Toaster Oven Joke
What's the toaster oven joke Ellen refers to in "The Puppy Episode"?
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Lisa: How come no one thinks I'm female?
In the original version of the show (which was an hour long, hence the joke at the beginning about having an hour to "come out"), Laura Dern's character responds to Ellen's accusation of "recruiting" with "one more and I get a toaster oven." Ellen claims not to get the joke and asks if that's "gay" humor. In the airport scene, she admits that she got the joke.
I wish they'd just cut the show in two parts rather than butcher it by cramming it into a half hour.
I wish they had shown the whole version, because in the version I saw, which was cut into two half hour shows, this joke was completely omitted, but at the end of the second episode you see Laura Dern's character being handed a toaster oven. So it didn't make a lot of sense. Thanks for explaining it.
Bill: How come no one thinks I'm funny?share
Lisa: How come no one thinks I'm female?
I recently saw this episode on the Oxygen network. They show two episodes on weekdays at 1:00 central if anyone is interested or didn't know. Anyway, in the episode I saw, the joke was there! It was a two-parter involving Ellen having a huge crush on a woman played by Laura Dern and Dern breaks her heart. At the end of the episode when they come back for the credits, Ellen is sitting at a table in a coffe house with Dern and Melissa Etheridge and Melissa is having her sign and initial all kinds of paperwork. All three women are giddy with excitement. Then Melissa hands Ellen a brand new toaster oven and basically "welcomes her!" It was so funny and I was laughing so hard. The whole episode was clever and touching and truthfully awkward. This was always a terrific show and it was a terrible shame that it had to end so soon.
shareYeah I saw that episode, I believe the user was talking about another joke, because in the airport Ellen says she got the toaster oven joke and this is way before the ending.
Bill: How come no one thinks I'm funny?share
Lisa: How come no one thinks I'm female?
It was a running joke.
In the airposrt when Ellen said she got the toaster oven joke she was refering to the bit that another poster posted about the character Susan recruiting and receiving a toaster oven. Then at the end Melissa Etheridge gives her a toaster.
I know it's a running joke but Susan's line where the joke is actually "told" is never heard.
Bill: How come no one thinks I'm funny?share
Lisa: How come no one thinks I'm female?
It was actually Laura Dern's character, not Ellen, who received the toaster oven from Melissa Etheridge. She had only needed to recruit one more lesbian to win one.
sharebut what does getting a toaster have to do with being a lesbian?
shareNothing, Ellen accused Lara's character of recruiting more lesbians, and Laura said something to the effect of " oh yeah, One more and I get a free toaster"...
It was something like that... I haven't seen it since last summer..
Ellen DeGeneres and Tilda Swinton how can anyone not love them?- Olivia
I agree with mdscmia81, I know that there was a toaster oven joke in the show but the joke in the episode implies that there's a whole inside joke or underground thing about gays/lesbians and "Toaster Ovens". I did get the joke that the episode implies that there is this whole gay organization sending their "members" to recruit more gay people and the more you recruit, the more prizes you get.
shareIt is actually an inside joke in the lesbian community, that you get a toaster oven for recruiting a new member.
shareYes, it's true that lesbians sometimes will joke that when a lesbian enters into a relationship with (or sleeps with) a woman who previously claimed to be straight, she gets a toaster oven for her "recruitment" efforts - but that joke comes from this episode. I never heard anyone refer to a toaster oven in that sense before this episode appeared.
There's a long, sick history of people claiming that heterosexuals need to be wary of gays and lesbians, because if they aren't careful they'll be "recruited." (As if sexual orientation was like a game of Red Rover.) The Ellen joke referenced that fear - when Laura Dern's character tells Ellen that she gives off a lesbian vibe, Ellen gets so defensive that she accuses Laura Dern of trying to recruit her, and that prompts Laura Dern to make the sarcastic remark about how she'll get a free toaster oven if she meets her recruitment goal.
I can vouch for the fact that it was not a joke before this episode. After that, it was a huge joke for a while. So was "heterosexuals like ice." There were all kinds of jokes about getting drinks in restaurants, and whether you wanted ice, or how much.
But now, when someone is newly out, people will say "She got the joke about the toaster oven," or in some cases "She finally got the joke about the toaster oven." I've even heard people say it reflexively-- "I finally got the joke about the toaster oven when I was a sophomore in college." I even know one woman who said her preferred form of birth control was "a toaster oven." I thought I would never stop laughing.
What I thought was so funny about the "joke" was at the end when Melissa Ethridge has Ellen sign the paper work, "Sign here, initial here, sign here, initial here," she then proceeds to officially stamp every page with some kind of rubber stamp and if you notice, the final stamp she does is applied to the empty clipboard surface as she lifts the last page. That cracked me up.
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