The Gay Plot Arc of Robbie Hobbie

 

Hollie Hobbie (2018-2021) is a Hulu series about a young girl with Big Dreams in a small town.  Who would make a tv series about the 1970s doll who wore 19th century outfits?  And more importantly, was older brother Robbie Hollie, gay-coded, like older brothers in many other teencoms?  So I went through the entire first season, fast-forwarding to Robbie's scenes.

Season 1 Episode 1: No connection to the doll, except someone dresses like her during the opening credits.  We meet Hollie's parents (Dad Evan Buliung, left), boyfriend (Hunter Dillon, below), best friends, little sister Heather (the bratty, manipulate younger sibling cliche), and Robbie (the dimwitted jock cliche).

Ep. 2: Robbie's first B plot, sneaking into a bull pen with some friends to take photographs.  He doesn't get one, so he returns later with a girl,  and accidentally lets the bull out.  It then eats the an important cucumber.

Ep 3: Robbie teaches little sister how to arm wrestle, so she can beat her frenemy and future boyfriend Levi, thus proving that girls are better than boys.  It's hard to distinguish him on fast-forward, since he looks a lot like Hollie's boyfriend.

Ep 4: Robbie tries to blame the destruction of the cucumber on Hollie's boyfriend.  It's a big mess.  Finally he comes clean.  No heterosexual interest yet, unless you count his bull pen companion.

Ep 5: As punishment for the cucumber deal, Robbie and Hollie have to build a chicken coop.  But Robbie blows it off to play football.  Hollie yells "I hope you break your leg," and he does!

Ep 6: Robbie on crutches.  He can't play football anymore, so he has lost his identity.  Dad assigns him the job of fixing a broken tractor, to teach him responsibility or something. No heterosexual interest yet, but some macho football stuff.  There are gay football players in real life, of course, but it's not a standard tv trope.

Ep 7: No centric.

Ep 8: Hollie and her boyfriend run away together.  I thought this was Canada, but it turns out to be small-town Wisconsin.  In the B plot, Robbie and Little Sister accidentally break the urn containing the ashes of their beloved pet, and somehow Dad mistakes it for brownies.

Ep 9:  Ulp -- Robbie is all lovey-dovey with Lyla, who appeared in the bull pen episode, but hasn't had any scenes with him since.   He's got a new life plan -- skip college and become  Lyla's househusband.  He proposes, and she says yes, to the consternation of the parents.  But it turns out that they were just playing a joke, to get even with the parents for pushing college so aggressively.  So, was he actually dating Lyla, or was the relationship part of the joke?

To find out, I watched the last episode she appears in, Season 3, Episode 9:  Robbie's artisanal jam has become a hit.  A company in Madison wants to hire him to start a jam line.  Little Sister Heather calls them and says he doesn't want the job,  so he won't leave town.  He is angry, of course, but she explains that she doesn't want to lose her best friend (Isn't Madison like an hour away?).  Robbie  opens up his business right there in town, so problem solved. 

Robbie and Lyla don't have any scenes together.  She has become one of Hollie's friends.  

Season 3, Episode 10.  The series finale.  Hollie is moving to Paris for a singing job.  Grandpa is getting married.  At the wedding reception, Robbie is dancing...with a guy!  It's a "blink and you miss it" shot in the final montage of the last episode. But it's there.

So...couldn't Robbie open his artisanal jam shop in West Hollywood?

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

The Land of Ziggy Zaggy

 

When I was in kindergarten, first, and second grade, we lived in Racine, Wisconsin, 70 miles north of Chicago.   I have only a few memories from that period: going to the beach a few blocks from our house, going to the zoo, marrying the boy next door, my second grade teacher making me stand in the corner for refusing to square dance (she wouldn't believe that it was forbidden for Nazarenes, and at the age of 7 I was in no position to ask the preacher to telephone her).

And a very weird memory of my Dad being proud of me for watching a children's tv program.

Dad was in his late 20s, just out of the Navy, rather athletic, a stalwart Democrat and an avid Nazarene.  He worked on the assembly line at the J. I. Case Company, a job he would keep for the next 30 years.

The memory is vague:  Dad is sitting on the couch, half reading the newspaper, half snoozing, so he must have just gotten home from work, around 4:00 pm.  My brother and I are watching tv.  

Mom comes in from the kitchen and asks "What do you want to watch now?  Romper Room?"

"No," I say.  "The Land of Ziggy Zaggy."

Dad looks up.  "Ziggy Zaggy?  What kind of kookie show is that?"

Mom changes the channel, and we see a woman walking onto the stage, singing about the mystical land.

Dad laughs.  "Ok, I get it now!  You're starting early, just like your old dad!  A chip off the old block!  Come up here and sit by me."

I sit on the couch, and he puts his arm around me.  I'm thrilled.  Dad is usually kind of critical,but today I'm a chip off the old block!  I did something right, something that made him proud of me. But what?

50 years later, I don't remember anything about the show except for a woman singing an invitation to visit "The land of Ziggy Zaggy."  That title doesn't exist, but after a few searches on alternates (zaggo, zongi, zuggi), I found it:

It was a local Chicago children's program, The Land of Ziggy Zoggo. Also called The Nancy Berg Show, after the host.  Short lived, 1963-65.  We only moved to Racine in the summer of 1965, so I must have watched at the end of the run, just before I started kindergarten.

There's a full episode on youtube.  Very amateurish, painted backdrop for a set, only one performer.  Three sketches, about 5 minutes each.

1. Miss Nancy visits a Middle Eastern country, where she meets a Go-Go Genie (herself) selling magic carpets in a parody of talky used-car salespeople.  She buys the carpet, but it doesn't fly!  She criticizes herself for being conned, then kicks the carpet.  Now it works!  She then flies through the clouds while singing. 

2. The kimono-clad Miss Sukayaki (Nancy again), with a stereotyped "Ah so" accent, goofs on the  "ancient Japanese custom of flower arrangement." 

3. Miss Nancy flies a balloon to the African jungle to show film footage of various animals: a rhinocerous, a lion, a leopard.

No beefcake, no buddy-bonding, actually no male characters, but the exotic locations must have been appealing to me as a kindergartener.  And maybe the hint of social satire: you may get conned by a fast-talking salesperson.

But why was Dad so pleased?  Why was I "starting early" and a "chip off the block" for wanting to watch The Land of Ziggy Zoggo?

After watching the episode, I conclude that he was pushing heteronormativity at  me.  He assumed that, at the age of  4 1/2, I was crushing on Miss Nancy.