I'm Dickens...He's Fenster: Early 1960s Bonding

When I was a kid,  I knew John Astin as the mustached, googly-eyed Gomez Addams on The Addams Family (1964-66), as the Riddler on Batman (a replacement for Frank Gorshin), and as various kooky characters thereafter, such as Professor Gangreen in Return of the Killer Tomatoes (1988).  Funny, but not really swoon-worthy -- I was more interested in his teen idol sons, Sean and Mackenzie.

And Marty Ingels as a voice on Cattanooga Cats and Grape Ape on Saturday morning tv, married to Shirley Jones and the stepfather of David, Shaun, and Patrick Cassidy.  Again, not really swoon-worthy.

Then a Boomer of the older generation suggested the sitcom I'm Dickens -- He's Fenster (1962-63), which appeared after The Flintstones on Friday nights.   I looked up some episodes on youtube.

John Astin (age 32) and Marty Ingels (age 26) play bumbling carpenters Harry Dickens and Arch Fenster.  Dickens is married, and trying to be stable and respectable.

Arch is a swinger (with a Little Black Book full of women's phone numbers), and keeps trying to drag his partner into crazy adventures.

But in spite of the blatant girl-leering, there's a blatant homoromantic subtext.  The two behave as if they were romantic partners, in that unself-conscious way that performers had before they were aware that gay readings were possible: an amazing physicality, a devotion to each other, and even a domesticity, as Fenster practically lives with Dickens.

And they are swoonworthy.  No nudity, but 32-year old John Astin displays a respectable chest and nicely-toned biceps in a tight black  t-shirt, and 26-year old Marty Ingels has a beefy, promising physique.

Producer Leonard Stern was also responsible for the beefcake-heavy Run, Buddy, Run and the buddy comedy The Good Guys.

Space Cases: Star Trek Voyager for Kids

Nickelodeon is known for naturalistic teencoms, so its sci-fi series Space Cases (1996-97) (not a comedy in spite of the pun) had trouble finding an audience, and was cancelled after 27 episodes.

The premise was similar to that of Star Trek: Voyager: some students at a space academy find an abandoned alien ship and sneak aboard. Their teacher and the academy commander follow, and everyone is accidentally zapped half-way across the galaxy, seven years from home at maximum warp. Plots involve deep-space dangers, interpersonal conflicts, and the ongoing mystery of who sent the spacecraft, and why.  Buddy-bonding but not much heterosexual intrigue ensued.

There were several attractive male crew members:

Paul Boretski (gruff-but-caring Commander Goddard)  has had a lot of experience in sci-fi and paranormal series: War of the Worlds, PSI Factor, Earth: Final Conflict.    He had a full-frontal nude scene in Perfect Timing (1986).

Walter E. Jones (Harlan Band, leader of the students) was the most famous of the cast members, well known as the Black Ranger on Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (1993-94).  He has also played in Malibu Shore, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Spyder Games, and The Shield.  He hasn't been the subject of many gay rumors, but this photo looks like he's reclining in a male companion's arms; it may just be a trick of the camera.

Kristian Ayre played Radu, from the planet Andromeda.   He keeps trying to bond with Harlan, who is still angry over the long war between Andromeda and Earth.

Kristian moved on to star in the series Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy (1999-2000) and the movies Voyage of the Unicorn (2001), Bang Bang You're Dead (2002), and Elf (2003).  He has been the subject of gay rumors.

Rahi Azizi, star of the buddy-bonding Demon in a Bottle (1996), played Bova, from the planet Uranus: an oddball outsider with an energy-gathering appendage and an enormous appetite.

After retiring from acting, Rahi became a lawyer.  He participated in the 2012 Lambda Legal lawsuit that challenged Nevada's ban on same-sex marriage.

Join the Army: Military Beefcake

When I was growing up, it was assumed implicitly that I would go to work in the factory the day after my high school graduation.  No one in my family had ever gone to college; it was simply unthinkable. So when I brought up the subject in the spring of 1976, I heard:
1. "You think we're rich?"
2. "Colleges are full of atheists and Catholics.  They'll brainwash you."
3. "Why do you want to waste your time with more schooling?  You're smart enough to work in the factory right now."
4. "If you don't want to work in the factory, why not join the army or the navy?  You get three square meals a day."

Could I embark on a military career?

The idea wasn't entirely half-baked.  The Vietnam War was over.  I wasn't aware of the existence of gay people yet, so of course I wasn't aware that they were banned from the U.S. military.  And I had seen ample military beefcake.


The Navy Way (1944): as the new recruits strip, a prissy queen gazes longingly at the muscleman beside him.  The muscleman obligingly flexes.

Sammy Jackson posed semi-nude in the gay-themed Physique Pictorial before going on to star in the tv version of No Time for Sergeants.

In 1969, the Here's Lucy gang visited the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs to see about getting Craig (Desi Arnaz Jr.) admitted.  Lucy accidentally sets off a fire alarm, and a dormitory full of cute guys rushes out, wearing pajamas, bathrobes, and underwear.

Then there was Ensign Pulver, McHale's Navy, Gomer Pyle USMC, South Pacific....

The Dell comics Four-Color Cadet Gray of West Point interspliced pictures of real cadets with comics about historic battles.

But I didn't quite have the physique of those cadets, and when I took the Strong Occupational Interest Inventory during my junior year, "soldier" was at the bottom of the list, along with "police officer." I was closely matched to historian, journalist, mathematician, and lawyer, so I redoubled my efforts to convince my parents to let me go to college.

Blake Bashoff

 

Jeremy Lelliott is well-known for playing gay characters, but Blake Bashoff's record is almost as good. Even in his early roles, his characters engage in some buddy-bonding:

Gordon in Bushwacked (1995), one of the kids being mentored by a criminal disguised as a scout leader.

Ben in Big Bully (1996), who bullies and then makes up with Kirby (Cody McMains).

Or they display no heterosexual interest:
Todd in The New Swiss Family Robinson (1998), who lets his brother Shane (John Asher) romance the desert-island girl.

He began playing gay characters in 2001, with Eric Brown, an abused gay teen taken in by the genial judge and her family on Judging Amy (2001-2003).

Blake's jumpy nervousness and wounded expression got him cast as some murderers or arsonists, usually gay-vague, but then he jumped back into gay characters with Duncan, the only gay student at a magic academy on a 2004 episode of the paranormal Charmed.

In 2006-2008, he played the gay-vague Karl, a teenager living among the evil Others, on Lost.

He also played the gay Moritz on Broadway in Spring Awakening (with costar Kyle Rabko, left).

In 2012 he played half of a gay couple in the movie Neighbors.