The Blonde Phantom and the Hunk in Distress

With the glut of superheroes during World War II, comic book companies were experimenting with new types of characters.  DC had Wonder Woman, so Marvel got the Blonde Phantom.

Louise Grant is the secretary to private detective Mark Mason, but he stumbles into so much trouble that she has to get him out, so she adopts the Blue Phantom persona.  She doesn't have superpowers; she is more of a masked vigilante, like Batman. 

She is romantically interested in Mark -- what secretary in 1940s fiction wasn't into her boss?  But Mark is more interested in the Blonde Phantom.

The duo first appeared in All-Select Comics in 1943, and soon spun off into their own series, which ran for 11 issues (1943-1947).  They also appeared as supporting features in Marvel Mystery Comics, Sub-Mariner Comics, and elsewhere through 1949.  Then they were forgotten.

In some 1989 issues of She-Hulk, they are retrofitted: it appears that they married in 1949, Louise retired from phantoming, and they raised a daughter, Mason, who became the second Blonde Phantom.



You're probably wondering what this overtly heterosexual relationship is doing in Boomer's Beefcake and Bonding:

1. Mark Mason as hunk-in-distress is rather gender-bending.

2. Do you want to see him with his shirt off again?

Shirtless Sports Fans

I've never been to a sports match except for a couple of baseball games, but I understand that it's customary for fans to take their shirts off and spell out their team with letters on their chests.

Looks like there's more beefcake in the stands than on the field.

They can also spell out the name of their favorite player.

Or miscellaneous sentiments.

It helps to get the letters in the right order.

Two letters on a chest isn't really fair.

More after the break.

My Boyfriend Ed Asner and I Make Gay History

Hi, Boomer,

I'm Michael, from the gay synagogue in L.A.  Here's my gay celebrity romance story:

The episode "My Brother's Keeper" of The Mary Tyler Moore Show  (January 13, 1973) is an icon of gay history, the first time that the word "gay" was ever used on the air to mean a gay person.

The plot  is simple: When her brother Ben (Robert Moore) visits, the snooty Phyllis (Cloris Leachman) tries to fix him up with Mary, but instead he hits it off with working-class Rhoda (Valerie Harper).  Phyllis is horrified at the idea of Rhoda as a sister-in-law, until Rhoda says that it won't work out: "He's not my type."

"Why not?" Phyllis asks.  "He's witty, he's attractive, he's successful..."

"He's gay."  90 seconds of uproarious laughter from the studio audience, Phyllis looks confused, then relieved.  And blackout.

The original script didn't have a big reveal: Rhoda and Ben just weren't going to date.  But why not?  Various ideas were bantered about: he was married, he was a priest -- but they all raised too many questions.   Why hadn't he told Phyllis?  Was his relationship with Rhoda cheating?  Finally someone suggested "He's gay."

There's a dispute over who made the suggestion.  Some say Robert Moore.   After all, he was gay in real life, and had directed the gay-themed Boys in the Band in 1968.

Some say writer Dick Clair.  He was gay in real life, too.

Some say Valerie Harper.

They're all wrong.  It was my idea.

I was still in high school, a tall, slim twink with a smooth chest and a big cock, a drama club geek, a good little Jewish boy, the class clown, and o-u-t, out!

Well, not at school -- I had a "girlfriend," who turned out to be a big ol' lesbian later on.

Out to my parents, who were sending me to a shrink to "cure" me but otherwise were relatively accepting for the 1970s.

Out to myself -- Gay Liberation, baby!

And of course, out to my boyfriend, Ed Asner.

Ed Asner, who played gruff boss Lou Grant on Mary Tyler Moore, was 40 years old, a former football star, a big, burly Daddy, with a hard hairy chest, thick biceps, and a thick...well, you get the idea.

Ed was married -- 13 years, three kids.  But it was a marriage full of temptations and recriminations, infidelities, separations, suppressed traumas, and screaming matches.  They were both seeing psychiatrists.

And when the heartache grew too much for him, he drove out to Van Nuys and picked me up.  We went out to dinner, we went to ballgames -- when a reporter turned up, he introduced me as his "nephew." We checked into a cheap hotel and...

Yeah, I was a little bit in love with him.

Ok, a lot in love with him.

My parents were fine with our relationship -- they didn't know that we were boyfriends, of course.  They thought that having a big, macho man around would be a good influence on me, that is, turn me straight.

So, getting back to the story:

One night we were at a burger place, and Ed told me that they were having problems with a script:

"This guy, Phyllis's brother, starts spending time with Rhoda, but he's not interested in her romantically.  Why not?  Just not having chemistry won't work -- there has to be a big reveal at the end."

"Seems obvious to me," I said.  "He's gay."

Ed looked around to see if anyone heard.  "Are you kidding?  You can't have a gay guy on tv.  The censors would be down our throat!"

"It's the 1970s -- just don't show him making out with a dude, and it will be fine.  They had a gay guy on All in the Family last year."

"But they didn't use the word 'gay.'  It's the word that will get people up in arms."

"They just have to get used to it.  Watch -- gay!"  I exclaimed.  People looked around.  "Gay!  Gay!"

"Shut up!"  Ed muttered.  "My nephew is quite the kidder!", he told the couple at the next table with a fake laugh.

"You ever hear of Gay Liberation?  We're coming out of the closet, baby!  Better to deal with it  now than later, and better Mary Tyler Moore than The Partridge Family."  I grabbed his hand under the table.  He brushed me away.  "You could at least ask."

He shrugged.  "Ok, I'll ask, but I can't make any promises."

But everybody loved the idea of making Ben gay -- it was hip, it was edgy, it was "now." It went right into the script, and the rest is history.

Our relationship ended not with a bang, but a whimper: eventually Ed just stopped calling me -- I guess he decided to "work things out" with the wife.

But I'll always have great memories of my romance with a Hollywood legend.  And the knowledge that I was part of gay history.

The uncensored story, with nude photos and explicit sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

See also: Hip Sitcoms of the 1970s

Dennis Quaid

One of the movies I saw in the famous summer of 1978 was Seniors.  It was a terrible teen-sex comedy with one redeeming characteristic: a remarkably buffed, underwear-clad hunk named Dennis Quaid.


During the summer of Meatballs (1979), I saw him again, in the buddy comedy Breaking Away.  In the university town of Bloomington, Indiana, a group of working-class boys contemplate their future while swimming semi-nude in the limestone quarry where their dads work.  The hunky Mike (Dennis Quaid) wants to "light out to the territory" and become a cowboy. Moocher (Jackie Earl Haley) wants to marry his girlfriend. Dave (Dennis Christopher), wants to become Italian and win The Girl.

But you could easily ignore the heterosexist plot and concentrate on the primal beauty of the four friends sunning on the limestone.  In the end it was about friendship.

Strangely, Dennis didn't show off his physique much during the 1980s, but he did a lot of buddy-bonding. In Enemy Mine (1985), a future soldier and his enemy, a Drac named "Jerry" (Louis Gossett Jr.), are stranded,  and develop a touching, homoromantic bond.

They end up having a child together (boy Dracs don't need girl Dracs to get pregnant). When Jerry dies, Davidge raises the child alone, and after they are rescued, returns with him to the Drac planet.

In Far From Heaven (2002), Dennis goes beyond homoerotic subtexts to play a conventionally married businessman in the 1950s who recognizes and explores his gay identity, while simultaneously his wife establishes a interracial romantic friendship.

Dennis  is even more ripped today than in 1978. How many 50-year olds do you know with an 8-pack?

Beefcake in Acne Commercials

You could call my high school years "The Clearasil" years.  I carried around a little tube of the sticky white glue-like stuff or the sulfer-smelling brown stuff. One whiff today will bring back a flood of memories.

Also insecurity.

Acne is a practically universal adolescence.  Everybody gets it.  But I  thought it was a rare anomaly.  I had no idea that everyone was carrying around a little tube of Clearasil.

We all thought if you got acne, it was your own fault, for not washing your face enough or eating too much junk food.

Nope -- nothing about your eating or washing habits can prevent it.




Media didn't help.  Commercials always made it seem that acne made you hideous, thus ruining your social life forever.

Like you'd really give this guy a pass due to his small blemish.

A and B are equally likely to draw teenage attention.  B may look a little better, but only because he's smiling.

Sorry, guys.  I can't hang out.  I'm too disgusted by the small red marks on your cheek and chin.

The commercials were very good at presenting a drop-dead gorgeous guy, and trying to tell us that before the application of Clearasil, he was repugnant.  This is Mark Ruffalo in his teen-dream days.

99% of the models in acne medication commercials were girls, working from the presumption that girls but not boys were obsessed by their appearance. But that 1% of boys provided some primo teenage beefcake for all of the 15 and 16-year old gay boys watching.

Especially since they were generally depicted applying the Clearasil in front of the mirror, shirtless.

Captain Tootsie

Captain Tootsie is one of the more interesting  superheroes of the Golden Age of Comics.  Debuting in 1943,  he sold Tootsie Rolls, those brown sugar-corn syrup concoctions, which gave him the "quick energy" to save the day.  His half-page adventures appeared in hundreds of comics, from Action Comics and Captain Marvel to A Date with Judy:

Captain Tootsie Battles Monster Man!
Captain Tootsie Tames a Tornado!
Captain Tootsie Traps Killer Bear with Invisible Light!
Captain Tootsie and the Return of Dr. Narsty!

Sometimes his adventures were a bit less urgent:

Captain Tootsie Saves School Party!
Captain Tootsie at the Winter Carnival!

 Here he saves the world from Dr. Narsty, who has stolen a kid's toy cannon (it takes an evil genius to do that?).

Captain Tootsie was drawn as a very muscular blond in a red shirt, yellow belt, and blue pants, which didn't look anything like the familiar brown-and-white tootsie roll.







I don't have the next frame in this sequence, so I'm wondering myself what Captain Tootsie intends to do next.

His most frequent sidekick was Rollo ("roll-o", get it?), a miniature version of himself with blond hair, a red shirt, and pecs.

Sometimes he also hung out with Fisty, a petite black-haired boy wearing a suit; and Fatso, who had curly orange hair and wasn't very fat by today's standards.




Two issues of a full length comic were published by Toby Press in 1950, with no tootsie rolls in the actual story.

#1: Captain Tootsie and his Secret Legion (Rollo, Fisty, and Fatso) go to Venus, where they initiate a slave revolt and overthrow the evil Nagara.

#2: They investigate "The Stone that Lives" and "The Victory Vibrator."

I'm interested in knowing more about that Victory Vibrator.

His last appearance was in an ad in 1953 ("Try these delicious Tootsie Pops!").

Forgotten for 60 years, Captain Tootsie was revived for a story in Savage Dragon #199 (2014), along with such other forgotten 1940s superheroes as Lash Lighting, Rex Dexter, and Captain Freedom.


But it's not just his corporate job and his crazy adventures that draws my interest.

Tootsie is a girl's name.

It's derived from "tootsie-wootsie,"  a childish term for "foot."

Leo Hirschfeld, who invented Tootsie Rolls in 1896, named them after his daughter Clara, nicknamed Tootsie.

The creators weren't required to name their superhero after a girl.  Lots of product mascots have a different name from their products.

 "I'll toot for Tootsie" sounds decidedly feminine.

And doesn't the secret hand-signal look rather dainty?

When you add his oral fetish....

More "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike" Beefcake

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a 2012 play about two middle-aged siblings living in one of those Chekhov plays about nouveau-poor aristocrats struggling to survive financially on a doddering estate (it doesn't matter which one -- they're basically all like that).  Their movie-star younger sister arrives with her boytoy Spike, who strips to his unmentionables and draws everyone's erotic interest.

It won't be playing on the high school circuit anytime soon, but it's popular in colleges and community theaters.  The trick is finding a Spike who is hot enough to realistically draw the attention of all three siblings.

1. Jefferson Farber at the Arena Stage in Washington DC has the basket and biceps, but the tattoos are a definite drawback, and what's with the smirk?

2.  The Gulfshore Playhouse in Naples, Florida tells us who all of the other actors are, but refuses to reveal the actor who plays Spike.  Pity -- handsome face, sculpted physique, hangs to the left.

3.  Joburg Theatre in South Africa.  Nice pecs and abs, nice hair, no basket.

4. Citadel Theater in Illinois.  Is this the boytoy or the brother?

5. The Arts Commons in Calgary.  Nice muscular frame, impressive basket, but he's got to do something about that hair.

6.  Jefferson McDonald as a shaggy-handsome prince Spike in Cincinnati.

7. Berkeley Rep.  He sort of looks like Dick Sargent from Bewitched, who used to go cruising with my friend Randall the Muscle Bear.

8. Palisades Theater. Kyle Jordan is practically perfect.

9. Harlequin Theatre, Olympia, Washington.  Too skinny.

10. Stephan Mark Lucas in Smithtown, New York. 








See also: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

Russell Johnson: The Professor and His Gay Son

Everyone in West Hollywood knew Russell Johnson, who played the Professor on Gilligan's Island.  I met him once, and saw him a few times at events.  He was a gay ally, primarily due to his son David..

Everyone in West Hollywood knew David, too -- Alan (my ex-porn star roommate) dated him.  He was a fixture in the bars, at the French Quarter, and at the AIDS Project of Los Angeles.  Later he was named AIDS Coordinator of the City of Los Angeles (he died in 1994).

Russell's career began during the 1950s, with lots of roles in Westerns and sci-fi movies: look for him in the MST3K rendition of The Space Children (1958). 

In the late 1950s, he moved into tv, with guest spots on Twilight Zone, Thriller, Laramie, Rawhide, and such hip-detective series as Adventures in Paradise and Hawaiian Eye.  But Boomers will always remember him for Gilligan's Island, a "trapped far from home" sitcom about seven people who set sail from Honolulu for a "three hour tour" and end up trapped on a desert island.

The Professor was an egghead of the old school, an expert in every field of science from astronomy to zoology, who constantly amazed kids in the 1960s by concocting radios from coconuts.  His utter lack of interest in the two female castaways, Ginger and Mary Anne, gave me some of my first gay subtexts.

And some of my first beefcake, in his occasional shirtless scenes.

Although typecast as the Professor, Russell continued to work steadily during the 1970s and 1980s.  But he devoted most of his time to raising AIDS awareness and taking care of David.

His last screen role was in 1997, in Meego, about an alien boy hiding out on Earth. He played "The Professor."

Russell died in 2014.