As the first mainstream-network hit with gay lead characters, Will & Grace proved that a broad audience would embrace a show with a controversial theme - as long as it was well written, well acted, and knocked our socks off.

Many Americans had never seen a gay man like Eric McCormack's Will Truman - a handsome, successful lawyer who longed for a husband. Or for that matter, like Sean Hayes' Jack McFarland, an unapologetically promiscuous queen.

Their heterosexual best friends were equally unexpected: Will's goofy roommate, Grace Adler (Debra Messing), an interior designer, and her booze-swilling secretary, Karen Walker (Megan Mullally).

"It didn't confirm what people thought gays were. It showed there's a whole spectrum. We all have lots of sides to us. We're not all hairdressers."

Kenneth Hill, managing editor of aol.com/gay, argues that the gay boys of Will & Grace were stereotypes, and that's what made them easily accessible to heterosexual viewers.

The ratings were. By its third season (2000-01), Will & Grace had become a legitimate powerhouse, drawing more than 17 million viewers a week. It ranked 14th among all series for the season, according to Nielsen Media Research.

By 2004-05, however, the show began a precipitous decline, ending the season with 10 million viewers, for 41st place. This season, it's down more than two million viewers and ranks 73d.

"For a lot of people, including me, the show just got boring," says AOL's Hill, formerly with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "It became not funny, and the characters were mean to each other."

Suzanna Walters, chairman of the department of gender studies at Indiana University and author of All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America, labels Will & Grace "a signal moment. It brought everyday gayness into American living rooms in a way that made it almost banal."

In that regard, Will & Grace served as "a primer" for millions of viewers, says Damon Romine, entertainment media director for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

Romine says, "It allowed audiences to connect with these characters, who were funny, flawed and relatable. And gay. It told them it was OK to laugh at them and with them."

In business terms, the success of Will & Grace paved the way for The L Word and Queer as Folk on Showtime; Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy; HBO's Six Feet Under.

"Having a successful show gives you permission to have gay secondary characters on shows you wouldn't normally expect," says Walters. For hipness and edginess, "gay is the new black."

"No one will ever be able to say in a pitch meeting, 'You can't do that. It's a gay show. It will never have mainstream appeal,' " he says. "... Personally, I never thought it was possible. We were, by definition, niche programming."

When Ellen DeGeneres and her ABC character both came out in April 1997, the result was anything but niche. "The Puppy Episode" drew more than 34 million viewers, but her sitcom tanked the following season.

"I believed the time had come. Ellen had opened the door," he says. "I wasn't afraid to walk through it... . A lot of people saw it as bold. But it was our best comedy pilot of the year, no question. I knew we had a hit show."

Management took some convincing, acknowledges Littlefield, now an independent producer: "They were a little freaked out. They said it would drive advertisers away."

It didn't, he says. Neither did it evoke much backlash, though commentator L. Brent Bozell made some noise about the show's portraying gay life "as innocent joke fodder" instead of what he called "immoral or dangerous behavior."

When Will & Grace caught on with the mainstream, "I think broadcasters looked around and thought, 'I guess this is not such a big deal,' " Littlefield says. "After that, it seemed like the walls came down."

"It wasn't political. It was entertainment," says Crane, whose new fall CBS comedy, The Class, includes a homosexual elementary school teacher. "Just two funny, likable characters you care about."

Producer Zadan wasn't so lucky. His '03 ABC sitcom, It's All Relative, which featured a gay male couple with a grown daughter, was canceled after less than a season.

For Zadan, the wide acceptance of Will & Grace hit home a few years ago as he was flying from New York to L.A. Passengers of all ages were cracking up over an in-flight episode.

He says, "Looking around the plane, I thought, 'Wow.' Just a couple of years ago, you'd never see gay people on TV, let alone on a hit series, let alone shown on an airplane, let alone making all the passengers laugh."

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