Wayland Flowers and Madame: TV's first drag queen puppet

During the 1980s, there wasn't much of gay interest on television.  An occasional "old friend comes out as gay or transgender" episode of The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time, Alice.

A "guy accused of being gay tries to commit suicide" episode of WKRP in Cincinnati.

Some "murderous, psychotic" drag queen episodes of cop dramas.

A few gay subtext shows, like The Powers of Matthew Star (with Peter Barton, left)

And Madame's Place (1982-83).

Gay actor and puppeteer Wayland Flowers (1939-1988) began voicing Madame in the 1970s.  She was a new twist on the drag queen persona, an elderly former movie star who had a potty mouth and told outrageous stories about her exploits with men.

Wayland was fully visible behind Madame, and openly saying her lines instead of keeping his mouth shut, like a ventriloquist.  But you didn't notice him.

Young adults, who thought of the older generation as skittish, easily-scandalized, and sexually repressed found Madame's bawdy humor mesmerizing, and soon she became the most famous puppet since Charlie McCarthy.

Wayland and Madame were everywhere in the 1970s and early 1980s, on  Andy Williams, Merv Griffith, The New Laugh-In, The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show, Playboy's Roller Disco and Pajama Party, and Solid Gold.  They hosted the 1982 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  They were regulars on the Hollywood Squares game show.

A tv series was inevitable, a throwback to the old "celebrity home life" sitcoms of the 1950s, with Madame as a talk show host asking inappropriate questions of real celebrities like William Shatner and Peewee Herman.  At home, she interacted with her butler (Johnny Haymer), uptight assistant (Susan Tolsky), dumb-blond niece (Judy Lander), and kid next door (Corey Feldman, left).

There were no references to gay people, but it was easy to imagine Madame as an aging drag queen.  In fact, it was expected.

  You can see clips on youtube.

Wayland never came out, for fear that a public statement would "cost him a million dollars a year."  When asked directly, he said he was "not into labels."   It was the 1980s -- who can blame him?  He died of AIDS in 1988.

More after the break

Burr Tillstrom: The Gay Puppeteer of 1950s Children's Television

Before The Cartoon Network, before Sesame Street, even before The Mickey Mouse Club, in the earliest days of television, kids (and adults) rushed home every afternoon to see the adventures of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, two puppets and their human host.  They may never have realized that there was a hunky 30-year old man behind the set, manipulating the puppets and providing their voices.

They certainly never knew that he was gay.

Born in 1917, Burr Tillstrom began the art of puppetry in college, and created the perpetually-surprised Kukla in 1936. Other characters followed, but it was the laconic Ollie (Oliver J. Dragon) who became the clown in the comedy team, a formula that extended from Laurel & Hardy to Martin & Lewis, Abbott & Costello, and in children's tv, Rocky & Bullwinkle.

In 1947, he teamed up with the vivacious Fran Allison (1907-1989), and they began the Kukla, Fran, and Ollie tv series, a daily half hour (later diminished to fifteen minutes) on Chicago's WGN.

Themes and storylines were compelling, and not necessarily for kids. They performed mysteries, science fiction, and even the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta The Mikado, with Kukla as Nanki-Poo, Ollie as Ko-Ko, and Fran as Yum-Yum.

The program drew many adult fans, including Orson Welles, John Steinbeck, Lillian Gish, James Thurber, Judy Garland,  Talulah Bankhead, and Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim, who wrote Kukla and Ollie a song, "The Two of You"

During the tv season, Tillstrom lived in Chicago, in an old coach house that he remodeled with the help of his partner, Joseph Lockwood Jr. (left), also the stage manager and the costume designer.  They spent the summers in Europe or in the gay resort of Saugatuk, Michigan


After the program ended in 1957, Tillstrom and Allison continued to perform with the Kuklapolitan players.  They starred in a Broadway show, appeared in Side by Side with Sondheim, hosted the CBS Children's Film Festival, and appeared live at the Goodman Theater in Chicago every Christmas.

Tillstrom died in 1985, before gay identity was regularly acknowledged, so his New York Times obituary and his Wikipedia entry both keep him closeted.  But the gay communities of Chicago and Saugatuck knew.  In 2013 he was inducted in to the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.

By the way, gay people seem particularly drawn to puppeteering, perhaps because they often live in a world of masks. 

Pinocchio in Outer Space: Gay Subtext Classic Cartoon

Most of the various renditions of Pinocchio, the Italian puppet who becomes a real live boy, emphasize heteroromance, giving Pinoke or his creator Gepetto a girlfriend.  But the odd film Pinocchio in Outer Space (1965), goes the other way, giving Pinoke a very obvious boyfriend.

It's unusual in other ways, too.  After an intro set in a quaint Medieval century village, it rather jarringly pushes us into the twentieth century when Pinocchio studies space flight, and the Blue Fairy and an older woman, perhaps a goddess, discuss how crowded outer space is getting.

After some medieval adventures, Pinocchio encounters an alien space ship, piloted by an evolved turtle named Nertle (Arnold Stang).

They zoom into space (as the Earth recedes, we see that Pinocchio lives in Massachusetts).  They explore an ancient Martian city, drawn in realistic science fiction style. 

With Gepetto all but absent, Pinocchio and Nertle buddy-bond.  Nertle points out that the two moons of Mars are "perfect for romance."  Then he bats his eyes at Pinocchio.

Later Nertle asks "Have you ever seen anyone so lovable?", and Pinocchio bats his eyes at him.

Apparently the Martians were all killed by Astro, the giant space whale, who is now on his way to devour Earth. Pinocchio sacrifices himself to save the world, and Nertle appears weeping at his deathbed.  Not to worry, he is resurrected by the Blue Fairy, and father, son, and boyfriend rejoice. 

Some internet reviewers have even found some homophobic jokes.  Nertle is a Twertle, pronounced with a lisp like gay stereotypes (in French, his name is Twortu, from tortue, "Turtle"), and he comes from the planet DV-8 ("deviate," get it?). 

Where did this crazy movie come from?

It was produced in Belgium by animator Ray Goosens, who directed a lot of Belgian cartoons, including TinTin and Asterix, and translated into English by Frank Ladd.  It was very popular in Europe, even used to advertise candy.

Pete Lazer, who voiced Pinocchio, was a former child star who was making the rounds of adult tv series, including Mr. Novak and The Defenders.  His last screen credit was a 1967 episode of Felony Squad.

Baby Boomers remember Arnold Stang as the voice of Top Cat.  He had a 60-year old career, specializing in big-talking little guys.

There's no documentary evidence that any of them were gay.

Gay Neighbors in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

The toddler tv show Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (1966-2001) arrived in Rock Island when we got PBS in 1971 or 1972.  I was too old for it, but my sister watched, and sometimes I caught a glimpse while waiting for Cartoon Showboat.

The live-action segments I could do without: Mr. Rogers visits a nursery school or a bakery, or tries to put things together.  But I liked the Neighborhood of Make Believe, a medieval kingdom with both puppet and real-life residents who weren't entirely maudlin.

The pompous King Friday XIII, whose rendition of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" became "Propel, Propel, Propel Your Craft," was the only resident to engage in heterosexual behavior, at least in the episodes I watched.  He fell in love with a Southern-accented commoner named Sarah, married her, and sired a son, Prince Tuesday.

The other residents didn't display any heterosexual interest, and many had gender-atypical traits which allow for a gay reading.

The feisty Lady Elaine Fairchilde, who runs a revolving museum, flies in a spaceship to Jupiter, and calls everyone "toots."

X the Owl, with a Southern drawl and an affinity for Benjamin Franklin.

Daniel Striped Tiger, a tame tiger of French ancestry, neat, tidy, fashion-conscious, who carefully points out that his middle name has two syllables.

Not a lot of beefcake, but Joe Negri was cute (early photo, left), and Chuck Aber (top photo) had a muscular physique.

A Presbyterian minister before entering show biz, Fred Rogers was apparently tolerant of gay people but an opponent of gay marriage.

In 2012, an animated sequel, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, premiered on PBS.  Set entirely in the Neighborhood of Make Believe (which has somehow become a tropical jungle), it stars the children of the original cast.  Apparently Lady Elaine Fairchild and Daniel Striped Tiger were heterosexual after all.

But not X the Owl -- he's raising his young nephew, O the Owl.  So maybe there's still a gay neighbor in  Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

Shock-headed Peter: Castration and Gay Panic in a German Children's Story

When I was in Germany a few years ago, my friend Doc took me to a restaurant called the Struwwelpeter Apfelweinwirtschaft (The Slovenly Peter Apple Wine Tavern).

Its logo was a boy with wild blond hair and long sharp nails like Edward Scissorhands.

Nearby there was a statue of the same boy, along with some other children.

"You've never heard of Struwwelpeter?" Doc asked.  "He's a national hero, like Bart Simpson in America!"









Turns out that all German schoolchildren read Der Struwwelpeter, written and illustrated by Heinrich Hoffmann (1809-1894), about children who misbehave and get their comeuppance -- usually a violent retribution.

A girl who plays with matches burns to death.
Kaspar, who won't eat his soup, wastes away and dies.
Hans, whose "head is always in the clouds," falls into a river.
Robert, who goes outside in a storm, blows away.

Hoffmann was a psychiatrist, though he lived before Freud's discovery of the unconscious, and many of his stories have been analyzed for their psychosexual undertones

The most obvious gay connection is in the story of Konrad, der Daumenlutscher (the Thumb-Sucker).  

Though his mother warns him to not suck his thumb, Konrad persists in the bad habit.  Then he encounters the Tailor with the Scissors (in modern versions, the monstrous Scissor-Man), who cuts both of his thumbs off.  

Oral fixation, symbolic castration, gay anxiety, and a 19th-century Freddie Kruger!

The stories have been translated into several languages.  They were adapted into a 1955 movie (available on youtube), an operetta (1992) and a musical (1998).  

In 2010, Richard Mansfield filmed an explicitly homoerotic shadow-puppet version,  of the Daumenlutscher story, "Suck-a-Thumb." It made the rounds of the gay film festivals.

In an even more explicitly gay sequel, Konrad is sent to a psychiatric hospital for a brutal "cure."

Don't worry, that's a door handle, not what you're thinking.

What's Gay about Sesame Street?

Come and play, everything's a-ok
Friendly neighbors there, that's where we meet.

Sesame Street premiered in 1969, with the goal of giving inner-city kids a "head start" in reading and math skills.  We didn't get it in Rock Island until our PBS station arrived in 1972, when I was too old to have muppets teaching me numbers and letters.  But my baby sister watched, so I saw some episodes.

Was Sesame Street a "good place"?

1. Beefcake: None.  Some of the human characters were cute, such as Alex (Alexis Cruz, left, who starred in Rooftops with Jason Gedrick).  And there was a never-ending supply of hunky guest stars, from Tony Danza to Zac Efron, but I don't recall a single bare chest.

2. Lack of Heterosexual Romance:  No.  There was no hetero-romantic interaction among the muppets, but among the humans: Bob dated Linda, Maria dated David, and finally married Luis.









3. Homoromance: No.  Neither muppets nor humans expressed any particularly strong same-sex friendships.  Indeed, pairings seemed mostly random.

The exception was Bert and Ernie, who were shown living together.  Some people have pointed to them as a homoromantic couple.  The Children's Television Workshop has issued a homophobic statement strongly condemning any suggestion that any character on Sesame Street is gay -- apparently gay children are unwelcome on The Street -- but that in itself should compel us to look for a subtext.

I still don't see one. Their friendship is neither intense nor passionate enough to qualify as homoromance. They behave like brothers.  Bert, the older, has concerns that little kids would find boring -- a paper clip collection, a devotion to the letter "W" -- and finds Ernie childish and naive.  Meanwhile Ernie keeps trying to  get Bert to play with him or read to him, exactly as a younger brother might.

They live together, but they are not homodomestic partners, like Yogi Bear and Boo Boo.  They do not have adult responsibilities, like paying the rent and buying groceries.  They are children, not adults; their parents must be hovering about nearby, supervising their play.

4. Validation of Difference: Yes. The muppets are unique in temperament, and often "queer" in interests, tastes, and abilities: Oscar the Grouch's love of trash, the Cookie Monster's obsession with cookies, the Count's compulsion with counting.


But validation of difference (other than gay difference) is not enough for Sesame Street to qualify as a "good place."

See also: Burr Tillstrom, the gay puppeteer behind Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.

A Real Heterosexual Boy: Pinocchio

Hardly anyone outside of Italy reads the Carlo Collodi novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883).  If you do, prepare for a shock; it is nothing like the 1940 Disney movie.

The Disney version was about Gepetto, who wants a son but not a wife so the Blue Fairy brings his wooden puppet to life.  Pinocchio (Dick Jones, who would later become a tv star on Range Rider and Buffalo Bill Jr.) longs to be a real boy, which means obeying your parents, going to school, and conforming to 1940s society.  Of course, he fails.  He is lured to "Pleasure Island," an all-boy paradise where boys can smoke, gamble, get into fights, and stay up late, ultimately turning into donkeys.  His salvation comes when he sacrifices his life to save his father.  He is resurrected as a real boy (insert Christ metaphor here).

The gay content:
1. A son created without a wife, a single-father family.
2. An oddball outsider longs to fit in, to become a "real boy."

Later versions have often noticed -- and tried to "fix" -- the gay content, often with disastrous results.

1. The 1968 musical version starred rocker Peter Noone (right) as Pinocchio and Burl Ives as Gepetto.  It minimized the woodenness to emphasize the alternate family.

2. In 1996, Jonathan Taylor Thomas became a rather disturbing version of the wooden boy, in a film dedicated to a realistic portrayal!  What would a boy made of wood look like, act like, negotiate everyday life?

3. In a heterosexist 2000 version, comedian Drew Carey became a middle-aged Gepetto, with Seth Adkins as the wooden boy and Julia-Louis Dreyfuss as the Blue Fairy/girlfriend/surrogate mother.

4. In 2002, Roberto Begnini became a rather old version of the wooden boy.  This time he's the one who gets the Blue Fairy girlfriend.