The show featured such entertainers as Richard Andreoli, Kelsey Grammer, Sandra Bernhard, Diahann Carroll, Susan Saint James, Bruce Vilanch, Marc Cherry, Lynda Carter, Bob Mackie, Jean Smart, Jason Stuart, Frank DeCaro, Barbara Eden, Mike Gray, Carson Kressley, Rue McClanahan, Judy Gold, Thom Filicia, and Mario Cantone.
In addition to The Golden Girls, Batman, and CHiPs, Maude, Xena: Warrior Princess, Will & Grace, Sex & the City, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Designing Women, Friends, Ellen, The Simpsons, The Odd Couple, Laverne & Shirley, Cagney & Lacey, Kate & Allie, Wonder Woman, Dynasty, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer were also cited in Tickled Pink as shows that "became ‘homosensational’ ", providing gays with characters who were depicted as "strong, independent and outrageous" and whose "bond with their friends resonated with their own lives".
[2] According to NPR, the first shows to earn the honor were actresses from the 1970s, who may not have been gay but broke away from the happy homemaker mold that defined too many adult female roles in the medium's early years.
[4] According to some critics, the television situation comedy The Odd Couple, starring Jack Klugman and Tony Randall, also played upon the ambiguity of "two divorced, heterosexual men sharing a Manhattan apartment, where they cooked, cleaned (or refused to clean), bickered, and negotiated the dilemmas of everyday existence together," and "Randall’s uptight, opera-loving Felix" may have "functioned as a ‘stealth gay stereotype’ in the still-closeted world of '70s prime time."
The portrayal of Batman as gay could have derived from psychiatrist Fredric Wertham’s 1954 observations about the comic book character and his partner, Robin the Boy Wonder.