Lost in Space (the original series): Camp sci-fi with with a cute boy and a cool robot. Plus Billy Mumy all grown up.

My parents didn't approve of science fiction -- they thought it would promote atheism.  But   Lost in Space (1965-68) aired before their favorite hayseed comedies, The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres -- so we watched.  

In the far-future year 1999, a family of space colonists sets off for Alpha Centauri in their cool flying-saucer spaceship, the Jupiter 2.  An evil spy sabotages the ship, so they veer off course, and are "lost in space."  Presumably they have warp drive.

The first season featured realistic science-fiction adventures, but then it become more and more camp, like Batman, the competition on the other channel, culminating in a giant talking carrot that wanted to change the Robinsons into trees. 

I don't remember much, just scattered images: 

A lonely boy from the other side of the looking-glass.

A demonic being claiming that he's as human as the rest of them.

The robot saying "Danger, Will Robinson!"

An alien robot saying "Crush! Kill! Destroy!"

And I remember the fandom.  Kids loved Lost in Space.  Star Trek was too grown-up -- Captain Kirk was always kissing a scantily-clad alien babe -- but Lost had no hetero-romance (at least we didn't notice any).  

And Star Trek had no kids.  Lost had Billy Mumy (pronounced moo-mee), a busy child star with previous roles on The Twilight Zone and Village of the Giants Not only because he was cute, and knew it, getting teen idol attention at the age of twelve -- but because his character, Will Robinson, was bright and resourceful, a respected crew member, never told "you're just a kid" or "wait here where it's safe."

Star Trek had no comic relief, but Lost had Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris), an accidental stowaway (originally an enemy spy trapped aboard while trying to sabotage the voyage, but they soon forgot about that).  Some fans think today remember him as a pedophile with an inappropriate interest in Will, but I recall their relationship was completely innocent.  They were friends because he was a big kid himself, an unrestrained id.  Plus lazy, cowardly, and  incompetent, so none of the adults wanted to hang out with him.

 

John Robinson (Guy Williams), the patriarch of the family (Guy Williams), didn't have much to do: Will and Dr. Smith stole the show.  But I recall that he was not at all interested in girls. He had a wife, Maureen (June Lockhart), but they behaved like colleagues, with few moments of tenderness and none of intimacy. 

Guy Williams had previously starred in several buddy-bonding projects, including Zorro (1957-59) and Damon and Pythias (1962), leading to speculation that he was gay in real life.  

    

More after the break

Fabian Forte at the Beach

Born in 1943, Fabian (he didn't need a last name) was a superstar by age 16.  He was a competent singer, but in a market flooded by teen singers, it was his curly hair, heavy-lidded gaze, and buffed physique that sold his records.  He practically created the teen magazine market, with beefcake pinups boosting the sales of Teen Magazine, Teen Live, Teen Illustrated, and many others.  He even got his own magazine, Fabian: Boy of Mystery.  

After his film debut in Hound Dog Man (1959), buddy bonding with Stuart Whitman, Fabian played androgynous, gay-vague, girl-crazy teens against any number of men's men: Robert Mitchum, Bing Crosby, Stewart Granger, John Wayne.

Surrounding a fey teen idol with all that brawn created a problem: the boy simply did not seem straight, in spite of his girl-ogling, especially when he sang.  So, when Henry Koester directed Fabian, he simply gave up.  

Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962) has Fabian on stage for about five minutes, long enough to dance with Jimmy Stewart's daughter and sing "Cream Puff."

He gets slightly more screen time in Dear Brigitte (1965), but no songs, and though he buddies around with Jimmy Stewart's next daughter, he is never identified as her boyfriend and never gets physical with her.  Instead, his part of the plot involves exploiting math prodigy Erasmus Leaf (Billy Mumy) for capitalist gain.

Ride the Wild Surf (1964) capitalizes on the star's androgyny.  College student Jody (Fabian) hits Hawaii's North Shore with his buddies Steamer (Tab Hunter) and Chase (Peter Brown), to surf amid crowds of male surfers and spectators (only a few girls). Surfing becomes intensely homoerotic spectacle: they stand, their power distilled into a sharp thrust of surfboard, and explode toward the shore, all bronze chests and thick biceps, war-whooping a triumph over the elements that has nothing to do with heterosexist civilization.

Should Jody stay in Hawaii forever, luxuriating in the male beauty, living as a beach bum, or get a girl, go back to college, and settle for the staid heterosexist future of wife, kids, job, and house?  You know how it will end -- he picks the girl. Yet there is no fade out boy-girl kiss: Jody wins a surfing contest and is enveloped by his jubilant buddies, all hugging and hollering, a solid mass of men as the camera pans out to a wide-angle shot of surf and sky.

Fabian continued to act through the 1960s and 1970s, starring in Fireball 500  and Thunder Alley with Frankie Avalon, in an adaption of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, in a cautionary tale about the dangers of marijuana.  And he continued to display his physique, including nude shots in Playgirl.  

You can see the nude photos on Tales of West Hollywood.

Today he is still performing, based out of Branson, Missouri.

Was Dr. Smith Gay?

Millions of Baby Boomers know exactly who Dr. Smith was: the foil/ pain in the neck/ comic relief on the iconic sci-fi series Lost in Space (1965-68).

A nuclear family (Mom, Dad, teenage girl, preteen boy and girl), blasts off into space to colonize Alpha Centauri (how are they planning to increase the population?)

Enemy spy Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris) tries to sabotage the ship, so it won't reach its destination -- instead it will be Lost in Space.  But he is accidentally  trapped aboard.

How on Earth is he going to be redeemed after that?

Easy -- the writers just forget about it, transforming him from evil to a pain in the neck, occasionally helpful ("I'll negotiate with the aliens"), occasionally devious ("I'll sell you the boy in exchange for passage home"), but usually just annoying ("I'm much too fragile to do any work!").   A vain, prissy, glutonous, lazy, self-centered uncontrolled id. 

Also the most interesting character amid the squeaky-clean Robinsons (quick -- name two character traits of the teenage daughter).

Dr. Smith spends a lot of time with preteen Will Robinson (Billy Mumy), whom he hugs, grabs theshoulder of, and calls "my boy."  Thus leading to speculation that he was gay.

Maybe, but he certainly wasn't in a gay-subtext relationship with Will.

An adult and a child can't have a gay subtext relationship, because the tropes of the parental relationship would overpower it.  Imagine man and boy walking off into the sunset together at the end of the adventure -- the man is going to adopt the boy, not marry him. 

 For a gay subtext, the two need to be in the same age category: both kids, adolescents, or adults.  Maybe an adult and a late adolescent, like the superhero and his teen sidekick. 

Well, did he have another sort of interest in Will?  Was he a pedophile?

Obviously not intentionally, but did some sort of pedophile subtext arise from the actors' interactions? 

Nope.  No way.  Dr. Smith never expresses any erotic or romantic interest in Will (or in anyone else except an occasional middle-aged alien lady, and then only when he is trying to get something, like dilithium crystals or whatever they use to propel the ship). 

He puts his hands on Will for protection, not affection.  He calls him "my boy" to signify pretentiousness, not possession.

By the way, Will expresses no romantic or erotic interest in anyone during the course of the series.  He's a little boy looking for a playmate, and Dr. Smith is the only member of the crew who isn't a girl (girls!  gross!) or busy with important scientific duties. Who else is he going to befriend?

You'll have to look elsewhere for a sexual theme on Lost in Space.  Let's talk about John Robinson (Guy Williams) and Don West (Mark Goddard).  Which was gay in real life?  I'm not telling.

See also: Maxwell Jenkins: The "Lost in Space" guy all grown up, hanging with Kevin Bacon, doing acrobatics, and showin g his abs