"Strip Law": Animated comedy about an inept lawyer, gay adult performers, and Las Vegas. With n*de Adam Scott and Drew Tarver

 

Link to the n*de photos

I have a bad feeling about Strip Law (2026), a new animated series on Netflix.  Its animated comedies tend to be dark and nihilistic, like Bojack Horseman, or mistake disgust for humor, like F is For Family.  But Strip stars Adam Scott, who has played gay characters a few times.  And gotten n*de, although the photo on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends obviously shows a prosthetic (and  Jason Schwartzman's, too).

Janelle James, last seen on the gay-friendly Abbott Elementary; 

And Drew Tarver, who played gay characters in The Other Two and Running Point (and gotten n*ked; the photo on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends definitely shows his backside).

Plus the first episode promises a male str*pper. 

Episode 1.1: "Finally, a Show about Lawyers."

Scene 1: Lincoln (Adam Scott) is in the courtroom, interrogating an Austin Powers impersonator.  His story is complex, involving a buffet, performers dressed as Elmo, and something aboutfluids too disgusting to record here.   The jury isn't paying attention anyway; they're all watching the Big Game. A female str*pper comes in to announce closing arguments.  Lincoln wants to be a real lawyer, and doesn't approve of this circus atmosphere.

Scene 2: A tv commercial  A lawyer wants to move forward with the case but when he hears that their opponents are Nichols and Gumb, he tries to hurt himself 

Nichols (Keith David) tells us that his partner Gumb has died, so he's going to fire her inept son, Lincoln.   His new slogan: "He fired Lincoln Gumb!"

Cut to Lincoln watching the commercial, upset because it's still playing after six months.  We meet his inept team:

Glem Blorchman (Stephen Root), dressed in a 1970s leisure suit, has been disbarred in most states due to his ongoing scandals. 

And Lincoln's niece Irene, a butch teenager doing bicep curls, who hasn't actually been to school in three years. 

They have no clients, they're out of money, so Lincoln plans to hurt himself.  Glem can go live on the S.S. Pain Palace, where a "weird millionaire" makes men fight to the death.  Irene will fall in with a bad crowd and turn delinquent. Turn delinquent?  

Glem: "Hey, we have a client.  That big wet hunk of beef in your office."

Scene 3: Turns out that Mom Gumb took on the Hunk's case pro bono, and Lincoln has inherited it.  

Commercial: "Ladies, gay and bi dudes, come on down to the Brushfire Club, where we have the studliest hunks this side of the studinental divide!"  They do show men and women both cheering for the gyrating musclemen with bouncing speedos.

The problem: On "Freaky Friday," the str*ppers eat the customers' keys.

Lincoln: And that's popular?

Hunk: The customers love it!  But it's making us sick." 

So they're suing for medical bills. Problem: The club is being represented by the super-competent Steve Nichols (the one who fired Lincoln when his mom died).

Scene 4: Cut to Steve Nichols and the sleazy club owner eating spaghetti off a n*de lady and discussing how they're going to win the case.  It's personal to Steve, because he hates Lincoln Gum and wants to destroy him. 

In his office, Lincoln complains that he'll never win the str*pper case now.  He's disgraced his Mom's legacy. She jumps out of her photo to complain that because of his incompetence, she's in hell, where they have a disgusting process for going to the bathroom (I'm not describing it).

 He leaves to go get drunk, past Dennis the snake eater, the 666 Club, and Friendigan's.  Suddenly he comes across a street magician whose trick involves shooting a deck of cards: the bullet stops at the card you selected. 

Scene 5: Lincoln's assistants, Glem and Irene, visit client Bob Henderson, the used car king: "If you can find a better deal on a Toyota, you can off me."  Seems that a guy found a better deal, and wanted to off him, but the lawyers got him to settle for a maiming.  Now they want to be paid.  This is getting a little too cringe for my tastes. Why so many people inviting their own offing?

Meanwhile, Lincoln talks to the Magician, Sheila Flambé , "magician and three-year all-county s*x champion." Does he want to hire her or date her?

Turns out that she was Juror #5 on his last case.  Where he went wrong: "it was like a funeral for Saltine Crackers. This is Vegas!  You got to do it big!"

More after the break

Recker Eans: The gaydar boy on "Beyond Waverly Place" drums in gay-friendly videos, but is he gay in real life? With bandmate d*cks

Link to the n*de photos

In Season 2 of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place (2025),  the Dark Lord Morsus enlists one of his Orcs (Adam Nemet) to enter the human world, befriend Billie, the Chosen One, and when her defenses are down, bring her and her family to the dark realm.  

He appears as Quentin (Recker Eans), a middle school bad boy, makes contact, and grows to genuinely like her and her guardian, the wizard Justin (David Henrie).  At the school dance, accidentally reveals his true identity, but promises not to hurt Billie or her family. 

In the Season 2 finale cliffhanger, Billie's brother Roman (Alkaio Thiele) sees Quentin in his true form and, not realizing that he is an ally, banishes him to the Nowhere Zone, "a dark, cold realm of dangerous beasts."  They'll have to mount a daring rescue in Season 3. 

Although Billie has a crush on Quentin, it is unlikely that he has romantic feelings toward her, a being of another species who is 1/1000ths his age.  Actually, Quentin seems much more invested in establishing a friendship with Justin.  

Actor Recker Eans was certainly pinging my gaydar. Here he is tied up and terrified as actress  Janice LeeAnn Brown tries to lick him.  Just say no, buddy.

 

I started researching Recker, figuring that he would start with the usual community theater and commercial gigs, followed by a series of short films with odd subjects and guest spots on teencoms.  Not at all.

Recker was born in Gilbert Arizona on August 3, 2010, making him 15 as of this writing and 14 when he played Quentin.  

He got a drum set for his fifth birthday, and started taking lessons at the School of Rock (a real music school a few blocks from his house).  By the age of seven, he was featured in a drumming documentary, and interviewed in Gilbert Lifestyle.  

He started his own band, the Twits, and soon they were performing throughout the Phoenix area. Eventually they opened for Devo in Las  Vegas.  Plus he starred in three episodes of  a BBC science program, The Human Body: Secrets of Your Life Revealed; and an ad campaign for Gap Kids.

At the age of nine, Recker was featured as one of The Great 48, "The 48 most influential people living in the Valley Today," for Phoenix Magazine.

By age ten, he was drumming for Neffex, Volbeat and Signals.

I watched a couple of the music videos.

Neffex, "The Worst in Me" (2020)

Just yesterday I was making you laugh
How did things get so bad?
How do I make you so mad?
I look at you and I miss what I've seen
A smile so bright with your eyes so green
And I'll wait for the day it comes back to me

No girl-pronouns!  The lyrics could be addressing anyone. Plus, as the two guys (Bryce Savage, above, Cameron Wales) sing on an open truck bed, they attract the attention of an elderly woman, a young woman fixing a car, two bodybuilders, a girl on a bike, a skateboarder, and Recker getting a tattoo. 

Signals, "Disastermind" (2020):

The boy (Recker) tries to get the attention of his parents, but is ignored.  He makes a mess, and gets in trouble.  Finally, he makes a pair of angel wings and a sword, and runs down the street, while Michael "Jag" Jagmin and Jonathan Kintz sing:

Locked away in a tower above the sky
When I wake, am I still nothing?
Hate me, break me
When I wake, am I still nothing?
It's easy to flee when you feel like you're meant to be
On the other side

Gay boys growing up amid the constant  "what girl do you like?" interrogation can relate.

Of course, Recker had no control over the lyrics, but it is interesting that he gravitates toward gay-friendly or at least non-heteronormative work. 

More after the break.  

Jake Diaz dates dudes, hugs Alkaio's ex, lives with a muscleman, poses for Man Crush Monday. What else do you need to know?

  

The photo below drew my interest because it shows Kayden Koshelev, the obviously gay ex-buddy or boyfriend of Alkaio Thiele (Wizards Beyond Waverly Place), at Paramount for the American premiere of the Smurfs movie (June 28, 2025).

 He's hugging a guy named Jake Diaz (the one in the crazy Smurfs cap).  A new boyfriend, or is Jake just getting a photo with a celebrity, like we used to get autographs?  

For that matter, who is Jake Diaz?  I don't profile non-actors except for an occasional muscleman, so he'd better be in the industry.

Kayden's posts about the event show him on the "blue carpet," trying various Smurf-themed snacks, and hugging other guy in "the industry," so I imagine Jake was just another premiere guest.  But a brief look at his Instagram reveals that he goes to a lot of events with guys as his plus-one, so I still want to know if he's gay. 

"Today I fell in love." Not telling me much, buddy. 

Question 1: What is Jake Diaz famous for?

On his Instagram, Jake describes himself as the Kidadventurist, Influencer/Actor, Sweetie High, Man Crush Monday.

Man Crush Monday?  Are you the subject or a fan?

Turns out that Sweetie High isn't a tv series, it's a "Gen Z Media Destination," with posts on media figures of interest to teenagers.  Jake was featured on "Man Crush Monday" in January 2025. 

The Kid Adventuring involves wearing interesting costumes, promoting various products, and going to events. Here Jake attends a Great Gatsby-themed party to celebrate the launch of AJ Jordan's book Eerily Wrinkling.  It will benefit the Book Truck, which promotes literacy among foster, homeless, and low-income teenagers.  About 40% of homeless teenagers are gay.

I spent a lot of time researching AJ Jordan and the guy he's always hugging.  Turns out that it's his brother.

Question 2: Any gay roles?

Jake seems to be mostly an interviewer/influencer, but he has seven acting credits:'

The video game Mobile Legends Bang Bang (2016)

The music video "Popular" (2020) by Dat Kid Maddy

A short, The Legend of Elumndor (2020).  No plot synopsis, but it shows a modern-day guy (Conner Marx) interacting with a guy in a demon mask

The music video "Something Beautiful" (2020) by Tom Walker.  Not the fundamentalist "Something Beautiful" that I recall from my childhood, but still very Evangelical. 

One of those clickbait videos, "Students Pick On A Girl For Being Emo. What Happens Is Shocking (2022)."  Jake befriends the bullied girl: "Are you ok?  I've heard some unsettling things about you."  Who talks like that?  Eventually they start dating.

The short Innocence  (2022), not to be confused with the other two Innocence shorts released in 2022 and 2023.  This one features frequent "buff guy" guest star Jess Allen, and three teenagers: Jake, Conor Kowalski, and Jaden Moore. 

More after the break

Jinn: The Archie gang in Jordan, with a gay drug dealer, a Bedouin boy, a demonic being, and an ancient city.

In Episode 1 of the Netflix Arabic-language tv series Jinn (2019), a group of high school students sets out from Riverdale...um, I mean Amman, Jordan...on a field trip to Petra, the famous archaeological site.  

Nasser/Reggie (Mohammed Nizar) has just broken up with Veronica/Mira. 

"How do you spell provocative."

"R-E-G-G-I-E."

So you think he's hot, Arch?   

Fahed/Archie (Yasser al Hadi) is dating good girl Betty/Layla.  

Hassan/Dilton (Zaid Zoubi) is a frizzy-haired know-it-all.

In just seven days, I can make you a man....

Yassim (Sultan Alkhail) is a bullied good boy.  Sorry, I couldn't think of an Archie equivalent.

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 3.3: A fire dance, a limp wrist, a ph*llic sword, and Balkan muscle gods. Plus Kelvin tries to say the word.

 

Link to the n*de photos

In Episode 3, we meet Uncle Baby Billy, the Montgomery Boys join the family, and the marital problems are resolved.

Title: "For Their N*kedness is Your Own N*kedness." From Leviticus 18:10, ESV: "You shall not uncover the n*kedness of your son's daughter or of your daughter's daughter, for their n*kedness is your own n*kedness." This is a prohibition of doing stuff with your grandchild. Where, in this episode, does anyone mention doing that?  A review in the AV Club intreprets it as: the vulnerability of one member of the family is everyone's responsibility. "We're all in this together."

The Greek Chorus: The white-haired, grinning Baby Billy, dressed like a clam, sings"There will Come a Payday," while walking through the Gemstone resort, Zion's Landing.  He sings incessantly in a swimming pool area with absolutely no beefcake, while viewers grate their teeth and snarl "Get the f*k on with it."  Yes, we know he's a Greek Chorus, singing about the "payday" coming to the Gemstones.  We don't need ten minutes of it, in a show that is already squeezing in too many plotlines.

Finally, long after we put on the mute,  Baby Billy returns to his penthouse, where his very pregnant wife Tiffany and their three-year old son Lionel are watching the old game show Family Feud.  The Baby Billy/Tiffany plotline this season will be about trying to get the Gemstones to invest in a Christian-based Family Feud show, Baby Billy's Bible Bonkers.

Timeline problem: Tiffany had her first baby in the last episode of Season 2.  Now he's at least three years old.  But three years have not passed in the Gemstone universe.  

.

"We don't like you":  The Montgomery Boys (Robert Oberst, top photo, Lukas Haas) in bathrobes in Eli's house, eating breakfast, discussing Peter's militia with Eli, May-May, and the siblings:

 Peter thinks that his sons and Gemstones tipped off the feds, so now he's gunning for all of them.  May-May wants the boys to come home with her, but they refuse: "We'd rather be homeless bums living under a bridge."  Or living in a mansion with a staff of 17?  

Afterwards, the siblings go down to the Aimee-Leigh memorial, discuss how much they hate their cousins, and give them the finger as they peer through an upstairs window.  Eli insists that they have a Cousin's Night and try to get along.  

The Redeemer: Amber brings a copy of her marital-problem System to BJ, who claims to be unaware of any problems between him and Judy.  Does everyone in the church know that Judy has been withholding sex? Or did Jesse tell Amber about the affair?

Meanwhile, Jesse and his youngest son Abraham head for the Gemstone garage to unwrap The Redeemer, the monster truck he used at the 2000 County Fair.  The Montgomery Boys, who happened to be passing by, are in awe, and ask if they can drive it. Nope. "We ain't cool cousins, and we never will be again."  

A Complete Lack of Knowing How to Fit into the World: Kelvin and the teens are making anti-smut posters in the parking garage outside the Salvation Center Stage, for some reason, when Keefe drives up in the Smut Busters van.  Kelvin flitters over, laying on the femme stereotypes, and says "Hey, Bud."  Keefe calls him "Bro."  This must be facade language: they are pretending to be buddies and co-pastors in front of the kids.

Keefe drove to an adult store and bought out their inventory.  Again, almost everything we see is marketed to gay men. 

"You've been having all the fun lately!" Kelvin exclaims, wishing that he could have been there to help pick out butt buzzers.  He does his usual titty-tweak display of affection, then reveals that his Daddy is forcing him to go to Cousins' Night with the Montgomerys.  They have "a complete lack of knowing how to fit into the world around them."  

Sounds exactly like Keefe!  He tries to guilt his way into an invitation.  

Wouldn't he be invited automatically?  He was admitted to the family as Kelvin's partner back in Season 2.  But maybe, to stay closeted, Kelvin only brings him to events where a lot of people are invited, like the dinners at Jason's Steakhouse and the Zion's Landing ground-breaking.  This is a family-only event, and not even the entire family.  It's limited to Montgomery cousins by blood or marriage.  If Kelvin brings Keefe, no one will be able to pretend that they are just coworkers or platonic pals. 

Keefe's bribes are: his special sausage dip and his "flames and swords."  The dip is served with crackers on a ph*llic dish.  

Let's look more closely at the "flames and swords."   Kelvin knows exactly what Keefe is talking about: he doesn't have to say "Remember that fire dance I performed that one time?"  He must perform it regularly, but you wouldn't do it for just one person, and the family has never seen it.  We can conclude that the guys are involved in the local gay community, attending gay events with sausage dip and Keefe's "flames and swords" 

The Best Dude Friend of a Cousin Kerfluffle:  Kelvin is happy to invite him, but that's not enough. Keefe pushes him to name their relationship: "I ain't a cousin, though."  An odd way to put it; he means "not the Montgomerys' cousin."

"I know you're not a cousin," Kelvin responds.  "You're my b...best...dude...friend of a cousin."  He was starting to say "boyfriend," but couldn't say it, then tried "best friend," but couldn't say that either, since it is obviously not true. Why can't he say "boyfriend"?  Because they are in public with the teens nearby, or because he won't admit it to himself?

Notice the profound sadness in Kelvin's eyes.  He is in pain.  He is desperate to Say the Word, but he can't.  Why not?  

BJ and Judy are having problems of their own:   BJ is watching the instructional video for Amber's System. Now we see how it works: when you are tempted to say or do something wrong, you drop a blue or pink gemstone into the jar, and your spouse doesn't get hurt. But they'll know how often you've been thinking about it.   Judy enters and becomes irate over the implication that they need marital counseling.

Dig the  BJ in the photograph over the mantle. It's hanging in the parlor, where they entertain company? Compare with the man on display in Kelvin and Keefe's dining room -- no visible p*nis.

We cut to the women's group, where Amber quotes Ruth's speech to Naomi and asks the women to think about "the commitment we have made to the people we love," implicitly validating same-s*x marriages.   Judy bursts in and throws the System carton at her.  But they need the System, Amber insists, because "the decline is real," people aren't showing up, and the scandal of marital infidelity could destroy it altogether. What about the scandal of a gay youth minister living openly with his boyfriend in the Gemstone compound?

Next, the siblings, in their throne room...um, executive board room, reject Baby Billy's pitch for the Bible Bonkers game show.  

Timeline Problem: In Episode 3.2, the board room is still under construction, with Percy making rough sketches, on the same day the Montgomerys flee the militia.  Cousins' Night has to be just a few days later.  Percy works very fast!

The Night, and a lot of vulnerability, next.

More after the break

Aaron Altaras: Drag boy, gay soccer player, lots of Jewish teenagers, spy. With his backside, his boyfriend's d*ck, and the Musee d'Orsay

  

Link to the n*de photos

Aaron Antares drew my attention because I keep wanting to say Antares, the giant star about to go supernova, and because of this photo of a muscular swimmer.

And this photo where the boy is wearing a red bra (surprisingly, just his size).

Aaron was born in Berlin in 1995, to a show biz family.  Of Croatian Jewish ancestry, he first achieved recognition in Nicht alle waren Mörder (Not All Were Murderers, 2006), about a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany.  

The bra scene is from the short Höllenritt (Rollercoaster, 2008).  My German has gotten very rusty, but I gather that Jakob's parents are divorced, and Dad and his new girlfriend don't want anything to do with him except for pushing him into football (socccer), which he hates. So he and his friends  start the "Dad is an Arsehole" club and think of mean pranks to play.  He gets a bra somehow, sleeps with it, and in the morning tries it on.  Dad catches him and looks surprised, but then says "Ok."  

In the next scene, Jacob and dad's girlfriend are standing on a rooftop, both wearing red bras, when superman Dad swoops down, and chooses her!  He wakes up screaming.

I'm not sure if the bra is one of the pranks, which would be homophobic or transphobic, or if the boy is really exploring his gender identity,  He wears Superman underwear (censored), and there are stars hanging over his bed, if that helps you figure it out.

After movies about Jewish teenagers in Nazi Germany and an Orthodox Jewish woman in contemporary Berlin, Aaron starred in Mario (2018): two football players (Aaron, Max Hubacher) fall in love, which is completely forbidden, so they have to keep it a secret.  According to OutSports, 29 male soccer players have come out, but most long after 2018. 

Sounds like that hockey player series from 2026, but not as steamy. At least we see Aaron's backside.  Or is it Max's?

Also Max's d*ck, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Since Mario, Aaron has starred in several tv series:

A juvenile delinquent sent on a team-building expedition to the Alps in Wild Republic (2021). 

An intern in Legal Affairs (2021), about a lawyer who doesn't play by the rules.

The son of a Jewish family in contemporary Germany in Die Zweiflers (2024).  He falls in love with a non-Jewish woman, which causes tension, especially when she doesn't want their son circumcized.

More after the break

"Lewis Cornay": Actor/singer meets Doctor Who and a Bear, has Daddy issues, stands on his head. With n*de Mormons and History Boys

  

Link to the n*de dudes

I wasn't happy with the Doctor Who 2023 series, on Disney Plus,  when they made the time-and-space jumping Time Lord gay for a season, then had him fall in love with his new companion, Belinda. Not only queerbaiting, but breaking 60 years of tradition: the Doctor never dates his companions.   

But I liked some of the cute guest stars, such as Lenny Rush as time-travel machine building Morris Gibbons (Episodes 1.7 and 1.8).

Samuel Sherpa-Moore as Tenzing Norgay, one of the men who reached the summit of Mount Everest in 1953 (The Season 1 Christmas special).

And Lewis Cornay as Logan Cheever, a cook in a diner in 1952 Miami (Episode 2.2).   He serves the Doctor and Belinda even though it's a "white only" diner in the Jim Crow era, and fills in the back story about people who mysteriously vanished in the chained-up theater across the street. 

When the all-powerful being trapped inside is finally defeated and the moviegoers released, he greets Tommy (Cassius Hackforth).  In my head canon, they're boyfriends.

Lewis has only three other acting credits listed on the IMDB, so I'm guessing he's new to show business:

The short A Bear Remembers (2025): A boy (Lewis) seeks out a wise, elderly bear (Ciaran Hinds, d*ck on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), who remembers.

John & Jen (2021): Broadcast of a two person play.  Jen (Rachel Tucker) and her little brother  (Lewis) grow up in the 1950s, then drift apart. She becomes a hippie, and he goes to Vietnam, where he is killed.  Years later, she names her son (Lewis) after him. 

Wait -- Lewis and Rachel performed the original play at the Southwark Playhouse, London, in 2021.

The music video Silent Night (2018), sung by Kerry Mucklowe from the BBC's This Country, joined by the cast of Just So.

Just So is a musical based on Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling.  Lewis starred as the Elephant Child, the focus character, at the Barn Theater (Cirencester, west of Oxford), in 2018. 

Doctor Who may be Lewis's first tv role, but I gather that he has had an eventful career in the theater. 

There are several biographies in the promotional materials for his various plays.  He was born around 1995, and started his career with  Mary Poppins (2005), The Sound of Music (2008), and The King and I (2009), in prestigious sounding venues: The Prince Edward Theater, The London Palladium, Prince Albert Hall.   

He received a B.A. in Musical Theater (2017) from the Guildford School of Acting in Guildford, Surrey, about 25 miles from London, and went to work in musical theater.  His first role as a graduate was in Paw Patrol Live: Race to the Rescue (three shows a day, 2017).  Then came:

The Book of Mormon (2020): Lewis plays Elder Cross, one of the Mormon missionaries awaiting an assignment in the opening song, "Two by Two."  Elder Price (Andrew Rannells in the original Broadway production) asks him where he'd like to go, and he says "my favorite place in the world."  It ends up being Japan. 

Rannells' d*ck on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

She Loves Me (2022): Like You've Got Mail, but in 1961 Budapest, and with penpals instead of email. Lewis plays Arpad, a teenage delivery boy whose B Plot involves a gay-subtext buddy bond with shop owner Maraczek.  I don't know why he is sitting on Maraczek's bed in this shot.

Spongebob: The Musical (2023).  Spongebob.

Whistle Down the Wind (2022): A girl named Swallow thinks that an escaped convict is Jesus.  Lewis plays Amos, a teenage boy who is dangling two girlfriends at the same time.

More after the break.  .

Unfamiliar: Spy vs. Spy in Berlin, with a Mongolian guy, a gay oldster, Kramer's d*ck and the drag boy grown up

 

Link to the n*de photos

Unfamiliar (2026) just dropped on Netflix.  You can tell by the random one-word title that has no connection to the story: it's about spies.  It stars Aaron Altaras, who I just profiled, and Felix Kramer, who plays a gay guy in Dogs of Berlin, so I'll give it a try.

Prologue: A man (Aaron Altaras) walks through a graffiti-strewn bad neighborhood of Berlin, by the Spittelmarkt Square, digs a microchip out of his stomach, and shoots himself in the leg.

Scene 1:  In a fancy restaurant kitchen, a Chef (Felix Kramer) and his assistants are cooking.  Meanwhile, a teenager girl opens a present and her Mom smiles.  A banner says "Happy Birthday" in English.

When the meal is done, the Chief and his assistant Yul bring it in...wait, the apartment is right off the restaurant kitchen?   Chef gives a speech about how he grew up over his dad's restaurant, then became a doctor.  So are you a chef or a doctor?

Uh-oh, a phone call.  The guy from the prologue says that he's been shot and stabbed, so he need medical and transport to a safe house.  Hey, you gave those wounds to yourself!

Chef grabs Mom, and they pick up the guy in their van (which is equipped with ambulance supplies) and drive him to a nondescript building. 

Left: Yul is played by Anand Batbileg Chuluunbataar, which sounds Mongolian.  He has nine acting credits on the IMDB.

Scene 2:  In the safe house, Mom complains that she can't find the guy online. No face recognition, no nothing.  His story doesn't check out either, and he won't tell them who his handler is. 

They discuss whether to believe his story, and then whether their daughter is old enough to go out to the clubs by herself tonight (it's still the night of her birthday dinner).

 "She isn't alone -- Yul is with her."  The guy who was helping Dad cook.  Is he a servant or a boyfriend?

Scene 3:At German Foreign Intelligence Headquarters, the Boss (Laurence Rupp)  asks for intel on both key players. 

Vera Koleev is set to become the Russian ambassador to Germany, although she has no diplomatic experience.  They think she is just a cover for her husband Josef's espionage activity.  But the German higher-ups need evidence to have them deported.  

An old acquaintance is coming in to help them gather the evidence.

Cue a shoe getting out of a car.  I figured it would be the Chef, but it's Grigor Klein (Henry Hübchen), their former Department Head. He looks at surveillance footage of Josef Koleev, the suspected spy, at a Berlin bus station half an hour ago.  He was scheduled to come in legally in a few weeks anyway, so why sneak in now?  Grigor has no idea.

Laurence Rupp's backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Scene 4: At the safe house, Mom interrogates the wounded agent.  He explains that he worked for a high-end security firm, and stole something.  They objected, and shot him.  Now he needs to vanish. 

Why did he call Chef?   "A lady I knew needed to vanish once, and she told me about your service."

They flirt with each other.  Or else Mom is flirting with him to gain his trust.

She feeds him.  "This food is good.  Did you or your brother make it?"

This surprises Mom, so she makes an excuse to leave the room, and calls Chef: "He thinks we're brother and sister.  The last time we played siblings was on the mission to Belarus 16 years ago!"

Meanwhile, the Agent grabs her fingerprints off her water glass. She watches the action on her spycam. 

Scene 6: The mission to Belarus.  They enter a farmhouse, but Russian Spy Josef (Samuel Finzi, left) is gone, and everyone is dead except Grigor, who was shot in the stomach. They manage to save Grigor -- and the baby of a pregnant dead woman.  It's their daughter, who is going out to the clubs to celebrate her sixteenth birthday!  So this happened exactly sixteen years ago.  

Back to the present: Mom tells Chef that she'll interrogate the Agent to find out who he's working for, but meanwhile their daughter is in danger.  "Go find her and bring her home."

"But she's not answering her phone, and I don't know which club she's going to"  So use your spy skills.

More after the break

Kenton Duty: The "Shake It Up" star shakes it up with Christian soap operas and n*de videos

  

Link to the n*de photos

Some former teen stars retain their cuteness through their 20s, 30s, 40s, and on.  Others move from "dreamy" to "meh," and an unfortunate few turn into gorgons.   I'll leave it to you to decide what happened to Kenton Duty.  

Yes, that's his real name.

Born in 1995, Kenton began acting at the age of nine, and first appeared on screen at age eleven.  He drew fan attention in 2010 for a ridiculous background story on the paranormal Lost: in the first century CE, a Roman woman is shipwrecked on the floating island, has twin sons, Jacob and ___.  Christians and Jews were a tiny minority at the time.  How does she know the Jewish name?   For the rest of the plot arc, everyone refuses to say the name of the other brother, although it obviously has to be Esau.  

This led to Shake It Up (2010-12), a slight variation on the usual Disney teencom format.  Instead of a girl who wants to be a singer, it featured two girls who want to be dancers. Kenton played the German-stereotype Gunther Hessenheffer, who dances with his sister Tinka.  According to the fan wiki, he is "flamboyant, fashion-conscious, theatrical," with a gay-subtext firendship with Ty Blue (Roshon Feagan) but straight, dating and crushing on a number of girls.

You might expect some gay characters or subtexts in Contest (2013), where a  bully and his queer-coded victim (Kenton, left, Daniel Flanagan, not shown) work together to win a contest, but the victim gets a girl.

We do see a lot of Kenton's physique, and Phil of the Future's Raviv Ullman appears.

Don't get excited. It's Guys Night (2015) is a two-minute short in which the guys get a girl to join them.  Why would two guys want to spend time alone?

Kenton's most significant role in the post-Shake It Up era is in the Christian soap Hilton Head Island (2017-19). Michael Swan stars as the dying patriarch of a clan scheming to get their hands on his media empire. Kenton plays a grandson. 

He's done some other Christian tv series, like The Encounter (Jesus steps in to solve people's problems), but also some secular stuff, like Filthy Preppy Teens and A Housekeeper's Revenge.

More after the break

"Journey to the Beginning of Time": Four boys fight dinosaurs in the early years of their lives, before Jules Verne, Sinbad, and "What girl do you like?"

During the 1970s, our local afternoon kid's show, Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat, played a serial called Journey to the Beginning of Time, about four boys on a field trip to the Museum of Natural History in New York who find a secret passage leading to a mysterious river. They paddle down the river through different geological eras, rescuing each other from mastodons and dinosaurs, learning to survive in the prehistoric wilderness.  

Finally they pass the Precambrian Era and see the dazzling psychedelic fireworks of the Earth's creation.

The serial made no sense.  The boys' costumes and hair styles changed; they got taller and shorter; the voice-over narration didn't match the action; no one wonders how they're going to get back home again; and where did boys visiting a museum get a boat, anyway?

Still, it became one of the iconic images of my childhood, maybe because it made no sense.  It was a puzzle, a mystery to be unraveled, and that puzzle involved boys facing the world together.

  In a pivotal scene, Doc loses the diary with his scientific notes of the journey, and Jo-Jo fights off a dinosaur to retrieve it.  Their subsequent moment of emotional intimacy reverberated through my childhood.

Turns out that in 1955, Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman wrote and directed Cesta do praveku ("Journey to Prehistory"), based on Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth: four boys find a living trilobite, which should have gone extinct 251 million years ago.  This propels them to their journey through time.

In 1966, William Cayton took the river sequences and filmed then filmed new opening and closing segments in the United States with different boys, figuring that the dumb kids in his target audience would never notice.  He then chopped it into installments to rent to after-school cartoon shows like Garfield Goose in Chicago -- and Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat.

 I noticed, but I didn't care. I was busy watching the boys bonding with each other through science fiction adventure.

1. Doc/Petr: Josef Lukás (born 1939).  This is is only film appearance.

2. Jo-Jo/Jirka: Vladimír Bejval (1942-2011) has 17 acting credits, all between 1949 and 1957, except for a 1995 tv series, where he played a doctor.

3. Ben/Tonik: Petr Herrman (1938-2018). 14 acting credits, ending in 2009.

4. Zenda: Zdenek Hustak (1940-2015).  This is his only film appearance. 

There is little or no information about any of them online, but I doubt that they would have any gay-subtext roles in Communist Czechoslovakia.

What about director Karel Zeman (1910-1989)?

He is lauded as one of the greatest animators of the 20th century; there is a Karel Zeman Museum near the Charles Bridge in Prague.

His other works available with English subtitles are:

Vynález zkázy (1958), based on Jules Verne's Facing the Flag, translated as The Fabulous World of Jules Verne.  Some pirates capture the inventor of a fabulous weapon. who falls in love.

More after the break