Sunday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week

 

Back in West Hollywood, Sunday was my favorite day of the week.  Morning service at the Metropolitan Community Church, brunch at the French Quarter (we called it brunch even though it started at about noon), gym, beer bust at the Faultline, and then Chinese take-out (tangerine chicken) to eat on tray tables in front of the tv, watching the Golden Age of Fox TV, before homophobic animation took over: The Simpsons, Married...with Children, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Get a Life, Herman's Head, 21 Jump Street, Werewolf

There were no gay characters on any of these shows, nor were gay people ever mentioned, but there was a lot of buddy-bonding among cute guys (Johnny Depp as a teen idol! John J. York naked!).

In 2021, Sunday is cold, dark, and lonely.  No church, no brunch (too crowded -- we get take-out breakfast on Monday instead).  no gym (lifting weights in the basement is not the same thing), no beer bust, no Chinese take-out.  And tv is the same every day: our regular sitcoms and sci-fi series on Netflix, Vudu, and Amazon Prime.

So, just for fun, let's see what's on Fox these days.

Upcoming on February 7th:

6:00 pm: Call Me Cat. A life-action series about a woman named Kat (Mayim Bialik) who runs a cat cafe in Louisville, Kentucky (a cat cafe offers cats to play with, along with food and beverages).  The venerable Leslie Jorrdan plays Phil, the cafe baker, a "newly single gay man." Cheyenne Jackson, who plays gay and bisexual characters frequently on American Horror Story, appears as Max, who used to date Kat and works at the bar next door.

Season 1 Episode 5: "Cake." Phil gets a cake order.  When he finds out that it's from Lance, his ex-husband's fiance, he refuses.  Lance assumes that Phil refused due to homophobia, and starts a boycott.  

6:30 pm: Bless the Harts.  A single mother in North Carolina with her teenage daughter and live-in boyfriend (played by Ike Barinholtz). I've never seen it, but doubtless no gay characters.  There weren't any on the old King of the Hill, except in an episode where someone's father comes out.  

Season 1 Episode 1: "Violet's Secret."  Jenny and Betty (Mom and her friend) spy on Violet (the teenage daughter). 

7:00 pm:  The Simpsons.  32 years of The Simpsons!  If the characters aged in real time, Bart would be in his 40s.Aren't the voice actors about ready to retire?

  Season 32, Episode 10: "A Springfield Summer Christmas." A Christmas movie is filmed in Springfield.

7:30 pm: The Simpsons. Season 32, Episode 11: "The Dad Feeling Limit."  Homer and Marge team up with Comic Book Guy and his wife Kimiko for a trivia contest.

There are two gay characters amid the 100 or so regulars, Waylon Smithers and Marge's sister Patty, but it took them 20 years to come out, and they don't actually do anything gay-specific.

8:00 pm: Bob's Burgers.  About a family who run a seaside burger joint.  This used to be a gay-inclusive show, with gay walk-on characters and a gender-nonconforming, possible trans son.  But in Season 11 it's been mostly about bodily fluids.

Season 11, Episode 7: "Diary of a Poopy Kid": Gene's diarrhea ruins Thanksgiving.  I can never spell that word, so I had to look it up.  You don't want to know about the recommended Google Images.

8:30 pm: Family Guy. About a horribly vulgar, violent nuclear family in Rhode Island.  The first and worst of Fox's homophobic cartoons, with anti-gay slurs and jokes coming fast and furious in every scene (actually, I wouldn't know; I've only made it through a few episodes without being either offended by the homophobia or disgusted by the bodily fluids).  But homophobe-in-chief Seth McFarlane announced that he was going to "try to cut back" on the homophobia.  Not the bodily fluids, though.

Season 19, Episode 4: Cutaway Land. The family is trapped in an alternate universe where the cutaway jokes are real.  I don't understand, either.

9:00 pm: Hey, what happened to American Dad?  

Apparently Sunday night on Fox begins with a bang and ends with a whimper.