When I was an undergraduate at Augustana College, I spent most of my free time in a little bookstore off the Student Union lobby. It stocked some bestsellers and miscellaneous nonfiction, including
The Little Prince and Dag Hammarskjold's
Markings, but mostly science fiction and fantasy, with some
underground comics under the counter.
It provided a bright belonging place for "head cases," boy who were majoring in English or philosophy or music, who wanted something greater and nobler from life than carrying briefcases into skyscrapers. We called ourselves the Bookstore Gang.
During any hour of the afternoon and early evening, half a dozen members of the Bookstore Gang could be found standing by the counter, or sitting on it, or browsing through the shelves, or reading in the armchairs or green couch that blazed with western sunlight. We discussed classes, comic books, movies, ghosts, and politics, but for some reason never girls. When the bookstore closed, we adjourned to the Rathskeller or to the TV Lounge, to argue and advise and review, discussing
The Wizard of Id or
Saturday Night Live, yelling "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
while stuck-up Business Majors stared.
Everything we watched or listened to or read was hip, anarchic, iconoclastic, but my favorite was
The Muppet Show (1976-81), with Kermit the Frog from
Sesame Street hosting a comedy-variety show, juxtaposing parodies of medical dramas or
Star Trek ("Pigs....in space") with musical numbers, while the elderly gay couple Statler and Waldorf heckled everything (except for the famous guest stars, of course).
And what a cast of guest stars! Everybody who was anybody stopped by:
Joan Baez
Milton Berle
Bert and Ernie
Joel Grey
Arlo Guthrie
Vincent Price
Tony Randall
Sylvester Stallone
Other hip, anarchic, iconoclastic tv programs and movies --
Monte Python, Mary Hartman, Saturday Night Live, WKRP in Cincinnati, Blazing Saddles, The Cheap Detective, Silent Movie -- were loaded down with fag jokes and hetero-horniness, but
The Muppet Show had neither.
Only Miss Piggy regularly displayed heterosexual interest -- at Kermit and various male guest stars -- and she was always rejected. And instead of constantly ridiculing gender transgressions, same-sex contact, and "fags," like most venues in the 1970s,
The Muppet Show offered a pleasant nonchalance about diversity in size, shape, affect, and affection (who knew what Gonzo the Great was into?).
Muppet creator Jim Henson was a gay ally, as is his daughter Lisa, now CEO of Jim Henson Enterprises. In 2012, the company severed ties with Chick-Fil-A due to its homophobic bias, and donated existing proceeds to GLAAD.
I always knew that the Muppets were gay-friendly.
Beaker and Bunsen were geek gays in love
ReplyDeleteWere puppets a big thing in the early 80s? I mean, I always liked the Muppets, but I have to wonder. This was also the era of Madame and Sesame Street and Yoda.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember a big push toward puppets in the 1980s. Muppets have been appearing on various tv shows since the 1950s, which was also the era of many children's tv shows with puppets: Kukla Fran and Ollie, Beaney and Cecil, Howdy Doody.
DeleteGonzo was into chickens. Which was weird because they were less humanized than the other Muppets --While apparently sentient and thus capable of consent, Gonzo's eventual true love Carmilla clucked rather than spoke-- but then so was Gonzo, so they accepted it. He also hit on a VERY confused Big Bird once, but it's likely he was unaware of the Bird's true age or gender. (He's admitted all chickens look the same to him.)
ReplyDeleteThe guy who did Scooter the Go-fer, Richard Hunt I believe, was Gay and after his untimely death from AIDS, the Muppets began to suggest Scooter was also Gay as a tribute to the performer.