"Everybody Loves Greg": Vincent Martella grows up, plays Phineas, dates some guys. With some d*cks and Skyler Gisondo

 Link to the n*de dudes

We've been watching Everybody Hates Chris (2005-2009) on Hulu: a nostalgia sitcom featuring the  childhood adventures of comedian Chris Rock, who provided the commentary.  Young Chris (Tyler James Williams) attended an all-white middle school, where everyone hated him, except his teacher, who pitied him for..stereotype of the week.  

He had a bully with an endless supply of racist terms (Travis Flory), a white best friend (Vincent Martella), and at home, Dad with about 35 jobs (Terry Crews), way overbearing Mom (Tichina Arnold), bratty little sister (Imani Hakim), and a little brother (Tequan Richmond), who was bigger, and far more attractive: everybody was in love with him, which was usually fine,but a problem around Valentine's Day, when the truckloads of cards, candy, and wedding proposals arrived. 

It was quite homophobic, even for the 2000s.  Chris Rock's commentary displayed revulsion and disgust whenever he could: "Hey, this ain't Brokeback!"  One episode featured Chris befriending a gay student, but they called him "androgynous."

Nearly 20 years later, the cast varies on their level of homophobia, from Terry Crewes and Tyler James Williams (ugh!).

To Tequan Richmond and Imani Hakim (allies)

 To Vincent Martella, seen here at a Clippers game with Mikey Reid.

After Chris, he became the voice of Phineas in the animated Phineas and Ferb, which is endless: 140 episodes from 2007-2025, plus thousands of movies: Christmas Vacation, Across the Second Dimension, Mission Marvel....

Vincent has also done other animation work, like the video game Final Fantasy XIII, Batman: Death in the Family, and Disney Infinity

Left: Vincent and Mikey have fun during the COVID quarantine.

Vincent's live-action work includes Patrick in three episodes of The Walking Dead: he is a member of a zombie holocaust survivor community in an abandoned prison. Then he get sick, dies, zombifies, and creates a new zombie infestation.

I have a question about this Cupid costume.  

More after the break. 

The top ten buffed big brothers of nuclear family sitcoms, from Tony Dow to Dakota Lotus

 Nuclear family sitcoms often juxtapose shy, weird, un-athletic, intellectual, or otherwise outsider boys and their popular, athletic, muscular, and often dimwitted older brothers.  Sometimes Big Brother is deliberately cast with a bicep boy, but more often it happens organically, as little brother hits the books and big brother hits the gym.  Here are the top ten biggest, baddest, most buffed Big Brothers.

1. Wally (Tony Dow)  on Leave It to Beaver (1957-63).

2. Reese (Justin Berfield) on Malcolm in the Middle (2000-2006). Malcolm is a beset-upon genius with two older and a younger brother. Reese turned into a veritable bodybuilder with a strong gay subtext before the showrunners got scared and turned him straight.

 

3. Drew (Tequan Richmond)  on Everybody Hates Chris (2005-2009). While Chris was bad at everything and got into trouble constantly, his bigger, taller younger brothre Drew was a golden boy.  He was so beautiful that everyone, not just teenagers, dissolved into a slurry of hormones when he smiled at them.  Women only, I think: this show was extremely skittish about the g-word.

4. Axl Heck (Charlie McDermott) on The Middle (2009-2018) hung around the house in his underwear all the time.  This was supposed to be a weird quirk, not a turn-on.  They didn't know the audience very well, did they? I don't remember if he liked girls or not; I was too busy looking at his "happy trail" to pay attention to the plots. (Except for the one where the sister's friend wants to come out, but doesn't get to say the g-word.)

5. On The Goldbergs (2013-2023),  Barry (Troy Gentile), wrestler and all-around hunk, was paired with the shy intellectual boy in a gay-free 1980s.

More after the break