"Everyone is Doing Great": Four actors face life after fame, with gay hints, kombucha, "Heated Rivalry," "Euphoria," and d*cks

Link to the n*de dudes

Back in 2021, a dark comedy called Everyone is Doing Great dropped on Hulu, featuring a gay guy who moves home because his dad is dying of a brain tumor, and needs someone to take care of his teenage daughters.  I turned it off after ten minutes -- not a fan of shows about dying people.  Five years later, a new season has dropped on Netflix.  The dying dad plotline must be long gone by now, and I'm running low on tv shows with gay characters to review, so here we go, Season 2, Episode 1.

Scene 1: Dude is moving his stuff from a U-Haul to a storage unit.   He posts a selfie to someone who praises him as "sweaty boy," then drinks in the empty truck bed.   Are you planning to live there?

Meanwhile, another dude is picking up trash by the road, probably as part of a community service program.  He must be on probation. He finds a t-shirt with a frog on it, and decides to keep it. 

Meanwhile, two actors playing cops are standing in front of a green screen, ready for a scene where they run from an explosion.   They run, jump onto a mat, and..the director doesn't like it.  Do it again, for the fifteenth time, but this time hold hands so we can see your chemistry, and run like Tom Cruise. They protest, but what the director says, goes. Another take.

Nope, do it again.

Someone calls out "Michael."  I didn't know if they meant the actor or the director, until I checked the cast list.  It's actor Michael, played by Sean Carrigan.

The lady cop protests: "Grr.  That's enough takes.  There are 45 more scenes in this episode.  I'm going to lunch!"

"What's her problem?" the director asks.  Actor Michael goes to talk to her. 

The director is not named, but the only men not otherwise accounted for in the cast list are Bryan Greenberg (Miles) and Connor Dante (Carlos).   Neither of them look much like our director, but I'm going to go with Bryan Greenberg because he has some backside shots (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Scene 2: U-Haul Guy is finally named: Seth (Stephen Colletti, top photo).  After he finishes brushing his teeth from a grooming kit, he sneakily puts his toothbrush into the holder, next to the other one.  I got it -- he's staying with his boyfriend, and hinting that he wants to move in permanently.

Wait -- he's living with a girl?  Must be a gay man-straight woman friendship.

She announces that he can only stay for two weeks.  "Or maybe a month? I'm having trouble finding an apartment."   

"Ok, but stay out of my closet!"  You been trying on your bff's clothes, buddy?

"Sorry, I just like your sweater."

"It was my Dad's, who just died tragically, and we're all in mourning, remember?"  Wait -- didn't U-Haul Guy's Dad die tragically in the first season?  They're getting redundant.

"Ok, so I'll take it off."  Is he trying to entice her with his bare chest?

In other news, U-Haul Guy is excited about his Big Day coming up: a guest star role that could turn into a recurring!  Every actor's dream!

Scene 3: In a room full of 12-step pamphlets, positive affirmations, and a humidifier, Probation Guy is calling to tell someone that Tyler loves them and is sorry that he cheated.  "Just remember, Love is Eternal."

Back story: He's Jeremy (James Lafferty), who starred in the teen vampire-werewolf drama The Eternals (like the Twilight Saga).Now he's making money recording personal greetings for fans, for birthdays and so on.

Boyfriend Raul  (Elliott Bush) comes in.  He works as a tour guide.  The last busload made a mess that he had to clean up, and now he's got kitchen duty.  He collapses onto the bed.  So it's a halfway house.

Cut to Actor Michael asking the lady cop actor if she's ok.  "Don't let the director get to you.  He's a hack.  The nephew of a network executive." 

Back story: the lady cop actor is Andrea (Alexandra Park), who starred with Probation Guy on The Eternals.  I'll bet U-Haul Guy was in it, too.  Maybe the two were vampire/werewolf rivals for The Girl.

Scene 4: U-Haul Guy visits Probation Guy at his halfway house.   

"Oh, you're Seth!" Boyfriend Raul exclaims.  "Probation Guy says your name in his sleep!" 

"Still?"  So they were rivals on camera, boyfriends off.  Juicy!  

"Um...so, you're watching Euphoria?  I watched that last night with my girlfriend."  Heterosexual identity established at Minute 12.  But why bring that up at this moment?  Is he trying to tell Boyfriend Raul that there's nothing to worry about, he's not interested in Probation Guy anymore?

"So, Probation Guy, the court said you had to spend one month in the halfway house, but you've been here two months.  Why?"

"I like it here.  The rent is cheap, and I can make money doing celebrity greeting videos."  

U-Haul Guy brought gifts: beets, watermelon, and some kombucha.  "That's got alcohol. It's not allowed in the house." "No, that's a misconception.  It can't get you drunk." 

More after the break

"Hollywood Steps Out": Queer Looney Tunes in 1941

 

When I was a kid in Rock Island, Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat on weekday afternoons displayed a lot of old Looney Tunes cartoons.  No matter that they were originally for adults, and full of references to 1940s culture that went over our heads -- if it starred Bugs Bunny, we were interested.

Except not all of the Looney Tunes featured Looney Tunes stars.  There were parodies of travelogues, advertising, and short subjects. I found one particularly memorable: "Hollywood Steps Out" (1941), with caricatures of contemporary Hollywood stars dining and dancing at Ciro's Nightclub.  I had never heard of any of them.  I know who many of them are now, of course: Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Oliver Hardy, Mickey Rooney, Henry Fonda, Groucho Marx.  I've even heard of Jerry Colonna and Kay Kyser.  But to give you the idea of what it was like going in cold:

Establishing shot of Ciro's Nightclub in Hollywood, where dinners start at $50.00 ($940 in today's currency).

1. Soulful Eyes exclaims "What a place!"  Elderly Blond Woman sells him a cigarette, and lights the match with her shoe.

2. Guy with Big Lips talks to a Developmentally Challenged Girl, who responds with a series of "oomphs."  Apparently she can't speak.  Disturbing!

3. Johnny Weissmuller takes off his coat, revealing his muscular physique.  I knew who he was -- Tarzan (top photo). Wow, beefcake!

4. Three Gangsters talk about how risky a job is.  But it turns out to be pitching pennies. 

5. Crazy Guy with Frizzy Hair gives the Elderly Blond Woman a hot foot, but she doesn't respond.

6.  Big Ears swerves his head to gaze at a Lady in Red passing, with a fan over her face.

7. Pipe Smoker takes the stage.  As he introduces the first act, he's interrupted by a horse and jockey, who apparently want to have sex with him, but he shooes them away.  

8. Feminine Old Guy swishes as he conducts the music.  Swishy -- gay hint!

9. Jimmy gets cruised by a woman, who wants to dance with him.  He refuses, and finally runs away, leaving a sign "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."  Not interested in girls -- gay hint!

10. Big Ears from #6 dances across the floor, following the Lady in Red. Some other people are dancing, including an ice skater and Frankenstein.  The Three Stooges slap each other.  Fat Man dances with two women at once. A man with big feet dances.  

11. Andy and his date are getting milkshakes.  He's shocked that they cost $50, and asks his father at the next table for a loan. But Dad doesn't have any money, either, so they both end up washing dishes.

12. Big Ears is still following the Lady in Red, while Pipe Smoker from #7 takes the stage again.  The horse and jockey flirt with him again.  Then a woman dances, naked except for a giant bubble held in front of her (gross!).  A Guy in a Cap and Gown gazes in lust, and yells "Students!"  A table full of men wolf-whistle (Gross!  This isn't fun anymore!).

13. She dances for a long time, while a man comments: "I haven't seen such a beautiful bubble since I was a child." Henry drools, but is called away by his mother. Googly-Eyes says obsessively "Gee!  Gee! Gee!"   A man looks through binoculars and says "Guess who?"  Crazy Guy hits the bubble with a sling shot, and it pops, revealing that she is wearing a barrel.

14. Big Ears finally catches the Lady in Red, and turns her around.  

She turns out to be a guy in drag! 

During my childhood, before I was aware that gay people (or drag queens) existed, I was confused by the revelation.  Why was this man dressed as a lady?  Why had he been flirting with Big Ears all night?  Did he want to hug and kiss? But...boys didn't hug and kiss boys. Did they?

A glimmer of gay potential on Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat

See also: Mickey Rooney: Gay-Vague Teen Hunk of the 1940s

Cary Grant: Hints and Closets in the 1930s

Who is Bradley Cooper, and why is he "ultra-famous"? With his gay/sort of bi characters , backside, and d*ck

The Marx Brothers: Bisexual Groucho and hunky Chico

"The Suicide Squad": Two Gay Hints, Two Hunks in their Underwear, and 3,234 Corpses

 Last night's movie night was The Suicide Squad (2021), in which incarcerated DC supervillains and serial killers are offered years off their sentences in exchange for performing a super-dangerous "suicide" mission: the small Latin American country of Corto Maltese has been taken over by a military dictator unfriendly to the U.S., so a U.S.-supported research facility called Jotunheim for some reason is in jeopardy.  Rather than let the research fall into enemy hands, the Suicide Squad must destroy Jotunheim.  

The suicide squad is killed within the first five minutes, mostly by the huge army that meets them, but one drowns, and Savant (Woody Harrelson), who has been set up as the focus character, gets his head exploded by the boss back at headquarters.  This was a very short movie!  Psych -- there's a second suicide squad.  The first, untrained and totally inept, was sent in as a distraction.  The second will go in secretly.  But "kill everyone you see."

It consists of:

1. Bloodsport (Idris Elba).  I don't know what his superpower is, but he has a dead wife and teenage daughter.

2. Peacemaker (John Cena, left).  A jerk with no superpowers but a nice physique.

3. King Shark (Sylvester Stallone, unrecognizable): A human-shark hybrid who is invincible, but has the habit of eating random people.

4. Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian, left),  who can kill people with multicolored interdimensional pustules that grow on his body.

5. Rat Catcher 2 (Dana Melchior), apparently the daughter of Rat Catcher 1, who can control rats -- very handy for destroying technology and killing people.

Before going to the facility, they have to rescue a survivor of the first squad, Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman, left), who has been captured.  So they kill almost everybody at his camp before discovering that he's actually been rescued by anti-dictator freedom fighters!

Another survivor of the first squad, effervescent, deranged Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), is captured, dressed in a Cinderella outfit, and taken to the palace, where military dictator Silvio Luna (Juan Diego Botto) wants to date her.  They hang out and have sex (off camera), but Harley soon sours on the idea and kills him.  As well as about 300 palace guards and soldiers.

The facility contains a giant alien starfish-shaped being who can extrude small versions of itself that grab your face and kill you.  It can then control your actions.  It does this with around 3,000 townsfolk before the Suicide Squad subdues it.  Almost all of them die in the battle, or in a disagreement about whether to expose U.S. involvement in the starfish experiment.  

So it's basically two hours of watching people get killed.  I was not impressed.

Well, I did like four things about it:

1. Minimal heterosexual romance.  Nothing except for Harley dating General Luna.  One expects Rick Flagg to hook up with freedom fighter Soria (Alice Braga), but he doesn't.  

2. No naked ladies.  When the squad is told to track down General Luna at a "gentleman's club," I thought "Why does there always have to be a scene of naked ladies gyrating on poles?", but in fact the ladies are singing, not gyrating, and fully clothed.  And there are men and women both in the audience.  

3. Beefcake.  Peacemaker walks around in his underwear, showing a blatant bulge.  General Luna is introduced climbing out of his bathtub in a Speedo.  

4. Gay references.  No one actually says the word, but at the gentlemen's club, among the men and women dancing together, two men are getting chummy.  I think it was Rick Flag cruising a local.  

Plus Polka Dot Man becomes distraught over the death of the driver, Malcolm.  "I liked him from the start, but I didn't say anything because...."  he begins, before being cut off (and later killed).  Sounds like he was about to reveal a same-sex crush.

Apparently this is not the first iteration of the Suicide Squad.  They have appeared in comics since 1987, and an earlier movie, called Suicide Squad without the definite article (2016), featured some of the same characters.  So no one is going to be canonically gay.  But for a comic book movie, gay hints are enough.

What is a Danny Thomas?

February 6th, 1969, a cold, snowy Thursday.  I am eight years old.  The family is watching a lot of tv about girls:  The Flying Nun, That Girl, Bewitched. 

The Flying Nun is interesting because it's about nuns -- Catholics -- and Nazarenes are supposed to run away in horror.  But Mom and Dad don'tseem to care if we watch.  Also the Skipper from Gilligan's Island visits as Sister Bertrille's uncle.

Then comes That Girl, starring Marlo Thomas as an aspiring actress/women's libber in a bright, colorful New York.  Ann Marie tries to push a new friend into a singing career, but she is planning to become a nun instead.

Two shows about Catholics in one night!  What would the Preacher say?  (I mean,what would the Preacher yell?). I feel a little thrill of naughtiness.  I can't wait to tell my boyfriend Bill tomorrow!

We even get a glimpse of the inside of the convent.  Ann Marie gets lost in the vast Gothic space, and asks a passing priest for directions.

My jaw drops.  The priest is stunning!  All dressed in black, huge workman's hands, short black hair, tanned Mediterranean features. And in league with the Devil, dark, sinister, even more attractive, like Barnabas the Vampire on Dark Shadows.

"Excuse me, Father," Ann says.  "Which way is the exit?" The laugh track goes crazy.  I don't understand what's so funny about calling a  priest "Father" -- Catholics always do it.

"Down that hallway."

"Thank you, Father."

"You're welcome, my daughter."  The laugh track goes crazy again.  Years later I figured out the joke: the priest was played by Marlo Thomas's real-life father, Danny Thomas (1913-1991).

Born Amos Muzyad Yaqoob Kairouz to a family of Lebanese immigrants, Danny Thomas worked on radio before becoming a fixture of 1950s tv with his sitcom Make Room for Daddy (1953-64).  Like Ricky Ricardo on I Love Lucy, Danny Williams was a nightclub singer balancing home and work lives  I never saw it, but I heard that Angela Cartwright, Penny on Lost in Space, played his daughter.

After Make Room for Daddy and its sequel, Make Room for Granddaddy (1970-71), Danny made only sporadic tv appearances: guest spots on Here's Lucy , McCloud, and Dick Van Dyke.

On Dick Van Dyke, he plays an alien invader who just happens to look like the famous comedian, thus giving us the timeless line "What is a Danny Thomas?"

His last starring role was in the short-lived One Big Family (1986-87), basically Make Room for Grandaddy with the addition of then-teen hunk Michael DeLuise.

An aging comedian from the days of the Chinese-laundry and mother-in-law jokes, Danny felt increasingly out of touch with the social, political, and sexual changes of the 1970s, so he produced a number of unsold "things were better in the old days" tv series pilots.  Most were burned off as tv movies:

Remember When (1974): Happy Days, but set during World War II.

Starting Fresh (1979): Alice, but the young widow has a daughter, not a son, and finds love.

Featherstone's Nest (1979): Make Room for Daddy,but with a dentist, not a nightclub singer, starring a pre-Mama's Family Ken Berry.

Danny devoted most of his time to promoting various charities, especially St.Jude Children's Hospital, which he founded in 1960.

Daughter Marlo is a gay ally, but Danny, not so much.  When she was starring in Consenting Adult, about a mother dealing with her son's coming out, Marlo noted that her father...um... voted for Ronald Reagan, 1980s code for "homophobic."  (Not to worry, the St. Jude Children's Hospital welcomes LGBTQ patients and their caregivers).

Not much of a gay connection, except for that one cold, snowy night in 1969, when a young boy in the Midwest felt a frisson of homerotic desire while watching That Girl.

Well, wouldn't you?  Just look at him!

See also: That Girl