Nickelodeon puts them into bizarre, unexpected situations.
Which would you rather watch?
In Henry Danger, the new Nickelodeon teencom, average kid Henry (13-year old Jace Norman) lands his dream job: Danger Boy, teen sidekick to superhero Captain Man (Cooper Barnes).
He gets to wear a superhero costume, hang out in a cool futuristic hideout, and fight colorful Batman-like villains.
Of course, Henry can't tell anyone, but that's part of the fun. What kid doesn't want to live a secret life?
Especially a gay kid.
Jace Norman is exceptionally androgynous -- with a change of outfit, he could easily be a girl -- so the gay symbolism seems almost deliberate.
He has two best friends, the sarcastic, sassy Charlotte (Riele Downs) and the rather dimwitted Jasper (Sean Ryan Fox). No doubt a heterosexual romance is in the offing with one, and a gay-subtext romance with the other.
Captain Man (Cooper Barnes) was heterosexualized in the first episode with a set-piece of his alter ego romancing a woman, but he's probably going to be up for some gay symbolism, too.
Cooper Barnes, seen here as Hawkman, is no stranger to gay subtexts. He starred in a short video about football fans engaging in unconscious homoerotic behavior,
Like Jeffery Nicholas Brown (top photo), who plays Henry's father.
And Ben Giroux, seen here flexing in a commercial, as the villainous Toddler.
It's still too soon to know if Henry Danger will become a gay-subtext classic, like Drake and Josh and Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. But it's off to a good start.