A brief history of cross-dressing on television From the July 14th Entertainment Weekly:

A Look at the Long and Illustrious History of Gender-Bending on TV
DRAGGING RITES

CROSS-DRESSING TAKES CENTER STAGE ON TWO NEW teen dramas, The WB's Young Americans and Fox's Opposite Sex, in which three dudes charm their female classmates with a high-glam version of "I Will Survive." But it's not like these kids invented the practice; as this brief pictorial history shows, you just can't spell "transvestite" without "TV." �Bruce Fretts and Brian M. Raftery

* MILTON BERLE (1948) Uncle Miltie�or should that be Aunt Miltie?�took his Berle-esque act to television on The Texaco Star Theater. Is that a cigar in your skirt or are you just happy to see us?

* MAUREEN McCORMICK (1971) Going bananas over ex-Monkee Davy Jones, The Brady Bunch's Marcia tried to crash his hotel room by donning a lame bellboy getup. Still, she couldn't make anybody a believer.

* JAMIE FARR (1973) Wearing a brassiere beneath his fatigues in a vain attempt to merit a Section Eight mental-illness discharge, M*A*S*H's Cpl. Maxwell Klinger brought new meaning to "Don't ask, don't tell."

* TOM HANKS (1980) You know Buffy the Vampire Slayer�meet Buffy the Vamp. That was the Oscar winner's wigged-out alter ego when he checked into the all-girls Susan B. Anthony Hotel on Bosom Buddies.

* DAVID DUCHOVNY (1991) No, that's not Paula Jones pre-plastic surgery. Before he was an FBI agent, Duchovny played DEA agent Dennis/Denise Bryson on Twin Peaks. (Insert "twin peaks" falsies joke here.)

* DAVID SPADE AND ADAM SANDLER (1993) Following in the high-heeled foot steps of Monty Python and Kids in the Hall, SNL's Gap Girls were all like, "Omigod!" And viewers were all like, "Good God!"

* KRISTIN DAVIS (2000) Proving as Swank-y as she is swanky, Sex and the City's prim and proper Charlotte pulled a Boys Don't Cry by cross-dressing up for a kinky photo shoot. And you thought she was freaky on Melrose Place.


Back when I was in college, transvestitism and the theme of the next two entries, homosexuality, were topics covered in a course called "Deviant Sexual Behavior." These days, they seem pretty much the norm.


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