How to Eat Fried Worms: They Tease You Because They Like You. With gay subtexts and Luke Benward grown up

When I was bullied as a kid, my parents said "They tease you because they like you."  No, they assault you because they hate you.

Before about 1980, bullying -- physical or verbal assault -- was considered an inescapable part of life. Parents and teachers thought that intervention would turn the victim into a "sissy," so they did nothing, except maybe punish you for "tattling." 

Bullying still appears in tv shows and movies aimed at children, who are told, over and over, that you can end it by "standing up for yourself."   In Dear Santa (2024), a kid with dyslexia stands up to bully Gavin Munn (and wins the Girl of His Dreams) with a little help from Satan.

Thomas Rockwell's 1973 novel How to Eat Fried Worms does not involve bullying.  Billy bets his friend Adam that he can eat 15 worms, one a day for 15 days. If he wins, Adam will give him $50 for a new minibike.  Everyone is perfectly friendly throughout.  

And, coincidently, there is no Girl for Billy to win.

But the 2006 movie version is all about bullying.  New kid in school Billy (Luke Benward) becomes the target of raging bully Joe (Adam Hicks) and his cronies.   They prank him with a thermos full of worms, and then force him into a bet: eat 15 worms on Saturday (all at once?).  The loser has to come to school with the remaining worms in his pants.

Billy succeeds in eating most of the worms, causing Joe's cronies to defect to his side, leaving Joe humiliated and alone.  Then we discover that Joe himself is a victim, savagely bullied by his older brother Nigel.  Billy and his new gang defend Joe from Nigel.

One of the worms didn't get eaten -- it was accidentally put into an omelet that another character ate.  So they both technically lost the contest.  The last scene shows Billy and Joe both entering the school with worms in their pants, their arms around each other, now friends.

Plus Billy impresses the Girl of His Dreams.  Of course they had to throw that in as a final heterosexist dig.

But at least there are three gay -subtext moments.

More after the break

The Mickey Mouse Club: Which Mousketeer was the cutest? Which was gay?

When Annette Funicello died on April 8, 2013, the world mourned one of the iconic figures of the Boomer generation.  She was the first crush for many heterosexual boys and gay girls who watched her every week on The Mickey Mouse Club, and later in comedies co-starring Tommy Kirk and Frankie Avalon (left).

The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59) was the first children's television program that starred real children, "the Mouseketeers."  They wore wore mouse ear-shaped caps and white sweaters emblazoned with their first names, and performed song-and-dance numbers interspliced with Disney cartoons, amateur talent contests, and dramatic serials.

In the early 1980s, the original series was broadcast on the Disney Channel.  My sister watched every day after school, and I saw a few episodes.  Girls outnumbered boys three to one, but if you could find them, the boys were exceptionally cute.  And in the 1950s, singing and dancing were widely labeled "sissy" pursuits, so they were all gay coded.  Turns out that only two were actually gay.

1. Bobby Burgess (born 1941), who was very tall, well-scrubbed, and always smiling. Straight. 

He went on to dance on The Lawrence Welk Show.

2. The short, sandy-haired Lonnie Burr (born 1943) was the intellectual of the group (his website commemorates Annette Funicello's death with the Latin phrase "ave atque vale"). Straight.

He was a poet and playwright as well as an actor.

3. Tommy Cole (born 1941) was hired primarily for his singing ability, though had a handsome face and the hunkiest physique among the Mousketeers (left). Straight.

After MMC, he had a stint in the air force and then became a makeup artist.

4. Cubby O'Brien (born 1946), the kid of the show, became a professional drummer. Straight.

More after the break

"You Can't Do That on Television": teen sketch comedy about the horrors awaiting in adulthood, with gay subtexts and shirtless dudes

Before 1980, children's tv invariably portrayed adults as beings to love and respect..  Regardless of how mischievous and sassy the kids might be, no one ever questioned the maxim that "Father knows best": parents, teachers, coaches, and the lunch lady rarely made mistakes and always had the best of intentions. 

That all changed when the sketch comedy show You Can't Do That On Television premiered on local Ottawa tv in 1979, then jumped to the  fledgling Nickelodeon network in 1981.

At best the adults (mostly played by Les Lyle) were disgusting, incompetent fools. 

 Sometimes they were dangerous.

An endless array of kids (over 100 in all) held a mirror up to the preteen world, parodying everything from the standard (tedious homework, nonsensical school rules, horrible cafeteria food) to the edgy (racism, gender roles, divorce), and especially the anxiety over what was to come, with adolescence and adulthood just around the corner, and for gay boys, the "what girl do you like?" interrogation.

 Although gay people were never mentioned, the critique of the most cherished myths and preconceptions of childhood helped gay kids recognize that the myth of universal heterosexual desire could be critiqued as well.

Two ongoing bits reflected anxiety over desires that, the adults insisted, did not exist.  In one, a boy is about to be executed by firing squad, yells "Stop the execution," and cleverly talks his way out of it.  In another, a boy is in a dungeon, hands manacled over his head, being interrogated and tortured (usually by being slobbered on).

 

The boys in the cast appeared shirtless or in their underwear constantly, in nearly every episode.  Gay preteens must have been mesmerized.

The most popular were:

1. Alisdair Gillis, who went on to a long career in the entertainment industry, and died in 2025.

2. Doug Ptolemy (right), now a martial arts coach.

More after the break

Andy's Gang: Beefcake and Bonding on 1950s Children's TV

The earliest generation of Boomer kids have fond memories of tv programs that, at least to modern sensibilities, seem outlandish and bizarre.  You Can't Do That On Television in the 1980s can't even begin to compete with the weirdness of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, Pinkie Lane, or Howdy Doody.  

But the weirdest of all was Andy's Gang (1955-60), hosted by long-time Western sidekick Andy Devine (previously a radio and tv series hosted by Ed McConnell, and called Smilin' Ed's Gang)

1. A scary kid with blond page boy curls and one eye perpetually closed announced "I'm Buster Brown...I live in a shoe.  Here's my dog Tige...he lives in there,too."  Whereupon the studio audience went wild with laughter (actually, it was the same clip of a hysterical kid, over and over again).

2. The anarchic Froggy the Gremlin kept popping in to skewer human pretensions and stir things up.  Cue the same clip of a studio audience going into hysterics.

3. A cat named Midnight could talk. But she said only one word: "Nice," and it sounded more like a meow.  Cue the hysterical laughter.

But gay kids in the audience were waiting for the "Story Time" segment about Gunga, an Indian boy (surprisingly buff college student Nino Marcel).  He was supposed to be Indian, but he looked sort of like Jay North on the similarly-Indian themed Maya, or an older version of  Jonny Quest.  I'll bet he had blond hair under that turban.

Although they lived in India, Gunga and his boyfriend, Rama (a surprisingly buff Vito Scotti) got into Bomba the Jungle Boy-style adventures with animal poachers, lost cities, and savage cannibal tribes.

But unlike Bomba, they had no interest in girls, at least not in the episodes I watched. Rama was the one who usually needed rescuing.

They were amazingly physical in their interactions, always hugging, clinging together, touching arms and shoulders.

Afterwards, Andy would end the program by underscoring the buddy-bonding:  "We're pals, and pals stick together!"  Then, to keep Christian fundamentalists happy, "Remember, Sunday school or church tomorrow!"  (No Hindus in the audience, apparently.)

Nino Marcel also played his Gunga Ram character, but with a different premise, in the feature film Sabaka (1954): he is a young elephant trainer who vows revenge against the evil cult that killed his family. His costar was none other than the famous Boris Karloff.

You can watch the full movie here.

See also: Burr Tillstrom, the gay puppeteer behind Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.

Burr Tillstrom: The Gay Puppeteer of 1950s Children's Television

Before The Cartoon Network, before Sesame Street, even before The Mickey Mouse Club, in the earliest days of television, kids (and adults) rushed home every afternoon to see the adventures of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, two puppets and their human host.  They may never have realized that there was a hunky 30-year old man behind the set, manipulating the puppets and providing their voices.

They certainly never knew that he was gay.

Born in 1917, Burr Tillstrom began the art of puppetry in college, and created the perpetually-surprised Kukla in 1936. Other characters followed, but it was the laconic Ollie (Oliver J. Dragon) who became the clown in the comedy team, a formula that extended from Laurel & Hardy to Martin & Lewis, Abbott & Costello, and in children's tv, Rocky & Bullwinkle.

In 1947, he teamed up with the vivacious Fran Allison (1907-1989), and they began the Kukla, Fran, and Ollie tv series, a daily half hour (later diminished to fifteen minutes) on Chicago's WGN.

Themes and storylines were compelling, and not necessarily for kids. They performed mysteries, science fiction, and even the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta The Mikado, with Kukla as Nanki-Poo, Ollie as Ko-Ko, and Fran as Yum-Yum.

The program drew many adult fans, including Orson Welles, John Steinbeck, Lillian Gish, James Thurber, Judy Garland,  Talulah Bankhead, and Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim, who wrote Kukla and Ollie a song, "The Two of You."

 During the tv season, Tillstrom lived in Chicago, in an old coach house that he remodeled with the help of his partner, Joseph Lockwood Jr. (left), also the stage manager and the costume designer.  They spent the summers in Europe or in the gay resort of Saugatuk, Michigan

After the program ended in 1957, Tillstrom and Allison continued to perform with the Kuklapolitan players.  They starred in a Broadway show, appeared in Side by Side with Sondheim, hosted the CBS Children's Film Festival, and appeared live at the Goodman Theater in Chicago every Christmas.

Tillstrom died in 1985, before gay identity was regularly acknowledged, so his New York Times obituary and his Wikipedia entry both keep him closeted.  But the gay communities of Chicago and Saugatuck knew.  In 2013 he was inducted in to the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.

By the way, gay people seem particularly drawn to puppeteering, perhaps because they often live in a world of masks. 

Pee-Wee's Playhouse: Did somebody say "Swish"?

When I was living in West Hollywood, we watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 every Saturday morning, but we stayed away from children's tv.  It was crowded with insipid child versions of adult characters -- The Muppet Babies, The Flintstone Kids -- or insufferably cute furry animals -- Wuzzles, Kissyfur, Care Bears, Gummi Bears.  


But there was one "must see" exception.  At 11:00 am between 1986 and 1990, every household in West Hollywood watched Pee-wee's Playhouse.  It was a surreal, live action series hosted by the androgynous Pinkie Lee lookalike Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens), who would invite various live and puppet characters to play in his playhouse.

It was the gayest show on television.

1. A hunky speedo-clad lifeguard named Tito.

2. Drag queens Ms. Yvonne (right) and Mrs. Steve (left).  They both appeared at the 1990 AIDS Walk. We all assumed that Mrs. Steve was a real drag queen, played by a male actor; I only discovered that she was played by a woman while researching this post. .

3. The extraordinarily feminine Jambi the Genie, who lived in a drag queen's jewelry box and lisped "Wish?  Did somebody say wish?"  Everyone in West Hollywood spend the afternoon saying: Swish?  Did somebody say swish?"

4. Laurence Fishburn as Pee-wee's friend Cowboy Curtis, who informed us that he slept nude, and joked about his penis size: "You know what they say about big feet -- big boots!"

5. The creepy, leering, obviously drunk King of Cartoons, who stumbled across the room and slurred "Let the cartoon begin." And the creepy 1930s cartoon that followed.  Ok, he wasn't gay-coded, but who puts a guy who's drunk, or pretending to be, on a kids' program?

6. A hunky soccer player named Ricardo.

The writers, producers, directors, and cast have always claimed complete ignorance of any gay-coded characters or gay-subtexts.  In fact, according to Inside Peewee's Playhouse by Caseen Gaines, Paul Reubens was homophobic -- if he had known about any subtext, "he would have put a stop to it."

Or maybe he was just closeted.  Paul Reubens has consistently refused to comment on his sexual identity, although when he was arrested for allegedly possessing child pornography in 2002, he stated that he was a collector of muscle magazines and "vintage homosexual erotica."

"The Little Vampire 3D": An Inch Away from a Fully Open Gay Romance

 

The Little Vampire (2000) had a strong gay subtext (plus Jonathan Lipnicki, who grew up into a super-hunk), so I was interested in seeing what would happen with the new anmiated adaption, The Little Vampire 3D (2017).  Would they turn the subtext into a text, or diffuse it by giving the boys girlfriends?

Scene 1: Transylvania, Romania.  Weird to have both the historic region and modern-day Romania juxtaposed like that. A swarm of vampires flies into an abandoned church to celebrate the birthday of Rudolph, the Little Vampire (actually 13 in human years).  He's not into it: he never ages, so what's the point? We meet various humorous characters, like Rudolph's industrious sister, his chubby mother, his bickering uncle and aunt who flew in from Germany.  Did a whole extended family become vampires at the same time, or do vampires reproduce the way humans do, or are "uncle" and "aunt" just honorifics?

Scene 2:  An American family on vacation, complete with camper in tow.  13-year old Tony is obsessed with vampires, but his parents point out that there is no such thing  Plus they're tired of hearing the v-word.  Suddenly their car slides off the road, down an embankment, and crashes right into the vampires' graveyard.  

Scene 3:  Transylvania Tech Works.  The boss, Rookery, wakes up his abused employee, Maney (who looks like an older version of Tony).  "They're swarming," so he needs the truck.  

Scene 4: At the catacombs, Rudy's teenage brother is arguing with his parents: he's old enough to go hunting alone!  Finally he storms out -- Rudy follows him to a gas station sitting alone in the forest.  A man is walking his dog.  Prey!  But at that moment the vampire hunters arrive and shoot Big Brother -- Gregory  He falls to the ground, severely injured.  Rudy rushes to the rescue, and flies him back the catacombs, with the vampire hunters on their trail!

He's always called Rudolph in the movie, but I prefer Rudy.

Scene 5: The American family is rescued by a stereotypic German couple (in Transylvania?), who run a bed and breakfast in a huge, ornate castle.  Wait -- they were planning to go to the B&B all along, so why the camper?

Back at the catacombs, they tend to Gregory's wounds. Rudy goes outside to see if the vampire hunters tracked them.  Yep.  Now they're sealing the vampires in the catacombs!  The main family manages to escape, with the vampire-hunters in hot pursuit -- in an airplane?  Rudy draws it away so the others can hide in Uncle and Aunt's crypt -- in Germany? It's a thousand kilometers from Cluj to Munich.  Those vampires are fast fliers!

Now Rudy has to hide, so he ducks into the B&B/castle where Tony is staying.  Ok, the B&B is in Germany, not Transylvania. 

 Finally, the two boys meet!  Distrust -- posturing -- obvious flirting -- let's shake hands and not let go -- gazing into each other's eyes.   

Tony: "You can hide here, just no..."

Rudy: "Don't worry, I haven't sucked human blood in a long time."

Tony: "So you're not going to...um...bite me?"

Rudy: (Puts an arm around him, smiles).  Only time will tell.

Whoa, that's hot.  He came within an inch of saying "suck my cock."  These guys are going to kiss any second now.

Scene 6:  Rudy is hungry, but it's still daylight out, so Tony wraps him in aluminum foil and leads him to a cow to suck; but he takes too much, and turns it into a vampire-cow.  Meanwhile, Maney the Vampire Hunter is feeling guilty because his light-invention hurt a vampire.  

Scene 7:  To add a little tension to the relationship, Rudy becomes angry because mortals like Tony have trapped his clan and are hunting his family.  After they argue and fight a bit, Tony promises to help.  

Rudy demonstrates that, when they hold hands, Tony can fly, too. Wait -- how does Rudy know about this, unless he's flown with humans before?  Apparently Tony is not his first human boyfriend.

Rudy is apprehensive about introducing his new human boyfriend to the family.  Dad disapproves: "You can have your mortal friend, or you can be a member of this family."  He chooses Tony.

Mom and Sister Anna are more supportive of Rudy's...um...coming out.  Sister Anna flirts with Tony, and he gets all goofy, but not to worry, it's not really hetero-romance.  She put him under a spell.

Scene 9:  The vampire hunters capture Tony, "The little vampire lover," and tie him up.  Could you get any more obvious?   Rookery wants to kill him, but Maney feels guilty.  Meanwhile, Anna and Rudy follow; Anna denies that she is love with him.  Uh-oh, is a heterosexual fade-out kiss imminent?

Tony tries to escape by swimming across the lake, but almost dies of hyperthermia before the vampires rescue him.

Scene 10: The vampire-hunters go to the B&B and reveal the Tony-Rudy relationship to his parents.  They are shocked.  "The family is always the last to know."  How blatant can the gay symbolism get?

Meanwhile, Anna and Rudy argue over who will save Tony from his hypothermia (Rudy wins).  

 The vampire-hunters are returning to Transylvania to kill the vampire clan, so Anna, Rudy, and Tony have  to save them. Tony can't leave without telling his parents, but if he tells them, he won't be allowed to go.  Not to worry; Anna casts a spell on them, and they all drive to Transylvania.  Rudy and Tony fly (more hand-holding and hugging).  

Scene 11: Rudy and Tony don't reach the catacombs by dawn, so Rudy goes to sleep in an empty crypt in a cemetery, and Tony goes on by himself.  He has to remove the steel net from the catacomb entrance (why couldn't the vampires do that?)  More hugging.  These guys are definitely boyfriends.

Scene 12:  Rudy awakens and flies to the catacombs, arriving just in time to see the vampire-hunters about to shoot Tony.  He intervenes.  

They have rigged a bomb to seal off the catacomb entrance, trapping the vampires inside forever (Rudy and Tony hug as they await the explosion).  

Surprise!  There's another way out of the catacombs.  (So all of this plot is for nothing?  The vampires could have escaped at any time?)  Big Brother Gregory is reunited with Rudy and "my...um...friend."  He is reluctant to accept a human boyfriend, but finally gives in.  They shake hands.  

Scene 13: The vampire-hunters want revenge on the boys who ruined their plans (how? they didn't do anything but get captured and rescue each other).  They chase Rudy and Tony with crossbows and bombs.  Anna jumps out of the parents' car, and she and Tony, on the back of the vampire cow, rush off to save the clan, leaving Rudy behind.  (Wait -- why don't they hold hands to fly?  Because that would be too close to romantic, and the writers want to emphasize the Tony-Rudy romance?  Anna doesn't even hold on to Tony while riding the vampire cow.)

While the boy and the girl are gone, Rudy saves the carload of parents from being pulverized by the vampire-hunters.  Maney, upset over all their evil deeds, breaks up with vampire-hunter Rookery.  Then Rookery gets squashed by Tony and Anna on the flying vampire cow (unconscious, maybe dead).

Scene 14:  The vampire and human parents decide to trust each other after all.  They join the kids, plus the rest of the clan for Rudy's belated birthday party (yeah! Anna stops sitting behind Tony on the vampire cow!). 

Rudy is sad because the clan has lost its home in the catacombs, and it will be dawn soon (he's the only one who thought of that?).  Tony suggests the castle B&B.  They all arrive and move in.  The movie ends with the vampire cow winking at us before flying off.  Rather a let-down ending.  No hugging, no "we'll be together forever," no nothing between Tony and Rudy.  But at least there's no boy-girl fade-out kiss.

Wait -- there are curtain calls during the ending credits.  The boys appear separately, then together with the rest of the cast behind them.  But they're not holding hands.  They came within an inch of an open gay relationship, but didn't quite make it.  I guess they still needed deniability, so the movie could play in China.

How Queer is "Carmen Sandiego"?

Millions of millennials grew up with Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego  (1991-1995), a game show based on a video game where contestants answered geography questions in order to track down the elusive super-thief (diversity alert: Carmen was middle-aged, female, and I assume Latina).

A powerful woman who thumbs her nose at the system and doesn't have any male admirers.  A lesbian girls' dream!

No other gay content in the show itself, but host Greg Lee is apparently gay.  Seen here with his date, actor Gregory Michael of Dante's Cove,, at the 2007 Outfest.  The top photo is Gregory in action.

Anyway, Carmen won lots of Peabody awards and spun off into Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego (1996-1998), hosted by Kevin Shinick.

And Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? (1994-99), an animated series which pits the superthief (voiced by Broadway legend Rita Moreno) and her V.I.L.E. organization against 14-year old detective Zack (Scott Menville) and his older sister Ivy of the A.C.M.E. Agency.  It also starts to redeem Carmen, making her an anti-hero who uses her thieving skills to help  Zack fight cadres of real baddies.

Now Netflix has released Carmen Sandiego (2019), an animated series with Carmen completely rehabilitated, a "modern day Robin Hood."  Trained to be a V.I.L.E. agent, she decided to devote her life to something other than evil, and went rogue.  Now she works behind the scenes, pursued by both A.C.M.E. and V.I.L.E., to solve crimes and thwart thefts of Vermeer paintings in Amsterdam, the Magna Carta in Mumbai, smart fabric in Greece, and rare gems in Japan, with the ultimate goal of taking down the entire V.I.L.E. enterprise.

Her scoobies include:
1. Teenage computer hacker Player (Finn Wolfhard).

2. Redheaded doofus Zack (Michael Hawley)
3. His sister Ivy, who looks nonbinary.
4. Shadosan, the Japanese sensei who adopted and taught Carmen.

Their main antagonists are A.C.M.E. agent Chase Devineaux (Rafael Petardi) and V.I.L.E. agent Graham (Michael Goldsmith), whom Carmen dates briefly.  Otherwise I don't see any hetero-romance plotlines, which is remarkable.  Not a lot of gay subtext, either, but with children's tv, I'll take what I can get.

Gay Neighbors in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

The toddler tv show Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (1966-2001) arrived in Rock Island when we got PBS in 1971 or 1972.  I was too old for it, but my sister watched, and sometimes I caught a glimpse while waiting for Cartoon Showboat.

The live-action segments I could do without: Mr. Rogers visits a nursery school or a bakery, or tries to put things together.  But I liked the Neighborhood of Make Believe, a medieval kingdom with both puppet and real-life residents who weren't entirely maudlin.

The pompous King Friday XIII, whose rendition of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" became "Propel, Propel, Propel Your Craft," was the only resident to engage in heterosexual behavior, at least in the episodes I watched.  He fell in love with a Southern-accented commoner named Sarah, married her, and sired a son, Prince Tuesday.

The other residents didn't display any heterosexual interest, and many had gender-atypical traits which allow for a gay reading.

The feisty Lady Elaine Fairchilde, who runs a revolving museum, flies in a spaceship to Jupiter, and calls everyone "toots."

X the Owl, with a Southern drawl and an affinity for Benjamin Franklin.

Daniel Striped Tiger, a tame tiger of French ancestry, neat, tidy, fashion-conscious, who carefully points out that his middle name has two syllables.

Not a lot of beefcake, but Joe Negri was cute (early photo, left), and Chuck Aber (top photo) had a muscular physique.

A Presbyterian minister before entering show biz, Fred Rogers was apparently tolerant of gay people but an opponent of gay marriage.

In 2012, an animated sequel, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, premiered on PBS.  Set entirely in the Neighborhood of Make Believe (which has somehow become a tropical jungle), it stars the children of the original cast.  Apparently Lady Elaine Fairchild and Daniel Striped Tiger were heterosexual after all.

But not X the Owl -- he's raising his young nephew, O the Owl.  So maybe there's still a gay neighbor in  Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

The Gay Subtexts of "Apple and Onion"

The cartoon universe is full of anthropomorphic animals, but I can't think of any anthropomorphic foods, other than the candy people of Adventure Time.

Enter Apple and Onion, a Cartoon Network program about a world occupied almost entirely by food with arms, legs, and faces, and personalities reflective of their type.  Most are cooked, well seasoned, grown-up.

Hot Dog
Burger
Pizza
Root Beer Float
Kobeba

The exuberant Apple (George Gendi) and the skittish Onion (Richard Ayoade) are raw, childlike, new to the big city.  In the first episode they meet, face the crises common to newbies, and become friends and roommates.  They don't really have an odd couple vibe -- it's more of a Mordecai and Rigby, as they set out to bring joie de vivre to their friends and neighbors, one food at a time.  Of course, everything goes wrong.

When their landlord Falafel (Sayed Badreya) gets homesick, they take him out for a fun day in the city.

They play basketball with Hot Dog and Burger (Paul Scheer, Eugene Mirman)

They invent a new game, which they play against the scheming Bottle Cap and Whey.

They are stuck with a duck as they are preparing for a block party.

No one is specifically gay -- I assume that this rainbow is not intended to represent a rainbow flag -- but  there is always a gay subtext with buddy pairs, and hetero romance is minimal except in the pilot (where Onion has a crush).

Ten episodes plus some shorts are streaming on the Cartoon Network website, and more are reputedly in the works.

5 Cartoon Couples That You Thought Were Gay, But Probably Aren't

I'm all for subtexts. This blog is about finding gay connections in texts where the writer, director, and fans are all yelling "No, no, no!"  And I've found them in dozens of children's tv shows, from The Flintstones in the 1960s to Adventure Time today.

It's easier to find them in juvenile media, where the heterosexist mandate of ending every story with a boy-girl kiss is not so aggressively policed.  All you need is:

Two characters of the same sex who display little or no heterosexual interest, and have a passionate, intense, exclusive relationship.

Some character pairs have been bandied around for years as emblems of gay subtexts, but unfortunately, they just don't cut it:

1. Batman and Robin (Adam West, Burt Ward) from the 1960s tv series. The Dynamic Duo may have been domestic partners in the 1940s comic books, but by the 1960s they were presented as a heterosexual father and his heterosexual adopted son.

Lack of hetero interest: No
Exclusive: Yes
Passionate, intense: No

It was still fun to watch Robin being a "damsel in distress," threatened by the villain and rescued by "my hero" Batman.

Especially in the first season, before they censored Robin's skin-tight briefs.

2. Shaggy and Scooby, Scooby-Doo.  You already know what they look like, so here's Robbie Amell as Fred in Scooby-Doo!  Curse of the Lake Monster (2010).

Scooby-Doo is multi-generational cartoon/movie series about four teenagers and their semi-sentient dog (the titular Scooby-Doo) who solve paranormal mysteries.  The beatnik Shaggy and Scooby often go off exploring on their own, and jump into each other's arms.  But come on -- it's a guy and a semi-sentient dog!

Lack of hetero interest: Yes
Passionate, intense: No
Exclusive: No.  They're part of a group.

3. Bert and Ernie, Sesame Street.  This one gets a lot of play, including a petition to have the two get married on the air.

But have you actually watched this show?  Ernie is Bert's annoying, tag-along little brother.  Of course they love each other, but there is no passion in their relationship.  And I don't even think that they live together; they are too young.  There must be a parent off-camera somewhere.

Lack of hetero interest: Yes
Passionate, intense: No
Exclusive: Yes

4. Peppermint Patty and Marcie of the comic strip Peanuts have often been envisioned as a lesbian couple (here on a episode of Family Guy).  But in the strip, they are portrayed as heterosexual friends.  Each has a crush on Charlie Brown, as well as other more fleeting heterosexual romances.  And their interactions are neither passionate nor intense.  The only hug I can remember occurs when Marcie's mother makes Patty a skating outfit.

Lack of hetero interest: No
Passionate, intense: No
Exclusive: Yes








5. Bart and Milhouse, The Simpsons, shown here as adults, after Milhouse bulks up.  Certainly the two are inseparable buddies, and Milhouse has many gender-atypical traits.  He's even characterized in his permanent record with the antiquated phrase "homosexual tendencies."  But he has a major crush on Lisa, and Bart has had any number of girlfriends.


Lack of hetero interest: No
Passionate, intense: No
Exclusive: Yes

But don't worry, there are still dozens of juvenile media characters for whom the gay subtexts ring loud and clear.  Let's start with Spongebob Squarepants and Patrick.