossed me out always, like going to the bathroom and the newspaper's sitting on the toilet, because it's been touched. 

Drew:  Yeah. Like, "What did you do?" Wait. Does that happen with women? I assumed that was just a men thing. 

Emelie:  I grew up in a house with three men. 

Drew:  Oh. It happens in public restrooms. It happened at the restroom we had at that office building we had together where someone's reading material would be left on the handicap pull-up bar thing. 

Emelie:  Yeah. That didn't happen in the women's restroom. 

Drew:  So now we're back at Monk's again. I feel like every other scene is back at Monk's. And George is like, "When are we going to go see Guys and Dolls? Do you want to get dinner beforehand?" And he says, "I don't know what to tell you." What do you guys make of the—I don't know what sort of military man he's supposed to be, but he's an officer in uniform and he comes up and thanks Jerry for his—

George:  All right. Now the play is tomorrow night. So would you like to have dinner first, or you just want to meet at the theater? 

Sailor:  Excuse me, sir. I'm sorry to bother you. I just want you to know that it took a lot of guts to come out the way you did and that you've inspired me to do the same, even though that may mean a discharge from the service. Thanks. 

[audience laughs uproariously and applauds]

Drew:  Is it funny? 

Emelie:  I don't know if it's funny because it has this heaviness to it, especially when Jerry reaches out and considers telling him the truth and then realizes how important this is for this person, in theory—or how difficult that conversation would have to be. I don't know. 

Glen:  I think Don't Ask, Don't Tell was very topical at this time, and so I don't know if it's a joke-joke or if it's just a look-how-topical-we're-being joke. 

Drew:  Yeah, because there is some laughter to the scene. I'm just like—why are those people laughing? Because I'm like, "Oh, that's—okay." 

Glen:  It's laughing because the casual misunderstanding has led to dramatic results in other people's lives. There's a ripple effect. It's comedy. 

Drew:  I guess I kind of get that. It just doesn't make me laugh, and this is one of the reasons watching Seinfeld nowadays kind of makes me feel like a space alien because I'm like, "Oh, okay. That's a thing." Old lady falling off toilet? Hilarious [laughter]. 

Emelie:  Objectively funny. 

Drew:  Yeah. Everything else—no. After that, Jerry's like, "Yeah. We're not going to go to Guys and Dolls. I'm not going to go with you." 

Jerry:  You know, I think I'll pass on the Guys and Dolls. 

[audience laughs]

George:  All right, fine. Don't go. I try and go out and do something special for your birthday, and this is the thanks I get. Everything's tainted now. 

Jerry:  Would you keep your voice down? 

George:  No, I will not keep my voice down! Nothing can make me keep my voice down!

Larry:  If you boys cannot control yourselves, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave. 

[audience laughs]

Drew:  Larry. Larry is a recurring character. He's in five or six episodes. He's the cook and manager at the diner, comes over, and he's previously established that you have to obey his rules, otherwise you're out of there. 

Glen:  His earring was very prominent in this scene. I was trying to figure out if that was a clue to us that he's gay, but it was on the wrong ear, I think. 

Drew:  I never learned what the right ear was for that. That was always very confusing for me. 

Emelie:  I think there was controversy and disagreement over which ear it was. 

Drew:  I think it was a terrible fucking system for deciding who was gay and who was not [laughter]. 

Emelie:  If you want to talk about side-of-body jewelry issues, I definitely had a professor that I met after I got married who told me I was wearing my ring on the wrong hand. He said that gay—

Glen:  How dare he?!

Emelie:  He was saying that—I think his understanding was that because I'm gay it should go on the opportunity hand. I was so taken aback by this weird assumption, I just didn't' say anything. 

Glen:  So you turned your ring around and slapped him. 

Emelie:  I really wish I had. That guy kind of bugged me. 

Drew:  I've never heard that before. There's a chance he might be mistaken. Was he gay? 

Emelie:  No. 

Glen:  You should still give him my number. 

Drew:  Yeah. So, yeah. I kind of read that as being debatably—either he's just being stern, or he's telling the gays to stop gaying it up so much in his restaurant. And then that scene ends with George realizing that Allison, his girlfriend who may have a learning disability, hasn't read the article yet, and when she does that will finally make her want to break up with him. So it literally is the next scene. They're in the car together, sitting in his car. She's reading the article, and she's like, "That's nice—"

George:  Yeah. So? 

Allison:  Well, this is nice. They mention your name. 

George:  Don't you see what it says here? Don't you understand what that's implying? 

Allison:  No. What? 

[audience laughs]

George:  I'm gay! I'm a gay man. I'm very, very gay. 

Allison:  You're gay? 

George:  Extraordinarily gay. Steeped in gayness. 

[audience laughs]

Allison:  I don't believe it. 

George:  You don't believe me? Ask Jerry. 

Allison:  I will. 

Drew:  The woman has, I would say, more problems than most of George's girlfriends, which is already the dregs of the Seinfeld universe, but yeah. Yeah. It cuts to Jerry's apartment, and it's night, and we've not seen any further developments between him and Sharon the reporter. But the lights are out, it's night, and they are heavily making out. And—

Emelie:  I was just going to say, again, Journalism 101. 

Drew:  Yeah. Well, the story's done, so she's technically—but retract the story. If you're making out with him, obviously you fucked up, Sharon. Fucking Paula Marshall. 

Emelie:  She's riding high on that international byline. 

Glen:  Wait. Would this be considered further research for the story? 

Drew:  [laughs] Well, she could do a follow-up where it's like, "Actually, no. I may have misreported certain details, including the entire point of the piece." 

Glen:  And the point of the piece was? 

Drew:  The moderately-known comedian whose pilot has not aired yet is gay, maybe. There was just no explanation of how they reconnected and how he finally proved to her, like, "Come over to my apartment so I can put my tongue in your mouth, and then you'll be like, 'Oh. You're not gay. You kiss pretty good.'" 

Emelie:  There's also just a lot of people going to others' apartments as if that's a casual thing you just do. Elaine going to the journalist's apartment? 

Drew:  You lived in New York. Is that a New York thing? 

Emelie:  Not from my experience. You meet somewhere else. Nobody's proud of their apartment. 

Drew:  Right. They tend to have pretty nice apartments on the show. 

Emelie:  Okay. 

Drew:  Again, I don't know how realistic that was for mid-90s. So, yeah. She's like, "Oh, my gosh. I'm so glad you're not gay. I was kind of into you from the start." And I'm just like—ugh [laughter]. This is why newspapers went out of business. I like at least that he points out that Sharon is very much Jerry's type because she's a Lois Lane type and he really likes dark-haired, smart women, and this one's actually a reporter which is why he would be into her. And then George busts in and puts on a big fake show of, "Oh, how could you do this to me?" in front of Allison, so Allison will finally think they're gay. 

[audience laughs uproariously]

George: Jerry! Oh, my god! What are you doing?!

Jerry:  What? 

George:  You're with a woman!

Jerry:  I know. What are you doing here? 

George:  I leave you alone for two seconds, and this is what you do? I trusted you. 

Jerry:  Would you get the hell out of here? 

Sharon:  What's going on? 

Allison:  Yeah. What's going on. 

George:  All right. Tell her. Go ahead. 

Jerry:  Tell her what? 

George:  You know. About us. 

Jerry:  Are you crazy?!

George:  Tell her. Jerry, tell her!

Jerry:  I'm not telling her nothing. Do you have any idea what you're saying?

Sharon:  This is too weird. 

George:  Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You're the girl that wrote the article. Go ahead. Tell her. 

Sharon:  I'm out of here. 

Jerry:  It's not true! It's not true!

Glen:  This is a flaw in this plan. It's typical George where he derails the primary objective with his short-term goal that is easily solvable in other ways. Like, if you want to be rid of this girlfriend, just dump her. He's too weak to do that, so he'd rather derail his and Jerry's lives and have the story continue saying that they're gay rather than do the adult thing and just dump this woman. 

Drew:  Look what happened to Susan. He was so uninterested in dumping her that she died. We're going to talk about Susan. Actually, there's a weird tie to Susan at the end of this episode. But Sharon the reporter's like, "All right. For the last time, you guys are too fucking weird. I'm leaving," and we never see her again. And then George tries to tell Allison that he's actually a porn star named Buck Naked which is a run-on that's been going through the entire episode that we haven't mentioned because it's not funny. He's just entertained at the idea of a porn star being buck naked named Buck Naked. 

Glen:  We might not think it's funny, but my dad still brings it up to this day. 

Drew:  Buck Naked?

Glen:  Yes. 

Drew:  What! Why? He thinks it's funny? 

Glen:  Because my dad is an older white male in America and everything he says is funny. 

Drew:  All right. Okay. Yeah. 

Emelie:  Wait. Just to jump back for one second. When you were talking about George's girlfriend who dies later, there was a point in this episode where he's like, "I just wish she would die already." 

Drew:  Maybe that's where that seed of an idea eventually came up, but it's actually even more complicated than that. 

Glen:  Is this a backdoor pilot to Death Note? 

Drew:  Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's what it is. They take place in the same universe. People don't realize that. The scene we're in right now ends with the door to the hallway is open, and Kramer shows up with this very attractive man, and they go into his apartment together, and everyone's like, "Huh." And then Kramer's like, "He's the telephone guy. Not that there's anything wrong with that." End of episode. Classic Seinfeld music. Freeze-frame on Jerry, George, and Allison in Jerry's apartment. The interesting thing with Allison is that she shows up again in the episode where George reconnects with Susan who he dates this season, because this is the season where they're working on the pilot, and Susan works at NBC. The relationship does not go well, and after they break up, Susan starts dating a female golf instructor named Mona. And then Mona leaves Susan for Kramer, and there's a scene where George and Susan are sitting at the diner together just bemoaning their crappy love lives. And Allison shows up, and he's like, "Oh, Allison, this is my ex-girlfriend Susan. She's a lesbian now," and they make eyes at each other. And then in the episode where the Jerry pilot airs, there's all these cutaways to every supporting character that's ever showed up. Susan and Allison are watching together. So the idea is that Allison ends up with Susan. However, many seasons later, Susan comes back and they're like, "Wasn't she a lesbian?" They're like, "Oh, it didn't take, " and that's the way they write off her being a lesbian. She's not a lesbian anymore. She gets engaged to George, and then he accidentally kills her. 

Glen:  Thoughts on Susan's sexuality? 

Emelie:  [sighs] "It didn't take" is such an awful joke. 

Drew:  Right. 

Glen:  But that's also such a sitcom—in the pilot of Two and a Half Men, John Cryer and his wife divorce because she's a lesbian—for, I think, just the pilot, and in the regular series she is not a lesbian. 

Drew:  Oh. I don't remember that. I also have never watched Two and a Half Men. That's probably why. 

Emelie:  It's just such a common trope of women propelling the plot of this guy's horrible life because his wife or girlfriend left him for a woman. That's the base of the storyline. 

Drew:  Well, the flip of it happens. Remember, when she's in Veronica Mars, her character is set up where she's mean because her husband left her for a man? Somehow the idea that your partner leaves you for a gay relationship makes it worse, I guess. 

Emelie:  I guess. That's part of why I really love that line in the Love, Simon trailer because she's like, "Were you with me because I look like a man?" and he says, "No. I broke up with you because you don't look like a man." And then that makes sense, and she's fine. 

Drew:  Yeah. That's better in a lot of ways. 

Emelie:  Yes. 

Drew:  It's like, no real fault committed. Everyone can walk away from this okay. 

Glen:  The reaction is because, like this episode, somehow homosexuality becomes straight people making it about them. 

Drew:  Well, yeah. The entire fucking episode is that. 

Emelie:  I guess that's the whole show. They make all these issues about them. 

Drew:  Again, the only gay person is the military officer who is on screen for about five seconds and we never see him again. 

Glen:  Are the two older men at the diner counter who point to the article not gay? 

Drew:  I wondered that. I couldn't figure it out. They're not credited as Gay Man #1 and Gay Man #2. So, yeah. It is an episode all about homosexuality perceived and otherwise and people's internalized homophobia, and they didn't think to write actual gay characters into it. They still won a fucking GLAAD Award. So let's go back to the GLAAD Award. Even understanding what gay representation was like on TV back then and in sitcoms, does it still kind of seem surprising this got an award from GLAAD for its commitment to gay characters? 

Emelie:  Yes, with the context of the other nominees—Angels in America? 

Drew:  So they all won. They all won in their respective fields. Philadelphia was the movie they honored. Angels in America was the play they honored. The Band Played On, I think, was in a special category for TV movie. So there were other things. Seinfeld was the TV comedy that was honored, debatably for this episode.

Glen:  It would really, for me, depend on what the other nominees were because you could argue that such a popular show talking—even considering that their main characters could be gay and how they share qualities with a gay character. And again, making the forced point "Not that there's anything wrong with it," you can argue that that is a stride in representation. 

Emelie:  Right. If they were really going for Glen's theory that this was a lampoon on liberal culture and how even they have an issue with internalized homophobia and you look at it that way, then sure, this bumps up a little more in the respectability category. 

Drew:  Trying to read what people have written about this episode, I did find an article written for this episode's 20th anniversary where it pointed out that they thought this was a good example of talking about homophobia in a way that it's not cool to be homophobic, and because the show was popular that was notable. They also credit the show for normalizing Jewish culture and bringing Jewish culture to the households of people who did not know Jewish people and said that that did that more than most other shows of the era and maybe most shows on TV ever because it's a very Jewish show and they talk about a lot of elements of Jewish culture. I never thought about that before. I was like, "Oh, that's true." There are people in—I don't know what state has the least number of Jewish people in it, but they are—everyone's fucking seen Seinfeld. So, that Kramer, he's a cut-up. He's a cut-up. He's so funny. He's not that funny. Anyway. 

Glen:  Whoa. Hot take. 

Drew:  [laughs]

Emelie:  I agree. 

Drew:  I like Kramer in small doses. I like Kramer like I like Newman where if there's an episode all about Newman you're just like, "Ugh." But a little bit of Newman is great. So if Kramer shows up to do something zany and then leaves, which is basically what he does in this episode, I'm better with it. Give me Elaine, Jerry, and George—just give me Elaine. 

Emelie:  Yeah. I wanted a lot more Elaine in this. 

Drew:  Yeah. She didn't get a whole lot to do. 

Glen:  I disagree. I feel like the jacket metaphor is very powerful. 

Drew:  I know, but I want her to have more funny lines. She doesn't even really get that many funny lines. It's a Jerry-and-George plot this episode. Anyway. Any final thoughts about Seinfeld? Anybody? 

Emelie:  Are we going to talk about the standup in the end credits? 

Drew:  Oh, that's right. So I realize how the opening standup sets up the fact that it's Jerry's birthday, which is a very small plot point. It's not major at all. It really is just the fact that he's getting a phone is the only important plot point it really does. 

Glen:  And the Guys and Dolls tickets. 

Drew:  I know, but that's just a very small joke. The phone is important to the plot. Nothing else really is. The standup at the end is about being gay and how people think that he's gay because he's not married, he takes care of himself, and his house is neat. And he says instead of thinking, "Oh, that guy over there is a little—" How would you describe this hand motion, Emelie? He shakes his hand, like—

Glen:  More or less? 

Drew:  Yeah, more or less, or that's a little iffy or something, which is apparently how Jerry Seinfeld would hand signal that someone's gay without saying it out loud, I guess, that you should mime vacuuming. I actually vacuumed before you got here, Emelie. So it's like pushing a fake vacuum and going [makes vacuum sounds]. 

Emelie:  Right, to tie it to the cleaning idea. 

Drew:  Right. It's not that funny [laughs]. 

Emelie:  It's really not. But that's the thing with all of his standup in the series. It's not funny.

Glen:  To me, it's like—in the spirit of overreaching, the whole stereotype of being very neat and clean is just tying homosexuality to being OCD, I guess? 

Drew:  I could see that. 

Glen:  Like, they're both disorders. I mean, not really. 

Emelie:  If you want to talk about that on a deeper level, if we're going to go there, yeah. OCD, if you're really concerned about your identity and keeping it to yourself or the right people, you have to be a little more controlled. So maybe there is that tie to a neatness disorder. 

Drew:  I totally think—I totally agree. The last episode we did was the Designing Women episode with a guy who was perfect. He was a perfect son, perfect neighbor, perfect student. He worked hard to make everyone think he was perfect all the time to either deflect the perception that he's gay or counters, like, "Okay. I'm gay, but I recycle." 

Emelie:  Yeah. And Glen, you were valedictorian. That's what you guys talked about. 

Glen:  Yeah. 

Drew:  [laughs] Glen loves that this is—

Glen:  Because I have not talked about it since high school. It has not mattered one iota, and so the fact that it's now mattered two weeks in a row—I am just glowing. 

Drew:  When we introduce ourselves, should I be like, "I'm Drew Mackie, stay-at-home journalist," and you can say, "I'm Glen Lakin, screenwriter and high school valedictorian"? [laughter]

Glen:  Hey. There were, like, 500 people in my class. 

Emelie:  That's impressive. 

Drew:  What was I? I was not within spitting distance. There would have had to have been a bus crash or something for me to be valedictorian. 

Glen:  I have to specify for any of my high school friends listening. We actually didn't have a valedictorian. We had top two percent, and the fact that I was also on National Honor Society and I gave two speeches for our whatever-you-call ceremony, when it came time for graduation I was like, "I don't need to speak again," and it was a big thing. And the vice principal came and spoke to me and was like, "You know, we don't name valedictorian, but it has been tradition—capital T—that the number one student speak at graduation. So if you don't do that, it'll be a big insult to the high school." And so I didn't do it. 

Drew:  Fuck you, Teach. 

Emelie:  That's amazing. 

Drew:  Those are your rules. I'm Glen Lakin. I'm moving to Los Angeles—eventually. 

Emelie:  That really resonates with me a lot because I was overachieving, and I don't know if that was for the same reason, because I didn't really come to terms with a lot of things outwardly until later in life. But I kind of pulled back from the overachieving-ness later as kind of a "fuck you" to everybody, like, "I know I can be perfect in all these ways, but that's—I don't want to give you that satisfaction. I'm going to drop out of this special honor system just so I can do more newspaper stuff."

Glen:  And I didn't go to Duke to become a doctor so I could go to Northwestern to be a film major. 

Drew:  And now you're on a podcast. 

Glen:  I also dropped out of advanced physics to take jewelry making. 

Drew:  Oh, your parents must have been crushed. 

Emelie:  You can make more money, probably, with jewelry making now. 

Drew:  Yeah. After the world ends, he can use that as a barter thing. 

Glen:  I made a belt buckle that was the logo from Sonic & Knuckles. 

Drew:  That does fit my perception of what high school Glen would make given the opportunity, or also modern Glen. Classic Glen. Yeah. 

Glen:  I haven't changed much. 

Drew:  No. No. No one changes at all. I'm good. I have nothing more to say about Seinfeld. Emelie—unless there's anything else? 

Emelie:  I don't think so. 

Drew:  Okay. Where can people find you online? 

Emelie:  Oh. I have a Twitter account that is a lot about editing, so if that's your bag—but it's my name, Emelie, which is spelled funny. So I'm going to do the thing that I also hate to do, which is spell out loud— E-M-E-L-I-E—Salot, which is actually not a realization I made until Drew pointed it out to me many years ago. But it's @EmeLiesALot, basically. It's an AIM name that I made when I was in high school and I thought was so clever, and I just kind of kept it because it's shorter than my name and works for Twitter. 

Drew:  Right. You don't lie a lot, though, do you? 

Emelie:  No. I don't know why I thought—it's one of those you're-a-kid-it's-funny funny, like a ha ha. It's better than NotAnotherLameName89, which was my other username. 

Drew:  Yeah. I'm glad—is '89 when you were born? 

Emelie:  Yes, it is. 

Glen:  Oh, my god. 

Drew:  Oh, gosh. Okay. 

Emelie:  damn. I thought I was going to get through without going there, but okay. 

Drew:  You are the youngest guest we've had on the show, I'm pretty sure. Wait. Are you 30? 

Emelie:  Not yet. 

Glen:  Do the math. '89—oh, wait. No. Yeah. 

Drew:  You are the youngest guest we've had on the show so far, so congratulations. 

Emelie:  And a woman. 

Drew:  And the most woman. Yeah. 

Emelie:  So many firsts—just to call it back a little bit. 

Drew:  Yeah. 

Glen:  Breaking that glass ceiling. 

Emelie:  [laughs]

Drew:  Yeah. Curliest hair, probably. 

Emelie:  It is quite curly. 

Drew:  So congratulations on that. 

Emelie:  Thanks. 

Drew:  Glen? 

Glen:  People can find me on Instagram @BrosQuartz—B-R-O-S Quartz—and on Twitter @IWriteWrongs—write is spelled with a W. And I'm going to start a new Tumblr for Elaine's coat. I'm not going to, but I am on Tumblr @DeadGayArt. Have I ever mentioned that before on the podcast? 

Drew:  I think on the first one, but you haven't since. You've forgotten, too. 

Glen:  Yeah. Well, I don't really post much. 

Drew:  I am on Twitter @DrewGMackie—M-A-C-K-I-E. I'm on Instagram @KidIcarus222. And yes, that is a screenname I made up a long, long time ago and just have not let go of all this time. And yeah, that's it. I don't need to—oh. We have a website. It is fairly new. Apparently we mentioned it in the previous episode. But please go to GayestEpisodeEver.com. I made it look neat, and all the episodes are there if you want to see them. If you want to follow us on the various podcast platforms, we are on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and SoundCloud is where we're based. SoundCloud.com/gayestepisodeever. Please subscribe. If you've already subscribed, give us a rate and review. It helps other people find this podcast. Write something funny, and maybe we'll read it on the nest episode. So you have a week, people. This episode is going to go live on May 3rd, and our last episode of season one is coming out on May 10th. It's going to be a Cheers episode, and Glen and I are both very excited to do that. And then we're going to take a little bit of a hiatus, and we're going to gear up towards a season two—launch date TBD. So we're not going away for good. If you want to have your rate and review read on air, we will read the best one next episode. So you have to get it up in the next few days [laughter]. If you're listening to this now, go online and give us a rate and review, and we will read it. I swear. 

Emelie:  You have to pop a B in the next few days. 

Glen:  Yeah. 

Drew:  Yeah. Wait. Which—

Glen:  Because you said "get it up," and I started laughing like a schoolgirl. 

Drew:  Ugh. You guys, grow up. I think we're done. I think we're good. 

Glen:  Bye forever. 

Drew:  Bye. 

Emelie:  Thanks for having me. 

Drew:  Thank you, Emelie. 

Glen:  Thank you. 

Drew:  Podcast over. Yay!

["From a Distance" by Bette Midler plays]

Estelle:  I fell right off the toilet! My back went out again. I couldn't move. The super had to come and help me up. I was half naked!