Amazing 'Will & Grace' goes out in style
Gay characters have populated television for years, but the arrival of "Will & Grace" in 1998 was groundbreaking -- and a bit dangerous.
NBC had no way of knowing whether viewers of mainstream TV would warm to a fast-paced, quick-witted, often raunchy comedy primarily about "the life." Yes, there were straight characters hanging out with the gay ones, but the focus of the humor was definitely gay.
Never mind that there was no actual gay sex going on. The sex jokes were fast-and-furious, sometimes startling ... but definitely funny. "Will & Grace" had so many zingers you could miss several of them because you were still laughing at the first one.
The creators, Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, and principal cast decided last season that this, the show's eighth season, would be its last. There will be no spinoffs, thank heavens. But Will, Grace, Karen and Jack will live on in endless reruns after Thursday night's finale. In fact, the finale will live on with a quick-as-a-wink DVD release on May 30.
The little sitcom with the big stars leaves its mark.
By today's "L Word" and "Queer as Folk" standards, "Will & Grace" is relatively mild. But for network TV, it has gotten away with so many racy sex jokes and outrageous sight gags, you have to wonder if network censors even looked at the scripts.
Most of the wordplay cannot be repeated in the newspaper, but even occasional fans of the show will remember one of the series' classic episodes.
Grace had a water-filled blow-up bra malfunction at a social event, springing leaks that looked like geysers. Will tried gamely to conceal the spurting, which necessitated an incredible amount of breast-grabbing, which apparently was OK with NBC because it was a gay man and a straight woman. Even Pat Robertson would have laughed at that one.
"The power of television to influence attitudes cannot be underestimated," says Damon Romine, entertainment media director for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). "This is a comedy that created an emotional connection between viewers and its characters. Audiences laughed and a door opened for them to have a greater understanding of our lives. Prejudice began to melt away. We cannot take this kind of visibility for granted."
The key to "Will & Grace's" brilliance, except for a creative sag when Mutchnick and Kohan left for a couple of seasons (they returned in 2004), has been the multientendre sex jokes, the brilliantly staged slapstick and the stand-out main characters played by an amazing cast.
The principals -- Eric McCormack as gay lawyer Will, Debra Messing as his straight best friend Grace, Megan Mullally as Grace's rich-and-drunk straight assistant Karen and Sean Hayes as Will's effeminate and man-crazy pal Jack -- have impeccable talent and chemistry. Each has won at least one well-deserved Emmy during the show's run.
Even in its creatively sagging seasons, "Will & Grace" could spark at least one belly laugh per episode. In its second season, it won the best-comedy Emmy. And in its heyday, during the 2000-01 season, 17.5 million viewers tuned in for the weekly guffaws.
Guest stars, on which the show sometimes relied too heavily, are an impressive, diverse group, including Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Calista Flockhart, Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, Jennifer Lopez, Cher, Al Roker, Joan Collins, Patrick Dempsey and Ellen DeGeneres.
As evidence of just how mainstream (or naive) "Will & Grace" fans were, a sizable portion of the audience let the producers know they liked the "romantic tension" between Will and Grace and were pulling for them to wind up together. Either they weren't offended by the gay themes, or they just liked the characters too much to notice.
Don't look for Will and Grace to head to the chapel in this week's finale. The writers will stay true to the gay-straight relationships and sexual orientations, although it's up in the air whether Will and Grace will decide to share parenting duties with Grace's coming-soon baby.
The next mainstream show that showcases gay characters probably won't cause much of a ripple. That's part of the "Will & Grace" legacy.
Today's sitcoms have gay characters who are mostly paper-thin and in the background: a closeted high-school boy on "The War at Home," a music business assistant on "Half and Half," gay neighbors on "That '70s Show," Patty Bouvier on "The Simpsons."
On the drama front, the situation is deeper and more varied, not counting the in-your-face homosexuality of "The L Word" and "Queer as Folk" on pay cable.
Among the more subtle characters are Vito on "The Sopranos," Dr. Kerry Weaver on "ER," Officer Julien Lowe on "The Shield," anesthesiologist Liz on "Nip/Tuck" and Bree's teen son, Andrew, on "Desperate Housewives."
They are fine folks -- well-written and well-played -- but more people are likely to remember Jack and Karen trying to pick up men in Barney's and Will and Grace in an intricately timed game of charades. Gay-ness aside, "Will & Grace" in its heyday, and even in some of its slumps, was just plain funny.
