156
Many popular press and trade publication articles in the 1970s also followed the
developments and protests over Jodie’s homosexuality. For a condensed chronicle of interaction
between various advocacy groups and ABC, see Stephen Tropiano, The Prime Time Closet (New
York: Applause Theatre and Cinema, 1992); Kathryn C. Montgomery, Target: Prime Time:
Advocacy Groups and the Struggle over Entertainment Television (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1989); Elana Levine, Wallowing in Sex (Durham: Duke University Press,
2007); Jason Mittell, Genre and Television: From Cartoons to Cop Shows in American Culture
(New York: Routledge, 2004).
Soap, episode 70, ABC, March 27, 1980. At this point in the narrative, Jodie was celibate, and
he would later have a love affair with a woman. It is possible then to see the court’s awarding of
custody less as a vindication of gay fatherhood than an affirmation of his newfound normativity.
The emphasis on Jodie’s sexuality at the custody trial, however, makes it difficult not to see his
success in court as a triumph for gay fatherhood.
Joan B. Kelly, “The Determination of Child Custody,” Children and Divorce 4, no. 1 (1994),
122.
David Bianculli, “Tony Blasts Network Censors for Fearful Reaction to Love, Sidney,” The
Ottawa Citizen, November 16, 1982, 76.
Janet Maslin, “TV: Love, Sidney,” New York Times, October 10, 1981.
Lawrence Gross, Up from Invisibility (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 84.
Nielsen Report on Television (Northbrook, IL: A.C. Nielsen and Co., 1982).
Joyrich, Re-viewing Reception, 105.
Ibid, 107.
Angela Blessing and Rick Holmstrom, “For Staci Keanan of TV’s My Two Dads, Hollywood
Can Be Two-Faced,” People, November 23, 1987.
My Two Dads, “See You in September?”, NBC, April 30, 1990.
Staff, “Full House: 1987-1995,” People, June 26, 2000.
Full House, “Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Girl Gone,” ABC, October 8, 1991.
Full House, “Fuller House,” ABC, February 22, 1991.
Alexander Doty, “The Homosexual and the Single Girl,” in Mad Men, Mad World: Sex,
Politics, Style, and the 1960s, eds. Lauren M.E. Goodlad, Lilya Kaganovsky, and Robert A.
Pushing (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013), 296.
Full House, “Joey Gets Tough,” ABC, November 25, 1988.
“1987 Domestic Grosses,” Box Office Mojo, accessed May 1, 2017.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1987&p=.htm.
Daniel Howard Cerone, “‘Full House’ Not Enough for ABC Pot,” Los Angeles Times, May
23, 1995.
In 1988-89 season, ABC’s TGIF lineup featured Perfect Strangers, Full House, Mr.
Belvedere, and Just the Ten of Us (1988-90), a spinoff of Growing Pains with a more
conventional nuclear family. Later seasons of TGIF included Step by Step (1991-98), a modern
version of The Brady Bunch that starred My Two Dads’ Staci Keanan, and Baby Talk (1991-92),
a series about a single mother, among others. TGIF lasted beyond the long 1980s, though it
ended in 2000 to falling ratings for family comedies. It was briefly revived from 2003 to 2005,
again with a lineup of family comedies.
Brian Lowry, “TV Review: The Unauthorized Full House Story,” Variety, August 19, 2015.
John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freeman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America
(New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1988), 331.