On an uncomfortably humid episode of Broad City, set during a sopping-wet New York summer -- I've been there -- besties Abbi and Ilana try to beat the heat by buying, borrowing, or stealing an air conditioner. Humorous or uncomfortable excursions follow, such as sex with a sopping-wet Seth Rogan, and holing up in a dorm room at New York University, smoking weed with -- and making out with -- two boys. You'd think that someone hanging out in a college dorm room would be a college student, right? No, they're high school students, age 16.
And one of them is Phil of the Future!
If you weren't watching the Disney Channel on Friday nights in 2004, you might not have noticed, among the girl-centric teencoms like That's So Raven, Lizzie McGuire, and Kim Possible, the boy-centric Phil of the Future. A time-machine mishap strands a family from 2124 in our century, where they must adjust to primitive technology while keeping their secret. Phil, played by Ricky Ullman, immediately meets a girl, with whom he shares adventures while falling in love. Careful, dude, she could be your great-grandmother.
No gay subtexts here: hetero-romance is the beginning and end of everyone's story. But there were a lot of cute guys, or guys who would grow up to be cute, like Evan Peters, whose butt you have seen many times on American Horror Story. It was certainly better than watching Raven's psychic flashes.
After Phil, Ricky moved on to teen sex comedies like Prom Wars, grown-up sex comedies like How to Make Love to a Woman, and Rita Rocks, a Lifetime sitcom about a middle-aged lady who starts a garage band.
The straight-to-DVD Driftwood, 2006, was a change of pace dramatic role: David is sent to an "attitude adjustment camp." He befriends Noah, there to be "cured" of being gay, and helps him solve the murder of his boyfriend.
This also marks the moment that Raviv dropped the stage name "Ricky" and came out as Jewish. He's actually Orthodox, and devout; his grandfather was a rabbi.
Contest, 2013, features a bully and his victim working together to win a contest. I haven't seen it, but it appears to be all gay-subtext: the victim also gets a girlfriend.
Strangers, 2017, not to be confused with Strangers, 2018, is a Facebook series about a young woman who makes extra money by renting out a room. Isn't that called having a roommate? She gets a girlfriend -- or two -- it's hard to tell from the trailer. Raviv plays Rory in three episodes.
This is from Spring Break 83, a "raunchy comedy" set to be released in 2012, but shut down by the actors' and technicians' union because they weren't being paid.
In 2020-21, Raviv hosted a weekly podcast on applying the Torah to everyday life. His topics included the X-Men, student debt, the afterlife. tattoos, and the "clobber passages" that are often used for homophobic rants.
More after the break