Episode artwork by Ian O’Phelan. “The Stranger” (October 25, 1985) Benson may have been a more conventional sitcom than Soap, the show it spun off, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t have its exceedingly weird moments — including this final season Halloween special in which Benson must [...]
Episode artwork by Ian O’Phelan. “Two Guys, a Girl and a Psycho Halloween” (October 28, 1998) Want to watch this episode, which is not streaming and is hard to find online? You can do that right now on the GEE Patreon! It didn’t want to be Friends. It [...]
The only thing better than a made-for-TV thriller with Karen Black is one where she plays dual roles. Sam is joined by actor Miguel Pinzon to talk though this “supernatural or not?” entry from 1977.
“Single White Male” (January 7, 1995) Even if you were the kind of person who watched all of NBC’s Saturday night sitcoms back in the day, the following things may surprise you: 1) Empty Nest is a solid sitcom. 2) Empty Nest was a strong ratings performer that often beat [...]
Patty Duke has a revered place in the annals of made-for-TV horror for the wonderfully bonkers CURSE OF THE BLACK WIDOW, but five years before she played the lead in SHE WAITS, a more traditional “woman in a house” chiller that also stars Dorothy McGuire and Beulah Bondi. How does it [...]
“Turkey in a Can” (November 24, 2013) Why did the fourth-season Thanksgiving episode of Bob’s Burgers make some people think Bob Belcher is bisexual? In short, it’s a single line — “I’m mostly straight” — but the real answer is a more complicated one that has to do with the [...]
“The Play’s the Thing” (November 17, 1992) The big joke with Full House never did a gay episode despite being a show about three men cohabitating and coparenting in San Francisco. However, the fifth season introduced Derek (Blake McIver Ewing), a new friend for Michelle who’s well-mannered, soft-spoken and really good [...]
More than the host of Underbelly L.A., Hadley Meares is a journalist, historian, explorer and occasional stand-in for Amy Poehler. As she prepares for the second season of this podcast, she sat down for an interview with Underbelly L.A. producer Drew Mackie about just how a girl from North Carolina comes [...]
One evening in 1958, an explosion shattered not only the quiet peace of the Christmas season but also perceptions about the World Knowledge Faith Love Fountain of the World, a clunkily named religious sect based in Southern California. It’s just one of the many cults to bloom in the area, and [...]
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rootless men flooded into Los Angeles, looking for sunshine and, often, a new beginning. Many of them ended up in the downtown district known as Skid Row, and once there, they elicited both hostile and charitable reactions from better-off Angelenos. You could say [...]
