NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding

Did we actually watch Dino Boy in the Lost Valley in the 1960s?

Ok, we watched -- but we didn't watch very closely. "Watching TV" meant talking, reading, or playing with the TV set on, a flickering series of background images.

It was a supporting feature to the Space Ghost series, about a boy named Todd who parachutes from a crashing plane into the The Land of the Lost, an isolated valley with cave men and dinosaurs.

He befriends a cave man named Ugh, who somehow learned to speak a "me-Tarzan" English patois, and they set about looking for a way home.

7 episodes have Dino Boy captured (by Worm People, Moss Men, Tree Men, Sabretooth People, Giant Ants, Vampire Men, a Pteradon), so Ugh can rush to the rescue, and they can hug.

Three episodes have Ugh captured (by Wolf People, Ant Warriors, Sun People) and Dino Boy must rush to the rescue.

Two episodes have Bronty, their pet brontosaurus, captured (by Wolf People and Giants).

Four episodes have strangers captured (by Snow Monsters, Rock Pygmies, Birdmen, and Moss Men).

You get the idea -- a lot of attempted human sacrifices and cannibalism going on.

What made it worth watching -- or at least looking up at one of the flickering images from time to time -- was the cute boy our own age, the uber-muscular Ugh, and the buddy bonding rescues.

And a comparison with other constantly-rescued boys of the 1960s, like Jonny Quest and Tarzan's Boy Johnny Sheffield (from 1930s movies that played constantly on 1960s tv).

This isn't deviantart.com, it's an actual screen shot. Surely they're about to kiss.

The episodes were rebroadcast on the Cartoon Network in the 1990s, but haven't appeared in any other medium.

Dino Boy was voiced by John David Carson, who went on to a long career in movies and television. He may be best known for The Savage is Loose (1974), a take on Oedipus set on a desert island, with lots of beefcake.

Ugh was voiced by Mike Road, best known as the voice of Race Bannon on Jonny Quest

In Vida (2019-), two estranged Mexican-American sisters, party girl Lynn and responsible Emma, reunite at their estranged mother's funeral in Boyle Heights (a Hispanic neighborhood just east of downtown Los Angeles).

They discover that Mom has willed them each a third of her financially unsuccessful bar and apartment building, so they have no choice but to drop whatever they were doing and move to Boyle Heights to become bartenders and apartment managers. They rename the bar Vida, after Mom (and, of course, it's also Spanish for "this is life, the one you get, so go and have a ball").

The other third of the bar and apartment building goes to Mom's extremely butch roommate, who has the extremely butch name Eddy. Are we surprised to discover that Mom was a lesbian, and Eddy her wife? The girls are.

Are we surprised to discover that Emma was estranged from her Mom because she is bisexual? Turns out that Vida was gay and homophobic at the same time. It happens.

After the initial sexual identities are established, Eddy, Lynn, and Emma, along with their friend Mari, settle down to their various crises: keeping the bar afloat, cleansing the apartment building of evil spirits, suffering from homophobic and anti-Hispanic discrimination, and especially fighting gentrification: they want to keep Boyle Heights the way they remember from their childhoods.

Meanwhile, they start telenovela-style romances, with lots of sex, lies, and videotape.

1. Mari has a troubled on-off romance with Tlaloc (Ramses Jiminez).

2, Lynn has a troubled on-off romance with Johnny, Mari's brother (Carlos Miranda; this might not be the right one, but who cares?).

3. Later she moves on to city councilman Rudy (Adrian Gonzalez).

4. Emma has a troubled on-off romance with Cruz, a woke lesbian bartender, but she also hooks up with Baco (Raul Castillo) the building's handyman.

5. Eddy hooks up with Nico (a woman, of course). Do all Hispanic lesbians have masculine names?

Two of the four central characters are queer, which is groundbreaking, and the Hispanic culture is pleasant (they even speak Spanglish, switching back and forth between English and Spanish as the mood strikes).

But this is definitely a woman-oriented, women-centric series, with men definitely in the background. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- Goddess knows there are plenty of series with women in background roles. But it makes the beefcake options sorely limited. And would it kill them to have a few gay men wandering around?

When I was in high school and college, if I was home on Monday night at all, I was watching a hip sitcom like The Jeffersons or WKRP in Cincinnati, certainly not Little House on the Prairie (1974-83). But my sister loved it. The historical drama, based on the autobiographical novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder, was about a farm family in frontier Minnesota in the 19th century: Charles and Caroline Ingalls and their daughters Laura, Mary, and Carrie. Other relatives come and go, the daughters grow up, and so on.

I always thought it was a family-friendly drama, like a TGIF sitcom, but my research reveals that it was quite angst-ridden, more "what shall we cry about this week?" than humorous anecdotes about one-room schoolhouses and general stores. Episodes featured drug addiction, leukemia, child abuse, alcoholism, prejudice, diseases, accidents, murder, robbery, and rape, not to mention an ongoing story arc about Mary's blindness and a series finale that has the whole town of Walnut Grove blowing up!

This was the 1970s, when the top songs on the radio were about people and horses dying and the top "sitcom" was about soldiers being blown to bits in the Korean War. Still, the pain and anguish seems a bit excessive.

With all the sobbing going on, you wouldn't expect much beefcake and buddy bonding, but apparently producer and star Michael Landon went out of his way to appeal to gay men and boys (and maybe heterosexual girls). Dozens of 1970s musclemen and androgynous teen idol-types crossed the screen to have accidents, lose loved ones, die of diseases, and take their shirts off. Here are the top candidates.

1. Michael himself, Charles Ingalls, previously Little Joe on Bonanza, with a famous body and bulge. Where to begin? He loses family members and friends, loses houses to fires, loses jobs, deals with infinite pain and sorrow, yet still believes that there is a Divine plan behind all the misery (it's actually the writers, wondering "what horrible thing can happen to the Ingalls this week?") And he has plenty of time to work out.

2. Jonathan Gilbert as Willie Oleson, the spoiled son of the town shopkeepers (his sister Nellie was the snooty, bullying antagonist to the girls). He is mostly comedic relief, but he helps out during blizzards, fires, and illnesses.

He grew up, but this is the only shirtless shot I could find.

3. Matthew Laborteaux as Albert, an orphan adopted into the Ingalls family. Subsequently his girlfriend is raped, he takes to stealing, gets an incurable disease, and becomes addicted to morphine. He should have stayed in the orphanage.

4. His brother Patrick as Andy, one of Laura's friends whose mother is killed and father (played by Merlin Olsen) becomes an alcoholic.

5. Linwood Boomer (love that name) as Adam Kendall, one of Mary's colleagues at the School for the Blind. They get married and lose their infant son in a fire. Eventually he gets his sight back and becomes a lawyer.

6. Jason Bateman (seen here as an adult, pouring lemonade onto his crotch) as James Cooper, who loses his parents in an accident (on camera, naturally) and is adopted by the Ingalls family. Later he is shot during a bank robbery, but healed by a miracle.

7. Stan Ivar (left) as John Carter, whose wife runs the town newspaper.

8. Dean Butler (right) as Almanzo, who marries Laura and is crippled by a stroke. Then his house is destroyed, his wife gets sick and almost dies, his brother dies of an incurable disease, his infant son dies....

Just another week in Walnut Grove.

9. Steve Tracy as Urkel...um, I mean Percival Isaac Cohen Dalton, who rejects his Jewish heritage and marries Nellie Oleson. Perhaps she was attracted to his very blatant bulge. No angst in his plotlines, but the actor himself died of AIDS in 1986.

10. Radames Pera as John Sanderson Edwards, who dates Mary Ingalls before he moves to Chicago to become a newspaper reporter and is murdered.

Whew! After all that, M*A*S*H sounds like a lighthearted diversion.

Dave Draper, "The Blond Bomber," was the go-to guy for movie bodybuilders during the 1960s, when most of the bulkers had moved to Italy to do sword-and-sandal flicks.

He never appeared in the gay-vague Physique Pictorial or similar physique magazines; in fact, some of his magazine covers are rather heterosexist, sandwiching him between two women, who are lusting after his biceps. Inside, however, we see some homoerotic subtexts, as when fellow bodybuilder William Smith gazes at Dave's biceps.

After a minor role as a guy who takes his shirt off in Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed (1963), he capitalized on the sword-and-sandal crazy anyway, showing old Steve Reeve movies as Dave the Gladiator on local L.A. TV (1964-65).

In 1966 he landed a starring role in Lord Love a Duck, a comedy about a gay-vague Mephistophiles, Alan Musgrave (gay actor Roddy McDowall), who concocts wild schemes, including murder, to grant the wishes of his friend Barbara (Tuesday Weld). Dave was one of her wishes, but not the man she married. Alan is supposed to find him intimidating, but instead approaches him with barely-restrained eye-bulging desire.

After more minor roles as guys who take their shirts off and scare people in Three on a Couch and Walk Don't Run, Dave starred in Don't Make Waves (1967), about New Yorker Carlo Cofield (Tony Curtis), who moves to Southern California to "Turn on! Stay loose! Make out!" and romance a skydiving model named Malibu (Sharon Tate). Dave played her boyfriend, Harry Holland, who also befriends Carlo. There's a significant gay subtext, as in most of Tony Curtis's movies.

In 1967, Dave appeared as musclemen on episodes of The Monkees and The Beverly Hillbillies. No significant gay subtexts, though it is interesting to watch the lesbian actress Nancy Kulp pretend that she is swooning over his physique.

Disillusioned at always been cast as bullies, objects of derision, and guys who don't get the girl, as if the bodybuilder was somehow inadequately masculine, Dave retired from acting to concentrate on bodybuilding and writing, and on managing World's Gym in Santa Cruz. His personal website features many interesting articles on the history of bodybuilding, but doesn't mention gay people.

I was in Indiana last weekend to visit my mother and sister, and got overloaded with "wholesome" family activities. Fortunately, we were able to squeeze in some physique-watching.

Saturday:

We arrived in Indiana at 5:00 pm, picked up my sister and brother-in-law, and drove to Edinburgh, in the south.

Edinburgh is known for the Exit 76 Antique Mall, a gigantic warehouse with over 900 dealer booths -- but not much of interest. I bought two books and an old coca-cola sign.

Not many attractive men in the mall itself,but the guy at the checkout had a stunningly handsome face. I was the first person that day to identify his Popeye t-shirt.

After visiting the cemetery to see my father's grave, we had dinner at the Cracker Barrel, a fundamentalist restaurant that fetishizes the "good old days." While you're waiting for your table, you browse in a store of fundamentalists bric-a-brac, like cds of gospel music and t-shirts saying "I'm going to heaven." This tall stringbean with brillo hair was chatting up a girl in a secluded corner by the angel costumes.

Our waiter was another tall stringbean with brillo hair -- the boss must have a thing for them.

On to the Quality Inn, a 2-star motel where scary-looking guys smoke cigarettes in the parking lot. It's on Lover's Lane, next to some other 2-star motels to cater to the hoardes of people who visit small-town Indiana.

Sunday

Breakfast at the Waffle House, where our waiter's name was Buttercup.

Next stop: gas station, where the cute Caleb was on duty.

I had to snap this guy getting gas. Not much to look at, but he was herding a wife and five kids, all under five years old. His penis has been very busy.

We visit my elderly, conservative, Trump-loving, gun control-hating mother, who insists that we go to church with her -- Nazarene church, ugh! About 10 people in the congregation, all over 100.

Then we meet up with my sister and brother-in-law again for lunch -- apparently Nazarenes have loosened their restrictions on eat out on Sunday. Ann's Restaurant, a staple since 1952.

This studly blond wasn't our waiter, but I managed to get a shot of him.

A nuclear family: husband, wife, two young kids. The husband looks like he could be the waiter's cousin.

On Sunday afternoon my sister and brother-in-law took us to the Johnson County Fair. Apparently the Nazarenes have loosened their restrictions on going to "fairs, festivals, circuses, carnivals, and the like."

Monday

On Monday morning, we had breakfast at Denny's. That's right, Denny's.

This bearded guy in a suit is sitting next to a guy who isn't in a suit, across the table from an elderly male-female couple. I wonder if he's gay, eating with his boyfriend.

After visiting my mother again, we were on our own for the day, so we started browsing in the antique shops in town. But every single one of them is closed on Mondays. Every single one!

Well, how about the museums up in Indianapolis?

Every single one of them is closed on Monday. What do they expect tourists to do?

We go to the YMCA to work out. Another cute brillo-head. There must be a whole family of them around southern Indiana.

In the afternoon we spend 6 hours at the Works, a sex club in Indianapolis.

But that's a story for Tales of West Hollywood.

The Boys, on Amazon Prime, has been promoted and double-promoted a theatrical experience far superior to anything you have ever experienced before, the best tv series of all time -- no, the greatest work of art ever created in the entire history of humankind.

After all that, if it's just the best thing I've ever seen, it will be a letdown.

But it's free with your Prime membership, and maybe some of the Boys are hot, so...

It starts off promising, with two teenage boys discussing penises, then grabbing at each other when they are nearly killed by a runaway truck and taken hostage, saved by superheroes.

But then we get down to the main plot, about electronics-store nebbish Hughie (Jack Quaid, left) and The Girl of His Dreams, who is killed to provide character motivation.

Yawn. Haven't I heard this a thousand times before? Action heroes ALWAYS have dead wives, or else estranged wives to reconcile with. It's disgustingly heterosexist.

Since a superhero killed The Girl, Hughie becomes an anti-superhero vigilante, teaming up with Billie Butcher (Karl Urban, left), whose -- you guessed it --was also killed by supes.

Wait -- two dead Girls of Their Dreams? That's two too many. I give up and read the plot synopsis instead.

They start a vigilante band, The Boys.

1. Hughie
2. Butcher

3. Mother's Milk (Laz Alonzo, left)
4. Frenchie (Tomer Capon)
5. The Female (Karen Fukuhara), the only Boy who has super powers. The others get by with paralyzing gas and computer bugs.

The superheroes, created by an evil corporation when they were babies, are all arrogant, self-serving, and corrupt, not above causing the disasters they save people from. The main group is called The Seven for merchandising purposes:

1. Homelander (Antony Starr, left)
2. Starlight (Erin Moriarty)
3. Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), who is a lesbian ("The first canonical gay superhero!").

4. A-Train (Jesse T. Usher, left)
5. The Deep (Chace Crawford)
6. Black Noir (Nathan Miller)

7. Translucent (Alex Hassel, left).

Well, at least the show is equipped in the hunkoid department

Other superheroes of interest are:

8. Mesmer (Haley Joel Osment, who often plays gay characters).

9. The evil Ezekial (Shaun Benson), "a closeted homosexual." Is this the 1950s? When did we go back to the term "homosexual" to describe a gay person? Are we going to start using old, offensive terms for racial minorities, too?

The episode plot summaries are extremely complex, but there seems to be a lot of sex and violence. Both the Boys and the Supes are morally suspect; not a "truth and justice" type among them.

I'm not willing to find out. The origin story about the death of not one but two Girls of Their Dreams turned me off, and the homophobic "closeted homosexual" slur sealed the deal.

If only they had stuck to the gay-subtext buddy-bonding boys in the first scene.

Kamala Epstein played a gay kid on The Fosters, so naturally I was going to watch his new Netflix sitcom, No Good Nick (2019-) Even though it also stars former Sabrina the Teenage Witch Melissa Joan Hart, who is a conservative Christian and reputedly homophobic.

The premise: Nick is a 13-year old girl (Siena Adugong) who shows up on the doorstep of a nuclear family claiming to be a long-lost relative. Mom and Dad (Sean Astin, Melissa) immediately drop everything and welcome Nick into the family, and their 13-year old daughter Molly is delighted at the prospect of a new sister, but 15-year old Jeremy (Kamala) is suspicious.

And for good reason. Nick is a con artist, running various scams for her father in prison (Eddie McClintock), with the ultimate goal of destroying her new foster family. Dad, in turn, has a secret agenda of his own, so basically it's scammers all the way down.

As I began watching, I noticed something unusual about Jeremy. Most teenage boys on sitcoms talk like this: "Good morning, Mom. Girls! Good morning, Dad. Girls! What's for breakfast? Girls! I have a test in school today. Girls! It will help me get girls. Girls!"

Jeremy didn't mention Girls, didn't gaze at the It-Girl from across the hall, didn't scheme to meet any or win any. Nothing. Not a glimmer of heterosexual interest. His main plot in the first season invloved running for Student Council President against the ultra-popular Lisa Hadad (transgender actress Josie Totah), who also didn't have any hetero-romantic interests. Or same-sex interests, for that matter.

Ultra-popular, but no boyfriend or girlfriend? What kind of high school is this?

At first I concluded that Jeremy must be asexual. Surely he couldn't be gay, not in a series starring Melissa Joan Hart! But in the second season, third episode, Nick catches him kissing a boy!

"I want to come out my own way," he admonishes her.

Nick, who is full of secrets, agrees to keep his.

In Episode 8, Jeremy plans a complex coming-out performance, with powerpoint presentation, and Diana Ross's "I'm Coming Out," which of course turns into a disaster. But he manages to convey the main idea.

The word "gay" is never spoken, and there are no more references to Jeremy's gayness. It has a 1990s "problem of the week" feel.

But there are so few gay teenage characters on tv -- so few gay men of any age -- that I'll take what I can get.

Especially in a tv series starring Melissa Joan Hart.

I don't know what Sintonia is about -- the title means "Tune" in Portuguese -- but Netflix keeps recommending it to me with a picture of a stunningly beautiful teen idol type with frosted hair and a lot of feminine jewelry -- obviously gay. So I go through it on fast forward to see if the character is actually gay.

Episode #1: Two friends from a poor neighborhood of São Paulo have Big Dreams: Nando wants to become a singer, and Doni, to become a drug dealer. That's right, both are presented as honorable professions. They sit across a table and give each other longing looks.

A gay couple? So far, so good.

Their other friend is Rita.

Episode 2: Nando gets upset when someone steals his music, and Doni gets in trouble with the police. Who would have guessed? Meanwhile Rita finds religion.

Episode 3: Nando becomes a success, and it goes to his head, and Doni defends a fellow drug dealer. Rita is still religious, saying things like "God has a plan for you."

No sex scenes yet, no hetero-romance of any sort -- a good sign.

And we get the first scene of Nando in a swimsuit, in a pool with his boyfriend (I assume) and no one else. Unfortunately, Netflix will not permit me to take a screen shot.

Episode 4: Nando overcommits to singing gigs, and Doni fears for his life after a drug deal goes badly. We see him with his shirt off, briefly.

Still no sex scenes or hetero-romance. But Nando and Doni have only a few scenes together, like two friends catching up on the latest gossip: "And then he said....so I told him...."

Episode 5: Doni has sex with a girl backstage.

Wait -- he's straight? And they wait until the 5th of 6th episodes to let viewers know? What a tease!

But at least he doesn't perform the sex scene convincingly. It looks like they're trying to eat each other. Not much experience in kissing girls, Doni?

Meanwhile Nando is in trouble, and Rita is still religious.

Episode 6: Who cares what Doni the Gay Tease does?

Nando is rewarded by his drug cartel, and Rita is still religious.

Sinfonia turns out to be a dud.

Doni, the stunningly beautiful Gay Tease, is played by MC JottaPê (João Pedro Carvalho), a 19-year old telenovela star turned singer, known for "Sentou e gostou" ("I sat down and liked it").

His music videos mostly show him dancing with lots of scantily-clad girls, drinking champaign, and showing us money.

His Instagram contains a lot of photos of girls, plus a couple of shirtless pics.

Here he sticks out his tongue for the camera (I forget what it means, but it's common in selfies). The caption reads "I am from Tommy, my girl of Oakley."

I'm guessing he's heterosexual.

Nando is played by 19-year old actor Christian Malheiros, who has done a lot of stage work and starred in Socrates (2018), about a gay teen left alone after his mother's death. He can't stay with his homophobic father, so he tries living on his own, and ends up in a romance with his boss.

His instagram doesn't have any photos of girls, but here's one of his biceps and bulge.

I'm guessing gay.

In Twelve Forever, a 12-year old girl named Reggie is terrified by the prospect of growing up, so she creates a fantasy world called Endless Island, and populates it with interesting characters like Flower Woman (with flowers for eyes), Brown Roger (a small, hairy thing), and Guy Pleasant (half rock star, half dog).

For antagonists, she conjures up the Butt Witch and her henchman Big Deal, who try to force her to grow up. She convinces two of her real-life friends, Todd and Esther, to come along.

Sounds like H.R. Pufnstuf meets Peter Pan, except those islands were real. I'm not so sure about Endless Island. It sounds very much like a psychotic delusion.

I became interested due to an episode in which the Butt Witch tries to break up the romance between two burly wrestlers, Mack and Beefhouse. Two burly male wrestlers!

The other characters are completely nonchalant about their gender, saying things like "I can't wait to find my soulmate," and so on.

This is definitely a gay -positive show. Reggie herself gets a crush on a girl named Connelly.

Unfortunately, Reggie is such a self-centered jerk that she's impossible to watch. When Connelly displays interest, she makes an excuse and runs away. Repeatedly.

Imagine: you're 12 years old, you find a girl you like, and she makes it very clear that she wants nothing to do with you. How's that for a crushing childhood trauma?

Later, at the school dance (4 male-female couples and Reggie), Connelly shows up, and a flustered Reggie forces her friends to leave, even though they are having fun.

Isn't it always the way: you find a gay-positive character, and they're unpleasant and possiblypsychotic?

Oh,well, who am I to nit-pick? This is the first gay protagonist of any American children's tv program, cause for celebration.

Have you seen the famous Rob Lowe sex tape? It depicts then-Brat Pack star Rob Lowe and a friend having sex with two women in a hotel room in Atlanta in 1988, on the night before the Democratic National Convention.

Only one of the women appears on the tape, plus Rob Lowe and his friend.

I didn't know that heterosexuals had the West Hollywood custom of "sharing."

They don't do anything specifically with each other, but one assumes that they did off-cameras.

Unfortunately, the tape doesn't show much of the second guy other than a muscular silhouette. This is a better picture.

Not a bad boyfriend candidate. I can see why Rob invited him to Atlanta.

His name is Justin Moritt. He doesn't have any credits on IMDB before 1988, so I don't know how he and Rob met. Since then he's worked as a production assistant, then a production manager, and finally a producer, of films like Ghost (1990), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995).

He was married to actress Krista Allen from 1996 to 1999.

They have a son, Jake Moritt, born in 1997, now eighteen years old and working as a production assistant.

According to his Facebook page, he likes Tim Allen, Radiohead, bodybuilder Casa Wilson, and the Marani Hair Salon in L.A.

When you search Google Images for "Justin Morrit," this picture pops up of a tall guy with a tattooed nipple and his pants falling off. Obviously not our Justin Morrit, but maybe a relation.

And some pictures from one of Rob Lowe's many on-screen homoerotic relationships, this one with Doug Savant in Masquerade (1988).

Is this what was going on in the hotel room in Atlanta that night?

See also: Mario's Date with Rob Lowe

Columbo (1971-1979, and many movies thereafter) turned the whodunit on its head. Instead of a two-fisted man's man detective, Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk) is frumpy, disheveled, disorganized. And the viewer knows who the murderer is; the fun is seeing Columbo outwit them with his scatterbrained persona ("Just one more thing...I can't understand how...")

Columbo often mentions his wife, a frumpy, disheveled, middle-aged housewife cooking pasta fazool in the kitchen and saying "Bring your sweater, it's cold outside."

So, the suits at NBC thought, wouldn't it be fun to have Mr.s Columbo solving some murders of her own?

Who did they cast as the frumpy, disheveled, middle-aged housewife cooking pasta fazool in the kitchen? Glamorous, elegantly-attired 24-year old soap star Kate Mulgrew, later to become Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager and Red on Orange is the New Black

WTF? There is no way on Earth that Kate Mulgrew could be the Mrs. Columbo described in the series. Al Molinaro from Happy Days would make more sense, and have a lot more chemistry with Peter Falk.

Fortunately, Mr. Columbo never appeared in the series. That would have been a painful interaction.

Mrs. Columbo premired on February 28, 1979, a Thursday night, up against Barnaby Jones (an old person solves crimes) and Family (angst). Kate overhears her neighbor plotting to murder his wife (Didn't I Love Lucy use that plot?)

Next: the author of a book on perfect murders is accused of murder. Why is Kate investigating this? Why not call her husband, who, you know, is like a real detective?

After two episodes of horrible ratings, the suits realized that they had made a terrible mistake, and tried to divest Mrs. Columbo from Columbo.

On March 15th, 1979, the show was suddenly called Kate Columbo, and a line added to the script explaining that Kate was divorced from Lt. Columbo. That was fast! A ventriloquist's dummy is commiting murder. Seen it!

The ventriloquist is played by Jay Johnson, who starred in Soap.

Two more episodes of atrocious ratings (a caterer plans to murder her husband, a psychic is accused of murdering her husband), and the show was yanked.

The suits reasoned that the problem couldn't be the cliched plots and horrible writing. It must be Columbo. So when the show returned on October 18. 1979, it was called Kate the Detective. No mention of Columbo, and Kate has a new ex-husband. Philip. She works for a newspaper, which gives her an opportunity to actually investigate cases rather than overhearing someone plotting murder. And 1970s hunk Don Stroud joins the cast as Lt. Varick, a police officer for Kate to bat ideas off of.

Did that help the ratings? Nope. Maybe the fact that Kate wasn't actually a detective?

After five episodes, the show was retooled again, and appeared on November 22nd (Thanksgiving Day) as Kate Loves a Mystery. Better -- maybe a sort of Murder, She Wrote?

Nope. A candidate for Congress is accused of murder, but didn't do it. A psychologist conducting sensitivity training classes is accused of murder, but didn't do it.

How about we just call the whole thing off?

Three more episodes of Kate Loves a Mystery aired. 13 episodes total under 4 titles. That's got to be a record.

Kate Mulgrew is a gay ally: "I'm flattered to be a lesbian pin-up," she says in 2017. "Lesbians loved Janeway."

No other gay connection that I can find. But wasn't the whole debacle wacky?

See also: Peter Falk: When Columbo Played Gay

When I was a kid in the 1960s, cowboys and Indians were has-beens. Older kids watched Western tv and remembered six shooters and Davy Crockett hats, but my friends and I played at being spies, Jonny Quest and Hadji, or space explorers. Still, Indians had a penchant for nudity, like Johnny Crawford and his brother Bobby in Indian Paint (1965), or the god Wisakeha, who Bill and I saw in real life at the Pow Wow in 1969, so when a clueless adult happened to give me a cowboy-and-Indian toy, I made good use of it.

Indian action figures were usually naked except for loincloths, making them the second most reliable source of beefcake in toys (Tarzan was first).

Books about Indians were always good for beefcake photos.

Rock Island was the site of Saukenauk, where Chief Black Hawk ruled over the Sauk and Fox Indians, so his picture was everywhere. This statue, with a phallic spear extending from his belly, looked over Chippianoc Cemetery ("City of the Dead" in the Sauk language). It was lit up with red and blue neon at night.

I got in trouble in school for drawing it in my notebook. My teacher called it "smut," thinking that the phallic symbol was a real phallus.

I didn't really know who the Lone Ranger and Tonto were, but the idea of cowboy-Indian boyfriends was appealing. Their arms could be bent, so they could put their arms around each other and kiss.

I'm being forced to watch Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001): the aptly-named starship goes off in search of Maquis rebels, when both are zapped to the other side of the galaxy, 70,000 light years from home. The crews are quickly integrated, and they sent out on the 40 year long journey back. En route, they encounter various species that are depressingly identical to us. Some of the murder-mystery episodes could be sent in modern day Los Angeles with almost no changes in dialogue.

No gay characters or references to same-sex desire, or even many gay subtext. When fans suggested one, the actors vehemently denied it. I still remember a TV Guide article in which Jeri Ryan, who played the ex-cyborg Seven of Nine being humanized by Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), yelled that "Middle America" wasn't ready for gay characters. This some 20 years after a gay character starred on Soap.

Heterosexist "when a man and a woman fall in love" rhetoric occurs with depressing regularity, and one of the male characters is an annoying horndog who actually dates twins, "The Delany Sisters." Remember when Fonzie used to date the Del Rubio Triplets?

Well, what about beefcake? One of their favorite hangouts is a Caribbean resort holodeck program, where the speedo-clad men are hidden in the background, behind the bikini babes. And the main cast:

1. Robert Beltran (top photo, although he looks more buffed in his Starfleet uniform) as Chakotay, one of the Maquis rebels who becomes second in command on Voyager. A Native American, he is always talking about ancestral wisdom and going on vision quests. He's got a thing for Captain Janeway.

2. Robert Duncan McNeill (second photo) as Tom Paris, a young pilot who was sprung from a New Zealand prison to serve on Voyager (I'm not sure what his crime was). When he's not piloting, he's having sex. He states that he fought to get a gay-themed episode, and when he directed an episode, he hired gay actor Scott Thompson, but was forbidden from making the character gay.

3. Tim Russ (left) as Tuvok, Star Trek's first black Vulcan character, who is always talking about his wife and kids back home, and getting hit on by alien babes ("I've never met anyone like you before. So...logical.").''

That's all the shirtless photos I could find. But the 1990s was before Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and selfies, so we can't expect a lot.

Here's the rest of the main cast. See if you think any of them are cute:

4. Garrett Wang as Harry Kim, an ensign just starting his first job when he's zapped across the galaxy. Tom Paris big-brothers him and tries to get him laid. This might suggest a gay subtext, but they're too girl-crazy.

In 1993, Wang played a gay Chinese teenager who shoots his lover in the stage play Porcelain: he notes that playing a gay character "was controversial" at the time.

5. Ethan Phillips under a ton of makeup as Neelix, the ship's morale officer, cook, and comic relief.

6. Robert Picardo (older, chunkier, and balder) as an emergency medical hologram who has to transcend his programming to become the ship's full time doctor. He also learns about human relationships and hooks up with any number of hologram and alien babes (apparently male holograms have penises).

7. Manu Intiraymi as Icheb, a Borg boy adopted by the Voyager crew later in the series. He hangs out with the son of the omnipotent alien Q, and in a 2015 interview states that it would have been cool to have a gay romance blossom. But gay teenagers? In 2000? No way!

8. Alexander Enberg as Ensign Vorick, a Vulcan crewman who appears in 9 episodes, mostly to get a crush on chief engineer B'Elanna Torres. Who knew that Vulcans got crushes?

Enberg, who ranks at 51,510 on the website Man Crush Monday, played a gay character in the stage play Big Love (no connection to the tv series).

9. We're getting down to the 3-, 2-, and 1-episode appearances now, with characters named German S. S. Officer and Leonardo Da Vinci, and lots of aliens with k in their names: Brok'Tan, Donik, Korok, Kejal, Kelis, Rettik. Does K make someone sound alien?

I've been working on this for 1 1/2 hours, and it's time for breakfast. So let's finish up with singer and voice artist Hamilton Camp, who played a Ferengi. I'd date him.

On the eve of his 21st birthday, Auckland boy Axl Johnson (Emmett Skilton) and his mates are out buying beer, when they stop to watch a meteor shower. Suddenly a car almost runs him over. A lady emerges to "apologize" (the viewer sees that it was intentional). Instead of yelling "You stupid bitch, watch where you're going!", Axl flirts with her and invites her to his party.

Next scene: Axl's older brother Mike (Tim Balme) and his wife emerge from their house to look at the meteor shower. They discuss lovey stuff and hug and kiss.

Two establishing-that-they-are-heterosexual scenes in a row?

But...The Almighty Johnsons, on Amazon Prime, got good reviews. A mythological-fantasy-comedy, an amiable take on the old "supernatural beings living among us" trope. It's set in New Zealand, which automatically makes it interesting. And the tiniest of googles of the cast members reveals countless beefcake photos. I'll keep going.

Next scene: Axl's quiet, shy brother Ty (Jared Turner) is being rejected by a girl, who wants to be "just friends."

Ok, I get it. He's not gay, either. Geez, do you have to shove it down my throat?

Next scene: Axl's final brother Anders (Dean O'Gorman) is kissing a girl.

Really? Four of them? Is this heterosexual porn? Five seconds of Norse gods stuff, ten minutes of sex?

Apparently so. The next three scenes:

1. Axl is having sex with the woman from the car accident, when they are interrrupted by an earthquake.

2.Mike is having sex with his wife, same thing.

3. Anders is having sex with the girl, same thing. The girl jumps up from the bed. Naked girl butt.

Lord have mercy! I'm outta here!

If you have the stomach to continue, you'll find Axl's improbably buffed grandpa having sex with a girl (of course!), then tearing himself away long enough to tell Axl that he is the reincarnation of the Norse god Odin.

All of his family, and a good number of his mates, are also reincarnated Norse gods, but Axl is the Chosen One: he is destined to find the reincarnation of Frigg, his wife back in Asgard, and thus restore the gods to power.

That's right, it gets even worse: the goal of the quest, the theme of everyone's dreaming, is the Everlasting Feminine.

There are apparently some gay and bi characters, such as Bryn (John Leigh), an exceptionally short giant, and Jacob (Arthur Meek), an exceptionally tall dwarf, the adopted parents of Axl's flatmate/girlfriend Gaia. Or maybe they're just pretending to be gay to fit in. The plot synopsis is confusing.

And Zeb (Hayden Frost), Axl's other flatmate, a mortal who isn't aware of the Big Secret. Or at least he dates girls only when under a spell.

Again, the plot synopsis is confusing. And I'm definitely not sticking around to find out.

I've been posting about a lot of disappointing tv series -- gay teases that don't follow through, gushing praise that masks endless boy-girl kissing. It's high time we get to a series that it's actually good -- interesting, humorous, gay inclusive -- Los Espookys (well, that title could use a little work).

In an unspecified Latin American country, one of those magic-realism places where weird things happen so often that they're normal, Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco) creates a horror-themed quinceañera for his little sister. It is so impressive that his Uncle Tico (Fred Armisen), the world's greatest car parker (he can even park two cars at the same time), suggests that he make a career out of creating horror-themed events.

Renaldo conscripts his best friend, the weird blue haired Andrés (Saturday Night Live writer Julio Torres), into the business.

Andrés is the heir to a chocolate empire, immensely wealthy and powerful (what if they started making sugar-free chocolate? every dentist in the country would be unemployed).

His parents and his bulging swimsuit-clad trophy boyfriend (telenovela star José Pablo Minor, top photo) disapprove of his interest in horror, but he agrees to participate.

Next they conscript their friend Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti), a Goth dentist's assistant; and her delightfully obtuse sister Tati (Ana Fabrega), who has a variety of odd jobs (literally), like running a hand-cranked fan or breaking in people's shoes.

They expect to plan horror-themed parties, but for their first gig, Father Francesco (Luis Grieco), the priest at the local orphanage, complains that his new, hot, hip associate Padre Antonio (Cristobal Tapia Montt), is stealing all the glory of running orphanages. If he were to conduct an exorcism, he would be back in the spotlight again. So Los Espookys create an exorcism for him.

Next up: a millionaire's dying wish is to give his fortune to whoever can spend the night in a haunted house. They are hired to create the house, and ensure that the millionaire's son does not win.

They have found their niche: creating fake paranormal events: a sea monster for a seaside town to use as a tourist attraction; an alien autopsy for a UFO researcher to show his friends; a fake dream for an insomniac.

Along the way they have the usual daily hassles of magic-realism life: Andrés is pressured by his family to marry his trophy boyfriend and "settle down"; Tati keeps expecting the guys she meets on dating apps to look like their photo; Renaldo has to constantly correct the spelling of his name ("No, there is no Y. Yes, I'm sure. No, I don't know what my parents were thinking.").

Only 6 episodes, but fortunately Season 2 is already in the works.

My grade: A+

Brainerd, population 13,000, is on the Mississippi River about 2 hours north of Minneapolis and 2 1/2 hours east of Fargo. It's in a lake-abundant resort area, as you can probably tell from the sights:

Paul Bunyan Land, featuring a 26-foot tall talking animatronic Paul.

Pirate's Cove Adventure Golf

Three Bears Water Park (what do bears have to do with sliding into water?)

Trip Advisor also suggests the Crow Wing County Historical Museum and the National Pacific Railroad Shops Historic District, a series of railroad repair buildings.

Brainerd High School, enrollment 500, has a gay-straight alliance. There's an article in the Brainerd Dispatch on Valedictorian Bri Storlie, who is gay. She states that when you put up 50 posters, all but two are torn downthe next day, and when they scheduled a Day of Silence to draw attention to homophobic bullying, some students showed up with anti-gay slurs on their t-shirts.

In addition to the homophobia, Brainerd beefcake is hard to find. I found a few photos online, but most were from the Brainerd Dispatch, which prohibits downloading them.

So we're going to make do with "dreamy boys," fully clothed objects of romantic fantasies for the tween crowd, for whom faces are more important than physiques, and holding hands is the ultimate in physical contact.

Some bored-looking wrestlers.

The captain of the swim team, and his buddy. If only I were 30 years younger.

A football player. Is he benching only 90 pounds? Oh, well, it's all about the face, not the physique.

The high school's best all-around athlete. I like the little striped bow tie.

I'm not actually planning to watch 13 Reasons Why, the teen drama now in its third year on Netflix. I never understood the point of depressing "entertainment," and 13 Reasons is overwhelmingly dark and brutal, a cloud of gloom hanging over the hours between dinner and bedtime.

But if you don't mind "gloom, despair, and agony on end," there is also abundant beefcake, dozens of hunkoids (13 to be exact) who work out constantly, hoping that physical activity will alleviate some of their pain.

The premise: Hannah (Katherine Langford) commits suicide, and leaves behind a box of tapes at her friend's house, each a shrieking "J'accuse!" at one of the students and faculty responsible. Flashbacks reveal all the details. Meanwhile, Hannah's parents are suing the school for negligence.

Spoiler alert: the 13 reasons why are listed below:

1. Justin ( Brandon Flynn ), who gave Hannah her first kiss, uploaded a sexy photo of her to the internet, and claimed that they had sex, giving her a "slut" reputation.

2. Next Hannah befriends Jessica and Alex (Miles Heiser). When the two break up, Jessica blames Hannah, giving her a reputation as a boyfriend-stealer.

3. Alex distributes a list of the best/worst in the school, and says that Hannah has the best butt, in order to end her friendship with Jessica. There's no new hunk in this reason, so I'll add Clay (Dylan Minnette), who gets the box of tapes and is investigating the various culprits.

4. School photographer Tyler (Devin Druid) distributes a photo of Hannah kissing a girl named Courtney, thus ending their friendship and giving Hannah the reputation of being a lesbian.

5. Afraid of being outed (even though she has two dads), Courtney spreads a rumor about Hannah and another girl. No new hunk in this reason, so I'll add Christian Navarro as Tony Padilla, Clay's gay best friend and co-investigator.

6. Hannah accepts a Valentine's Day date with Marcus (Steven Silver). Assuming that she is a slut and a lesbian, he assumes that she will be up for sex, and tries to sexually assault her.

Steven Silver is a little stingy with beefcake photos, so instead I'll add Timothy Granaderos as Montgomery de la Cruz, a school bully.

7. Zach (Ross Butler, top photo), one of Marcus' friends, asks Hannah for a date, no doubt assuming that sex will be included. When she refuses, he gets revenge by removing the "positive notes" from her in-box in Communications class, leaving only negative ones and squashing her self-image.

8. When Hannah submits some extremely personal poetry to Poetry Club (why submit it if it's so personal?), club president Ryan (Tommy Dorfman) publishes it without her consent in the school newspaper, humiliating her.

9. Remember Hannah's on-off friend Jessica? She is sexually assaulted by Bryce (Justin Prentice) at a party. Hannah sees the whole thing, but doesn't intervene. The culprit in this reason is Jessica's boyfriend Alex, for allowing it to happen. Not Hannah?

10. On the way home from the party, Hannah and her friend Sherri accidentally knock over a stop sign. Hannah wants to call the police, but Sherri won't let her. Later Jeff (Brandon Larracuente), not seeing the downed sign, goes through the intersection and is hit and killed. The culprit this time? You guessed it -- Sherri.

11. Clay, who has an unrequited crush on Hannah, tried to help her at the party, but she rejected him, thus leading to the downed stop sign and Jeff's death. He's the culprit for not trying hard enough? This girl is doing a lot of blaming.

No new hunks in this reason, so I'll add Henry Zaga as Brad, the boyfriend of Tony (Clay's best friend).

12. Hannah goes to another party at Bryce's house, and he rapes her. Whoa.

Let's go on to Season 2, which is mostly about the trial. R. J. Brown plays Caleb, whom Tony (the best friend) dates.

13. Hannah tells guidance counselor Mr. Porter (Derek Luke) about being raped, but he does nothing. J'accuse!

Derek Luke is beefcake-shy, so let's include Bryce Cass as Cyrus, who, in Season 2, starts an anti-bullying campaign with Tyler (Reason #4)

There are several gay characters, and ample beefcake, but I'm still not watching. It sounds awful.

I don't know exactly what Team Stomp Wrestling is. Its website doesn't work, and its Facebook page is a masterpiece of lack of information. All I've been able to discover is:

1. It's in Lima, Ohio.

2. It's not the high school wrestling team.

3, Member regularly photographed with their shirts off.

4. All ages.

5. The Facebook page contains no photographs of anyone actually wrestling, just a lot of guys hugging.

6. The address is a long, low, nondescript building next to Rex Auto Supply and Brown Supply Company.

7. They have a dog.

8. They have golf as well as wrestling.

9. They go on field trips to statues of buffed guys (I'm assuming Neptune).

10. Their twitter page has a post from a guy named Zach, a "rock star pro wrestler," who is proposing to his girlfriend. He thanks her for "being my Dwayne Johnson."

The next 100 posts are of people congratulating them with memes.

I'm guessing it's some sort of wrestling club. I just came for the beefcake, but if you are interested in attracting new members, wouldn't you, like, somewhere on your social media sites, say what the group is?

Or do you expect everyone to just come for the beefcake?

Pity the gay people of McCook, Nebraska, population 7,000, in southwest Nebraska nowhere near anywhere. The nearest gay neighborhoods are in Denver, 4 hours away, and Omaha, 4 hours away in the other direction.

The top attractions are the Museum of the High Plains (in an old house), the city park, and a nearby reservoir.

The top restaurants are Fuller's, with toys on the walls, A Taste of Texas BBQ, and McDonald's.

A March for Love in the city park in 2017 drew 50 participants and onlookers, as well as a car with a driver yelling "Death to gays!" and a protest "Marriage = 1 Man and 1 Woman" festival.

But what McCook lacks in restaurants, sights, and pro-gay residents, it makes up for in beefcake. There are thousands of pictures online of McCook Bison wrestlers.

With or without their shirts.

Individual or group

Wacky or not (this one says "We mean business," so they're wearing ties, and one guy has a briefcase).

In McCook or away.

Sometimes with singlets.

And just when you think you have seen a beefcake photo of every high school and community college athlete in town, a whole file of pictures of the swim team appears.

And the cross-country team.

And powerlifters.

But I'm out of room.

Entitled, detached-from-reality Jewish American Princess Amanda (Georgia Flood, who looks exactly like Kristen Ritter of Don't Trust the B__ in Apartment 23) is planning a "fairy tale wedding" in the wilds of upstate New York. Minutes before she is scheduled to walk down the aisle, she stumbles upon her fiancé, Brett (Max Ehrich), having sex with last night's hookup. Still in her wedding dress, she rushes away.

Isn't that how Friends started?

Amanda runs into the wilderness and stumbles upon a Renaissance Faire, one of those summertime celebrations of all things Elizabethan -- well, the fun things anyway. There's boozing, dancing, craft booths, jousts, swordplay. Workers and many of the guests wear Elizabethan costumes and stay strictly in character. There are classes in how to speak, wave, bow, and pretend not to be aware of modern technology.

At first Amanda is dismissive of the daffy, reality deprived weirdos, but soon she realizes that her world is equally reality deprived. Besides, she was an English major, and likes this Renaissance stuff. When her mother and sister show up to take her home, she refuses. She gets a job at the Faire, and immerses herselves in the lives and problems of other "rennies" (faire professionals).

I'm surprised that there are so many of them, considering that they work only on weekends during the summer. It can't be a full time gig. But:

David (Lucas Neff, left, unrecognizable from Raising Hope) has an act involving getting splattered with mud and pretending to pee on people. A German and art history major, he wonders if this is what he wants to do for the rest of his life.

Delilah (Mary Hollis Inboden) has an act involving doing laundry and making sexual innuendos.

Maggie (Seanna Kofoed) has been playing Queen Elizabeth for over 20 years, and is worried about aging and losing her power.

Brian (Rory O'Malley), who plays William Shakespeare, has been her gay bff for many years, but he longs to be accepted by the other performers. After some false starts, he begins dating Juan Andres (Juan Alfonso), who runs a craft booth.

Leaf (Brock Harris, left) is a jouster, and spends his off time flirting with guests of all genders.

The female sexual empowerment stuff gets a little distasteful at times. I fast-forwarded through some discussions of vaginas. Did you know that they come in different sizes and shapes? I do, now.

But the colorful interactions among the characters, both in the Faire and back home on the Upper East Side, are worth sitting through some "boob and bush" discussions.

Besides, just about everyone on the show is gay, bisexual, or pansexual. There's even a three-way relationship between Natasha (Sophie von Hasselberg), Stephen (Ross Bryant), and Phil (Edgar Blackmon).

And there's a lot of beefcake. Most of the shirtless actors are playing scruffy, unwashed Elizabethan underlings, but there are also some buffed physiques about.

The first season is up on Vudu and Amazon Prime. I'm watching slowly, an episode every few days. I don't want it to end.

Dino Boy and Ugh

"Vida": Queer Characters, Female Empowerment. What's Not to Like?

10 Little House on the Prairie Hunks

Dave Draper Doesn't Get the Girl

A Wholesome Family Weekend

"The Boys": Superheroes, Homophobia, and the Girl of His Dreams

"No Good Nick": The Gay Kid Comes Out

The Gay Tease of "Sinfonia"

Twelve Forever: The First Gay Protagonist of Any American Children's Program

Justin Morrit, the Guy Who Shared Rob Lowe

The 1970s Debacle of "Mrs. Columbo"

Cowboy and Indian Toys

The Top 3 Hunks of "Star Trek: Voyager"

"The Almighty Johnsons": Norse Gods Kissing Girls in New Zealand

"Los Espookys": Who You Gonna Call?

Brainerd Boyfriends

The 13 Hunks of "13 Reasons Why"

Team Stomp Wrestling: Come for the Beefcake, Stay for the....

McCook, Nebraska: Population 7,000, beefcake population 23,000

"American Princess": My New Favorite TV Show