Ellen: When Ellen Talks, People Listen

Ed Begley, Jr. as himself

Ellen: When Ellen Talks, People Listen
ABC
July 15, 1998
Sitcom
DVD
C

Mike Larsen wrote this pointless episode in which he plays the Paper Suit Guy.  It's set at the radio station (KPOV), so Kevin McDonald and Susan Norfleet return as Chuck and Julie.  Ellen speaks out on her radio show about how people aren't willing to help each other, so she strikes a chord, transforming L.A. and helping Paige meet a nice guy played by Judge Reinhold.  But the experience sours and we're left with a message of what?  We should reach out to each other even though it'll probably go badly?  Someone else might've made this darkly funny, or at least sharpened the Begley self-parody, but it's understandable why this first aired during the summer.  (It's the penultimate episode.)

Old Woman Amzie Strickland was already playing old on two episodes of The Bob Newhart Show and one episode of Three's Company (as Gladys Moore, "Jack's Other Mother"), and she was on That Girl twice.  Diana Theodore, who had an unknown role on Roseanne in 1995, plays a Young Woman here.  And, yes, that's Jane Brucker being marginally funnier than she was on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, here playing the news reporter Mimi Samuel.

Ellen: A Hollywood Tribute

Ellen: A Hollywood Tribute
ABC
May 13, 1998
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Linda Ellerbee hosts this hour-long mockumentary about Ellen's career, going back to the 1920s, with this sitcom starting in 1959.  The writing by Tim Doyle, who wrote a couple Roseanne episodes, is uneven but I like the various pastiches of different eras and styles.  My favorites are the 1950s guess-the-Commie game show and the early '70s cartoon about "Ellen and the Fun Bunch" (in outer space with the Harlem Globetrotters, of course).

Celebrities I didn't tag include Jennifer Aniston, Bea Arthur, Orson Bean, Richard Benjamin, Diahann Carroll, Glenn Close, Tim Conway, Cindy Crawford, Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Christine Lahti, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Mary Steenburgen.

Steven Anderson, who was a Young Man on The Bob Newhart Show in 1976 and Higgins on Three's Company in '81, is a Bookish Man here.  Jim Doughan played Amazing Dave on Who's the Boss? and is a Camera Assistant here.  Phil Leeds, who was on a few Roseanne episodes, is one of the Comedians here.  Man #1 Gene Allan Poe played a Salesman before.  Dan Finnerty, who previously was a Doorman on this show, plays both Crew Member Dan and Tom.

Ellen: It's a Gay, Gay, Gay, Gay, Gay World

Ellen: It's a Gay, Gay, Gay, Gay, Gay World
ABC
February 25, 1998
Sitcom
DVD
C+

This is a somewhat heavy-handed story where Spence dreams that he's a closeted heterosexual in a world where homosexuals are the majority.  The best jokes here are name-drops of celebrities, but this episode feels like it needed a couple more drafts to make the writing, by David Walpert, sharper and/or subtler.

Bunny Summers, who was a Wardrobe Lady on That Girl and Mrs. Cassio on Who's the Boss?, is "Mom" here.

Ellen: Ellen in Focus

Ellen: Ellen in Focus
ABC
February 11, 1998
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This is the only Ellen story by Leif Sandaas, who did four for Roseanne, and it has some mild satire of television, modern and older.  Paige comes up with a cop show where one cop is short and then she pressures Ellen to become part of the focus group of ordinary people evaluating the pilot.  Ellen is very persuasive, but then Paige's short boss wants her to replace the short cop with his busty blonde starlet girlfriend.

Roger Eschbacher, who's Derek here, was a Cop on the show in '95.  This is the 100th Ellen episode.

Ellen: Escape from L.A.

Ellen: Escape from L.A.
ABC
January 28, 1998
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This Himmel & Nelson story has Ellen and Laurie going on vacation together, to San Diego, and finding that they have very different travel styles, but things are more fun when they're together.  I was surprised the communication was so bad compared to usual, but I do like that, except for the mix-up over a king-sized bed, this episode is more about universal issues for couples than specifically lesbian issues.

In a nice touch, the couple that they hang out with one night is interracial, with no mention of that in the dialogue; the actress Candy Ann Brown was Cindy on What's Happening!! in ''79.  Larry Cedar, who was a nameless Soldier on M*A*S*H in '80 and Bradley on Who's the Boss?, plays the Desk Clerk.  This is DeGeneres's 100th show I've reviewed, since she was also on an episode of Roseanne.

Ellen: The Funeral

Ellen: The Funeral
ABC
January 14, 1998
Sitcom
DVD
B

In this Matt Berry story, Ellen finds out that Laurie's father, who rejected Laurie when she came out, has recently died and Laurie doesn't want to go to the funeral.  Ellen is sweet and supportive throughout the episode.  And she also realizes that there are times to make a statement and times when there are other things going on.  Kayla Murphy returns as Holly and I like the continuing thread of her grandfather-granddaughter relationship with Ellen's dad, as well as the contrast between Ellen's supportive family and Laurie's family where only her sister has accepted her.

This is the 98th Ellen episode and it aired in '98.

Ellen: All Ellen, All the Time

Ellen: All Ellen, All the Time
ABC
December 3, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
C

Ric Swartzlander wrote this episode that doesn't really work.  Ellen gets a job at a radio station, where she meets Julie and Chuck (Susan Norfleet and Kevin McDonald, both of whom would return).  Julie is the boss but doesn't like dealing with people, while Chuck sexually harasses Ellen in what's meant to be a comical way.  (I'll admit I do like the Gene-Shalit mustache, which is also on his T-shirt caricature.)  When she bluntly tells him no, he runs off and she has to do the show for the next four hours.  I can see that they were trying to set things up so that Ellen could sort of do a one-woman performance piece, but it's clumsily handled and I don't buy that someone that for three and a half years we've seen as being too nice would choose to be obnoxious to draw in listeners.  The Ellen established on the series would've rambled about her childhood or sung a capella.  Nonetheless, she's a hit with the radio listeners and keeps this job.  (And Chuck comes back, not having learned his lesson, as the tag proves.)

DeGeneres's then girlfriend, Anne Heche, plays the Woman at Next Table who refuses to give her a napkin, and Heche would return in a different role.

Ellen: G.I. Ellen

Ellen: G.I. Ellen
ABC
November 5, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
C+

Ellen joins her father's Civil War reenactment group, where she has to deal with Sgt. Timko (Lou Gossett, Jr. in an obvious nod to his Officer and a Gentleman role).  Meanwhile, she suspects her father of having an affair with a "nurse" named Betsy (the still lovely Angie Dickinson).  This Mike Larsen story feels like a throwback to earlier seasons, since it has nothing to do with Ellen's struggles with her sexuality.  Paul Feig, who was Pete on Roseanne and who would go on to, among other things, direct the recent Ghostbusters, here plays Peterson. 

Ellen: Gay Yellow Pages

Ellen: Gay Yellow Pages
ABC
October 15, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Tod Himmel and Lisa K. Nelson's first of two Ellen stories has Peter encouraging Ellen to use the object in the episode title, but the plumber Ellen hires from it is incompetent.  Then she finds out that the good plumber her dad recommended is gay.  It feels quaint to have a character explain the meaning of the rainbow flag, but I think they were still trying to get the mainstream audience used to all this.

Ironically, Meagen Fay, who plays "rigid" (Peter's word) Amy, was stick-up-her-ass neighbor Kathy Bowman on Roseanne 

Ellen: Social Climber

Ellen: Social Climber
ABC
October 1, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
C

In Mike Larsen's first of three Ellen stories, Ellen tries to impress her lesbian fitness instructor by pretending to be an experienced rock-climber.  Jack Tripper could sometimes get away with this sort of deception, comedicly I mean, but as Paige, of all people, says, Ellen came out so that she could be more honest.  This would've been a C- but I like the twist at the mountaintop.

Ellen: Guys or Dolls

Ellen wonders, "Why must my dreams be so cryptic?"

Ellen: Guys or Dolls
ABC
September 24, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
B+

Spence and Paige double-date with Ellen and a sort of stupid but pretty woman, but when Ellen finds out that the restaurant owner is her ex-boyfriend Dan, she makes a connection that surprises her and everyone.  William Ragsdale is just as adorable as ever and here Dan proves to be an even greater guy than before, accepting Ellen for who she is and respecting her boundaries even when she's not sure of them herself.  At the time, this very funny yet insightful season-opener, the first of three Ellen stories written by Ric Swartzlander, made me wish Ellen were bi, but at least the possibility was put out there.

Both Joe and Audrey are absent, and indeed it's unclear at this point if they're still working at the bookstore.

Ellen: Moving On

The more things change....

Ellen: Moving On
ABC
May 14, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
B+

In this Flebotte & Herschlag story, Ellen finally moves into her house, but the title has other meanings.  When Audrey, who is enthusiastically supporting Ellen's sexual identity every chance she gets, creates a "sisterhood" display for books about lesbianism, Ed objects.  Ellen comes out to him and he pretends nothing has changed, but he lies so that she will no longer babysit his daughters, seven-year-old Emily and (probably six- or five-year-old) Willa (Cara Rose and Sara Dampf for the last time).  Meanwhile, Paige is uncomfortable around Ellen now, feeling like their relationship has changed.  Paige comes around but Ellen realizes that Ed won't, and she quits the bookstore.  I like how the episode can go from serious moments to Three's-Company-like farce, as when Ed misunderstands Ellen's relationship to her realtor Margaret (Nancy Lenehan for the last time).  And this time the Bee Gees sing in the title sequence.  All in all, the season ends much better than it starts.

Ellen in its fourth season ranges from C to A-, averaging out to a B-, but then fourteen of the episodes are B-s.  As I recall, the main change for the final season would be that more (but not all) storylines would deal with Ellen's sexuality, despite a skittish ABC.  The supporting cast would fade further into the background, which is not necessarily a bad thing, even for a series originally called These Friends of Mine.

Ellen: Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah

Ellen: Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah
ABC
May 7, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
B+

While this is less famous than the previous episode, it's still a very good and very important one.  Ellen comes out to her parents and surprisingly it's her father who has more of a problem with it.  Not that her mother is ready to give up on the hope of Ellen meeting Mr. Right, but her father doesn't even want to talk about her orientation.  They both come around in the end again of course, but along the way there is more pain and sadness than is typical for this series.  The scene with her father's "Morganville" train set is funny but also makes some points.  And of course her mother wants to fix her up with a single female doctor.

Juliana Morgan, here the Lesbian's Daughter, earlier was a Latte Customer.  Waiter James Hong looks much the same as he did as a nameless Man on The Bob Newhart Show a quarter century earlier; he was also Peking Tom on Soap (the character name typical of the lame humor of that series' last season) and Thomas Ping on Who's the Boss?  (But he must've been the only Asian-American actor of that era not on M*A*S*H.)  Laraine Newman is instantly recognizable as the Over-Supportive Parent, but I didn't realize till the credits that the moderator was a still female-identified Chastity (later Chaz) Bono.  Joan Jett rocks out in the title sequence.  Jan Nash, the writer of this episode, didn't work on any other of my shows.

Ellen: The Puppy Episode

Ellen: The Puppy Episode
ABC
April 30, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
A-

Ellen DeGeneres's story was turned into a teleplay by staff writers Driscoll, Newman, Savel, and Stark.  It would win an Emmy and change television forever.  Forty-two million people tuned in.  For a couple weeks I decided I was a lesbian.  (Then I became deeply infatuated with a man and went back to identifying as bisexual, like I had since I was a preschooler.)

But is it still entertaining?  Heck yeah!  It is sharp, hilarious, joyous, and a little bit heartbreaking.  Even things like Ellen's awkwardness and babbling fit remarkably well, as she struggles through her sexual identity and her feelings for a woman named Susan (Laura Dern, just right).  Here it was, twenty years after Jodie on Soap, and it was a struggle to even get the story on the air, and that comes through even now, in the performances of the cast, including Oprah Winfrey as the wise and dry-humored therapist, and in the obviously thrilled studio audience.  OK, the celebrity cameos aren't all as obvious as they were then, although it's still a delight to hear Melissa Etheridge serenade a blushing Ellen for her bravery, or to watch K. D. Lang play a waitress.

The episode is of course mostly about Ellen, and those friends of hers are featured less, but they all have their moments (yes, even Spence), like Audrey's enthusiastic literal and figurative embrace of Ellen, and of course Peter's joy at Ellen telling him first (not counting Susan, the therapist, and the people at the airport).  It's an hour-long episode so I could go on and on, but I just want to mention three things, two of them related to the photos I've chosen.  The other is a moment where the therapist compares the prejudice that Ellen fears to what blacks underwent before the Civil Rights Movement.  In the hands of lesser writers, or lesser performers, this could be awkward and/or heavy-handed, but the moment makes its point with a light touch.  (One shudders to imagine how this would've gone on Roseanne in the last couple seasons.)

When Ellen finds the courage to first speak the words, "I'm gay," it's accidentally into the airport p.a. system.  This is another moment that might not have worked, but it does, helped partly by the visible relief of Ellen (Morgan and DeGeneres) afterwards, and the hug Susan gives her.  Note that this scene, just as much as some of the airport scenes on Who's the Boss? five or more years earlier, looks surreal after 9/11.  You simply can't go up and hug someone about to board a plane, as Ellen does.  (I haven't mentioned Ellen's date with her old friend Richard, but there are some laughs from that in the first half of the episode.)

Susan has a seemingly throwaway line about failing to "recruit" Ellen and thus losing a chance at a toaster oven.  Then we get the tag scene that pays off from that, with Etheridge enthusiastically stamping Ellen's application (and the clipboard).  "Toaster oven" would become (if it wasn't already) an LGBT (not yet Q or A) semi-in-joke for the next few years, and the scene is funny in of itself.  Just an all around wonderful episode.  (But, no, not an A or A+.  I don't think TV can achieve that like books or movies can.)

Waiter Patrick Harrigan had previously been Customer No. 1.  Kathy Najimy makes her third and last appearance on the show, in the very small role of a Woman in Gay Bar (technically a coffeehouse).  This time DeGeneres's mother Betty is a Woman at Airport.

Ellen: The Clip Show Patient

Ellen: The Clip Show Patient
ABC
April 8, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
C

Ellen volunteers at the hospital and meets the title character (Michael Des Barres in his second Ellen role), who's English.  (Get it?  Ha ha.)  She babbles and reminisces, sometimes merely on things like getting water.  The only entertaining things here are the disco music and outfits at the beginning and end of the episode.  Still, it's our last glimpse of pre-coming-out Ellen Morgan.  (Well, unless you count the first part of the next episode.)

Everett Greenbaum, who wrote 24 M*A*S*H episodes, plays the Older Man.  Various people appear in the clips, but most of them don't have lines.  DeGeneres's brother Vance wrote this story with David Walpert, whose middle of five this is.

Ellen: Reversal of Misfortune

Ellen: Reversal of Misfortune
ABC
March 4, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Matt Goldman wrote this story where Ellen encourages her almost divorced parents to get out and socialize (with her), only to have them decide they don't want to get divorced.  The separation was really a McGuffin anyway, just an excuse by the writers to get her into therapy and slowly prep us for her eventual coming out.  Not that I (or you) knew that at the time.

Clive Rosengren, who was a Plumber on Who's the Boss?, is Mitch here.  Then 70-year-old Jean Speegle Howard, who had been playing sweet old ladies since the '60s (e.g. the Widow Douglas in a 1975 TV-Movie of Huckleberry Finn) was Irene Cornelli on Roseanne and here is Bernadette.

Ellen: Secrets & Ellen

Ellen: Secrets & Ellen
ABC
February 26, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
C+

Seventy-seven-year-old veteran actress Eileen Heckart plays Ellen's eightysomething Grammy, whom the family lies to because she's so judgmental.  Meanwhile, Spence has an injury in Las Vegas, while dressed as a Roman soldier, so he wanders the casino deluded, bumping into stand-up comics who had contemporary ABC sitcoms and appear as those characters here (Drew Carey as Drew Carey, Brett Butler as Grace Kelly).  Wayne Newton is a Doctor here, about six years after he was himself on a Roseanne Vegas episode.  I did like a little of the family background, like about Lois's sister Ferne (Spence's mom), but this episode, written by someone who didn't work on any of my other shows, is mostly filler.

Ellen: Hello, Dalai

Ellen: Hello, Dalai
ABC
February 19, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
B-

In this odd Idelson & Lotterstein story, Ellen and Peter go to a retreat run by Dalai Rajhavaari (Iqbal Theba, who was Dr. Bakshi on a couple Roseanne episodes earlier that season).  Peter hurts Ellen's feelings by saying he thinks she's not really happy or honest with herself.  (There's a big audience-tease when Peter "tells himself" he's gay and waits for Ellen to make a similar announcement.)  Meanwhile, someone robs the bookstore, tying up Ellen's four friends in the office, and we never see them rescued, although Ed is spoken of as due to come in in the morning.  Robber Don Yesso was previously Fight Fan #2.

Ellen: Ellen's Deaf Comedy Jam

Ellen: Ellen's Deaf Comedy Jam
ABC
February 12, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
B-

In this Jennifer Fisher story, Paige's ex-fiance Matt returns but to get back his grandmother's earrings to give to his new fiancee.  Spence assumes Matt is still interested in Paige, so he woos her, and she doesn't tell him the truth.  Meanwhile, Ellen thinks that a deaf man that Audrey (who's broken up with Mike just in time for Valentine's Day) is interested in is interested in Ellen.  When that's straightened out, Ellen promises that she'll never again let a man come between them.  And earlier in the episode, Audrey keeps coming over to sleep (platonically) with Ellen.

Ellen: Kiss My Bum

Ellen: Kiss My Bum
ABC
November 27, 1996
Sitcom
DVD
B-

David Walpert wrote this story where Ellen volunteers at a soup kitchen to prove her charitability to Ed.  She bonds with another helper, Perry (a surprisingly serious Joe Flaherty), and invites him to Thanksgiving dinner.  She doesn't realize that Perry is homeless, so things get very awkward.  Meanwhile, Spence's mother Ferne (Kathleen Noone in the first of two appearances) visits from New York, and Spence assumes she won't like Paige.  (She doesn't but is very nice to Paige to her face.)  This episode is a bit heavy-handed, but I like the playing with stereotypes during the football game, with Peter and Barrett yelling at the TV, while Spence and Joe discuss pies.