"Cheaper by the Dozen": Twelve Kids, Some Beefcake

This is one of the iconic beefcake scenes of the 1960s, at least for the kids in the era when bare chests were as rare as gay characters in the movies: the hunky 18-year old Tim Matheson takes his shirt off, for no apparent reason except to give teenagers something to look at.  The movie is Yours, Mine, and Ours (1968), about a  widow with 10 kids who marries a widower with 8 kids, resulting in a very large blended family,  The Brady Bunch times three.

It's all very heteronormative, promoting the value of excessive reproduction, in spite of world overpopulation and the economic problems of feeding that many people.  But who cares?  There was a hunk.

The 2005 remake stars Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo as the highly prolific parents.  Sean Faris, playing the oldest son, gets an extensive beefcake scene.  He's in the midst of shaving when he's called away for an emergency, so there's lather all over his face, but still, beefcake is beefcake.

The 1950 movie Cheaper by the Dozen, based on the memoirs of Frank Gilbreath, has a similar theme: Myra Loy and Clifton Webb star as the parents of twelve kids.  No blended family here; they actually reproduced twelve times.  Clifton Webb was gay in real life, and extremely swishy, so it seems difficult to imagine him having sex with a woman at all.  But that was probably the point: to "redeem" him by demonstrating that even swishy guys are heterosexual.

No beefcake here; the teenage children are both girls.  

In the 2003 remake and its 2005 sequel, Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt became the parents of the brood.  I haven't seen them -- I avoid movies starring Steve Martin -- but apparently Tom Welling as the oldest son gives us a requisite beefcake shot.  Some of the actors playing the younger kids have also grown up into hunks, such as twins Brent and Shane Kinsman.

Disney+ released heir version of Cheaper by the Dozen in 2022, with Zach Branff and Gabrielle Union as the parents.  It's modernized -- the family is interracial, the parents are divorced rather than widowed, and some of the kids are adopted.  But not too modernized: signs tell us that Black Lives Matter and that we should Resist Hate, but everyone is still heterosexual.  

I had high hopes for Luke Prael as the troubled teenager Seth.  But he displays no interest in boys or girls.

At least Zach Branff takes off his shirt a lot.

And his last name is actually Braff, not Branff.  It's just pronounced with an n, like that town in Canada.

See also: James Dumont's teen idol career, with Tim Matheson, Rob Lowe, and Andrew McCarthy

"Oz, the Great and Powerful": A walking p* enis (not in a good way) finds true love, two wicked witches, and a flying monkey

"Shrinking": A bizarre shrink, the male gaze, sentient water, and an invisible gay friend. With Segal and Tanner d*cks

 

Link to the n*de dudes

I heard that Tim Baltz, who played BJ on The Righteous Gemstones, starred in a sitcom about an inept Shrink, so when we got Apple Plus, I clicked on Shrinking, Episode 1.

Scene 1: Husband and wife, Liz, in bed.  Hey, that's not Tim Baltz.  It might be Ted McGinley, left, who I last saw on "Married..with Children."   He tells her it's her turn to handle it.  They argue, but she goes -- not to take care of a new baby, har har, but to yell at the next door neighbor.  

He is fully clothed, wiggling his fingers in a bizarre way while two bikini babes frolick in the pool. Heterosexual male gaze, anyone? 

Liz tells him that it's 3:00 am, and he should turn the music off.  But he and the bikini babes are partying with adderall and opioids.  So why aren't you in the pool with them?

"What about Alice?"  Must be Bizarre Guy's wife.

Scene 2:  Bizarre Guy gets up, goes to his kitchen - full of booze bottles, with a painting of a bikini babe on the wall (ok, ok, you're straight, I get it), and gets yelled at by his sister or daughter. She turns up a photo of Bizarre Guy hugging two women.  

Left: I didn't realize it until I checked the IMDB, but Bizarre Guy is played by Jason Segal, and he's the focus character!  I don't know why they wanted to fool viewers into thinking that Liz and her husband were the focus.  Malicious editors?

He gets into his car, but it's out of gas, so he rides a bike -- badly.  When bikers zoom past him, he insults them with an invitation to gay s*x.  Apparently Bizarre Guy is homophobic.

He ends up at the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Center, where he has an appointment with his shrink, Tim Baltz.

Wait -- Bizarre Guy is the shrink!  But those bizarre finger movements, like he has some kind of psychotic disorder. The doctor is crazier than his patients!

Scene 3:  Bizarre Guy holds his head under the water faucet, then returns to his patients: 

"I hate my mother"

"The barista made me spell 'Dan'"

"I always go out with superficial girls."

Jason's backside and d*ck on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

"My boyfriend made me go back to fetch my sunglasses, but they were right on my head the whole time.  Then he called me stupid, but he said I had great t__, so he loves me." Great T__ is displaying them very brazenly for the aesthetic pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer.

Bizarre Guy blows up: they've been through this again and again.  If your boyfriend calls you stupid, he doesn't love you.  Besides, he's not that great: "his muscles are too big, and his shirts are too tight. Nobody likes that!"

Forget that gay men exist,  Bizarre Guy?  Or maybe gay men don't exist in this universe, except in slurs.  But obviously Great T* likes it. 

Left: Big muscles, tight shirt.  Any questions?

"Just leave him!" Bizarre Guy yells.

"Ok."  She goes home to pack her stuff.  That was easy.

Scene 4: Sister/Daughter from Scene 2. is singing a silly song to the water she's pouring (yes, to the water) while old guy Harrison Ford rolls his eyes.  "It's too much water."  She must be volunteering in a nursing home, with Harrison Ford as the cantankerous geezer.  

No, it's the break room at the Cognitive Center.  Sister/Daughter is a fellow shrink, pouring her own water due to her "character quirk" of being health conscious. And thinking that water is sentient?

Bizarre Guy bursts in and confesses that he just told a patient what to do.  They are upset: this is against the rules of shrinking.

"We all know what they should do.  Why not just tell them?"  

"They have to figure it out for themselves."

After they criticize him some more, Bizarre Guy agrees to shrink patients "by the book" from now on.

Scene 5: Bizarre Guy is on his way out, when Sister/Daughter stops to flirt with him.  Ok, not his Sister/Daughter, his Flirtatious Coworker.  But why do the two characters look identical? 

After flirting, she gives him a referral: young soldier, just back from overseas, keeps assaulting people, and his parents are worried.  What about the victims and the police?  

Scene 6: Bizarre Guy starts the session with the Soldier (Luke Tennie) with "Why do you think you're here?"  It's cognitive-behavioral therapy, not psychoanalysis; give him some anger management strategies!

He waits for Soldier to open up, but nothing happens.  Finally Soldier walks out. I would, too.  Bizarre Guy yells "F*ck!"

Back at home, a new character named Tia is on the couch, watching wrestling.  Bizarre Guy thinks people who enjoy wrestling are insane (calling your wife/girlfriend insane will decrease your chance of being invited into her bed, dude).   He then turns into the pinching monster, and they end up smoooching.  

I thought he was single-- he invited ladies over last night, and he had the photo of his wife and sister/daughter turned over.  Maybe she's a new girlfriend?

Wait -- was this a flashback to back before his wife left him?  Geez, I hate flashbacks that aren't signaled in any way.

More after the break

Bamm-Bamm's Muscles: Gay Promise on "The Flintstones"

Quick, name a cartoon character who came from outer space, was adopted by a human family, and has superpowers?

Right, Bamm-Bamm Rubble.

In an October 3rd, 1963 episode of The Flintstones, about "a modern prehistoric family," Betty and Barney Rubble are upset because they can't have children -- apparently Barney's sperm count is a little low.  They wish on a falling star, and the next morning a baby appears on their doorstep, asleep in a turtle shell, holding a club.

He can only say "Bamm-Bamm," so that becomes his name. He turns out to have superhuman strength, easily carrying furniture and tossing his adopted father around.

As a kid, I was intrigued by Bamm-Bamm's mysterious origin.  Could he be an alien -- a falling star could mean a UFO!  His white hair certainly looked alien.  And the superhuman strength surely meant super muscles!

I didn't see The Flintstones often, so I didn't notice that the writers failed to make much use of Bamm-Bamm's potential.  His supernatural origins were rarely mentioned, and his super-strength became little more than a comic nuisance.

No gay symbolism: in fact, he began expressing toddler heterosexual interest, mooning over toddler-next-door Pebbles, romancing her in baby-talk.  Eventually they were closing episodes by singing the treacly Sunday-school song "Open Up Your Heart (and Let the Sun Shine In)." Yuck.

In 1971, a highly publicized spin-off appeared, The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (1971-72, and rerun long after).  With the characters as teenagers. 

But Bamm-Bamm dit not transform into Superboy.

He and Pebbles went to high school and belonged to a rock band, like everyone on Saturday morning in the 1970s.

No mysterous origin.  No superstrength.  He wasn't even built -- he had skinny arms and legs and a shapeless lump of a body.  

More after the break

Gavin Munn's Cute/Cool Photos, Part 4: A boy and his bully, a boy and his stuntman, Kelton Dumont, a selfie, and Santa Claus

Link to the n*de photos

Previous:  Gavin's Cute/Cool Photos, Part 3: A boy and his monkey, a boy and his fish, bikers, surfing, and bodybuilder buds

This is a collection of cute/cool photos of Gavin Munn, who plays Jonathan on Raising Dion and Abraham on The Righteous Gemstones.  He's under 18, so no n*de photos of Gavin, but I may have included some of his costars and friends.

1. A boy and his Mom.

2. In Dear Santa (2024), a dyslexic boy writes a letter to Santa Claus, but it accidentally goes to Satan (Jack Black), who appears to help him gain self-confidence, best a bully, and win the Girl.  Gavin plays the bully.  

I don't know why he needs a mannequin.  Does Satan, like, shoot him out of a cannon?

3. In case you want to see Satan and Santa Claus at the beach.  That's actually Kyle Gass, who plays a science teacher.

4. A boy and his fish.

5. A boy and his boat.

More after the break

"Blood Legacy": "Succession" in South Africa, with rich people, dark secrets, a downlow gay romance, and n*de Zulu guys

 

After the South African tease of Honest Men, I wanted some real South African tv, so I turned on Blood Legacy (2024), a Netflix series about siblings fighting for control of Daddy's empire (sounds familiar).

Scene 1: Establishing shot of the docks.  A man being beat up.  He won't sign the paper, so they call in a White-Haired Man, Bheki, while a Bearded Man and a Pink-Haired Woman watch. 

 But "I cannot be broken, because I come from the struggle, a struggled you and I once shared. But you left me behind." Tired of listening to the speech, Pink-Hair shoots him.

Cut to the funeral, with the White-Haired Man delivering the eulogy.  Widow and adult children, two men and a woman, hold hands. 

Scene 2: Establishing shot of Durban.  White-Haired Man in a helicopter watches an interview program with economics journalist Khanyi.   "We need transparency and accountability." 

 "But doesn't your family own Spear, the most corrupt company in Africa?"    

When the broadcast ends, Khanyi yells "Don't ever ask about my f*king family again!" and stomps off.

Scene 3: At work in Cape Town. Sean (Michael Everson) tells Khanyi that the Scene 1 murder has been linked to White Haired Man, her estranged father.  

She tells him to "F*k off!" and stomps away.

Scene 4: Akin (Anthony Oseyemi), a poor immigrant, wants to bail out his daughter, but the corrupt cops won't let him, not even when he tries to speak Xhosa.  Khanyi shows up and threatens to do a news story on how corrupt they are, and they agree to let the daughter go.  Then she tells Akin how sexy he is and kisses him.  Presumably they've met before.

Daughter trashed her teacher's classroom because he made a bigoted comment.  Dad and Khanyi tell her to not make waves.

Scene 5: White Haired Guy's wife complains that he hasn't been eating or sleeping since he was connected with that murder.  Gee, I wonder why.

Cut to Khanyi and boyfriend and daughter discussing whether she should go see White-Haired Man  She hates him, but he sounds sick over the telephone, sothis may be her last chance. "Plus you can see your brother and Njabulo," Boyfriend's Daughter points out.

Meanwhile, Older Brother Mandla (Buyile Mdladla) complains to White Haired Guy that the company is going under because of him. Their contractors are cancelling.  They can't start the Very Important Project. "Tough.  I hate you. Get out!"

Old Brother storms out and calls his daughter to make sure the private jet is ready for his flight to Cape Town.  "Nope, White-Haired Guy reserved it for your sister Khanyi. She's flying in today."

"F*k!" he yells.  He hates flying commercial, and he hates Khanyi!

Scene 6: Khanyi arrives in the private jet. Older Brother calls: "Why the heck are you here!  You hate the family, and we hate you!" 

"Dad called.  He sounded sick, so this might be the last time I can see him."

"He's fine.  Besides, you hate him."

Scene 7: Younger Brother Siya (Mike Ndlangamandla) has his hair stroked by his wife while telling his son (Unathi Mkizhe) that he forgives him for flying the drone in the house, "Just don't do it again."  And they got him a diamond status credit card.  Some punishment.  

More after the break