"The Chair Company": A chair conspiracy, a queer kid, a ginger chub, weirdness for its own sake, and men in suits with d*cks

I am attracted to men in suits, but not at all to the corporate world, the heterosexist trajectory of job, house, wife, kids that was pushed endlessly through my childhood.  I want a world of art and beauty.  

So at first I wasn't interested in The Chair Company on HBO MAX, starring Tim Robinson as Ron Trosper, a "job, house, wife, and kids" guy whose chair collapses during a Very Important Presentation, leading to more mishaps that threaten to destroy his Very Important Career.   

Trying to track down the Chair Company responsible for the defective chair, he ends up at an empty warehouse.  Later a guy assaults him, telling him to "Forget about the chair company."

He doesn't.  He tracks down his assailant, Mike (Joseph Tudisco), a security guard at a local cafe.  But Mike says "I was hired by a guy I'd never met.  He didn't show his face." 

Maybe they could work together to find him?

Wait -- why is Mike so interested in helping? There must be some gay-subtext buddy-bonding going on.  I'm reviewing the next episode, 1.3: @BrownDerbyHistoricVids Little Bit of Hollywood? Okayyy.

Try putting that in the Works Cited section of your research paper.

Scene 1: Family Man Ron is at Game Night with his daughter, her fiancee, and her fiancee's parents.  Hey, Daughter is gay.  What a surprise -- I figured this show would be entirely heteronormative.  Ulp, he gets a text: "No way out!", with a photo of him taken at that moment from the hall closet.

He pulls open the closet door, and a little person pushes him aside and runs out.  Family Man Ron gives chase, but Partner Mike rushes up and explains "He's my guy, LT (Joe Apelian). I had him watching to make sure you weren't setting me up."  

LT meant that there was "no way out" of his hiding place.  He sent the text to the wrong guy.

Scene 2: The enraged Ron wants to end the partnership, but Mike has intel: he tracked down the guy who paid him to scare Ron, but that guy was hired by someone else, and paid $50,000 for the job.  That's quite a lot -- usually scares go for $400. 

LT interrupts, yelling that Partner Mike isn't his friend, he's no good.  He begins kicking boxes.

Left: None of the three have beefcake photos online, so I'm posting 1990s heartthrob Lou Diamond Phillips, who plays the CEO of Family Man Ron's company.

Scene 3: That night, while asleep, Ron keeps imagining LT staring at him.  He checks all the closets. 

In the morning, he asks his wife if they can install a security system today.  A reasonable plan, but he makes it sound crazy by imagining someone with a gun bursting in and forcing them to kill each other.  

Scene 4: At work, Ron is discussing something about square footage with a client (Mike Britt).  A literal bug crawls into Ron's phone.  Now we're getting surreal. 

When he has a spare moment, he tries to find out who owns the empty warehouse -- ulp, you have to make your request in person.  But before he can duck out, he is dragged into the atrium to watch his tv interview about a shopping mall the company is building: "The way you think about Canton, Ohio is about to change: you're about to step into a bit of Hollywood."  Thus the title.

 The whispering is about a Mistakes Party -- where you admit your mistakes-- that Ron isn't invited to, because he's the boss. 

The guy being whispered to is Cal, played by Joshua Pangborn, who starred in  Skeleton Crew (2015-22).  It sounds like a drama:  In every season, a bear couple and their straight friends host a Halloween party that goes terribly wrong.  They have to deal with the tragedy and figure out how to go on with their lives.  Every friggin' year?  I'd stop hosting those parties.  But there also seems to be ghosts, mad scientists, and time travel.

And frontal nudity.  After the break.  Caution: Explicit

Pablo the Penguin's penis: Jake Goldberg from "Backyardigans" and "Grown Ups" grows up to corporate, cooking, and some cock shots

 

Remember Pablo?  He was one of the backyard buddies on Nick Junior's Backyardigans (2004-2013) a high-strung, frenetic blue penguin best-buddying with the laid-back orange moose Tyrone.  Their friends included Tasha, a yellow hippopotamus best-buddying with the tomboy Uniqua, who has no animal species; and Austin, a purple kangaroo. 

Contrary to what commentators believe, gayness doesn't suddenly appear when you see your first drag queen. You are gay as a preschooler.  You may not be interested in physical intimacy yet, but you find some people and not others attractive, and form romantic bonds, early on.  In Backyardigans, Pablo and Tyrone were queer coded, although Pablo is more often paired with Austin on Archive of Our Own. 

A decade later, Nicholas Barasch, who played Austin in 20 episodes (2009-13), showed his physique on Riverdale.

Leon Thomas III, who played Tyrone in 25 episodes (2006-09), gave us a butt shot on Insecure.

 But Jake Goldberg, a long running Pablo (60 episodes, 2006-13), has given us one better: shots of his penis. 

Born in 1996, Jake grew up in New York, except for five years spent in Israel.  As a child and teenager, he appeared in episodes of 3D Rock, Law and Order: SVU, and Bull, and he played Adam Sandler's son in Grown Ups (2010) and Grown Ups 2 (2013)

Jake is second from the left.  Notice David Henrie of Wizards of Waverly Place on the right.

.   

His character crushes on girls, but also buddy-bond (and gets naked) with Nadji Jeter as Chris Rock's son. He was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award, which may have turned him off acting as a career choice.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Blake Michael: The "Dog with a Blog" brother starts a band, stalks a teacher, vanishes into corporate. With Blake and Dano dicks

 

I haven't been watching Disney Channel programs regularly since the days of Hannah Montana, so all I heard of Dog with a Blog (2012-15) was buzz about how ridiculous the premise was: three kids discover that their dog is sentient, can talk, and actually has a blog where he discusses his experiences and tries to find other dogs.  How is that more ridiculous than a pop star pretending to be a regular girl, both daughters of a famous country-western music singer, and no one suspecting for an instant?

Critics lambasted the show for its "lackluster writing' and absence of any actual blogging, but it averaged 3 million viewers in the first season, and was nominated for three Emmies.  The main players appear to be Chloe and Avery, two tween sisters from a blended family, but there was also a teenage brother, Tyler (Blake Michael).

Plus Dad Bennett (Regan Burns) and Avery's enemy/crush (L.J. Benet), who now has abs but smiling smugly as girls in bikinis surround him. 

Besides, I haven't found any n*de photos of L.J.  But there are some of Blake.

Blake got his start in modeling at age three, and had his first on-screen role at age eight, playing a restaurant patron in Chosen (2004).  Small parts in October Road, Out of Jimmy's Head, and The Mortician followed.

He had a starring role in Lemonade Mouth (2011), which I never saw because I thought the term referred to some kind of terminal cancer.  It's actually the name of a bad that five high schoolers who start a band -- I guess disgusting names are de rigeur for rock bands.  The boys are Charlie (Blake) and Wen (Adam Hicks).  Both get girlfriends, and the remaining girl gets a boyfriend, and so on, and so on.  Heteronormativity fulfilled. 

Sorry, this is the only photo I could find where the two guys are together, not bookending the three girls.

It's a little tangential, but Adam Hicks is known as one of the Disney Channel's skateboarding dudebros on Zeke and Luther (2009-12).  His partner, Hutch Dano, has retired from acting to become a painter.

And post photos of his d*ck (after the break).

Ethan Wacker: The former teen spy, Bizaardvark manager, and Vanderbilt fratboy looks good in a suit. And out of a suit.

I only knew three things about Ethan Wacker before beginning the research: 

1. At 5'7", he's a member of the Short Guy Brigade

2. He has an amazing physique.

3. He has a lot of male friends.  

A lot of male friends.

Actually, I'm getting tired of posting photos of Ethan and his male friends.  Let's check his biography.

Born in Connecticut in 2002, moved to South Korea and then to Hawaii.

His acting credits begin in 2006 (at the age of four!) with a video game called Papa Louie: When Pizza Attacks

More video games and animation followed, plus two episodes of the teencom KC Undercover (2015-18), a Disney Channel teencom about "an outspoken and confident technology whiz and skilled black belt" who becomes a spy.   Ethan played the son of the Vice President of the U.S. 

Then he appeared in Hawaii Five-0, See Plum Run, Tour of Mythicality, and 63 episodes of Bizaardvark (2016-2019).  

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.