Let's Hear it for the Boy

In the early 1980s, I listened mostly to classical music.  I was too old for teen idols,  and adult music was dreadful, all about hetero-romance, hetero-sex, or large breasts.  Especially when MTV began playing music videos to illustrate the songs.

For instance, let's look at the charts for the spring of 1984, when I was working on my master's degree:

Phil Collins, "Against All Odds": a girl left him, and now he's depressed.
Lionel Richie, "Hello": a girl left him, and now he's depressed.
Ultravox, "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes": a girl left him, and now he's depressed.
Julio Inglesias, "To All the Girls I've Loved Before."
Nik Kershaw, "Dancing Girls."  'Nuff said.

But there were exceptions.  A dozen songs of the early 1980s could be appropriated, read as gay-positive regardless of what the performers intended.  Especially "Let's Hear it for the Boy," by Deniece Williams


The lyrics are standard pop hetero-romance, about the female singer's boyfriend, who is not rich, a fancy dresser, or a good singer, but nevertheless provides hetero-romance.  In the music video, however, she praises a variety of boys, starting with with a tap dancing little kid (Aaron Lohr, later photo), who of course is not her boyfriend.

Here's another recent photo of Aaron, in a stage version of  The Full Monty.

The scene shifts to a teenager who plays the piano and dances, badly, then to more teenage boys and adult men, playing chess, playing football, dancing with her, dancing with each other.  Some are athletic, some aren't, some are shirtless, some aren't, but all of them are beautiful due to their exuberance, their energy, and their fun-loving joie de vivre. Who has time to even think about muscles?

 Finally there are thirty men and one woman on stage.  The song has become a paeon to the entire male sex.

And that's not all.  It's the background music in the intensely romantic montage in Footloose (1984) where city boy Ren (Kevin Bacon) teaches redneck Willard (Chris Penn) to dance, and they end up posing, running, frolicking, hugging.

With the absence of a female focus character, it becomes a paeon to men loving men.

See also: Ocho Rios: Tracking Down a Jamaican Bodybuilder.

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

The Cartoon Network has substantially less beefcake than The Disney Channel or Nickelodeon, of course; it's mostly cartoons.  Live action series, like Tower Prep, with Drew Van Acker (left) and Ryan Pinkston, or Level Up, with Connor Del Rio, can't seem to find an audience, and get cancelled quickly.

But it has a staggering number of gay-subtext series, Adventure Time, Looney Tunes, Regular Show, My Gym Partner's a Money, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, all the way back to Time Squad in 2001.

Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends (2004-08) has an interesting premise: many (but not all) children can create imaginary friends, sometimes human, but usually unicorns, minotaurs, birds,  bees, television sets,  and things with multiple heads.  When their creators grow too old, the imaginary friends are abandoned, so the elderly Mrs. Foster runs a sort of orphanage where they can be adopted by new children.

The protagonist, Mac (voiced by Sean Marquette, left), has been forced to give up his imaginary friend Bloo, but he visits every day and becomes an honorary resident of the house, dining with the imaginary friends and participating in house meetings.  And his relationship with Bloo is coded as romance in at least a dozen episodes.

1. Mac accepts a “date” with a “dreamy boy,” even though he must skip his regular after-school visit to Bloo at the foster home.  The date turns out to be a dud – the boy doesn’t want to do anything fun, like climb rocks or draw with chalk  – so Mac returns to Bloo, who may not be attractive but is always up for a good time.

2. When Mac creates another imaginary friend, Bloo roils with jealousy; “I thought we had something special!”  “I didn’t plan it,” Mac protests, as if he has been caught in a romantic indiscretion.  “It just happened!”

3. Mac becomes infatuated with the superhero Imaginary Man, who asks him to become his sidekick by kneeling and proffering a jewelry box, as if he is proposing marriage.  The jealous Bloo becomes a super-villain, Uniscorn (because Mac has scorned him), and wears a broken-heart pendant.

4. When a boy named Barry arrives at the foster home in search of an imaginary friend to “adopt," he and Bloo are instantly attracted to each other, but Bloo refuses adoption, declaring that he and Mac will be together forever. “He may not be a movie star,” Bloo says, quoting the 1970s classic song “My Guy,” “But if you ask if we’re happy, we are!”

In the next scene, Bloo has a change of heart, and arrives at Barry’s house ready to woo him with flowers and candy.  The two begin seeing each other behind Mac’s back. Eventually Mac finds out.  Bloo insists that “Nothing happened!” (what, precisely, could have happened between an eight-year old boy and a blue blob?), but Mac breaks up with him anyway.

Snooping around, Mac discovers the truth: Barry is actually Berry, a female imaginary friend who has a fatal attraction for Bloo, and wants Mac out of the way so they can “be together forever”  In a gender-bending damsel-in-distress scene, Berry ties Mac to railroad tracks with a train fast approaching, and Bloo rushes to the rescue.  To the end of the episode, however, Bloo is oblivious to the deception; he wonders why Berry suddenly showed up with murderous intent, asks when Barry will be back, and refuses to believe that they were the same person.

"The Lodge": British Teencom with Lots of Songs about Becoming a Star, and a Star Coming Out

 

A British teencom called The Lodge has just dropped on the Disney Channel.  I'm watching all of the Disney teencoms for gay references, characters, or subtexts, so I'll give it a try.  Except I'm not starting at the beginning: Season 2, Episode 8 says "Gil accidentally reveals some shocking news to Skye."  Maybe he outs someone.

Scene 1: A bulldozer prepares to destroy the Lodge, while the teens look on in horror. It isn't what we would call a lodge in the U.S., more like a swank resort.   A blond girl collapses into the arms of Big Teeth Sean (Thomas Doherty, below), screaming.  But at the last moment, an Environmental Officer overrides the Evil Corporate guy: the bats in the attic are protected.  Everyone hugs and cheers.

Scene 2: Evil Corporate Guy, who happens to be Big-Teeth Sean's Dad, snarling and gnashing his teeth.  He yells into the phone: "There must be something I can do to ruin those kids' lives forever!"  Sean comes in; Evil Corporate Guy gives him the job of fixing up the lodge: if he can't destroy it, he'll sell it.   That will hurt the kids, right?

Scene 3: Josh, the star of the show (played by the extremely talented actor Joshua Sinclair-Evans), is standing in the field with a blond girl (there are two on the show, so she could be from Scene 1 or not).  She can't live in the lodge anymore, so she has to live in a pink caravan (trailer), but: "It's still Gill's.  It would be too weird."  She invites Josh to move in with her, but he thinks the place is too small, so he hugs her and leaves.  

Scene 4: Kaylee (long black hair) in the woods. She sneaks in a hidden door.  Switch to Big-Teeth Sean cleaning up around the Lodge.  A blonde girl asks "You're not doing this because of me, are you?"  No, this is just Evil Corporate Dad's punishment for leaving the Dark Side.  By the way, he's going to sell it.  This horrifies the girl.  She makes a phone call: "We need to meet!  Now!"

Scene 5: Kaylee has taken the hidden door to a secret storage room with green walls, and into the lodge.  She sits down to sing an entire song about hitting the top and lighting the stars.  The janitor interrupts: "You're not supposed to be here!" "I have to practice for the concert tonight.  I'm nervous.  I thought being here would help me big this up."  The janitor helps by drawing faces on paper plates, so she can practice performing before an audience.  She's going to light up the stars, and she gets stage fright?

Meanwhile, Sean keeps cleaning up.  Hunky Ben (Luke Newton, top photo) and his femme friend Noah (Jayden Revri, left) arrive to help.  Finally, a gay couple or gay-subtext couple!  When Dad calls to see how the clean-up is going, Sean decides to rebel.  "I'm tired of Evil Corporate Guy blaming me for everything.  I never even wanted to buy this lodge. Let's frolick instead of cleaning up."

Scene 6: Three girls, blond, brunette, and redhead, talking: "The Evil Corporate Guy is selling the Lodge!  We need to find the gold, so we can buy it!"  Apparently there's a lot of gold lying around England.  They call the redhead's grandpa, who has left a voicemail with clues on how to find the gold: "Surround yourself with water and stand where the stone lies; look inside where the outside hangs; follow the line to the stars."  Ok.....

Scene 7: Sean's idea of frolicking was to walk across a taunt rope like an acrobat.  That sounds...um...fun, I guess.   But it's only a two feet off the ground; why not "big things up?"  I'd never heard that expression before, so I googled it: it's apparently unique to this series.  .  .

They put the taunt rope across a bog, while singing and dancing: "Gotta step up.  Don't even pull your punches.  Nothing's going to stand in your way."  Are all of their songs about self-actualization?   Of course, they all fall in, and hug and splash in the water.

Scene 8:  The boys go to the lodge to tell Kaylee about their slack-line adventure.  Wait -- if they can just walk in, what was the point of the secret entrance?   She's worried that Femme Noah got hurt. They cuddle  Uh-oh, he's got a girlfriend, not canonically gay.   He shows her a video of their adventure.  Next comes a video of a blond girl singing -- Kaylee's song about lighting up the stars!  A song thief!  Kaylee rushes off in a snit.  Femme Boyfriend follows.

Meanwhile, Sean and Hunky Ben see the Evil Corporate Guy (Dan Richardson) lurking around outside, and go out to confront him.  But instead of yelling, the Evil Corporate Guy apologizes: "It's not your fault.  I've done this to the family, and it's my job to fix it."

A moving fan pulls up.  "We're moving in.  We're going to run the lodge now."  This horrifies the teens. The end.

Beefcake:  None.  I thought the guys would take off some clothes at the bog, but they didn't.

Gay Characters:  Ben doesn't have a girlfriend in this episode, but he has romances with three girls during the series.  

We unfortunately didn't get a lot of scenes with the star of the show, Josh, but he is a major character in most other episodes.  He is gay, as announced in the Season 2 Episode "Help!"  on June 23, 2017.  His coming out predates Cyrus on Andie Mac, but purists don't count it because he doesn't actually use the word; he says "I don't like girls"  Wait -- didn't a blonde girl invite him to move into a tiny caravan with her?  That's a girlfriend move.  

Bursting into Song: Annoying.  Especially when every single song is "Fame!  I'm going to live forever, baby,  remember my name!"  

Plot:  I didn't really get why taking over the lodge was such a big problem, but that's what happens when you start halfway through the second season.

The Shocking Secret.  I have no idea what shocking secret Gil (Evil Corporate Guy) reveals to Skye (Blonde Girl #1).  I don't think they ever speak to each other.

My Grade: A for Josh Sinclair-Evans, C for everyone else.

"The Boy Behind the Door": Classic Gay Subtext Couple Kidnapped

 

Two boys roam a desolate forest.  Tight close-ups of their faces as they discuss going somewhere else,  somewhere where "the sun is always shining," like California.  Living in the Straight World, it's hard to remember that West Hollywood is still there.  If I didn't tell her, I could leave today.  California dreamin' on such a winter day.

Kevin (Ezra Dewey): Promise you won't go without me.

Bobby (Lonnie Chaves): Of course.  Friends to the end.

They share dandelions and play with their fingers against the sun.  Then a ball bounces into the woods.  Kevin goes to fetch it.  When he lingers, Bobby goes to see what happened.  They are both grabbed, tied, and put into a car trunk.   This is ridiculous.  Why would someone hang around a deserted woods looking for victims?

Six hours later, they arrive at their destination: a huge house in the woods.  The Kidnapper grabs Kevin, but leaves Bobby in the trunk.  Why would they leave one of their victims in the trunk?    He manages to free himself, but he can't run away and leave Kevin behind.  He goes into the house.

The Kidnapper has trapped Kevin "behind the door" to await the arrival of the Creep (Micah Hauptmann), who will purchase him, probably to rape and murder.  

Ok, this is ridiculous.  The vast majority of kids who go missing every year are runaways.  A small percent have been kidnapped by noncustodial parents.  The number of kids kidnapped by strangers is tiny, less than 1 per 100,000 capita, and most of those are for illegal adoptions or human trafficking.  Stranger kidnapping for rape and murder is so rare that you probably know the names of all of the victims from the last 20 years.

The movie becomes a taut (not taunt) thriller, as Bobby rescues Kevin, and Kevin in turn rescues Bobby.  There are footsteps in hallways, slowly turning door knobs, people with axes, and deaths:  a suspicious police officer (Sean Michael Scott, top photo), the Creep, the Kidnapper.  

The boys make standard horror movie mistakes -- don't go upstairs, get out of the house!  -- but they're 12 years old, so who can blame them.  They are both injured.  But -- spoiler alert -- they escape.  And the police cars finally arrive.

Next scene: A desolate beach, presumably in California.  What happened to the boys' parents? It's a gray, cloudy day, but they're together. They smile at each other. Friends to the end.  

Beefcake:  None. Lonnie Chaves was a kid in the movie, but he's now 17, and on his way to hunkiness.

Gay Characters:  Bobby and Kevin have a classic gay subtext romance, with rescuing, physicality, and permanence.  Plus at no time before or after the kidnapping do they have a discussion about girls.  

My Grade: B. 

"Luna Park": Rich and Poor, Gay and Straight Intermingling in a 1960s Carnival

 Luna Park (2022) is set in Italy in the 1960s.  The era of Antonini and Fellini, the sword-and-sandal epics, the spaghetti Westerns!  I'm in.

Scene 1: An outdoor cafe.  Close up of a girl's body, with a butterfly tattoo, unusual in the era.  She steals a cute guy's wallet and then goes home to her trailer, where her grandmother criticizes her: "We're carnival folk.  We don't steal."  But at least Grandma agrees to let her run the fortune-telling booth tonight.

She tells Grandpa the good news about being allowed to do the fortune-telling.  He shows her his new "magic camera," which develops photos instantly.  It will be a hit at the carnival! 

Scene 2:  Luna Park is a carnival.  A girl named Rosa and her brother Giggi (Guglielmo Poggi, top photo) have dates with two guys.  Giggi keeps hitting on girls, but his boyfriend jealously pulls him away.   They're probably not written as a gay couple, but the way they keep hanging on each other and going on rides together gives them a strong gay subtext ("Take me on the bumper cars!"). 

Carnival Girl talks Rosa into getting a tarot card reading.  Her question: "Will I ever find my twin sister, who disappeared when we were kids? No one knows what happened.  Dad even hired a private investigator; he's still paying, 20 years later."   Let me guess: it's Carnival Girl.   "She has a birthmark shaped like a butterfly on her back."  Carnival Girl says "She's alive, and very close to you," but doesn't reveal her tattoo.  Instead she gets upset and kicks Rosa out.

Scene 3:  Rosa tells the guys that her sister is close by.  They advise her to stop being so obsessed; fortune tellers say what you want to hear.  Uh-oh, she dropped her wallet in the tent (or had it lifted).  Giggi's boyfriend goes to retrieve it, and sees Carnival Girl's butterfly tattoo.  They flirt, and tell their back stories: Carnival Girl has lived all over the world, and Boyfriend is an aspiring photojornalist.  

Scene 4:  Giggi and Rosa's Dad, a rich businessman, is wheeling and dealing in his palatial mansion. Wait -- he's rich, but hiring a private investigator is a financial burden?   Then he sits down to breakfast, and announces that he got Giggi an audition!  Mom criticizes Dad for coddling him: let him get his own auditions!   I guess when you lose a kid, you get overprotective of the others.  We get the names of the two boyfriends: Giggi has Simone (Alessio Lapice, left), and Rosa has Matteo.

Scene 5: Giggi and Simone waiting in line at the audition.  The girl behind them introduces herself: she's right off the boat from Sardinia ("Toto, I don't think we're in Sardinia anymore.")   Everyone gasps as superstar Sandro passes in the back seat of a convertible.  He stops to ask Sardinian Girl out to dinner!  There are 300 girls in that line.  What does she have that's special?  

Scene 6:  The carnival family is working on a haunted house exhibit.  Grandma complains that a skeletal Marilyn Monroe is in bad taste, since she just died (on August 4, 1962).  A sketchy-looking guy wearing an earring comes in; everyone is shocked, and Grandpa hugs him.  He's Grandpa's younger brother Ettore (Mario Sgueglia) visiting from Paris.  Younger brother?  He looks like a grandson.    

He found an old home movie of Carnival Girl and her mother, so they all watch and get nostalgic.  Carnival Girl sees the butterfly tattoo on her back, and wonders if she is Rosa's long-lost sister.  

Scene 7: Giggi gives a terrible audition, goofing around when it's a dramatic role.  But one of the directors offers him a job in television.  

Switch to Rosa and her boyfriend Matteo playing tennis.  She is still thinking about the "your sister is very close to you" line, and has made a list of prospects.  Giggi and Simone drop by with the good news about the audition.  Rosa and Matteo are sitting on opposite sides of the lunch table, but Giggi and Simone are pressed against each other.  Lovers or not, don't they need some elbow room?

Scene 8:  Superstar Sandro and Sardinian Girl arrive at the restaurant for their date.  The papparazzi pounce.  For some reason, Carnival Grandpa and Brother Ettore are there, complaining about superficiality and glitz.  "I'm so glad Nora grew up in the carnival, where people are good and honest."  I've never heard carnival workers described like that before.  But at least we finally get Carnival Girl's name.

Switch to the carnival haunted house, with Carnival Girl Nora playing Marie Antoinette.  She interrogates Grandma about her butterfly tattoo, but Grandma refuses any intel.  Next she confides in her bff Celeste: "I'm not who I thought I was." Groan.  Yet another best friend who is stuck in the friend zone with the Girl of His Dreams.  

Scene 9: A huge book-lined office.  Rosa asks her old college  professor if she can borrow his Henry Miller book.  Just buy your own copy.  They have tea, and discuss... "You and Dad are bidding for the same property. I want you to bid, so you will build a place for people from the countryside to stay when they come to Rome."  Like a youth hostel? Or a homeless shelter?  

Scene 10:  Aspiring photojournalist Simone's dark room.  Rosa's boyfriend Matteo (Edoardo Coen, right)  says that he's going to ask her to marry him tonight.  "But...you haven't even kissed yet."  "Yes, but I..."

Simone looks shocked. "What is the problem?"  he asks.  Afraid that Matteo is going to come out?  Being gay would be quite a scandal in 1962.  Matteo just says "Um...her...I want to wait for the right time." 

Meanwhile, Younger Brother Ettore is introducing the carnival folk to his new friends; they all glare and snarl.  The friends want him to audition for the movies, where acrobats make a lot more than in carnivals.  They have other ideas, too.  Shady ideas.  Uh-oh.

Scene 11:  Carnival Girl Nora sneaks into Grandma's trailer (she used to be the Fabulous Miranda).  She doesn't find anything, and Grandma won't budge.

Scene 12: Rich Dad's fabulous birthday party.  Giggi is hugging and holding his boyfriend Simone.  Dad gets drunk and starts acting silly.  

Matteo invites Rosa outside to make out, but loses his nerve.  She has had enough: "Either make a move, or get out.  Do you like me or not?"  He proposes marriage, but that's not enough.  "You have to kiss me!"  He hesitates.  "There's nothiing wrong with you, is there?"  She means "Are you gay?"   "Ok, ok, I'll...ugh, kissing girls is so disgusting....I'll do it." 

They kiss.  Simone and Giggi see them and congratulate Matteo on finally getting the job done.  They provide champagne.  To celebrate a first kiss?  Well, Matteo is in his twenties, so they are probably celebrating "proof" that he's straight.  

Scene 13:  As the party devolves into seances and smoking, Rich Dad goes out onto the patio, gazes at the two couples, and gets depressed over the disappearance of his daughter Adele.  "I couldn't save her."   His friend: "Why don't you tell your family that she is dead?"  "No; only you and I know the truth."  Wait -- if Adele is dead, then who is Carnival Girl?  And why won't he tell his family?

Scene 14: The next morning, Carnival Girl appears at the gate of the fabulous Villa Gabrielli.    She sneaks Ain.  The two couples from last night are asleep on lawn chairs (well, Rosa is reading her Henry Miller book).  The end.

Beefcake:  None.

Gay Characters: Maybe Matteo.  Maybe Ettore, for that matter.   I know Simone is going to hook up with Carnival Girl, but so help me, the actors playing Simone and Giggi are deliberately pushing a gay subtext.  

Heterosexism:  Not much.  No one really expresses any heterosexual interest yet.  I'm not even sure that Carnival Girl's Grandpa and Grandma are a married couple.

Plotlines: Five so far.  Carnival Girl as the long-lost daughter; Simone's photojournalism career; Giggi's acting career; Dad and the Professor fighting over property; Matteo not being interested in girls.

My Grade:  A if they keep the gay subtext going OR Matteo turns out to be canonically gay.  Otherwise B.

Update:  Giggi stays gay throughout: no interest in women after the first episode, lots of interest in men.  He dumps Simone to become "best friends" with Superstar Sandro, who can't keep his hands to himself.  There's even an "I was so drunk last night...." scene.

Little Max: A Gay Father in 1950s Comic Books

When I was a kid, whenever we visited my relatives in Indiana, I spent the night with my Cousin Buster in the trailer in the dark woods, and we would squeeze into his narrow twin bed, our bodies pressed together, reading Harvey Comics.  I read until long after he fell asleep, associating the tales of friendly ghosts and little devils with that warmth and affection.

Two boys together clinging, one the other never leaving....

In high school, I looked back on those moments of perfect happiness, and tried to get my hands on the Harvey Comics I read all those years ago (actually less than 10 years ago, but when you're 16, it seems like an eternity).

So I put an ad in the Rock Island Argus, and a very cute Augustana student named Clay answered with an offer of five Little Max comics from 1958-1959 for a dollar each.

I never heard of Little Max, they were from before I was born, and a dollar was four times what a comic cost on the newsstand.  But I bought them anyway.

It was a weird type of deja vu, like looking at a photo of your parents before you were born: familiar, yet bizarre, with a story going on that you are not a part of and can't possibly understand.  Readers were obviously expected to be familiar with these characters and their histories, but I had no idea who they were.

The star, Little Max, looks like Little Audrey in drag: he is drawn in the familiar Harvey style, cherubic-cute, with a big head and gigantic eyes. He doesn't speak, and his thought balloons are full of malapropisms that suggest a learning disorder: "They're both so kindly and generosity!"

His mentor, chum, adopted father, or something is Joe Palooka, a tall, very muscular guy with a weird toothless grin. Max calls him "Dear Joe."

Joe has also adopted or is mentoring an unnamed girl.  Max calls her "Dear Her."  "

She calls Max "Maxth" and Joe "Mith-ter Palooka."

In this Panel, she's looking at Max, not at Joe's swimsuit.








Most of adventures are slapstick, with Max trying to do a good deed that goes terribly wrong.  Here he dresses at an Easter Bunny, is treed by a dog, and reflects on how "embarristing" it is to be "previously engagemented."

There are also fantasies, in which Joe reads Max a fairy tale, and he acts it out in his head, or Max writes his own version.

Sometimes Max appears a bit older, free to wander around without adult supervision.  Although he still can't speak -- or use American Sign Language -- he makes himself understood adequately to interact with a group of friends.

Lots of stories are set on the beach, where Joe can wear a swimsuit and show off his physique, and Max can engage in some heroics (and, here, demonstrate a feminine limp wrist).

Other than the bizarre familiarity, I was attracted to the character of Max, heroic yet not macho, feminine yet never called a sissy.

And Joe Palooka, a single man who had adopted two children, but didn't have a wife or girlfriend.

I've done research since:

Joe Palooka was a naive immigrant boxer in a comic strip by Hal Fischer that premiered in 1921.  He was immensely popular, spinning off into movies, a radio series, Big-Little Books, toys, games, and comic books.  He was less popular by the 1950s, when his Harvey comic book series began, but Harvey in that era adapted several aging comic strip properties, including Terry and the Pirates and Blondie.

Little Max was a supporting character in the Palooka comic strip, a mute shoe-shine boy who Joe befriended.  He had his own comic book series from 1949 to 1961.

And I discovered the origin of Little Max: Max Bartikowsky, a boy artist Hal Fischer knew during his childhood, who roamed around town in his mother's floppy hat.  He became Big Max, owner of Bartikowsky Jewelry in downtown Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

He never married.

See also: Joe Palooka

The Hottest 10 Ten Doctors of "Scrubs"

Spoiler alert: the guy's last name is actually Braff, not Branff, but when you conduct research, either will work.

I can't tell you how much I dislike Scrubs (2001-2010), the "comedy" about obnoxious doctors acting like jerks.  In last night's episode, they were all in a tizzy because Elliot (a female doctor) was dating a male nurse.  A male nurse!   They have never heard of such a thing!  He must be "the girl" in the relationship, and Elliot must be the "boy"

It wasn't just one character.  They all ridiculed the guy who degraded himself so much that he did a woman's job!

But at least there's substantial beefcake.  Not only patients.  The doctors take their shirts off every second.

 1. Zach Branff as J.D., the obnoxious narrating character: "Today I learned that relationships are hard."






2. Donald Faison as his bff Turk, who acts like a five-year old and is obsessed with the ladies.  He's the one who decided that going to the gym makes you a pathetic loser.  I can tell.  He's been in better shape.

3. Johnny Kastl as Doug, a skittish doctor who's terrified of his supervisor, and often runs away n a panic.














4. Dave Franco as Cole Aaronson, a spoiled fratboy doctor.

5. Travis Schuldt as Keith "The Dude" Dudemeister (I'm not making this up.)

More after the break.

Eight is Enough to fill our lives with schmaltz. But at least Grant Goodeve took his shirt off

Oh we spend our days like bright and shiny new dimes,
If we're ever puzzled by the changing times.
There's a plate of homemade wishes on the kitchen window sill,
And eight is enought to fill our lives with love.

If that's the sort of thing that appeals to you, you probably got all warm and gushy on Wednesday nights during the late 1970s watching Eight is Enough (1977-81).  If you wondered just how much of a day a dime could buy, or your gag reflex set in at the very thought of plates of homemade wishes on the window sill, you turned the channel to  Good Times, Busting Loose, The Jeffersons, or Real People.  

In case you never managed to sit through an episode, you should know that Tom Bradford (Dick Van Patten) was a conservative newspaper columnist who liked to give anti-abortion speeches to captive audiences in elevators.  His tv wife died tragically during the first season, so he courted and married Abby (Betty Buckley). There were no gay characters -- though butch daughter Mary (Lani O'Grady) was certainly gay-coded, and some gay kids might have been interested in the three boys in his Walton-sized brood:

David (Grant Goodeve), a young adult employed in construction.  He achieved some teen idol fame, cutting a few records and enjoying guest shots on Murder, She Wrote, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, and Northern Exposure.  He also played Steve Carrington's lover on Dynasty.  Today he is involved mostly in live theater.

Sorry for the bad reproduction, but this was the only swimsuit picture I could find.  Looks like the head is pasted on, but I think he's just being sullen.

Tommy (Willie Aames), a brooding, sullen bodybuilder-musician. He went on to fame in Paradise and Charles in Charge (with Scott Baio) before being beset-upon by financial and career problems.

Nicholas (Adam Rich), a smart-alecky preteen.  After Eight is Enough he had difficulties adjusting to the world outside show biz.  He has had arrests for drug possession, shoplifting, and breaking and entering.

By the way, Dick Van Patten belongs to a show biz dynasty, including siblings Joan and Tim, and children Vince, Jimmy, and Nels.

Mystery Island: A muscular Stephen Parr and the Robot from "Lost in Space"

During the fall of 1977, Saturday morning tv featured several live-action programs, including Skatebirds, an anthology series that ripped off The Banana Splits from a decade before.  It didn't last long, but one of its live-action segments, Mystery Island (note: not Mysterious Island) was noteworthy for two reasons.

1. It recycled the famous Lost in Space robot.

2. The mega-muscular Stephen Parr spent most episodes with his shirt off.


There's not much else to find out about Stephen Parr. He worked as a model (naturally). Beginning in 1975, he had guest shots on lots of tv series, from Barnaby Jones to Cheers, and had a brief starring role on All My Children.  According to the Internet Movie Database, he last worked in television in 1993. I don't know what he's doing now. But he certainly brightened a lot of Saturday mornings in 1977.

"The Last Bus": British Teens Bedeviled by Glowing Soccer Balls

 

The Last Bus, on Netflix, a British post-Apocalyptic horror series starring teenagers.  I wonder if they can't stop the bus, or they'll succumb to the zombie virus.  

Be careful: The Last Bus is also a movie about a man riding a bus because he has a dead wife, a movie about a bus trip that leads to disaster

Prologue: People in Hazmat suits carrying boxes labeled Monkhouse Dynamics.  They contain soccer ball-sized devices.  Whoops, one falls to the floor, pulsates, and flies away.  It doesn't end with a bang or a whimper, but with a soccer ball.

Scene 1:  The Braelawn Academy.  Nerd Nas, whose gender is indeterminate but is played by the male-presenting Moosa Mostafa, and their Dad are waiting for a bus which will take them on a field trip to the Monkhouse Facility.  

Meanwhile, two girls taking a driving class swerve to avoid a hedgehog.  They wonder what it is doing out during the day: something must be wrong.  The bus leaves in 8 minutes; they zoom to get there in time.

And Depressed Tom (Daniel Frogson, top photo) is being driven by his glittery, gossipy Mom to the Academy.  When they arrive, she flirts with his friends Daniel (black) and Skely (young).  They discuss how hot she is, which makes Tom angry.  

Plus: flamboyant drama club kid Joshua (Nathanael Saleh), his bff, and a Genius Girl who interrogates Nerd Nas's Dad about his financial situation.  

Scene 2: The smoking, doddering bus arrives.  Everyone looks disappointed, but they get on anyway.  The guy I thought was Nas's Dad is actually Mr. Short (Tom Basden), the chaperone.  

They drive along the rocky coast, the kids frolicking, Genius Girl disapproving.  A boy gets car sick.  A boy and a girl smooch.  

Nerd Nas gives us a plot dump: As you know, we are on our way to see billionaire scientist Dalton Monkhouse, who has invented the next generation of robots.  Depressed Tom's friend Daniel ridicules then, whereupon Car Girl ridicules his ability to get a girlfriend.  Hegemonic masculinity, good choice. And why isn't the adult intervening?  

Scene 3:  They get off the bus and switch to golf carts.  Hey, I thought they were going to be on that bus through the Apocalypse.  Some more traveling, and they arrive at a futuristic facility composed mostly of geodesic domes.  The slimy, sinister Dalton Monkhouse greets them via hologram.  

Daniel the Bully forces Depressed Tom to attack Nas.  Their sister advises that they "tone it down a bit."  Nas is called both "he" and "she" by various kids, so I'm guessing that they are transgender.

Scene 4:  While the others enter the facility, Nerd Naz sneaks into an "employees only" entrance.  Sister follows, and gets lost in a dark labyrinth.  She overhears the Hazmat suits discussing how one of their glowing soccer balls got away.  

Meanwhile, everyone is in a giant dining room, sipping on drinks and listening to Monkhouse the Messiah: "The world can be a dark place, but one man can bring the Light."  Through his patented hologram technology, he has achieved omnipresence: he's talking to everyone in the world at the same time!  

Monkhouse points out that all of the world's problems -- deforestation, extinct species, pollution, global warming -- are caused by people. 

I thought that the glowing soccer balls were designed to kill all of humanity, but instead they seem to be brainwashing devices: "Just look into the light."  

In the cave, Nas is being brainwashed by one, until Sister yells and scares it away.

"Believe me when I say," Monkhouse continues, "That I am sending you to a better place."

Suddenly the glowing soccer balls start evaporating people.  I guess they were killing machines after all.  Everyone panicks and runs and hides.  The end.

Beefcake: None.

Gay Characters:  The drama club kid, probably.  I can't tell if Nas is supposed to be transgender or not.

Heterosexism:  A little.

Will I Keep Watching:  I'm interested in how they will survive the glowing orbs from inside the belly of the beast.

Update:  I have watched every episode of The Last Bus.  Spoiler alert:

1. The people haven't been killed: they've been put in stasis until Earth's carbon dioxide levels recede.  It would have been nice to tell everyone that in the first place, instead of just zapping them.

2. Flamboyantly feminine Josh gets a girlfriend.  

3. No other romantic relationships appear.

4. And no gay subtexts.

Three One-Piece Movies in One Sitting: Will There Be Any Gay Representation? Or Beefcake?

 Having seen five or six of the 1000-plus episodes of the Japanese anime One-Piece, I feel qualified to watch some of the spin-off movies.  The premise: invincible trickster god-pirate Luffy and his ragtag crew are trying to find the titular object which will allow him to become King of the Pirates and own everything in the world.  In the episodes I watched, he ignored girls and had gay-subtext romances with two guys, so I am eagerly anticipating more gay content.

I'll just watch the first few scenes of each, to decide which to watch all the way through.

First up: One-Piece: Episode of Alabasta (2007):

Prologue: A hawk flies a blue-haired girl across a desert.  He explains that his job is protecting the country, which doesn't necessarily involve fighting.  Presumably this will be important later.

Scene 1: The blue-haired girl has become a big-breasted, bikini-clad teenager lounging on Luffy's ship. She is called to help save a "man-woman" who fell off his ship.  Great, Minute 2 and we already have an "evil transvestite" stereotype.  At least he's not gay: he makes lewd propositions to both of the girls in the crew.  He explains that he can clone himself; as proof, he turns into a clone of Luffy and clobbers him.  Then he turns into one of the girls and gets naked (gratuitous female nudity).

Luffy, the Dog, and Long-Nosed Usopp cheer at these tricks; the other crew members are not impressed.  His ship sails by to pick him up, and he leaves.  

Scene 2:  Green-haired Girl points out that the man-woman's crewmen called him Sir Bon Clay: he's one of Crocodile's men!  Crocodile is a crime boss who stole an enormous quantity of the fobidden Dance Powder, which makes rain by stealing moisture from other regions  (so why not Rain Powder?), and then framed the King as the culprit, causing a war. 

Whew, this is complicated, and there's too many girl parts.  On to One-Piece: Episode of Chopper (2008).

Prologue:  We hear the back story: Before he died, famous pirate Gol D. Roger hid the One-Piece, which will allow you to own everything in the world, so hundreds of pirates are out searching for it, including the invincible trickster god Luffy and his Straw Hat crew.  They have almost everyone they need, but they are still missing a doctor.

Scene 1:  Beefcake alert!  Zoro, a green-haired muscle-hunk, is doing push-ups with a 1,000 pound weight on his back.  Up on deck, Luffy, Long-Nosed Usopp, and a muscular speedo-clad guy are lifting weights, and two girls lounging, while Sanji, a blond guy with hearts in his eyes, serves them snacks.   

Sanji notices that one of the girls, Nami, has flushed cheeks, indicating romantic interest.  This makes him furious.  Who has stolen the heart of his crush?  Wait -- maybe she is in love with him?  He dissolves into a slurry of hormones. A bit too much hetero-romance here.  I'm looking for gay subtexts.

Meanwhile, Nami, who is the ship navigator, ignores him to order a change of direction.

Scene 2:  Nami steers them out of the way of a cyclone, then collapses.  She has a fever of 106 degrees; she needs a doctor.  Sanji is distraught.

I don't see any gay subtexts here. Let's try One-Piece: Strong World (2009).

Prologue: A giant rock with masts and oars floats over Navy headquarters.  Everyone panicks.  The commander says that only one man is capable of such a feat: Shiki the Golden Lion.  Everyone gasps in shock.  He was defeated and imprisoned, but he cut off his legs to escape the shackles.  He's been in hiding for 20 years.

Shiki the Golden Lion levitates a lot of navy ships and drops them on headquarters as "a warning," then flies away in his pirate rock.

Scene 1:  A crocodile-shaped car is chasing Luffy through the jungle on a desert island.  It is clobbered by a giant octopus, which takes up the chase.  Then a giant praying mantis takes over.  Then a giant striped bear.  I'd advise against settling on this island.

This redition of Luffy wears his shirt open, displaying six-pack abs.  Come for the giant monsters, stay for the beefcake.

Scene 2: In a ruined city, the skeleton of a 1960s hippie, a speedo-clad barbarian with another six-pack, and a Japanese schoolgirl fight an army of ants with swords and a giant shark.  I don't know what's going on, but it's certainly inventive.

Scene 3:  As they discuss the craziness of their island, we pan out to see that it's floating in the sky, along with many similar islands, some surrounded by water bubbles.  Then we're introduced to Luffy's pirate crew: Green-Haired Zoro, a dog named Tony, Nico (the Japanese schoolgirl, actually an archaeologist), Frankie (the barbarian in a speedo), Brook (the dead hippie), Blond Sanji, Long-nosed Usopp from the previous movie; and a red-head girl, who is swimming for a ridiculously long time, giving us extensive female semi-nudity.  Her boobs fill the screen. Yuck!

It goes on and on and on.  Is this movie called Strong World or Girl Swimming?  She does a backflip.  Her butt fills the screen.  

I'm outta here.  

Or not.  The three movies are all rather obsessed with the female form, but it looks like the least heterosexist (at least in the first few scenes) is Strong World.  But I will definitely fast-forward past the ten-minute scene of heterosexual softcore porn.

See also: One Piece.