"The Great North": Bears, Moose, Bigfoot, and a Gay Son in the Alaskan Wilderness

 

Stuck in a hotel room in Indiana and unwilling to get a Grindr hookup with pandemic Phase 2 going on, I watched Fox's Sunday night lineup.  A game show about legos, The Simpsons, Bob's Burgers, American Dad, and a sitcom I never heard of before, The Great North.

It was set in a small Alaska town near Anchorage, with animation very reminiscent of Bob's Burgers -- even a child in a bear costume, like Louise's rabbit ears (I couldn't tell their gender).  None of them were given names except for a woman named Honeybee, so I had to make some up.

The primarily plot in the episode I watched involved Guacamole Man and Bear-Child doing various barters to get avocados, so they can make guacamole for Honeybee's birthday party (they end up bartering a plane trip to Anchorage with Guacamole Man's ex-girlfriend).

In a second plot, a Clueless older man tries to create a Shrek theme for the birthday party, but he's never seen the movie, so Sarcastic Teenage Boy tells him about it -- and gets everything ludicrously wrong, I assume on purpose.

In a third plot, a young woman is living in Fresno with her various brothers and sisters, and trying to recreate When Harry Meets Sally with her boyfriend -- later we discover that she is Honeybee, the one with the birthday, back before she moved to Alaska.  

Whew, confusing character overload! There was no way to tell which were important and which incidental, and only one was given a name.  Of course, I was mostly interested in whether any were gay.  Time to consult wikipedia.

Beef (Nick Offerman), the patriarch of the family, is divorced.  He has four children (the writers didn't think that might be a bit much?).

1. The adult Wolf (Will Forte, top photo), who is married to Honeybee.  He must be Guacamole Man, and the Fresno story is about when they first met.

2. Teenage Judy.  I think Honeybee was telling her the Fresno story.

3. Ten-year old Moon, the Wolf-Child, apparently something of an operator.

4. Teenage Ham (Paul Rust, left) is gay.  He must be the Sarcastic Teen.  

A gay character in a starring role!  That's more than we ever got on Bob's Burgers (although I'm still holding out for a gay Gene).  Now, if Ham could only get a boyfriend.

Episodes to date: a moose breaks into the cabin and steals Judy's clothes; the town celebrates the Not People Festival (to demonstrate that they aren't cannibals); Judy and Ham have heterosexual romance-problems; Honeybee's birthday party; a curling competition.

In Episode 6, Judy asks regular character Crispin (Julio Torres) to the big dance, without realizing that he's gay.  He agrees because he wants to get close to his crush, Ham.  The two boys end up dancing, then kissing, but Ham rejects Crispin because you don't steal your sister's date.  But Judy is ok with them dating.

More episodes: The school mural; Bigfoot; a wilderness "expert" who turns out to be a dud; a blizzard; a Titanic party. 

Only one centric episode?  With dozens of characters, what do you expect?  I understand that Ham and Crispin continue to date, anyway.