Krapopolis Episode 2.14: Tyrannus on "The Bachelor," some gay guys at a party, Jordan Young, and Jerry O'Connell

Krapopolis (2023-25) is a Fox animation sitcom set in ancient Greece, where the inept demigod Tyrannus (Richard Ayoade) rules over a crappy city-state.  Many gods and heroes have guest shots, including Achilles, Heracles (the Greek form, for once), Hermes, Homer  (really?), Pan, Poseidon, Odin (makes as much sense as Homer). 

I'm reviewing Episode 2.14: "Love Trap, Baby," because Tyrannus becomes a contestant in a Bachelor-like dating show.  I want to see if any of the contestants are women.

Plus 1990s mega-hunk and gay ally Jerry O'Connell appears

Jordan Young, reputedly in the running for Tyrannus before they decided on Richard Ayoade, is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Scene 1: A messenger from the city of Messenia appears before demigod King Tyrannus to see if he wants to barter for some squid.  Not interested: The Messenians forgot Poseidon's birthday, so he is making it rain squid, and Krapopolis is downwind.

Next visitor: Angelioforos, with an invitation and a gift (is it the hunkoids carrying the fruit basket?).  Their princess Lycosa is seeking True Love, so she is inviting all of the eligible bachelors in the area to come to her palace on the Paradise Peninsula for a contest.

Tyrannus' part-fish Half-Brother is cynical: this sounds like a scam.  But the rather naive Tyrannus agrees to go.

Scene 2: Tyrannus packing for the trip, asking fashion advice from his sister Stupendous, the gigantic leader of the city-state's army: slit to the thigh, or farther?  "Farther?"

Next he tells his parents, Shlub the manticore/centaur creature (Matt Berry) and Deliria, Goddess of Destruction and Questionable Choice, that he's leaving them in charge, and could they please not destroy or "fundamentally alter the character" of his city while he's away?

Scene 3: On the road, the siblings continue to complain.  

Back in Krapopolis, the parents complain: "He thinks we can't handle his city for a few hours?"  They plan an party, but the roads are too bad to draw anyone, so Deliria repairs them, and turns some enchanted carts into a train that will go from town to town.

More after the break

Jason Maybaum: Is the gay-vague son on "Raven's Home" gay in real life? With some Disney Descendants and Jake Green

 

Link to the n*de dudes

In 2021, I reviewed an episode of Raven's Home (2017-2023), the Disney channel update of That's So Raven, in which the girl with psychic powers grows up and moves in with her frenemy Chelsea, and they raise their kids together.  I didn't realize at the time that Raven Simone, an out lesbian in a same-sex marriage, refused to make Raven gay!  Disney offered, she refused!  Friggin' Uncle Tom, complicit in the heteronormative erasure of LGBT people -- including lesbians, darn it!

Chelsea's son Levi (Jason Maybaum, left, with costar Isaac Ryan Brown) is a femme boy, an aspiring actor, cast as the gay-subtext Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.  Mom says "I'm proud of you, no matter what," which is usually what parents say to avoid saying "even if you're gay." And he never expresses any interest in girls in any episode -- I checked.  Due to Raven's insistence on heteronormative erasure, he couldn't be canonically gay, but -- and the writers -- certainly piled on the gay subtexts.  Could Jason be gay in real life?   

Jason was born on August 31, 2007, and began his acting career in commercials in 2014, when he was seven years old.

He played the son in The Perfect Stanleys (2015), about a stay-at-home mom whose life is "perfect."

A bratty kid who criticizes Ders' museum purchases in an episode of Workaholics (2016)

A commercial kid who terrorizes sports great Frank Cushman (Jerry O'Connell) in an episode of the mockumentary series The Fifth Quarter (2016). Jake Green, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, plays the narrator.

The son in Bi*tch (2017), about a woman who snaps and thinks she's a dog (say what?).

The bratty son of Superstore manager Glen (2017).

A student in Teachers (2017), with Ryan Caltagirone (left) as Hot Dad.

The son in Desperate Waters (2019), with Matthew Lawrence taking a male-female couple on a "three hour tour" (not really; reference to Gilligan's Island).

The son in...well, you get the idea.  A lot of sons.  Let's try some of Jason's when he was a teenager, after Raven's Home.

 

Since Raven, Jason has mostly done voiceover work: Wolfboy and the Everything Factory (2021-22), Spidey and his Amazing Friends (2022-23), Ridley Jones (2023).

Plus a lot of singing and dancing.

His only recent live-action role seems to be Cameron in Descendants 3 (2021), which the IMDB says is about competitive dancers in Los Angeles, but Wikipedia says is an animated film featuring the children and grandchildren of Disney villains: Booboo Stewart (descended from Jafar), Mitchell Hope (left, Beauty and the Beast), Dylan Playfair (Gaston --wait, wasn't he gay?)....

Jason plays Cameron, the grandson of Cruella DeVille. 

I fast-forwarded it on the Disney Channel, and couldn't actually find him, but everybody divides into boy-girl pairs for the climactic dance, so presumably he's heterosexual.

More after the break

Jerry O'Connell's Secret Identity

During the late 1980s, the conservative political atmosphere resurrected the old "I've Got a Secret" sitcom genre of the 1960s (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Mr. Ed, My Favorite Martian).  Nuclear families were harboring a child-robot (Small Wonder, 1985-1989), wisecracking aliens (Alf, 1986-1990), and a Bigfoot (Harry and the Hendersons, 1991-1993).  Kids were aliens (Out of this World, 1987-1991), superheroes (My Secret Identity, 1988-91), and spies (The New Adventures of Beans Baxter, 1987-88).  Not surprisingly, many of them featured gay subtexts.

My Secret Identity starred Jerry O'Connell, aged 14 to 16, no longer the chubby, buzzcut kid of Stand by Me (1986), but getting noticeably taller and more muscular before our eyes.

Until by the final season, he had become a teen hunk,  ready for shirtless roles in Calendar Girl (1993) and Sliders (1995-2000).

One episode even involves him becoming a media sensation after he is photographed in his underwear.

His character, Andrew Clement, was accidentally zapped with a photon beam in the lab of his scientist friend, Dr. Benjamin Jeffcoate (Derek McGrath), giving him an unknown number of unpredictable superpowers.  Plots involved learning to use and misuse his powers, plus the standard evil teachers, bratty little sister, bullies, sports teams, and dating -- but not a lot of dating.  Only 7 episodes out of 72 involve Andrew being in love with some girl.

Instead, in the second season, Kirk (Christopher Bolton) comes to town, and the two display an instant, stammering, tongue-lolling attraction (so as to not make it obvious that they have fallen in love at first sight, the script makes them old friends who are reuniting).

They are inseparable for the remainder of the series, taking jobs together, working on sports and hobbies, breaking up and reconciling.  And more than once, Kirk requires rescue, leading to a "my hero" moment.

See also: The Lake, Episode 1.4: Sleazy mayor Jerry O'Connell wants a three-way with Justin and his boyfriend.

Gemstone Season 3 Part 2 Memes: Kelvin dates, Keefe goes down, and that's not Jerry O'Connell's cock

 

Link to the nude photos

This is a series of memes -- jokes -- featuring Kelvin and Keefe of The Righteous Gemstones during their breakup, and a few random hunks.  Most don't require you to have any background knowledge of the show.

1. Which Gemstone gets him as a birthday present?

2. No one misses you at all

Kelvin: Since you left me, everything is going great. No one misses you at all.

Keefe: BJ and I play pickleball on my lunch hour three times a week.

Kelvin: Well, I meant...

Keefe: Judy took me jewelry shopping yesterday.

Kelvin: She was just being nice...

Keefe: Jesse and Amber had me over for dinner last Saturday.

Kelvin: They never invite me over for dinner....

Keefe: Daddy Eli is taking me fishing next week.

Kelvin: Since when do you call him...

Keefe: Gideon invited me to a movie.

Kelvin: Dude, that's my nephew!  Are you guys...

Keefe: Martin's kid has a music recital, and he asked me to...

Kelvin: Now you're just showing off.

3. You'l never get any action if you leave his ring on.

Jesse: I shouldn't have given them my monster truck.

Amber: Support Jesse in everything, no matter how stupid, or you'll end up alone, like Kelvin.

Kelvin: Leave his ring on or take it off?  If I leave it on, guys will think I'm still marr..engag...a dude bro

4.  Let your bi flag fly, Kelv Baby

Kelvin: Daddy said "No more workplace romances.  They always blow up in your face." Well, this time I hired an assistant who I do not find attractive in the least!  Taryn is nice and all, but no way would I...she's a fierce tumbler....and she's got a quirkly fashion sense...I love her laugh.  We have to discuss the youth ministry, right?  Why not over dinner at Luigi's?

5. Bi Boy from Barcelona

6. If things go well, maybe you can talk about cum later.

Kelvin: I'm going on my first date since Keefe and I broke up.  Any advice?

Jesse: Stay focused.  Don't talke about cum.  Tell him who the fuck you are.

Keefe dating after the break-up after the break

"The Lake": Sleazy Mayor Jerry O'Connell wants a three-way with Justin and his date. What's a gay guy to do?

Link to the nude photos

I already reviewed the first episode of The Lake, a comedy about a gay guy who returns to the Lake where he spent summers during his childhood, with plots about bonding with the teenage daughter he never met and trying to save his grandfather's beloved cabin.  I want to review Episode 4 because: it features a gay three-way with 1990s heartthrob Jerry O'Connell

Link to NSFW version

Scene 1: Everyone is cheering at the junior lifeguard trials. Justin (Jordan Gavaris, left) and his Daughter watch from a distance and make fun of them.  But they're only being slightly sarcastic today, because they have won a victory: the board voted against the Evil Maisy's scheme to renovate (that is, tear down) the cottage Justin visited in as a child -- he never actually lived there, but he is desperate to keep it the way it was, a sort of anchor to his past.  Most of the plot arcs involve Jason trying to keep the cottage out of Evil Maisy's clutches.  

Speak of the Devil: Evil Maisy drops by to introduce Jason to Gil the Thrill (Jerry O'Connell), who  is running for Mayor.  Gloating, Evil Maisy notes that the Mayor can re-classify the cottage as a farmhouse, which doesn't need Board approval to be...torn down!  

To make matter's worse, he's hot for Jason!  Dude, maybe you could convince him to not-reclassify the cottage by getting on your knees? No, not to beg.

Scene 2: By the way, Daughter's Crush (Jared Scott), who also happens to be Evil Maisy's son, won the lifeguard contest.  The first Chinese-Canadian Junior Lifeguard in Lake history!  He gets his sash and the keys to the legendary Boathouse while Mom, Dad, and his brother Opal (Declan Whaley) watch.  No, Opal is not trans, or nonbinary.  He's a femme gay boy.  

After the boys leave to hang out with Justin's Daughter, Evil Maisy and her Semi-Evil Husband (Terry Chen, left) discuss the evil scheme.  "Remember, Dear, this is Justin's fault.  He sabotaged my previous play to destroy his childhood memories, mwah-ha-ha, so, so stay frosty."

Scene 3: Justin is going through withdrawal from junk food due to Daughter's health consciousness, so he runs into the Tuck Shop, sneaks behind the counter, and grabs some chips. Manager Riley (Travis Nelson, below) appears. Beep! Gil the Thrill (mayoral candidate Jerry O'Connell) is contacing them both on Grindr.  Nice chest, and he's into three-ways, but he's in cahoots with Evil Maisy!  

Scene 4: Cut to Daughter and her Crush discussing the evil scheme.  Even though he's Evil Maisy's son, Crush wants to keep the cabin, for a reason too complicated (and gross) to explain. 

After Crush leaves, Scandinavian Hippie Ulrika comes in with a fish to be tested for herpes.  A big deal --if it tests positive, they have to close down the lake for weeks-- no boating, swimming, waterskiing, or construction.  Hmm -- Daughter has a idea.

Scene 5: Justin talks to Jayne, apparently his only Ally in the cabin plot.  She is upset because Daugher's Crush won Junior Lifeguard instead of her own daughters. "Grr...Evil Maisy and her family ruin every.  The next time I see hre, I'm going to tell her...."  Whoops, at that moment Gil the Thrill appears. "...how excited I am about her cook-out tonight.  I'm bringing crab cakes."

When she leaves, Gil gets down to business: is Justin into hooking up, or what?  "No way -- you're on Evil Maisy's team, trying to destroy my childhood memories!"  But, he says, he might change his mind about the issue while Justin is on his knees. Hey, that's sexual coercion! I know, I thought of it first. 

:"Thanks, but I have a date with Riley tonight." "Bring him along, and it's a done deal.  I'll stick it to Evil Maisy after I stick it to you."

More sticking after the break

Davey and Jonesie's Locker: A Canadian teencom "Sliders," with some gay characters and a bonus Jerry O'Connell

 Sliders (1995-2000) starred 90s heartthrob Jerry O'Connell as the leader of a group of castaways being zapped around parallel worlds, with a broken transporter device, so they can't control where they go, or how long they will be stuck there.  Sometimes they encounter lost loves, or find out that in this world they're famous, but more often it's dystopian horror that requires Jerry to take off his clothes for some kind of torture.

Like becoming a sex toy, or displaying his butt.

The Canadian teencom Davey and Jonesie's Locker -- super-stupid name!  - has about the same premise: due to a transporter malfunction, the two best friends at  Schroedinger High School (get it?) are being zapped among parallel worlds. Each is nearly the same as their home world, with the same students and teachers -- the Hunk, the Mean Girl, the Nerd, the Femme Boy -- but with a significant difference:

The Mean Girl has taken over the school and instituted a caste system.

Music is outlawed, because it turns the adults into werewolves.

A Hunger Games world, with Davey and Jonesie fighters "to the death."

A Glimmerdale world, a parody of Riverdale, with teen angst, serial killers, cults, vampires, and atrocious plot holes.

More after the break

"Carter": Would You Really Watch Jerry O'Connell In Anything?

99% of viewers will tune in to the Canadian tv series Carter (2018-2020) to see Jerry O'Connell, the mega-hunk of the 1990s, star of Sliders (1995-2000) and a lot of horndog movies that you rented just so see him with shirt off (Joe's Apartment, Tomcats, Buying the Cow, Kangaroo Jack).  What does he look like at the ripe middle age of 44?  (Granted, he's been working constantly, but he hasn't taken his shirt off on screen since 2001).

Carter helpfully obliges with a shirtless Jerry on the beach,first thing.

Jerry plays Harley Carter, a famous tv detective who attacks a guy on the red carpet and finds himself persona non grata in Hollywood.  So he returns to his home town in Ontario to clear his head.  The problem is, the quirky small town residents confuse him with his tv detective character, and keep asking him to solve cases for them:

Not a problem: he wants to be a detective, and the town needs one (a lot of murders going on),  so Carter takes a job as consulting detective under the watchful supevision of The Girl, Sam (Sydney Tamia Potier).  His Huggy Bear is Dave (Kristian Bruun), who runs the local food truck.

I watched an episode because I didn't realize that Sam was a girl, so i thought there would be some gay-subtext buddy-bonding going on.  And because -- Jerry O'Connell...

Scene 1:  Carter and Sam are flirting at a town festival. Dave (right) does something funny.   They see a man in a trenchcoat yelling at a man in a suit,, who was responsible for the mining disaster  (this is important).  He opens the trenchcoat, revealing a bomb that explodes confetti.  Psych -- they're a theatrical troupe advertising their upcoming performance!

Scene 2: Carter and Sam go to work, flirting while nvestigating yet another murder in the small town: a man stabbed to death in a car in a credit union parking lot.   The manager says that he was Dennis, a loan officer until a week ago, when he was fired due to poor work performance.

Scene 3: They flirt/ investigate his house, which is suspiciously neat and tidy, and contains way too much great literature for a loan officer. (Carter reads off the names while looking at an encyclopedia).

Scene 4: At the lab, they flirt/discover that Dennis was killed with a replica medieval dagger, and there was a lot of hair on the passenger side of the car.

Scene 5: Sam interviews some of Dennis's coworkers.  Hey, when Carter's not around and she can think about something other than ripping his clothes off,  she's actually a competent detective.  Angelica, the boss, had it in for Dennis.  She was constantly making fun of him, calling him Pig-Man-Lion...no, Pygmalion!

Scene 6: Carter, relatively competent when he doesn't have an erection, asks "ancient Chinese secret" Koji to hack into Dennis's computer.  They find something shocking.

Scene 7:  Whoops, Carter and Sam are back to "Are you as turned on as I am...um, I mean what clues did you find?"  Dennis's laptop is full of sexy photos of bank manager Angelica!  Also, the hair found on the car seat belongs to her!

More after the break

"The F***k It List": How Many Times Can You Say WTF? Before Turning It Off?

I started watching The F**k It List because it starred Jerry O'Connell -- sigh -- the epitome of masculine perfection in the 1990s, with a trifecta of face, physique and bulge that made us feel like junior high kids writing his name amid little hearts in our chemistry notebooks

But I turned it off quickly after yelling "WTF!" a dozen times.

1. High schooler Brett Blackmore (Eli Brown)  gets responses from all of the colleges he applied to at the same moment.  WTF?  That can't happen!  The responses trickle in during the spring semester.

2. He gets admitted to seven of the eight, all ultra-exclusive Ivy League, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Brown -- except he got wait-listed at Harvard.  WTF?  That can't happen!  It's not just a matter of high grades and rich parents.  Admissions committees are highly subjective, so what one likes, another will hate.

3. Brett's rich, driven parents (Jerry O'Connell, Natalie Zen) have been schmoozing, donating, and bribing like crazy.  Dad even tries to bribe the holdout Harvard admissions officer by letting him have sex with his wife -- and the horndog agrees!  WTF?  Hey, morally bankrupt jerk, how about letting a kid who deserves it have Brett's spot?

4. A prank goes wrong and blows up the school, so Brett is expelled, and seven of the eight colleges withdraw their offers.  WTF?  That would never happen.  First, it was an accident, and second, once you're admitted, you're admitted.  It would take a lot more than an accidentally explosion to get an admission revoked.

5. So Brett says "F...k it."  He never liked school anyway, he hates the clarinet, and he hates books. He's going to do what he loikes to do So he burns a pile.  WTF?  Did anyone do any research into book burning?  It symbolizes extreme hatred, Nazis burning books by Jewish writers, that sort of thing.

6. What he likes to do: kiss the Girl of His Dreams,  convincing his gay best friend to come out, and spend his parents' money.  He documents all of this online, making him an internet sensation and social media influencer.  So millions of high school kids are going to say "f...k it," cancel their college plans, burn their books, and start spending their parents' money for a living?  WTF?  90% of the parents in the world can't afford that, and the other 10% won't want to.  

College is starting in about a month, online or on-site or both, and millions of students have to decide whether to go back (or enroll as freshmen) or say "f...k it" and keep their jobs doing curb delivery for Door Dash.  This movie won't help convince them that Learning is Cool.

I almost forgot: Brett's best friend (Marcus Scribner, not pictured) is gay, and apparently learns to say "f**k it," or as we said in a kinder, gentler era, "The adults are lying -- we got to be who we are."  But I didn't stick around for his subplot.

White Water Summer/Stand By Me

Although panned by the critics and ignored by most heterosexuals, White Water Summer (1987) became a hit among gay kids and teenagers, maybe for the same reasons that they ignored the critically acclaimed Stand by Me the year before (1986).

 The plot of Stand: four boys (Will Wheaton, River Phoenix, Jerry O'Connell, Corey Feldman) brave a suburban wilderness on a weird quest to see a dead body.  En route they confront their anxieties and bond with each other.

The plot of Summer: four boys (Sean Astin, Jonathan Ward, Matt Adler, K.C. Martel) brave a wilderness on a white water rafting expedition, led by the brutal, abusive Vic (Kevin Bacon).  En route the confront their anxieties and bond with each other.
















The differences:

In Stand, the conflicts involve parentage, family, bullying, and heterosexual destiny.  In Summer, the conflicts involve the boys' relationships with each other and their dismay at the brutality of the adult world.

In Stand, the male body is a site of anxiety and despair; a boy is too fat, or has poor eyesight; leeches attack their crotches.  In Summer, the male body is a thing of beauty. The characters compliment each other, gaze at each other, lie prone against each other.







The boys of Stand are aggressively homophobic, throwing around the term "faggot" and challenging each others' "masculinity."  They are also aggressively heterosexual, discussing boobs, girls, having sex with girls, not having sex with girls.  The boys of Summer mention neither "faggots" nor girls.

Stand ends with the boys parting, and the adult narrator telling us what happened to them -- mostly involvng marriage and family, the "inevitable" loss of boyhood bonds.

Summer ends with the boys together, still friends, the same-sex bond intact.

The Hunks of the Millennium's Worst TV Series, 2000-2009

My clickbait said that these are the worst tv shows of the 21st century, by year.  The ones I remember were decidedly awful, but they still managed to display some hunkitude.  Here are the top hunks of each of the horrible series:

2000: Tucker.  Eli Marienthal, the obnoxious, hetero-horny kid in the American Pie series, plays a foulmouthed, devious, hetero-horny kid trying to win the Girl.

2001: Black Scorpion.  Based on two Roger Corman movies about a female cop/superhero, who fights Frank Gorshin (The Riddler on Batman) as well as Batman himself Adam West.  There were several ex-hunks in attendance, but my favorite is Brent Huff, from softcore porn and actioners, as the firefighter turned super-villain Inferno.

2002: That 80s Show.  Young adults instead of high schoolers, and San Diego instead of Milwaukee, but the same dreadful plotlines and predictable character hetero-romances. Glenn Howerton played the focus character, an aspiring musician who works in a video store (a big deal in the 1980s).

2003: Luis, with the cute Luis Guzman as a...well, I guess Hispanic stereotype.  There seems to be an Asian stereotype in the cast, too, Reggie Lee as Zhing Zhang.  Soap hunk Wes Ramsey (here naked and absworthy) was involved somehow.

2004: Hawaii, a Hawaii 5-0 Clone with by-the-book cop and young, greenhorn partner (played by Sharif Atkins) patrolling Waikiki.

More after the break

The 10 Best Pics of Jerry O'Connell

Jerry O'Connell has been on our minds since My Secret Identity, back in the 1980s, and Sliders (1995-1999).  We went to some horrible movies, like Body Shots, Tomcats, and Dave's Apartment, just for that scene where he takes off his clothes.  We watched some horrible tv series, like Carpoolers and We Are Men, just for the bulge and butt shots.

And we wonder, have we ever seen him in anything that was actually good?

Then he takes off his shirt again, and we think, who cares?

Here are the ten best pics of Jerry O'Connell, carefully selected out of the thousands available.

1. Older Jerry in underwear against a purple couch.

2. Jerry is no stranger to the speedo.

3. Tortured in a way that perfectly highlights his chest, on Sliders.

4. Jerry and his brother Charlie.

5. Jerry and Jax

More after the break