Dragging Rites

Cross-dressing takes center stage on two new teen dramas, The WB's Young Americans and Fox's Opposite Sex, in which three dudes charm their female classmates with a high-glam version of ''I Will Survive''. But it's not like these kids invented the practice; as this brief pictorial history shows, you just can't spell ''transvestite'' without ''TV.''

MILTON BERLE (1948)
Uncle Miltie — or should that be Aunt Miltie? — took his Berle-esque act to television on The Texaco Star Theater. Is that a cigar in your skirt or are you just happy to see us?

MAUREEN MCCORMICK (1971)
Going bananas over ex-Monkee Davy Jones, The Brady Bunch's Marcia tried to crash his hotel room by donning a lame bellboy getup. Still, she couldn't make anybody a believer.

JAMIE FARR (1973)
Wearing a brassiere beneath his fatigues in a vain attempt to merit a Section Eight mental-illness discharge, M*A*S*H's Cpl. Maxwell Klinger brought new meaning to ''Don't ask, don't tell.''

TOM HANKS (1980)
You know Buffy the Vampire Slayer — meet Buffy the Vamp. That was the Oscar winner's wigged-out alter ego when he checked into the all-girls Susan B. Anthony Hotel on Bosom Buddies.

DAVID DUCHOVNY (1991)
No, that's not Paula Jones pre-plastic surgery. Before he was an FBI agent, Duchovny played DEA agent Dennis/Denise Bryson on Twin Peaks. (Insert ''twin peaks'' falsies joke here.)

DAVID SPADE AND ADAM SANDLER (1993)
Following in the high-heeled footsteps of Monty Python and Kids in the Hall, SNL's Gap Girls were all like, ''Omigod!'' And viewers were all like, ''Good God!''

KRISTIN DAVIS (2000)
Proving as Swank-y as she is swanky, Sex and the City's prim and proper Charlotte pulled a Boys Don't Cryby cross-dressing up for a kinky photo shoot. And you thought she was freaky on Melrose Place.