When did Smithers come out of the closet?

Wasn't it the Malibu Stacy episode where it first started dropping hints?

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Smithers has been obviously gay as long as I can remember. Years ago there was an episode where he and Burns were on the phone with each other while wearing pink slippers and chatting like girls.

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Oh, I totally get that he's always been gay. My point wasn't that he's obviously gay, it's that he's out of the closet.

I remember one of the Troy McClure clip shows where Troy was reading and answering fan letters and one of them was something to the effect of "What's up with Smithers?" Troy responding by showing a series of clips that showed Smithers doing and saying obviously gay things and then Troy said something to the effect of "So, yes, Smithers is over 40 and unmarried."

Like I said, "not so sly innuendo." But this past episode was different, he was totally out of the closet and a proud, politically active, openly gay man. I'm just wondering when this change happened.

There was an episode long ago where Homer filled in for Smithers while he was on vacation. Burns calls Smithers while on vacation to get him to come back to work because Homer is screwing things up. During the phone convo you see Smithers at a gay resort with nothing but men in the background playing volleyball and such. That was the episode where they basically "outed" Smithers I think.