Calista Flockhart & Lucy Liu – Television’s First Interracial Lesbian Kiss

Many TV trivia pundits say that US television’s first interracial kiss was between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura (William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols) in a 1968 episode of Star Trek. Actually, that isn’t true because Lucy and Ricky Ricardo (Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez) kissed many times on screen in I Love Lucy over a decade earlier, but I digress. Above is US television’s first interracial lesbian kiss, between Ally McBeal and Ling Woo (Calista Flockhart and Lucy Liu), on an episode of Ally McBeal entitled “Buried Pleasures,” which aired in November of 1999. It didn’t suck.

Brenda Song on Dads

Despite a seasoned cast that included 26 year-old Brenda Song, the FOX sitcom Dads, didn’t even make it one full season. Above is Brenda making her second screen appearance in the pilot episode, in which her employers talk her into dressing as a sexy Asian schoolgirl straight out of a hentai comic book in order to "impress" some Chinese investors being pitched a new video game entitled “Kill Hitler 2.″

The show was widely panned by critics and deemed “racially insensitive” by some Asian-American groups, who found certain jokes (some spoken by Brenda’s character) and referencing certain stereotypes (like the one above, I suppose) offensive. Even though we won’t be seeing Miss Song on Dads anymore, given her track record over the past 20 (yes, 20) years, I doubt she’ll be drawing unemployment for very long.

Cecily Strong - SNL's Hottest Female Cast Member Ever

This is just this author's opinion (which is all that counts here, anyway), but while only in her sophomore year on Saturday Night Live, Chicago-area native Cecily Strong has established herself, not only as one of the foremost funny ladies in any SNL cast, but also as one of the show's all-time absolute hammers.

Above is arguably Cecily's best character, "The Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation with at a Party," appearing on SNL's "Weekend Update" last season, which she now co-anchors this season. Speaking of which, now that she's serving as an anchor on Weekend Update (pretty much a straight role), I hope that doesn't mean that we will be seeing no more of this character, as Update was the only segment in which she appeared. If SNL's producers don't see the potential in this character and feature her in a series of sketches, then they obviously haven't been talking to the the right girls at parties.

Ally Maki Does 2 Broke Girls

Among the many roles Japanese-American actress Ally Maki has played on TV sitcoms, a couple of the more notable ones were actually Korean. She played North Korean spy Joyce Kim in a flashback episode of The Big Bang Theory, in which she was was sleeping with one of the main characters, only in order to obtain classified information on the rocket fuel he was working on.

Bada on Saturday Night Live Korea

Saturday Night Live Korea made its debut in December of 2011 and has since done quite well in the ratings. Closely patterned after the long-running "live from New York" original, SNL Korea is considered to be in its fourth season, as Korean TV seasons are relatively short. This excerpt from a July 2012 skit features the show's host, singer/actress Bada (Sea) overseeing auditions to choose two new singers to flank her in "SES II."

Lucy Liu Does Saturday Night Live

As an avid Saturday Night Live fan, I'm a pretty good authority as to who the more memorable (and forgettable) cast members have been and which hosts and musical guests have shined (and stunk) over the years. After watching the show the other night (and dubbing Cecily Strong the hottest female SNL cast member ever), I did some research and, just as I thought; in SNL's 38-year history, the show has never had an Asian cast member and has had only one Asian female host, who was Lucy Liu, well over a decade ago. Above is Lucy's opening monolog from her December 16th, 2000 appearance as host. Since she was the first Asian female to ever host SNL, it wasn't surprising that she capitalized on that fact by using some Asian stereotypes to bring out the laughs.

USA Up All Night with Rhonda Shear

I fondly remember watching Rhonda Shear host USA Up All Night on Friday nights during the early-90s. (Since I was rarely home on those pre-TiVo nights, I learned how to program my VCR to record the show so I could view it after I got home.) Rhonda took over from original Friday night hostess Caroline Schlitt (whatever happened to her, huh?) in 1990, a year after the show's debut, and remained until USA Up All Night ended its run in 1998.

Comedian Gilbert Gottfried hosted the Saturday night show and I mention this here only because he sent me a free t-shirt during that time.The above is from 1992 and features Rhonda with guests Linnea Quigley, Jayne Hamil, and Jewel Shepard. The films shown that night were the B classics Vice Academy and Vice Academy 2, both of which starred Linnea and Jayne (and unfortunately, both of which USA Network edited for television). Oh, and in 2013, you can hopefully look forward to an exclusive interview right here with at least one of the aforementioned ladies.

Hello Franceska

If the Korean sitcom Hello Franceska could be considered Korea's belated answer to The Addams Family, then I suppose Franceska (played by one of the Korean screen's great beauties, Shim Hye-jin) would be comparable to Morticia. The show ran on Seoul's MBC network from 2005-2006 and co-starred Jung Ryeo-won as Franceska's "daughter," Elizabeth. The story centered around a group of vampires, headed by Franceska, who boarded the wrong ship and accidentally ended up in South Korea, where they attempted to pose as a normal family and adapt to normal lives in modern-day Seoul until their vampire leader found them and returned them to Romania, or so they hoped.

The ADAs of Law & Order

(Note: The information given on the ladies in this article is on the characters, not the actresses portraying them. Also and obviously; I'm only including the ADAs of the original Law & Order series here, not the ones from the subsequent Law & Order: SVU or Law & Order: Criminal Intent.)

Law & Order was a popular crime drama based in New York City, that ran from 1990-2010. For the first three seasons, the assistant district attorney was a man, but by the end of the third season, the producers decided the show didn't have enough female characters (and I don't know why the hell it took them three full seasons to realize that), so at the beginning of the fourth season, the male ADA was replaced with a female and from that point on, all the ADAs were female. Furthermore, all were very easy on the eyes. The first being ADA Claire Kincaid, played by Jill Hennessey (pictured at right), who served as the lead prosecutor's second chair lady from 1993-1996.

Claire was a Harvard Law grad who was described as an "idealistic, outspoken feminist and agnostic who became increasingly disillusioned with her job." Although she was well-respected by her bosses, Clair's liberal views often clashed with the duties of her job and they didn't always sit well with her initial, more conservative superiors. She was killed when a drunk driver rammed into her car while she was driving Detective Lenny Briscoe home, who had one too many himself that evening. She was considering leaving the Manhattan DA's office at the time of her death. A few hints were dropped that she had a more-than professional relationship going on with lead prosecutor Jack McCoy, while she was working alongside him. That wasn't finally confirmed to viewers until three years after her death.

Jackie Fox on The Dating Game

Jackie Fox wasn't the original bassist, but she was definitely the best-known bassist for the 70s all-girl band the Runaways, whose more notable alumnae are Joan Jett and Lita Ford. Along with Cherie Currie and Sandy West, the quintet that included Jackie, is considered by many fans to be the classic Runaways' line up. After Jackie left the band in 1977, near the end of their Japan tour, she faded away from the spotlight. However, she did make this one-time appearance on the Dating Game in 1980. When asked about this in a 1998 interview, she was quoted as saying:

My roommate at the time worked for Chuck Barris productions and was responsible for getting potential contestants in to audition. She had a quota and one week when she hadn't met it begged me just to show up. So I went and, since I wasn't taking it seriously, just mouthed off when I got there. Which, of course, they loved. So I went on out of curiosity. The best part about it was that Pee Wee Herman was on the game after me!! It was one of Paul Reuben's earliest appearances as Pee Wee and he was hilarious. I don't have a tape of that appearance. If anyone out there has one, I'd love a copy.

I've posted the video in its entirety (from Jackie's introduction to her parting), so the bachelors' inane presences and replies to Jackie's questions are unfortunately included. To see what Jackie's been up to since, just check out her Wikipedia entry. (Video credit: CherieO at Youtube)

"Heart to Heart" Host, Ahn Jung-hyun

Ahn Jung-hyun (also known by some as "Dimple Girl" or "Miss Dimples") started with Arirang TV in Korea in 1996 as a news reporter and then later became an anchor. She's been the host of the popular Arirang talk show Heart to Heart since October 2001 and the DJ on the Arirang radio show World Cafe since late 2005. You can see by reading her bio that she has some quite impressive credentials and I don't mean to disregard her qualifications or skills as a journalist, but .... just look at those dimples.