"Country Comfort" Episode 1.1: Is seeing Ricardo Hurtado, Eddie Cibrian, and Eric Balfour nude worth the pain?

  

Ricardo Hurtado, best known for starring in Nickelodeon's School of Rock with Tony Cavalero, has a perfect combination of face and physique.  I would definitely be asking him out -- if we were both single and he didn't include Bible verses on his Instagram.  Quoting the Bible doesn't necessarily mean that he hates gay people, but I'm not risking it.    

He hasn't had many tv or movie roles recently, so if I want to see him perform as an adult, it will have to be GlichTechs, Malibu Rescue: The Next Wave, or Country Comfort.

We'll start off with Country Comfort, which must mean something like "cold comfort." (something that is supposed to encourage you, but actually makes you feel worse).

Scene 1:  A rainy night in a small town.  We pan past a church (see, we're religious) to a middle class house.  

There's a knock on the door.  Tuck (Ricardo!) answers: it's Bailey (Katherine McPhee), a young woman with black hair wearing a black cowboy hat.  He gawks at her gorgeousness and says "Looks like they sent the right woman to do the job."  Did he call for a prostitute?

Bailey thinks she has been mistaken for a prostitute, and starts to bolt, but Tuck explains that he thought she was from the nanny agency. (He makes gross sexual come-ons to all of his nannies?  And why does he need a nanny at age 21?)

No, she's not a nanny.  Her truck broke down, her phone died, and she wants to use theirs.  But Tuck is so horny for her that he trots out his siblings for introductions: two little girls, 12-year old Dylan, and Brody (Jamie Martin Mann, left).  Wait -- he's 17 (20 now), and way too old for a nanny.  

While all three of the boys gaze at Bailey with unbrindled lust, Tuck explain that their mom died two years ago, and they've gone through 10 nannies since (do  they get tired of the sleazy come-ons and quit?)   

But Baily likes their sleazy come-ons: "You think I'm hot?  You have no idea how much that means to me!"  Two of those boys are jail bait, lady. 

Finally Dad, a middle-aged cowboy, arrives, accompanied by his blond bimbette child-hating girlfriend Summer.   (wait -- if they didn't need a babysitter while Dad was out, why do they need a nanny?  To, like, restore their joie de vivre, like Fran Fine and Charles in Charge?).  He's Beau (Eddie Cibrian, who played lots of lifeguards and teen hunks back in the day).

Beau asks: "Why are you so early for your nanny interview?" (Wait -- he's just getting back from a date, so it must be after 10 pm.  Why did they schedule an interview in the middle of the night?  Oh, right, the sex...)

Then: "If you're not the new nanny, what are you doing here?" Baily explains:

Scene 2:  Flashback to earlier that evening.  Bailey and her boyfriend Boone (Eric Balfour) are singing at a honky tonk, with a record producer listening.  We hear her entire song: "Dream baby got me dreaming sweet dreams the whole day long."  Ugh!  That's terrible!. And are they supposed to stare at each other instead of the audience through the whole song?

The record producer hates it, naturally. So Boone replaces Bailey with a boobalicious bimbette (yeah, that will fix those atrocious lyrics), and Bailey angrily breaks up with him.  Since they live together, she has no place to stay (um...a friend's house?  A hotel?  Let her stay there until she finds a place?).  She starts driving aimlessly.  Then her truck conks out right outside the home of a family that needs a nanny.  Well, it worked for Fran Fine.

Boone is played by Eric Balfour (below), who played many hunkoids back in the day.

Scene 3: Dad offers to call Bailey an Uber (to take her where?  She's driving aimlessly, remember?).  At that moment there's a tornado alarm, so everyone rushes to the basement.   Beau jokes about the last nine nannies being buried there (whoa, creepy! If I was Baily, I'd take my chances with the tornado.)  But Bailey is too overwhelmed by the love and togetherness of this family to be scared.  

Hey, there are musical instruments in the basement.  Could the family be...coincidence of coincidence -- country-western singers?   

Yep -- they join her for an impromptu song: "When Will I Be Loved."  The kids know all the words to a song that last charted in 1975?

One of the girls -- Cassidy -- gets upset because her mom was a singer, and this is bringing up old memories.  Beau tells her to get over herself.  Great parenting, Beau -- why not let the girl be sad?

Now Tuck is upset -- since their Mom died they haven't been allowed to touch their instruments.  Why not?  This family gets more and more screwed up.  Fortunately, Bailey has come to the rescue. 

Scene 4: Cassidy runs out into the storm.  Bailey follows her into the barn and apologizes for the "singin'" (of course it's singin', not singing).  I fast-forward through their heart-to heart, which no doubt solves the psychological trauma that no therapist has been able to handle.  And no doubt Mom will never be mentioned again.

Scene 5: Morning.  I fast-forward through this scene, too.  Obviously Bailey will agree to become the nanny, get the Partridge Family band back together, and start dating Beau.  And the ex-boyfriend will be around in some capacity.

Beefcake: Probably.

Gay Characters: Are you kidding?

Teens Out of a 1980s Sex Comedy: 2

Creepy Lines: 7

Absurd Coincidences: Too many to count.

Bible Verse Ricardo Quotes; Hebrews 11:12: "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."  This is like the motto in Kelvin's gym: "Harder, faster, stronger: saved!"  

Is seeing Ricardo Hurtado worth the pain of Country Comfort?: Heck, no. But maybe Eric Balfour is.  

Nude photos of Eric after the break.

"Malibu Rescue": Ricardo Hurtado hits the beach for a retro 1980s nerd-jock battle, with bonus lifeguard photos

After Country Comfort, my next  foray into the works of Ricardo Hurtado led me to Malibu Rescue (2019), a pilot for a tv series on Nickelodeon.  I went in with some trepidation: most teen movies are heteronormative, with all adolescent passions and intrigues omitted in favor of "Girls are the meaning of life!  If we win this race (or whatever the Maguffin is), we'll get Girls!"  

But Savage Steve Holland's movies tend to go easy on the girl-craziness, so I gave it a try.


In the middle-class San Fernando Vally, teen operator Tyler (Ricardo Hurtado) plays one too many pranks, and as punishment, is assigned Junior Lifeguard Training.  I'd rather be saved by someone with an interest in lifeguarding, not a high school kid on detention.

 The training will take place in Malibu, home of ultra-rich, bullying snobs.This will become important later.

 

Tyler's fellow Valley Kid trainees, The Flounders, are woefully unprepared.  Have they ever actually seen a beach before?  They include two girls and the nerd Eric (Alkoya Brunson, who has beefed up since 2017).  Their trainer is a blond lady.  Not much beefcake potential so far.

Meanwhile, the rich townie snobs look down on Valley kids, and resent their intrusion into "our beach."  They include Tower Captains Brody (J.T. Neal, left) and Spencer (Cameron Engels).

Plus Garvin (Ian Ziering), the program director, hates Valley kids, and invited the Flounders just so they would fail the training and get ridiculed.

So it's on, nerds vs. jocks in a battle royale to see who gets to become real Junior Lifeguards. Wait -- do they really choose lifeguards via team competitions?

There is, indeed, a pleasant lack of heterosexual interest.  No one gawks at any girl, even for an instant.  There is no Girl of His Dreams for Tyler to pursue, nor a Girl Next Door Who Supported Him All Along for him to end up with. (There's heterosexual romance in the tv series.

However, there are no gay subtexts, either.  Tyler appears to have no friends.  There is no buddy-bonding, anywhere.

And a surprising lack of beefcake. This is a beach.  These are lifeguards.  Where are the muscular physiques?

Every guy on the beach, child, teenager, or adult, lifeguard, junior lifeguard, or civilian -- every guy -- wears a t-shirt and shorts.  Even in crowd scenes.

Have you ever heard of a beach where no male chests on display?  It's like the 1930s, when taking off your shirt in public would get you a citation for public indecency.

Ricardo Hurtado takes off his shirt exactly once, in a rescue scene where you can't see anything.

The lack of girl craziness is nice, but sometimes you need a little more than that.

My grade: D.

Bonus: Real life guards, or at least guys from California, after the break.

School of Rock Episode 1.7: Keefe in drag, a gay stereotype kid, a homophobic kid, and Demi Lovato, sort of.

 

Some 13 years after School of Rock (2003), a teencom version premiered on Nickelodeon: School of Rock (2016-2018), with Tony Cavalero playing Dewey, a failed musician turned middle school teacher with a special interest in winning the "Battle of the Bands."

 In 2016 Nickelodeon was still promoting the "all kids are heterosexual" myth, so I doubt that there is any LGBTQ representation. But I'll review Episode 1.7, where Dewey dresses in drag as a scary Goth lady. .

Scene 1: Four kids and Dewey performing, while the others in the classroom watch -- from behind them?   Dewey explains that rock is about showmanship more than music: strut your stuff!  Freddie (Ricardo Hurtado, top photo) does a guitar zing.  Lawrence (Aidan Miner, below) demonstrates that he can play the keyboard with his butt, so Dewey calls him "Lawrence von Butthoven."  Emphasizing one's butt is a queer code.  Summer (Jade Pettyjohn, who will befriend Kelvin and Keefe in RG Season 1) has her face painted onto her tambourine. Lead singer Tomika is hiding.  

Dewey demonstrates the signature moves of Mick Jagger and  Miley Cyrus (a rock musician?).  Zack (Lance Lim, not the naked guy) asks him not to twerk. It would be too erotic for middle school, anyway, but interesting that the boy emphasizes that he definitely doesn't want to see a man being erotic.  He's apparently got a problem with gay men.

Scene 2: Dewey wants to know why Tomika was hiding during practice: she's embarrassed by the funny faces she makes while performing. He points out that her favorite singer, Demi Lovato, is shy in real life, but when she goes on stage, she becomes a confident rocker (these guys have a different definition of "rock").

To boost her confidence, Dewey claims that he knows Lovato and will call and tell her all about Tomika.  Whoops, he's doesn't even know who Demi Lovato is!  He's in trouble now!

Scene 3: Zack and Freddie ooze with horniness over Tomika's new style.  Lawrence thinks they're talking about him (gay joke, har har): "Thanks.  I went with my Superman underwear today."

"We can't actually see your underwear."  Would things be different if you could see it, guys?

Scene 4:  Dewey teaches science, too.  The textbook says that he was wrong: lightning is not caused by two angels having a fistfight.  I'm sure he was joking. After five seconds of science, they scoot the desks aside and start practicing. The newly confident Tomika wants them to play Demi Lovato's "Heart Attack."  

Lawrence asks if it's cool for dudes to like Lovato (that is, does liking Lovato mean that you're gay?).  They assure him that it's fine (e.g., heterosexual).

Tomika tells the band that Dewey and Lovato are besties, and hang out together all the time.  "Sure, when she's in town," Dewey says, hoping that she's far away.  Of course, she happens to be in town, playing the Texas Memorial.  This show is set in Texas?  Ugh, I spent the worst year of my life in Hell-for-Certain, Texas.  That's enough to get a F grade.

The band pleads with Dewey to get Lovato to listen to them play.  Like, sure, even if they were friends, the big star wouldn't want to spend her time off reviewing a middle school band.  She'd want to see the sights, if there are any in...ugh, Texas.

Scene 5: Dewey at Lovato's hotel, trying to bribe the desk clerk with "a prescription for fungal medicine."  Lawrence happens to be staying there; he's on his way to a couple's massage -- with his Mom.  "Gay men are all in love with their mother." Rather a homophobic queer code, but I'll take it.

Scene 6:  Tomika has turned aggressive and demanding: they've practiced the song 15 times, but it's still not good enough.  Plus their outfits and props look like they belong in a middle school.  Well, to be fair, Lawrence doesn't actually play his keyboard.  He just mashes his hands down on several keys at once.   

They try it with disco ball motorcycle helmets, Tomika emerging from a barrel of ink, and a wind machine that destroys everything.  Instantaneous props!  I'm in a 1950s sitcom.  Tomika screams that they're not worthy of her great song.

More after the jump break