Mr. Bigstuff: Short guy with big stuff isn't into ladies, has a gay boss and a psycho brother. With six big reveals and lots of backsides

 

Link to the n*de dudes

I don't have a lot of  luck with Britcoms.  The references have me scurrying to the internet, the jokes a little too droll, and I can never tell if the actions are meant to be sitcom exaggerations or over-the-top bizarre.  But I'm checking out Mr. Bigstuff, which just dropped on Hulu, because it stars Ryan Sampson, gay in real life and 5'4". 

"Bigstuff" is one of those culturally specific references.  There's no definition online. Does it mean that the guy is important, a "big shot," or that he's a "big dog," gifted beneath the belt?

Episode 1, Scene 1: Glen (Ryan Sampson) and his girlfriend parking in the car outside a horribly decrepit office building.  She consoles him for being unable to do stuff.  It's been a long time.  Maybe he's not into you, lady.  Or not into ladies at all.  But they're still getting married in 100 days.  

Scene 2:  Glen at his horrible, soul-destroying job as a carpet salesman.  He's pointing out some boring heterosexual stuff to a boy-girl couple, when the Manager comes by.  He asks for a promotion.  In response, the Manager pretends to shoot him.  He falls to the ground, "dead."  I guess that's a no?  

Left: The Manager is played by Adrian Scarborough (backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), who I thought was in The Thursday Murder Club.  He's not, and I deleted my review due to low pageviews.

Meanwhile, a hand smokes cigarettes and drinks beer.  Eventually it turns into a burly bloke, who bursts into the carpet store and asks the receptionist if she's seen "this geezer," displaying a photo of a schoolboy. In the U.S. a "geezer" is old. She calls the Manager.  The situation escalates to Burly Guy choking him and demanding to know where the "geezer" is.

Glen hides behind some display cases, then runs out and drives home.  

Left: Burly Guy is played by Danny Dyer, who is straight but played a gay character in Borstal Boy (2000) and the father of a gay teen on East Enders.

Scene 3: At home, the Girlfriend from Scene 1 is lying in bed.  She explains that there was a gas leak at work, so everyone had to leave, and he explains that he just popped in to get his sandwiches.  I expect that there's a man hiding in the closet. 

Nope: "Get in here, you c*nt."  In the U.S., that term is extremely offensive, and it refers only to ladies, but I think here it's just a mild expletive, like "dope." 

Glenn backside is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends..

They discuss boring heterosexual stuff as Glen undresses (no beefcake).  She tries to get him to do stuff, but he refuses.  You're in bed with your lady at 10:00 on a workday.  Why wouldn't you want to, unless you're not into ladies?

Next Glen drinks something from a water glass by the bedside, then starts to gag.  Girlfriend apologizes -- she didn't expect him to drink it (then why was it on his side of the bed?).  They're both very upset.  

We never learn what it was.  Maybe Metamucil, or a lady supplement?

She rushes downstairs to fetch him some tea -- and finds the Burly Guy sitting on the couch!

Scene 4:  Glen throws the disgusting liquid at him, and Girlfriend runs for the pepper spray.  "You can't be here!  Get out of my house!"

"I just want to talk, Glen!" he exclaims.  

Girlfriend; "You know each other?"  Big Reveal #1

"No.  Not really...I mean, I used to."  This upsets Burly Guy, and he leaves.

Burly Guy's backside is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Scene 5: Back at work, everyone is gossiping about what happened earlier "with that geezer and the Manager."  Is that a common phrase in Britain for someone under age 80?   

A woman is upset that she wasn't around to see him "get shanked."  In the U.S., "shanked" means being stabbed.  

The Manager calls Glen, crying: "You need to get here immediately! I'm sorry -- I didn't know!  I can't do this!"  Burly Guy comes onto the phone and tells him: "Dagenham, by the water, where he passed away.  You know the spot."  Darn, I thought they were old boyfriends.

Scene 6: The subtitles say Dagenheim, which sounds Norwegian, but it's actually Dagenham, a terrible industrial suburb of London, right on the Thames.  

Glen arrives and yells "Don't do this!  Don't kill the Manager!"

"Kill him?  I've just given him a cheese twist and a flapjack." Big Reveal #2.

More after the break

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

Anton Starkman: I always forget the teencom star's name and show. But he's got a physique, he plays some gay-vague characters, and there are d*cks

  

Link to the n*de dudes

I found this guy on the teen idol website, star of a Nickelodeon show that I'd never heard of.  He's got a muscular physique, and in the photo on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, he's at the beach with a dude, and is that a pride pillow?  Certainly worth a profile.  So I checked him on IMDB, then got called away -- and forgot his name and the name of the show.  Wham or Whomp or something?

The only other shows I recalled were The Magical Mystery of something or other and Grey's Anatomy, his last acting role, in 2025.

So I went through the Grey's Anatomy Season 22 cast list on wikipedia and the IMDB, , and the only male actors who looked like my guy were Niko Terho, who has never appeared in a Nickelodeon show

Todd Denson, ditto.

On RG Beefcake and Boyfriends: a n*de dude that Google thinks is Todd Denson, but I'm not sure.

And Micah McNeill, who was in one episode of  ICarly.

Maybe I could find Wham or Whomp or whatever he starred in?

 I checked every Nickelodeon show broadcast during the last 20 years, and the only one close to Wham or Whomp was Warped, with 13 episodes airing between January and April 2022. 

It was a buddy comedy set in a comic book store, with superego Milo (Anton Starkman) butting heads with unrestrained id Ruby.  They both had heterosexual crushes, but not on each other.  Their friend Hurley (Christopher Martinez) worked in the pizza place upstairs.

 

Harrison Xu of the gay movie Extremely Unique Dynamic appeared in two episodes.

Darn, I forgot the name of the show while looking up the supporting cast.   

Anyhow, it appears that Anton Starkman is our guy. 

Repeat:  Anton Starkman, aka Anton Lee Starkman. 

He'd better be worth it.

Anton lists his gender identity and pronouns on the IMDB, but not his orientation.  A good sign.

His on-screen experience begins  with the short Henry (2011): the "bookworm" boy keeps interfering with Mom's dates.  She tries to date four guys, including Jason  Beghle (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

In the short Lucy Falls (2013), a 7-year old small-town girl gets a boyfriend.  Guess who.

Next Anton played a young vampire in six episodes of American Horror Story (2015-16).

The younger brother of a boy with a dead pal in Shovel Buddies (2016).

The young version of Gideon, son of  Beauty and the Beast Belle and Rumpelstiltskin, on two episodes of Once Upon a Time (2017).  As far as I can tell, the older version, played by Giles Matthey, doesn't display any heterosexual interest.

More after the break.

Unprisoned, Season 2: Will Finn finally come out, or stay gay-vague forever? Plus a lot of search engine misdirections

 

Unprisoned, on Hulu, features an elderly man named Edwin, who spends 17 years in prison for cocaine dealing, is released, and has to reconnect with his estranged daughter and 16 year old grandson.  He spends the first season trying to avoid violating the terms of his parole and finding a girlfriend, while the estranged daughter does TED talks about relationships and has relationship problems with her boyfriend. It's heterosexist all the way down, except for the son, Finn, played by Faly Rakotohavana.

Through Season 1, he never expresses any interest in girls, nor do his mom and grandpa ever try to push him into meeting or dating girls.  The lack of expressed heterosexual interest codes him as gay, but it's a very fragile code: showrunners often go through an entire season, or more, with a character that all viewers think is gay, only to give him a girlfriend at the last moment and yell "Fooled you!  Gay people don't exist!" It already happened on Doogie Kamehameha, M.D..  

It could not be more obvious that actor Faly Rakotohavana is gay in real life, but I googled him and "gay" anyway, and got this result:

So the murderous doll has a talk show now? His interviewees are Zackary Arthur and Teo...., not Faly Rakotahavana.

By the way, it looks like he's interview his costars in the Chucky tv series, Zackary Arthur and Teo Briones. 

None of these people is Faly Rakotahavana, either.  The one on the left is Will Smith, and the one on the right, "Uis hth",  would go gay for him. What does that even mean?  Uis is only attracted to women now, but if ___ agrees to date him, he'll change to gay, and only be attracted to men for the rest of his life?

Found him: Louis Smith.  There aren't any shirtless photos of him, except behind paywalls.

Back to Finn: I was fearful of watching Season 2, due to the possibility that they would clobber us with a "Fooled you!" girlfriend.  Especially Episode 2, where "Finn tries to make a friend." 

I clench my teeth and brave through it after the break