Who was Gay on "Salute Your Shorts"?

Salute Your Shorts (1991-1992) was one of the first teencoms on the fledgling Nickelodeon network, a sitcom for and about kids.  It was set in a never-ending summer camp, Camp Anawanna (as in "I don't wanna be here"), where a disparate group of tweens got into scrapes.  Only 26 episodes were filmed, but they were rerun constantly through the 1990s, and became a cherished childhood memory for millions of gay and straight kids.

All of the teen characters were written as heterosexual -- every program aimed at a juvenile audience, then and now, insists that no gay people exist.  But one of the male actors was gay (actually bisexual), and infused his character with a pleasantly subdued homoerotic desire that was obvious to those "in the know."

Ready to guess?

1. Eric Macarthur as "regular guy" Michael Stein (top photo).  He hasn't done a lot of acting lately, though has developed an impressive physique, which he displayed in the "nude gay flirtation" scene in the raunchy comedy Bottoms Up (2006).

2. Blake Soper (left) as his "regular guy" replacement, Ronnie Foster.  Now Blake Sennett, he's the lead guitarist for the indie rock group Rilo Kiley.

3. Tim Eyster (below left) as the science nerd Sponge. He was a busy child star, but left the industry after Salute Your Shorts to attend high school.  Now Trevor Eyster, he has worked as a realtor and flight attendant, and is interested in returning to acting.

4. Michael Bower (second right) as his buddy, the hefty Donkey Lips.  He's been acting steadily, with credits including the gay-positive Popular.  He also wrote and directed Focus the Series, about a wacky focus group.

5. Danny Cooksey as bad boy Bobby Budnick. He's had a career as an actor and musician.  Currently he is the lead singer in the band Shelter Dogs and a voice artist.  And he's a strong supporter of gay marriage.

Give up?

The answer comes after the break:

Wilbur and Ed in the Barn: The Gay Subtext of "Mr. Ed"

I never actually saw Mr. Ed (1961-1966) -- it was before my time.  But the older generation of baby boomers has fond memories of the story of newly-married architect Wilbur Post (Alan Young, 52 years old, not exactly a twink), who moves into a new house with a studio in the barn, and finds that the horse left over from the previous owner can talk.

Wilbur finds this a bit unusual, but doesn't question it.  Maybe he's seen the old Francis the Talking Mule movies, starring Donald O'Connor.

Or maybe he's just used to weird things happening.  This is the 1960s, when nearly every sitcom character has a secret to hide, from run-of-the-mill secret agents to witches, genies, and talking cars.

So Wilbur easily becomes resigned to his fate as a mild-mannered work-at-home husband with a guy in the barn that he can't tell his wife about.

Wait -- a relationship with a guy?  Hiding from your wife?  Sounds like a gay subtext to me.

Although Wilbur is "happily married" to Carol (Connie Hines), and Ed is aggressively heterosexual, courting many female horses, the subtext appears to be constant throughout the series.

Many episodes involve strains on the Wilbur-Ed relationship: 

Ed is captured by a sorority, and Wilbur must go in drag to rescue him.

Ed is upset because Wilbur won't take him to Hawaii.

Ed feels rejected so he joins the beatniks.

Others involve the presumed hilarity of a horse doing human things, from using a typewriter to surfing.

There were no "horse sized" jokes that I'm aware of, but Baby Boomer comedians have been more than happy to invent some.

Wilbur also has a number of older male friends of the 1950s-friendly-neighbor variety: Roger (Larry Keating), Paul (Jack Albertson), and Gordon (Leon Ames).  

Plus there were several celebrity guest stars, mostly from the older generation (Mae West, George Burns, Zsa Zsa Gabor), although Clint Eastwood made an appearance.

It sounds like a old-fashioned 1950s sitcom, aimed at the same sort of audience that would tune in to Jackie Gleason, but apparently kids were drawn in by the talking horse angle.  There were comic book and toy tie-ins.

Mr. Ed was voiced by 1950s Western star Allan Lane.  His singing voice was provided by Sheldon Allman, who also wrote two original songs for the series.

Alan Young, born Angus Young in 1919, had a long career on tv and in films, including the Golden Age of TV's Alan Young Show (1940-1944 in Canada, 1944-1949 in the U.S.)  In the 1980s he voiced Scrooge McDuck in Disney's Duck Tales.   He was married three times, and died in May 2016.

You're probably wondering about the clickbait top image.  An extensive search revealed no shirtless shots of any of the male cast members, but googling "Mr. Ed Allan Young shirtless" yields a photo of  1950s bodybuilder Ed Fury.

10 Gay Movies I Loved

Ok, here's my list of 10 gay movies that did it right: coming out is not necessarily traumatic, gay and transgender are two different things, gay communities exist, heterosexuals are not necessarily homophobic, and no one converts in the end.  Many of them offer the flip side to the 10 gay movies I hated.

The rules: the movies had to have identifiable gay/lesbian, bisexual, or trangender characters in starring roles -- not just gay-vague characters or subtexts; they had to be released after 1993 -- no classics, like Making Love or Maurice; and  the gay characters can't die at the end.



It's not the 1950s Anymore

1. Beautiful Thing (1996).  Flip side of Get Real: high schooler Jamie (Glen Berry) falls in love with his chum Ste (Scott Neal).  Mom thinks he's a little young, but is otherwise ok with it.  There's a gay community: they read The Gay Times and go to the gay bar.

2. A Lone Star State of Mind (2002). Flip side of Sordid Lives. Texas redneck Earl (Joshua Jackson, last seen in Cruel Intentions) and gay cowboy Jimbo (Matthew Davis, right) go on the run when Earl's fiancee's cousin accidentally robs a drug courier.  Everybody finds somebody to dance with.

3. Latter Days (2003). Flip side of Cruel Intentions. L.A. partyboy Christian (Wes Ramsey) makes a bet with his friend that he can seduce naive Mormon missionary Aaron (Steve Sandvoss), only to fall in love with him.

Gay Men Want Men

4. Patrick Age 1.5 (2008).  Flip side of The Object of My Affection. Gay couple in Sweden (Torkel Petersson, Gustav Skarsgard) adopt what they think is a baby, but he turns out to be a homophobic 15-year old juvenile delinquent.

5. Eating Out (2004).  Flip side of The Opposite of Sex. Two college roommates, one straight and the other gay (Jim Verraros, left, and Scott Lunsford), hatch a wild scheme to land their respective crushes.

6. Paranorman (2012). A kid's animated comedy about zombies -- with a twist.  The zombies turn out to be friendly.  Oh, and incidentally, the teenage hunk who drives the paranormal investigators around is gay.







Gay and Transgender are Two Different Things

7. Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994).  Flip side to Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Drag performers, the gay Tick (Hugo Weaving) and Adam (Guy Pearce) and the transwoman Bernadette (Terence Stamp), take a road trip across Australia, where Tick reunites with the son he didn't know he had, and Bernadette finds love with an outback bloke (Bill Hunter).

8. The Blossoming of Maximo Olivares (2005).  Maxi, a feminine gay kid in the Philippines (Nathan Lopez), is perfectly integrated into his family and community.  He gets a crush on a hunky cop Victor (J. R. Valentin), who befriends him, but doesn't take advantage of the situation.

You Can't Switch Teams

9. But I'm a Cheerleader (1999). High school girl (Natasha Lyonne) is accidentally sent to a gay re-education camp run by ex-gay Mike (drag queen RuPaul), where she realizes that she's a lesbian and starts a revolt.

10. Rolling Kansas (2003).  Three stoners (including Sam Huntington, left) go on a road trip in search of a secret government marijuana field in Kansas, and along the way the ever-smiling Kevin (Charlie Finn) announces that he's gay.  His friends aren't traumatized, and he spends the rest of the movie asking out various cops and stoners.