Paxton Booth: The "Coop and Cam" brother likes girls' clothes, unicorns, and cock sparring, but does he like guys? With Gavin d*ck

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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.

Will Buie Jr.: Another Bunk'd hunk shows his stuff, then turns out to be straight. With queer codes, tall grass, daytime divas, and Jake junk

 

When Will Buie Jr. (right) appeared on the my teen idol feed, I noticed right away that he has a buddy and a nice chest. Two good signs.

The first twenty or so photos in his file show him with buddies.  I like how they are in non-revealing outfits, but Will takes any opportunity to show off his chest. 

And his "Pullin" underwear.   You gonna pull it yourself, or do you need a buddy to pull for you?

But lots of straight guys have buddies, and...um...pull things.  Next I'll check Will's acting career for gay or gay-subtext roles.

His on-screen career begins in 2017, when he was ten years old, with the movies   Gifted and The Last Movie Star, episodes of  Red Blooded, and Modern Family, plus a recurring role in Daytime Divas, about five feuding hosts of a morning talk show.  One of the divas is pansexual, and another has an 8-year old trans daughter,  which is a problem for her transphobic husband. Will plays the girl's brother. 

Queer-adjacent.  A good sign.

 McKinley Freeman (left) plays...um..well, who cares?  He's on the show.

In 2018, Will was cast in Bunk'd, a Disney Channel teencom featuring the counselors at a never-ending summer camp.  He continued for 69 episodes (2018-2024) as Finn Sawyer (Huck Finn-Tom Sawyer, get it?). 

LGBT people appear in only one episode of Bunk'd:  In 2023, Camper Winnie gets a visit from her older brother (Jacob Haran) and his boyfriend (Frankie Rodriguez of Chad Powers).  Each reveals that he intends to propose at the camp, but keep it a secret. 

However, Karan Brar (Ravi) came out as bi 2023, and at least three other cast members are gay or probably gay: Luke Busey (Jake), Kevin Quinn (Xander), and Nate Stone, left (Timmy).    

More after the break

Recker Eans: The gaydar boy on "Beyond Waverly Place" drums in gay-friendly videos, but is he gay or an ally? With bandmate dicks

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"The Naked Brothers Band," the most heterosexist teencom on Nickelodeon. Plus the grown-up brothers' cocks, butts, and gay-vague characters.

Around 2008, I researched queer codes on children's tv for what turned out to be three scholarly articles.  I gave high scores to Drake and Josh,  Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide,  The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, The Wizards of Waverly Place, and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.  Phil of the Future, Ed Edd and Eddy, and Zoey 101 got low scores, and the lowest: The Naked Brothers Band.

It was a mockumentary about the misadventures of a fictional band led by preteen brothers, Alex and Nat Wolff.  They never explained the embarrassingly salacious name, but I assume that it meant that you would be seeing their real life, uncurated and unmediated. 

Of course, it was curated and mediated.  Alex and Nat did have a band, and some of their real-life bandmates (like Dan Levi, left) were in the cast, but most of the characters and situations were purely fictional.  They were not at all famous.  Yet.   

In 2004, actress Polly Draper had the idea of making a mockumentary about her sons' band, sort a preteen Spinal Tap or A Hard Day's Night.  She got her wealthy (or wealthier) brother to finance The Naked Brothers Band, filmed it in mid-town Manhattan, and entered it the 2005 Hamptons International Film Festival.  Nickelodeon bought it, and suggested a teencom spin-off, competition to the upstart Myley Cyrus in Hannah Montana. 

 Nat Wolff was only twelve years old, and Alex was nine,  a little young to handle a teencom by themselves, so Polly added adults to the cast to pull some of the weight.  Mostly her relatives: husband Michael Wolff as the boys' widowed dad; niece Jesse as their babysitter; brother Tim as the school principal. Plus a steady stream of celebrity friends, including Ryan Seacrest, Tony Hawk, and Whoopi Goldberg, popped by to play themselves.

The result was three seasons of intense nepotism and aggressive "girls! girls! girls!' hetero-horniness (2007-09).

I only watched one episode for my research project (there were over 30 programs in my dataset), so to be fair, I just watched another:  "Three is Enough" (February 8, 2008)

In the teaser, Alex wants to practice putting his arm around his "true love" in the movies.  Nat is skeptical -- he has a new "true love" every week.  But he agrees to play the girl.  Then Alex plays the girl so Nat can practice.  The gender-play is a queer code, but it's drowned out by the endless discussion of how many girls they like.

Next: they have writen a new song, "Three is Enough."  Babysitter Jesse agrees: three is the perfect amount of everything, from donuts to boys. For instance, she can't choose between the three "adorable Timmerman Brothers" (played by Polly's excessively rich nephews).  She implies that she is dating all of them, and perhaps not one at a time. Maybe they are involved in a queer four-way romance.

Then the Handsome Foreigner next door (Michael W. Barry)  asks her to the big horror movie.  The Timmermans get jealous and decide to spy on them.

At the studio, famous cartoonist Jules Feiffer, playing himself, is drawing cartoons to project over the band's new song.  Alex asks to be portrayed as cooler and more teenager-ish, and for the girl he is in love with to look more like his real-life true love.  

The main plot: their manager, 12-year old Cooper (Cooper Pillot) accidentally asks a girl for a date.  The band suggests various ways to get out of it, but he doesn't want to get out of it. He just wants Nat to come along for moral support.  But Nat needs a date, and he can't ask his on-off girlfriend Rosalie while they're "on a break."  Can he?  This section can't be easily queered; it's boys and girls all the way down.

Verdict: A few gender-bending moments , but no gay subtexts.

I couldn't even find any gay actors in the cast, except for Andre Keenan-Bolger, who played the snippy director Christophe in four episodes.

After the break: Have the Naked Brothers continued their heteronormative erasure as adults?  Have they gotten naked?

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?

But I reviewed an episode, and called it "The Disney Channel's Worst Show" due to the aggressive homophobia. Critics lambasted the show for its "lackluster writing' and absence of any actual blogging. Still, it averaged 3 million viewers in the first season, and was nominated for three Emmies.  The main players, other than the dog, were 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, "Big Dick Mitch" on The Righteous Gemstones) and Avery's enemy/crush (L.J. Benet), who now has abs but smiling smugly as girls in bikinis surround him. 

There are nude photos of Regan in my review of Episode 4.8.  I haven't found any 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).

Drake Bell: A lot has happened since "Drake and Josh," including some gay videos

  

You probably remember Drake Bell from Drake and Josh (2004-2007), the Nickelodeon teencom about mismatched stepbrothers, with Drake the schemer ("let's break into the school and stack all the desks upside down) and Josh (Josh Peck) the stick-in-the-mud ("but we have to study for our math test").   It was loaded down with gay subtexts, including an nearly-out gay couple, Craig and Eric.  (Dudes even hold hands during a crisis).

You may have gone to his first post-Drake movie, College (2008), where he and his three friends head for a "college weekend" (a weekend of fun activities to convince high schoolers to apply).  Theirs involves nonstop shenanigans, all intensely heteronormative. At least Drake is taped to a statue of the founder with his backside exposed to the world. I think it's supposed to be humiliating.

You may have watched A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner (2011), to see how Nickelodeon would handle the gay-subtext classic.  They flubbed it.  Timmy is absurdly heteros*xual. 

And then you probably relegated Drake to nostalgic memories, not paying a lot of attention to what he's been doing for the last few years.

I checked.  Brace yourself.  It's a lot.

More Fairly Oddparents movies.

A lot of stuff with former coster Josh Peck 

A lot of voice work, especially Spider-Man in various cartoons, even Phineas and Ferb, and a video game.

An Elf named Snowflake

Ben the Wizard in Bad Students of Crestview Academy

The reality series Splash, where celebrities dive for charity.

The paranormal series Silverwood

Damian in American Satan

A career in music, with six studio albums, eighteen singles, twelve music videos, and sold-out concerts.  Some songs in Spanish that top the Mexican charts. 

Drake's personal life after the break.  Warning: it gets rocky. 

Harrison Houde: It's Bowie! Plus gay-adjacent tv, synth-wave music, and a pink Ford. With Diego, Harrison butts, and Nemo d*ck

 School Spirits features a high school girl named Maddie Near, who becomes a "ghost" when her spirit is dislocated from her body.  In Episode 2.3 (2025), we meet Diego (Zack Calderon), the older brother of Maddie's friend, n the best possible way -- wearing just a towel. 

Well, maybe not the absolute best possible way...

And we learn that Maddie's body is now occupied by Janet,  the ghost of a high school girl who died in 1958. She goes on the run, bringing a satchel-full of stolen cash. When she stops for supplies, we met Carl (Harrison Houde), a clerk at the superstore.  He has long hair and femme multicolored bracelets, pinging my gaydar.  And he's 5'5".  

Which should I profile?

Sorry, Zack.

You may remember Harrison Houde from Some Assembly Required (2014-16), the Canadian teencom about a boy (Kolton Stewart) who sues his way into owning a toy company,   Harrison plays Bowie, his cute, quirky best bud, who is put in charge of the Jokes and Pranks Division.  (He's pictured with Dylan Playfair as the dimwitted hunk.)  

Although the gay-vague fashion plate of the series is Aster (Travis Turner), until he gets a queerbait girlfriend, Bowie only expresses heterosexual interest in one or two episodes. 

Harrison began his on-screen career as Darren Walsh, who becomes an outcast for touching cheese, in Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010).  

Next came three episodes of Spooksville (2013-14), about teenage ghost-hunters.

42 episodes of the "how it works" series Finding Stuff Out (2012-14)

And the movie Pants on Fire (2014), with Bradley Steven Perry as a chronic liar who wins The Girl of His Dreams (not by lying).

More after the break.  Caution:Explicit.

Jamie Mayers: Absurdly hot Short Guy, LARPer, ghost, with a trans mom, a gay dad, a BFA, and a boyfriend. And maybe a cock

 

We've been watching the American version of Ghosts (2021-26), about a disparate group of ghosts who are trapped between worlds in a bed-and-breakfast in upstate New York.  I'm not happy with the way they approach the Revolutionary War soldier Isaac being gay.  At least in Season 1, he'll say that a man is attractive, and the other ghosts will stare, mystified, as if same-sex desire cannot possibly exist.

But I like the buddy-bonding and the beefcake. 

In Episode 1.7 (2021),  Samantha, who can see ghosts because she was dead for a few minutes, encounters early 20th century newsboy Winky.  He was only 12 years old when he died, but the actor is obviously an adult --- 21 year old Jamie Mayers, now 25, and at 5'3", an outstanding member of the Short Guy Brigade who deserves a profile.

Well, he's also absurdly hot,  and gay in real life.  But mostly because he's 5'3". 

Jamie has several well-stocked social media pages, plus Linkedin and a professional website, so we can piece together a biography:

He was born in Montreal in 1999, and began acting in 2010, with some shorts, commercials, and Lies My Father Taught Me at Theatre Calgary: a Jewish boy's bittersweet memories of 1920s Montreal.

In 2012, Jamie played the son of gay-vague werewolf Ray (Andreas Apergis, left) in an episode of Being Human, about ghost, vampire, and werewolf roommates.

And he voiced the young Connor in the Assassin's Creed III video game.  He returned in 2017 to voice Pharaoh Ptolemey in Assassin's Creed: Origins.

Teencoms followed: the bratty little brother of Live Action Role Playing Gamer Brittany in seven episodes of LARPERS (2014-15)

The gay-vague best friend of a teenage boy whose life is narrated by sportscaster-like beings in Game On (2016-17).

And a drama: four episodes of This Life (2015-16), about a woman dying of cancer while her teenage sons have soap opera problems.

But his most famous role is in Venus (2017):  Indo-Canadian trans woman Sid (Debargo Sanyal) is just starting to transition, when a teenage boy shows up on her doorstep, a son from a high school girlfriend.  He's fine with having a trans mom, but what about her conservative Indian parents?   She also finds the time to fall in love with Pierre-Yves Cardinal (butt left).

In high school Jamie spent several summers at Stagedoor Manor, a performance camp for youth in Loch Sheldrake, New York, playing:

Patsy in Spamalot: the one who makes the sound of horses' hooves.

Arthur in Half a Sixpence: the draper's assistant who gets rich and finds love.

Otto in Grand Hotel: a dying bookkeeper who wants to spend his last moments in luxury.  He gets a girlfriend. (Played by Daniel Evans, probably not this Daniel Evans, in the West End revival).

Tobias in Sweeney Todd: the mentally challenged assistant to the murderous barber.  Played by Neil Patrick Harris on Broadway.

Jamie graduated from high school in 2017, and spent his gap year in London, where he performed in two plays with the St. George's Players, Avenue Q and Into the Woods.

Life after high school after the break.  Caution: Explicit.