Episodes
Year | Series | Network or station |
Episode | Synopsis |
---|---|---|---|---|
1954 | Army-McCarthy hearings | ABC and DuMont | Although focusing in the main on the supposed threat of Communists in the United States Army, the hearings also addressed the issue of homosexuality as a security risk. Special Counsel for the Army Joseph Welch engaged in gay baiting when he defined a pixie as being "a close relative of a fairy". "Fairy" is a slang term for "homosexual" and Welch's remark was interpreted as a jibe at Roy Cohn, a closeted homosexual and aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy. | |
1954 | Max Liebman Presents | NBC | "Lady in the Dark" | Russell Paxton (Carleton Carpenter), a staff photographer, oohs and aahs over an attractive male movie star just like the office girls do. Russell is perhaps the first identifiably gay character on American television. |
1954 | Confidential File | KTTV Syndicated |
"Homosexuals and the Problems They Present" | Host Paul Coates was praised in Variety following the first episode for his tasteful treatment of the topic. |
1955 | Confidential File | KTTV Syndicated |
"Homosexuals Who Stalk and Molest Our Children" | |
1956 | Open MindThe Open Mind | WRCA | "Introduction to the Problem of Homosexuality" | Local talk show produced in New York City. The episodes covered topics including whether homosexuality should be treated as a criminal or a medical matter, nature vs. nurture as the cause of homosexuality and how society indoctrinates young people into gender roles. According to host Richard Heffner, after the first episode Cardinal Francis Spellman threatened to have NBC affiliate WRCA's broadcasting license revoved. |
1956 | Open MindThe Open Mind | WRCA | "Homosexuality: A Psychological Approach" | |
1957 | Open MindThe Open Mind | WRCA | "Male and Female in American Society" | |
1957 | Confession | WFAA-TV | Local program produced out of Dallas; a 1957 episode featured an interview with a transvestite. | |
1958 | — | WTVS | "Are Homosexuals Criminal? | Local program produced in Detroit, Michigan. |
1958 | Showcase | WABD WNTA-TV |
Untitled | A general discussion of male homosexuality. Hurst planned a second show for the following day on lesbians but moments before going on the air WABD management ordered her panel not to discuss the topic. Hurst angrily excoriated station management on the air for what she saw as censorship. Following this and other clashes with the station, Hurst moved her show to WNTA. |
1959 | Showcase | WABD WNTA-TV |
Untitled | Another introductory discussion of the topic of homosexuality. |
1959 | Showcase | WABD WNTA-TV |
"Problems of the Teenager Who Doesn't Fit" | Homosexual youth. Showcase was cancelled shortly after this episode aired, in April 1959, although it is unclear whether it was this episode that led to the cancellation. |
1959 | Showcase | WABD WNTA-TV |
Untitled | Discussion of psychological and sociological aspects of homosexuality. |
1961 | Asphalt JungleThe Asphalt Jungle | ABC | "The Sniper" | Miss Brant (Virginia Christine) is a repressed lesbian who shoots girls on lovers' lane for making themselves available to boys. |
1961 | — | KQED, later syndicated to NET stations |
"RejectedThe Rejected | The first television documentary about homosexuality. |
1962 | Confidential File | KTTV Syndicated |
Title unrecorded | Covering the 1962 convention of the Daughters of Bilitis and aired after Confidential File became syndicated nationally, this is probably the first national broadcast that specifically covered lesbianism. |
1962 | Argument | KTTV | "Society and the Homosexual" | One of the few talk show entries that included a discussion of lesbianism, including an actual lesbian panelist. |
1963 | Eleventh HourThe Eleventh Hour | NBC | "What Did She Mean By Good Luck?" | High-strung actress Hallie Lambert (Kathryn Hays) is diagnosed by her psychiatrist with "lesbian tendencies". She believes her director Marya Stone (Beverly Garland) hates her, but her psychiatrist realizes that Lambert is actually in love with Stone and channeling her confusion into hostility. |
1963 | Channing | ABC | "Last Testament of Buddy Crown""The Last Testament of Buddy Crown" | Buddy drowns while trying to swim across a lake. His father (David Wayne) believed Buddy was homosexual and Buddy was taunted by his peers for being different, although the episode does not specifically identify Buddy as having been gay. |
1963 | Off the Cuff | WBKB | "Homosexuality and Lesbianism" | Local talk show produced in Chicago. |
1964 | Kup's Show | WBKB | Title unrecorded | Host Irv Kupcinet devoted an episode to a conference held by the Chicago chapter of the Mattachine Society. |
1964 | Les Crane ShowThe Les Crane Show | WABC-TV | Title unrecorded | Host Les Crane interviewed gay activist Randy Wicker, who also took telephone calls from viewers. |
1965 | — | NET | "Every Tenth Man" | An episode of the CBC Television series Other Voices syndicated to the United States. Information on this broadcast is minimal but it is known to have included an appearance by sexologist Albert Ellis. The episode is known to have been broadcast in Boston, Denver, New York City, Philadelphia and San Francisco. |
1965 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | NBC | "Unlocked Window""An Unlocked Window" | A transvestite strangles nurses to death. The killer was portrayed by professional female impersonator T. C. Jones. |
1966 | FYI | WTVJ | "Homosexual""The Homosexual" | Locally produced program that came out "against the homosexual child molester and toward the parent who never thought it could happen to his or her son". Guests included representatives of the Dade County Sheriff's Department, the Florida legislature and Richard Inman, president of the Mattachine Society of Florida. |
1967 | David Susskind ShowThe David Susskind Show | Syndicated | "Are Homosexuals Sick?" | Susskind did indeed believe that homosexuals were mentally ill but also believed that they should be treated with compassion and not punished for it. |
1967 | CBS Reports | CBS | "CBS Reports: The Homosexuals" | The first network documentary about homosexuality, aired March 7, 1967. Gay men were interviewed in shadow and from behind potted plants. The episode was widely condemned, and anchor Mike Wallace later repudiated his participation. |
1967 | N.Y.P.D. | ABC | "Shakedown" |
Police track down a blackmail ring targeting closeted gay men. Homophile leader Charles Spad (John Harkins) is most likely the first self-identified gay character on broadcast television. James Broderick plays a gay construction worker. |
1967 | Joe Pyne ShowThe Joe Pyne Show | Syndicated | Title unrecorded | Pyne interviewed couple and early gay rights activists Harry Hay and John Burnside. |
1968 | CBS Playhouse | CBS | "Secrets" | A mother (Eileen Heckart) is on trial for murdering her gay son and a man (Arthur Hill) refuses to say why he cannot serve on the jury. A supporting character, Cary (Barry Nelson), may be gay. |
1968 | Judd, for the Defense | ABC | "Weep the Hunter Home" | A father (Harold Gould) fears that his son's best friend (Peter Jason) is a homosexual and that he is trying to turn his son (Richard Dreyfuss) gay. The boys are mixed up in a phony kidnapping scheme. |
1969 | Bold Ones: The LawyersThe Bold Ones: The Lawyers | NBC | "Shriek of Silence" | Barry Goram (Morgan Sterne) murders gubernatorial candidate and long-time friend Stephen Patterson (Craig Stevens) after Patterson discovers Goram is gay and fires him from his campaign staff. |
1969 | N.Y.P.D. | ABC | "Everybody Loved Him" | A successful film producer is murdered by a closeted and psychotic elevator operator (Walter McGinn). |
Read more about this topic: List Of Pre-Stonewall Riots American Television Episodes With LGBT Themes
Famous quotes containing the word episodes:
“Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-mens existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history?”
—Joseph Conrad (18571924)