Best Animated Character

These days, some of the smartest writing on TV is in animated television. We've no idea if it’s because the characters aren’t real (often not even human) or because writers feel they can get away with saying things that they could never get by the censors otherwise.

If we restrict ourselves to primetime, we’ve got an incredibly rich pool of characters to choose from. In fact, in the recent GLAAD report on queer representation, Fox nearly fell off the map if you excluded their animated characters.

Bob & Terry, American Dad

Bob & Terry are not only the Langley Falls newscasters, but are also out and proud gay men who hapen to be husbands. While often used just for silly comic relief on American Dad, they sometimes get their own story, and this year's presidential election gave them a juicy one since one of them is a Democrat while the other is a Log Cabin Republican.

And when Stan’s approached to speak at the Republican National Convention, he gets involved with LCR, dances to Madonna, and learns that you can’t always spot “a gay.” And if Bob and Terry can teach right-wing Stan Smith gay tolerance, there may be hope for us all.

Duffman, The Simpsons

The Simpsons have always been gay inclusive including Mr. Smithers and Marge's sister Patty. In one episode, Homer ran a gay marriage wedding chapel and once inadvertently took Bart to a gay steel mill. Fortunately, the writers don’t always hit viewers over the head with a lesson; sometimes they treat us like we’re just like them.

This past year, Homer had a business helping people break up with their significant others. And one of his customer helped was sleeping with the show’s single most butch, masculine character – Duffman, the Duff Beer spokesman. While it’s noteworthy that they treated tjos relationship just like they treated all the others (shocking!), what really caught us off guard was that Duffman’s always been portrayed as dumb, beer drinking, bimbo-surrounded frat boy.

Who knew he went home to a man?

Stewie Griffin, Family Guy

Surprising absolutely no one, Seth MacFarlane recently outed Stewie Griffin – again. Granted, he’s only one-year-old, but he's invented both a time machine and a Star Trek transporter, so we’ll just go with the fact that he’s precocious in all areas of his life.

Not every joke with Stewie works – he gets all the best one liners on the show, but some of the storylines have been known to fall flat. Despite that, we simply have no choice but to include televisions only one-year-old gay baby.

Rick and Steve, Rick & Steve, The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World

On Logo’s Rick & Steve, The Happiest Gay Couple In All The World, we have our own unabashedly queer version of Ozzie and Harriet. And our own queer Robot Chicken, for that matter. This weird cross between Legos and action figures occurs in Lahunga Beach, where nearly everyone is gay, and they tackle subjects that occasionally make us wonder if we’m watching Showtime instead.

It airs on the gayest network on the planet, so saying they manage to cover the entire spectrum of queer stereotypes is a bit of an understatement. There’s nothing sacred on this show, whether it be Lesbian Bed Death, porn, sex clubs and pretty much anything else you can think of.

This ain’t your father’s cartoon show.

Waylon Smithers, The Simpsons

The granddaddy of modern gay characters, Mr. Smithers has an unhealthy adoration of his boss, the evil Montgomery Burns. Smithers is also president of the Malibu Stacy Fan Club and is really the Jiminy Cricket to Mr. Burns, always trying to tempering his boss's desire to make a puppy fur coat or some other sort of evil.