Tickled Pink
Encyclopedia
Tickled Pink was an hour-long television special which aired multiple times during July, 2006, chronicled television shows that homosexuals have identified with over the years. The show featured such entertainers as Richard Andreoli, Kelsey Grammer
, Sandra Bernhard
, Diahann Carroll, Susan Saint James
, Bruce Vilanch
, Marc Cherry
, Lynda Carter
, Bob Mackie
, Jean Smart
, Jason Stuart
, Frank DeCaro
, Barbara Eden
, Mike Gray
, Carson Kressley
, Rue McClanahan
, Judy Gold
, Thom Filicia
, and Mario Cantone
. Tickled Pink was produced for TV Land
by Linda Ellerbee
’s Lucky Duck Productions.
, Xena: Warrior Princess
, Will & Grace
, Sex & the City, The Mary Tyler Moore Show
, Designing Women
, Friends
, Ellen
, The Simpsons
, The Odd Couple
, Laverne & Shirley
, Cagney & Lacey
, Katie & Allie, Wonder Woman
, Dynasty
, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer were also cited in Tickled Pink as shows that “became ‘homosensational’ ”, providing gays with characters who were depicted as “strong, independent and outrageous” and whose “bond with their friends resonated with their own lives”.
and Tony Randall
, also played upon the ambiguity of “two divorced, heterosexual men sharing a Manhattan
apartment, where they cooked, cleaned (or refused to clean), bickered, and negotiated the dilemmas of everyday existence together,” and “Randall’s uptight, opera-loving Felix” may have “functioned as a ‘stealth gay stereotype’ in the still-closeted world of '70s prime time
.” Alternatively, some critics contend, “if slobhood is code for heterosexuality and neatness for homosexuality (a trope that persists today in shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy), The Odd Couple might be read as an unconsummated love story between a straight and a gay man.” Even during the airing of the show, executive producer, Garry Marshall
, remembers that Midwestern focus groups were turned off by The Odd Couple because “they thought it was about homosexuals,” and Klugman says that the show’s outtake reels contain “a lot of scenes of us kissing and hugging... because the network was concerned people thought Oscar and Felix were gay, and we were trying to make them nervous”.
has long been popular among lesbians because the character lives in an all-female society of Amazons
and bests men in combat. Wonder Woman repeats are scheduled for frequent broadcast on France’s “first [television] station aimed at homosexuals”.
, Batman is gay. In an interview with Barbara Walters, Clooney said that, as Batman, he wore “a rubber suit” with “rubber nipples” and, although he “could have played Batman straight,” he preferred to portray the character as being homosexual. The portrayal of Batman as gay could have derived from psychiatrist Fredric Wertham
’s 1954 observations about the comic book character and his partner, Robin the Boy Wonder.
(Alyson Hannigan
) and Tara Maclay
(Amber Benson
). The couple lasted for 2¹⁄₂ years, which stands as one of the longest relationships in the “Buffyverse”. Willow and Tara were hailed by fans as one of the most honest and beautiful lesbian couple to grace television. Neither one of the characters fit the stereotypical lesbian stereotype (butch or promiscuous) and were never exploited for ratings.
Kelsey Grammer
Allen Kelsey Grammer is an American actor and comedian. He is most widely known for his two-decade portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the sitcoms Cheers and Frasier...
, Sandra Bernhard
Sandra Bernhard
Sandra Bernhard is an American comedian, singer, actress and author. She first gained attention in the late 1970s with her stand-up comedy in which she often bitterly critiques celebrity culture and political figures. Bernhard is number 97 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest standups of...
, Diahann Carroll, Susan Saint James
Susan Saint James
Susan Saint James is an American actress and activist, most widely known for her work in television during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.-Early life:...
, Bruce Vilanch
Bruce Vilanch
Bruce Vilanch is an American comedy writer, songwriter and actor. He is a six-time Emmy Award-winner Vilanch is best known to the public for his four-year stint on Hollywood Squares, as a celebrity participant; in the entertainment industry he is best known as head writer for the show...
, Marc Cherry
Marc Cherry
Marc Cherry is an American writer and producer, best known for creating the show Desperate Housewives.-Early life and career:...
, Lynda Carter
Lynda Carter
Lynda Jean Carter is an American actress and singer, best known for being Miss World USA and as the star of the 1970s television series The New Original Wonder Woman and The New Adventures of Wonder Woman ....
, Bob Mackie
Bob Mackie
Robert Gordon Mackie is an American fashion designer, best known for his costuming for entertainment icons such as Judy Garland, Cher, Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, Tina Turner, and Mitzi Gaynor...
, Jean Smart
Jean Smart
Jean E. Smart is an American film, television, and stage actress. She is known for her comedic roles, one of the best known being her role as Charlene Frazier Stillfield on the CBS sitcom Designing Women. She later gained critical acclaim for dramatic work, with her portrayal of Martha Logan on 24...
, Jason Stuart
Jason Stuart
Jason Stuart is an American actor and comedian. Born in the Bronx, New York, Stuart was raised in Los Angeles, California...
, Frank DeCaro
Frank DeCaro
Frank DeCaro is an American writer, performer and radio show host.The New York-born DeCaro is the author of The Dead Celebrity Cookbook: A Resurrection of Recipes From More Than 145 Stars of Stage and Screen , Unmistakably Mackie: The Fashion and Fantasy of Bob Mackie , and A Boy Named Phyllis: A...
, Barbara Eden
Barbara Eden
Barbara Eden is an American film and television actress and singer who is best known for her starring role in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early years:...
, Mike Gray
Mike Gray
Mike Gray is a writer, screenwriter, cinematographer, film producer and director.-Film and TV:Gray co-wrote the screenplay for the 1979 nuclear thriller The China Syndrome. Earlier in his career he directed and produced two documentaries on radical politics in Chicago, American Revolution 2 and...
, Carson Kressley
Carson Kressley
Carson Lee Kressley was the fashion expert on the American television program Queer Eye, where he was one of the show's "Fab Five" members. He is also the motivational host of the TV show How to Look Good Naked.-Biography:...
, Rue McClanahan
Rue McClanahan
Rue McClanahan was an American actress, best known for her roles on television as Vivian Harmon on Maude, Fran Crowley on Mama's Family, and Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls, for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in 1987.-Early life:McClanahan was born Eddie Rue...
, Judy Gold
Judy Gold
Judy Gold is an American stand-up comic and actor. She won two Daytime Emmy Awards for her work as a writer and producer on The Rosie O'Donnell Show...
, Thom Filicia
Thom Filicia
Thom Filicia is an interior designer, most famous for his role as an interior design expert on the American television program Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. He is also a co-author of a book based on the show.-Biography:...
, and Mario Cantone
Mario Cantone
Mario Cantone is an American stand-up comedian, writer and actor, with numerous appearances on Comedy Central including Chappelle's Show. He also played Anthony Marentino on Sex and the City...
. Tickled Pink was produced for TV Land
TV Land
TV Land is an American cable television network launched on April 29, 1996. It is owned by MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, which also owns Paramount Pictures, and networks such as MTV and Nickelodeon...
by Linda Ellerbee
Linda Ellerbee
Linda Ellerbee is an American journalist who is most known for several jobs at NBC News, including Washington, DC correspondent, host of the Nickelodeon network's Nick News, and reporter and co-anchor of NBC News Overnight, which was recognized by the jurors of the duPont Columbia Awards as...
’s Lucky Duck Productions.
Shows cited in Tickled Pink
In addition to The Golden Girls, Batman, and CHiPs, MaudeMaude (TV series)
Maude was an American television sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS network from September 12, 1972 until April 22, 1978.Maude starred Beatrice Arthur as Maude Findlay, an outspoken, middle-aged, politically liberal woman living in suburban Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York with...
, Xena: Warrior Princess
Xena: Warrior Princess
Xena: Warrior Princess is an American–New Zealand supernatural fantasy adventure series that aired in syndication from September 4, 1995 until June 18, 2001....
, Will & Grace
Will & Grace
Will & Grace was an American television sitcom that was originally broadcast on NBC from September 21, 1998 to May 18, 2006 for a total of eight seasons. Will & Grace remains the most successful television series with gay principal characters...
, Sex & the City, The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns that aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977...
, Designing Women
Designing Women
Designing Women is an American television sitcom that centered on the working and personal lives of four Southern women and one man in an interior design firm in Atlanta, Georgia. It aired on the CBS television network from September 29, 1986 until May 24, 1993. The show was created by head writer...
, Friends
Friends
Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
, Ellen
Ellen (TV series)
Ellen is a U.S. television sitcom that ran on the ABC network from March 29, 1994 to July 22, 1998, producing 109 episodes.The theme song, "So Called Friend" is by Scottish band Texas...
, The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
, The Odd Couple
The Odd Couple (TV series)
The Odd Couple is a television situation comedy broadcast from September 24, 1970 to July 4, 1975 on ABC. It starred Tony Randall as Felix Unger and Jack Klugman as Oscar Madison. It was based upon the play of the same name, which was written by Neil Simon.Felix and Oscar are two divorced men....
, Laverne & Shirley
Laverne & Shirley
Laverne & Shirley is an American television situation comedy that ran on ABC from January 26, 1976, to May 10, 1983...
, Cagney & Lacey
Cagney & Lacey
Cagney & Lacey is an American television series that originally aired on the CBS television network for seven seasons from October 8, 1981 to May 16, 1988...
, Katie & Allie, Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman is a DC Comics superheroine created by William Moulton Marston. She first appeared in All Star Comics #8 . The Wonder Woman title has been published by DC Comics almost continuously except for a brief hiatus in 1986....
, Dynasty
Dynasty (TV series)
Dynasty is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 12, 1981 to May 11, 1989. It was created by Richard & Esther Shapiro and produced by Aaron Spelling, and revolved around the Carringtons, a wealthy oil family living in Denver, Colorado...
, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer were also cited in Tickled Pink as shows that “became ‘homosensational’ ”, providing gays with characters who were depicted as “strong, independent and outrageous” and whose “bond with their friends resonated with their own lives”.
Gay and lesbian subtext
According to producers and critics as well as fans of television shows that are perceived to have a sexually ambiguous or homosexual theme, such shows rely upon a subtext created through double entendres, situational irony, intentional ambiguity, and straightforward gay couplings.Xena and Gabrielle
According to Liz Friedman, producer of Xena: Warrior Princess, the show’s writers played on the ambiguous relationship between Xena and her traveling companion, Gabrielle: “One episode starts with the camera looking at some bushes,” Friedman, herself a lesbian, explains. “We hear Gabrielle asking, ‘How was that?’ Xena answers, ‘Very nice!’ Gabrielle says, ‘Really? I wasn’t sure,’ and Xena replies, ‘No, no, you’re doing great.’ Then we see them, [a]nd they’re fishing—naked!” “They’re such a perfect little butch-femme couple.” However, the intent is not to affirm or to deny Xena’s lesbianism; rather, the show maintains an ambiguous position with regard to this question, Friedman declares, “the whole point behind subtext is that people can enjoy the show however they wish”.Oscar and Felix
According to some critics, the television situation comedy The Odd Couple, starring Jack KlugmanJack Klugman
Jacob Joachim "Jack" Klugman is an American stage, film and television actor known for his roles in sitcoms, movies, and television and on Broadway...
and Tony Randall
Tony Randall
Tony Randall was a U.S. actor, comic, producer and director.-Early years:Randall was born Arthur Leonard Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Julia and Mogscha Rosenberg, an art and antiques dealer...
, also played upon the ambiguity of “two divorced, heterosexual men sharing a Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
apartment, where they cooked, cleaned (or refused to clean), bickered, and negotiated the dilemmas of everyday existence together,” and “Randall’s uptight, opera-loving Felix” may have “functioned as a ‘stealth gay stereotype’ in the still-closeted world of '70s prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
.” Alternatively, some critics contend, “if slobhood is code for heterosexuality and neatness for homosexuality (a trope that persists today in shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy), The Odd Couple might be read as an unconsummated love story between a straight and a gay man.” Even during the airing of the show, executive producer, Garry Marshall
Garry Marshall
Garry Kent Marshall is an American actor, director, writer and producer. His notable credits include creating Happy Days and The Odd Couple and directing Nothing In Common, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, Valentine's Day, and The Princess Diaries.-Early life:Marshall was born in the New York City...
, remembers that Midwestern focus groups were turned off by The Odd Couple because “they thought it was about homosexuals,” and Klugman says that the show’s outtake reels contain “a lot of scenes of us kissing and hugging... because the network was concerned people thought Oscar and Felix were gay, and we were trying to make them nervous”.
Wonder Woman and her Amazon tribe
Wonder WomanWonder Woman
Wonder Woman is a DC Comics superheroine created by William Moulton Marston. She first appeared in All Star Comics #8 . The Wonder Woman title has been published by DC Comics almost continuously except for a brief hiatus in 1986....
has long been popular among lesbians because the character lives in an all-female society of Amazons
Amazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...
and bests men in combat. Wonder Woman repeats are scheduled for frequent broadcast on France’s “first [television] station aimed at homosexuals”.
Batman and Robin
According to George ClooneyGeorge Clooney
George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award...
, Batman is gay. In an interview with Barbara Walters, Clooney said that, as Batman, he wore “a rubber suit” with “rubber nipples” and, although he “could have played Batman straight,” he preferred to portray the character as being homosexual. The portrayal of Batman as gay could have derived from psychiatrist Fredric Wertham
Fredric Wertham
Fredric Wertham was a Jewish German-American psychiatrist and crusading author who protested the purportedly harmful effects of violent imagery in mass media and comic books on the development of children. His best-known book was Seduction of the Innocent , which purported that comic books are...
’s 1954 observations about the comic book character and his partner, Robin the Boy Wonder.
Willow and Tara
The television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, also had an extensive gay following because of its inclusion of a lesbian relationship between two of its characters, Willow RosenbergWillow Rosenberg
Willow Rosenberg is a fictional character created for the fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . She was developed by Joss Whedon and portrayed throughout the TV series by Alyson Hannigan...
(Alyson Hannigan
Alyson Hannigan
Alyson Lee Hannigan is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Willow Rosenberg in the cult classic television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Michelle Flaherty in three American Pie films, and Lily Aldrin on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.-Early life:Hannigan was born in...
) and Tara Maclay
Tara Maclay
Tara Maclay is a fictional character created for the fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . She was developed by Joss Whedon and portrayed by Amber Benson from the fourth to the sixth season until the character's death. Tara is a shy young woman with magical talents who falls in love...
(Amber Benson
Amber Benson
Amber Nicole Benson is an American actress, writer, film director, and film producer. She is best known for her role as Tara Maclay on the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but has also directed, produced and starred in her own films Chance and Lovers, Liars & Lunatics...
). The couple lasted for 2¹⁄₂ years, which stands as one of the longest relationships in the “Buffyverse”. Willow and Tara were hailed by fans as one of the most honest and beautiful lesbian couple to grace television. Neither one of the characters fit the stereotypical lesbian stereotype (butch or promiscuous) and were never exploited for ratings.