It seems like gay men never really stop coming out of the closet about one thing or another. I've come out as a gay man time and time again but up until now, I have never come out, publicly, as a rabid fan of a show that is one of my top-five favorite sitcoms of all time: 'Designing Women." I loooooooooove that show. I've seen every episode from the first five seasons (it wasn't the same after Delta Burke and Jean Smart left) countless times and know a lot of the dialogue by heart. I think the show had some of the most brilliant writing of any show in television history.

On Wednesday, the Museum of Television and Radio is presenting a Designing Women reunion that will bring together Burke, Smart, Annie Potts and Dixie Carter together with the show's creator and head writer Linda Bloodsworth-Thomason. I preview the event in today's U section of the Daily News.

For the article, chatted with both Dixie Carter and Linda Bloodsworth Thomason and, well, we started doing lines together on the phone. Dixie did the classic: "And thaaaaaat, is when.The lights. Went out. In Georgia!" And, of course, her lines from the first show when she tells off the man called "Ray Don" and later tells her sister Suzanne (Burke) "If sex were fast food you'd have golden arches over your bed." Dixie tells me she loved doing Julia's famous speeches but after they were filmed "I'd have to drop all that information as soon as we drive off the lot in order to clear the brain for next week's script!"

One thing that "Designing Women" had from the very beginning was gay fans. "We were told right away that gay bars all over the country were showing the show and bars in Atlanta and L.A. would do the "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" speech," Dixie says.

Among the most memorable episodes were “Killing All the Right People� in which the women were asked to design the funeral home for a friend dying of AIDS. It was based on Bloodsworth-Thomason’s mother who was infected with AIDS after a blood transfusion and died in November 1986, shortly after the show was launched. A client overhears the women talking to the friend (Tony Goldwyn) and she blurts out that AIDS is God's punishment and added, "This disease has one thing going for it, it's killing all the right people." At that point, Julia throws her out but not before saying, "If God were handing out diseases for sinning then you'd be at the free clinic ALL THE TIME!"

Linda remembers being honored at the Pacific Design Center by a gay organization for the AIDS episode and when she walked onto the stage she remembers, "I left like Liza. It was a sea of gay people and it was one of the nicest nights of my life. People were so grateful for that show and for what Dixie had said."

Another far more humorous gay-themed show was when former Miss Georgia Suzanne realizes she has no other friends except for the three women at the design firm. So, she calls up a gal from her pageant days, unaware that she's a lesbain and clueless even after she comes out to her. "Well," Suzanne says, "I'm glad she came out. I don't know why she didn't do it in her teens but better late than never. Why should I care if she's the world's oldest living debutante!" Once Suzanne realizes the friend, a weathergirl at a local TV station, is gay, she freaks out and hides out from her at her health spa. The friend finds her and confronts her inside the sauna. Suzanne softens and the women decide they really can be friends, "once I get my clothes on," Suzanne says.

The glorious Delta Burke created one of the most delicious comic characters to ever grace the small screen. Suzanne Sugarbaker, with her total narcisism, was just a hoot whether she was bringing her pet pig to work, making Anthony wax her legs, showing up in black face to sing Supremes songs at a talent show, helping Mary Jo find a date at the supermarket or taking up smoking to lose weight, Burke played her to absolute perfection.
Post-"Designing Women," Burke reprised her Suzanne Sugarbaker role in the short-lived “Women of the House,� starred in the single-season sitcoms “Delta� and “DAG,� and created the memorable character of mother-from-hell Cherry Cherry on the cult hit "Popular." Burke also tackled Broadway in productions of "Steel Magnolias" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and is now on a national tour of the play "Southern Baptist Sissies."
Each of the other three original stars has also gone on to great success. Smart has been the most prominent, winning a pair of Emmys for “Frasier� and being nominated again this year for “24.� She's also been nominated for a Tony Award and had many acclaimed performances in television and films.

Carter, who was on "Designing Women" for all seven seasons, spent four years playing an attorney on the CBS drama “Family Law� and now has a juicy recurring role on “Desperate Housewives� this season with her story line beginning next month.

Potts was Emmy nominated the CBS sitcom “Love and War� then starred in the ABC drama "Dangerous Minds" in the role Michelle Pfeiffer played in the film. Potts' most memorable role after seven seasons as as Mary Jo came on the acclaimed Lifetime drama “Any Day Now� which she starred in for four years before quitting the show to spend more time with her family. She has since had a recurring role on the now-defunct CBS series "Joan of Arcadia" and starred on stage in a Los Angeles production of the play "Diva."