The 20 Gayest TV Programs of My Childhood

 

These are the tv shows that helped me figure it out in the silence of my childhood and teen years (roughly 1965 to 1978), through gay-vague characters, buddy-bonding subtexts, queer codes, or beefcake.

1. Gilligan's Island.  None of the male castaways displayed the slightest interest in girls, Gilligan and the Skipper were obviously boyfriends, and there was a lot of beefcake.

2. The Beverly Hillbillies.  Jethro Bodine (sigh) plus a lot of Hollywood heartthrobs who weren't particularly into girls, and the nearly-out lesbian Miss Jane.

3. Dark Shadows.  I ran across the schoolyard every day to catch the last 10-15 minutes of the Gothic soap opera, with Willie Loomis in love with the vampire Barnabas.

4. Run, Buddy, Run.  Buddy is on the run from the mob after he overhears them discussing...um...in the steam room...um...sorry, I was distracted by Buddy's chest.

5. Bewitched.  Samantha gave up the witch world for suburban heteronormativity, but she couldn't suppress her queer desires forever.  Plus a gay-in-plain-sight Uncle Arthur.

 6. H.R. Pufnstuf.  The Dragon and the Witch fight for control of Jimmy's...um...flute.  But there's really no question: he likes dudes.

7. The Mighty Hercules.  "Softness in his eyes, iron in his thighs."  That's still the way I like my men.

8. Lost in Space.  Every other boy on the block wanted to be Will Robinson.  I wanted to date him.

9. Star Trek, the Original Series.  I swear, I remember Sulu (top photo) and Chekhov sharing a room.

10. Spin and Marty.  The summer camp boyfriends aired during the 1950s, but I saw them in after-school reruns during the 1970s.

More after the break

Craig Hundley: Angel-Headed Hipster plays with the Big Boys

In the Star Trek episode "And the Children Shall Lead" (1967), which Leonard Nimoy rates as the worst of the original series, an alien "angel"  brainwashes a group of children into taking control of the Enterprise.  

Craig  Hundley is the lanky redhead in the weird striped smock -- about a foot taller than the others, way too old to play their "chasing each other" game, looking heavily embarrassed.

No wonder -- the others were between 7 and 10 years old, and Craig was 13.

In case you were wondering, they were; Pamela Ferdin, the first voice of Lucy in Peanuts movies.

Cesar Belli, son of Melvin Belli (the alien)

Brian Tochi, who went on to Revenge of the Nerds and the Police Academy movies.

Mark Don Brown

Brian Tochi

Melvin Caesar Belli

Here he takes over the bridge.  I was sure that Chekhov and Sulu (Walter Koenig, George Takei) were boyfriends.

Craig recently reunited with George at the L.A. Opera, and thanked him for "being an advocate for so many important causes."  The word is "gay," buddy.

More after the break

Dan Shor: Tron, Star Trek, an Excellent Adventure, the South Pacific, and the Backside that Changed the World.

Link to the n*de dudes

Sometime during the days of Blockbuster Video, we rented Strange Behavior (1981), mainly because the cover blurb said something about Galesburg, Illinois, which is near the Quad Cities. 

We weren't aware that it was written by a gay man (Bill Condon), it stars a gay man (Dan Shor), and it features something that would change movies forever.

It's got a silly plot about a crazed college professor named Dr. Le Sange (Dr. Blood), who mind-controls the town teenagers into blood-crazed monsters.

No Galesburg sites are appear mentioned; Apparently they just picked a random town in the Midwest so there would be cornfields and stereotyped farm folk. It was actually filmed in New Zealand.

The focus character is named Pete Brady, which no doubt caused a lot of eye-rolls and derisive laughs in 1981: Viewers would instantly think of the kid from The Brady Bunch (Christopher Knight, who grew up into a muscle hunk.)

This photo teases a gay-subtext buddy bond between focus character Pete Brady (har har) and Oliver (Marc McClure), but the movie is actually heteronormative, with boy-girl romance all the way down.  

I'd rather date Marc McClure, loveable nerd Jimmy Olsen in Superman (1978).

 And Dan Shor, the guy who plays Pete, is not handsome. He's got a long face, a Romanesque nose, and a lantern jaw.

But none of that is important.

What's important is a scene early in the movie where Pete Brady (har har) and his father (not Mike Brady, darn it) have just gotten up in the morning.  Pete approaches him to discuss something.  N*de.  He then moves toward the shower.  We get an extended shot of his backside.

 

It wasn't the first n*de backside on film, but it was the first extended shot that wasn't for a comedic purpose.

There is no other n*dity, male or female, in the film, not even a shirtless shot.  What was the directorial decision to film Dan Shor that way?

In an interview, Dan said that it was a political act, an acknowledgement of gay potential in the homophobic 1980s. It disrupted the heterosexual male gaze and paved the way for movies to present images of male beauty.

"And it sealed my popularity in West Hollywood," Dan joked.  Or maybe he wasn't joking.

More after the break

Chris Demetral: If you think the 1990s teen idol is gay, "Dream On"

Star Trek fans will recognize Chris Demetral from his role as Commander Riker's 14-year old son, Jean-Luc.  He appeared in a 1990 episode of The Next Generation,  a hologram simulation created by aliens to fool Riker into revealing sensitive information.

But come on, Riker's kid?  Trekkies were overwhelmed with glee, and started fan-fictioning Jean-Luc into real life adventures.

The 14-year old Michigan native had only been in Hollywood for two years, but he had already landed guest spots on several high-profile tv series, including Mr. Belvedere, The Wonder Years, and The New Lassie, and he would go on to guest on several more.

He was most famous for playing Jeremy Tupper, son of book editor Martin Tupper (Brian Benben) on the early HBO series Dream On (1990-96). Advertised as an "adult sitcom," it mostly featured Martin pursuing women and showing his backside).   Jeremy has his share of dates and romances, and even has teenage nookie during the December 18, 1993 episode.

But the heterosexist part didn't prohibit buddy-bonding elsewhere. In the spring of 1993, Chris became a series regular on Lois and Clark, playing a homeless teenager named Jack, whom Clark/Superman (Dean Cain) takes in.  Designed as a replacement for Jimmy Olsen, with some buddy-bonding and nick of time rescues, Jack didn't click with Superman purists, and he was written out.

In Blank Check (1994), Chris plays Damian, the brother of the 12-year old  (Brian Bonsall of Family Ties) who cashes a check for $1,000,000.  Damian's relationship with his brother Ralph (Michael Faustino, younger brother of David Faustino) is called into question when a computer repeats "Ralph and Damian sleep butt to face."

More after the break

Michael Welch: Flying starships, fighting zombies, getting baked, showing his physique

Link to the d*ck pics

You probably remember Michael Welch from the Twilight saga, about a girl torn between vampire and werewolf boyfriends (Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner).  He plays a human who has an unrequited crush on her.

Michael had sharp features and striking eyes that make him look angelic, demonic, or alien, so he was often cast as a  gay-vague outsider, even if his characters sometimes experienced unrequited heterosexual passions.

He began his acting career at the age of 10 in Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)  as Artim, a boy from a non-technological planet who bonds with the android Data.  performance won him a Young Artist Award.

Next came a series of paranormal and science fiction roles, including a clone of Colonel Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) who just wants to be a normal teenager, on Stargate SG-1.  

He guest-starred in a number of sitcoms and dramatic series, including a memorable role as a new neighbor who falls for the brainy Malcolm in Malcolm in the Middle.

On Joan of Arcadia (2003-2005), Michael plays Luke Girardi, genius brother of the girl who talks to God,  He has a homoromantic buddy-bond with his best friend Friedman (Aaron Himmelstein), although he's also girl-crazy.

In The United States of Leland (2003), his mentally-challenged Ryan is murdered by classmate Leland, Ryan Gosling, who is dating his sister.

The Grind (2009) is about a grifter, Luke (C. Thomas Howell), who depends on his friends Josh and Courtney (Michael, Tanya Allen) to get him out of a jam. They start a sleazy website, but things go sour, and Luke has to rescue them from the Mexican mafia.

In Lost Dream (2009), college student Perry (Michael) falls for nihilistic free-spirit Giovanni (Shaun Sipos), who is involved in risky sex, drugs, and games of Russian roulette.  He must save Gio before it's too late.

As we often find, teenage gay-subtext roles give way to a thoroughly heteronormative adulthood.  Hansel and Gretel Get Baked, 2013, about a witch who lures teenagers into her house and drugs them with marijuana before literally baking them for dinner.  

More after the break

What Happened to the Asian Beefcake?

During the 1960s, there were only five male performers of East or Southeast Asian ancestry in regular or recurring role on tv: the cook Hop Sing (Victor Sen Yung) on Bonanza, the valet Kato (Bruce Lee) on The Green Hornet, Sulu (George Takei) on Star Trek, and two assisting detectives on Hawaii Five-O.  Mostly servants and sidekicks.  Only Sulu was ever displayed shirtless, and that was to signify that he had become mentally unstable.

In spite of Bruce Lee's influence in popularizing Asian muscle, the 1970s were even worse: Keone Young (right) as a science-nerd teenager on Room 222, the dissolute, hard-gambling dtective Yemana (Jack Soo) on Barney Miller, teen hangout proprietor Arnold (Pat Morita) on Happy Days, and Sam (Robert Ito), lab assistant on Quincy, M.E.  Hawaiian singer Don Ho had a brief daytime tv show.

There weren't even any Asians in commercials.  I remember one: in 1974, a laundry guy (Calvin Jung, left) claims that he gets clothes clean with an "ancient Chinese secret."  But the joke is: he and his wife both speak colloquial American English ("My husband, some hotshot!"), and he actually uses Calgon detergent.  According to Jung, just speaking with an American accent was a breakthrough.

There were some hunks among the sidekicks and servants, but again, not a button out of place.

A breakthrough of sorts came in the late 1980s.  On 21 Jump Street (1987-91), Ioki (Dustin Nguyen) was one of the detectives assigned to go undercover in a high school.  He didn't get quite the on-screen exposure of his white costars (Johnny Depp and Peter DeLuise), but lots of shirtless shots and artistic nudes appeared, and he bared almost all in Playgirl. 

Dean Cain, Clark Kent in the Superman update Lois and Clark (1993-97), was a veritable sex symbol, shirtless or underwear-clad in nearly every episode, his massive pecs and shoulders a mainstay of teen magazines.

In the 2000s,  Daniel Dae Kim (left) and Ken Leung lent their sculpted physiques to Lost.  

But they were exceptions.  Today, Asian representation on tv is almost as bad as gay representation: less than 2% of regular or recurring roles, lots of servants and sidekicks, lots of humorously asexual nerds, without so much as a flexed bicep.

See also: 10 Hot/Hung Photos of Lee Doud and random nude dudes.

Michael Forest: Playing a God of Masculine Beauty

The September 22nd, 1967 episode of Star Trek had the cryptic title "Who Mourns for Adonais?"

Even when I grew up and studied English literature, the title was still cryptic.  It comes from "Adonais," an elegy written by Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley for his dead friend, John Keats.

He took the name from Adonis, the ancient Greek god of masculine beauty.

So audiences were supposed to expect a god of masculine beauty?

They got one: 37 year old Michael Forest as Apollo, an alien who was mistaken for a god by the ancient Greeks, and who still expects worship.  It takes a femme fatale scientist to subdue him.

The heterosexist plotline didn't detract from the image of Michael Forest as Apollo, clad in a toga, with a laurel leaf, his bare chest, shoulders, and arms visible, one of the iconic beefcake shots of the Boomer generation.

Although never a beefcake star of the Henry Willson stable, Michael managed to display his bare chest several times during the 1950s, in guest-spots in Westerns (as an Indian) and swinging-bachelor dramas, and in horror-sci fi movies like Beast from Haunted Cave (1959), 

He fell somewhat short of the superlative physique necessary to cash in on the 1960s bodybuilder craze; his only peplum was Atlas (1961), directed by Roger Corman.

But he worked steadily through the 1960s, with guest spots across the tv dial, and starring roles in movies.

One of his most important was Deathwatch (1966), based on the Jean Genet play about two prison inmates, Maurice (Paul Mazursky) and Lefranc (Leonard Nimoy) competing for the affections the hot, muscular Green-Eyes (Forest).

That's right, Leonard Nimoy playing a gay character, a year before he became Spock.

(This actually wasn't his first; he played a hustler in Jean Genet's The Balcony in 1963)..

After Star Trek, Michael continued to take off his shirt a lot, playing Achilles (1972), a motorcycle thug (1972), a spaghetti Western Man with No Name (1972), and Agamemnon (1973).  Plus theater and lots of voice-over work (look for him in the 2008 documentary Adventures in Voice Acting).

In 2013, he reprised the character of Apollo on the web series Star Trek Continues (2013).

Apparently heterosexual in real life, he has retired to Walla Walla, Washington.

Love Boat/Fantasy Island: Love Won't Hurt Anymore

During the decade that began on September 24th, 1977 and ended on February 27th, 1987, I graduated from high school and college, got my M.A. in English, spent a year on Hell-fer-Sartain, and moved to West Hollywood.  I spent my Saturday nights going on dates, going out with friends, cruising in the bars, at movies, dinners, concerts, potlucks, or as a last resort at the gym.

Only when I was sick, studying for finals, or back in Rock Island for the holidays did I find myself staying home on Saturday nights.

And when I was home on a Saturday night, I watched Gimme a Break, Love Sidney, We Got It Made, Magnum PI, anything but those nauseating anthology series, Love Boat and Fantasy Island.  

But my parents watched.  All of the older people watched.

Love Boat (1977-87) was set on a cruise ship, where the randy Captain (Gavin MacLeod), ship's doctor (Bernie Kopell), purser (Fred Grandy), bartender (Ted Lange), and activities director (Lauren Tewes) made a hobby of facilitating three heterosexual romances per episode (two serious, one funny).

A sports writer and a tennis pro, a minister and an exotic dancer, a chauffeur and his employer, a rock star and a deaf girl, a celebrity and a tabloid reporter, an advice columnist who can't find love, a magician who can't find love.  It goes on like that. For 248 episodes.

Gay people were unknown, except for an episode where two buddies are mistaken for a gay couple.  By the end of the episode, they both find love (with women).  Problem solved.

But I understand that there were there were lots of guest stars in Speedos lounging around the Cabana Deck, like perennial 1970s fave Bert Convy (top photo).

Fantasy Island (1977-84) was more of the same.  The mysterious Mr. Roarke (Ricardo Montalban, known as Khan on Star Trek) and his assistant Tattoo (Herve Villechaize) ran a tropical resort where, for an additional fee of $20,000 (waived for charity cases), he would arrange to fulfill your "fantasy."  Two or three per episode, alternating between serious and  funny.

In the early years, the fantasies involved nothing more than props and actors, as guests wanted to be Latin lovers or cowboys or movie stars.  Later, Mr. Roarke was able to travel in time, conjure up ghosts and genies, and make a deal with the goddess Aphrodite to fulfill the guests' fantasies.  The Devil even dropped.

Here, too, most fantasies ended with hetero-romance.

No gay people existed, but again, there were guest stars with their shirts off, like Bert Convy again.

I always wanted to ask the old people:  why?  Why do you need yet another dose of heterosexism?  You've already married and reproduced, your life is nearly over (actually, in 1977, my Dad was younger than I am now).  What's the "love, love, love!" brainwashing for?

An article in TV Guide explained: "Love Boat for people who live in Iowa and can't get dressed up and go out on Saturday night."

The dig at Iowa roiled me -- hey, we had four-star restaurants, opera, theater, and the symphony!

But I understood -- these Saturday night "love, love, love!" marathons were to keep them assuaged near the end of their lives: yes, yes, it was all worthwhile, marriage and family was a noble goal, the only thing worth doing.

See also: Love, American Style and Ricardo Montalban.

David Soul

David Soul never quite made it as a teen idol.  Maybe because he wasn't visible enough.  He appeared on The Merv Griffin Show in 1966-67 wearing a mask (so people would like him for his music, not his face).

He appeared in a 1967 episode of Star Trek, but in alien makeup that made him unrecognizable.


He appeared on the beefcake-heavy Western Here Come the Brides (1968-70), but his star was almost completely overshadowed by Bobby Sherman.

But he did fine as an adult actor.  In Starsky and Hutch (1975-79), he played the shy, intellectual, gay-coded Detective Hutch to Paul-Michael Glaser's tough, streetwise Detective Starsky.

The duo was explicitly a romantic couple, not shy about displays of physical affection, openly stating that they loved each other.  Producer Aaron Spelling called it "tv's first heterosexual love affair."  And although they investigated the usual 1970s crimes involving strippers, call girls, and various women with large breasts, there were very few girlfriends introduced to distract them from their buddy-bonding.  

Of course, there was also lots of homophobia.  Gay-themed episodes of 1970s sitcoms usually involved a visiting high school buddy announcing that he's gay, but drama series always had a gay murder victim, and in order to investigate, the detectives had to enter  his sleazy underworld, full of pomaded misfits who simper and leer at each other.

During Starsky and Hutch, David found his singing career taking off.  His "Don't Give Up on Us" hit #1 on the charts in the U.S. and in Britain.  Unfortunately, his songs tended to be heterosexist.    In "Silver Lady," which hit #1 in Britain, he's a drifter until he finds salvation in the lady's arms.

He also found time to fall in love with Lance Kerwin in Salem's Lot (1979).

Currently a British citizen, David  does a lot of acting on stage and in film.  He is careful to point out that he is not gay in real life; however, he is a strong supporter of gay rights.

13 Writers and Artists of the Romantic Era That You Didn't Know Were Gay

When I was studying for my M.A. in English I had to select two adjacent historical eras for my Comprehensive Exams.  The problem is, gay content seems to go up and down, a homophobic wasteland (Medieval, Restoration-Augustan, early Victorian) followed by a period of homoerotic exuberance (Renaissance, Romantic, late Victorian).

For my first period, I chose the Victorian Era (1830-1910), mostly because the professor of my graduate seminar, was gay-- or at least we thought he was.  For my second period, I chose the Romantic Era (1770-1830), because the poets were young and cute, and their lives seemed informed by homosocial and homoerotic bonds.  Later I discovered that several were gay in real life. 

The top 13 gay or gay-subtext literary figures:

1. Hugh Walpole  (1717-1797), who built a pseudo-Medieval castle, Strawberry Hill, to entertain the A-list gays of the early Romantic era.

 2. and 3. The Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Charlotte Butler (1739-1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755-1831), who eloped, set up housekeeping, and entertained many of the artistic and literary greats of the era.

4. Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), who forged a series of Medieval poems during his teens, and upset over his lack of recognition, committed suicide.  Many of the other Romantic poets revered him as a beautiful youth martyred by an uncomprehending world. He has only appeared on screen once, in a 1970 German movie, played by Ulrich Faulhaber.

 5. William Blake (1757-1822), who advocated for "free love" and illustrated his poetry with lovingly-detailed, super-muscular male nudes

 6. William Beckford  (1760-1844), who built his own pseudo-Medieval castle, Lansdowne Tower, where he kept his huge art collection. 

7. William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and 8. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), who roomed together and walked across England together (in the company of William's sister Dorothy).In Pandaemonium (2000), they are played by John Hannah and Linus Roach.

9. George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), who hung out with attractive men, especially Greeks and Italians, and shared a house in Rome with fellow poet Percy Shelley. I hadn't yet read Byron and Greek Love (1985), but I thought Manfred highly homoerotic.  In Gothic (1986), Byron was played by Gabriel Byrne (seen here holding hands with Shelley, played by Julian Sand).

10. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), who cohabitated with Byron and wrote Adonais to mourn the death of the beautiful young poet John Keats (check out the beefcake in the Star Trek episode "Who Mourns for Adonais". Besides, his wife, Mary Shelley, wrote Frankenstein.  In Frankenstein Unbound (1990), a scientist goes back in time to meet Shelley (gay performer Michael Hutchence, top photo) and the real Victor Frankenstein (Raul Julia).

11. Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), who introduced the gay-coded Dandy to England.

12. John Keats (1795-1821), whose love for Charles Armitage Brown overwhelmed his love for Fanny Brawne (which was never consummated), and wrote of pure beauty much more often than the beauty of women.  In Bright Star (2009), which makes the romantic triangle overt, Keats is played by gay actor Ben Whishaw (left), and Brown by Paul Schneider.

13. Gay artist Henry Fuseli.

Frankenstein, vampires, gay subtexts, and beefcake.  It beats boring, 800-page long Victorian novels about who is in love with whom.

More of Ike Eisenmann

Speaking of Ike Eisenmann, most Boomer boys are so fixated on his beefcake scenes in Return from Witch Mountain (1978), or maybe his superlative performance as a racist in tight jeans who has a change of heart on The Jeffersons  that they don't remember a decade of buddy-bonding and tight jeans.

1. The Amazing Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon (1976), an ABC Afterschool Special about the friendship between shy, retiring Duffy (Ike) and outgoing school hunk Peter (Lance Kerwin).

2. The Fantastic Journey (1977), which had nothing to do with either of the two similarly titled movies (one about shrinking scientists, and the other about a dog and cat finding their way home).  This one was a precursor of Lost, about people from various times and places trapped on an island in the Bermuda Triangle.  Ike played the teenage Scott Jordan, who hung out with the mysterious Varian (Jared Martin).  There was also a prissy gay-coded villain, played by Roddy McDowell.

3. The "High Explosive" episode of Chips (1978), with Ike as a country boy who fires a pellet gun into traffic.  He's just aching for some hand-on-shoulder big brothering from Ponch (Erik Estrada), and favors us with several shots of an amazing aptitude beneath the belt.

4. The "Phantom of the Roller Coaster" episode of Wonder Woman (1979).  Roller coaster enthusiast Randy (Ike), who again wears extremely tight jeans, buddy-bonds with David (Jared Martin again), without realizing that David's disfigured twin brother is the sinister "phantom."

5. Preston, Scotty's nephew, in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan (1982), whom Kirk calls "a tiger," and who dies trying to save his fellow crew members.