Everybody Hates Chris

Everybody Hates Chris (2005-09),  loosely based on the childhood of comedian Chris Rock in the 1980s, was about a boy named Chris (Tyler James Williams) beset-upon by weird neighbors and a crazy family.  School is even worse; as the only black student at Corleone Junior High, he suffers both overt and well-meaning liberal racism.

True to the tradition of erasing black beefcake, no one disrobed on camera.  But there were nearly as many bulges as on The Jeffersons, and you could easily find shirtless and nude shots elsewhere.

Tequan Richmond, who played Chris's opposite, his supremely lucky and supernaturally attractive brother, posted many muscle pix on his website.  He now plays a teen hunk on General Hospital.

Terry Crews, the Dad, is a former football star with a bodybuilder's physique who often flexes in his movies (most recently he has done voice work on The Ultimate Spider_Man).

The word "gay" was never spoken, though once they used "androgynous" as a euphemism.  And, at least in the first season, Chris featured one of the strongest teenage homoromantic subtexts in contemporary tv.

When Chris arrives at Corleone Junior High, the only kid who will befriend him is the nerd Greg (Vincent Martella, now voicing the Disney Channel's Phineas and Ferb).  Soon they become inseparable  -- and exclusive; when one courts another boy, the other seethes with jealousy. They break up, realize how much they care for each other, and reconcile again.

They have a Romeo-and-Juliet moment in “Everybody Hates Greg” (November 24, 2005): Greg’s father forbids him from seeing Chris, and the two go through absurd machinations to be together, behaving according to media conventions for heterosexual participants in a “forbidden romance.”  Finally Greg’s father relents, saying “You’re big buddies, huh?”, apparently recognizing that the emotional importance of their bond transcends that of ordinary “buddies.”

The adult Chris Rock, who narrates each episode, seems somewhat discomfited by the intensity of the pairing.  Some of his asides, such as “Hey, this ain’t Brokeback!” (referring to the gay-themed movie Brokeback Mountain) deny that the pairing is romantic while explicitly linking it with gay romance.

Other asides, such as “How could I have so much drama without a girl?” appear to proclaim that the relationship is invalid because it does not involve girls, but actually indicates that girls are not necessary, that “drama” (emotional turmoil) is equally possible in same-sex relationships. The attention paid to the homoromance, and its thematic association with heterosexual romance, suggests that it is significant, even intentional.

However, it is temporary; after the first season, the two become ordinary best friends, both are wild about girls.

One Life to Live

When I was a kid in the 1960s,  my Mom watched several soap operas regularly.  I saw an occasional snippet, when I was home sick or walking through the living room on the way to do something else.

Gross!  There wouldn't be any same-sex plotlines for 30 years, so they were occupied entirely by the heterosexist "true love between a man and a woman" mantra.

And it would be 20 years before the shirts dropped and soap hunks were regularly put on display.

And they always made you feel guilty for watching.

"Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives."

We don't have much time on Earth.  Better stop wasting time on soap operas and get busy with something useful!


But in 1968 when my friends and I began gathering in front of the tv every afternoon to watch Dark Shadows at 3:00, we sometimes stayed put for the new soap opera One Life to Live -- the only other choices were stupid game shows.

Dr. Larry Wolek (Michael Storm) filled out his 1970s hipster uniforms nicely, in spite of his plotline, which was both stupid and disturbing:

He found "true love" with town heiress Meredith, though her father disapproved of the match.  Shortly after they married and she gave birth to twins, she was shot and killed by a burglar, and Larry moved on to a new "true love."

Meanwhile, Meredith's uptight sister Vicki developed a split personality, becoming the funloving Nikki.  While slumming, she hooked up with muscular truck driver Vinnie (Antony Ponzini), Larry's working-class brother.

No class distinctions in Llanview!

Antony Ponzini (1933-2002) was a major crush of my childhood, with his dark curly hair, bronze skin, classic Mediterranean features, and muscular build.  I'd choose him over the whitebread Larry Wolek any day.

But then Vicki was cured and decided to marry Vinnie's best friend, newspaper reporter Joe Riley (gay actor Lee Patterson who starred with Van Williams, left, in the homoerotic Surfside Six).  

How did this incessant, absurdly exaggerated search for heterosexist "true love" fade-out-kiss resonate with gay kids?

1. Every heterosexual relationship played out against a background of  same-sex relationships.  Larry and Vinnie discuss their desires for Meredith and Nikki, respectively.  Vinnie and Joe discuss their desires for Nikki and Vicki, respectively.

2. Heterosexual relationships are doomed.  In a week, or a month, or a couple of years, your "true love" will die or fall in love with someone else.  But same-sex bonds are permanent.

We stopped watching in 1971, when Dark Shadows ended.  But Mom remained a fan for thirty more years of diseases, infidelities, and fade-out-kisses, and, eventually, when Dan Gauthier joined the cast, gay subtexts.

Michael Copon: Power Ranger, Gay Ally

Born in 1982, Michael Copon got his start on the most recent of the Power Rangers series, Power Rangers: Time Force (2001-2002).  

He also starred on the evening teen soap One Tree Hill (2004-5) as Felix, a homophobe who writes an anti-gay slur on the locker of his sister's girlfriend.

And on Beyond the Break (2006-2009) as Vin Keahi, the boyfriend of two female professional surfers.

But it's in movies that the bonding -- and the beefcake -- really shines.  He specializes in movies about female bonding:
All You've Got (2006): volleyball players
Sideliners (2006): cheerleaders
Bring It On (2007): cheerleaders

But there's also some male bonding.  He also goes on a quest with Peter Butler in the Vin Diesel prequel, The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior (2008).

And he starts a BoyBand with Ryan Pinkston (2010).

No gay characters, but he's a gay ally, so maybe someday.

The Windsors: Royal Gossip and Beefcake

I rather like The Windsors (2016-).  It's raunchy and silly, but endearing, an exaggeration of the foibles of the British royal family, told as a soap opera.

The central figures, Wills and Kate (Hugh Skinner, Louise Ford), are rather nice, except Wills doesn't want to be king.  The problem is, Wills doesn't know how the outside world works, like you have to pay for things and open doors for yourself.

Hugh Skinner is attractive, in a square-jawed fairy-tale prince way.   He's done a lot of British tv, including Our Zoo, W1A (About the inner workings of the BBC), and Poldark  

He's played a gay character at least once, in the stage version of American Psycho.

Harry (Richard Goulding) is a good-natured dolt, mega-stupid, working at odd jobs like apprentice window washer.  He's in love with Kate's sister Pippa (Morgana Robinson), who is trying to weasel her way into becoming queen by seducing Wills or Harry or both.

Richard Goulding is primarily a stage actor, performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company beginning in 2007. He played Prince Harry in the stage play King Charles III, which was adapted into a 2017 tv movie.

Charles (Harry Enfield) is obsessed with "being king first," while his wife Camilla (Hadyn Gwynne) is a scheming soap opera villain, trying to sabotage the lives of his children.

Meanwhile Fergie (Katy Wix), persona non grata since her divorce, schemes to get back into the family.  Her daughters Eugenie and Beatrice (Ellie White, Celeste Dring) are forced to get jobs ("I couldn't stand the 12-3 Tuesday-Thursday rat race!).   Prince Edward (Matthew Cottle, seen here with his son Devon) keeps trying to make a few quid at odd jobs.

Meanwhile the ghosts of past kings keep appearing to offer Wills advice.  Look for "anarchist drag performer" Dickie Beau as the gay James I.  Otherwise not a lot of gay references, but the beefcake is ample.

Tony Dow Stars in the Teen Soap "Never Too Young"

Never Too Young (1965-1966) is famous as the first teenage soap opera, an attempt to draw the Beatles crowd into daytime tv.

It was set in Malibu, where Alfy (David Watson) ran the High Dive, the local teen hangout, and negotiated the angst-ridden lives of three high school girls, Joy, Rhoda, and Susan, and their boys:

Dack Rambo, who would go on to star in All My Children and Dallas, played all-around good guy Tim (shown here with his twin brother Dirk Rambo).  Both were bisexual in real life.

John Lupton (shown here with Michael Ansara and, apparently, their child) played rich kid Frank.

Tony Dow of Leave It to Beaver appeared in 10 episodes as brooding, always shirtless race car driver Chet.  Then he joined the California National Guard and temporarily retired from acting.

Tommy Rettig of Lassie played his boyfriend Jojo.











Michael Blodgett, a beefcake star of the 1960s, played injured football star Tad.

Never Too Young ran daily at 3:00 in the afternoon from September 27, 1965 through June 24, 1966.

That's a pitiable short life span for a soap; apparently teenagers were staying away in droves.  But not to worry, they grooved on the vampires and werewolves of its replacement, Dark Shadows

Only five episodes have survived  You can sometimes find them on Ebay.  But be warned, the reproduction is not very good.  Check out John Lupton's bulge, if you can.

Corn on the Cob, Fireworks, and Naked Men: 34 Reasons to Like Summer

Summer is my least favorite season, and we're right in the middle of it, with the heat, humidity, tv reruns, people forcing you to play outside, all of your friends away on vacation, long, boring days with nothing to do, and unnaturally bright evenings where the sun refuses to go down.

Here are the things I liked about summertime when I was a kid.  Maybe I can translate them into adult activities.

1. All of the boys and teenagers in the neighborhood walked around with their shirts off.  Even the adults, sometimes.  I remember two super muscular grownups sitting on lawn chairs on their patio, drinking beer.

2. The Denkmann Summer Carnival.  Games, cotton candy, and a sort of flea market where you could get comic books cheap.

3. The bookmobile came every Tuesday.  It wasn't just a place to get books.  I met lots of cute boys there.

4. Sitting on a blanket late at night to watch the 4th of July Fireworks.

5. Mother Goose Land.  It's not as lame as it sounds.  They had an Old West town, where you could ride burros and pan for gold.

6. A trip to Indiana to visit our relatives, but it was always followed by a horrible week camping in the Northwoods.

7, Nazarene summer camp.  I complained at the time -- nothing to do but Bible study, sports, and church -- but I got to hang out with lots of cute guys, and our counselors were always hunky teenagers.  Besides, I got to see Brother Dino naked in the shower.

8. Sitting in the kiddie pool, those round plastic things that you filled with a garden hose.

9. My birthday excursion, where I could bring 3 or 4 of my friends to any place in town that I wanted.  My birthday is actually in November, but I always postponed the trip to summertime, when the fun things like Niabi Zoo were open.

10. The Indian Pow Wow at Black Hawk Park.

11. Summer Enrichment Classes sponsored by the Department of Parks and Recreation.  I remember taking Spanish, astronomy, and archaeology. They also had physical fitness classes.

12, Sodas at Country Style.  In the Midwest, a "soda" is a concoction of ice cream and root beer or cola.  If you want the soft drink alone, it's called "pop."  I started calling it "soda" when I was living in California, which got me lots of weird looks back in Rock Island.

13. Swimming lessons at Longview Park.  One summer the teacher coaxed me into jumping into the deep end with the promise that if I drowned, he would give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

14. By the way, the only time I ever saw African-Americans in the segregated 1960s was at Longview Park Pool.  In swimsuits.  Something to look forward to!

15. Dinners comprised solely of corn on the cob (which my parents called roshineers) and tomatoes.

16.  Dinners comprised solely of newly-picked green beans with bacon and onions.

17.  The Prospect List.  Every year the Nazarene Church had a contest to see who could contact the most prospects, people who had attended church or Sunday school just once.  It was lots of fun trying to track them down and hearing their stories: "Well...um...I found a new church that...um...I like better.

18.Playing in the sprinklers in the front yard.

19. Walking barefoot on the hot concrete of the sidewalk.

20. Sleepovers.  Ok, we had sleepovers during the schoolyear, too, but during the summer they often entailed sleeping in tents in the back yard.

21. Summertime boyfriends: guys who you would hang out with while your regular boyfriend was on vacation or otherwise unavailable.

22. Road construction.  It's a pain for adults, but for kids too young to drive, it's fun to watch the construction workers walking down the highway in their yellow jackets and sunglasses.

23. Summer replacement series.  Back before tv series began and ended year round, the summer reruns were sometimes augmented by 10-episode miniseries, weird comedies, musical-variety shows, and even cartoons.

24. Shakespeare, for free, every summer in Lincoln Park. You brought lawn chairs and snacks or even a dinner.  Actually, I didn't go to any performances until college, but I'm sure it was there.

25. Practicing for cross country in the fall by running five miles, all the way downtown and back.

26. Kentucky Fried Chicken. The stores are open year round, but for some reason we just had it in the summer.

27. Baseball games.  The games were rather boring, but I liked looking at the players.

28. Fudgsicles, push-ups, and ice cream sandwiches.

29. Watermelon.

30. My brother and I making extra money by mowing lawns for the Old Lady Schoolteachers and other elderly neighbors.


31. Bicycle Safety Classes.

32. Watching Days of Our Lives and One Life to Live with my mother.  I wasn't a big soap opera fan, but it was a bonding opportunity.

33. For that matter, being able to watch Dark Shadows all the way through, instead of catching the last fifteen minutes after running home as fast as I could.

34. Seeing miscellaneous workmen with their shirts off at unexpected moments.

So, 32% involve seeing cute boys or men, 23% food, 20% excursions, 12% bonding with family members, and 9% the heat.

I think I can turn those things into adult activities.

Only 67 days to go.

See also: Cruising at the Bookmobile; How to Avoid the Top 10 Problems of Summer; Do Seasons Affect Your Dating Success.

Tony Dow/Wally Cleaver

I was born too late to catch the first generation of Boomer sitcoms -- Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, Donna Reed, Leave It to Beaver -- and the teen idols they created -- Ricky Nelson, Billy Gray, Paul Peterson, Tony Dow.  But the gay kids who were old enough had a hunkfest, especially with Tony Dow of Beaver (1957-63).  Hired at age 12 to play older brother Wally and offer sage advice to the rapscalion Beaver (Jerry Mathers),


Tony blossomed into a dreamboat by around the third season, and while network censorship kept him under wraps, wearing nothing more revealing than a sleeveless t-shirt, the teen magazines were privy to dozens of shirtless pinups.

And dozens and dozens.  They just keep coming, all through the late 1950s and early 1960s.  Tony was already a Junior Olympics diver when hired, and his muscles grew bigger every year.

Wally didn't do a lot of male bonding; most of the homoromantic subtext comes from Beaver and his friend Gilbert.

After Beaver, Tony  -- or rather, his biceps -- landed a starring role on the teen soap Never Too Young (1965-66).  After so many years of censorship, Tony must have been surprised to discover that his character was to be shirtless or semi-nude in every scene, even at a fancy dinner party. Tommy Rettig of Lassie played his buddy JoJo.

A rather fascinating career followed, as actor, writer, and director.  Tony was active in the hippie counterculture and appeared in the underground classic,  Kentucky Fried Move (1977).  He reprised his role of Wally in Still the Beaver (1985-89).  He parodied Wally  innumerable times.  He is also an accomplished sculptor, with a piece on exhibit in the Louvre in 2008.

There are more beefcake photos of Tony Dow here.

Chris and Patrick Petersen: 1970s Ninja Kids

During the late 1970s, as networks scrambled to find enough child actors to fill their "after school special" kid-angst movies, Brothers Chris and Pat Petersen (no relation to the 1950s teen idol Paul Petersen) were important players.

Chris, the oldest (born in 1963), was everywhere in 1978 and 1979, on tv (Little House on the Prairie, The Incredible Hulk, The Baxters) and in movies (When Every Day was the Fourth of July, The Swarm).   His roles often  involved buddy-bonds:

1. Playing baseball with Larry B. Scott in The Rag-Tag Champs, an ABC Afterschool Special (1978)

2. Lost in the Colorado Rockies with Guillermo San Juan in Joey and Redhawk on CBS Afternoon Playhouse.  This one had a "boys alone" gay subtext.

3. Karate-kicking with younger brother Pat in the precursor to the 1990s ninja kid craze, The Little Dragons (1979).

4. Fighting racism with Moosie Drier in The House at 12 Rose Street (1980).

When Chris hit his teen years, the roles dried up, and he retired from acting.

His brother Patrick (born in 1966) had a longer career, starting with the tv series The Kallikas (1977), How the West was Won (1979), and Shirley (1980), plus some gay-subtext after school specials of his own:

1. The Ransom of Red Chief (1977, 1979), an ABC Schoolbreak Special about a boy terrorizing his kidnappers.

2. The Contest Kid (1978, 1979), an ABC Schoolbreak Special about a boy who enters contests, and his best friend (Ronnie Scribner).

In 1979, he landed the role of Michael Fairgate on the evening soap Knot's Landing.  Michael provided shirtless teen-idol photos and tight jeans as the teenage son of Sid and Karen Fairgate, who worked in an auto garage and kept getting dumped by girls.

When Knot's Landing ended in 1991, Pat retired from acting and opened a health food store.

13 Things You Should Know about Doug Savant, 3 About his Penis

1. He was in Teen Wolf, with Michael J. Fox, but if you blink, you miss him.

2. He was very popular in West Hollywood in the 1990s for playing Matt Fielding, the gay guy on the evening soap Melrose Place (1992-97).  Gay characters were very rare on tv in those days.

3. While other characters were immersed in scandals and illicit affairs, Matt was a saint, sitting around saying "That's not a good idea."

4. He was rarely allowed to date, and never allowed any physical interaction -- no hugging, no kissing.  An on-screen kiss at the end of Season Two was censored, in spite of his protests.















5. Doug kept his heterosexuality closeted during Melrose Place, playing it coy when someone asked if he was gay in real life.  The network pressured him to come out as straight, worried that people would reject a gay actor.  But he thought it would be disrespectful to the gay community to proclaim "I'm not gay!"

6. He was sought-after for gay events and AIDS charities.  Some gay people found this condescending, but this was the era of the "helpful heterosexual."

7. He's been married to women twice, and has three daughters and a son.

8. Before Melrose Place, he played a lot of sleazoids.  In Masquerade (1988) and Paint it Black (1989), he played serial killers.  

9. But afterwards, he was typecast.  Not as gay -- as a squeaky-clean nice guy.  His most famous recent role is on Desperate Housewives (2006-2012), as Tom Scavo, nice guy surrounded by sleazoids.

10. Charlie Carver, who played Doug's son on Desperate Housewives, is gay.

And three facts about Doug's penis:

11.  He has appeared in his underwear on camera many times, but he has never done a frontal nude scene.

12. A character on Desperate Housewives expressed awe over its size

13. By all accounts, huge, uncut.

Daniel Clark: Brother for Life

Speaking of Robert Clark, if you watched any children's tv during the early 2000s, you probably saw his older brother Daniel (born in 1985) in a series of buddy-bonding roles.

On Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension (1998), a spinoff of the homoromantic subtext classic that paired Stanley Hope (Daniel) and Mitchell Taylor (Bill Switzer) as teenage paranormal investigators in an alternate universe.

On I Was a Sixth Grade Alien (1999) as Tim Thompkins, who buddy-bonds with the purple-skinned alien boy (played by Ryan Cooley).

In Model Behavior (2000), as the little brother of a girl involved in a Prince and the Pauper-style switch.

Plus Are You Afraid of the Dark, Goosebumps, The Zack Files, and Darcy's Wild Life.

As an adult, Daniel played a jerk in Juno (2007) and buffed bad boy-turned-hero Sean Cameron on the Canadian teen soap Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001-2008).  He's assumed to be homophobic after he pushes the gay kid Marco, but he insists that he's not.  At least he managed to display his increasingly buffed physique, with semi-nude and underwear shots nearly as impressive as those of his brother.

Daniel also managed to do some teen buddy-bonding, in the Australian slasher flick Left for Dead (also released as Devil's Night). 

He retired from acting to go to college, where he majored in Political Communication.  He's currently working as a news associate for ABC, and he's involved with environmental causes.