That 90s Show: Ozzie comes out, teen boys try out a hot tub, and there's pot-smoking. Plus Ashton Kutcher nude

   

Link to the nude Ashton

I only watched a few episodes of That 70s Show (1998-2006), but I saw enough to know the basic plot: a group of high schoolers, nerdish Eric Forman and girlfriend Donna, prettyboy Kelso and girlfriend Jackie, rebel Hyde, and foreign exchange student Fez, gather in Eric's basement to smoke pot, hook up, and make fun of Fez for being nonwhite and gay-coded (although actually heterosexual).  

Left: Grown-up Fez, played by Wilmer Valderrama.

I only remember one gay reference: they give a guy two tickets to a rock concert, and he shows up with a same sex date!  The guys are disgusted, but Donna says "It doesn't bother me."   Apparently there's another episode, with Eric "mistaken for gay." but I never saw it. 

The sequel That 90's Show (2023), fast forwards to 1995, when a new group of teenagers led by 14-year old Leia hang out in the iconic Forman basement.  They don't smoke pot -- this is the pot-phobic 90s -- but they hookup.  And this time diversity has reached Milwaukee: there are three non-white and one gay character, Ozzie, played by Reyn Do.  I reviewed the episode where he comes out.

Scene 1:  Ozzie is setting up a computer for the Grandparents.  Grandpa Red complains.  Grandma Kitty is excited but clueless.

Scene 2: In the iconic basement, Prettyboy Nate (Maxwell Acee Donovan) is showing Girlfriend Nikki an ad for a free hot tub.  "But it's contaminated with other people's juices!" she complains.  "Until we contaminate it with our juices!"  Hey, that's dirty! 

Meanwhile, Focus Girl Leia tells  Hunk Jay (Mace Coronel) that she wants to be "just friends."  He is distraught. Plot complication: she's actually interested, but too shy to admit it!

Fan plot dump: Leia is the daughter of Eric and Donna, and Jay is the son of Kelso and Jackie, all of whom have guest spots on at least one episode.  Hyde is never mentioned, as actor Danny Masterson is currently incarcerated on a rape conviction, and Fez appears regularly as a swishy but heterosexual hairdresser.

Wait -- When That 70s Show ended, it was 1980, naturally, and this is 1995.  Those girls mst have gotten pregnant at the wrap-up party.

Scene 3: Up in the kitchen, Ozzie explains to Focus Girl Leia that he's planning to come out to Grandma Kitty, as Step 7 in his 16-step coming out plan: first strangers, then people he doesn't see often, then people he sees all the time, and finally his parents.  In the 90s you didn't come out to anyone, ever, so this is quite ambitious.  

Scene 4:  Prettyboy Nate and Hunk Jay go to investigate the free hot tub. 

Nate: "This is better than that time we found the nude beach...until we saw my coach doing lunges."  Jay: "This is what my life feels like right now: a sandy, saggy sack."  Hey, are they talking about his testicles?

They play "vagina hands": they put their hands together, open them up, and Jay shoves his face inside and ..um...hey, that's dirty!

The elderly lady who owns the tub suggests that they try it out first.  

Cut to the three of them in the tub in bathing suits.  She proceeds to flirt.  They are uncomfortable. Hey, writers, the actors are over 18, but the characters are 14 or 15-years old.  This isn't funny, it's cringey.

Ozzie comes out after the break

Jimmy Cavaretta: Trapeze artist, nude model, Dating Game contestant, Las Vegas resident

 

Link to the nude photos

As promised, here is my research on Jimmy Cavaretta.  He turns out to be one of the few non-actors that I've profiled: he's a trapeze artist and nude model.

Born in 1949, Jimmy began training in the circus arts when he was still a toddler, and  in 1962, at the age of 13, started a trapeze act with his younger sister Terry.  The following year his other sisters got in on the act, and he became the "catcher" and the only boy in the Flying Cavarettas

Circus trapeze artists were still a big deal in the 1950s and 1960s.  The women wore skimpy outfits to draw the heterosexual male gaze, while  the men -- everyone from Tony Curtis to David and Ricky Nelson to teen idol Michael Callan got into the act -- didn't try to hide their bulges. 

Left: David Nelson's bulge.

Jimmy got the full teen idol treatment, with profiles in all of the teen magazines.  He a performed on  Ed Sullivan and The Hollywood Palace.  He released a single, "I Want to Be Free."  He was one of the "bachelors" on The Dating Game.

Meanwhile, the Flying Cavarettas were headliners at the Circus Circus hotel/casino  in Las Vegas from 1968 to 1973.

Then they broke up, Terry to form the Flying Terrells duo, with her husband Ron as the "catcher."  Jimmy joined the Flying Medallions, and toured with the Ringling Brothers/Barnum & Bailey Circus.

He did some acting and modeling work. Only one entry in the IMDB, Like It Is, 1970: a teenage girl runs away from home and starts hanging out with hippies, smoking pot and everything.

The media was coy about mentioning his wife.  They wanted him to be available, an object of desire to the thousands of spectators who gasped at his acrobatics -- and his attributes -- every day at Circus Circus.

Of course, he also became the subject of gay rumors.  

More Jimmy after the break

Mark Harelik: You've seen his physique a hundred times. Now's your chance to see his penis

  

Link to the nude photos

You might not know his name, but you've seen Mark Harelik's macho "former high school letterman" physique on tv a hundred times.

On Cheers as Reed Manchester, the gay guy who Diane pretends to be married to.

On Wings as Helen's boyfriend, who she didn't bother to break up with before marrying Joe.

On Seinfeld as Milos, who Jerry threatens to out as a terrible tennis player.  Milos offers to set him up with an attractive woman to buy his silence, but she turns out to be his wife.

As Jedidah Lawrence, on Boy Meets World, who lies to his daughter Topanga about the reason he left his wife.

As Jeff, Single Guy Jonathan Silverman's neighbor who takes him in while his apartment is being repaired.  He is in a relationship with Mike (Michael Winters)

As Tim, Jack's boss who keeps making passes at him, on Will and Grace. 

 

As Dr. Eric Gablehauser, the pop-star head of the physics department on The Big Bang Theory

As Joe, buddy of Grace and Frankie's Lily Tomlin and her gay ex-husband, Sam Waterston.

As God in The Preacher, which also starred Dominic Cooper. 

 

Mark's dick after the break

Control Z: Sordid secrets revealed in a Mexican high school. Is one about being gay?

Control Z, on Netflix, is advertised as an old-fashioned whodunit: who is revealing the sordid secrets of the students at a high school in Mexico? Ten to one, the secrets include being gay.

Scene 1:  Creepy Girl enters the beautiful glass-and-steel atrium of  her fancy, elite high school, where all of the students are busy on their cell phones. Their texts and websites appear over their heads; mostly sex and romance.

She notices a boy and a girl kissing; the boy is aroused. 

A girl sticking her tongue out for a selfie

A girl who dropped her Motrin (a pain reliever)

She saves the learning-disabled Luis (Luis Curiel) from some bullies by pointing out their secrets.  One gets his mom to cut his hair; another has herpes; a third has dandruff (are those really equivalent sins?)

Scene 2: School Psychiatrist tells Creepy Girl that she's extremely intelligent but getting straight Cs.  She has problems with teachers and classmates.  She was in a mental hospital (wouldn't Creepy Girl know this already?)

Scene 3: Class.  A Straight Couple (Zion Moreno, Andres Baida, top photo) has a tongue-swallowing session, so theatrical and overblown that it looks like a parody.

Left: Andres Baida has an enormous carrot. In Spanish, zanahoria, which sounds sexier.

Finally the teacher arrives, and introduces the New Student (Michael Ronda).  His Dad is a famous soccer star,  so everybody wants to be his friend.  But she assigns Creepy Girl to show him around.

Scene 4: The boys latch on to New Student and ask about his Dad ("Is he really ripped, or only on tv?").   He's upset by the attention and leaves.

Left: New Student walks past a random naked guy in the enormous locker room.

Scene 5: A prim, retro-outfitted Mean Girl is trying to convince a group of adults that National Night, a big annual party, will be ok.  There won't be a lot of sexual assaults, like last year.

More butts after the break

Tony Cavalero's Hot/Hung Photos, Part 3: An enormous cock, Adam Devine, Corey B's sausage, and Mickey Mouse

Link to the nude photos

This is a collection of hot or humorous photos of Tony Cavalero, best known as Dewey on The School of Rock,  Ozzie Ozbourne in Dirt, and Keefe on The Righteous Gemstones, with a few of his friends.

1. Sorry, a cold dip after the hookup is a deal-breaker.

2. I don't care if Adam agreed to join us...wait...

3. Mickey Mouse is a muscle fan.

4. And Tony is into Rodent Boys.

5. What happens in Disneyland, stays in Disneyland

6. Is it too late for that hookup and cold dip?

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

"Cheaper by the Dozen": Twelve Kids, Some Beefcake

This is one of the iconic beefcake scenes of the 1960s, at least for those of us who were kids in an an era where bare chests were as rare as gay characters in the movies: the hunky 18-year old Tim Matheson takes his shirt off, for no apparent reason except to give teenagers something to look at.  The movie is Yours, Mine, and Ours (1968), about a  widow with 10 kids who marries a widower with 8 kids, resulting in a very large blended family,  The Brady Bunch times three.

It's all very heteronormative, promoting the value of excessive reproduction, in spite of world overpopulation and the economic problems of feeding that many people.  But who cares?  There was a hunk.

The 2005 remake stars Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo as the highly prolific parents.  Sean Faris, playing the oldest son, gets an extensive beefcake scene.  He's in the midst of shaving when he's called away for an emergency, so there's lather all over his face, but still, beefcake is beefcake.

The 1950 movie Cheaper by the Dozen, based on the memoirs of Frank Gilbreath, has a similar theme: Myra Loy and Clifton Webb star as the parents of twelve kids.  No blended family here; they actually reproduced twelve times.  Clifton Webb was gay in real life, and extremely swishy, so it seems difficult to imagine him having sex with a woman at all.  But that was probably the point: to "redeem" him by demonstrating that even swishy guys are heterosexual.

No beefcake here; the teenage children are both girls.  

In the 2003 remake and its 2005 sequel, Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt became the parents of the brood.  I haven't seen them -- I avoid movies starring Steve Martin -- but apparently Tom Welling as the oldest son gives us a requisite beefcake shot.  Some of the actors playing the younger kids have also grown up into hunks, such as twins Brent and Shane Kinsman.

Disney+ released heir version of Cheaper by the Dozen in 2022, with Zach Branff and Gabrielle Union as the parents.  It's modernized -- the family is interracial, the parents are divorced rather than widowed, and some of the kids are adopted.  But not too modernized: signs tell us that Black Lives Matter and that we should Resist Hate, but everyone is still heterosexual.  

I had high hopes for Luke Prael as the troubled teenager Seth.  But he displays no interest in boys or girls.

At least Zach Branff takes off his shirt a lot.

And his last name is actually Braff, not Branff.  It's just pronounced with an n, like that town in Canada.

Cheers: Where Nobody Knows Your Name

In the mid-1980s, Americans were afraid.  We had a crazy president who wanted to start a nuclear war (not as crazy as the Orange Goblin, though). People thought that AIDS could be transmitted through drinking water and mosquitoes.  Unemployment was as high as during the Depression, the violent crime rate higher than ever before in history.

 No wonder people wanted to go to a place "where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came."

Cheers (1982-93) was must-see tv, as in all your relatives and everybody at work talked about it constantly, so you had no choice but to watch.

The premise: Sam Malone (Ted Danson) flopped as a ball player due to his alcoholism, so he opens a bar in Boston (really?) and begins love-hate sniping with his stuck-up Ivy-League grad student barmaid Diane (Shelley Long), and later with neurotic bar manager Rebecca (Kirstie Alley).

Other cast members included earthy barmaid Carla (Rhea Pearlman), dimwitted bartender Coach (Nicholas Colassanto), replaced after the actor's death by Woody (Woody Harrelson), and two bar patrons, the rotund Norm (George Wendt) and the talkative Cliff (John Ratzenberger).

In spite of the theme song,  no one knew any gay names.

Gay patrons came to the bar in only one episode.  The gang sees two metrosexual guys talking and laughing, thinks they're gay, and is about ready to string them up, when Diane reveals that the real gay guys, two bears, have been masquerading as part of the mob.

Carla is particularly homophobic.  "If they keep coming out of the closet, there won't be any men left, and I'll have to. . .ugh!" she says, imagining sex with Diane.

Not only is the bar gay-free, there aren't any significant homoerotic subtexts.  Cliff and Norm are buddies, but reject any hint of affection.  The female characters seem as boy- crazy as Betty and Veronica in Archie comics: Carla has a dozen kids with many different men; Diane leaves two men at the altar; Rebecca has an unrequited golddigger crush on a millionaire.

Sam was the hunk of the series -- Ted Danson even posed for Playgirl (not nude) -- and two other male cast members warranted gazing.

 1. Woody (before Woody Harrelson, left, got craggy and redneck).

2. Hockey player Eddie (radio personality Jay Thomas, previously seen on Mork and Mindy), Carla's love interest for a season.  But since almost all of the action occurred on two sets, the bar and Sam's office, there was little opportunity for disrobing, thus no beefcake.

Not a lot of gay allies in the cast.  Kirstie Alley was rather aggressive in "defending" John Travolta from the "insult" of gay rumors. Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson have both played swishy gay stereotype.

In 1993, stuffy psychiatrist Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) spun off onto his own series, Frasier, which lasted for another 11 years.

"Craig of the Creek": Silver Fist gets a sidekick and Secret Keeper gets a boyfriend

 

I thought Craig of the Creek was a cartoon about summer camp, with the usual Nickelodeon hetero-horny kids and absence of same-sex desire. Then it was nominated for a GLAAD Award.

It's actually not summer camp, it's a creek near Craig's house in suburban Baltimore, where he has adventures with his friends Kelsey and JP, a girl and a boy. All three get girlfriends at one point, Kelsey in Season 4, which seems to be the season of the LGBTQ characters: we meet two other lesbians, JP's sister and Craig's cousin, plus a nonbinary adult.

Top photo: Ian Roberts, an out Australian rugby player, but not the same one who plays Kelsey's Dad.  

The Creek kids are divided into various tribes: The Elders, Junior Forest Scouts, Horse Girls, 10 Speeds, Ninja Kids, Sewer Kids, and so on. There are dozens of characters, most not differentiated, but two are established as gay.  I'll review the two episodes featuring the Secret Keeper, who becomes the boyfriend of snooty Tea-Timer George.

Secret in a Bottle, Episode 2.26:  Craig doesn't want his friends to put their sharp, sap-covered sticks into his nice new purse, but they do it anyway.  He rushs to the lair of the Secret Keeper, who writes down people's secrets and hides them in bottles, so they don't have to agonize over them.

Craig's secret: Sometimes he finds his pals annoying. 

Left: Cole Escola, who plays Secret Keeper

In the morning, after a thunderstorm, Craig and his pals find some of the secret bottles -- the storm flooded Secret Keeper's lair!  He is disconsolate: "The kids of the Creek trusted me with their secrets, and I've failed them!"  But the trio gathers all of the bottles for him.

Except one, which Eliza, head of the snooty Tea-Timers, has found, and plans to sell.  

At Tea-Time, none of the kids know whose secret is inside, so they all bid, with possessions like a picture of a unicorn and a wheel. But Craig can't let his friends give up their possessions, so he blurts out his secret. The other kids follow, except for the member of the Horse Girls who doesn't like horses: Secret Keeper pretends to have that one. 

Left: Michael Croner, who voices JP/Silver Fist and George.

Queer Codes: George is in the scene, but he and Secret Keeper don't interact in any way.  I imagine that they hadn't decided to differentiate him as gay yet.  The only queer codes  I can see: the whole "secrets" scenario; and Secret Keeper appears to be wearing a dress.

More secrets after the break