458: Gay Television Producers

And so to add to the gay actors, gay choreographers, gay dancers, gay hair dressers, gay interior decorators, gay fashion designers, gay shop assistants, gay antique shop-owners, gay teachers, gay writers, gay civil servants, gay spies, and gay guardsmen, may I may present:

Gay TV producers

I suppose it’s just a further new modern arena in which gay men can be theatrical and temperamental. There was an early example in Victor Spinetti’s character in “A Hard Days Night” (1964).

“Private Eye” 3 January 1967

A couple of years on is this character by Barry Humphries in “The Adventures of Barry McKenzie”. Admittedly, in this instalment the presentation he’s introduced first as a gay man, and then is a TV producer later, so it’s not a smooth integration.

In most cases this appearance of a gay TV producer is not a matter of being a fully rounded character or even much of a joke. It’s really just a matter of throwing a brief of moment of comic colour into the environs of television production.

“Dawson and Friends”, 1977
Starts: 0.55 – 2.20

This Subsonic sketch is a parody of the ITV music programme, “Supersonic” and its presenter Mike Mansfield, here spoofed by Julian Orchard in a very floppy pink bow, with a very limp wrist and some “sweety”s and “dear”s. Manfield isn’t gay that I’m aware of, so this very broad camp portrayal is just an added extra. There’s a Lot of It About, 1982
20.58 – 21.20

“There’s a Lot of It About” was one of the later of Spike Milligan’s rather free-form sketch programmes. Some of the sketches in this series were also written by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, but I don’t think this is one of them. Spike Milligan rarely bothers with gay jokes, so for all that this just a very brief cameo it therefore stands out (although some of the characters portrayed by Peter Sellers in “The Goon Show” have a possible gay interpretation). In this sketch, a very broad camp caricature appears for a few seconds when a parody of the TV programme “Panorama” goes off the rail and comes to a technical halt. The part is played by Keith Smith who flounces on, addresses the crew in an enormously camp voice and with tremendously fluttering hands, then flounces off again. The picture quality is a little fuzzy, but it looks as though Smith is also distinguished by wearing a pair conspicuous purple shiny earrings.

“Punch”, 18 October 1978

Off the immediate topic of TV producers, but Smith’s ludicrous caricature me reminds a lot of this equally spurious, unrealistic and related-only-to-other-comic-stereotypes throwaway illustration according a humorous piece about “The A.A. Book of Minorities”.

457: Gay Boxing 3: I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again

I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again – 19 Apr 1970
Written by Graham Garden and Bill Oddie

http://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/comedy/Im-Sorry-Ill-Read-That-Again/710-Harder-They-Fall-April-19-1970-show-9360.html

You can play the episode online or download a copy at the link above.
“The Harder They Fall, the More They Hurt Themselves” runs for the last 10 minutes of the programme

Prior to this sketch, Terry Southern had executed several variations on the idea of a gay boxer in the film and book versions of his “The Magic Christian”

The radio sketch programme “I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again” drew its humour from silliness, puns, running gags and characters, sarcastic topical comments, and mild sexiness. This was matched by the enthusiastic performances of its cast, which were equalled and sometimes overpowered by the responses of an overenthusiastic audience. Each show usually ended with a longer 10 minute sketch parody.

“The Harder They Fall, the More They Hurt Themselves” is a parody of boxing match has as its centrepiece John Cleese’s camp old queen of a rookie boxer, Butch aka “Sugar Puff Robinson”. This is an obvious play on the name of the famous boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, as sugar puffs are a breakfast cereal, but in English slang “puff” or “poof” or “poufffe” was a then-popular term for “homosexual”.

5 years have passed since Julian and Sandy on “Round the Horne”. Julian and Sandy employed the private slang of Polari, and the writers and cast were unsure as to what they would be able to get past the BBC censors. So even as people were laughing at those sketches, they may not necessarily have been entirely sure what they laughing at, but were just caught up in the entertaining hysteria. The gags in this episode of “I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again” aren’t intended to go over anyone’s head or appear to worry much about the censor. Cleese’s character makes numerous sly sexually appreciative comments about wrestler’s glistening bodies and his camp innuendoes (“You can call me anytime”) get strong laughs. Broad acting, broad gags, broad laughs.

Bill Oddie as boxing trainer: All I want is a raw youth I can get to work on.

Cleese: Mm, don’t we all. Oh, I say. Quiet, plebs. Hello boys. I’m butch. Sorry -“Butch”.

There’s a heavy dose of effeminacy gags about and wearing women’s clothing: “If you touch my earrings I’ll wince”

Mention of a fighter’s purse (his prize money) gets a “Goody, it’ll go with my huge handbag”

Graham Garden as the promoter: Jack will be your second

Cleese: Don’t you believe it!

In this extended sketch, Cleese takes the camping-it-up spotlight from Tim Brooke Taylor, who as noted all over this blog, was the go-to-performer for mincing about for this generation of Oxbridge comedians.

Cleese’s comment “I’m as rugged as the next man” elicits a quick fey fairy cameo from Tim as The Next Man, and then a quick spat as to who saw all the men first.

Tim BRooke Taylor now admits, “The one thing I do regret is the large number of gay jokes. At the time it was liberal to be able to do ‘poofter’ jokes at last – ‘Round the Horne’ did them brilliantly. But it went on too long and I remember thinking, ‘if I do this in a ‘whoops’ voice it will get a laugh.’ I’m happy to say I gave that route up eventually.” – “The Clue Bible” by Jem Roberts.

449: Peter Cook and Dudley Moore - The Masked Phantom

Goodbye Again, 1968

Peter Cook as Reporter
Dudley Moore as the Masked Phantom

In which the aggressive wrestler is really a camp, artistically-inclined sissy. Basically, it’s an opportunity for Dudley Moore to camp it up once again - and at rather too long a length.

--------------------------------

REPORTER: Good evening. Tonight in Worldnewspectoramaprobe, we examine the controversial sport of wrestling. Last week, I went down to the Shoreditch gymnasium to see the Masked Phantom in training. . .

(Cut to the Shoreditch gymnasium)

REPORTER: Well, here I am at the Shoreditch gymnasium, and we're about to see a practice bout between the Masked Phantom, who is just over here behind me, and looking very confident - a very fit, compact and agile fighter. His opponent tonight is an extremely dour and tough northerner from Scunthorpe, the Scunthorpe Strangler. I'm just going to try and get a word with them before the fight begins. . .

(The bell rings. The wrestlers start fighting)

REPORTER: I think I'll probably leave now, and let them get on with it . . .

(The Scunthorpe Strangler picks up REPORTER, and hurls him out of the ring. The Masked Phantom wins the ensuing bout, and joins REPORTER for an interview)

REPORTER: Speculation has been raging up and down the country as to the true identity of this ferocious fighter. Tonight, for the first time in the history of the universe, the Masked Phantom rips off the mask and reveals his true identity.

(The Masked Phantom removes his mask, revealing the familiar features of Phantom)

PHANTOM: (very camp) Hello.

REPORTER: Good evening, Phantom.

PHANTOM: I wish you'd call me Tom.

REPORTER: Tom, wrestling's a pretty rugged sport. What made you go into it?

PHANTOM: I think really to prove myself as a man, you know. The whole Sir Francis Chichester, Round The Horn bit, you know.

REPORTER: I understand - to prove yourself as a man. Are these fights in any way ever fixed?

PHANTOM: (increasingly effete) Well, I can't speak for my colleagues in the profession, but speaking purely personally, you know, I go in that ring to be champ. I go in there to win. I become like some ferocious beast, you know - like some savage monster. I pull that mask over my head and something goes pop in my mind. And then something comes over me.

REPORTER: The mask, presumably?

PHANTOM: Right first time, cheeky chops. Whereas in real life, look at me now. Gentle, sensitive person - wouldn't hurt a fly.

REPORTER: Well, we have a chance to test the sincerity of the Phantom's words, as I happen to have a fly with me here in the studio, which I'm going to place in front of him and judge his reactions. Phantom, a fly for you.

(REPORTER takes a small box .from his pocket, and passes it to Phantom)

PHANTOM: A fly for you and a fig for me.

(Phantom opens the box)

PHANTOM: What a beauty! What a lovely creature! I think you're very cruel, keeping him cooped in here like that. (to the fly) Off you go, Ferdinand! (to REPORTER) Honestly, you are awful!

REPORTER: Proof positive, I think, of the Phantom's sincerity.

PHANTOM: If I may interrupt here, excuse me, but as Goethe, the great German poet said, die Liebe ist Alle - all you need is love, baby.

REPORTER: You mention Goethe. What are your favourite kind of books?

PHANTOM: Er, leather bound ones, mainly. You know, I love old things. Any old thing appeals to me. It's what they say about me down the gym, anyway.

REPORTER: Have you any interests outside the ring?

PHANTOM: My goodness gracious me, yes I have! Oh, yes! The people look at me and, you know, all they see is a great hunk of flesh. You know, I get branded as a wrestler, whereas in fact I'm interested in anything you care to mention - ceramics, pottery, sculpture, music, dancing, theatre. You name it, and I love it.

REPORTER: You mention theatre. What sort of roles do you see yourself in?

PHANTOM: Ooh, you're going to get me going, aren't you? Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I know I'm stretching my neck out, but I love Shakespeare. You know, whatever anybody says about him, I adore that man. I'd love to have a go at his King Lear, for instance.

REPORTER: You see yourself as King Lear?

PHANTOM: Well, shall I say I feel it here within me, you know. But all I need is a good director to coax it our. I think, oh what's his name? Come on, mutton head! REPORTER Brook! REPORTER Brook could get a wonderful Lear out of me. He could get a wonderful anything, you know. I only wish I'd put myself up for Oedipus.

REPORTER: You're interested in the Greek theatre, too?

PHANTOM: (ecstatic) The Greek theatre! I've loved the Greek theatre ever since “Never On A Sunday”. All that music and dancing, the philosophy - I love it!

REPORTER: Have you been to Greece recently?

PHANTOM: I only put a little body oil on before the show. Does it show?

REPORTER: I meant the country.

PHANTOM: Oh, I thought you meant grease! I'm sorry! I'm miles away!

REPORTER: Outside all your interests such as the theatre and ceramics, I understand you're also something of a singer.

PHANTOM: Yes, I've waxed my first disc, actually, just recently.

REPORTER: And I believe that, rather unusually, you accompany yourself on your own body.

PHANTOM: Yes, I call it deep singing. It's actually just an extension of Paganini's dictum. You know, the great violinist, Paganini.

REPORTER: Yes.

PHANTOM: He used to say, 'Whenever I make love to a lady, I like to think I'm playing the violin.'

REPORTER: I wonder if you could give an example of your singing now?

PHANTOM: I'd be delighted. I'll just whip my cosie off.

REPORTER: Right. Here, accompanying himself on his own body, in “O For The Wings of A Dove”, the Masked Phantom.

PHANTOM: Don't laugh, now.

(sings) O for the wings, for the wings of a dove

Far away, far away would I roam

(speaks, to REPORTER) I feel a bit thin without the backing behind, but that's the sort of thing.

REPORTER: I think it's very promising, and I'm sure we all wish the Masked Phantom an immense hit with his first record.

PHANTOM: You're very sweet, thank you.

443: Gay Bert and Ernie 1

Christopher Street
National Lampoon’s White Album (1979/1980?)

http://www.myspace.com/music/player?sid=40329502&ac=now

Like Batman and Robin, another male duo in children’s entertainment subject to longstanding gay rumours is the opposites-attract pair of roommates Bert and Ernie from “Sesame Street”. The naïve portrayal of two men living together arouses speculations that this is really a gay relationship, although nobody ever makes these points about their inspiration from “The Odd Couple”.

This parody is the earliest instance I can find of gaying up Bert and Ernie. Of course in these democratic days of the internet when everybody has access to the means of production, the public is no longer restricted to consuming only those few comedy offerings which have been sanctioned by the media gatekeepers, so knock yourself out searching Youtube. Although in the specific matter of gay Sesame Street parodies, to be honest, they aren’t going to be much worse or much better than this offering on what was a rather poor late period National Lampoon LP by a load of unknowns. I can’t even find concrete confirmation as to whether this record was released in 1979 or 1980, and don’t know who wrote or performed this specific sketch. (LP Written by: Alice Playten, Tony Scheuren, Lynn Goldsmith, Marc Rubin, Ted Mann, Tony Scheuren, Lynn Goldsmith, Marc Rubin, Steve Goodman, Sean Kelly. Performers: Alice Playten, Michael Simmons, Rodger Bumpass, Tia Brelis, Tony Scheuren, Shelley Barre, James Widdoes, Sylvia Grant, Steve Collins, Garry Goodrow, Rhonda Coullet, Rory Dodd.)

The fun-loving, goofy Ernie and the uptight, easily-irritated Bert become emblematic of certain types of gay couples. Compare this relationship to the near contemporary portrayal of the two gay roommates played by Cheech and Chong. Ernie becomes the equally genial Eddie, and his muppet-voice easily acquires a distinct lisp. Bert’s frustrations with Ernie are transformed into the bitchy hissy-fits of a jealous lover. And again, again, again, again, and yet again, the sissy-name of choice “Bruce” is dragged out.

Some attempts are made to also include a few Sesame Street-format counting gags (Numbers: 2+1 equals 3, and Letters: KY). There’s one heavy-handed reference to a “closet” and a taste for Judy Garland and canapes, which could have been unthinkingly knocked out with no effort anytime in the previous decade, but otherwise it’s a view of the late 70s heavily-sexualised gay social scene (saunas, slave bracelets, threesome, getting reamed, and “meat racks”). Other than just gesturing at large capital cities in general, the Castro in San Francisco and Christopher Street in New York city were the gay ghettos that the general public might be able to identify. As a contrast to this sketch, there’s also the “To Think That I saw It on Christopher Street” in National Lampoon magazine. You get Big Blonde as a shrieking sissy with a “big basket of goodies”, and if Herman the Fag refers to anything in the original programme I don’t know. Given that it’s the late 70s I expected a Coke Monster joke, but instead it’s the Ka-Ka Monster, because scat is as freaky-gay as you can probably get sexually without explicitly making any fisting jokes, which as this is about puppets would have seemed like an open goal. But there you go, it’s not a great sketch, as I’m sure I’ve said somewhere in the preceding.

Christopher Street
Where all kind of people meet;
To love one another
Get into your brother
By the back door”

438: Spike Milligan - The Melting Pot

The Melting Pot, 1975
Written by Spike Milligan and Neil Shand

A brief gay guardsman gag from Spike Milligan’s infamous cancelled 1975 sitcom “The Melting Pot”. The programme followed the hijinks of two illegal Pakistani immigrants in England, played by Spike Milligan and John Bird in brown-face. At that time, almost no Indian actors appeared on British television and such characters were usually played by English actors in make-up. However the point of the programme was in taking almost every conceivable racial and sexual stereotype and then exaggerating them to absurd and surreal proportions. So you get Scottish Jews, Chinese cockneys and African with Yorkshire accents. Many of the characters are also racist and bigoted, which given their various nationalities only makes their prejudices seem more ridiculous. However, the show’s premise and its implementation meant that it was always going to cross certain borders of taste even if it was lucky enough not to be perceived as racist. The entire series was recorded but after airing only the first episode, the BBC withdrew the whole programme. The series is too little known to join the roster of notorious / embarrassing British racial comedies of the time such as “Curry and Chips”, “Love Thy Neighbour”, “Mind Your language” and “It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum”. Milligan published “The Melting Pot” script as a book in 1983, and large chunks of material were recycled in Milligan’s 1987 novel “The Looney”.

This is a brief gag from a longer scene set in a laundry in the second episode, which would have aired in June 1975. A brief skit which is as in-yer-face and confrontational as the rest of the show. No delicacy or subtlety, which is the is the point. The butchness of the guardsman played off against the 1970s poof–cum-rentboy attire of his boyfriend. Aggressively blatant without apologies

-----------------------------------------

A very smart guardsman enters holding hands with a delightful gay boy. The gay boy wears flared red corduroys, sleeveless body vest, a pink ostrich feather-boa. They are holding hands and carrying a laundry bags. The gay wears an afro wig which he removes and puts in the washing machine. He sits back with the guardsman to the amazement of other Rembrandt and Van Gogh.

Guardsman: Wot you starin’ at? It’s legal now, isn’t it?

428: Computer Dating 3 - Kenny Everett

Starts 2.55 – 5.02 “The Kenny Everett Television Show”, March 3, 1983
Kenny Everett and Geoffrey Palmer

And by the early 1980s the set-up of a computer dating system accidentally setting up two straight men on the same date is a cliché that can be subverted with a surreal twist as in this sketch.

426: Computer Dating 1 - Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra

The Dean Martin Show
2 January 1969

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7Nr_n_55yQ

Hey kids, ever wished you could see Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra playing kinda gay. Today, your vaguely articulated whim is my command.

This sketch starts off with the pair disappointed to discover they’ve been matched up together, gradually accepting their compatibility, dancing together and then the cops come to dance them off stage.

This sketch is more about the two enjoying themselves together in front of an appreciative audience, which is the whole rat pack thing. Indeed, part of the “fun” is their bewilderment - as the characters in the sketch, these two internationally famous womanisers (“what do you consider most important in a date”: “38-24-28”) and also as the performers of the sketch - wondering “what the hell are we doing in this?”

If these were proper (comedic) actors these performances would be a lot more thought out. Instead you get the occasional lispiness moment from Dean. Sinatra does become more effeminate towards the end, particularly his reply ”If you don’t know then it won’t make any difference” to Dean’s “Why aren’t you a girl”.

Notice that it takes the audience a moment or two pick up on Dean’s “I can’t think straight” gag. Note also the “three children – one of each” line.

Frank Sinatra appeared on The Dean Martin Show on 2 January 1969 and 31 December 1970. Since a quick search shows that a large number of sitcoms had plot gimmicks about computer dating and a few chat shows and news programmes featured discussion of computer dating in 1969, I suspect this means computer dating was a current topic and that this sketch is therefore from the 1969 show. And what could be more extreme computer cock up than the possibility of two men dating each other

425: Pinklisting

Saturday Night Live, 9 November 1985

This sketch, in the first SNL episode of autumn 1985, is in the context of Rock Hudson’s death the previous month. To America’s shock, the long time heart throb and Hollywood leading man had announced on July 25, 1985 that he was suffering from AIDS contracted from homosexual encounters. Two and a half months later he died on 2 October 85. In the wake of Hudson’s revelation there was much concern that in his kissing scenes with his co-star Linda Evans on “Dallas” he might have transmitted AIDS to her. On Oct 31, 1985, the New York Times reported that “Because of the fear of AIDS among its members, the Screen Actors Guild is requiring the 7,000 producers and agents with whom it has contracts to notify performers in advance of any scenes that require open-mouth kissing. The guild has sent a letter describing such scenes as ‘a possible hazard to the health of actors in light of the lack of clear and consistent medical opinion as to how or in what manner this disease is communicated’.''

Supposedly the light falling into the pool was an accident and Sweeney’s panicked cry was genuine, but in the context of the sketch both make sense. If not the first episode, then this was one of the earliest episodes that Sweeney performed in. He had been a writer for the show for a number of years, and was already “out”, therefore becoming the first gay performer on the show. So here you have a gay man pretending to be gay, as stereotypes of masculine and gay behavior and interests are played off each other. Hence the Judy Garland headline, and occasional shrieking sissiness and effeminate mannerisms. Although it’s all in the aid of a larger sympathetic satirical point about being forced back into the closet.

Madonna as Melinda Zoomont
Randy Quaid as the Director
Terry Sweeney as Clint Weston
Joan Cusack as Make-Up Girl
Jon Lovitz as Censor

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Rolling Captions and Announcer: "In the early 1950's, a dark shadow descended upon Hollywood. Caught up in the mass-hysteria of the McCarthy era, the entertainment industry turned against its own, blacklisting innocent artists and craftsmen. Banned from their chosen occupations, these blacklisted individuals fell victim to hearsay, its ugly accomplice innuendo, and their unattractive sidekick, guilt by association. And now in 1985, Hollywood again is gripped by paranoia, this time provoked by the tragic AIDS outbreak. Actresses refused to do scenes with unknown actors. Gay actors are forced back into the closet, leading double lives, wearing wedding bands, riding motorcyles - living in fear that they will fall victim to: PINKLISTING"

[ dissolve to movie set, as actress Melinda Zoomont storms in ]

Melinda Zoomont (in a terrible stilted posh English actress accent): Art, are these the pages? Because if they are, it's all wrong. I thought the love scene with the new character was out?

Director: Sweetheart, we decided that we had to establish your relationship with Lionel, because four or five scripts down the line, you're gonna have his baby and he kidnaps you.

Melinda Zoomont: But I told you, I don't do love scenes with actors I don't know!

Director: Take five, everybody!

(Stagehands groan]

Melinda Zoomont: I hate that this is happening to me, because it places me in the role of the bitch. And I hate that, because I'm not a bitch.

Director: Melinda, Melinda.. no one thinks you're a bitch. You’re a professional. We all are. We've got a job to do. Now, you may not know Clint Weston, but I do. And I can tell you that there's not another more masculine, heterosexual actor on 24-hour call in this town!

Melinda Zoomont: Well.. maybe I'll do the scene - but not until I meet the man face-to-face.

[sound of motorcycle can be heard ]

Director: That sounds like Clint's Harley.

Clint Weston (appears, punching shoulders of other men in palsy fashion) : Damn those helmet laws - who needs 'em, huh? Heads up (as he throws helmet to stangehand)

[everyone is happy to see Clint as he enters the set, Clint shakes hands, give high-fives, almost goes to shake hand with female stangehand ]

Director: Hey, Clint! [ they shake hands ]

Clint Weston: (over emphatic, with stilted macho movements ala John Wayne, rolling shoulders pulling at shirt and adjusting belt buckle) How about the gazombas (cups hands) on that make-up girl, huh? Boy, I know the old wife wouldn't be pleased with that comment (flaunts wedding band on hand) , but hey - just because you're on a diet doesn't mean you can't look at the menu, right guys? [ notices Melinda ] Oh . . . uh . . . excuse me. Just a little guy talk there!

Director: Clint, this is Melinda Zoomont, your leading lady.

Melinda Zoomont: How do you do?

Clint Weston: Oh, how do you do? You don't have to introduce me to television's sexiest star!

Melinda Zoomont: Well, uh.. I think we're running a bit late. Shall we do the scene?

Director: Right you are, Melinda. We'll knock this off as soon as you get out of make-up, Clint.

Clint Weston: Okay, right-o! [approaches the make-up chair, sits down ] Hey, how about handing me the paper, huh? I want to check the stats on my Raiders. (on front page of paper held to audience away from him, headline reads: “Judy Garland Bio: Liza Unwanted" Clint flips papers around so he notices article). (in more effeminate emotional tones, clasping hands to face) Oh, my God! Why doesn't she leave the poor woman alone! (crying)

Make-Up Girl: Are you alright?

Clint Weston: (pulls himself together) Of course, I'm alright! It's just that Raiders secondary! Last week they leaked like a sieve

Make-Up Girl: Who's the secondary?

Clint Weston: Oh, uh.. those are the guys that, uh . . . go . . . uh, uh . . . both ways. [gets up, returns to the set ]

Director: Uh.. you got your dialogue?

Clint Weston: Uh.. yeah, yeah.

Director: Alright, come on over here, we'll just talk you through this. Okay, now, Clint, you propose a toast to your little scheme, you share a glass of wine, you gaze into each other's eyes, you kiss passionately . . . then you take off your clothes, and you get into the hot tub. Got it? Uh, can we hear that hot tub!

Stagehand: Hot tub!

[hot tub starts bubbling]

Director: That's 180° in there, so you two should be quite comfortable.

Clint Weston: Can you believe we're getting paid to do this!

Melinda Zoomont: Another day, another $10,000.

Clint Weston: [ laugh] (almost camply:) Stop it! We've got a scene to do!

Director: Could we get a censor in here? I've got a question about this kiss here?

Censor: [enters set ] Yeah, what can I do for you?

Director: Oh, Ted, hey how you doing? Uh, listen, Ted, how passionately can we make this kiss? Uh.. we got sweeps coming up, I need a little help here.

Censor: I tell you, there hasn't been much kissing lately, so.. just about anything is okay with us. Now, as long as we don't see any tongue; a little bulge in the cheek [ demonstrates ] or this, that's alright. But we can't see any of this (tongue waggling)..

Director: Okay. Thanks, Ted, I owe you one, buddy! Okay, let's rehearse this - Clint, Melinda, from the top! Alright, roll it.

Voice: Speed.

Voice: Sound.

Director: Action!

Melinda Zoomont: My husband has the same routine every day. If you follow my instructions, it should be child's play.

Clint Weston (huskier): Angel, I want you to know - I'm not just doing this for the money..

[a light falls from the set, crashing into the hot tub, Clint camply shrieks and panics ]

Melinda Zoomont: Wait a minute! You're gay!

Clint Weston: Yes, I'm gay! And now you all know. Art, you can fire me if you like, but I can't go on living a lie.

Director: Clint, I admire your guts. And I think you should know that.. I'm gay, too.

(All the other stagehands shout they are too, and two wrap their arms around each other)

Clint Weston: [ to Melinda ] Living out this little charade, you know, was not our choice. It was a matter of survival! But I suppose you wouldn't know anything about that!

Melinda Zoomont: Well.. actually.. I do have a confession to make. And I do understand you. [ long pause as she slowly stalks to centre stage, stand still, collects herself, then proclaims] I'm an intravenous drug user.

[everyone groans with disgust and horror]

Director (pats he comfortingly, understandingly): Well, shall we do the scene, then?

Melinda Zoomont: [ considering ] Alright.

Clint Weston: Wait a minute! No way am I gonna kiss an intravenous drug user! Get my agent! (charges off stage, his hand waggling high)

Director: Take five, everybody! Clint!

[As the camera pulls back the two stagehands with their arms around - one of whom I think is Anthony Michael Hall - begin kissing each other]

399: The Romans in Britain

“The Romans in Britain” was a play by Howard Brenton first staged in 1980 by the National Theatre. The play alternates between contemporary English troops in occupied Ireland, and the titular Romans in Britain as a study in imperialism and violence. The fact that all the ancient Celts appeared on stage naked was enough to raise a few hackles. But newspapers took a lot more interest in the scene in which a Celtic druid is raped by Roman troops.

Michael Heath
“Punch”, 29 October 1980
An opportunity for a little-same sex explains all these rather fey, twinkly-eyed persons on stage in a quasi-S&M scenario.

The play would probably have faded in the nether realm where most theatrical productions reside with just a few more sniggers given the sexual aspects and a little more outrage than usual given its pro-Irish independence theme. However it really hit the headlines due to the activities of censorious religiously motivated prude and all-around screw-face Mary Whitehouse. Never knowingly without sand in her vag, though Whitehouse knew nothing about politics (the subtleties of rape as a metaphor passed over her head with a sonic boom), she knew filth when she heard about it. If the depiction of sodomitical intercourse between men on stage wasn’t filth then nothing was. The self-appointed guardian of the nation’s morals didn’t go see the play, but did send one of her minions to attend a showing. He reported he had seen one of the actors insert his penis into another actor's rear. Despite Whitehouse’s urgings the Director of Public Prosecutions said no legal action would be taken, so Whitehouse initiated her own private prosecution against the director for having "procured an act of gross indecency” contrary to the Sexual Offences Act of 1956 – the same law used against cottaging.

Not the Nine O’Clock News, 1981
(First half is a parody of the somewhat raunchy dance troupe “Hot Gossip”, a few of whose members were fairly obviously gay. Here you can you see Rowan Atkinson, Griff Rhys-Jones and Mel Smith as “The Nancy Boys” swishing about to Blondie’s “Atomic” as some rather bored dancers more than just a little cheesed off with their lithe female colleagues tarting it about – whereas real gay dancers would probably try to outshine the females and hog the spotlight. This is closer to the cliche of male ballet dancers bored and envious of the attention given to then women).
Starts at 1.18
The play makes the perfect occasion for an “I’ll be buggered if I go out there” joke.

The trial went around with terrible consequences for the accused if found guilty. The prosecution though had only one witness, the minion who had reported to Whitehouse. His evidence was that he had seen a penis penetrate. Upon questioning it was revealed that he had purchased a cheap seat at the rear of the audience making him unreliable, so that he had not seen what had really happened on stage - the actor had in fact simply made a fist with his thumb sticking out and mimed penetration.

“Punch” 2 September 1981

The presiding judge said the case could still continue on the Act's grounds of obscenity as the tendency to deprave or corrupt, but then Whitehouse’s lawyer refused to proceed and the case collapsed in an unprecedented manner. Both sides claimed victory, although since she was the party who initiated a £40,000 law case on the basis of an obscured thumb, you can’t help but feel Whitehouse looks the more foolish.

Mile Kington, “The Times”, 24 Mar. 1982

389: Anita Bryant 5 – Laugh-In

A September 5 1977 “Laugh-In” special mocked Anita Bryant. One of the sketches featured four Miami cops (one played by a young, then-unknown Robin Williams) changing into drag, singing "I Enjoy Being a Girl" and finishing by declaring, "We love you, Anita!”

Cops in drag may not be a terribly enlightened view of gay men. But the n the point of the sketch is to taunt Anita. Swishing it up to irritate the homophobes. Whatever you say gay men are, then that’s what we’ll pretend to be times two. As satire it’s in the in the category, of “You hate gays. Look, here’s some gays. Bet that sure winds you up! Ha ha – ha ha!”

Bryant seems to have been stung by this sketch as she revisits her resentment at Laugh-in’s treatment of her in her autobiography. Certainly the producers seemed to have viewed her as a gift for mockery:

‘Laugh-In producer George Schlatter, contemplating topics for the new version of the show to be seen on NBC, was quoted recently as noting, "You don't have the war anymore — but you do have Anita Bryant." (from the Tom Shales article on Johnny Carson)

and

"Anita Bryant is a walking punch line." says Laugh-In producer George Schlatter.

384: Stars Wars 3

“Queer Wars”
Cheech and Chong

Gay Star Wars a la Cheech and Chong. There are at least three somewhat different versions of this sketch for your pleasure by Cheech and Chong: live performance, album, and film.

The version which most obviously starts as a Star Wars parody is the one on their 1980 album, “Let’s Make a New Dope Deal”. It opens with the following narration, which the other two versions seem to lack:

“A long, long time ago in a far-out Galaxy, somewhere around the year 2003 FM, there existed a pink planet which was inhabited by a most gay community and ruled by the popular actor-model-decorator-and-gossip-columnist Rex the Turd, otherwise known as Wex Da Toid. He was a bitchy Sagittarius and a drag out of drag, but a most kindly ruler, and life on this pink planet was fabulous: parties every night, steam baths, dancing at the discos, slave auctions, qualudes, grass, and cocaine was the order of the day. However, one day this idyllic paradise was threatened by the evil witch, Anita - ruler of the orange planet, Navel. Anita and her followers the dreaded Paranoids feared the pink planet and wanted to destroy it, wipe it from the galaxy, or at least move it out of the downtown area. But their efforts are being thwarted by our heroes, Lukie Streetwalker and his faithful companion, Dougie.

"Bum Productions along with the Kids Across the Hall Present:

"Queer Wars

"We find our Glad-e’ate-ums, Lukie and Dougie, at home in their apartment planning a surprise attack on the orange planet.”

So: topical references with the gay metropolitan clubbing lifestyle (heavy on the drug elements – this is Cheech and Chong, after all) and Anita Bryant, the orange juice spokeswoman’s family values campaign.

From there all three versions proceed into the whining, neurotic, over-emotional, petulant camp stereotype which is the late 70s /early 80s comedic formula for gay couples: are they lovers or just roommates going out to a disco – see also National Lampoon’s “Christopher Street” sketch and Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscapo in the Saturday Night Live “Dion and Blair” sketches . That the Tommy Chong character needs constant reassurance that he’s not too old, fat or wrinkled may be some sort of carry over from the characters in “la Cage Aux Folles” which was very successful as a film in 1978.

One line that’s only on the album version. Chong is complaining about his hair,
Cheech: Put some Crisco on it
Chong: (bitterly) That’s your answer to everything.

Live, 1978
I suspect they were proudest of the various gags built around the dildos as guns idea.

“Still Smokin” - 1983
In this film version, somehow the cliché that gay men dress flamboyantly has become gay men dress like circus clowns – more visual I suppose. A gays and Liza Minelli on drugs reference which may only be 6-8 years old at this point. And again, dildos appear, here used as depilators and deodorants.

353: Gay Cowboys - 1970s and 1980s

Charles Rodrigues
In “National Lampoon”, May 1970
I’ll confess this one is a bit of a guess. But hey, he’s riding side-saddle (see poem below) and is lisping. So it’s not much of a leap to assume that some sort of weird effeminate thing is going on. Although Rodrigues slightly eggs his gag by having another character laughing at him, as though to prove that his ridiculousness is irrefutable.

("O cowboy so lean,
O cowboy so tall,
You sit there straight as an arrow.
But side-saddle you ride,
Instead of astride.
Are you perhaps a gay ranchero?"
- Ernie Kovacs as "Percy Dovetonsils", a joke that tends to be remembered better as "Show me a cowboy who rides sidesaddle, and I'll show you a gay ranchero")


Arnold Roth
In “Punch” 15 October 1980
From a collection of cartoons about “The Drinking Public”
This is exactly the same joke from “Laugh-In” about 10 years earlier. Not that Roth needs to crib. A little thought and this gag writes itself. The Cowboy at western saloon demanding a whisky is a cliché. The sissiest drink for a man to request is a daiquiri. Et Voila! An effeminate cowboy drinking a daiquiri. It then just comes down to how you want to depict effeminacy or homosexuality. Okay, yes, the pursed lips, yes, the effeminate eyes, yes, the hand on hip. But really, a watering can in his holster?


Illustration in “Playboy” January 1982
Oh look. It’s a cowboy all in pink, hand on hip, lowered eyelids, with a hairdryer for a gun. Cause a gay cowboy would be a hairdresser.


Banx
in “Punch” 18 May 1983
The cowboys holding hands is one joke (and note, yes, the one has got his hand on his bloody hip). The caption puts an ambivalent spin on it. Either he’s angrily refuting the insinuation anything gay could be going on. Or he’s threatening retaliation in response to a gay slur.

“Brokeback Mountain” is another phenomenon altogether. The cowboy aspect was the original hook, but now it’s almost spread independently. There is the tendency to slap the tag “Brokeback” on anything with homosexual or homosocial potential, with the same liberty that scandals are awarded the suffix “-gate”. And there’s there currency of “I wish I knew how to quit you”.

Wholly useless is this lame joke by David Brenner about “L.A.’s first gay western bar: it’s got a mechanical sheep”. Anything else, to say? Nothing further you might comedically extricate via the juxtaposition of ideas about homosexuality and cowboys? No. Then fuck off, David. We’re just a byword for perversion and bestiality, thanks.

Last, and honestly I don’t know whether it would be least, is the 1975 British film, “Eskimo Nell”. One of the plot threads in this satire of the tawdry end of the British film industry and sexploitation is about the filming of a gay western. I know no more than that. This is a film whose most repeated clip is of a naked porn actor getting his cock caught in the clapperboard, followed by an extend shot of him being taken out on a stretcher with his cock extravagantly bandaged up. Just because I know about a film doesn’t mean I’m going to bloody watch it. There are better things in life.

351: The Gay Daleks

from “TV Offal”, 31 October 1997, May 22nd – 19 June 1998
by Victor Lewis-Smith


Part 1, 31 October 1997


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


Part 7

Neither big. Nor clever.
Here the tea-time terrors of children’s sci-fi “Dr Who” get the most immense of gayings-up in a manner which is deliberately calculated to offend. Indeed, in several instalments of these sketches Lewis Smith openly acknowledges just how offensive his stereotypes are. I think it’s fair to say Victor Lewis Smith is of the type that thinks the only real equality consists in bring equally offensive to everyone. So here we get a load of almost breathtakingly outrageous sexually predatory camp bitches who bicker incessantly. Indeed, if you want to be in on the joke then you probably revel in its tastelessness, whether you’re gay or not.
This dates from the mid-1990s, the same period as “The Ambiguous Duo” in America. Where those sketches were fairly broad in their innuendo, this lets no opportunity to be offensive go pass. “TV Offal” however had the benefit of being broadcast late at night, so it can transgress in oh so many more ways. Lord only knows how it bypassed Terry Nation though.
Victor Lewis Smithy is not entirely wrong that it doesn’t take much effort to turn the usual metallic shrieking of a Dalek into rather harsh camp banter. Indeed the first instalment is the best, with Victor Lewis Smith explaining why Daleks seem gay, and the final shot of a convoy of Daleks singing “YMCA”. The later episodes repeat the same catchphrases as it just descends into pantomimetic abuse, leavened by crass innuendo playing off science fiction terms.
A lot of it is quite explicit about the more extreme areas of gay sex – cottaging, rimming, rent boys, cruising on Hampstead Heath – everything then enumerated in the pages of the British tabloids for the public’s disapproval.
That it even starts off with the sniggering playground taunt of “Better watch your back” shows what level he’s aiming for, with cries of “White Wee-wee!” and the moderately ingenious “Ex-Sperm-inate!” (the Dalek’s catchphrase is “Exterminate!”) as the Dalek’s plungers mimic a hard-on. The two Daleks also address each other with a litany of slurs: “fagggot”, “arse bandit”, “shirtlifting”, “turd burglar”, etc.
Also of the period is the insinuation about Tory MP Michael Portillo. I remember rumours circulating about at that time, which he later publically confirmed about a decade later.
Even at two minutes apiece these sketches rather wear out their welcome. But then the same can probably be said of “Queer Duck” which mined much the same humour for a gay audience.

Addendum:

I found the following articles by Victor Lewis- Smith in which he reminisces (exhumes all the old gags) about these sketches.

The Mirror, February 1, 2003

TO my slight shame but also my enormous delight, I once co-wrote a disgracefully politically incorrect TV series called The Gay Daleks.
Featuring a pair of shirt-lifting pepperpots who travelled the universe in their five-dimensional cosmological superloo (the Turdis), everything about the show was just so, from the title music ("they're camp, they ex-sperminate... better watch your backs") to the closing announcement: "Join us next time for another adventure with the fudge-packers from the planet Mascaro, as they penetrate the mysteries of Uranus."
The extraterrestrial friends of Dorothy didn't know if they were Arthur or Martha as they camped around and, in their lispingly monotonal voices, talked of meeting Michael Portillo on Hampstead Heath and trolled along the High Street with their robotic dog called - what else? - KY.
I was concerned that the show might be misinterpreted as anti-gay but I needn't have worried.
The healthy postbag demonstrated that these weekly tales of the metallic homonauts quickly attracted a substantial gay audience, who enjoyed the surreal and absurd take on their lifestyle, particularly the scenes set in a public lavatory.
Until I researched for the series, the word "cottage" had, for me, conjured up images of Anne Hathaway, rather than have-it-away, and a "hole in the wall" was a place to seek fiscal rather than physical comfort.
But I soon discovered that the gentlemen's public lavatory is a focal point for many homosexuals, who find the sense of danger exciting and the smell of disinfectant more erotic than aftershave.
BEING as ocularly challenged as Mr Magoo and heterosexual and ugly to boot, I would been blissfully unaware of this alternative lifestyle taking place in public lavatories.
But I had occasionally read about male celebrities being arrested for "indecency in a public place", so I was interested to hear this week about the Sex Offences Bill, which will finally abolish much of the discriminatory legislation against gays, and will allow them to have sex in public lavatories, "provided the cubicle door is closed".
Which, unfortunately, wouldn't suit the Gay Daleks, because their plungers cannot achieve full tumescence unless the door is wide open.
The Bill seems well-intentioned but it will probably put an end to the ancient and furtive etiquette of cottaging, which gay friends once explained to me. Apparently, absolute silence at the urinal indicates interest, followed by eye contact and a quick dash to the nearest cubicle, where holes in the door are plugged with lavatory paper ("putting up the curtains") to evade prying eyes.
One man sits, while the other stands erect with his feet in a shopping bag, to confuse any members of the vice squad who might peer beneath the door in search of excessive legs (a great idea except that, in the throes of congress, the bag inevitably moves about like a sack of ferrets), and the deed is done. Well, I'm sorry if you are eating your breakfast but that's what happens.
Although the Bill will end the illegality of such practices, it still insists on a modicum of decency and discretion. And quite right, because who wants to enter a public karzy and hear what sounds like two asthma victims enjoying a wine-tasting in an adjacent cubicle? But my theory is that, once cottaging becomes legal, public lavatories will cease to be venues for such clandestine activities, because much of the excitement has always been about the fear of arrest.
Homosexuals will find there are hundreds of far more pleasant places in which to widen the circles of their friends.
The Bill is long overdue, because our society's once-intolerant attitude to homosexuality has greatly relaxed in recent decades.
That's why George Michael was able to laugh off his arrest for indecency in a lavatory a few years ago, unlike poor Peter Wyngarde, whose TV career as Jason King was ruined in the 1970s by a similarly innocuous incident in a gentlemen's lavatory at Gloucester bus station.
A court case. End of series, and of a TV career that was itself like lavatory paper. Off the wall.

The Mirror, March 22, 2003

Just in case you don't keep my old columns filed away for easy reference (and you'd be surprised how many readers use them as plant pot linings instead), let me remind you that I've been planning to relaunch The Gay Daleks, a "just so" duo who became something of a cult hit on a TV series I made in the 90s.
So once again I've been arranging for the pangalactic arse-bandits from the planet Mascaro to take to the skies, exploring Uranus, penetrating a red dwarf, and exsperminating all who cross their path as they travel around the universe in their interstellar cruiser, the Turdis.
I'd already found my animator (the brilliant Kevin Spark), agreed budgets with a TV channel, and sketched out several plots. In one, a dyslexic Dalek confuses an M&S store with an S&M parlour.
In another, a trip to a pet shop ends in tears when they ask for a cockatoo and get more than they bargained for.
I was confident that the new series would be even more popular with the gay community than the original one was, because their many letters and emails tell me that they love the campery and absurdity of it all (it's all firmly in the best traditions of the Carry On films).
But, sadly, I have to tell you that you'll never see the shirt-lifting pepperpots on TV again, and here's why. The Terry Nation estate (who happily gave me permission to use the Daleks five years ago) have now refused point-blank to let me use them again, and I am therefore unable to add to the Gaiety of Nations.
The refusal came from Terry Nation's wife, Kate, whose business affairs are handled by Roger Hancock Ltd. Considering that he's the brother of Tony Hancock, you'd think the company would have a sense of humour, but despite numerous requests for an explanation as to why they're preventing the return of my comedy series by not granting a "use of image" licence, I've had nothing more than a frosty "no". Presumably
they cannot be objecting to a Dalek appearing in a comedy context, because they recently allowed one to feature in a beer commercial.
I'm willing to pay them the going rate, so was there (I asked) perhaps a touch of homophobia at the root of their refusal?
No reply came the reply, and their silence leads me to suspect that what really irritates them is the depiction of a Dalek as a friend of Dorothy.
WHAT a delicious irony, because you only have to look objectively at a Dalek to realise that it wouldn't look out of place in the Village People.
There's the skirt, the all-male bonding, the plunger that's always getting erect when other Daleks are around, the obsession with discipline... isn't it obvious?
What's more, despite their quasi-fascist demeanour, they're actually as ridiculous as Viz's Pathetic Sharks and, although they used to look pretty scary on primitive 405-line black-and-white screens, the advent of higher-definition colour sets enabled us to see the hilarious truth.
Which is that Tim Hancock and Kate Nation are trying to preserve the "dignity" of something that's constructed from a sink plunger and a few spare parts from a Morris Minor.
So what exactly is it that they think they're protecting?
Dr Who has had its day, and if they keep saying "no" to ideas like mine, the Daleks will simply fade out of public consciousness altogether and become worthless to them.
But what's worse is that they're depriving viewers of the chance to watch the further adventures of what has proved to be one of my most popular creations.
So if you want to see the metallic homonauts back on your screen, probing the mysteries of a black hole once again, let the campaign begin. Bring Back the Gay Daleks.

347: Sherlock Holmes Is Only Sometimes Very Gay

This article, “Sherlock’s dear Watson” by Robbie Hudson is a decent run-down of various gay interpretations of Sherlock Holmes:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article6959490.ece

Previously I had posted this full-page cartoon strip from Viz in 1992. “Sherlock Homo” was presumably inspired by the realisation that Holmes sounds like homo, and then they tried to see how many clichés could fit into available panels. It’s basically mincing and innuendo, but it isn’t sneering, unpleasant, or rapey (i.e. obsessed with unwanted butt sex), so the fun that they’re having trying to cram as much into this is effectively conveyed.

Holmes, his behaviour and mannerisms, lends himself to gay interpretation. Holme’s hauteur, emotional oddity and repression and sudden burst of flamboyancy (particularly in Jeremy Brett’s portrayal). The disdain for women. The penchant for dressing up. And of course there’s the Holmes-Watson partnership – which has a secure place in the popular consciousness. Two men living together, in what is an emotionally turbulent relationship. Watson subtly undermined, ever subject to Holmes’s whims, yet whenever Watson eventually rebukes him Holmes declares his fondness and admiration for his chum.


by Mike Williams
from “Playboy”, September 1976

Basically just a transvestite gag, but playing off the fact that a couple of times Holmes goes around dressed as beggar women.


by Roy Raymonde
from “Playboy”, date unknown

Again this cartoon plays off the cross-dressing aspect in Holmes’s history. But as in Cyril Connolly’s “Bond Strikes Camp”, it’s now employed as one element in a wider panorama of gay behaviours, all with the intention of sexually enticing the unwitting heterosexual. And that’s what makes it a particularly “Playboy” sort of cartoon. Once Hefner started allowing cartoons about homosexuals into the magazine then he also started slipping in cartoons about transvestites. In particular, how the male in the cartoon has been tricked by the canny tranny. Since, as various articles have led me to understand, the cartoon editors at “Playboy” only select the cartoons for Hefner to make the final decision, it’s fairly obvious that the prospect of accidentally fucking an attractive women who is really a man hits some sort of psychic sensitive spot for Hefner. One day I may do a round-up of tranny gags in “Playboy” – it’s certainly a bit of an obsession.



By Michael Heath
In “Punch” 13 February 1980

The other name associated with Holmes is his arch-enemy Moriarty. A quick gag about the most unlikely possible pairing. I like Holmes’s distraught expression.


from “Private Eye” 1 October 1965
This is mostly a piece mocking trendy British films of the period. But it takes its comic spin by changing “Elementary, my dear Watson” into “My Darling Watson”.


from “The Peter Serafinowicz Show”, 4 October 2007
Peter Serafinowicz as Sherlock Holmes
Alex Lowe as Dr Watson

And here we get actual-man-on-man action. Watson’s craven admiration only encouraging Holmes’s predations. A nice touch to have the sketch close with the camera panning away onto the portrait of the queen herself as Holmes’s repression and oddity finally gives way as Watson desperately but futilely resists.

344: The Ambiguously Gay Duo

The Ambiguously Gay Duo @ Yahoo! Video

by Robert Smigel, J. J. Sedelmaier and Stephen Colbert
Voices of Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell
Narrated by Don Pardo
1. September 28, 1996 "It Takes Two To Tango"
2. November 2, 1996 "Queen of Terror"
3. December 14, 1996 "Don We Now... Or Never"
4. April 19, 1997 "Safety Tips"
5. November 15, 1997 "Blow Hot, Blow Cold"
6. May 9, 1998 "A Hard One To Swallow"
7. November 21, 1998 "Ace and Gary’s Fan Club"
8. May 6, 1999 "AmbiguoBoys"
9. May 13, 2000 "Trouble Comes Twice"
10. October 19, 2002 "The Third Leg Of Justice"





“Playboy”, December 1999

The Ambiguously Gay Duo is a parody of the stereotypical comic book superhero duo. It’s also a parody of the cheapness and formulae of 1970s superhero animation. Which is lucky, since it lets the writers and performers keep repeating in good faith the same jokes and set-ups, just like a cartoon of the period. It puts the joke in a repetitive frame which pardons what would otherwise just be the normal pandering to an audience’s tastes for more of the same from familiar characters.

The typical episode usually begins with the duo's arch-nemesis Bighead briefing his henchmen on a plot for some grandiose plan for world domination, interrupted by a debate as to whether or not Ace and Gary are gay – often with some speculation as to how he knows so much about The Gayness (which is all gym locker stuff to be honest). Once the crime is in process, the police commissioner calls on the superheroes to save the day, often engaging in similar debates with the chief of police. Ace and Gary set out to foil the evil plan, but not before calling attention to themselves with outrageous antics and innuendo, and behaving in ways perceived by other characters as profligately homosexual. And

Ace [patting Gary on the buttocks] : Good job, friend-of-friends!
Villains/Bystanders [gasps, and ghastly stares]
Ace: What's everybody looking at?
Villains/Bystanders [in unison]: Nothing!

is the pay-off in every instalment.

The shorts were intended to satirize suggestions that early Batmancomics implied a homosexual relationship between the title character and his sidekick Robin, a charge most infamously leveled by Fredric Wertham in his 1954 book, “Seduction of the Innocent”. But where that was merely a possible subtext in the originals, the “Ambiguously gay Duo” makes that explicit and therefore the sole point of discussion for everyone except the unwitting heroes, Ace and Gary. It’s not merely that there is the close relationship but that everything they do has a sexual aspect, which is not all that bloody ambiguous. The gags presuppose that the audience now know everything about gay lifestyles. It’s the same dubious pleasure of gossiping and the cheap fun of speculation. It’s assumed that the homosexual’s tastes and mannerisms unwittingly give him away and leaves everyone else nudging each other in the ribs. Of course this is all merely conceptual set- up for the plethora of sodomy puns and innuendo. If the sitcoms and sketch programmes of the ‘70s and ‘80s were quite happy to have gay gags set up by speculation about mincing poofs, by the late 90s humorists on TV can get away with a penis-shaped car and visual gags which ape a cock stuffed into two round arse cheeks, masturbation, oral sex or the Ambiguously Gay Duo fighting in ways which resemble having sex with each other. What in the ‘70s in “National Lampoon” and the likes was the height of deliberate bad taste are now merely a little risqué.

336: Fairy Tales - I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again

I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, 7 November 1966

John Cleese: Today it’s story time. And you can help me make up the story
Cast: Goody-goody
JC: It’s all about a wicked baron
Cast: Ew, boring.
JC: And a lovely young fairy
Tim Brooke-Taylor (camp) Oh, what’s his name?
JC: (emphatic) A lovely young fairy Princess
TBT: Nyaaaa (then blows raspberry)


I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, 4 June 67

Narrator: And here is a fairy story by Hans Anderson
Tim Brooke-Taylor (camp): Don’t you mean Hans and his son
Narrator: I said a Fairy story
(oooohing and mmmming by cast)
Cleese: Cheeky!

------------------------------

As far as gags about “fairies” go this, this is as simple as you could imagine. What is noteworthy is these obvious jokes showstopping reception at the time.
“I’m Sorry I’ll Read that Again” was a BBC radio sketch programme that ran for the second half of the 1960s, and was a training ground for the writers and performers of “Monty Python’s Flying circus” and “The Goodies”. It consisted of lots of quick fire gags, puns, silliness, broad performances and as much innuendo as was permissible. The audience was always fairly appreciative, but when Tim Brooke-Taylor says “Oh, what’s his name” it brings the house down. There’s non-stop laughter for 10 seconds, and the cast are unable to deliver the next line except after a couple of attempts. For this contemporary audience this is pure comedy gold, something more daring than usual. That this is not a one-off is proven in the same 7 November 1966 episode, a sketch involving a becalmed ship has quick exchange:

John Cleese: A breeze, a breeze at last! I feel like a new man!
Tim Brooke-Taylor: How about me ducky?
CJ: Ah, we haven’t had a puff for weeks!

which again gets a disproportionately large and long laugh. So all I can guess is that jokes involving references to homosexuality are just now breaking into mass entertainment. The Satire Boom had died out a couple of years earlier so slightly more thoughtful or sophisticated jokes about homosexuality under the banner of social commentary had likewise vanished. BBC radio had been broadcasting “Round the Horne” since March 1965, so “Julian and Sandy” had been entertaining a large audience for the previous year and a half. In retrospect everyone knows Julian and Sandy are gay jokes, but at the time of broadcast it was only the gay minority of listeners who recognised them for what they were. The rest of the audience seems to have thought they were odd humorous characterisations of a piece with the rest of the programme. But now, for “I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again” jokes about “effeminacy in men” as previously banned by the BBC censor, are permissible and very very successful.

331: Gay Biggles 1 - Monty Python

30 November 1972

Graham Chapman as Biggles
Michael Palin as Algy
Terry Gilliam as Ginger

Biggles is the archetypal English adventure hero, a proud icon of military glory to inspire the best in our Empire’s youth. In WI and then WII, Captain W.E. Johns’s fighter pilot showed the Boche, Hun and Jerry what for. The English are noble, the English are best, and wouldn’t give tuppence for all of the rest.
Here the Python team are spoofing an icon of their own childhood (and Michael Palin in particular was fond of committing various Biggles parodies). The nonsense about letters and antler hats, pantomime Princess Margaret, and foreign royalty borrowing household tools seems rather Palin/ Jones, though the sudden bursts of abuse seem more Cleese/Chapman territory :” Fairy! Poof's not good enough for Algy, is it. He's got to be a bleedin' fairy. Mincing old RAF queen!”.
But the joke here is about how the fine upstanding Biggles handles his modern concerns about the sexual orientations of his close comrades Algy and Ginger. And also subverting the signifiers of homosexuality at the same time. Algy’s portrayal is just as we remember from the books, but when he comes out of the closet, Biggles immediately does the decent thing and shoots him dead. Ginger (ginger beer rhymes with queer) is possibly one of the most screaming portrayals committed to screen at that date, in the most outrageous costume and the campest queeny denial.

324: John Lennon - Four in Hand

“Four in Hand” by John Lennon
From “Oh Calcutta!”, 1969

Well this was an unexpected find when browsing through “Oh Calcutta!”.
(“Oh Calcutta!” was a full-frontal comedic revue about sex first stage by theatre critic Ken Tynan in 1969 and which went onto long-running success in both England and America.)
For most people it’s the fact that it’s a homoerotic masturbation sketch by John Lennon that is the surprise.
For me, since I know more than is probably useful about Ken Tynan, it’s the fact that this is a homoerotic sketch in “Oh Calcutta!”. When Ken Tynan was compiling “Oh Calcutta!” he was very emphatic that any camp material or gay influences be excluded from the production. This was because “Oh Calcutta!” was intended as a heterosexual entertainment. No offense or prejudice against gays was intended (Tynan was always very proud of having stood bail for a gay friend), but he assumed gay men wouldn’t have the necessary responses upon which his show’s success was predicated. Camp or gay jokes were also to be excluded because it was a type of humour that already had a home on the stag and would be a distraction from the sexy humour of “Oh Calcutta!”.
Given all of the above, I assume that Tynan’s bending of his own rules is prompted by the prestige of John Lennon’s name.
Admittedly, if you’re going to do a mass jerk-off sketch, barring thoughts of impotence (and “Oh Calcutta!”is all about positivity, not incapability) then unexpected thoughts of other men are a likely source of humour. Which is of course why actual or potential gay boys often find themselves disbarred from dorm room frolics and rounds of the “Soggy Biscuit Game”, since if there’s no homosexuals involved then there’s nothing gay about masturbating with other men. Which the punchline of getting off to thoughts of the Lone Ranger rather undermines.

Jon Lennon’s sketch is based on experiences as a teenager he would masturbate with friends, during which they’d call out the name of movie actresses.
Paul McCartney: “We used to have wanking sessions when we were young at Nigel Whalley’s house in Woolton. We’d stay overnight and we’d all sit in armchairs and we’d put all the lights out and being teenage pubescent boys, we’d all wank. What we used to do, someone would say, ‘Brigitte Bardot.’ ‘Oooh!’ That would keep everyone on par, then somebody, probably John, would say, ‘Winston Churchill.’ ‘Oh, no!’ and it would completely ruin everyone’s concentration.”
Until the days of the Farrelly Brothers, this was probably the most witnessed scene of comic masturbation for public entertainment, since “Oh Calcutta!” was a success running for decades in one form or another.

Other adult revues of the time deliberately made more of their gay content. Often this was because they had their origins in a younger and more counter-cultural demographic. “Oh Calcutta!”’s biggest rival in the early ‘70s was a production called “The Dirtiest Show in Town”, another funny sex revue but much concerned with contemporary social issues about equality and environmental pollution. Most of the reviewers took particular notice of the camp performance style of one of the actors, Jeffrey Herman. “The Dirtiest Show in Town” was written by Tom Eyen, a gay man, who went on to be an almost permanent fixture of New York theatre and eventually write “Dreamgirls”.

-----------------------------

FOUR IN HAND
by John Lennon

(Four chairs, backs to the audience. Facing them, a large projection screen divided into four sections, one for each chair. Three men impatiently waiting. A doorbell rings.)

1: There he is now. I told you he’d make it. (He opens the door.)

(George enters: he wears a fedora.)

1: If you’re going to join the group, George, you have to remember we always start on time.

George: Sorry I’m late, fellas.

2: We don’t like people breakin’ the rules, George.

George: I already said I’m sorry.

3: Look--We gonna talk, or we gonna jerk off?

1: Ok, let’s get started. This is your seat, George. Now this (pointing to screen) is a new kind of machine--a telepathic thought transmitter. Whatever you think about flashes on the screen. Now the rules of the game are this: all of us think of things to jerk off to--until somebody comes--and the first guy who comes has to stop everybody else from coming. Got it?

George: Got it.

1: All right. Let’s give it a try. Whatever comes to mind, George.

(1 goes to his seat. George sits between 2 and 3. Rhythmic music starts. Images start to flash rhythmically on the screens. The men’s arms start to move rhythmically in front of them. The screens facing 1, 2 and 3 show Hollywood and Playboy-type pinups. George’s screen remains blank. The rhythm builds up while screens 1, 2 and 3 are all pulsating with glamorous women. Suddenly, we hear the strains of the William Tell Overture, and during a crash of cymbals, a picture of the Lone Ranger flashes on George’s screen. All screens go blank and all four men stop masturbating.)

3: What the fuck was that?

1: What are ya tryin’ to do, George?

2 (rises, adjusting his pants): I told you not to invite outsiders.

George: I’m sorry, fellas, it’s just the first thing that came into my mind.

2: We haven’t had a vacancy in six months, George! Harvey only left because he got a divorce.

3: How’d you like a silver bullet up your ass?

1 (walking to George): You sure you’re all right, George?

George: I’m fine, thanks.

1: All right, let’s try it again.

(They all sit down again.)


1: And cut the horseshit, George.

(The music starts again and the images start to flash. They are slightly more nude than before--close shots of breasts and bottoms. By trial and error, the four screens begin to form a composite picture. George is dutifully collaborating. Finally, at the height of the rhythm, screen facing 1 shows a nude model’s head, screen facing 2 shows her breasts, screen facing 3, her legs. Pause. The recumbent image of the model is almost complete. Suddenly the strains of the William Tell Overture are heard again with another image of the Lone Ranger on George’s screen.)

George (exultantly): Aha! A-a-a-a-ah!

(He rises. His screen continues to flash the Lone Ranger. With one jabbing sweep of his arm, he flashes Lone Ranger pictures on the other screens as the music builds. As each image flashes, 1, 2 and 3 lose their concentration completely and give up the contest.)

George (turns as he goes to exit): See you next week, fellas.

1: Get the fuck outta here!!!

(Sound of four “whistling” gunshots as each remaining screen blacks out.)

323: Monty Python - Carl French

The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail
1975
Michael Palin as Interviewer
Graham Chapman as Carl French


0.00 – 2.41

Interviewer: Mr. French, you're one of the film world's most arrogant queens. I mean not just homosexual or Gay or anything, I mean you are a raving queen.
Carl French: Well, yes.
Interviewer: I mean, a real screamer, a real "Whoops! Get her! Don't mind me dear!" limp-wristed caricature.
Carl French: Is that not in order?
Interviewer: No, no, that's fine. And I understand that you married the beautiful black heiress Hueyna Tanoy partly for the publicity but mostly to cover up the fact that you prefer going out with Little Boys.
Carl French: Look, really!
Interviewer: Carl, you're an offending little poof, a mincing gay-bar loiterer, a winnet-covered walking perfume shop and an evil perverter of innocent little boys!
Carl French: What!? Really! Is this part of the interview?
Interviewer: No, no, I just wanted a few contacts.
Carl French: Well, shouldn't we be talking about the film?
Interviewer: We’ve been off the air for ages. Now, where'd you find them?
Carl French: Look, I think we are still on the air.
Interviewer: Oh, sod the fucking air! Can’t you still get locked up for that sort of thing.
Carl French: What about the film?
Interviewer: Just a few addresses, please...
Carl French: Look, we’ve got James Dean in it, in a box!
Interviewer: I-I can turn the microphone off if you...
Carl French: And bits of Jayne Mansfield...

------------------------------

Apparently the first half, the stuff about keeping a dead Marilyn Monroe in a box, originated in a sketch by Douglas Adams.
As per Monty Python, one bizarre concept leaps into another, switching from the weird film into the strange abuse. And abuse it intentionally is, not what one usually expects in the course of some film PR. Chapman’s performanceplays it as un-gay as possible, a perfectly stolid character, even as the interviewer moves beyond abuse, into baroque invective, and then realms of scandalous sexual criminality. Yet there’s also a freedom, since this sketch would probably not have passed on television or on cinema. As a LP sketch it can ascend to new heights of bad taste, and just let the abuse flow, matched by Palin’s escalating shrieking hysteria, as he skips in and out of mocking faggy voices. And then the final twist, which isn’t a million miles away from “Nudge Nudge”’s “What’s it like?”

If you were wondering, a “winnet” is the ball of unremoved specks of shit that dry onto the hairs around your sphincter. Share this information with your colleagues at work.

322: Monty Python - Tchaikovsky

"Monty Python's Flying Circus"
26 October 1972

Wow, this gets though a lot in an awfully short time. Pay no attention to the subtitles.

Besides all the usual sharp Pythonesque nonsense subverting high culture and parodying the media, this is inspired by contemporary revelations and innuendoes about a long dead composer. From a period when Ken Russell films were big stuff, his 1970 film “The Music Lovers” was not shy about Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality – although it has absolutely no relevance to John Cleese’s summary. And it allows for slightly salacious comments through the sketch, ie, “contains material that some people might find offensive but which is really smashing” and “the naughty bits, which were extremely naughty for his time”

So Eric Idle’s opening salvo, “Was he just an old poof who wrote tunes” undercuts all the traditional respect and typical dignity of the arts documentary format.

“Hello Pianist” is an obvious play off the camp salute “Hello sailor”.

Particularly unexpected is Michael Palin’s gossipy hairdresser Maurice (and compare his previous outing as a hairdresser climbing Mount Everest). The campness is out of all proportion to the normal documentary manner, although tangentially related to Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality. A gay hairdresser is an acknowledged cliché, and rather more than Graham Chapman’s David Unction, deliberately exaggerating the stereotype is part of the joke. So this is a Pythonesque poof since it is a comic collision between disparate styles. The actual performance is just a great gawping mouth, with lots of eye rolling and delicately held hands. The alliterative slang is a new one to me though (25/11/09 Turns out that it's a variant on Polari, camply referring to things like "Lily Law".)