BROADCAST DATE: Wednesday, June 1, 2005, Syndicated.
DESCRIPTION: From Maude and The Golden Girls to Xena, The Warrior Princess and Will & Grace, certain television shows throughout the last forty years have strayed from the straight and narrow and given a wink to Gay America. TV Land takes an in-depth look at celebrated television personalities and characters that gay viewers have either gravitated towards or closely identified with in "INSIDE TV LAND: TICKLED PINK". Lynda is featured  in "WONDER WOMAN" as a gay icon.

	Broadcast Network: TV Land. Time slot: 11:00 P.M. Featuring: LYNDA CARTER, Kelsey Grammer, Marc Cherry, Sandra Bernhard, Diahann Carroll, Rue McClanahan, Mario Cantone, Carson Kressley, Judy Gold, Richard Andreoli, Frank DeCaro, Barbara Eden, Thom Filicia, Bob Mackie, SunsaN Saint James, Jean Smart, Jason Stuart, and Bruce Vilanch. Producer: Linda Ellerbee. Executive Producer: Sal Maniaci. Associate Producer: Rolfe Tessem. Production Company: Lucky Duck.
EPISODE SYNOPSIS: TV Land takes a look at how various characters and series became "homosensational." From female characters in sitcoms such as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maude, The Golden Girls and Designing Women, gays took solace in the independence of women who dared to define the rigid roles of the time. The gay community saw these characters as strong, independent and outrageous, and the bond with their friends resonated with their own lives. The TV landscape continued to evolve as characters like Tony Randall's portrayal of "Felix" in The Odd Couple and Paul Lynde's "Uncle Arthur" on Bewitched strayed slightly from the straight and narrow. Even the dynamic duos Kate & Allie and Batman with "Robin" resonated with gay Americans. In the 1990's, as gay visibility began to increase, sitcoms like Friends, Ellen and even The Simpsons had more and more fun playing on their audience's new awareness of all things gay. Xena, Warrior Princess was hugely popular with lesbians as they looked to her as someone who was strong on the outside but also sensitive and loving and they began to play up her relationship with her best friend. This original special examines how gays embraced the aesthetic of many of these shows, making them more visible for others to be "Tickled Pink."

© 2005 by Lucky Duck Productions and TV Land Productions / Viacom International. All Rights Reserved

			RUNNING TIME:	00:49:00 [60 minutes including commercials].
			VHS:	Not available on commercial video.
			DVD:	Not available on commercial video.
			INFO:	Lynda is featured  in "WONDER WOMAN" as a gay icon.
			VIDEO:	[1]  "INSIDE TV LAND: TICKLED PINK". Video clip.
			TRIVIA:	[•] Linda Ellerbee (born Linda Jane Smith in Bryan, Texas, USA, August 15, 1944) is an outspoken award-winning journalist who is most famously known for several jobs at NBC News, including Washington (DC) correspondent, and reporter and co-anchor of NBC News Overnight, which was recognized by the duPont Columbia Awards as "the best written and most intelligent news program ever."
				[•] Lucky Duck Productions is an award-winning and critically acclaimed television production company renowned for producing primetime specials, documentaries, limited-run series and children's programming for network and cable television. The company is owned and operated by journalist, producer and author, Linda Ellerbee and Rolfe Tessem.
				[•] TV Land is an American cable television network which first started transmissions on April 29, 1996. It is owned by MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, which also owns MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and Noggin. TV Land is a spinoff of Nickelodeon's Nick at Nite.

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