As Ellen DeGeneres brings what’s believed to be her final Hollywood chapter to a close, a new documentary is taking a look back at the trailblazing television series that put her on the cultural map.
HuffPost caught a sneak peek at Sunday’s episode of CNN’s “TV on the Edge,” which features an on-camera reunion of the creative team behind DeGeneres’ Emmy-winning comedy, “Ellen,” which ran from 1994 to 1998.
These days, “Ellen” is best remembered for “The Puppy Episode,” which aired during the show’s fourth season in 1997. The episode depicted DeGeneres’ character, Ellen Morgan, coming out as a lesbian. It also coincided with DeGeneres’ public acknowledgement of her real-life sexuality on the cover of Time magazine.
By 2024 standards, “The Puppy Episode” is incredibly tame. But, as some of the “Ellen” team recalled in the below clip from “TV on the Edge,” that wasn’t the case 26 years ago. Not only was the public backlash to the episode significant, but the show’s set was hit with a bomb threat. As for DeGeneres herself, she dealt with an alleged stalker.
Watch a clip from the Oct. 6 episode of “TV on the Edge” below.
“Ellen had a fear that somebody might come after her,” casting director Tammy Billik explains in the clip. “There was a bomb threat when we were filming the show.”
Dava Savel, one of the show’s executive producers and writers, chalked much of the pushback to “The Puppy Episode” up to an overall lack of awareness regarding LGBTQ+ issues at the time.
“People didn’t understand, and when people don’t understand, they get scared,” Savel says. “And when they get scared, they get angry. And that’s what we were getting a lot of.”
The “Ellen” episode of “TV on the Edge” comes a little more than a week after DeGeneres herself unveiled “Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval.” The comedy special, which dropped on Netflix…
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