The New "Are You Afraid of the Dark": Are They Afraid of Beefcake?

Everything old is new again on Nickelodeon.  The venerable children's network is brushing off several long-lost shows and giving them a 2019 treatment:
All That
That's So Raven
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

And most recently, Are You Afraid of the Dark, the anthology series that aired from 1990 to 1996: in each episode, the Midnight Society gathers to hear a ghost or paranormal story recited by a member, and acted out for us. 

I didn't care for it.  We learn almost nothing about the lives of the Midnight Society members.  They gather, exchange a few words, tell the story, and "the end."  It would have been much more effective if the stories had some connection to their real-life problems. 

But I had to admit, the actors were photogenic:  intellectual group leader Ross Hull, bad boy Jason Alisharan, nerd Nathaniel Moreau, and my personal favorite, the massively gorgeous Daniel DeSanto.

The reboot, a three part miniseries premiering in October 2019, breaks the cardinal rule of the old series:  the paranormal events are just stories, not real. 

Now they are.

New girl on the block Rachel (Lyliana Wray),who is having mysterious, disturbing dreams, shows up at school, where both the geek Gavin (Sam Ashe Arnold, top photo) and the geekier Graham (Jeremy Ray Taylor, left) hit on her. 

They invite her to a meeting of the Midnight Society, which apparently has only four members.  The other two are girls, Akiko and Louise.

Rachel tells her story, about a sinister carnival that rolls into town, and a manager, Mr. Tophat (Rafael Casal), who steals kids' souls (apparently she's been reading Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes).

To their surprise, a sinister carnival does roll into town, and the Midnight Society must fight real paranormal peril.

As you may have noticed, the miniseries is rather beefcake-deficient:  only two boys, neither likely teen idol material.

I did find Brandon Routh down the cast list as "Mysterious Handsome Man."

So who's looking at his face?

And since personal lives of the original Midnight Society were absent, it was easy to read them as gay.  Not here: the two male Midnight Society boys are aggressively heterosexual.

I give it a C-.

See also: Are You Afraid of the Dark?>

The Top 6 Beefcake Stars of "Power Rangers Beast Morphers"

The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers premiered on the Fox Kids Network in August 1993, when I was living in West Hollywood and a big fan of some of the classic kids' shows like Tiny Toon Adventures, Rugrats, Doug, and Rocko's Modern Life.  So I watched.  For about 10 seconds.

Teenagers from a contemporary American high school get assignments from a....a nightmarish disembodied head with bulbous lips floating in a vat of opaque jelly.  They turn into costumed superheroes -- action sequences actually borrowed from an earlier Japanese series -- and the superheroes in turn merge into mechanical creations.  They fight a number of ridiculous monsters sent to destroy the world by the over-the-top Rita Repulsa.

Ridiculous premise, disturbing, disgusting images -- sorry, I can't get over the horror of the opaque-jelly vat guy.  Click.

Who knew that kids would like it?  That there would be years of spin-offs and sequels?

The latest, Power Ranger Beef Morphers, which has just premiered on Nickelodeon, is about...um....

I am copying the premise directly from wikipedia.  I can't understand a word of it:

Set sometime in the future, a secret agency in the city of Coral Harbor known as Grid Battleforce combines a newly-discovered substance called "Morph-X" with animal DNA to create a new team of Power Rangers known as the Beast Morphers. The Beast Morpher Rangers must defend the Morphin Grid from Evox, an evil sentient computer virus that creates evil avatar clones of original Beast Morphers candidates Blaze and Roxy, who have been rendered comatose as a result. When the three of them are transported to the Cyber Dimension, Evox, Cybervillain Blaze, and Cybervillain Roxy gain its de facto ruler Scrozzle as an ally as he helps them in their plan to return Evox to Earth

Holy cow.  I just want to know if there are any cute guys in the cast.

1. Rorie D. Travis stars as Devon Daniels.  I couldn't find any beefcake photos, but this one of him and a buddy is evocative.  I wonder if he's gay.

2. Jasmeet Baduwalla,aka Jazz, as the Blue Power Ranger (top photo).  At least he has some abs.

3. Abraham Rodriguez as Nate Silva.  Cute, but I could use some biceps.

4. Colby Strong as Blaze, the one who is comatose while his cybervillain double tries to take over Scrozzle or something.  Cute, but haven't any of these guys heard of a Nautilus machine?

5.  Cosme Flores as Ben Burke.  It's nice to see plus-sized actors being cast in action-adventure roles, but I'm still holding out for someone who can bench press his body weight.

6.  Reid McGowan as Steel.  Finally, some muscles!

Now,  is a shirtless shot too much to ask for?

The Gay Tease of "Bixler High Private Eye"

Bixler High Private Eye (2019), no comma, appears on my Vudu and Amazon Prime recommedations.  Doesn't this guy look gay?

I've got a free hour, and maybe he's gay, so why not?

It's one of those pieces advertised as a tv program, but there's only one episode, an hour and six minutes  long.

First scene:  Bixler High is not his name.  He's Xander DeWitt, played by Jace Norma, unrecognizable from his role as the uber-swishy gay-coded superhero sidekick on Nickelodeon's Henry Danger (2014-).

So far, so good.






Here Xander tries to grift a very attractive car salesman (Eddie Aguirre) out of information that may lead to his missing father's whereabouts.  He almost gets away, but in the end the police escort him home.

I'm not liking Xander.  He's got one of those smarmy, smug, borderline-sociopathic personalities that make you want to take him down a few notches.

However: his well-stocked room contains no photos of girls.   A good sign!

Xander discovers that Dad (Rick Peters) was visiting his hometown, Bixler Valley, on the morning of his disappearance.

Coincidentally, Mom is concerned about his slipping grades and frequent truancy, and suggests a change: how about going to live with Grandpa in Bixler Valley?

So Xander heads out.

Bixler Valley is a ridiculously depressed old mining town in the mountains, and Grandpa (Ed Begley Jr.) a ridiculously curmudgeonly geezer ("How can I tell kids to get off my lawn when one is living here?).  He also happens to be a retired private eye.

Here's an idea: Have Grandpa investigate his son's disappearance.

Xander tries to hug Grandpa, but the geezer pushes him away.  Men don't hug!  How about a handshake?

Xander is obviously gay.

All he has to do is enroll at Bixler High and find a boyfriend.

Or a male friend.

Or a group of friends, some male....

Or...

Uh-oh


He teams up with school reporter Kenzie (Ariel Martin).

Time to fast-forward, looking for beefcake and incidental buddy bonding.

No dice.

Lots of hunky actors, like Eddie M. Myrick (standing behind his boyfriend) as a cop. But no one even fumbles with a button.

And there appear to be no boys at Bixler High, just female cheerleaders with pom poms.  Xander never even talks to a boy his own age.

Final scene:

Grandpa: When are you two going to kiss?
Xander:  Grandpa!  We're partners (apparently they have opened a private eye business). Partners don't kiss.

My final hope: Xander means it.  He's not into girls.  Kenzie is a friend and business partner.  They won't....

They lean in for the kiss.  Fade out.

Ugh! Another gay tease!

"Cousins for Life": My Gay Dads

Nickelodeon's Cousins for Life is basically Drake and Josh, about two mismatched kids who become related when their parents marry.  Ok, the parents, are canonical brothers, so the mismatched kids are actually cousins, but why quibble over details?  Their two dads even have a ship name, Lark.

When his "wife" is deployed overseas, goofy, fun-loving, irresponsible Clark (Ishmel Sahid) decides that he can't take care of his kids on his own, so he moves in with his uptight, stick-in-the-mud, slow-burn brother Lewis (Ron G), who has no problems raising his kids as a single dad.

The kids, by the way, are Ivy (Scarlet Spencer) and 12-year old Stuart (Dallas Dupree Young), with younger hanger-on Leaf (Micah Abbey).

After the initial "wife" business, the two don't mention hetero-romance again, and behave exactly as romantic partners.  They even break up after an argument, and it's up to Ivy and Stuart to get their squabbling dads to make up.

Ivy and Stuart are the focus characters. with episodes concentrating on money-making schemes and scams (their pig gets a job on a tv commercial) and various woke protests (girls can be superheroes, too).

Back to the two Dads: this isn't the 1980s.  Why bother with the lame attempt at heterosexualizing them?  Why not just make them a couple?

Well, Ron G. is "the world's funniest clean comedian" who tells jokes about colorful characters in his church.

Ishmel Sahid is known for shorts like "Sex Makes It More Important."

They'd have to get different Dads.

Besides, Nickelodeon remains the most conservative (read: homophobic) of the children's television networks, so we'll be stuck with subtext for the foreseeable future.

Is Dora the Explorer's City of Gold Worth Exploring?

Dora the Explorer (2000-2015) was a Nickelodeon cartoon series aimed at preschoolers, starring an 8-year old girl who had adventures in a Latin American jungle.  I never watched  -- preschool-oriented, and besides, the rhyme irks me: "explorer" is pronounced "explorer," not "explorah."

But I understand that it has become quite a media empire, broadcast in 35 languages (including Irish and Maori, even though all of the speakers are bilingual in English), spun off into toys, books, games, videos, and a series starring Dora's cousin Diego (2005-2011).  And now a live-action movie, Dora the Explorer and the City of Gold, with Dora as a teenager (played by 18-year old Isabel Moner, far right).

Wait -- a teenager?  What audience are they trying to reach with fart jokes and hetero-horniness?  Preschoolers who are still watching the show?  Young adults who grew up with Dora?  Teen idol fans?

Let's see if there are any teen idols or beefcake actors in the cast.

The top photo suggests that  Dora goes explorah-ing with three guy friends and an adult guide.  From the right, they are:

1. Jeffrey Wahlberg as Cousin Diego.  Even though he's the son of former underwear model Mark Wahlberg, I can't find any shirtless shots.

2. Nicholas Coombe, "va new face in the entertainment industry," as Randy.  According to his instagram, Nicholas is a "part-time actor, full time iced mocha connoisseur," and he has a girlfriend.

This is as close as I could find to a shirtless shot, Nicholas made up to be killed in the Australian zombie movie Infected Paradise.

3. Madeleine Madden as Sammy.  Madeleine seems to identify as  a woman, but Sammy is a boy's name and the character looks like a boy.  Maybe they're nonbinary.

4. No other potential teen idols except, down near the end of the cast list, Joey Vieira as Nico.  His favorite acting job so far has been an episode of The Simpsons.  When I search for shirtless or nude pics, all that comes up is his namesake, the Joey Vieira who played the sidekick on Lassie in the 1960s, and a female bodybuilder.

That's it, unless you look way down in the cast list for the Australian actors cast in "blink and you miss it" scenes:
Jace Fleming as Mean Kid
Lachlan Winters as High School Kid
Cameron Jackson as High School Student #23.

Well, maybe there are some adult beefcake actors?






5.  The adult guide, Alejandro, is played by Eugeno Derbez.  He's known for a lot of Mexican tv, Aztec Warrior (which is not about an Aztec), Geostorm, Overboard, and How to Be a Latin Lover.  Nice hairy chest, stupid expression.

6. Michael Peña with a beard play Dora's Dad.  You can also see him or hear him in Narcos, My Little Pony, Family Guy, and CHIPS (the remake; he plays Ponch, but never takes off his shirt).

7. Kiwi actor Temuera Morrison, as Powell, who I'm guessing is a baddie.  He's been in Star Wars, Aquaman, and other superhero movies, as well as Tatau (2015), a supernatural murder miniseries set in the Cook Islands.

We'll have to wait to see if there are any gay subtexts, but so far it looks like Dora the Explorah is a dud.

David Lascher

The 1990s was the decade of the teen hunk; they appeared on Saturday morning, on Saved by the Bell and its clones (California Dreams, Breaker High), on the teen-heavy nuclear family sitcoms on ABC's TGIF (Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Boy Meets World, Teen Angel), and on the material-starved kids' networks, Disney and Nickelodeon (Welcome Freshmen, Salute Your Shorts, The Adventures of Pete and Pete).

With all the teen hunks wandering around, it was easy to get lost in the crowd, even if you have a killer smile and a fantastic physique. David Lascher almost did.

Born in 1972, David hit Hollywood in a series of Burger King commercials and two failed network series before landing the role of teen operator on Hey, Dude  (1989-91), about the employees of a faltering dude ranch.  He hatched crazy schemes, competed with laconic Native American Danny Lightfoot (Joe Torres), gasped and  moaned over girls, and was nominated for a Young Artist Award.  But no one really noticed, not even when he took his shirt off.  Not that his smooth, muscular chest wasn't appealing, but if you changed he channel, you got Mark-Paul Gosselaer and Michael Cade.

 Next he was hired to play Vinnie Bonitardi on the TGIF series Blossom, as Blossom's wrong-side-of-the-tracks boyfriend.  He lasted through two seasons (1992-94), plus a special two-part call-back, but again, no one really noticed, not even in his swimsuit, shirtless, and underwear shots.  He was pleasantly muscular, but his co-star was the incredible Joey Lawrence.

In the fourth season of the TGIF "I've got a secret" comedy Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1999-2000), the teen witch went to college.  David played the manager of the coffee shop where she worked, and eventually competed with long-term boyfriend Harvey for her affection, which didn't make him popular with Sabrina-Harvey shippers.  He lasted for 3 seasons, then vanished, with viewership at an all time low.

But when he played a gay-vague or gay role, David had no trouble being noticed. His three-episode story arc as a gay high school jock on Beverly Hills 90210 was memorable, not at all shadowed by the regular cast of Beverly Hills musclemen like Jason Priestley and Ian Ziering (left).


In White Squall (1996), he has to contend with an incredible number of shirtless hunks, including Scott Wolf, Ryan Philippe, Jeremy Sisto, Ethan Embry, Balthazar Getty, and Jason Marsden -- and he doesn't even take his shirt off  -- yet his performance stands out as quiet, dignified, and touching.

Note to David Lascher: gay characters from now on.

Jack Griffo's Gay Connection

Speaking of Nickelodeon teen hunks, Jack Griffo (left) was both a Nickelodeon and a Disney Channel teen hunk, with a guest spot on Jessie and a starring role in The Thundermans.(2013-2018).

Born in December 1996, Jack got his first commercial contract at age 2, and soon began modeling and acting in community theater in his hometown of Orlando, Florida.  A talent agent spotted him, and convinced him and his family to relocate to Los Angeles in 2010.

In 2011, he appeared in the movie Sound of My Voice, and on the Disney channel teencom Kickin' It (as a dancer) and Nickelodeon's Bucket and Skinner's Epic Adventures.

In 2012, in the short What I Did Last Summer: First Kiss and the music video American Hero.

In 2013, in Nickelodeon's See Dad Run with Scott Baio and Marvin Marvin with Lucas Cruikshank.

He starred as a gay-vague supervillain in training in the Nickelodeon teencom The Thundermans. 

Currently he has a recurring role on the Nickelodeon teencom Alexis & Katie, as the gay-subtext bff of series regular Emery Kelly.

Not to mention live theater and a youtube page, where Jack posts covers of popular songs by Justin Bieber and One Direction.  The music video "Hold Me" received 4 million page views.

And lots of shirtless, bicep-flexing, and swimming pool shots. 

His gay connection:

 In his onscreen roles that I've seen, he doesn't display any heterosexual interest, and he has a series of gay-subtext bffs.

His homophobic connection:

He attends the fundamentalist Ecclesia Church in Hollywood.

Could go either way:

On his facebook page, Jack reposted a youtube video entitled "Don't Say Gay," about a little boy convincing his big brother that "gay" is a bad word.  I agree with discouraging kids from the all-purpose insult "that's so gay,"  but not with the idea that it's a bad word that must never be spoken.  I've been there.

Disenchanted: A Gay-Free Heroic Fantasy Spoof

I'm not very happy with Matt Groening's (or his writers') inclusion of gay characters.

 The Simpsons has a very occasional homophobic stereotype prancing about, plus Smithers (who finally came out after 17 years) and Patty (28 years). Neither have the slightest inkling of gay history and culture.

They don't even get the offensive gestures right.  Remember when BOTH Patty and Smithers flashed limp wrists to demonstrate they are gay?  Patty?  Really....

On Futurama, Groening's science fiction spoof, gay people were mentioned exactly twice, both times disparagingly, and same-sex desire was dismissed as ridiculous once.

So I didn't have high hopes for Disenchanted (2018), Groening's parody of the fairy tale genre.

In the faux Medieval kingdom of Dreamland, teenage Princess Bean (Abbi Jacobson) is a drunken wastrel who rebels against the constrained princess life imagined by her father, King Zog (John DiMaggio).  Her partners in crime are:

1. The demon Lucie (Eric Andre, left).

2.  The naive, goodnatured elf Elfo (Nat Faxon, top photo and left).  I'm not sure, but think this is a photo of Faxon's character having sex with a guy (notice the bald spot on top).

Nice triceps, Nat.

Together Bean, Lucie, and Elfo have a sort of Leela-Fry-Bender dynamic.  Elfo even has a partially requited crush on Bean.

Other characters include:
1. King Zog, a brash, easily perturbed Archie Bunker type.
2. His second wife, Queen Oona, a snakelike creature who speaks with an Eastern European accent.
3. His sorcerer, Sorcerio (Billy West), who believes that elf blood holds the secret to immortality.

Various courtesans, advisors, and knights that it's hard to keep track of.

The society is sort of fun, a juxtaposition of magical-realm and the horrors of real Medieval life.

I like the fact that their religion isn't Christianity.  They worship the "one god who is the brother to the other one god," and there's a female high priestess.

The plotlines are rather predictable:  Bean rebels against an arranged marriage; Bean tries out a number of new jobs, including executioner; Lucie is captured by an exorcist; Elfo makes up a girlfriend to avoid admitting that he likes Bean.

I liked the episode where the witch from "Hansel and Gretel" turns out to be innocent, the victim of the murderous children.

But there are overarching plots inside of plots.  Elfo is not what he seems.  Bean's mother, who was turned to stone 15 years ago, is not what she seems, either.  Nor is Bean.  And some dark wizards are watching the activity in a magic flame and commenting on how well their plan is progressing.  It becomes quite complex, not to mention surprisingly dark, and ends on several cliffhangers.

The artwork is competent, the visual tropes pleasantly familiar from 30 years of Springfield, and there is a quite a lot of beefcake.  Even the portly King Zog was a muscular warrior, as shown in a flashback to his youth.

Gay references:  Not many.  When Bean decides to cozy up to invading Vikings, she says "I'm changing teams," and Lucie yells "Called it!"  He thinks that "changing teams" means turning lesbian.

You'd think a demon would know that you can't turn lesbian.

Generally in fantasy stories, when you encounter sirens, female creatures whose beautiful songs lure you to your death, only the men have to stop up their ears.  Women are immune.  But when Bean and the gang encounter them, Bean has to stop up her ears, too.  Nice for the myth to be somewhat less heterosexist.

And that's it.

Gay characters: Sorcerio refers to another guy as his ex-lover.  So he's gay.  I suppose.  But when they encounter a hippogriff, a horse-eagle-human hybrid that claims to be female but asserts that "gender is fluid," Sorcerio offers to have sex with it.

And that's it.

The Top 10 Dreamy Boys of "Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn"

Remember when the shows on Nickelodeon were actually good?  By "Good" I mean that adults could watch them without being bored to tears, the stars were teenagers, not toddlers, and there were gay subtexts.

Drake and Josh  had amazing chemistry.
Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide was as good, or better, than anything on prime time.
Even True Jackson, VP could be clever.

Now it's "girl who wants to be a singer" and "raucous, screaming preteens."

Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn (2014-) is about raucous, screaming preteens, 10-year old quadruplets.  I watched ten seconds of the first episode before my eardrums exploded.

Besides, I was absolutely certain that those preteen boys were going to be portrayed as hetero-horny girl-crazy sex machines, and I didn't need another rendition of "heterosexual desire is universal human experience!  Every boy is wild about girls!"

Well, four seasons have passed, and the kids have grown into teenagers -- they're in high school.  Plots involve boyfriend-girlfriend miscommunications, attempts to impress hot girls, and dates, as well as the usual "a mishap floods the school" and "scream real loud" sort of thing.

  No gay characters anywhere, no gay subtexts, "discovering girls," "girls are the meaning of life," all of those tropes that erase LGBT teens from existence.

But at least the gay boys can look at the beefcake.  Granted, it might not appeal to adults, but NRDD is flooded with "dreamy boys," the sort that made you feel all flushed when they smiled at you back in junior high.

Dreaminess was not a characteristic of the physique: slim and androgynous was actually preferable.  And nobody in junior high was checking out baskets.  It was all about the face, and more, about the attitude.  We called boys "dreamy" when they were super-confident A-game golden boys; dark, troubled, dangerous delinquents who we could save; or shy, quiet boys who we could bring out of their shell.


Here are the top 10 Dreamy Boys of NRDD:

1. Garren Stith as Connor (top photo).  For "dreamy," physique is irrelevant, but Stith has some nice abs.

2. Aiden Gallagher as Nicky (left), the goofy, trouble-making, not-so smart quad.  Ok, his head is too big for his body, if that actually is his body and not a photoshop job, but you've got to admit, his hair and eyebrows are dreamy.

3. Casey Simpson as Ricky, the smart, neatnik, gay-coded but totally hetero one.  The blue eyes, red lips, and sharp chin pull off a sort of snow-queen look.

4. Jack Griffo of The Thundermans, playing himself.  Some pecs, but kids are sighing over his windblown hair and goofy half-smile.

5. Lincoln Melcher as Mack.  Thick hair and ten-dollar smile.

More after the break.

10 Shirtless Photos of Ben Schreiner, Sort Of

Someone said that Ben Schreiner, who appeared on six episodes of You Can't Do That on Television in 1984, near the end of its run, is gay.

Ok, I never heard of him, so I did an internet search.

He must be in his late 40s now.

I'm usually good at internet searches, but there are just so many Ben Schreiners in in the world.

The owner of a construction company in Topeka
A freelance writer in Oregon
A cycling enthusiast in England.
A salesman for a steel company in Vancouver.
A banker in Luxembourg.
A student in Heidelberg
A designer at the Greenheck Fan Company in Wausau, Wisconsin.

I'm not sure which is our Ben, but this one is cute.

So, maybe there are some shirtless shots of the adult Ben Schreiner floating around out there.  When I did a search on google images, here's what popped up.

Nice abs, but too young to be the right Ben, unless this photo was taken 20 years ago,

This is the salesman from Vancouver.  Apparently he used to be a model.

A football player shirtless in the rain.

More after the break.