Gimme a Break Transformed Into a Lesbian Perfect Strangers
Added 2024-02-14 07:03:18 +0000 UTC“Joey’s First Crush” (January 28, 1987)
Few other shows changed as much as Gimme a Break, which began as a fish-out-of-water sitcom that had Nell Carter playing mom to three white girls in California but ended up with Nell and her best friend, Telma Hopkins’ Addy, co-parenting two white boys in New York. Minus the kids, it’s basically a female-female twist on Perfect Strangers, only they don’t get steady boyfriends. Perhaps in an effort to make the show seem less gay, they tossed in a happily married character… who was played by newcomer Rosie O’Donnell. This episode, which is the second of Gimme a Break’s outings to feature actual gay characters, showcases a lot of how this show ended up pretty damn gay.
… Now that I think about it, maybe the only sitcom that changed as much over its run was Ellen — and that’s pretty notable, right?
Listen to Drew on the In Retrospect podcast’s episodes about the “lesbian/Lebanese” joke (part one & part two)
Listen to our previous Gimme a Break episodes.
Learn all about Betty and Barney Hill in the Monday Afternoon Movie episode about 1975’s The UFO Incident.
Watch:
Andy Gibb dueting with Nell Carter on Gimme a Break
Gimme a Break’s famous Motown medley
Rosie O’Donnell on Star Search
Comments
I found it interesting that Nell kept asking Joey about his "girlfriend." Seems insensitive that this adult did not contemplate that maybe the crush was not reciprocated.
alex2025
2024-02-24 04:12:30 +0000 UTCI had many crushes on adult women when I was a kid, so take that for whatever it’s worth
Drew Mackie
2024-02-15 16:59:28 +0000 UTC"Kid has a crush on a adult" is a common sitcom trope but does it ring true to anybody in real life? I don't mean having an adult celeb in your spank bank I mean an actual crush on a real life adult you know. Kids are pretty dumb, but most are self aware enough to recognize that adults are not realistic targets for their romantic interests, at least in my experience.
Jay Bloodworth
2024-02-15 16:21:12 +0000 UTC
