The Puppy Episode
"The Puppy Episode" | |
---|---|
Ellen episodes | |
Episode nos. | Season 4 Episodes 22/23 |
Directed by | Gil Junger |
Story by | Ellen DeGeneres |
Teleplay by | Mark Driscoll Tracy Newman Dava Savel Jonathan Stark |
Production code | C385/C386 |
Original air date | April 30, 1997 |
Guest appearances | |
| |
"The Puppy Episode" is a two-part episode of the American
DeGeneres began negotiating with ABC in 1996 to have Morgan come out. When word of the negotiations got out, DeGeneres found herself at the center of intense speculation about when she or her character, or both, would come out. With DeGeneres hinting at her and her character's coming out both off-screen and within the show, the rumors were confirmed when the episode went into production in March 1997.
Despite threats from advertisers and religious groups, "The Puppy Episode" enjoyed enormous success, won multiple awards and became a cultural phenomenon. Nonetheless, DeGeneres and her show quickly garnered criticism for being "too gay"; the series was canceled after one more season and DeGeneres and guest star Laura Dern faced career backlashes.
Plot
Ellen goes out to dinner with her old friend Richard, a reporter who is in town to cover a story. His producer Susan joins them for dessert and she and Ellen hit it off. Ellen goes back to Richard's hotel room. He comes on to her and an uncomfortable Ellen leaves. She runs into Susan in the hall and returns with her to her room. They continue to enjoy each other's company until Susan tells Ellen that she is
The next day, Ellen tells her friends at the bookstore that she and Richard had amazing sex. She tells her therapist the truth, that she could not have sex with Richard. Ellen laments that she just wants someone with whom she clicks. When her therapist asks if she has ever clicked with anyone, Ellen replies, "Susan."
A message from Richard that he is leaving town ahead of schedule sends Ellen rushing to the airport to see Susan. Ellen tells Susan that she was right and comes out as gay, inadvertently broadcasting her announcement over the airport's
Ellen has a dream in which she is grocery shopping. She is offered a special lesbian discount on melons, her sexuality is announced to the other shoppers, she is offered a granola bar, she is beckoned toward a checkout lane with a pink triangular sign reading "10 lesbians or less" and given her grocery total of "a lesbian twenty-nine" ($11.29). She discusses the dream with her therapist and realizes that she has been suppressing her sexuality for many years. Her therapist encourages her to come out to her friends, but Ellen is worried about not being accepted.
Ellen has her friends over to come out to them. Before they arrive, she comes out to her gay neighbor Peter. When everyone else arrives, Ellen balks at telling them, but Peter outs her. Ellen confirms that it is true and her friends are all supportive of her, although Paige is hesitant.
The next day Ellen and Susan are at the bookstore. Susan tells Ellen that she does have feelings for her, but she is in a long-term relationship. Ellen is heartbroken and Susan leaves. To cheer her up, her friends take her to a lesbian coffeehouse.
During the tag scene, Susan introduces Ellen to Melissa Etheridge, who confirms that Ellen is gay and, after completing the necessary paperwork, awards Susan a toaster oven.
Production
By the end of the third season of Ellen, producers were becoming frustrated by the series's lack of focus and the lack of interest that the character Ellen Morgan displayed toward the standard sitcom tropes of dating and relationships. Disney boss Michael Eisner suggested that since the character showed no inclination toward dating, she should get a puppy. "It was an indication of just how lost the show was that network executives would be excited by Ellen buying a puppy", said executive producer Mark Driscoll.[1] It was this suggestion that gave writer Jonathan Stark the idea to give that working title to the episode, and it stuck.[2]
In the summer of 1996 DeGeneres and the show's other writers opened negotiations with ABC and its parent company,
With word of the episode out, backlash began. The studio received at least one bomb threat and Driscoll received a telephone call informing him he was going to Hell.[4] DeGeneres was followed by car to the studio on at least one occasion by a "suspicious man".[7] Some within the entertainment industry assumed that the coming out was simply a ratings stunt, to which DeGeneres responded, "I did it selfishly for myself and because I thought it was a great thing for the show, which desperately needed a point of view."[8]
DeGeneres began dropping hints in the episodes leading up to "The Puppy Episode" that she was planning to come out in real life and have her character come out as well, including such
DeGeneres commented on her months of hinting at her sexuality and the media frenzy within the episode itself, giving Ellen Morgan's friends lines like "Ellen, are you coming out or not?!" and "Yeah, quit jerking us around and come out already!"[11] Morgan's therapist comments that if Morgan does not come out she will "continue to have these dreams and then it's going to show up in your waking life as these little clues that get more and more obvious. And eventually tiresome."[12] She also says that Morgan cannot attribute her sexuality to media influence.[12]
Director Junger recalled the time when actress DeGeneres "would burst into tears" while rehearsing every time the scene where her character Ellen Morgan comes out to Susan at the airport, which Junger considered "emotionally the most difficult scene to rehearse".[13] When the character Ellen Morgan comes out as gay via "the airport microphone,"[13] the studio audience applauded, "laughed and cheered",[14] and the airport extras "look shocked".[13] DeGeneres's mother Betty was among the scene's extras.[13]
Reception
"The Puppy Episode" and DeGeneres's attendant coming out generated enormous publicity before the show aired. Right-wing groups like the
"The Puppy Episode" was the highest-
In the United Kingdom, "The Puppy Episode" also drew a huge positive reaction and high ratings for Channel 4, the network which carried Ellen. To celebrate the success and DeGeneres's coming out, Channel 4 and talk show host Graham Norton flew DeGeneres in to London and held a celebration for her and her family. Channel 4 also dedicated an entire night of programming to the LGBT community including DeGeneres herself as part of their "Coming Out Night". DeGeneres was deeply moved by the celebration, and that it meant the world to her to have a network that supported her no matter what.[25]
Following "The Puppy Episode", Ellen was renewed for another season. ABC prefaced each episode of season five with a parental advisory warning.
With the cancellation of Ellen, DeGeneres focused her energy on stand-up comedy, where she had begun her career.[29] She returned to network television in 2001 with the short-lived The Ellen Show, in which her character Ellen Richmond was openly lesbian from the start,[30] before finding renewed success with her talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, beginning in 2003,[29] which ran for 19 seasons until May 2022.
Guest star Laura Dern faced backlash over her appearance in the episodes. In a 2007 interview for DeGeneres's talk show commemorating the tenth anniversary of "The Puppy Episode," Dern stated that she did not work for a year and a half because of playing Susan.[31] Nonetheless, Dern said that she was grateful for the "extraordinary experience and opportunity" of being a part of the episode.[32] Speaking of her experience, DeGeneres said, "It was a huge step in my life. I think people sensed the honesty in it. I think it helped a lot of people, and still to this day I hear about parents and children being able to have an honest conversation through watching that show. That's ultimately what television can be: It can get conversations started."[4]
Notes
- ^ Tracy (2005), p. 239.
- ^ a b c Lo, Malinda (April 9, 2005). "Back in the Day: Coming Out With Ellen". AfterEllen.com. Archived from the original on March 4, 2010. Retrieved November 19, 2008.
- ^ a b c "US activists celebrate Ellen's ten lesbian years". pinknews. April 11, 2007. Archived from the original on May 23, 2012. Retrieved October 28, 2019.
- ^ a b c d Kaufman, Debra (January 27, 2008). "Sitcom Was True to Star's Style". TelevisionWeek. Archived from the original on January 31, 2008. Retrieved November 20, 2008.
- ^ "ABC will let 'Ellen' out of the closet: Gay lead character a prime time first". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. March 4, 1997. Archived from the original on October 22, 2012. Retrieved November 19, 2008.
- ^ Tropiano (2002), p. 246.
- ^ a b Tracy (2005), p. 248.
- ^ Tracy (2005), p. 247.
- ^ Handy, Bruce; Bland, Elizabeth L.; Tynan, William & Resner, Jeffrey (April 17, 2007). "Roll Over, Ward Cleaver". Time. Archived from the original on February 24, 2007. Retrieved November 19, 2008.
- ^ Marchessault & Sawchuk (2000), p. 81.
- ^ "The Puppy Episode, part 1". Ellen. Season 4. Episode 22. April 30, 1997.
- ^ a b "The Puppy Episode, part 2". Ellen. Season 4. Episode 23. April 30, 1997.
- ^ LCCN 2008030540. Retrieved April 24, 2020.
- ^ a b Mettler, Katie (April 28, 2017). "Ellen DeGeneres celebrates 20th anniversary of her sitcom's coming-out episode". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 24, 2020 – via Chicago Tribune.
- ^ Tracy (2005), pp. 251–52.
- ^ a b Capsuto (2000), p. 393.
- ^ Handy, Bruce (April 14, 1997). "He Called Me Ellen Degenerate?". Time. Archived from the original on April 28, 2007. Retrieved November 18, 2008.
- ^ a b Lapham, Bob (April 15, 1997). "Petition being circulated against showing of 'Ellen' episode". Abilene Reporter-News. Archived from the original on June 14, 2011. Retrieved November 18, 2008.
- ^ Tracy (2005), p. 251.
- ^ "Ellen: TV Guide news". tvguide.com. Retrieved November 19, 2008.
- ^ "And The Winners Are..." Seattle Times. September 15, 1997. Archived from the original on September 10, 2012. Retrieved November 19, 2008.
- ^ "'Ellen' Wins Peabody Award". New York Times. April 3, 1998. Retrieved November 19, 2008.
- ^ Castañeda & Campbell (2005), p. 267.
- ^ "TV's Top 100 Episodes of All Time". TV Guide. June 15, 2009. pp. 34–49.
- ^ Glaad Awards 99 Getty Images. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
- ^ Johnson (2008), p. 158.
- ^ a b DeGeneres, quoted in Ehrenstein (1998), p. 315.
- ^ Douglas-Brown, Laura (April 13, 2007). "Queer people, big world". Southern Voice. Archived from the original on April 29, 2007. Retrieved November 18, 2008.
- ^ a b Fees, Jarre (January 27, 2008). "Tracking Ellen's Career Highlights". TV Week. Archived from the original on October 25, 2008. Retrieved December 20, 2008.
- ^ Owen, Rob (July 26, 2001). "On Air: New DeGeneres sitcom won't focus on gay life". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on September 10, 2009. Retrieved December 20, 2008.
- ^ Vejnoska, Jill (April 20, 2007). "Ellen DeGeneres and Laura Dern Reunite". Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Archived from the original on December 4, 2008. Retrieved November 18, 2008.
- ^ "Ellen and Laura Dern reunite after kiss". Today.com. Associated Press. April 23, 2007. Retrieved November 20, 2008.
References
- Castañeda, Laura & Campbell, Shannon B. (2005). News and Sexuality: Media Portraits of Diversity. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. ISBN 1-4129-0999-6.
- Capsuto, Steven (2000). Alternate Channels: The Uncensored Story of Gay and Lesbian Images on Radio and Television. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-41243-5.
- Ehrenstein, David (1998). Open Secret (Gay Hollywood 1928–1998). New York: William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-15317-8.
- Johnson, Victoria E. (2008). Heartland TV: Prime Time Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity. New York: NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-4293-8.
- Marchessault, Janine & Sawchuk, Kim (2000). Wild Science: Reading Feminism, Medicine, and the Media. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-20431-3.
- Tracy, Kathleen (2005). Ellen: The Real Story of Ellen DeGeneres. New York: Kensington. ISBN 0-7860-1750-3.
- Tropiano, Stephen (2002). The Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV. New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. ISBN 1-55783-557-8.
External links
- "The Puppy Episode Part 1" at IMDb
- "The Puppy Episode Part 2" at IMDb