Glee premiered on May 19th, 2009 and instantly became a teen smash hit. Now, sixteen years later, the show continues to live on in pop culture — in both infamy and celebration.
Glee follows a group of Ohio teens navigating romances and societal pressures as they partake in their school’s Glee Club. Heartfelt moments are accompanied with covers of Top 40 hits, show tunes, and classic pop and rock songs.
Along with its wide array of music, Glee manages to cover a lot of serious topics like homophobia, bullying, eating disorders, and teenage pregnancy. Despite the heavy subject matter, Glee‘s infamy stems from its ridiculous and crazy storylines. It can feel like the most nauseating roller-coaster as you watch — one you can’t help but hop onto again.
In celebration of it’s sixteen anniversary, let’s take a look at some, and I mean only some, of Glee‘s most outrageous and laughable moments.
Grilled cheesus
Episode three of Glee’s second season centers around two big storylines. The first being Kurt Hummel’s father having a hear attack, the other being Finn Hudson’s discovery of what looks like an image of Jesus on his grilled cheese. He takes this as a sign from God, and spirals into an existential crisis.
The episode perfectly exemplifies the chaos of Glee. On one hand, you have a heartbreaking story where Kurt struggles with the idea of losing his father, on the other, you have Finn praying to a sandwich.
Finn even treats it like a genie, believing it will grant him three wishes. And no, none of those wishes involve helping Kurt’s dad. What other show will give you a plot like that?
Straight to the crackhouse
Rachel Berry, one of the show’s main characters, consistently takes her passion for singing way to far. It’s part of her charm, although it can make you cringe at times.
In Glee’s second season, Rachel hears someone singing Lady Gaga’s Telephone in the bathroom. She immediately feels threatened and tries to one up the mysterious singer. The two then engage in a duet, with Rachel sending death stares to the smiling stranger.
Later in the episode, we find out the girl’s name is Sunshine, and we also find out that Rachel sent her to a crack house instead of the Glee club’s practice room. Confused looks are passed through the club, but no updates are given on the poor girl as the episode goes on.
Sunshine inevitably does come back in another episode, so it seems like the crack house wasn’t all that bad.
Sue becomes a Klaine fan
For most of the show, Sue Sylvester is an absolute menace to everyone in the Glee Club. She berates, insults, sabotages and even physically assaults them every chance she gets. Her ability to absolutely tear teenagers apart is both hilarious and concerning.
Despite her constant reign of terror, Sue is not heartless. In season six, Sue reveals that she’s the number one fan of Glee Club members Blaine and Kurt’s relationship. She even has a secret storage unit filled with photos of the two (which is not creepy at all).
After the couple tragically break up in season six, Sue decides to put matter in her own hands. She traps Blaine and Kurt in an elevator and informs them (through a Saw-like doll version of herself) that she’ll only let them out if they get back together.
It’s a sharp turn from the Sue we’ve known, and yet it weirdly makes sense. Her plan eventually works, so I guess we have her to thank for getting one of the show’s most beloved couples back together.
Terri drugs the Glee Club
In season one of Glee, the Glee Club’s teacher, Will Schuester and his wife Terri struggle financially. To help bring in more money, Terri gets a job at Will’s school as a nurse (even though she’s not a nurse) and decides to start giving students pseudoephedrine tablets to help them stay alert.
Terri ends up giving all the Glee Club members these tablets, which results in them giving hyper performances during their weekly practice. I have to hand it to Terri, these performances are some of the best on the show, so maybe she did the right thing. Or maybe her getting fired in the next episode makes total sense.
Kurt takes crush to a whole new level
One Glee storyline that is both rewarding and confusing is Kurt’s crush on Finn in season one. In order to get Finn to like him back, Kurt decides to set up his dad, Burt, with Finn’s mom, Carole, (because of course that will end well). The parents do end up falling in love, which means Finn and Kurt get to move in together.
How this would end with Finn and Kurt together still baffles me as well as other fans. Making them step brothers seems like the exact opposite of what Kurt wants. It also paints Kurt out to be predatory, which is not in his nature.
Maybe this plotline should’ve stayed in the drafts, although Burt and Carole’s relationship is one of Glee’s best.
Blaine hallucinates…puppets?
In what is probably Glee’s most baffling episode, Blaine Anderson hits his head and ends up hallucinating the Glee Club as puppets. Yep. The entire episode has Blaine believing that his friends are now puppets.
While some of the other storylines mentioned have some chaotic charm to them, this one is just plain weird.
Let’s also not forget that this episode has the puppets sing What Does the Fox Say, which is one of the worst songs ever created. The cover can only be described as nails on a chalkboard and the puppets really make the whole thing unbearable.
Thankfully things go back to normal at the end of the episode, but it’s hard to erase the images produced by those terrifying puppets.
Just the tip of the iceburg
As mentioned before, these are just some of Glee’s silliest moments. The show is full of them (I mean Will Schuester alone is a whole bag of crazy) so a rewatch is the only way to soak it all in.
Glee had its problems, both on and off screen, but its hard to deny its cultural impact. Multiple covers charted on the Billboard Hot 100, each season garnered millions of viewers, and there was even a Glee Tour and concert film.
Sixteen years later, the show is still talked about and referenced. It’s one of those things that’ll never be replicated again, which you could say is both a blessing and a curse.
