The "Rockford Files" episode where James Garner goes to bed with a college boy

WhenI have had  this conversation more times than I can count.

Guy I'm Trying to Pick Up:  Where are you from?
Me:     Rock Island, Illinois.
Guy I'm Trying to Pick Up:  Rockford!  You must have loved The Rockford Files.
Me:    I said Rock Island, not Rockford, and I've never seen The Rockford Files.
Guy I'm Not Trying to Pick Up Anymore: I knew you'd be a fan!  Who wouldn't want to watch a show set in his home town?
Me:  I'm from Rock Island, not Rockford,  and the show was set in California. Rockford was the name of the main character.
Guy I'm Walking Away From:  So when you were living in Rockford, did you ever  watch them filming?

The Rockford Files (1974-80) aired on Friday nights, when teenagers were out (or supposed to be), so the programs were all aimed at little kids (Donny & Marie) or oldsters (Barnaby Jones).  I saw a few of the opening sequences as I was headed out the door: an answering machine takes a crazy message:

"Hey Jim, this is Louie down at the fish market. You going to pick up these halibut or what?"

"Mr. Rockford? This is the Thomas Crown School of Dance and Contemporary Etiquette. We aren't going to call again. Now, you want these free lessons, or what?"

"This is Shirley at the bank. The answers are: no, no, and yes. No, we won't loan you money. No, we won't accept any co-signers; and yes, your account's overdrawn. I get off at 4:30."

"Jim? Nadine Arcala at the Zodiac Restaurant. You don't pay that dinner tab, we're gonna repo your birthday."

Of course, in the 1970s you knew about most programs, even if you hadn't seen them.  I knew that it starred James Garner, after Move Over, Darling but before Victor/Victoria, as the pushing-50 antiheroic anti-private dick Jim Rockford, who had spent five years in prison (for a crime he didn't commit, of course), and now lived in a dilapidated trailer in Malibu and took cases for $200 per day plus expenses ($1000 in the 2020s).

Jim's scoobies included:

1.His con-artist dad Rocky (Noah Beery, Jr),

2. Sneaky, underhanded informant from prison Angel (Stewart Margolin, who was a fixture in 1970s sitcoms).

3. Hot cop Becker (Joe Santos, left), known for his famous Becker bulge.  The guy was packing.  Sorry, I couldn't find a photo that displays it well.

4. His lawyer/girlfriend Beth (Gretchen Corbett).

There were a lot of famous guest stars, including Tom Selleck (star of Magnum), Louis Gossett Jr., and Rita Moreno (The grandma on the One Day at a Time reboot), Bo Hopkins (left), and Gene Davis (top photo).

And I did, somehow, see the episode "The House on Willis Avenue", which aired on February 24, 1978: When a fellow p.i. is killed while investigating computer files, Jim teams up with a 22-year old wannabe named Richie Brockelman (Dennis Dugan) to catch the culprit, 1930s teen star Jackie Cooper (below)  He is plotting to start a national computer network with everybody's personal information available to anyone who wants it.  Wait, isn't that the internet?  

More after the break

Beefcake and bonding in British boys' annuals

From the 1930s through the 1980s, British boys spent Christmas day unwrapping and reading "annuals," thick hardback books with stories and pictures derived from weekly story papers: Hotspur, Champion, Knockout, Perfect Book for Boys, Best Book for Boys, dozens of titles.

There were also annuals for girls and children, but the boys' annuals were notable for two reasons.

1. Shirtless and semi-nude covers and interior illustrations.  Hundreds of muscular teenage boys and men on display, many more than in the American adventure boys series.

They were playing sports, camping, fighting monsters. They were alone and in pairs.  Their muscles glistened in the Christmas firelight.

2. The stories inside did not involve the dating, romances, and overall girl-craziness that obsessed American teen stories in the 1950s and 1960s. They were about boys meeting, being rescued by, and establishing permanent relations with other boys and men.

More after the break

Will Trent, Episode 4:10: Who is murdering n*ked fratboys? Detectives think it's about a girl, but...With fratboy c*cks and Jeff East

  

 Link to the n*de photos

I don't watch a lot of detective shows -- who cares about "the body in the library" when you can change the channel and see ghosts, zombies, time travel, and parallel worlds? But Episode 4.10 of Will Trent, on Hulu, pinged my gaydar: "A fraternity star and his friend are murdered."  Friend is often code for boyfriend.

Title: "You're Only as Sick as Your Secrets."

Scene 1: Girl legs walking across the campus of Georgia Atlantic University at night, discussing their boy problems.  Heterosexual identity established instantly.  They stop at a fountain to puke, and see a n*ked boy floating in the water, his mouth taped up and marked with the word "loyalty." 

Cut to a Pregnant Detective and her husband (Scott Foley, left) at a class for expectant parents, in an ongoing plotline.  They keep accidentally "killing" their baby.  I'm fast forwarding.

Scene 2: Will interviews the ridiculously-dressed Chancellor about the victim, Paxton Cole.  Shouldn't it be the Dean of Students, or the President?  "He was a campus leader, honor role, president of the Delta Chi Kappa Fraternity."  

Left: The actor playing Paxton does not appear in the cast list.

Will thinks that it was a premeditated murder, but the Chancellor scoffs: "The boy was just  mugged, or he interrupted a drug deal."  

"Then why was he stripped, and tape gagged with the word 'Loyalty'"?

He harrumphs, then leaves to go to Boozy Booster Brunch,  the biggest fundraising activity of Homecoming Week, except for the Wine and Winners Dinner Party. Will is suspicious.  Dude should be more concerned about the murder of the college goldenboy.  Or any student, for that matter.

Scene 3: Will's team crosses the campus, complaining about the laziness of Generation Z and how college is a worthless rip-off.  As someone who has been teaching at a college for over 20 years, I am disturbed by that sentiment.  They find the frat pledges cleaning the porch with toothbrushes, a red flag about hazing abuse. They are not allowed to speak, another red flag.

Frat member Sean/Legacy  (Jacob Buster, left) invites them in. Will looks disgusted at the frat guys drinking beer. Griffin/Badger sees them and tries to run out, but they ambush him.  "It's not my fault!" he exclaims.

Scene 4: At the police station, Griffin/Badger (Tyler Patrick Smith) explains that he didn't hurt Paxton, but he was afraid that his illegal id business would be implicated.  Last night at the party, he gave Paxton/Doorbell and Greg/Sharkey fake ids so they could pick up some kegs of beer.  They never returned.

He's not implicated in the murder, but he's arrested for selling fake ids.  These people are disgustingly judgmental.  

They interrogate everybody else in the house, but no one had a beef with Paxton/Doorbell or Greg/Sharkey, and no one knows where they went to get the beer.

"Did you ever see them argue, fight over a girl?"  How do you know they were straight, heteronormative a-hole?

"No, they were best friends."  Tell me more.

Scene 5: Being dismissisve and insulting isn't getting them any intel, so the Pregnant Detective tries the sympathy approach.  Sean/Legacy opens up, complaining that his dad wants him engaged by next year and married with a kid soon after graduation.   I got that pressure all the time growing up: "What girl do you like?  What girl do you like?  What girl? What girl?"  Resistance to the heterosexist trajectory is a queer code. 

Fake ID Griffin/Badger's d*ck is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

This strategy works: Sean/Legacy reveals that several months ago, Paxton shared a private video to group chat.  It got leaked, and the whole campus saw it.  Dang, it was with a girl.  Hereosexual identiy established at Minute 12..

Scene 6: Pregnant Detective visits The Girl, Sorority President Britt. She can't talk about the video, because she signed an NDA and got a Porsche.  But she won't say who asked her to sign it.

Other sorority girls come forward to reveal that the fratboys are all scumbags, but they can't report on any of their misdeeds because Sean/Legacy's dad is the Chancellor.  Curiouser and curiouser.

Scene 7: Back at headquarters, after some stuff about the ongoing plotline, they find out where Paxton/Doorbell and Greg/Sharkey bought the beer: at the Beer Depot (makes sense).  They drop by, and find his pickup truck, with the beer kegs still there.  The killer must have abducted them here.

Will finds two sets of clothes in the trash -- the killer stripped them here! And no one noticed?  And in the ice machine, Greg/Sharkey's body, with a tape gag reading "Fortitude." 

They figure out that the words on the tape gags are the mottos of the frat: Loyalty, Fortitude, Integrity, Diligence.  Two murders left?

Scene 8: Ongoing plot stuff, then the bodies in the morgue. Paxton/Doorbell was drowned, and Greg/Sharkey died of hypothermia (so he was dumped in the ice machine while alive). They both had Goldenkranz (gold-infused liquour) in their stomachs, and high levels of Xanax (an anti-anxiety medication that causes drowsiness).  The killer spiked their drinks so they would be more compliant.  Which means that he (or she) was at the party last night.

More after the break.  

Chad Allen: The Dr. Quinn hunk is outed, but still plays hetero romantic leads and a gay detective. With his d*ck and 1990s San Francisco

Link to the n*de photos

I finally cleaned out my "Profiles to Do" file,  eliminating Tyler Posey (extremely ugly), Ethan Cutkosky (only four photos), and Raphael Luce (already profiled him). Twelve guys are left: Nicholas Bechtel, Nathaniel Bacon, Ben Patrick Johnson...wait, Chad Allen.  The name brings back a flood of memories.

In 1995, my partner Lane and I moved to San Francisco, because why wouldn't you?  It was Gay Heaven.  It was also very difficult, cold, crowded, dirty, and dangerous.  Lane lasted for about six months before dumping me and high-tailing it back to the comfort of West Hollywood.  I stuck it out for two years.

The main problem: We felt obligated to serve as stand-ins for the thousands of gay men who dreamed of living in Gay Heaven.  Every moment had to count.  Every night was a mad rush of beer busts, bear parties, AIDS benefits, book signings, art openings, film premieres, and hookups, until, by Saturday night we were exhausted, and more often than not just wanted to get Chinese take-out and chill in front of the tube.  So we watched Married..with Children, Lois & Clark, Leaving L.A. (because we had left L.A.), and Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993-98)

Jane Seymour played the titular doctor, also known as Doctor Mike, who moved out West in 1867 to deal with gamblers, grifters, bureaucrats, cowboys, Indians, and a lot of sick and dying people.  No gay characters, but come on, she was named Mike, she disguised herself as a man on many occasions, and she had a lesbian-subtext romance with her midwife, Charlotte.  After The Girl died, Doctor Mike adopted her three children and started a romance with a cowboy (Joe Lando).  You have to move on.

Chad Allen played Matthew Cooper, Dr. Mike's adopted son.  His plotlines involved trying to father his younger siblings after Mom's death (by rattlesnake bite), getting a girlfriend (who dies of rabies), being trapped in a cave-in, getting a new girlfriend, getting a gambling addiction, chasing cattle rustlers, and having various accidents.  Sure, it was ridiculous, but in the 1990s everything on tv was ridiculous.  Remember Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210?

Joe Lando appeared in Playgirl, but didn't show his dangly bits.

But Chad did.  At least, some leaked photos purportedly of a young adult Chad made the rounds of celebrity websites in the early 2000s (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends)

Chad had been appearing in heart-warmers and tear-jerkers since he was seven years old: Hotel, Webster, Highway to Heaven, Punky Brewster, and The Wonder Years (that's Fred Savage beside him).

His most iconic role was Tommy Westphal, the autistic son of Dr. Westphal in 17 episodes of  the homophobic medical drama St. Elsewhere (1983-88).  We only watched one episode, and it was homophobic.

The season finale of St. Elsewhere revealed that the entire series was imagined by Tommy as he gazed at a snow globe.   It was all a dream. This enraged fans, but isn't all fiction someone's dream?

Chad also played more conventional roles, like the 12-year old David Witherspoon in 46 episodes of the dramedy Our House (1986-88).  The then-famous curmudgeon Wilford Brimley starred as the grandpa to three cute kids.

And Zach Nichols, who competes with Giovanni Ribisi for the attention of The Girl in 26 episodes of the comedy (sort of) My Two Dads (1987-1990).

In 1996,  Chad was outed when the tabloid The Globe published a leaked photo of him kissing a guy!  

Usually in the 1990s, coming out or being outed meant an instant end to your career, but Jane Seymour was a strong LGBT ally, and insisted that Chad continue appearing as Matthew in every episode of Dr. Quinn.  The writers did manage to avoid giving him a new girlfriend.

More after the break

A gay romance on "Barnaby Jones"? Yes, the one starring Jed Clampett and Catwoman

It's the cold,  windy Thursday night four days before Halloween, during my senior year in high school.  The family has gathered in front of the tv set, as usual: the tv is on every night from dinnertime to bedtime, a backdrop to all of our other activities.

7:00: Welcome Back, Kotter.   The high school underachievers evaluate the principal's novel, John Travolta says "Up your nose with a rubber hose," and Horshak (Ron Pallilo) explains, yet again, that his name means "The cattle are dying."  Yawn.

7:30: What's Happening!. Inner city prettyboy Dwayne (Haywood Nelson) helps his dad run for city council.  I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm still mesmerized by the guy's bulge and backside.

At 8:00, my parents want to watch Barney Miller, but I go upstairs to watch James at Fifteen on my small portable tv.  It's the second episode of the teen drama starring Lance Kerwin as a high school swimmer.  

When it's over, I turn off the tv and start doing homework.  A few minutes later, my brother Ken comes clomping up the stairs.  "You'll never guess what they're watching down there!" he exclaims.  "Barnaby Jones!"

"You're kidding -- Jed Clampett as a private eye?"  The oldster detective is played by the star of the Beverly Hillbillies.

"And Catwoman is his secretary!"  Lee Meriwether, who plays Barnaby's daughter-in-law, was Catwoman on Batman.

"Gross!  Next they'll have Scooby-Doo!"

Ken laughs.  "Don't take my word for it.  Come downstairs and watch."

"Geezer tv?  No way!"  My friends would rib me unmercifully if they found out I had watched something as lame as Barnaby Jones!

Ignoring me, he flips the tv on, and clicks the dial to CBS.

No Jed Clampett, no Catwoman.  Two cute young guys, one in a muscle shirt that displays baseball-sized biceps, the other in skin-tight jeans that reveal an enormous bulge.  They are standing so close together that they seem about to kiss.

Muscle Shirt: You're the  man for me!

Tight Jeans: Let's not get carried away..."

"Two homosexuals?"  I exclaim. "You didn't tell me there were homosexuals on this show!"

Kenny shrugs.  "They must be the bad guys."

"Well, turn it off.  Seeing those freaks makes me sick!"

In the year or so before I figured it out, I was extremely homophobic.  Even my friends commented on it: 'What is your problem with gays?"  I thought of gay men as frilly little lacy things, fluttering about at their jobs as hairdressers and interior designers, destroying everything that was hard and warm and masculine.  Yet here were two hard-bodied, masculine gay guys.  How was that possible?

The next week I pretend to be immersed in a book in order to watch Barnaby Jones with my parents.  Tight-Jeans is Mark Shera, playing Barnaby's nephew, a law school student.  But he definitely likes girls.  

Born Mark Shapiro in 1949, a 1971 graduate of Boston University, Mark Shera got some teen idol attention for S.W.A.T. (1975-76), where he played Officer Dominic Luca.  This led to his gig on Barnaby Jones (1976-80), plus episodes of the usual 1970s and 1980s series: Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Murder She Wrote, Matt Houston. 

 Mark seems to have retired from acting in the mid-1990s.  I can't find any more recent information about him, except that he may have gone into real estate, and he's never married.  That could mean that he is gay in real life.

What about Muscle Shirt, with his baseball-sized biceps and the romantic plaint of "You're the man for me?"  He must have been a guest star.

Before the days of the internet, there was no way to track down the episode.  I waited for summer reruns, but by that time I was working at the Carousel Snack Bar in the mall on Thursday nights.  The scene of gay romance was lost forever. 

Until a few days ago, when I found a photo of the scene on ebay, which led to the entire episode on Youtube: "Gang War."

I misread the scene:  Barnaby isn't around, so gang member Duke (Muscle Shirt) kidnaps JR and forces him to solve the murder of his buddy.  The others think that a rival gang is responsible, and threaten to start a "gang war," so it's high stakes. There are some gay subtexts, but not between Duke and JR. 

 he's not in love with Mark Shera, he's about to kidnap him.

Muscle Shirt was Asher Brauner (1945-2021), who has 38 acting credits listed on the IMD.  He is best known for Switchblade Sisters (1975), about a bikini-wearing girl gang, and Treasure of the Moon Goddess (1987), about a bikini-wearing pop star being romanced by a man-mountain in the jungle

Sounds like a lot of hetero-sleaze, but he also appeared in some gay-themed movies:

Alexander: the Other Side of Dawn (1977): Teenage Alexander (Leigh McCloskey) is seduced into the sordid, disgusting world of gay hustlers and rent-boys. Asher plays Buddy, a straight guy who befriends him and helps him abandon the "gay lifestyle."  

In Making Love (1980),  Zack (Michael Ontkean) is married to Claire (Kate Jackson), but begins to realize that he is gay through a romance with a handsome writer (Harry Hamlin).  While investigating her husband's affair, Claire (Kate Jackson) meets  Ted (Asher), a brawny, working-class guy -- a first on television.  Playing a gay guy in 1980 took a lot of courage, even for an actor who usually played horny straight guys.

Asher never married, so maybe he was gay in real life.

Maybe I didn't misinterpret the scene.  Could I have noticed some real chemistry between two closeted actors on a long-ago episode of Barnaby Jones?

See also: Glenn Scarpelli: the star of "One Day at a Time" and "Jennifer Slept Here" grows up, comes out, and gets a husband

Lance Kerwin: The Golden Boy of the 1970s

Harry Hamlin Making Love

Wake Up Dead Man: Daniel Craig's gay detective solves a locked-room murder, with a hot priest, some MAGA suspects, and a lot of Catholic c*cks

  

Link to the n*de photos

For movie night this week, we saw Wake Up Dead Man (2025), the third of the Knives Out mysteries starring Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, left), a posh Southern-accented detective who draws inspiration from classic murder writers like Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh.  

This one involves Father Jed (Josh O'Connor), a boxer who accidentally killed his opponent in the ring, and became a priest to expiate his guilt.  When he loses control and punches an a*hole deacon, he is assigned to a struggling parish in upstate New York. 

Left: Exteriors were filmed at the Anglican Church of the Holy Innocents, in Epping Forest, near London, built in 1873, praised as a masterpiece of Gothic Revival architecture.

It is struggling because of Monseigneur Wicks (Josh Brolin).  Monseigneur is an honorary title bestowed by the Pope, but this Monseigneur has bestowed it upon himself.  He has turned the congregation into an evangelical cult, preaching about the End Times and the War against Christianity, promising eternal damnation to anyone who challenges his authority, and screaming at visitors who he thinks are disobeying God's law: first a single mother, and then a gay couple.

The gay couple is played by HIV activist Hugh Wyld and Matthew Jacobs-Morgan, who runs Coven, a queer bar and art venue in Hackney.  

Father Jed thinks that the Church should be about love and forgiveness, a place where "everyone is welcome," but the Monseigneur sneers that he is ridiculously naive: why would you open the Church to the enemies of God? This is War!

In fact, the Monseigneur has only seven True Believers left.

More after the break:

Daniel Boone: a Big Man

Daniel Boone was a man --
He was a big man!

Sounds good so far.  When I was seven or eight years old, I was all for watching tv shows about a man, especially a big man.  Especially a big man who was a "dream come-er true-er."  

But Batman was on the other channel.  No kid in his right mind would pick a cowboy over the Dynamic Duo.  I never saw a single episode of Daniel Boone when it originally aired.

I've seen one since, for research purposes. Not a lot of gay content.  Not a lot of cowboy content, either.

1. Daniel Boone (Fess Parker)  is a family man, with wife and kids.  If you have to be a cowboy, at least hang out with other guys.

2. He has a sidekick anyway, Mingo, one of the least convincing Native Americans on tv, actually played by singer Ed Ames (who, although Jewish, became famous for recording the Chrismas song "Do You Hear What I Hear").

3.  It's not even the Old West.  This is Kentucky during the Revolutionary War.

4. While other cowboys were happily displaying monumental physiques, Fess Parker is kept strictly under wraps.  The only cast member to take his shirt off is Darby Hinton, who plays Daniel's preteen son Israel, and his buddy du jour.

Prior to Daniel, Fess Parker had starred in other Disney productions, notably Davy Crockett, Old Yeller, and The Light in the Forest (ignoring the crush of James Mac Arthur).  Afterwards he retired to run a vineyard and give conservative speeches.

Darby Hinton apparently was the first crush of some gay boys of the Boomer Generation, but he didn't have much of a teen idol career (this photo is from Getty Images, not from a teen magazine).

Post-Daniel, he's best known for the sexploitation Malibu Express (1985), as a Magnum P.I. clone who keeps encountering nude women and swishy gay stereotypes while trying to solve a murder.  At least he looks good semi-nude.

Beefcake and Bonding in the Green Library

When I was studying French in high school,  if I ever tired of Tintin, Alix and Enak, Corentin, and Spirou and Fantasio, I could move on to the small square children's books published by the Librairie Hachette, the Bibliotheque Rose (pink) for humor and the Bibliotheque Verte (green) for action/adventure.

I preferred the green, especially Georges Bayard's Michel series, about a 15-year old and his older brother who sleuthed like the Hardy Boys (Michel a Rome, Michel en plongee, Michel et Monsieur X, etc.)  Except there were more kidnappings and last-minute rescues than the Hardy Boys faced, more stories set on boats and at the beach, and  unlike the American adventure boy series of the 1940s and 1950s  Hachette was not skimpy on the beefcake.  He was as physique-intensive as the British boys annuals.  Apparently being a teen sleuth gives you a magnificent physique.

I also liked the Italian street urchin of David Daniell's "By Jiminy" books in his French translation, Cricketto (Cricketto de Napoli, Cricketto et le petite prince, Cricketto dans la foret vierge, and so on).  He became a lean, muscular teenager, who adventured and buddy-bonded with his older friend and benefactor, Tom Trevor.  The illustrations favored black speedos for Tom and red for Cricketto.

Willis Lindquist's Haji of the Elephants is about a young Indian mahout and his Western boyfriend, in the tradition of Sabu, Jonny and Hadji, and Terry and Raji.  But in the French translation, they both became teenagers in dhotis with beautifully drawn chests and shoulders.

Rene Guillot wrote many juvenile adventure stories about massive Tarzans raised in the wilderness, such as Le Chef au masque d'or. 

And I can't even begin to count the homoerotic subtexts in Philippe Ebly's "Conquerants de l'Impossible" series, about three buffed, eternally shirtless teenagers from different time periods: Serge (modern France), Xolotl (Aztec Mexico), and Thibault (Medieval France).  They band together in a complex plot arc that decides the fate of worlds, while never so much as looking at a girl.

Ebly also wrote the "Evades du temps" series (Time Runaways), about two  teenagers, Thierry and Didier, who are hiking through a mysterious woods when they become unstuck in time, like Paul in Spellbinder.  They meet the prehistoric teenager Kouroun, who doesn't own a shirt, and band together to fight supernatural enemies and look for a way home.

They even had gay-themed novels, such as Pierre Loti's Iceland Fisherman.

I wonder if my French teacher noticed that I only borrowed the books with the beefcake covers.

In college I discovered a whole new collection, the Signe de Piste.

Carter: Would You Really Watch Jerry O'Connell In Anything?

99% of viewers will tune in to the Canadian tv series Carter (2018-2020) to see Jerry O'Connell, the mega-hunk of the 1990s, star of Sliders (1995-2000) and a lot of horndog movies that you rented just so see him with shirt off (Joe's Apartment, Tomcats, Buying the Cow, Kangaroo Jack).  What does he look like at the ripe middle age of 44?  (Granted, he's been working constantly, but he hasn't taken his shirt off on screen since 2001).

Carter helpfully obliges with a shirtless Jerry on the beach,first thing.

Jerry plays Harley Carter, a famous tv detective who attacks a guy on the red carpet and finds himself persona non grata in Hollywood.  So he returns to his home town in Ontario to clear his head.  The problem is, the quirky small town residents confuse him with his tv detective character, and keep asking him to solve cases for them:

Not a problem: he wants to be a detective, and the town needs one (a lot of murders going on),  so Carter takes a job as consulting detective under the watchful supevision of The Girl, Sam (Sydney Tamia Potier).  His Huggy Bear is Dave (Kristian Bruun), who runs the local food truck.

I watched an episode because I didn't realize that Sam was a girl, so i thought there would be some gay-subtext buddy-bonding going on.  And because -- Jerry O'Connell...

Scene 1:  Carter and Sam are flirting at a town festival. Dave (right) does something funny.   They see a man in a trenchcoat yelling at a man in a suit,, who was responsible for the mining disaster  (this is important).  He opens the trenchcoat, revealing a bomb that explodes confetti.  Psych -- they're a theatrical troupe advertising their upcoming performance!

Scene 2: Carter and Sam go to work, flirting while nvestigating yet another murder in the small town: a man stabbed to death in a car in a credit union parking lot.   The manager says that he was Dennis, a loan officer until a week ago, when he was fired due to poor work performance.

Scene 3: They flirt/ investigate his house, which is suspiciously neat and tidy, and contains way too much great literature for a loan officer. (Carter reads off the names while looking at an encyclopedia).

Scene 4: At the lab, they flirt/discover that Dennis was killed with a replica medieval dagger, and there was a lot of hair on the passenger side of the car.

Scene 5: Sam interviews some of Dennis's coworkers.  Hey, when Carter's not around and she can think about something other than ripping his clothes off,  she's actually a competent detective.  Angelica, the boss, had it in for Dennis.  She was constantly making fun of him, calling him Pig-Man-Lion...no, Pygmalion!

Scene 6: Carter, relatively competent when he doesn't have an erection, asks "ancient Chinese secret" Koji to hack into Dennis's computer.  They find something shocking.

Scene 7:  Whoops, Carter and Sam are back to "Are you as turned on as I am...um, I mean what clues did you find?"  Dennis's laptop is full of sexy photos of bank manager Angelica!  Also, the hair found on the car seat belongs to her!

More after the break

Four Color Beefcake and Bonding

When I was a kid, my comic book buying budget was limited, but when I started making my own money, the extra income allowed a thorough investigation of the back issue bins at the Comics Cave, and I expanded my beefcake and bonding library with Dell's Four Color Comics.

It was a series of one-shots, each issue dedicated to a different movie, cartoon, tv series, or comic strip character, over a thousand between 1942 and 1962.  The range was staggering.  Here's a brief selection: Donald Duck, Tilly the Toiler, Roy Rogers, Flash Gordon, Harold Teen, Tarzan, Fearless Fagan,  I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, Captain Kangaroo, Johnny Jason Teen Reporter.


I was looking for beefcake or bonding covers, like this Leave it to Beaver (FC 1191, 1961).   It showed Wally and the Beaver (Tony Dow, Jerry Mathers) considerably younger than they would have been in 1961, in a romantic pose, sharing a soda (one soda, two straws) while Beaver rests his hand lightly on Wally's thigh?







Tonka (FC 966, 1958) came out at the same time as the 1958 movie, with gay teen idol Sal Mineo as a bicep-bulging Native American (Tonka was his horse).

















But this Spin and Marty comic (FC 1026, 1959), with Marty's hand placed tenderly on Skip's shoulder, was released after the series ended.

Often the characters were completely unrecognizable, relics of the distant past.  Who on Earth was this blond, muscular Curly Kayoe (FC 871, 1957) boxing with a barefoot hunk?  Turns out that boxers were heroes during the 1930s and 1940s, and Curly Kayoe, like Joe Palooka, rated his own comic strip (1945-61) and comic book (1946-50). (Kayoe means "Knock Out.")  He didn't seem to have a girlfriend, but he did have a youthful ward named Davy, Robin to his Batman, who took over the strip in 1961.

Or Clint and Mac (FC 889, 1958)?  Turns out that Kurt Russell didn't play Disney's only American adventurer abroad.  In 1957-58, The Mickey Mouse Club featured a serial about the American Clint (Neil Wolfe), the one in the crew cut and extremely tight jeans, who visits Britain and buddy-bonds with Mac (Jonathan Bailey), the one in the beanie and striped tie.

Their adventure involves catching the thieves who stole an original manuscript of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. They also encounter a street gang, drive a car, and go to a birthday party for Prince Charles.  Both actors vanished from show business soon thereafter, and the serial has never been released on DVD  or streamed on Disney Plus, so without the comic it would have vanished completely.

See also: Sal Mineo, the first gay teen idol

Spin and Marty: Summer Camp Boys in Love

Jeff East: Tom Sawyer's boyfriend, Disney teen, young Superman, n*de fratboy, Pumpkinhead prey.

Or Johnny Yuma, the Rebel (FC 1136, 1960), who shoots one gun and holds another, and wears a Confederate uniform (minus the shirt)?

Turns out that The Rebel (1959-1961) was a Western about Johnny Yuma, an ex-Confederate who wanders around the Old West with his shirt off.  Johnny was played by gay actor Nick Adams, who hung out with a crowd of barely-closeted gay actors, many discovered by gay agent Henry Willson (others included Guy Madison, James Dean,  Lee Patterson, Anthony Perkins, and Van Williams).

Charlie's Angels: Yes, there was a gay connection

You've got to be kidding.  What interest would gay boys or men have in the 1976-81 drama about three women (originally Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith) who graduated from the police academy, found their talents underutilized by a patriarchal system, and went to work as private detectives?

Who use their brains to solve the murders and their brawn to knock out the bad guy?

Who go undercover in health clubs, spas, cruise ships, and other places crowded with men wearing only towels and swimsuits?

That's why.

1. There was quite a lot of jiggling, of course, but there was also an immense amount of beefcake.

Where else could you see game show host Bert Convy in a speedo?

Or Dirk Benedict take off his Battlestar Galactica uniform?

Nearly every hunk in Hollywood guest starred, and usually took off his shirt: Timothy Dalton, Bo Hopkins, Tab Hunter, Randolph Mantooth, Vic Morrow, Dack Rambo, Tom Selleck, Robert Ulrich, and Lyle Waggoner.

Even Norman Fell, Mr. Roper of Three's Company.

2. Several episodes featured predatory lesbians, swishy-queen gay men, or demented transvestites.  But that was the way LGBT people were nearly universally portrayed in 1970s detective and cop shows.  And the homophobia was diluted by the gay-vague Bosley (David Doyle), the Angels' longsuffering assistant.

3. In the end Charlie's Angels was about empowerment, saving the day in spite of people assuming that you were weak, flamboyant, feminine.

4. And, like The Golden Girls,  it was about the friendship.

Most of the Angels were gay allies. Kate Jackson starred in Making Love (1982), which featured the first positive portrayal of gay men in a Hollywood film.

Farrah Fawcett, who died in 2009, was unfailingly gracious to her gay fans.

Jaclyn Smith played the mother of a gay son in Family Album (1994).  Incidentally, her husband was played by Michael Ontkean, Kate Jackson's husband in Making Love. 

In the 2019 film reboot, the director wanted to make Sabina (Kristen Stewart) gay.  Although bisexual in real life, she refused, but eventually agreed to a scene where she flirts briefly with a woman. 

See also: BJ's Angels: A Charlie's Angels Parody Starring Joel Rush, Peter Kaasa, and Skyler Gisondo.