On Wednesday, September 29th, 1976, the brand new sitcom Alice got a visit from the Gorton’s
Fisherman, who revealed a closely-guarded secret:
“Jack’s gay.” “Whaaaat.”
That very same day the movie Norman in that You opened, with a storyline in which Sanford
and Son’s Redd Foxx discovers that his son is gay...
“Norman used to be the all-American boy. Now he has purple drapes.”
This was just one day after a similar discovery on the season premiere of the show Family
…
“I got busted in a gay bar.” “Why would you got to a place like that?”
[Stares in homosexual]
And one day before TV cop Barney Miller got a visit from two Greenwich Village regulars…
“Supreme Court upholds anti-gay statute.” “Nine old men who dress in black robes and
they say we’re peculiar.”
The same day they showed up on Barney Miller, The Nancy Walker Show introduced America to
one of the first recurring gay characters on American television. And David Brenner’s
postponed-to-this-day sitcom Snip was scheduled to debut with another recurring gay character.
A week later, Bob Newhart’s show got a gay patient…
“Just what the world needs, a little more gaiety.”
A month earlier, an innocent man went into hiding from the mob at a gay bathhouse in
the movie The Ritz.
“You are not my type. I just want to help you find yours. Hello!”
And a month later, Lindy put everyone in their place in the movie Carwash:
“Honey I am more man than you’ll ever be, and more woman than you’ll ever get.”
And then Cloris Leachman’s boyfriend on the show Phillis came out:
“I want everyone to know that I’m gay and I have this woman to thank for it.”
Meanwhile David Bowie had just come out in Playboy as bisexual. Elton John was about
to come out in Rolling Stone. Mary Hartman Mary Hartman had just featured the first recurring
gay married couple on television. The Rocky Horror Picture Show had just had its first
midnight screening.
“It’s not easy having a good time.”
There was so much queer culture in the air in 1976 that one cultural commentator wrote
an article calling it “the year of the f--.”
“It’s true, but he shouldn’t say it.”
And all that gayness reached its heaviest concentration during one super queer week
in late September. So … what happened?
Hey everyone, I’m Matt, I make videos about pop culture. And the same year that America
celebrated its bicentennial, a queer tidal wave swept across the nation, impacting music,
film, theater, and particularly TV. It all culminated in the gayest week in television
history. We’re going to take a look at just what happened, and we’re going to use the
sitcom Alice as an example.
First, a little background on Alice. It was a half-hour sitcom that premiered in 1976,
based on the 1974 film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. The movie was directed by Martin
Scorcese, and it’s a gritty, often violent story about a single mother working in a seedy
diner.
“But I’m not gonna let anybody stop me this time!”
Also, fun fact, it features the first known appearance of Laura Dern.
“Laura Derrrrrrrrrn”
For some reason, somebody thought this would be a good basis for a sitcom. And two years
later, Alice began its regular run on CBS. The show took a very different approach from
the movie. It’s also about a single mom working in a diner, but we’ve gone from
gritty to...
“Smart women turn me on.” “Mel… ducks turn you on.”
The movie has the energy of Taxi Driver… this show’s energy is more like Taxi.
“I’m not talking about bicycles. I’m talking about bisexuals.”
“So am I.”
Alice stars Linda Lavin as Alice, a wisecracking single mom and waitress, and non-nonsense
Flo, who had an iconic 70s catchphrase:
“Kiss my grits.”
Fun fact, this was originally going to be “Kiss my honeydew” but nobody laughed
and they changed it. I don’t know WHY “kiss my grits” is funnier, but it is.
The first regular episode aired on September 29, and it’s entitled “Alice Gets a Pass.”
We open on Mel, the diner’s owner, informing the ladies that his old college friend Jack
is coming to town. Jack’s a former football player and they’re delighted to see that
he’s tall, strong, and handsome, leading to what I WISH had become an iconic 70s catchphrase:
“He can fill MY closet with whipped cream anytime he wants.”
By the way, Jack’s played by Denny Miller — in the 50s he was the first blonde Tarzan,
and in the 90s, the Gorton’s Fisherman.
“Do we know how to reel ‘em in or what?”
He and Alice hit it off, and they hang out a couple of times. He even gets along with
her son, Tommy, and Alice suggests that they go on a fishing trip together...
“Would you like to take Tommy with you?” “Hey, that’s a great idea.”
Can you guess where this is all headed?
“You’ll figure it out.”
Jack realizes that his get-togethers with Alice are starting to feel like dates, and
he feels he has to explain something to her:
“I’m gay.”
And at first, Alice handles the news pretty well! She’s surprised, but she’s not mean
about it. She still wants to be his friend.
“I felt you were the kind of person I could have an honest up front relationship with.
Was I wrong?” “No, certainly not.”
Pretty good coming out for the 1970s! Only Phyllis did it better:
“I’m gay.” “Oh, that’s wonderful!”
But after Jack leaves, Alice remembers that she just told him that he could take her son
on a fishing trip. And while she’s open to being friends with a gay guy, she not sure
she wants to let him spend time with her kid.
Now, Alice wasn’t the only person feeling anxious about children being exposed to queer
people in the 1970s.
Starting in the late 60s, more gay characters and stories started popping up in mainstream
media than ever before. There were movies like The Boys in the Band, Cabaret, and The
Gay Deceivers…
“I may not know my flowers. But I know a bitch when I see one!”
There were queer storylines on TV shows like Marcus Wellby, Mary Tyler Moore, and All in
the Family...
“Why don’t you call me … mister.”
Disco and glam rock introduced a queer sensibility to music, with artists like Sylvester finding
mainstream success …
“You make me feel … mighty real…”
That was all happening at the same time as queer political advances. It was the time
of the first Pride parades, homosexuality being declassified as a mental illness, and
a handful of states decriminalizing homosexuality.
But not everyone was happy about that. Conservatives claimed that exposure to gay people would
harm children, and they demanded that TV networks censor gay content — along with any sex
and violence.
At first, networks resisted. But then in 1974, NBC went a little too far, and broadcast a
TV movie that featured a particularly shocking same-sex assault. Congress and the FCC took
notice, and threatened to pull the broadcasters’ licenses. In response, NBC, CBS, and ABC had
to scramble to prove that they could self-regulate, and so in late ‘74 they created something
they called The Family Hour. It was a block of programming from 8 to 9pm that they promised
would be free of any objectionable content, and would have warnings about anything that
might offend viewers.
That included sex, violence … and gay characters.
“My job is to make sure this program is morally upright and cultural and wholesome.”
“You got your work cut out for you, bird.”
The Family Hour went into effect at the start of the fall season in 1975. At last, America’s
children were safe — or at least, that’s how it was supposed to work.
So while Congress and broadcasters were concerned about the safety of America’s children,
so too was Alice worried about the safety of her own kid. Should she let Tommy go on
that fishing trip?
The next day at work, she’s stressed and distracted, and finally takes Flo aside to
explain why:
“I went out with a guy I really dug and he turned out to be gay.” “Whaaaaat.”
Alice doesn’t mind that he’s gay. But just like those concerned conservatives, she’s
worried that he might be a threat to her kid.
“I asked Jack to take Tommy fishing with him but now I’m not sure I want him to go.”
“Oh you mean because Jack is a…”
On one hand, Alice has a feeling her anxiety is unfounded…
“Maybe you’re right, I’m just being silly and narrow minded.”
“Of course you are.”
...but on the other hand she just can’t shake that anxiety.
“So what are you going to do?” “Tell Tommy he can’t go.”
“Good.”
Okay, she made her choice. But the next day, she starts regretting it.
“I’m just upset. I told Tommy he couldn’t go but I didn’t tell him why.”
After the Family Hour went into effect in 1975, the TV industry had regrets of their
own. Executives quickly discovered that it was a huge burden — for a couple of reasons.
For one thing, banishing all sex, violence, and homosexuality from the 8 to 9pm block
meant that they had to keep changing the schedule, moving shows from one time slot to another
depending on content.
The Family Hour was also a huge flop with audiences. Ratings plummeted, and a lot of
the shows created to fill the Family Hour slot were almost immediately cancelled.
But one of the biggest problems was how it tied the hands of creators. Networks kept
interfering with shows, forcing them to cut even innocuous content — including anything
gay. When the show Phyllis wanted to have an episode where a gay character came out,
CBS told producers to replace the word “gay” with a limp wrist gesture.
“You’re all sick!” “Oh, be nice!”
Meanwhile, movies, theater, and music were having a gay old time. 1975 was a big year
for queer themes in films, with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Saturday Night at the
Baths, and The Naked Civil Servant.
“You cannot touch me now. I am one of the stately homos of England.”
It was also the year of A Chorus Line, and Boy Meets Boy. And just a few years after
a gay character appeared in the musical Coco, played by Rene Auburjonois — that’s Odo
from Star Trek.
“Every sixteen hours, I turn into a liquid.” “I can swim.”
There was also a musical called, and this is real, Let my People Come, featuring a song
with the title…
“I’m Gay.”
“I’m gay … I’m gaaaaay …”
For more about all these shows, check out my Patreon — I just posted a bonus video
about all the queer stuff happening on Broadway in the 1970s.
1975 was also a big gay year for music, with the release of Bohemian Rhapsody by the band
Queen, which thanks to frontman Freddy Mercury had a super queer aesthetic.
“Mama … oooooooh …”
Also released this year: “I Was Born This Way,” not the Lady Gaga version, but the
disco anthem that she said inspired her song decades later.
“Yes I’m gay. T’aint a fault, it’s a fact, I was born this way…”
This was all accompanied by a huge surge in real-life queer activism. The first Prides
were taking off, openly queer people were being elected to office for the first time,
many states were decriminalizing homosexuality — including California, where a lot of TV
and film was made. This was all great material for TV shows, or at least it would have been
if they could have used it.
Behind the scenes, queer activists were meeting with producers and pressuring them to feature
queer stories on their shows. And producers wanted to do just that — some shows, like
Barney Miller, had gay scripts ready to shoot. But the Family Hour was standing in the way,
to the aggravation of just about everyone.
Finally, The Writer’s Guild, The Director’s Guild, The Screen Actors Guild, and producer
Norman Lear himself sued the networks to get the Family Hour overturned. The whole thing
was turning into a huge source of frustration.
Back on the show, Alice is feeling increasingly frustrated and distracted at work as she continues
to regret telling Tommy he couldn’t go fishing with Jack.
Jack’s frustrated too, and comes to the diner to ask her what happened.
“Why won't you let Tommy go. Is it because I’m gay?”
“Yes.”
She’s swamped with orders. So he helps her in the kitchen while they talk, which seems
a little unsanitary but then again if you can’t trust the Gorton’s Fisherman who
can you trust?
“Trust the Gorton’s Fisherman…”
Alice explains her reasoning:
“Part of being a parent is protecting a child. And I’d just rather that Tommy didn’t
go at this time.”
That may sound reasonable at first. But he asks her to consider WHY she thinks Tommy
needs to be protected from him.
“If I were straight and you had a 12 year old daughter, would you trust me with her?”
“Yes, I suppose I would.” “There’s no difference, Alice.”
That puts things in perspective for Alice. She realizes that her anxiety about her son
being around a gay person isn’t based on anything real, but on prejudice. She knows
Jack isn’t a threat, but she treated him like he is. And to his credit, he doesn’t
tell her what to do…
“I don’t agree with your decision about Tommy but I understand your right to make
it and I respect that.” “Thanks.”
But he also doesn’t have to. As he’s on his way out:
“Take Tommy with you.” “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
What made her change her mind? Well, here’s how she explains it:
“When I told Tommy he couldn’t go, I just felt awful. Especially after the way he looked
at me, and then the way you looked at me, and the way I look at me.”
It’s clear — she was wrong. Her gay friend wasn’t a threat at all, and preventing her
kid from spending time with him was just making everyone unhappy for no reason.
As the 1975 season wore on, the TV industry was coming to a similar realization. The Family
Hour kept screwing up the schedule and chasing viewers away. Meanwhile, that Norman Lear
lawsuit was proceeding through the courts, getting close to a ruling that everyone knew
might overturn the whole Family Hour altogether.
Finally, in autumn of 1976, it was time for the start of the new television season — the
time of year when ABC, CBS, and NBC launched their new shows all at the same time. And
this year, it seemed like all three were placing bets on whether the Family Hour would last.
NBC, whose TV movie kicked off the whole Congressional investigation that led to the Family Hour,
held back on putting anything gay in their premieres. The network had originally planned
on launching a show called Snip, which featured a gay hairdresser. But at the last second
they postponed it, first by a week, then by a few months, and then indefinitely. To this
day, it’s never aired in the US. When it came to premieres, there was nothing queer
on NBC.
But ABC and CBS went as hard as they could. It started on Tuesday with the season premiere
of the ABC show Family, in which a teenager finds out one of his friends is gay:
“I knew guys were supposed to have homosexual feelings, but I knew with me it was something
deeper.”
Then on Wednesday, this Alice episode aired on CBS.
“New comedy! Alice!”
On Thursday, The Nancy Walker Show premiered on ABC. That featured a recurring gay character
played by Ken Olfson, who said in interviews that he didn’t like labels but that he’d
had bisexual experiences. Sounds like fun.
That same night, on ABC, the sitcom Barney Miller, set a a police station in Greenwich
Village, aired an episode featuring two gay characters helping out at the station.
“What did you do to the coffee?” “Well it was nothing special. It just takes
a unique talent.” “I was afraid it was something like that.”
And not to be outdone, the next week The Bob Newhart Show on CBS added a recurring gay
character to the therapy group — I have a whole video about that episode.
“Would you care for, uh, coffee, tea, fruit? Coffee?”
So why was there such a sudden explosion of queer content in such a short span of time?
Well, I think there were a couple things going on.
In the early 70s, there was a rise in primetime showing sexual or violent content. That prompted
a backlash from conservatives, who used the threat of pulling licenses to force the networks
to self-censor — and caught up in that censorship were shows that included queer characters
and storylines.
But it turns out there was just no putting the gay genie back in the bottle.
“Let’s work with me here.”
Not only did networks, producers, and audiences hate the new rules, but queer content continued
to blossom in other entertainment. Over the next year, TV networks felt more pressure
than ever to bring queer characters back. And their first chance to make it happen was
the start of a new season when they could launch all new shows and shake up old ones.
So when the 76 season began, what did audiences see? A week front-loaded with new and returning
shows full of characters and storylines that the networks knew would get attention.
It was a perfect storm of conditions that put gay characters in the spotlight all week
long — and then again and again over the next couple months.
And what ever happened to the Family Hour? Well a few weeks after these shows aired,
a judge in California ruled that it was never even legal to begin with. Turns out that because
the FCC forced the networks to adopt it by threatening to pull licenses, the FCC was
actually violating the First Amendment. Whoops!
Just like that, the Family Hour was gone for good.
So at the end of the episode of Alice, she tells Tommy about Jack:
“Tommy, Jack Newhouse is a homosexual.”
Here’s his response:
“The way kids talk, I thought you could always tell. I don’t care though.”
For the brief time it lasted, that Family Hour treated gay characters like they were
some kind of threat to kids.
But just like there was no reason to stop Tommy from going on that fishing trip, stopping
kids in from seeing queer characters on TV didn’t protect anyone, because those characters
were never a threat to begin with. Banning them just made everyone unhappy — the shows,
the networks, the viewers.
After all that hand-writing about protecting kids, both on this one show and in real life,
the fact is, when kids find out that gay people exist, the reaction is always the same: So
what?
In making this video I found a lot of great stories about the tons of shows and movies
and songs and plays with queer themes from around this time. I have videos here on YouTube
about some of them, like the show Phyllis and The Bob Newhart Show, which aired later
in the same season. And I’m posting a bunch of bonus videos on Patreon about others — check
that out at Patreon.com/mattbaume.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an announcement to make.
“I’m gaaaaaay.”