TELEVISIONARY
Inside the ‘Ellen’ episode that made TV and cultural history 20 years ago
IN 1996, Ellen DeGeneres invited writer Dava Savel, then also executive producer of the ABC sitcom “Ellen,” and the other writers on the show to her Los Angeles home for a “meet and greet” before starting the new season, the series’ fourth.
“She said, ‘I want to talk to you about something. I want to come out on the show.’”
Savel and her fellow writers, including co-executive producer Mark Driscoll, were startled — but not because DeGeneres was gay.
“You had to be living in a cave not to know she was gay,” Savel says. There had been gay characters on prime time before, supporting figures such as Billy Crystal’s Jodie Dallas on “Soap” and Doug Savant’s Matt Fielding on “Melrose Place,” but never before had a gay actor playing a presumed heterosexual character made such an admission. It meant an entire repositioning of a hit series. At the end of its third season, “Ellen” had an average of 16 million viewers.
Given their marching orders, Savel says, “We knew we couldn’t write the show as it was. If you have 26 epi- sodes to write, it gets tedious without a romantic arc. And she didn’t want to be with a guy. We needed something. We had nothing.”
There was another obstacle: DeGeneres needed the blessing of the show’s parent company, Walt Disney, before going forward. “It really was her fight and on her to present her case,” says Savel. “We had to walk to corporate offices with Mark [Driscoll]. It was like the Bataan Death March.”
They met with Dean Valentine, then the president of network television and TV animation. His reaction was surprisingly positive. “He said, ‘Let’s do this.’ There were tears rolling down Ellen’s face,” Savel says. “She was so relieved that she could do this and move on.”
“There was a change in
her gait,” says Joely Fisher, who played Ellen’s best friend Paige for several seasons. “Her eyes were sparkling. You felt she was living in her true self. It was scary and wonderful.”
The next step was to plot when during the season the reveal should take place. “We didn’t want to do it during sweeps. We wanted to surprise people,” Savel says.
Episodes were storyboarded in her office, Ellen gave notes, and the writers reached out to cast and crew who were gay to hear their perspectives.
The plot also had to be a secret. Savel distributed scripts — and revisions — on dark red paper (which is hard to Xerox), collecting them at the end of each workday. Still, it was leaked to a local radio station and the announcer said they would be reading from it on air. Savel says Disney lawyers stopped it.
Two factors helped stoke interest in “The Puppy Episode,” which aired April 30, 1997. On April 14, 1997, DeGeneres made the cover of Time, with the famous line, “Yep, I’m gay.” Savel and the writers also telegraphed it. In one scene, Ellen is in the bathroom getting ready for a date with a guy and the cast is in the living room, telling her to “come out already.”
In Part 1 of “The Puppy Episode,” Ellen has dinner with Richard (Steven Eckholdt), a TV reporter on assignment in LA. His producer, Susan (Laura Dern), joins them for dessert. She and Ellen hit it off, and Susan reaches across the table to say, “You have a little eyelash on your face.” Ellen doesn’t know what hit her.
The next day, Ellen lies to her friends, saying she and Richard had amazing sex. She tells her therapist (played by Oprah Winfrey) the truth, saying she wants to “click with” someone. Her therapist asks if she has ever clicked with anyone and Ellen says, “Susan.”
When she hears Richard and Susan are leaving town, Ellen rushes to the airport to let Susan in on something. Leaning over a microphone for the airport’s public-address system, she says, “I’m gay.”
Fisher says during rehearsal, Ellen “never said, ‘I’m gay.’ She wanted to feel that moment with the audience.” Savel, on the floor with director Gil Junger, says, “When she said the words, the audience went ballistic. What can somebody say now that would have that kind of effect?”
Winfrey was on the set all day, having interviewed DeGeneres separately for an installment of her talk show. Savel pre-taped segments for Part 2 of the episode, in which Ellen comes out to her friends, then dreams of grocery shopping and being offered a special lesbian discount on melons. Billy Bob Thornton, Gina Gershon and Demi Moore make cameos.
When word of the show got out, many stars wanted to be in it. “Woody Harrelson called,” Savel says. She also recalls, “Mick Jagger wanted to sing an opening number.”
Savel says Tracy Chapman and Macy Gray were in the audience. After the taping, Winfrey pushed out a cake with the Time cover re-created on top. “Hours before, we had dogs sniffing because we had bomb threats,” Savel says.
The response of the audience surpassed expectations: 42 million viewers. “It was very smart TV,” says Fisher. “I was happy to be part of it.”
Adds Savel, “This was a game-changer. We weren’t just another stupid sitcom. We said something.”