The Kid Named Moosie

How could you not like a kid named Moosie?

Born in 1964, Moosie Drier was a force to be reckoned with during the 1970s and 1980s.

1. He appeared everywhere.  He had recurring roles a kid-regular on the hip variety show Laugh-In (1971-73) and as Howard Borden's son on The Bob Newhart Show (1972-77).   Plus guest shots on The Waltons, Adam-12, Police Story, Chips, the A-Team, and Hunter. Plus movies: American Hot Wax, Homeward Bound, Hollywood Knights.

2. He was well-known to kids, due to his string of after-school specials, weekend specials, school break specials, and special treats (short, "relevant" dramas aimed at a preteen or early teen audience).  Unfortunately, though sometimes his characters are gay-vague, more often they are paired with a girl..

 Runaway (1974): a streetwise boy assists a runaway teenage girl.
Hewitt's Just Different (1977): a teenage boy befriends a mentally retarded peer.
 If I'm Lost, How Come I Found You? (1978): a runaway orphan finds a surrogate Dad.
The House at 12 Rose Avenue (1980), with Chris Petersen: a white boy befriends a black family.
Student Court (1985): a student court tries a shoplifter.

3. He was especially well-known to gay kids, because of cute smile, cool hair, and total inability to keep his shirt on.

4. He was well-known to adults because he worked with nearly every comedy legend in the business, including George Burns, Tim Conway, Cloris Leachman, Jay Leno, and Dean Jones. And those he didn't work with, he played: Mickey Rooney in Rainbow (1978).

5. He remains especially well known to gay adults, because of his frequent voice over and dialogue work on gay-friendly projects such as American Beauty (1999) and 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002).

Some of his recent work includes The Book of Life (which sounds like a fundamentalist Christian tract, but is actually a heroic fantasy), The Comeback Kids (about former child stars), and The Fur is Gone (behind the scenes at the Actors Co-Op in Hollywood).

He's also been doing theater, including Tennessee Williams' gay-subtext Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Here's a 2016 photo.  He's with Erin Murphy of Bewitched at a Christmas tree decorating benefit for A Minor Consideration.

I don't know if Moosie is gay or not, but there's no wife listed on imdb or wikipedia.

Chris and Patrick Petersen: 1970s Ninja Kids

During the late 1970s, as networks scrambled to find enough child actors to fill their "after school special" kid-angst movies, Brothers Chris and Pat Petersen (no relation to the 1950s teen idol Paul Petersen) were important players.

Chris, the oldest (born in 1963), was everywhere in 1978 and 1979, on tv (Little House on the Prairie, The Incredible Hulk, The Baxters) and in movies (When Every Day was the Fourth of July, The Swarm).   His roles often  involved buddy-bonds:

1. Playing baseball with Larry B. Scott in The Rag-Tag Champs, an ABC Afterschool Special (1978)

2. Lost in the Colorado Rockies with Guillermo San Juan in Joey and Redhawk on CBS Afternoon Playhouse.  This one had a "boys alone" gay subtext.

3. Karate-kicking with younger brother Pat in the precursor to the 1990s ninja kid craze, The Little Dragons (1979).

4. Fighting racism with Moosie Drier in The House at 12 Rose Street (1980).

When Chris hit his teen years, the roles dried up, and he retired from acting.

His brother Patrick (born in 1966) had a longer career, starting with the tv series The Kallikas (1977), How the West was Won (1979), and Shirley (1980), plus some gay-subtext after school specials of his own:

1. The Ransom of Red Chief (1977, 1979), an ABC Schoolbreak Special about a boy terrorizing his kidnappers.

2. The Contest Kid (1978, 1979), an ABC Schoolbreak Special about a boy who enters contests, and his best friend (Ronnie Scribner).

In 1979, he landed the role of Michael Fairgate on the evening soap Knot's Landing.  Michael provided shirtless teen-idol photos and tight jeans as the teenage son of Sid and Karen Fairgate, who worked in an auto garage and kept getting dumped by girls.

When Knot's Landing ended in 1991, Pat retired from acting and opened a health food store.