Jonathan Lipnicki: The most surprising skinny kid to muscleman transformation of the 2000s. And he's an ally. With Jon's backside and Boo-Boo's front

Link to the n*de dudes

Born in October 1990, Jonathan Lipnicki became a famous actor at the age of five, playing Tom Cruise's son in Jerry Maguire (1996); comedian Jeff Foxworthy's son on his show (1996-97); and the charge of wacky alien-nanny Bronson Pinchot in Meego (1997). 

Then came four box office-topping movies:

Stuart Little (1999) and Stuart Little 2 (2002): His new brother is a mouse voiced by Michael J. Fox.

The Little Vampire (2000): He has a gay-subtext buddy bond with a vampire, which becomes even more blatant in the animated remake, The Little Vampire 3D (2017).

Like Mike (2002): His buddy finds a pair of magic sneakers that allow him to become a basketball superstar.

Between 1996 and 2002, Jonathan was a superstar.  He appeared on every talk show you could name -- Leno, Letterman, Rosie O'Donnell, Sharon Osbourne. He presented at the American Comedy, Kids' Choice, and British Comedy Awards. He won a Critics' Choice Award.  The media went crazy when he appeared at the Spiderman premiere with Daryl Sabara, the second most famous child star of the 2000s.

Then he started fading away, with movies like When Zachary Beaver Came to Town (2003) and The Teacher from the Black Lagoon (2003), and occasional guest spots.  You could see him on Dawson's Creek, Touched by an Angel, and Monk, but you probably didn't.

It wasn't due to lack of talent. Jonathan was being bullied, branded a "has-been," told "you'll never book a job again,"  harassed with homophobic slurs, attacked for "being gay" (although he's actually straight), "made to feel like garbage every day" through middle school and high school.  He was suffering from anxiety, depression, and nearly daily panic attacks.  His battle with depression is ongoing, but his Jewish faith helps.  And working out. 

Around 2008, a rash of "Where is he now?" articles appeared, with detailed attention paid to Jonathan's increasingly buffed physique.  He was playing water polo and basketball, training in mixed martial arts, and lifting weights.

If you last saw him as a cute kid holding hands with a vampire, the change was astounding.

Becoming a muscleman didn't exactly restore Jonathan to superstardom, but he was very busy, starring in Youthful Daze (2014-15) and Interns of FIELD (2016), Mr. Student Body President (2017-18), and Joe Schmo (2025); plus many movies and shorts.

He shows his backside in a movie with a title that got the censores upset (2017).  A high school senior has to decide whether to go to work in the factory or study art. Also, he and his buds kiss girls.  I think Jonathan plays one of the friends.  Booboo Stewart (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) plays another.

More after the break

"The Consultant": Tawdry, Tasteless Homophobia at a Modern Gaming Company

 Amazon Prime has been pushing The Consultant, an adaption of a novel about a consultant who turns out to be the Devil.  I knew that bosses are all evil, but not that evil.... So I watched the first episode.

Scene 1: Six kids from Glendale Middle School are taking a tour of one of those gaming companies where employees sit on stools and play foosball.  Guide Elaine stops to flirt with Craig (Nat Wolff, left), one of the coders,  then gives them the back story: Mega-Rich Dude Sang (Brian Yoon, below) coded his first game at age 13, and now has over 100, including all of the super-popular favorites.  He's worth uncountrable billions of dollars.  She ushers them into his office, then stops by to flirt with the coder again.  They discuss how much they hate Sang. 

Suddenly gunshots ring out!  The employees, looking bored, duck under their desks -- this is America, there are .  Guide Elaine and Coder Craig der rush into Sang's office.  One of the kids, Tokyo (Henry Rhoades) shot him!  "I want my Mommy," he says. 

Scene 2: Late at night, Coder Craig lies awake next to his sleeping girlfriend or wife, horrified by the tragedy.  He tries playing a video game about killing people, but that doesn't help, so he reads a news story about the murder: "The Devil made him do it," then goes for a run. Through Los Angeles at 2:00 am?  Is he crazy?  

Scene 3: He jogs through the deserted streets to the office to get some weed (he keeps marijuana at the office, but not at home?).  It's deserted except for Elaine, who is removing video cameras from the smoke detectors.  She explains that Mega-Rich Sang was paranoid, and had them installed everywhere. They discuss the jobs they are going to get, now that Sang's company has closed.

Plot dump: Craig's girlfriend/wife is a fundamentalist, and thinks he should repent of his sins.  He wonders: If the Devil really did make the kid kill the boss, are the company employees evil, too?  Wait -- the Devil would want a good person killed, so his employees would be the good guys, right?  

Coworker Elaine shuts him down: millions of people play video games, and don't shoot anyone. There's no evidence that pretend violence causes real-life violence.

They hear a noise, and rush to the foyer: Regus (Christoph Waltz), a white haired man in an overcoat, carrying a briefcase, is just standing there, staring into space like a ghost.  He's here to see Mega-Rich Sang.  At 2:00 am?  Then he corrects himself: "Oh, right, he's dead.  He killed those kids, then turned the gun on himself."  

They explain what really happened.  "Oh, right, that was the version I told myself." Creepy, dude. 

Apparently before he died, Mega-Rich Sang hired Regus as a consultant "on all matters of business."   He also ordered this beautiful engraved Bible for you.

Unusual trait: Regus can walk ok, but he can't climb stairs.

He barges into Sang's office, shows them his contract, and calls a staff meeting for 9:00 am.  They protest, but the contract checks out.

Scene 4: Coder Craig in bed (muscle shirt), being sniffed by his fundamentalist wife.  She criticizes him for smoking weed. After a kiss, he rushes off to the office to join the grumbling employees.  I guess the kid killing Sang plotline has been dropped. 

Regus starts making crazy CEO demands, like no more working from home.  

He sniffs everyone, and forces Iain (Michael Charles Vaccaro), a guy that he thinks smells bad,  to strip and wash right in his office (chest and butt shots).   

He knows nothing about video games (except that they brainwash kids into becoming murderers, which Elaine disagrees with).  

He is usuing an assumed name: Patoff comes from "Patent office." 

They check the security cam footage of Regus's appointment with Sang. No sound, but after 14 minutes, Sang signs the contract. Then he kneels and does gay stuff with Regus.  

"Was Sang...." Coder Craig asks, another annoying example of refusing to say the word.

"No, he was asexual."  The end.

Beefcake: N*ked chubby guy while he's being humiliated.  There's a full-sized, n*de, well-hung statue of Sang later on.

Heterosexism: Craig and his fundamentalist wife, but they don't do much.

Gay Characters: Probably not, but gay s*x signifies humiliation, degradation, and evil, which, combined with the refusal to use the G-word, becomes way homophobic.  Not to mention the use of the slur  "c*cksucker."

Violent Video Games Cause Violence:  Disproven over and over. There's no evidence that violent mass media consumption impacts real-life violence.

My Grade: F.

See also: "The N*ked Brothers Band," the most heterosexist teencom on Nickelodeon. Plus the grown-up brothers' c*cks, backsides, and gay-vague characters.

The Chair Company, Episode 1.3: A chair conspiracy, a queer kid, a ginger chub, weirdness for its own sake, and men in suits with d*cks

Brian Cage and Lance Hoyt, the "Disclosure Day" demi-gods: Which has n*de photos? Which is gay? WIth Riddle rising and Oberst pretending

 

 Link to the n*de photos

Disclosure Day (2026), about aliens finally announcing their presence to the world (after hanging around since the Roswell Crash of 1947), offers beefcake only in the first scene.  Danny (Josh O'Connor) stole tapes demonstrating the aliens' presence, and Boss Hogg of the Evil Corporation kidnapped his girlfriend to get them back.  They want to make the trade at a wrestling match.  

I haven't posted a profile of a muscleman for a long time, so I thought I would research the wrestlers, Brian Cage (blue) and Lance Hoyt (red).

Brian Cage, civilian name Brian Button, works for Lucha Underground and Impact Wrestling. Sometimes he performs as Mortis as an homage to his friend Chris Kanyon, who created the character.  As a bodybuilder, he won the 2026 Mr. Nevada competition.

 Other than wrestling shows, he has appeared in:

A fan film, The Fall of Greyskull  (2015), playing He-Man.

The Bloody Man (2020), about a boy who accidentally summons a monster.  Brian plays "Barbarian Man."

And Kill City Cup (2023): A sort of cage-fighting Hunger Games.  He plays a wrestler. 

Brian's Instagram consists almost entirely of selfies, photos from his wrestling and bodybuilding performances, and ladies with big breasts. I got the distinct impression that he is straight.   

Yep, the pro wrestling website tells us that he is married to Melissa Santos, a ring announcer and television personality who works with him in the Lucha Underground.

But at least we have a n*de photo.  Or two.  Or three (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends)

More after the break

Among Us: A crew of nonbinary bean-beings face a killer in their midst. With Park's backside, Elijah's junk, Korvo, and Yogi Bear

   

Link to the n*de dudes

Among Us is an adult animation series based on a video game, filmed in 2024 and released on Paramount Plus in 2026.  Showrunner Owen Dennis has been associated with the gay-friendly Regular Show, Infinity Train, and AJ Goes to the Dog Park (and he has Pride wallpaper on his cell phone), so I expect some gay subtexts, or maybe even texts.

The premise: An alien shapeshifter is killing the crew members on the Spaceship Skeld as it travels toward its home planet with a precious cargo.  They have to identify the imposter before it's too late.  

The astronauts are bean-shaped,  about 3.5 feet tall, named after their color (which could present problems in a large group).  They have two legs, no arms, no mouths, floating hands, and large visors that change to express emotions. They are genderless, but they reference hookups and "childbirth," so something like human s*xual activity occurs.  

Since they are nonbinary, the astronauts are all LGBTQ.  But I'm going to gender them through the gender of their voice actors, and check for "same-s*x" desire.

I'm reviewing Episode 1.2, "You Can't Be Hot and Smart," which begins just after the first being, new crew member White (Patton Oswald) , has been sliced neatly in half.  

Scene 1: Everyone screams, retches, slips on the blood. Someone puts a "Wet Floor" notice. They try to notify MIRRA, their company, but comms are down.  Captain Red (Randall Park, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) cautions everyone, "don't panic."

And don't forget your towel (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Then Doctor Blue (Dan Stevens, Korvo on Solar Opposites) arrives, and everyone relaxes, because they inspire confidence.

Scene 2: In the med bay, Captain Red tries to avoid admitting that White was murdered;  maybe it was a work related accident?   Doctor Blue tells them that suddenly being cut in half is quite rare.  They perform some tests. We see swabbing, a petri dish, typing into a computer, and finally they conclude that...White is dead.

Scene 3: Meanwhile, in the cafeteria, everyone agrees that it was a murder. Did White have any enemies?  No, everyone loved them -- except Unpaid Intern Green (Elijah Wood, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) who wanted to steer the ship -- their lifelong dream -- but White stole the job. This aroused their bloodlust!

Green, mopping the floor, claims that they have "no l*st for anything, especially blood."

Scene 4: Captain Red asks Security Officer Purple (Ashley Johnson) to check the security cams for suspicious activity, but they only record in black and white, and without color, you can't tell who is who.  Maybe by costume?

Doctor Blue calls Purple into the medbay for an invasive body scan: they want to compare White's body with every crew member's, to see if the splitting-in-half was caused by an alien pathogen or mutation.  "I won't sleep until I know how to protect the crew!" they announce.

Purple swoons with romantic desire.  M-F voice actors

More after the break

"It's Garry Shandling's Show": Was Garry the world's greatest comedian, bisexual, both, or neither?

I have fond memories of It's Garry Shandling's Show (1986-1990), but it's mostly nostalgia for those heady halcyon days, when I first moved to West Hollywood and everything was fresh and new: brunch at the French Quarter, buying books at the Different Light, cruising at Mugi, Sunday beer-and-soda busts at the Faultline, seeing celebrities at the gym,  and very occasionally visiting someone who had the cable network Showtime for:

This is the theme to Garry's show

The theme to Garry's show

Garry called me up and asked if I would write his theme song

I recall it as pleasant but not remarkable, one of many standup-comic-gets-a-sitcom vehicles from the era.  Garry played himself as a less-successful Seinfeld, with various job and romantic problems.  Sometimes he broke the fourth wall to comment on the situation.   

His George was the nebbish next door neighbor Pete (Michael Tucci), who had a wife and a nebbish teenage son, Grant (Scott Nemes).

His Elaine was "platonic" neighbor Nancy (Molly Cheek), who dated and eventually married Ian McFyfer (Ian Buchanan).

His Kramer was Leonard Smith (Paul Willson), the owner of his condo.

There was a steady stream of other friends and associates, including a lot of Garry's girlfriends, and a lot of celebrities playing themselves: Rob Reiner, Tom Petty, Martin Mull, Red Buttons, Chevy Chase, Norman Fell, Jeff Goldblum, Gilda Radner.

Plots were mostly about "nothing."  Garry babysits.  Garry gets a pet.  Jeff Goldblum visits.

Sometimes they were elaborately self-referential:

Grant wins a trip to Hollywood, where he goes to a taping of his own show.

Grant is accused of beating up a kid at school, but the a member of the studio audience saw what really happened, and tells the principal.

Garry and Pete had a nice gay subtext romance going on, and we all assumed that Pete's son Grant was gay.  Notice his obvious interest in Garry's basket in this shot.

 Like Seinfeld,  he had a "will they or won't they?" love interest and a dumb sidekick, cute next door neighbor  Pete (Michael Tucci).  We all assumed that Pete's teenage son Grant (Scott Nemes) was gay.

The only episode I actually recall involved Grant squashing our gay reading by getting a crush on a girl named Shelby Woo, and serenading her with a song parodying the lyrics of "Hooray for Hollywood."  That character does not appear in the IMDB cast list, so I don't know which episode it was.

After the show ended, I didn't hear anything about Garry Shandling for many years, until word of his death came in 2016.  I assumed that he moved back into stand-up obscurity.

In 2020,  the It's Garry Shandling Book appeared on Amazon.  Oh boy, a small paperback with interesting trivia about the show!  I clicked on "one-click ordering" withou investigating any further. 

More after the break

Callan Farris: The Unsittable Jeremy drops in on Disney teencoms, kisses boys, learns about gigantic d*cks on the darkweb

  

Link to the n*de dudes

This photo on the teen idol site drew my interest. Dude is either gay or pretending. 

His social media offers more photos of the two guys kissing him, plus standard buddies hugging, and no icky girls.  On RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, he poses with "I keep my private life a secret, but I'm dating a dude" Pedro Pascal. 

He's Callan Farris,  best known for the Disney Channel teencom Gabby Duran and the Unsittables (2019-21).  13 year old Gabby soon learns that her charges are "unsittable" because they are alien children hiding out as humans. 

Callan plays Jeremy, a shapeless blob who is next in line for the throne of Gor-Monia, on Earth to hide from would-be assassins.  Most of his plots involve misunderstanding human customs, or having his alien powers accidentally cause disasters.  

The episode synopses and fan wikis don't mention any heterosexual interests. But Jeremy considers Gabby's friend Wesley (Maxwell Acee Donovan of  That 90s Show), his "sister" (he doesn't quite understand gendered nouns).  And he is "fond of" Julius (Kheon Clarke), a waiter at the teen hangout.  Sounds like a lot of gay subtext going on.

Callan was born in Los Angeles in 2007.  No other information about his childhood is available, but from his last name ("warrior" in Arabic) and some of his early roles -- Syrian Boy, Kadir Siddiqui, Rafi Elshami -- I'm guessing that he's Arab-American. He started his career in commercials, and moved into television playing "Very Sweet Kid" on a 2016 episode of Dr. Ken.

On the IMDB, Callan lists his "most famous" works as Gabby; Kings (2017), about a family in South Central during the 1990s L.A. riots; a 2018 episode of Grey's Anatomy where Jackson (Jesse Williams, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) treats a boy with cancerous tumors on his scapulae (shoulder blades); and the preschooler series Rocketeer (2019-20)

Two of his pre-Gabby roles have gay content:

In a 2018 episode of The Conners, gay kid Mark goes to the school Halloween party as iconic painter Frida Kahlo, and is turned away for anti-drag reasons.  Callan plays the neighbor boy Kazim. 

In a  2019 episode of Fuller House: Spencer (Kallan) appears in a segment of Wake Up, San Francisco, showing viewers how to up-cycle objects that they would ordinarily throw away, like turning wine bottles into flower vases. He has a love-hate relationship with Max Fuller (Elias Harger, left).

More after the break.  

Hudson Yang: From "Fresh Off the Boat" to Harvard, cooking, dudes, and the best gay comedy of the year. With Hudson and Xu bedroom stuff

Link to the n*de photos

Fresh Off the Boat (2015-20) was a nostalgia series based on the memoirs of celebrity chef Eddie Huang.  Hudson Yang (left) plays the 12-17 year old Eddie, growing up in the 1990s in a Taiwanese-American family "fresh off the boat."  

Dad (Randall Park), who runs a cowboy-themed restaurant in Orlando, pushes him to embrace the best (and worst) of American culture, while Mom pushes him to embrace his Taiwanese heritage, resulting in conflict and plot complications.

Eddie has two younger brothers (Ian Chen, Forrest Wheeler, right) and a surprising number of gay friends and acquaintance: 

Officer Bryson (Alex Quijano), a regular at the family restaurant.

Oscar Chow,  Mom's college boyfriend, whom she helped come out (Rex Lee, playing about the same character as on Suburgatory).  He brings his dull-as-dirt boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner.

Randy and Andy, who buy a house from Realtor Mom.

Next door neighbor Nicole, whom Eddie helps come out (after dating her)

A good beginning for a gay-inclusive career.  Let's check on Hudson's other roles.

While on the Boat, Hudson appeared in a 2016 episode of the Disney Channel's Liv and Maddie, either as a basketball player or an art student.

The short Hum (2017), about a preteen boy-girl romance.

A 2018 episode of Sofia the First, about a girl who becomes the Princess of Enchancia when her Mom marries the King.  Hudson's episode is about mermaids

Seven 2019 episodes of The Lion Guard, featuring Kion, son of Simba from The Lion King (voiced by Matthew Broderick, left in 1994, Rob Lowe here).  

After the Boat, Hudson appeared in Run & Gun (2022), with Ben Milliken as a criminal-on-the-run trying to live a quiet life with the heterosexist trajectory of job, house (well, trailer), girlfriend, and kid.   You know that won't work out well.  Hudson plays a college student interning at Ben's insurance company.

Next he played the Honor Student (2023), who loses his brother in a mass shooting, and gets revenge by holding a teacher hostage.  No indication that he's gay.

So, only one show with gay representation. That's  not....

Wait, I forgot to research Extremely Unique Dynamic (2024).

The premise: best friends (Harrison Xu, left, Ivan Leung) spend the weekend making a movie about making a movie.  Extremely Unique made the rounds of 17 film festivals and won five awards, plus a nomination from the Queerties. Reviews calls it "A new standard in LGBTQ and Asian-American representation" and "the dumbest, dopest gay meta comedy of the year."

More after the break

Finn Bennett: Unexpected beefcake in "Backrooms" leads down a rabbit hole of gay teases. With some n*de Finns and Whishaw backside

 

Link to the n*de photos

Last weekend we saw Backrooms (2026), which  is not about the backrooms of gay bars where you get down with dudes. Based on a creepypasta, it stars Chiwetel Ejofor as Clark, a struggling furniture store owner and failed architect, who stumbles onto an Upside Down: endless yellow-walled office rooms, most empty, some with piles of melting chairs, bloody clothes, a Christmas tree, a mannikin equipped with a recording in Urdu...and misshapen, half-melted humanoids.

Clark recruits his employee Kat and her boyfriend Bobby (Finn Bennett), who filmed one of his commercials, to explore with him.  When he knocks on their door, Bobby answers shirtless.

As we have seen with the shirtless parking valets on Suburgatory, unexpected beefcake still has power. .  This screenshot doesn't capture the sudden joy of recognition.  I went home and looked up Finn Bennett.

Preliminary research yielded this photo on his Instagram, with the comment "I'm just a boy who likes to have fun."  I can see that.  

And a Google AI statement that he played a character "implied to be homosexual" in Domina.  

That's enough to start a profile.

I was expecting a recent university graduate with some theatrical experience and a few minor on-screen roles, but it turns out that Finn won the Trophée Chopard at Cannes in 2025, and was named a Star of Tomorrow by Screen International.  

He has his own wikipedia page, and so do his parents:

Ronan Bennett, famous novelist and screenwriter.

Georgina Henry, famous journalist, who died in 2014

Finn was born in December 1999 in Hackney, a rough but rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of East London.  He took acting classes at Stagecoach Performing Arts in Islington, and appeared in a 2013 episode of Top Boy, his dad's show about drugs and gangs in East London.  I know the area very well.

After taking his A-levels in maths, Finn applied to Queen's University, Belfast.  In Britain you have to apply to a field of study, so he found anthropology near the top of the list and figured "that's good enough.  I'll study that."  But then he decided to forego uni altogether in pursuit of an acting career, and worked in pubs and as a landscaper while awaiting his big break.  I'll check the highlights for gay characters.

Four episodes of Liar (2017-20), about a teacher who accuses the guy she went on a date with (Ioan Gruffud) of assault.  He plays Ewen, one of her students.

Finn's ear or his d*ck on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Four episodes of National Treasure: Kiri (2018): A black girl is murdered just as she is about to be adopted by a white family.  He plays Simon, the family's teenage son, a suspect (spoiler alert: he didn't do it).

Hope Gap (2019): A husband and wife announce to their adult son (Josh O'Connell) that they're divorcing.  According to the AI, Mom encounters a young man who has just lost his boyfriend, but I don't know if he is Finn's character.

Finn's big break came with the ancient Roman drama Domina (2021): Livia Drusilla struggles to acquire power, eventually becoming the wife of Gaius (Augustus Caesar).   Marcellus (Finn) is forced to marry Gauis' daughter Julia.  Sorry, AI, he's not just "implied," he has an explicitly s*xual realtionship with his slave Aprio (Pedro Leandro).  

The show was criticized for making the only gay character creepy, violent, and "deeply unpleasant." 

His next major role came in Series 4 of the anthology series True Detective (2024),  with Jodie Foster investigating murders in a research station in Alaska.  He plays Peter Prior, her protégé, with a wife and a corrupt cop dad.

In the spy drama Black Doves (2024), Cole Atwood (Finn) is a CIA operative assigned to the British Embassy.  Helen and Sam (Ben Whishaw) think that he murdered the Ambassador, but he turns out to be innocent. Sam is gay (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), but presumably Cole is straight.

More after the break.  

The Blink-and-you-miss-them Non-Speaking Gay Couple of "Dawn of the Croods"

 

The Croods (2013) is an animated comedy about a family of crude, not-quite-evolved homo sapiens who experience a generation gap caused by teenage daughter Eep's boyfriend, a more-evolved teen idol-type named Guy (voiced by Ryan Reynolds).

I didn't watch the movie, worrying that it would show a ridiculous ignorance of prehistory, like humans co-existing with dinosaurs (over 50% of the U.S. population believes that they did).  But apparently there are no gay subtexts.

A prequel tv series, Dawn of the Croods, streamed on Netflix from 2017 to 2020, with younger, cuter Croods immersed in an entire community: rich, poor, intelligent, stupid, bureaucrats, workers, sentient animals.  Yes, there are dinosaurs.  Guy isn't around, but not to worry, there's a Guy-like "dreamy boy" whom Eep gets a crush on (they don't date).  

In the last episode of the series, "This is an End," a meteor is headed toward the valley so everyone will die unless they come up with a plan.  We see flashbacks, strategic sessions, psychedelic drugs, a pteradactyl-powered space ship. Finally they accept their fate:  "Death is a part of life.  But it doesn't matter.  What matters is spending your life with family."

Then they get the idea of rolling a boulder into the volcano and shooting it at the meteor.  It works!  

Everyone celebrates by kissing and hugging.  Mostly boy-girl, but also two girls (hugging only), two men, a man kissing a pile of meat, a boy kissing his own image, and a man trying to kiss a dog monster, which eats him.

Wait -- two men?

Fans go wild.  A gay couple!  Gay representation on The Croods!

The producers confirm that they are indeed a gay couple, not one of the ridiculous kissing objects.

So who are these guys? Did they pop up out of nowhere, just to add gay representation at the last minute?

They are definitely not regular characters.  They appear in three episodes, and get only one line between them.

In "Voice Fail," Wal, the bald guy, appears alone in a crowd scene.    Later he is paired with fellow muscleman Mow for a hunt.

Wal and Loo appear together in "Weighting is the Hardest Part," but only Loo, the little guy, speaks.  He wants to know if he has made the hunting team, and gets marked down as "predator chow."  

In "Flowers for Munk," two guys are slacking off, and the boss, Amber, tells them to get back to work.  "No make Amber separate you two, like Wal and Loo."  (She's the only cave person who talks that way)

The two are standing on opposite sides of a line drawn in the dirt.  Loo "texts" an unhappy emoji on a slate, which Amber threatens to share with the whole hunting party.  

So there's was blink-and-you-miss-them non-speaking gay couple on Dawn of the Croods.  Is that enough representation for an entire tv series?

"Fionna and Cake": Complex adult-oriented sequel to "Adventure Time," with two out gay couples and lot of back story and backsides

 

Link to the n*de photos

The Cartoon Network series Adventure Time (2010-18) sent 12-16 year old human Finn (Jeremy Shada, left) and his magical dog companion Jake on adventures in the medieval-style world of Ooo (occupied by sentient candy, slime, and fire beings, plus a few animals and humanoids).  Eventually we learn that this is a post-apocalyptic world where things went wrong during the Mushroom Wars 1,000 years ago.  It gets more complex and much more sinister, with back story after back story, with Lovecraftian cosmic beings pulling the strings of the world, only to discover that there are darker gods changing reality on a whim. 

  All you really need to know about is the only same-sex romance in the series, between the Bubblegum Princess  --really an Elemental, one of the four substances that created the universe and all life, but presenting as a 16-year old girl -- and Marceline, a 1000 year old teenage vampire whose mentor Simon Petrikov put on a magical crown and became the insane Ice King -- got all that?  They become girlfriends in the last scene of the last episode -- typical, no open gay characters until series fade-out. 

Fionna and Cake were a gender-swapping Finn and Jake in the Ice King's fan fiction. Then an omnipotent being decided to bring them to life, and after some adventures, remove their magical powers and memories and place them in a pocket universe designed to look like a 21st century city.  But things are a little off-- generic names like "City Park", backgrounds a little smudged, everything tastes like cardboard, there is nothing but elevator music on the radio, nothing on tv but reruns of Cheers and Friends.  Cake is non-sentient, and Fionna is so discouraged that she keeps getting fired from dead-end jobs.

Episode 1.6, "The Winter King," features a meeting between the male counterparts of the Bubblegum Princess and Marceline: Gary Prince (Andrew Rannells, left), a baker who has discovered a way to give food taste; and Marshall Lee (Donald Glover, below), an aspiring musician who has discovered how to use a guitar. They kiss in Episode 1.7.

Rannells backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Both voice actors are gay in real life.

One day Fionna and Cake find their way to Ooo, where they meet Finn from the original series, now middle aged, and the Ice King, now reverted to human form as Simon Petrikov.  After many adventures on a variety of worlds, they decide that they like their original pocket-universe, and return in time to save their city from destruction under a godlike being named Scarab.  End of Season 1.

We hear all of this in the opening sequence of Season 2: it is told in story form to Simon (the former Ice King) and girlfriends Marcelline and the Bubblegum Princess by a little girl whose back story on the fan wiki is too complex to mention. So maybe the Fionna-Cake universe is still a fan fiction?  

 I think we're ready for a review of Episode 2.1.

Scene 1: Fionna awakens, relishing her new human life, and sets out with Cake into the still-recovering City.  She helps out at the places where she was fired previously, except for the tour bus ("on your left you'll see more destruction"), where tour guide Queenie (a gender-reversed, child version of the evil King of Ooo) calls her a "deadbeat."

Scene 2: Next the Candy Supply Store, where the shape-shifting, still-sentient Cake transforms into a buxom woman so she can flirt with the owner.  Fionna grabs the last bag of cocoa powder, but the evil Lady Cutter steals it and calls her a loser. They fight.

Scene 3: On the street, Fionna gets a call from Simon Petrikov, back in Ooo, who is living with the Bubblegum Princess and Marceline.  He'll start teaching magical arts at the university tomorrow. Meanwhile, Cake destroys all of the posters advertising DJ Flame, Fionna's ex (the gender-swapped version of the Flame Princess, Finn's ex).

Scene 4: In a forest on Ooo, a lion steals an orange from a tomb, and the Huntress Wizard, the middle-aged Finn's estranged girlfriend, gives chase.  She finds it in a cave with a cow and a duck, squeezing the juice into the mouth of the  nearly-unconscious Finn.  He is dying.   

More after the break

"Disclosure Day": Incessant heterosexism as the aliens announce their existence, 26 years too late. With Tommy d*ck and Boss Hogg backside

  

Link to the n*de dudes.

Today we saw Disclosure Day (2026) at the theater.  I'm not happy.  The plot is all mushed up, but I'll try to disentangle it.

The Kidnapping: We begin at a wrestling match, which gives us some beefcake.  But things go downhill fast.  Danny (Josh O'Connell) is there to hand over a backpack to the Bad Guys who have kidnapped his coworker or girlfriend or sister (we aren't sure which). Why is it always a kidnapped girl?  Why can't it ever be a guy?

 But he points an alien magic wand at them, and they're so flustered that they let him and the Girl drive away.  The two hide out at the convent where she used to be a nun.

Big reveal: they only just started dating.  Danny is upset that she didn't inform him of her religious past, and the Girl is upset because he has a briefcase with something that Bad Guys kidnapped her to get.

The Cardinal: Weather girl Margaret and her boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell) are having problems.  She keeps being dissatisfied by the town they're living in, and insisting that they move, but Jackson likes it in Kansas City.  Also, her father died when she was 17, there's a pesky missing time incident from when she was 10, and animals and birds keep staring at her.

Today she was stared at by a cardinal, and suddenly could speak Russian.  She's late for work, so she zooms through downtown Kansas City, and when a cop stops her, gets out of a ticket by telling him about his marital problems, and advising him on how to reconcile with his wife.

At the studio, Margaret is going on the air in a few minutes, but she has time to translate the Korean of a guy who is being interviewed but did not bring along an interpreter, and stare at three people and give them advice about their marital partners (all heterosexual, over and over and over).  When she starts her broadcast, she begins speaking in a click language, then collapses.

The Big Reveal:  Danny is actually working for a guy named Hugo, who sends Operative Santiago (Tommy Martinez) to drive them to a safe house.  There he tells his Girlfriend that he has tapes documenting 70 years of the Evil Corporation harassing aliens: confiscating their crashed spaceships, stealing their technology, dissecting their corpses, imprisoning and torturing survivors.  An advanced alien civilization let this happen without retaliation?  Why aren't our cities smoking ruins?

The Evil Corporation wants to keep all of this hidden, because if the public finds out, they will panic.  Girlfriend thinks that if the public finds out, they will stop believing in God and start worshipping the aliens.  (She even telephones the convent to ask, but the Mother Superior says that her belief in God wouldn't be affected by aliens.)

Going North:  At the hospital, everything checks out.   The doctor asks about the missing time and her father's death, and suggests that Margaret began speaking in Russian, Korean, and the click language because she's under stress.  Really?   I'm under stress -- could I learn Mandarin?  

Margaret intuits that the Evil Corporation has sent goons to kill her, so she asks Boyfriend Jackson (left) to help her to the bathroom.  For some reason the bathroom opens out onto a hallway, and they can escape.  Margaret insists that they drive north to find "Danny."  She doesn't know who he is, but she wants to find him.  Boyfriend Jackson humors her for awhile, but finally he's had enough, and calls the hospital to fetch her  She scrams.

The Crucifix:   While Danny is out looking for cell phone bars to call Boss Hugo, the Head Corporate Guy -- I'll call him Boss Hogg because he looks and acts like a corrupt Southern sheriff in a 1970s trucker movie --  uses an alien magic wand to appear before the Girlfriend and force her to tell them where the safe house is.  "Oh, and if we don't get there in time, would you mind killing Danny yourself?"  She can avoid his mind control temporarily by jamming a crucifix into her hand, but it doesn't work for long.  

Left: The cop with marital problems.

On RG Beefcake and Boyfriends: Danny's d*ck, in case you haven't seen it lately.

Meanwhile, Weather Girl Margaret calls Danny to warn him that Corporate Goons are coming to kill him.  He sees their 28 cars from a distance, but instead of running away, he steals one of the cars, grabs his Girlfriend, and zooms away with them in hot pursuit.  

That night, as they are sleeping in a hotel in Indiana (at least seven hours from Kansas City by car, and they dumped their car over a cliff), Boss Hogg uses the alien technology to have Girlfriend reveal their location again!  Does Danny get smart and leave her there?  No, he shoves her out the bathroom window and allows himself to be captured. 

More after the break