Transcript for Episode 16: Sanford Thinks His Son Is a Homo (And Vice-Versa)

This is the transcript for the installment of the show in which we discuss the Sanford & Son episode “Lamont, Is That You?” If you’d rather listen to Glen and Drew than read what they say, click here. The transcript was provided by Sarah Neal, whose skills we recommend wholeheartedly.

Lamont:  Say Pop, would you mind telling me what this is all about? Because I would really like to get some sleep.

Fred:  Well, just listen now. Son, you and Rollo have been going out quite a bit lately ain't you? 

Lamont:  Yeah. Well, Rollo is a good friend of mine, Pop, and we have some good times together. So?

Fred:  So why don't you take Judy Ann out sometime? Ain't she supposed to be your girlfriend?

Lamont:  Yeah, but she's getting to be like all the rest of them—a pain. Women is always arguing and fussing and taking up your time and your money, and then they dump you for some other dude. 

Fred:  Oh. So that's why you've been going out with Rollo, huh?

Lamont:  Well, I guess you could say that. Well goodnight, Pop.

Fred:  Okay, Son. Still walks all right.

[audience laughs and claps] 

["The Streetbeater" by Quincy Jones plays]

Drew:  You are listening to Gayest Episode Ever, the podcast about episodes of classic TV shows that deal with LGBT themes. I'm Drew Mackie. 

Glen:  I'm Glen Lakin.

Drew:  And in case that intro didn't tip you off, today we are talking about Sanford and Son. The episode is called "Lamont, is that You?" but we're going to call it "Sanford Thinks His Son is a Homo." That works?

Glen:  Yeah. I'll call it that—to whom, I don't know. This episode is about a hilarious mix-up that leads Fred to think that his son, Lamont, is gay because of the classic sitcom trope of misunderstanding.

Drew:  Mm-hmm. And watching it, I thought, "I think I know what's going to happen," and it ended up resolving in a more mature and complex manner than I thought. I thought this was a better-written sitcom than a lot of other ways this might have turned out. I really like this one.

Glen:  Oh.

Drew:  We can talk about it in a second. This episode aired October 19th, 1973, the same year as the Mary Tyler Moore episode we did in season one. It was the sixth episode of the show's third season, and in the 1973-74 season, Sanford and Son was the third-highest rated TV show in the US, behind All in the Family and then The Waltons. Mary Tyler Moore for comparison's sake was ninth. 

Glen:  What?

Drew:  Uh-huh. This also aired about two months before the American Psychiatric Society removed homosexuality from the DSM-II.

Glen:  Oh. That would have changed the doctor scene in this episode.

Drew:  A little bit, yeah. I have questions about

Glen:  So funny.

Drew:  I have questions about the doctor. Sanford and Son ran for six seasons on NBC. It ran for 136 episodes. It was basically NBC's answer to All in the Family, where Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin together took a British sitcom, which was called Steptoe and Son, and reinvented it for American audiences and then used it as a way to talk about social issues. I prefer this show to All in the Family, because although you can see how Redd Foxx's character Sanford Sr. is supposed to be Archie-Bunker-like, he's also Archie-Bunker-light, and he doesn't make me as mad as Archie did when we did that episode previously.

Glen:  He definitely seems older, and there's just something less dangerous about him. He's more of a teddy bear.

Drew:  Yeah, I get that. Did we ever actually talk about the Archie Bunker episode and the comments we got? Did we talk about our response to people who said that we didn't understand it? 

Glen:  Oh, I don't know.

Drew:  I don't know if we ever actually did and it's a weird thing—we might as well just bring it up now that a lot of people thought that you and I didn't understand that Archie Bunker was supposed to be like an exaggerated caricature and that in writing this character they were making fun of what a bigot would sound like, which we got. It doesn't read as funny to us.

Glen:  Also, there's a difference between intention and what ends up happening. Like not even the execution—they may have executed the parody well, but the way he was embraced by audiences was earnest.

Drew:  You can hear it in the audience of that episode, and the audience in this episode is not as—provoked? I don't know what the word is, but that whole thing with Archie Bunker did change over time and there are some later day All in the Family episodes that deal with LGBT themes that I think will be fun to go back and do, but not this season. We spent enough time with him for one season. 

Glen:  Well, yeah. This episode doesn't have the call line of "a fag" or whatever it is that All in the Family episode had that had the audience rolling in their seats.

Drew:  Mm-hmm. Yeah. That was weird to listen to. But yeah, there was a certain generation of listener who heard our reaction to that episode and just assumed we were stupid.

Glen:  And maybe we are about other things.

Drew:  Sure. I'm stupid about lots of things. I have to do my taxes later today, and that is not going to be a good process for anyone. But yeah, there's that. Also, this is the first black sitcom we're doing on this show. And that is a big deal because we wanted to do one in the first season, and most of the shows we grew up watching didn't have gay episodes. So we had to go back and try to find examples from shows that we didn't necessarily grow up watching. Did you have syndicated Sanford and Son when you were a kid?

Glen:  Sure did. I love Sanford and Son. 

Drew:  Oh. I didn't grow up with it at all because it was only in syndication for a few months, and then they actually swapped it out for Family Matters which never did a gay episode. But it's very hit and miss, so I had to look up a few things and be like, "Is this a regular character? Who is this person?"

Glen:  Did we ever talk about how it's weird that Stefan Urquelle wasn't gay? 

Drew:  I mean, that's the fanfic you should write. 

Glen:  No.

Drew:  Okay. Yeah, that is weird, and it's weird that A Different World never did a gay episode. This season, we're doing this Sanford and Son and a Living Single episode. And in doing research for this episode, I actually found out that The Jeffersons—is that a phone call?

Glen:  Yeah. Weird. I got a phone call on an iPad, people. It's the future.

Drew:  There's a gay episode of The Jeffersons that maybe we can do in season three. This is not the first black sitcom although in doing research it gets referred to that in a few different non-peer-reviewed documents talking about it. It was a very popular, very successful black sitcom. It does come after Amos 'n' Andy, which is awkward for many reasons and which did not do a gay episode. And then also Julia, which is [with] Diahann Carroll. It's about a single mom who's a nurse, and she was the main character in a sitcom that was named for her character, and that ran for three seasons. But in trying to figure out a history for black sitcoms, I find a lot of people have different opinions about what constitutes a black sitcom. Also, in 1970 on ABC, there was a sitcom adaptation of Barefoot in the Park with a predominantly black cast. I've never even heard of that. This show started in 1972. That's where we are timewise. We are recording this one day after the passing of Nathaniel Lawson, who played Rollo on the show and is prominent in this episode. He died yesterday in addition—

Glen:  Oh, no.

Drew:  Yeah. Whomp whomp. I'm so sorry—sorry for that. Also Katherine Helmond, speaking of sitcom people that we're sad to have recently died. Probably someone else.

Glen:  Maybe someone will die right now.

Drew:  That's almost a certainty that is happening right now, but you think about that while you're listening to—

Glen:  Someone you love, though.

Drew:  Maybe. Speaking of death, do you know how Redd Foxx died? 

Glen:  [laughs] I'm thinking of humorous ways he's died, but go on.

Drew:  It's very interesting. So Redd Foxx was the star of this for all six seasons and then didn't have another big TV show until—

Glen:  Because he's old.

Drew:  He was old then. So in 1991, he starred on a CBS sitcom called The Royal Family. Della Reese played his wife. It was created by Eddie Murphy. You may not have heard of this because a few episodes into taping, he was on set and he died of a heart attack. He had a heart attack on set and they took him to the hospital, and he died that day. 

Glen:  Oh. I remember that.

Drew:  You do? I didn't remember that. And it's interesting learning that on Sanford and Son his character fakes heart attacks all the time, and initially people thought Redd Foxx was playing a joke—it's not like he died because of that, but—also, do you know what the working title was of that sitcom that he died on? Chest Pains. It's literally the name of the show. Isn't that weird? I think it's weird. When his character died they didn't cancel the show right away. They tried to replace him with Jackée. 

Glen:  Oh. That's—

Drew:  I think that might have been her—like, once she didn't get a spinoff off from 227, that might have been the next thing she tried to do, but I don't think it lasted a full season after that. It was just too sad.  

Glen:  It's weird thinking, like, "How do we replace this old, old man? I know. Let's get Jackée."

Drew:  Hey, she had an Emmy. 

Glen:  I think she is a delight. It's just weird to picture her replacing Redd Foxx.  

Drew:  Right. It's not like they made her dress like an old man, although I would still watch that show.

Glen:  [gasps] I want to see a Santa Clause reboot with Jackée.

Drew:  I would like to see anything with Jackée, and I'm just happy we get to talk about her right now, because weirdly, I don't think Sister Sister did a gay episode either.

Glen:  Uh, let's find out.

Drew:  I think I looked into it. "Lamont, is that You?" was directed by Peter Baldwin, who is a prolific TV director who started with Dick Van Dyke and went all the way to Even Stevens, if that gives you an idea of breadth. It was written by James R. Stein and Bob Illes. Stein kind of seems like he started with Sanford and Son and then he went on to write—

Glen:  Goosebumps.

Drew:  Silver Spoons.

Glen:  Oh.

Drew:  But also, did you ever see the show called Son of [the] Beach? 

Glen:  Yes.

Drew:  He was the co-creator on that show, and as a teenager I thought that show was funny. Maybe it was terrible. I don't know. They had a mean mayor whose name was Anita Massengill [laughter]. Bob Illes often collaborated with him, but not always. And then they also did the show called Double Trouble, which starred Liz and Jean Sagal, who are identical twins who are also Katey Sagal's older sisters.

Glen:  Oh.

Drew:  Mm-hmm, and we can just talk about Katey Sagal next episode because we're doing a Married… with Children episode.

Glen:  Yay! Finally.

Drew:  Yay. So this episode opens with Lamont and his hipster friend, Rollo, having watched a pornographic film together [laughs], which—

Glen:  Called Deep Lips.

Drew:  Deep Lips, which is a much more explicit joke than you'd think censors would have allowed.

Lamont:  Listen. Don't ever do that to me again, Rollo.

Rollo:  Hey, man. I am sorry.

Lamont:  You drag me clear across town and make me spend five dollars to see some dumb movie. 

Rollo:  It was supposed to be a skin flick classic.

Lamont:  Yeah, well, it was the worst film I ever seen, man. It was rotten and it was disgusting. I wouldn't take no girl to see it. I don't know why you took me.

[audience laughs]

Rollo:  Then how come you wanted to stay and see it twice then?

[audience laughs]

Glen:  Do straight men do this? 

Drew:  That was my question. I literally—I wouldn't want to go see a pornographic movie with you, because that would be awkward.

Drew:  Oh. One time, my friends and I were getting drunk and doing something and decided to go to a porn theater—a gay porn theater—and this was a mixed-company crowd, so it was a couple gay men, a couple straight women, and a couple straight men, and we were waiting in the lobby to get tickets, and everyone thinks this is a good, fun idea. And then they were just screening some porno in the lobby of the theater—and it's nothing too scandalous. Just some blow jobs. And [laughs] the straight boys were like, "Whoa. That's—I didn't know it was going to be that gay," and I was like, "Well, what what did you think was going to happen?"

Drew:  They're just holding hands and putting up curtains together?

Glen:  Yeah—which I would also watch that, but we had to leave.

Drew:  Was this in Chicago or Los Angeles? 

Glen:  It was Los Angeles.

Drew:  Was it Studs?

Glen:  Yes.

Drew:  Okay, so I have driven past Studs many times—it's right there on Sunset—and wondered "Is it just playing pornos all the time?" I guess? I've never been in there. I feel like a dumb little baby.

Glen:  Well, I have only been in the lobby.

Drew:  Okay. So when I think about gay guys going to see a pornographic film, I just assume they're all going there to masturbate—like, openly. Is that—do you know if that's accurate?

Glen:  I don't know. But we live by that sex shop on San Fernando—oh, now stalkers are going to come find us. 

Drew:  [laughs] Start at the sex shop on San Fernando and fan out in increasing circles and you'll find our house eventually. 

Glen:  But when I first moved in, I would get SCRUFF messages from guys who were just there watching porn. I guess there's a theater in there too.

Drew:  And they're going to—they can't be—they're not just casually watching porn.

Glen:  No, to masturbate—or other things.

Drew:  So this is why I'm confused about what straight guys would do, because these are heterosexual friends who are watching a pornographic film together and not masturbating—or just getting blue balls because they're—I don't—that seems like a weird night activity. In Lamont's defense, Lamont is not cool with this, but Rollo doesn't seem to think it's weird at all that they watched a pornographic film together.

Glen:  Well, Lamont wasn't cool with it, but he still wanted to see it twice. 

Drew:  He did. Yeah. That's super weird. Oh. Just for clarity's sake, Lamont is Sanford Jr. and Rollo is his hipster friend. There's a lot of homo-socialness in this episode, and I do like how it plays with the fact that it takes very little to make homosocialness seem very gay if you're looking at it the wrong way, and I am amused by how uncomfortable the men are with it. I think one of the reasons I was more okay with this episode is that it had straight people having to work around their homophobia—not because there's a gay person there, but because—well, I don't know how to finish that sentence. We'll get to it later, I guess.  

Glen:  I actually want to give a shout out to the set decoration for this episode, because I thought that the seedy part of town where the porno theater was and this gay bar is that they were about to accidentally walk into—it was colorful and evocative in a not-cheesy [or] gross way. It actually kind of painted a nice little picture of where they live and where they hang out. 

Drew:  A neighborhood gay bar, which is something that I feel like we don't have a whole lot anymore. In reading about old L.A., a lot of neighborhoods that don't have gay bars anymore had their little gay dive. That's what I thought this was, and it looked kind of like an appealing little place.

Glen:  Yeah. And also, the fact it's nestled next to straight places—a straight porn theater. And the fact that they can stumble into—quote/unquote accidentally—this—I mean, it's called The Gay Blade.

Drew:  It's called The Gay Blade, yeah.

Glen:  Although I will say that they're advertising food. 

Drew:  I know! I was surprised. I was like, "What do they serve?" because I can't think of a single gay bar that serves food.

Glen:  Precinct.

Drew:  Precinct serves food?

Glen:  I have not been, but I had a friend who worked there who complained about how they served food. 

Drew:  Oh. I have never seen anyone eat there [laughs]. Yeah. All right.

Glen:  I guess there's a kitchen.

Drew:  It's big enough. That makes sense. Okay. So they are leaving the porno theater. They pop into a bar. It is a gay bar. And when they go in, they are spotted by Bubba and Lucille. Bubba is one of Fred's—the father's two best friends. He's not the one that got his own sitcom. That is Grady. Bubba is with this woman who is like this loud, blousy woman who has a lot of opinions and who I immediately loved. I'm like, "Who is she?"

Lucille:  I've just got to get home, darling. 

Bubba:  Hold it, Lucille.

Lucille:  I'm sorry. I have so much to do tomorrow. I have to get up and get my fingernails fixed.

Bubba:  Wait a minute, will you?

Lucille:  I have to get ready, Darling. 

Bubba:  Wait just one minute.

Drew:  She's played by an actress named Cardella di Milo, which is an amazing name, and she only appears in this one scene. She never appears on the show again.

Glen:  I wanted her to be a contestant on this season of RuPaul's Drag Race.

Drew:  I just wanted for her to have her own show. She obviously has a lot to say. So Bubba sees them go in, and he recognizes that it's Fred's son and his son's friend and he's like, "Uh, we got to go."

Bubba:  Holy smoke.

Lucille:  What is it?

Bubba:  I'm sorry, but I got to take you home, Lucille.

Lucille:  Home?! This early in the evening? What kind of jive nonsense is this?

Bubba:  I'm sorry, but I got to go by and see a sick friend.

Lucille:  A sick friend? You ain't ever told me about no sick friend.

Bubba:  That's because he ain't sick yet, but he's going to be. Come on.

[audience laughs]

Lucille:  Get your hands off of me! I have a gun I'm going to shoot one of these days.

Drew:  Which is about, to me, about as harsh as the homophobia got in this episode, except for one other line which we'll get to.

Glen:  I don't know. There are a couple. I think this scene has a line. I forget who says it—the "All the brothers were sisters."

Lamont:  Thanks a lot.

Rollo:  Hey, I didn't know man. Besides, look at the whole thing as sort of an adventure, man. Be bold.

Lamont:  That's the first time I've ever been in a bar where all the brothers were sisters.

[audience laughs]

Drew:  I'm okay with that actually. I don't find that, that offensive. 

Glen:  I don't know. 

Drew:  I mean, they are men and not women. 

Glen:  Right. Exactly. We have now evolved to a place where discussing homosexuality is not supposed to call into question masculinity.

Drew:  Yes—

Glen:  Being gay isn't supposed to make you a sissy or a woman.

Drew:  That is true, but how many times have people referred to you as a "she" or a "her" in joking? They're not calling you a woman, but there is a certain gay turn of phrase—well they'll just switch the pronouns.

Glen:  Yeah. Gay men can do that to me. Straight people can't do that to me.

Drew:  Fair. That is fair. I support that. So another thing that happens first in this scene that happens throughout the entire rest of the episode is Lamont doesn't want to say "gay." He just says that the guys in there are all—and then he does the thing were you shake your hand from side to side.

Lamont:  Well, you batting a thousand tonight, Rollo [audience laughs]. First you take me to see a dumb movie, and then you take me into a bar where everybody's—

Drew:  I don't know how to describe that [laughs]. 

Glen:  It's swishy. The swishy hand gesture.

Drew:  That's what it means, but I have no idea—that doesn't even look that swishy, does it? It just looks like—

Glen:  It's the more-or-less hand gesture.

Drew:  Yeah. Yeah, it is—like, "Eh," [or] like, "So-so." That's a weird—there's a Seinfeld bit about that. But I would like to have someone to explain the etymology of that hand signal.

Glen:  Also, the entire run—well, not the entire run. The Roper half of Three's Company, Mr. Roper always did the Tinkerbell hand gesture. 

Drew:  Which makes more sense to me.

Glen:  Yeah.

Drew:  Yeah. I feel like people don't do that anymore. They do it a lot in this episode. It is not conducive to good audio because it just seems like people stop talking for no reason, but then they get a laugh out of it. People seem to think that's funny.

Glen:  Yeah. So Bubba goes to see Fred to tell him he saw Lamont in a gay bar, and Fred doesn't seem to see any problem with this. 

Fred:  Is that all you got to tell me, that you saw my son Lamont go in the bar with Rollo?

Bubba:  Wait a minute, my friend. This wasn't no ordinary bar. It was a sissy bar.

[audience laughs]

Fred:  A what?

Bubba:  A sissy bar. You know, where everybody's— 

[audience laughs]

Fred:  Well, how do you know that?

Bubba:  I looked in, Fred. And you know something? There wasn't one chick in the entire place.

Fred:  Oh, Bubba. You're just imagining stuff. That could have been one of them places where they have tables for the ladies in the back.

Bubba:  Fred, the name of this place was The Gay Blade.

Glen:  So Bubba has to point out, "Well do you know what gay is?"

Bubba:  You know what gay is, don't you?

Fred:  Yeah. I know what gay is. That means happy.

[audience laughs]

Bubba:  Not anymore.

[audience laughs]

Glen:  And the like puppy-like delight he has on his face, it did endear me to him some. 

Drew:  Yeah. That's why he's a much gentler character than Archie Bunker. Archie Bunker doesn't really get away with that. Bubba's like, "That's what it used to mean. Doesn't mean that anymore, and it's been going around," I think, is how he described it.

Glen:  Yeah. Aside from this discussion, I think it's also a nice sort of setup of Fred and Lamont's relationship because they're supposed to be contentious characters with each other because that's what drama and comedy are built around. But there's also a deep, unapologetic love between the two, and he's like, "Lamont tells me everything. We're very close. There's nothing he does that he doesn't tell me about, so I'm not going to listen to what you have to say because he's going to come and tell me what I need to hear."

Drew:  Yeah. You're right. They are kind of more like friends than you usually see parents and children being. But it's probably because Mrs. Sanford died a long time ago, and it's just been the two of them, and they had to figure out a working relationship in order to just get by. When Fred doesn't want to hear that—he's like, "I don't believe my son is gay. I don't want to hear any of this."

Bubba:  Well, look. If you see two guys going into a sissy bar, what are you supposed to think?

Fred:  Well look, Bubba. Me and you went into one of them bottomless bars, didn't we? That doesn't mean we stopped wearing pants.

[audience laughs]

Drew:  I was like wait—is a bottomless bar just a strip club? What is a bottomless bar?

Glen:  Oh. I'm gay, so I thought bottomless mimosa. 

Drew:  So seriously, I googled "bottomless bar Los Angeles," and all that came up were bottomless mimosas, and I was like, "I think Google knows I'm gay, too." I don't think that's an expression we have anymore. Maybe that was like a TV version of saying strip club. But they say "skin flick" in this, so I don't know how a bottomless bar would be different from just like a strip club.

Glen:  Yeah. So Lamont comes back. He glosses over the fact that he accidentally went to a gay bar because to him it's no big deal. It's not worth mentioning. Then Fred sort of takes it as like, "Uh-oh. Maybe he is gay," [and he] rushes Bubba out. The only sort-of homophobia/slight homophobia I picked up in this scene was when Fred commented that "Oh, Lamont's not gay. He still walks all right." 

Drew:  Right to the camera too.

Glen:  Yeah.

Drew:  Yeah. It's an interesting take on that. Yeah. That puts me in a weird spiral of like, "Wait. Do I walk—how do I walk? What does a gay man walk like?" And then, I can't remember how to walk anymore, which is—

Glen:  I don't think I walk all right. Whenever I see myself in windows downtown, I feel like I'm leaning forward slightly.

Drew:  You're in a hurry.

Glen:  Yeah. I look like a cartoon character who's being lifted up by the scent of pie.

Drew:  [laughs] Yeah. That sounds pretty accurate. Yeah. That's how you walk. Yeah. So I think I walk like an idiot because I'm awkward and stupid, but it's not because I'm gay, necessarily. I don't know. I'd have to have people give their opinion on that, but I don't want that. Please don't tell us. 

Drew:  Oh, wait, wait did we already stop for a commercial? Goddamn it.

[Gayest Episode Ever promotes A Love Bizarre gallery and shop]

Drew:  So the next scene, we see Dr. Caldwell coming over. Dr. Caldwell is a very strange character who kind of reminds me of—who am I trying to think of?

Glen:  Ben Carson.

Drew:  Ben Carson. He's a doctor, right?

Glen:  Yes. 

Drew:  Yes.

Glen:  Brain surgeon.

Drew:  Brain surgeon. I can't explain what's wrong with him, but something about him seems like an alien who's doing an impression of a human, and it's just a very odd approach to this character.

Glen:  He just strikes me as someone who would set me on fire just to watch me burn.

Drew:  Yep! Yep, that's him. Also, again, you'd think, "Oh. He's probably a big presence on the show." Nope. Appears in two other episodes. This is actually his last appearance in the entire series.

Glen:  Oh. Probably because he's a quack. 

Drew:  [laughs] They just thought he was too weird. Fred's like, "Yeah. I need you to look into my son. He's spending too much time with Rollo," and doctor says—

Fred:  I don't know how to tell you this Doc, but I'm worried about my son.

Dr. Caldwell:  Well, what is it?

Fred:  Well see, he always used to go out with girls, but he ain't doing that no more. He's just going out with his friend, Rollo. 

Dr. Caldwell:  Mr. Sanford, are you suggesting that your son might be displaying homosexual tendencies? 

[audience laughs] 

Fred:  No. I'm suggesting my son might be turning into a sissy. 

[audience laughs]

Fred:  Is that possible, Doc? I hear it's going around now.

Glen:  There was one very cringworthy line in this scene.

Drew:  There's a lot. But yeah, I know—please. There [are] two different major reasons why it's weird.

Glen:  Yeah. Well, the doctor says, "Well, it's nothing to worry about."

Dr. Caldwell:  In any case, no one ever died from it, you know. 

[audience laughs]

Fred:  Well, he'd be the first one when I find out.

[audience laughs]

Glen:  When was this? 1972?

Drew:  1973 or '74. So yeah, I checked and was like, "Oh, yeah. That's going to be a very awkward joke in about a few years.

Glen:  Not going to age well at all.

Drew:  No. And then Fred's response is—I don't remember exactly what he says but, like, he'll be the first, and he threatens that he's going to punch his son to death if his son is gay. And it's like—

Glen:  Yeah. Insert Kevin Hart commentary here. 

Drew:  Mm-hmm. 

Glen:  The listeners are well aware that we're both two lame,white boys and cannot comment to the unique homosexual experience of being both black and gay—or any person of color who's gay.

Drew:  Or gay in the '70s for that matter, which is a whole different deal than it is now. 

Glen:  Yeah. So there are risks connected to other minority communities that we can't speak to to where this joke is just sort of groan worthy.

Drew:  Yeah. It's a little uncomfortable. If you want to play devil's advocate, there is at this point a history of male sitcom protagonists jokingly threatening violence in a way that no one really thought was a threat back then.

Glen:  Yeah. Honeymooners—the main joke is just spousal abuse. 

Drew:  Yep. Yep [laughs]. 

Glen:  We're also both guilty of more than once sending each other the clip from The Simpsons where they watch I Love Lucy.

Ricky:  Lucy! [slap]

Lucy:  Whah.

Fred:  You hit her pretty hard there Rick. 

[audience laughs]

[Bart and Homer laugh]

Drew:  It's funny because they are actually literalizing the threatened violence that is so horrific in practice that it's ridiculous, and you kind of have to laugh at it. 

Glen:  It's either laugh or cry. The rest of the scene just spirals into a ploy between the doctor and Fred to fake examine Fred in order to to fake examine Lamont to see if he is displaying homosexual tendencies. 

Drew:  Which he technically sort of is according to the doctor because Lamont mentions that Fred always says that he taks after his mom, and he's like, "Oh. Was your mom the dominant parent?" I did look it up. It was actually 1981 when the Kinsey Institute put out their study that said that a child's relationship to either parent has no bearing on their sexuality. 1981. So people—

Glen:  Huh. Then why dit it last forever?

Drew:  And still lasts—because people didn't read. People don't read. 

Glen:  All right. 

Drew:  Oh, he's been doing the housework because they don't have a mom. Fred's sure as hell not doing the housework, so Lamont's been having to keep the house this entire time.

Glen:  The doctor just tells Fred to keep an eye out for a change in behavior or dress.

Dr. Caldwell:  Let's just wait and see how things develop. Let me know if you detect any change in his speech or his behavior or his dress.

Fred:  Don't tell me he's going to put on a dress.

[audience laughs]

Glen:  Dress meaning what he wears—not actually wearing a dress, which is a joke. And then Fred walks in on Lamont combing his hair, and Lamont's desire to not look like a slob when he's going out to work worries Fred.

Fred:  Say, what you doing combing your hair?

Lamont:  What kind of question is that? Why does anybody comb their hair? To look neat.

Fred:  Well, you're just going to a job. 

Lamont:  Pop, just because I work in junk don't mean I have to look like it. Now I come in contact with a lot of people out there in the street, you know.

Fred:  Oh, I see what you mean—like in case you ran into one of them nice, interesting females, huh? 

Lamont:  In case I should run into whoever. See you, Pop.

[audience laughs]

Drew:  So there are points later where I really like the way this is written and I feel it is better than a typical sitcom. I don't like, in this one scene, Lamont is purposely vague and misleading. That serves no purpose other than to advance the plot, which is—

Glen:  He could also have said, "Well, I'm going to work so I doubt there will be a pretty girl who's giving me her dirty broken stove."

Drew:  [laughs] "I work in a junk shop." Yeah. So—

Glen:  [sings Sanford and Son theme song melody]

Drew:  I know. That's—that's been stuck in my head the past few days. Did you know that's written by Quincy Jones?

Glen:  No.

Drew:  Quincy Jones. Super catchy. So there's a commercial break, and then it's that night or later in the week, and Lamont is getting ready to go out with Rollo. 

Glen:  He's wearing a new cologne called Brut.

Fred:  What's that smell I smell? Is that you?

Lamont:  Yeah. That's my new cologne, Pop. It's called Brut.

Fred:  Brut? Should call it brutal. 

[audience laughs] 

Lamont:  Well for your information, Willie Mays wears it.

Fred:  That's why they stuck him way out there in center field.

[audience laughs]

Drew:  I actually like that joke. See? When they're just making insult jokes against each other, the dialogue works a lot better than when Lamont is being purposely vague just to advance the plot. I actually like that joke. That's not a bad joke. 

Glen:  Yeah. Fred walks out. Bumps into Rollo.

Rollo:  Right on. I see you stepping out tonight, huh?

Fred:  Well, I was stepping out. But after meeting you, it's more like stepping into something.

[audience laughs]

Rollo:  Jack, you one cold blooded old dude. 

Fred:  Hey, listen there. 

Rollo:  Yeah?

Fred:  Why you always going out with my son?

Rollo:  Lamont? He's my man.

[audience laughs and applauds]

Fred:  Your man?

Rollo:  Yeah, Jack. My man! My main man.

Fred:  Your main man?

[audience laughs]

Rollo:  Look here, Jack. I'm going to see you later on. Look. We're tight partners, man. Me and Lamont are just like that.

[audience laughs]

Glen:  My only other take away from this little chunk of scenes is that Lamont's a shitty friend because as soon as Lamont finds out that his dad is going to go hang out with Bubba—and of course they're just going to go spy on Lamont and Rollo—Lamont cancels on Rollo, after Rollo's already there, just so Lamont could call a girl up and have her over.

Drew:  Yeah, he does that because he was like, "Oh. Dad, you're going out too? Shit, I have the house to myself. I'm going to take full advantage of this." Rollo doesn't seem to be too upset. He's like, "Okay. Oh. I got to go." He's pretty good. I just realized that the relationship between Fred and Rollo is a lot like Uncle Phil and Jazz, which is like, "Why are you in my house? I hate you so much, you weird hipster.

Glen:  That's a lot of sitcom dads. 

Drew:  "Steve, go home." 

Glen:  Yes. Well, no one wants Steve there.

Drew:  Homer hates Milhouse [laughs].

Glen:  Al Bundy hates Kelly—well it's the boyfriend. He hates all of Kelly's boyfriends.

Drew:  He does. Boner was always welcome in the house. Boner was never thrown out. 

Glen:  True. 

Drew:  So, yeah. When Rollo goes inside and Fred is worried about this, he does the fake heart attack thing.

[audience laughs]

Fred:  Elizabeth, if you're looking down on all this, Honey—don't look!

[audience laughs] 

Drew:  "Don't look!" [laughter] 

Glen:  "Our son's a queer. Don't look, Elizabeth."

Drew:  Right. So he kicks Rollo out, and right after that we are watching Fred and Bubba go to The Gay Blade, presumably to see if Lamont and Rollo go there. I actually like this scene a lot. One of the more thoughtful comments anyone makes in this scene is they put on sunglasses so no one will recognize them and Bubba says—

Bubba:  Oh. I feel kind of weird.

[audience laughs]

Fred:  That won't mean nothing in there, Bubba.

Bubba:  I guess it takes all kinds, eh Fred?

Fred:  Yeah.

Drew:  And I'm like, "Oh. That's actually not a terrible sentiment." They don't seem to be horrified by these people. They just don't necessarily want Lamont to be gay.

Glen:  Yeah. I think the sentiment at the time was that gay bars are akin to freak shows, like, "Oh, they're just welcoming anything," which is true. We are a very welcoming people—to an extent. Or at least that's our brand. 

Drew:  Unless you're throwing a bachelorette party pre-Prop 8 being repealed. Also, Fred tells Bubba, "Don't smile at anyone," and he immediately smiles at these two gay guys leaving the bar. I like all the styling on they gay men leaving the bar. I like their over-acting when the gay guys come out in the first scene at The Gay Blade it's very [unrealistic 00:33:58] dialogue with this guy being like—

Gay Man:  I had a ball. Didn't you, Steve?

[audience laughs uproariously]

Steve:  Oh, I did too. I think we should come back next Friday.

Glen:  I know that's what I say when I leave Akbar.

Drew:  You've never said that in your life. You've never said you've "had a ball" anywhere—and maybe you never had a ball anywhere. 

Glen:  That's not true. Whenever I play fetch with Thurman.

Drew:  Oh, Thurman. 

Thurman:  [snores] 

Drew:  Yeah. That's Thurman. So they go in, and a second later Rollo sees them go in together and then gets right back to Lamont's house—booty call be damned—and is like, "I saw your dad and Bubba go into The Gay Blade together." And I like how this scene is very much a mirror of the first scene with the son and his friend taking [the] place of Dad and his friend, and they say the same thing. 

Glen:  Yeah. Lamont defends his relationship with his father saying, "My dad wouldn't keep secrets from me."

Lamont:  Come on, Rollo. What kind of joke is this, man? It ain't funny.

Rollo:  Hey man, I swear. I swear on a stack of bibles this high, Lamont. The two old dudes was going into The Gay Blade. Can you get with me  for that?

Lamont:  Look, man. Just because you saw them going in The Gay Blade now, that—that don't mean nothing. Look, my father's always looking for weird places to go into. Now, he goes in there and sits at the bar and  nurses a can of beer for a few hours, then he comes on home and tells me about the whole thing. It don't mean nothing.

Rollo:  Hey. They weren't at the bar.

[audience laughs]

Lamont:  Well, where were they?

Rollo:  They was tucked away in a corner.

Lamont:  Well, they probably just wanted to get a better view of the place. That's all.

Rollo:  And they was wearing dark glasses.

Lamont:  Hey. Look, Rollo. You're talking about my old man, now.

Drew:  "He always goes weird places and then comes back and tells me about it." But what other weird places is he going that's on the level of a gay bar being weird for him? I don't even know what that would be. 

Glen:  I don't know. I feel like old men get themselves into a lot of unusual situations—just like due to confusion. 

Drew:  In this scene, it is apparent that Lamont has a giant penis [laughter]. He has a big dick, and he has—

Glen:  I missed that.

Drew:  He has a bulge that is prominently on display that I did not notice until now, and it made me realize that I think we missed out on an era of everyone just wearing tight pants all the time. 

Glen:  Did the internet have anything to say about this?

Drew:  I didn't Google it because I trusted my eyes, but I'm sure there's a thread on DataLounge that—

Glen:  Yeah. "Dear viewers—" [laughter]

Drew:  Google about Lamont's penis on Sanford and Son and tell us what you find. I like the line about—Lamont's like, "Bubba's not gay. He's been married twice," and Rollo's response is—

Lamont:  And as far as Bubba's concerned, Bubba's been married twice. 

Rollo:  Yeah. You know what they say, too. If you can't hold a job, you change your line of work.

[audience laughs uproariously] 

Drew:  I do like the reflection of the son's worry that his old-man dad and his dad's old-man friend might be a couple together and that just being a ludicrous—but not necessarily dismissable—idea.

Glen:  Yeah. What I do think is sweet about this episode—I don't think they zeroed in on it, but I think the underlying sentiment is that both Lamont and Fred are more concerned that the other is keeping a secret from them than they are about the nature of the secret. There are jokes around both of them being possibly gay, but I think that the emotion behind it is, "I don't know this person as well as I thought I did, and that speaks to a weakness in our relationship I didn't know was there." 

Drew:  It didn't occur to me on that level. But I think that's a really good analysis of what's going on here because very shortly after this, Fred comes back and he's like "I thought you were going to the movies, Dad," and he's like, "No. I changed my plans. I thought you were going out with Rollo," and they both have to confront the fact that they misled the other about the plans. Rollo leaves, and they sit down and have a very nice talk where—this is when I really like the writing in this episode. Lamont is very haltingly saying, "I need to talk to you about something. I'm uncomfortable saying it. I don't really know how to ask it. I'm scared what your response will be." And even though he was being needlessly vague and misleading earlier, I actually think this works really well where Lamont is trying to ask his father if he's gay, and Fred thinks that Lamont is working up the courage to ask his permission to be gay or ask him if he can accept him as a gay person. And for a second, they have both kind of accepted each other.

Lamont:  You remember when I was a little kid, you told me that any time I ever wanted to talk to you about anything that I could just come and talk to you about it?

Fred:  Uh-huh.

[stifled laughter]

Lamont:  Well see, there's something that I wanna ask you, and I don't quite know how to do it, see, because it's kind of embarrassing. But it's something that I got to know, see. And—

Fred:  Well listen, Son. I know what you want to ask me. 

Lamont:  You do?

Glen:  Yes—but. I agree with what you're saying, but I feel like to be as sweet of a conversation as you are giving it credit for, neither of them gets to the point of telling the other—if this were to be written in the '80s or '90s, I think the over-sentimental version would be one of them through the confusion saying, "You don't have to say what you're going to say. I love you anyway."

Drew:  Right. That's where it stops short.

Glen:  What Fred goes to is "I blame myself."

Fred:  See, it's all my fault. It started 15 years ago when we were having a father and son discussion and I was telling you about the birds and the bees. And when I got to the part about the birds, a customer came in and interrupted me. 

Lamont:  What are you talking about?

Fred:  I'm talking about maybe we should start where we left off from. 

[someone knocks on the door] 

Fred:  Ain't that something? It always happens at the most important part. 

Drew:  So that's why you turned out this way.

Glen:  Yeah. That's why you want to fuck birds.

Drew:  They're about to have that conversation, and then at the door it's Judy Ann, and everything resolves, and everyone has to stop worrying about stuff.

Glen:  Yeah, because then Fred also has a date lined up, apparently. I don't know if that was just a lie to get him out of the house—but yeah, both Fred and Lamont are like, "Oh. Well, you're into girls, so we don't have to have this conversation. 

Lamont:  You remember Judy Ann Fisher?

Fred:  Yeah. Yeah. Hi, Judy Ann.

Judy Ann:  Good evening, Mr. Sanford.

Fred:  Listen. Don't tell me you two got a date.

Lamont:  Well, yeah. See, we thought you was going to go out and we'd have the place to ourselves. But if you want me to, I can take Judy Ann home and me and you can stay and talk.

Fred:  No, no, no! There should come a time when a man should have the house by himself. I'm going out anyway.

Lamont:  Well wait a minute, Pop. Don't let me run you off—because this is just as much your house as it is mine, you know.

Fred:  Oh no, no. I have a date with Donna.

Lamont:  With Donna?

Fred:  Uh-huh.

Lamont:  You got a date with Donna?

Fred:  Yeah! I got a standing dinner engagement with Donna every Saturday.

Lamont:  Hey, man! I think that's fantastic, Pop. Hey—you sure it's not too late?

Fred:  Oh, no. You know that saying, "The later the dinner, the bigger the winner?"

Lamont:  Yeah.

[audience laughs uproariously]

Drew:  I do think it was a lie. I don't think he was actually going out with Donna because he says, "You know how I always say, 'Don't do anything I wouldn't do'? Do it. Go ahead and do it. Do everything. It's your thing—do what you wanna do. He sings that and exits, and that's essentially the end of the episode.

Glen:  I wonder if they had rights to that song. 

Drew:  I wonder how much they actually sang. It seemed like it might be less than 10 seconds. Judy Ann? Never see her again. 

Glen:  Oh. 

Drew:  I know. She's really cute. She's played by an actress named, Jeannie Bell, who was in some sitcoms. She used to be on Beverly Hillbillies back in the day, but she did a lot of action movies too, including this movie called, Policewoman. Have I ever told you about Policewoman?

Glen:  Yes.

Drew:  Okay. So Policewoman a one-sentence summary—is about an undercover female cop who goes to Santa Catalina Island to infiltrate an all-female gang of gold smugglers, and the number-two hero in it is played by Jeannie Bell, who is also an undercover agent. That movie has a very Quentin Tarantino feel to it and look to it. And in Kill Bill, Vivica Fox's character is posing as an innocent housewife in Pasadina, and her fake name is Jeannie Bell. I am almost positive this is an intentional reference. I cannot prove it—but I believe it is. So that is how I drew a line between this and Kill Bill.

Glen:  Congratulations Drew.

Drew:  Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's the end of the episode, except for—what's the opposite of a cold open? Like a little thing they have at the end after the main plot is done?

Glen:  Epilogue?

Drew:  I guess. I don't know what you'd call that in sitcom world, but essentially I have nothing to say about it. It's just Fred and Rollo having an Uncle Phil/Jazz relationship, and they hate each other.

Glen:  Oh yeah, because Rollo has tickets to another porno and Fred takes them and he's going to go see it.

Drew:  And it's The Kitty Cat Theater—and he just leaves meowing.

Fred:  Say, where is this movie playing at, anyway?

Rollo:  Kitty Cat Theater.

Fred:  The what? The Kitty Cat?

Rollo:  Yeah.

Fred:  Give me them.

Lamont:  Where are you going?

Fred:  Huh?

Lamont:  Where are you going?

Fred:  Meow—meow. 

Glen:  Yeah. I mean, it was a pretty good meow.

Drew:  It was a good meow. It wasn't funny. It didn't really do any—I guess they just [were] like, "Oh. We have another 90 seconds—we have to do something. All right. We'll do this. Whatever. That is Sanford and Son. I understand how it doesn't come quite as far as it might, but for something that happened—I think this is the second oldest episode we've done. The older one is All in the Family and we know how we feel about that one. I was impressed—

Glen:  Yeah. We liked it.

Drew:  In the end, we did like it! But there's stuff in it that didn't read as funny to us as it would have read to other people.

Glen:  Right. But then again, I think that's what we're trying to do with this show is both look at the intentions and the times—but also translate it to now. And All in the Family, the messy parts of it, I think, could be credited to the times whereas I think its strengths still hold up today, whereas I think with Sanford and Son it's not as offensive as All in the Family. But that tameness also means that it doesn't reach the same depths as All in the Family did, and so, it's just a little milquetoast. And again, maybe for the times—interesting.

Drew:  I also want to give it credit for being—in the early '70s, there was this very popular black sitcom that did a gay episode about homophobia and tolerance—even if in a very light way—that almost none of the rest of them did. We have to wait until late '90s to get the Living Single episode. I haven't watched The Jeffersons one yet.

Glen:  Yeah. I think through that lens, it is a successful episode, and I guess the fact that we're not offended is actually not to be taken lightly because it so easily could have.

Drew:  Yeah. And there's stuff that came after this in the 80s that will be clumsier. Even Blossom, which was a mid-90s sitcom, didn't really land that one.

Glen:  No.

Drew:  No. And I'll be interested to see what you think of the Married… with Children that we talk [about] in the next episode.

Glen:  In the Dungeons & Dragons campaign that I ran that was based on sitcoms, there was a Sanford-and-Son-inspired adventure where the party had to go to a junkyard town and talk to—I believe they were deep gnomes, is what I translated Fred and Lamont to.

Drew:  That would make sense. Glen's sitcom-inspired Dungeons & Dragons world is one of my favorite things ever. He did a really good job with it.

Glen:  Don't steal it.

Drew:  Don't steal it. We will say nothing more about it. Glen where can people find out more about your amazing, nerdy, creative adventures? 

Glen:  I'm @BrosQuartz on Instagram—that's B-R-O-S Quartz—and on Twitter you can find me @IWriteWrongs—that's "I" like the letter, write with a "W," and then you should know how to spell "wrongs."

Drew:  And you can find me on twitter @DrewGMackie—M-A-C-K-I-E. You can follow this show on twitter @GayestEpisode. Go to GayestEpisode.com to see all of our previous episodes. Please subscribe to us on iTunes. Please give us a rate and review. We appreciate those very much—they help other people find the show. And I guess that's it. This is a TableCakes podcast. TableCakes is a podcast network I started with my business partner, Katherine Spiers, host of Smart Mouth, a food podcast and we have a bunch of other shows on our network all hosted by either gay men or women—women or gay men, I should clarify. Please give a chance to some of our other shows. We're doing some really interesting things, and I think you'll really like our content. TableCakes.com to see the other shows. Give us money, please. We're trying to do cool journalism things and actually do a show that's all about Los-Angeles-based journalism with real stories by real reporters realized in beautiful audio form. If you want to give us a few extra bucks, that will hep us accomplish that effort. Go to Patreon.com/TableCakes. Is there something else we do at the end?

Glen:  I don't know. I just hurt my hand somehow.

Drew:  Okay. Well, Glen has injured himself—sitting at a table.

Glen:  [laughs]

Drew:  So that is it for this episode, but please join us next week for Married… with Children. 

Glen:  Bye forever.

Drew:  Episode over!

["When Will I See You Again?" by the Three Degrees plays]