John Amos: Kunta Kinte, Gordy the Weatherman, James Evans, a gay husband, and my gym buddy

  

Link to the nude photos

Former footballer and coast guardsman John Amos was everywhere on television in the 1970s and 1980s.

The adult Kunta Kinte in Roots (1977).

Left: Levar Burton played the young Kunta Kinte.

Gordy the Weatherman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77)

The longsuffering dad James Evans on Good Times (1974-79)

The sword-and-sorcery fighter Seth in Beastmaster (1982)

Plus guest shots on Sanford and Son, Maude, Police Story, Love Boat, The A-Team...you name it, he was in it.

I didn't see much of him during the 80s and 90s -- not on screen, anyway.  We went to the same gym in West Hollywood.  

John was always gracious to his flirtatious gay fans, leading us to speculate that he was gay in real life -- he's been married to women twice, and has two children, but you never know.  

We never became friends, but we developed a nodding acquaintance.  And I saw him naked in the locker room once or twice.

The man had a baseball bat down there.

More after the break

"Bumper in Berlin" Episode 1,1: The Jerk from "Pitch Perfect" turns into a nice guy, moves to Berlin, and doesn't get The Girl

 

Remember Bumper, the insufferable jerk from Pitch Perfect played by Adam Devine?  In November 2022, he spun off into his own tv series, Bumper in Berlin.

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The only other male character in the regular cast is Pieter Kramer (Flula Borg, left).  Not many opportunities for buddy-bonding gay subtexts here, but Adam is one of most handsome men on Earth, and Flula is one of the most muscular, so maybe I'll watch with the sound off just for the face and physique.  Besides, the episodes have cute German titles like Backpfeifengesicht (face in need of a fist -- sounds like Bumper).

Scene 1: Bumper singing a capella with some old guys.  "Baby, I'll show you how a real queen behaves."  Not necessary -- I've seen Kelvin.  "You may think I'm weak without a sword, but if I had one, it'd be bigger than yours."  Tell me more about your...um, sword, Bumper. 

"If all the kings had queens on their throne, we'd toast champaign...I'll be your queen."  Girlfriend, that's as homoerotic as a song gets.  Did you forget that you're not playing Kelvin?

Lights go up.  This is a rehearsal for Bumper's new group, the Tonehangers. They'll be performing at a retirement center next month. Whoa, the old people won't know what hit them.

The other guys have to go -- wives, kids, stuff to do.  Bumper claims that he has stuff to do, too, but actually he's all alone. I hate the heterosexist equation of wife and kids with success, but I'll give it a pass due to the homoerotic song.  And he's working as a security guard at his old college but he's still planning on becoming a famous singer, somehow. Bummer, Bumper.

Scene 2:  Bumper is locking up as part of his security guard duties, when he gets a phone call from Germany: a fan of his college performances and his recent appearances on game shows and Tik-Tok.   "Wait -- how do you know all this?" Bumper asks, horrified. "Are you a pervert?"  Come on, dude, any fan would know those things.  I know that Adam was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  Well, to be fair, I just remember it because my home town is nearby.  

"I'm a pervert for talent," the voice says --revealed to be Pieter Kramer.  "We have met before." Turns out that he belonged to Das Sound Machine, a rival a capella group.  "You are a big Tik Tok star in Germany."  His TikTok involved making funny faces while singing the very sad song "Neun und neunsig Luftballon."  "You got 7.6 million views!"

"That's like a million views!" Bumper exclaims.  

Pieter wants him to move to Berlin and become his client.   "It's all happening!" he exclaims.  "All of those failures were worth it, because now I'll never fail again."  Har-har.

Scene 3: Bumper arrives at a horrible, graffiti-filled, run-down building in Berlin.  Pieter greets him.  They hug; Bumper is so excited that he won't let go, but to his credit, Pieter does not recoil in homophobic contempt. 

Upstairs to his horrible office with a window facing the train tracks.  Pieter's assistant Heidi arrives: Sarah Hylund, who played Adam's girlfriend on Modern Family!  I guess we know where the sparks will fly.

An American, an airhead, she gives him American cheese (almost impossible to find in Germany) and a caffeine pill (to avoid jet lag). Sparks fly.

Pieter has prepared a comic strip of Bumper's path to superstardom, culminating in a gig as "the hottest new singer" at German Unity Day in two months.  

Scene 4:  The three walking through Brandenburg Gate, getting a sandwich from a food truck: "It's made with dead animals."  "Oh, it's meat."  

A stranger (Govinda Cholleti) and his crew recognize Bumper from his Tik-Tok!

They arrive at the horrible youth hostel where Bumper will be staying.  The scary lady manager scowls at him: "I truly am meeting you."  Har-har. 

They want to leave him alone in his horrible dorm to "get some rest," but he wants to go with them: "I'll get nervous if I'm alone."  And scared of the scary lady?

More after the break

Mary and Rhoda and Gordie the Weatherman: 1970s Hip Sitcoms

During the 1970s, the success of All in the Family led to a fad for sitcoms with hip, relevant, "mature" themes.  Most were set in "real places,"  not New York or L.A., and juxtaposed the work and home lives of young adult professionals (if they were white) or poor families (if they were African-American).

All of the adults watched, but kids were leery, unless there were teenagers in the cast.

But who wanted to watch The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77), with the former star of  The Dick Van Dyke Show as a Minneapolis tv writer, when the other channel had The Most Deadly Game, with gay actor George Maharis (left) as a crime-fighting criminologist?

Or The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78), about a psychologist with wacky patients, when the other channel had The Streets of San Francisco, with the hunky Michael Douglas as a detective?

Or Rhoda, Phyllis, Maud, Good Times, That's My Mama, MASH, Sanford and Son, Chico and the Man, Archie Bunker's Place....

So I didn't begin watching until 1974, when I was in ninth grade and trying to fit in with a hipster crowd, and then only occasionally, when I had nothing else to do.  I found some gay content.

1. Beefcake.  Not a lot, but occasional bulges or hints of hairy chests. Paul Sand had a hot older brother.  Joe (David Groh), the contractor who married Rhoda, deserved special attention.

As did John Amos, who played Gordie the Weatherman on Mary Tyler Moore before scoring his own sitcom, Good Times.  He also starred as the older Kunta Kinte on Roots (1977).

2. Bonding.  I missed the overt homoromantic bond between Mary and Rhoda on Mary Tyler Moore (left), but what about Hawkeye and Trapper John on MASH, or odd couple Chico and Ed on Chico and the Man?

3. Gay-vague characters. Not a lot, but I wondered about Howard Borden (Bill Daily, right), the next-door  neighbor who dropped in every five seconds on The Bob Newhart Show.  Bill Daily also played Tony Nelson's best friend on I Dream of Jeannie, and Leif Garrett's boyfriend on an episode of Chips..

4. The first gay characters on television.

Shane Michael Parker: Soldier, stunt cock, wolf fan, gay BDSM performer?

 

Link to the nude Shane.

Shane Michael Parker was "proudly born" in 1994, grew up in Ohio, spent time overseas in the military, and moved to South Carolina in 2016, at the age of 22, to pursue an acting career. Why, was Los Angeles full? 

As Shane Miclette, he worked as a production assistant on the horror movies Separation and Scream (2022).  He filmed an appearance as Matthew in the second season of Outer Banks (2021) but his scene was cut.

As Shane Michael Parker, he played a Confederate soldier in Lessons from Ebenezer Creek, (2021), about a massacre of recently enslaved African Americans in North Carolina in 1864.

He has also appeared on stage.

His most impressive role to date is in  Righteous Gemstones Episode 2.1, a flashback to 1968, when Young Eli, the Maniac Kid, bests his opponent in a huge wrestling arena, then goes back to the locker room to talk to his manager, Glendon Marsh.   

A muscular naked guy walks from the showers across the scene. Glendon says   "Nice cock, Ernie."

There is no "Ernie" in the cast list. Either Glendon is talking about someone off-stage, or the naked guy's name was changed to Jason, played by Shane.

Glendon's son Junior gawks at Jason's dick, so overwhelmed that he trips, then catches himself and turns to peek at his bare butt.  

The gay/bi coding continues when the elderly Junior shows up in Charleston to reunite with his old friend or boyfriend Eli.

More Shane after the break