"Meet Me in St. Louis": the movie that spawned the "Have Yourself" monstrosity. With A LOT of d*cks to get you through it, plus Adam Devine and Will Robinson

Link to the n*de dudes 

(I recommend the NSFW version. You'll need to see some d*cks).

December is the cruelest month, asserting that you must feel ecstatic every second of every day or there is something wrong with you, while overwhelming your senses with bright lights and crowds, and assaulting you with melancholic nostalgia and horribly depressing songs.  And the most depressing song of all is the "Have yourself" monstrosity.  One line is guaranteed to push my general Christmas depression into dark despair. Fortunately, singers extend every syllable indefinitely, so I'm usually able to run out of the store or shut off the tv during "Haaaaaaaaaaaaave youuuuuuuurself..."

I thought that I could expiate the demonic power of the monstrosity by researching where it began, with a viewing of Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) when I was nine or ten years old (in the 1970s!).

Opening: It's the summer of 1903, which many adults in the 1940s recalled through the nostalgic haze of childhood. 

It's the era of empires: after the Spanish American War, the U.S. occupied the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, building a colonial empire rivaling those of Britain and France.  

It is the era of the robber barons like Rockefeller and Vanderbilt, who amassed huge fortunes and transported Italian villas brick-by-brick to the new world. 

The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, The Bobbsey Twins, Kim, and The Call of the Wild are on every kid's bookshelf.

Everyone in St. Louis, the 4th largest city in the U.S., is all agog over the upcoming World's Fair, also known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.  Although a paeon to American Exceptionalism, it will have exhibits from 65 countries. They'll be able to see X-ray machines and wireless telephones, gawk at "primitive tribes," and eat hot dogs, hamburgers, and cotton candy for the first time.  And hear the song "Meet Me in St. Louis," about a man whose wife leaves him to go to the fair.  And may never come home again.

Trigger #1: Nazarenes were taught that fairs were Satanic, so this represented evil.  Also, I recalled a song about a boy who is coming home late from some other fair, no doubt the victim of foul play:

Oh, dear, what could the matter be -- Johnny's too late from the fair.

At 5135 Kensington Avenue, a trolley-ride away from downtown, fancy businessman Alonzo Smith (Leon Ames) and his family are eagerly anticipating the fair, and watching as the daughters fall in love. 

Esther (Judy Garland) is in love with the Boy Next Door, John Truitt (Tom Drake, left and top photo), who isn't interested.  She sings:

How can I ignore the boy next door?

I love him more than I can say

Doesn't try to please me, doesn't even tease me

And he never sees me glance his way

You forgot the last line: "Maybe he's gay."

 Trigger #2: I hated Judy Garland after seeing her in the horrifying Wizard of Oz (the Witch counts down the minutes to her death!).  Later, I heard that to ever listen to Judy Garland songs meant that you were gay, which was horrifying (I was extremely homophobic during my closeted high school years).

Tom Drake (top photo and right) was "a deeply closeted gay guy, given to despair." terrified that someone would find out. 

Rose (Lucille Bremmer) is in love with Warren Sheffield (Robert Sully), but he's dating another girl (June Lockhart, who would become the Mom on Lost in Space).

Left: Billy Mumy as her son.  

Danger, Will Robinson!  If you value your Christmas cheer, do not continue!

Little Sister Tootie (Margaret O'Brien) is apparently in love with the Ice Man, with whom she discusses whether St. Louis is the greatest city in the world.  But there's really no discussion; of course it is. And they didn't even have that Arch yet.

Margaret O'Brien,  only 8 years old when she was roped into Meet Me, had a career that lasted through the 2000s.  Her last movie role to date is in This is Our Christmas (2018), where a family tries to save their beloved bakery from an evil developer (Margaret) and her son (Vincent de Paul, left).

There's also another daughter, a son, Lon Junior (Henry H. Daniels, Jr.), a grandpa, and a sarcastic maid (lesbian actress Marjorie Mains)

The Farewell Party: Lon Jr. is leaving for Princeton, so they throw him a party.  The Boy Next Door is invited!   Judy Garland/Esther asks him out, but she waits for him at the trolley all afternoon, and he doesn't show up.  

Hoping to find a new beau, she sings "The Trolley Song":

I went to lose a jolly hour on the trolley

And lost my heart instead

With his light brown derby and his bright green tie

He was quite the handsomest of men

I started to yen so I counted to ten

Then I counted to ten again

Halloween: At a bonfire, Little Sister Tootie claims that The Boy Next Door hit her, so Judy Garland / Esther goes to his house and punches and bites him..  Actually, he was trying to protect her from the police. Esther apologizes, and they kiss and start dating. 

Brace yourself: depressing lyrics after the break.  And a lot more c*cks (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Maxwell Jenkins: The "Lost in Space" guy and his boyfriend visit Paris, with travel tips and n*de Parisian dudes

 

Link to the n*de dudes

When I last profiled Maxwell Jenkins, in April 2025,  the former Lost in Space Will Robinson was starring in The Bondsman with Kevin Bacon and majoring in Global Studies at UCLA.  He had a lot of beefcake and guy-hugging photos on his social media, leading me to conclude that he is "probably gay."

The Bondsman is finished, leaving Max free to concentrate on his studies, plus cheerleading and acrobatics.  In August 2025, he posted some cute and romantic photos of his holiday in France with his boyfriend (so we can move from probablement to sans doute)

I've been to Paris several times, so I immediately recognized the Pompidou Centre, an event venue and art museum. in Les Halles. The Krash Bar, two floors of cavernous corridors full of guys anxious to hook up, is right around the corner.

Everybody who visits Paris for the first time has to see the Eifel Tower.  After that, you give it a miss.

Same with the famous Moulin Rouge in Montmarte. But they have an interesting artists' market nearby, in the Place du Tertre.

Max's boyfriend is Shawn J., a Global Studies major at UCLA who runs the program Refugee Connect, offering direct assistance to refugees around the world.

You're supposed to do that with wine glasses, guys.

N*de Parisian dudes and travel tips after the break. 

Robert Silverberg: Buddy-bonding adventures in outer space shift to "Girls! Girls! Girls!, ruining my childhood.

During the 1960s and 1970s, space exploration was everywhere, on the news, in the toys we unwrapped under the Christmas tree, in our favorite tv shows, and in our before-bed reading.  Robert Silverberg was one of the deans of  juvenile science fiction, presenting us with novel after novel about teenage boys caught up in outlandish outer-space adventures, with intense buddy bonds and girls barely mentioned.  Good beyond hope. 

I read them long after the publication date, and not in chronological order:

The Lost Race of Mars (1960), from my junior high library: a brother and sister living in a colony on Mars get lost, and are rescued by the Older Martians hiding in caves (because they know what happens to the aboriginal population when colonists arrive?) 

Revolt on Alpha C (1955) came from Scholastic Book Club, catalogs that were passed out in class several times a years: you ordered up to five books, and they arrived a few weeks later (my parents disapproved of reading, so I claimed that they were all "for school"): On a colony on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri, 20-year old Larry rejects his father's plans for his life and rebels against the Establishment. Groovy, man!   The cover art, a boy floating through space upside down, was reminiscent of Will Robinson in the opening credits of Lost in Space.

Left: the modern Will Robinson and his boyfriend

Starman's Quest (1958): Twin brothers buddy-bond in space.  The version I checked out of the Rock Island Public Library was generic, line-drawings of the two boys in space suits, with no Martian beefcake statue or muscle-suits.

More after the break

Maxwell Jenkins: The "Lost in Space" guy all grown up, doing acrobatics, hanging with Kevin Bacon, showing his abs

  

Link to the n*de dudes

I was surprised to discover that Kevin Bacon's son on The Bondsman (2025) is played by Maxwell Jenkins, Will Robinson on the Lost in Space reboot, all grown up and rather buffed.

Wait -- how did that happen.  Isn't he a little kid?

Time for a profile.

Born in 2005, Max and his sister Samantha grew up performing in the Midnight Circus with their parents, Jeffrey and Julie Jenkins.  A 2017 newspaper article states that they had raised $900,000 for the Chicago Parks

Max still performs on occasion, but his first love is the theater.  He began appearing on camera in the tv series tv series Betrayal (2013-14), about a woman cheating on her husband.  Probably playing her young son.

Then came guest spots on Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, Sensate, Joe Bell, and Family Man.

And Lost in Space (2018-21), a dramatic take on the 1960s camp classic, with many colonists, not just the Robinsons, zapped onto a weird alien planet -- or two or three, as the series progressed.

I didn't actually care for it -- too much angst and agony, and not enough beefcake.

Although Toby Stephens, who played Will's dad John Robinson, has displayed his c*ock and buns elsewhere.

More after the break

"The Bondsman": Kevin Bacon fights demons, sings country-western music, trunks Tater. With Kevin's d*ck and Will Robinson's muscles

A bail bond service will pay your bail, so you can stay out of jail while awaiting your trial.  If you don't show up, the service loses that money, so they hire a bail bondsman to track you down.  Regulations differ from state to state, but generally bail bondsmen cannot carry guns, enter property without permission, or use force to arrest the bail jumper.

But not this Bondsman, played by Kevin Bacon in the new paranormal drama on Amazon Prime.

Link to the d*cks and muscles

Left: Kevin being spanked in 1979

Scene 1: Night.  A pick-up truck drives down a desolate highway in rural Georgia and stops at the Holiday Hotel -- the kind where the rooms open right onto the parking spots, where you used to stay before the Holiday Inns took over. 

Left: Kevin about to get sliced and diced in 1980

The Bondsman looks at a photo of his target, - wraps his gun belt around his waist (nice crotch shot) -- and bangs on the hotel room door.  

The guy inside yells for him to "F*ck off," so he he puts a hornet's nest in the air conditioning duct, and when the guy rushes out, nabs him.  

But he's not the target, he's Billy Earle (Daniel Norris), who's supposed to be in prison. 

The tip was a fake, to lure him to the hotel!  Billy's brother appears out of nowhere and shoots the Bondsman across the parking lot, then slits his throat.  He dies a very bloody death.  Wait -- if it was a set up, why did Billy hide out inside the hotel room?  Shouldn't he be waiting to ambush the Bondsman the moment he gets out of his car?

Scene 2: The extremely dead Bondsman comes back to life, interred behind the dry wall in a hotel room.  He pushes through and examines the gaping hole in his neck.   Better start wearing ascots, buddy.

Tater (Mike Kaye) comes in, talking on the phone about how hardcore the Earle Brothers are, and his parents are starting to charge him rent.  He screams; the Bondsman knocks him to the ground.

He explains that the Earle Brothers hired him to burn down the hotel for the insurance money, but he didn't know there was an undead body inside.  

The Bondsman handcuffs him, shoves him in the trunk of his car, covers his neck hole with duct tape, and drives away.

Scene 3: The Bondsman driving recklessly down a two-lane highway.  I guess if you're dead, it doesn't matter.   He arrives at Halloran Bail Bonds, located in a gas station in Landry, "a fictional town brimming with cases of demonic possession"

Phone message: He' s joined the Pot o'Gold Corporate Family.  Pot o'Gold is the title of the episode, so it must be important.

Leaving the whimpering Tater in the trunk, the Bondsman goes to the bathroom and checks his neck hole -- it's healed.  

Scene 3: He rushes over to the house across the street and tells his Mama that he needs to find the Earle Brothers right away -- "Ugh, what's he doing here?" It's Pastor Ron (Dave Macomber), who kicked Mama out of the church.  She can come back, if the Bondsman stops detaining skips during the services.  Are there a lot of bail jumpers who go to Sunday services in Landry?

Mama: The Earle Brothers got out of jail; their bail was posted by Lucky Callahan, who is dating the Bondsman's ex-wife.  Mama hates the "damn Yankee"; she won't have her grandson raised by a Boston Red Socks fan!   So Lucky posted the Earle Brothers' bail and hired them to kill the Bondsman just so he wouldn't get back together with his ex?  That's a big grudge.

Scene 4: Dang it, let Tater out of that trunk!    The Bondsman forges Lucky's name on an arrest warrant.  Another robocall from Pot o"Gold!  He unplugs his phone, but they are calling all of his cell phones, too.

Next the Bondsman puts some murder and body-disposal tools in the trunk with Tater and drives to a nightclub, The Boxcar ("Hog Roast Hoe Down Next Week!").   Lucky's car is outside: "Boston Red Sox Fans."  

The joint is huge on the inside.  Ex-Wife Maryanne (Jennifer Nettles) is singing "When Will I Be Loved," by Linda Ronstadt:

I've been cheated, been mistreated.  When will I be loved?

I've been put down, I've been pushed 'round. When will I be loved?

She sings the entire song -- the high point of the episode.

Suddenly Hub spots Red Sox Fan Lucky, and follows him through the kitchen, past the line cook (Brandon Alston, left) into the back:

More after the break

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

Is "Lost in Space" Worth the Trip?

Baby Boomers remember Lost in Space  (1965-68) fondly for its crazy plotlines and endearing characters: the Robot, the blustering gay-vague Dr. Smith, cute-as-a-button Will Robinson.

But you really had to be about eight years old to enjoy it without noticing that it was Gilligan's Island in space: seven stranded castaways and steady stream of visitors, space pirates, space gypsies, space hippies, and miscellaneous weirdos, who could help them get home,but don't.

There have been a number of remakes, pastiches, and sequels: a 1973 animated movie, with different characters, except for Dr. Smith; a 1998 movie stunt-casting Matt LeBlanc as pilot Don West; a 2004 movie that loses the family in the midst of an alien invasion; a 2015 sequel that gets the Robinsons back to Earth; and the latest, a reboot series on Netflix.

Is the latest worth the trip?

I've dipped into several episodes.

The campiness is gone. 

 The humor is gone. 

The aliens are gone, except for the Robot, who looks like a man in a space suit.  

The strange new worlds are gone.  The Robinsons and other survivors are stranded in Yosemite National Park (actually several provincial parks in British Columbia).

 What's left is Lost: the castaways struggle to survive, forming alliances, promoting hidden agendas, driving around in their runabouts, having conversations about the importance of family.

The heterosexual nuclear family is everything.  

No gay characters, no gay subtexts.  The bumbling, gay-vague Jonathan Harris as Dr. Smith has been replaced by the tough, no-nonsense Parker Posey. 

I saw Victor Dhar and Vijay Dhar in the cast, and dared to hope that they were a gay couple.  Nope, father and son.

No beefcake, hardly any men.  The original had some cute guys to look at, John Robinson, Don West, and for the kids, Will Robinson..  The remake does cast several hunks: Toby Stephens (top), Raza Jaffrey as Victor Dhar  (second photo), and Ignacio Serricchio as Don West (below).

But what you see on screen is mostly women and a little kid (12-year old Maxwell Jenkins as Will Robinson).

Discussing the importance of family.

Executive producer Ken Burns has also produced: How Playboy Changed the World;  Holly's World; The Bunny House; The Girls Next Door; Bridget's Sexiest Beaches; and Inside the Playboy Mansion.

So I'm guessing that gay characters and beefcake are on the bottom of his list of priorities.

Right next to creating an interesting plot.