Sketch Comedy's Greatest Gay Hits

Fox’s MadTV played hilarious tribute to a classic of gay pop culture when it offered an alternate ending to The Wizard of Oz. In this version of Oz, when Dorothy learns from Glenda that she always could return home, she becomes enraged at the realization that her entire adventure down the Yellow Brick Road was unnecessary, and heaps abuse on her former companions. As Dorothy lunges to attack Glenda, the Tin Man begins clicking his heels, and suddenly wakes up in bed next to another Tin Man. “I just had the most insane Judy Garland dream,” he gasps to his partner.

In 2006, British comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb launched a skit that was a breakthrough in terms of how same-sex couples are treated on sketch comedy shows.

In the “Surgeon and Ice Cream Taster” skits, the duo play a gay couple whose quiet domestic tensions have nothing to do with their being gay, but instead stem from their very different careers. Mitchell, playing a pediatric surgeon, comes home from work exhausted from trying to save children’s lives all day. Webb, whose character works as a taster at an ice cream factory, is clearly uncomfortable talking about his considerably more trivial job with his partner.

The most interesting thing about these skits is that there is no reason for these characters to be gay, and yet the creators elected to play them as a gay couple. This casual acknowledgement that gay couples are a part of the cultural landscape and that they have the same problems as anyone else is quietly revolutionary for television comedy.

Saturday Night Live recently did something similar with a skit about a dinner party ruined by the hosts’ attention-starved children. The two couples trapped at this terrible party include two men played by Jason Sudeikis and Fred Armisen. They’re never the target of a punch line for being gay and are as appalled by the kids’ behavior as the straight guests. There’s nothing in the skit that specifically calls for a gay couple, and attention is never drawn to the fact that they are two men in a relationship. The inclusion simply points out that gay couples are a part of many circles of married friends.

Other recent skits have mined homoerotism for laughs without playing gay sexuality as anything abnormal or disgusting. One memorable MadTV sketch featured Ike Barinholtz and Josh Meyers as two football-obsessed friends who end up kissing when their team scores.