Searching for gay-subtext buddy-bonds on "The Really Loud House." With gay Dads and a heck of a lot of butts

Lately I've been nostalgic for one of those old-fashioned gay-subtext buddy couples, not interested in girls, invested only in each other, that we used to see everywhere: Jonny and Hadji, Terry and Raji, Alix and Enak, Ricky and Alfonso on Silver Spoons, Larry and Kennard in Darkover.   I even bought a new book, The Town with the Butterfly Problem, because PJ and his best friend Grant are traveling through the fantasy world together, and no heterosexual romances are mentioned in the plot synopsis -- but in the very first paragraph, he's trying to impress a cute girl. Ugh! Right into the trash!

Paramount Plus recommended The Really Loud House, a live-action sequel to The Loud House (2016-2025).  You know, the one with a nuclear family consisting of mom, dad, 3,000 girls and one boy.  

The live action version centers on the boy, Lincoln Loud  (Wolfgang Schaeffer), having adventures with his best friend, Clyde McBride (Jahzir Bruno).  No doubt a classic gay-subtext buddy couple!

The original had some LGBT representation.  Clyde has two dads; one of the girls expresses a "blink and you'll miss it" interest in a girl; another has a gay friend, Miguel (queer actor Tonatiuh Elizarraraz), who appears in four episodes but only alludes to being gay once, when he gets a boyfriend (Vladimir Versailles) in another "blink and you'll miss it" moment.

So maybe Lincoln and Clyde will have more than a gay-subtext buddy-bond.  Maybe they'll be boyfriends!  

I'm reviewing episode 1.6, "School Dance," to see if the boys go together.  Or if there are any same-sex couples dancing.  Or both.

Scene 1: The kids are making decorations for the Big Dance at their middle school, the Kangaroo Hop, while journalist Liam (Gavin Maddox Bergman) films interviews with them.  

Gavin Maddox Bergman played Oliver Twist in Spirited (2022), young Ben in Salem's Lot (2023), and Cal Starr in Americana (2024).  I'm getting a gay vibe from him, but the character of Liam is heterosexual.

First interview: Rusty Spokes (Nolan Maddox) and his girlfriend Charlie (named after a boy to provide a gay tease for those of us reading episode synopses).  They discuss how much they love each other.  "My favorite color is your eyes..." Rusty exclaims.  Holy sh*t, these people are twelve years old. Were they, like, born horny? 

Nolan Maddox (Rusty Spokes) is now 18, but this is not his butt. 

Strikingly femme Lincoln watches mournfully.  Best buddy Clyde consoles him over Rusty dating Charlie.  Wait -- you're into Charlie, femme boy?  Did you not notice that she's a girl?.

When it's Lincoln's turn to be interviewed, he notes that he was going bring "just friend" Stella (figures you have a lot of girl "just friends").  But she's at a science fair, so it will be solo.  

And Clyde will be going with dad's chiropracter's daughter.

Scene 2: Interview with Best Buddy Clyde's dads.  They are concerned that their son has not yet found his First Love.  He's in middle school, much later than most kids.  They are so desperate for him to click with "that someone special" that they arrranged for Clyde's date with the chiropracter's daughter.  So he hasn't expressed any heterosexual interest, yet the two gay guys never consider for a minute that he might be gay.  That's awfully heteronormative of them.

Ray Ford (Dad Harold), seen here at his godson's graduation, doesn't mention kids of his own, but half of his Instagram photos show him cheek-to-cheek with various ladies, so I'm guessing straight in real life.

Stephen Guarino (Dad Howard) kisses a boy in Eastsiders, and makes out with a dude while naked in Bearcity, so I'm going to guess that he's gay in real life.  Left: his butt.

Yes, I know that having two dads as a focus of the episode rather than just hanging around is a step forward. On Ducktales (2020), they just stood on stage, not speaking, for a moment at their daughter's award ceremony.  But they're heteronormative bias is still annoying.

I'm skipping over a plot about baseball or something.

Scene 3: The Dads were looking forward to taking the pre-dance photos at their house, memorializing Clyde's move into his heterosexual destiny forever.  I feel your pain, Clyde: my parents still have a photo of me and the girl I brought to the Harvest Dance about a year before I figured it out -- five boyfriends and a gay marriage later, it's still on the dresser in their bedroom!  

Uh-oh, Best Buddy Clyde calls: the pre-dance photos will be taken at the Loud House, to take advantage of the appetizers provided by Femme Lincoln's dad.   "No problem, have fun," the Dads say as their hearts are crushed.

Now they become irate:  "The Louds have burglared our milestone -- the most important moment of our child's life."  Most important moment?  Really?  Why are you so anxious for your son to be heterosexual?  What's wrong with gay people, gay dudes? 

More butts after the break

Thomas Kuc: The gay-vague Gameshaker goes to the head of the class, hides under the bed, visits a bathhouse. With two dick pics to compare

If you were a teenager in 2015, you probably saw the Nickelodeon teencom Game Shakers (2015-19), about two girls who start a video game company with the help of billionaire rapper Double G.  They bring in his son Triple G (Benjamin Flores), because they have to, and Hudson (Thomas Kuc), because he's cute.  But dumb: he wears his underwear over his pants, and tries to hide behind a pencil. 

In one episode, Hudson and Triple G dress as girls to meet girls, but otherwise no hetero-horniness is mentioned in the episode synopses.  They spend a lot of time dealing with threats to their relationship, so there is probably a gay-subtext romance going on (or text, although the Google AI insists that they're just friends).

Benjamin Flores Jr. is probably gay, but I want to profile Thomas Kuc because he's more muscular, and because I'm interested in languages: he's fluent in English, Spanish, and Polish, with some knowledge of Portuguese and Mandarin, an unusual combination.  

Thomas was born in Brazil in 2002, presumably to Polish parents, and then moved to Los Angeles.  As a child he was a competitive gymnast, and appeared in some commercials and the soap General Hospital.

He broke into movies with The Diabolical (2015).  His character, Danny, is not mentioned in the plot synopsis, but presumably he's a friend of the beset-upon woman's son Jacob.

Next came 61 episodes of Game Shakers, plus playing Hudson on a  2017 episode of Henry Danger: the Game Shakers help the superhero-in-training protect Double G's worldwide charity concert.

Head of the Class (1986-91) featured a class of high school overachievers being taught how to relax and live a little by their laid-back teacher.  My favorite was Brian Robbins (left)  as the leather-clad bad boy Eric, although Tony O'Dell, the conservative Republican, turned out to be gay in real life.    

 The revamped version on MAX (2021) brought in a new crowd of geniuses, including business tycoon Luke (former Prince of Peoria Gavin Lewis) and drama major Miles (Adrian Matthew Escalona), who is gay. Thomas played Ryan in two episodes, but he's not mentioned in the episode synopses, and the series has been removed from MAX.  Most likely he played a random student.

Thomas's other work is aggressively heteronormative:

He played the Boyfriend of singer Anna Duboc in Promises to Keep (2021).

Her Toxic Boyfriend in First Love (2023).

A female artist's ex-husband in They Met (2025).

More after the break. We'll get to the n*de photos, I promise.

Dylan Everett: The depressed Degrassi teen buddy-bonds with three gay guys, wears tight jeans, joins the army. With a lot of backsides and a Dylan dick.

 I'm not usually into backsides -- I prefer the side with pecs, abs, and beneath-the-belt stuff -- but isn't this the cutest thing?  It belongs to Dylan Everett, then 26, who you probably know as Campbell Saunders on the Canadian teen soap Degrassi: The Next Generation. 

 Cam appears in Season 12 (2012-13) as a "good-hearted, gentle, nice, shy, cool, and sweet" hockey player who rejects an offer of friendship from the gay kid Tristan, for fear of being assumed gay himself, but then apologizes.  They hang out, and he begins dating Tristan's friend Maya.  But anxiety and depression take their toll, and his plot arc ends with suicide.

Born in Toronto in 1995, Dylan began acting in commercials at age ten, and moved into television with The Doodlebops, "the ultimate rock n roll band for kids."   He first played the friend of a gay kid in Breakfast with Scott (2007): a "straight-acting" gay couple (Tom Cavanaugh, Ben Shenkman) become the guardians of a flamboyantly femme boy (Noah Benett).

A lot of teencoms and tv movies followed, notably How to Be Indie (2009-2011): the Indian-Canadian girl has two friends, a teencom standard: Abbie (a girl) and Marlon (Dylan), who according to the fan wiki is "always full of bright ideas," but sometimes annoying.  He wears pants that are so tight, he can't sit down, has a gay-subtext boyfriend, John Lu (Jason Jia), and displays no interest in girls -- obviously gay.  At least until the showrunners decided to queerbait by giving him a girlfriend in Episode 49.

Next the busy teenager simultaneously appeared on
Degrassi and starred in the teencom Wingin' It (2010-13): To earn his wings,  apprentice angel Porter (Demetrius Joyette) must help outcast high schooler Carl (Dylan) become popular.  I'm not sure how much of an outcast Carl is, since he has the standard teencom two friends, Jane and Alex (Brian Alexander White), but most episodes involve crushing on girls, competing with Porter for girls, asking girls out, and so on.  Apparently popularity means having a girlfriend.

Dylan played Mark-Paul Gosselaer in The Unauthorized "Saved by the Bell" Story (2014), himself in Dylan (2015), the young Dean Winchester in three episodes of Supernatural (2013-15), and a heterosexual teenager in Undercover Grandpa (2017).  

He has a nude scene in All About Who You Know (2019): an aspiring screenwriter tries to meet his idol by arranging a romcom-style romance with the guy's daughter. Or you could just call him.

AusCaps has a scene where his friend Austin (Stephen Joffe) wakes up in bed with a guy, and looks surprised but does not recoil in homophobic horror, so maybe he has a gay plotline.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Atticus Mitchell: "My Babysitter's a Vampire," "Stonewall," "Now I can be who I am," and nude photos, but has he done anything gay lately?

 

When I was researching Star Trek, Strange New Worlds, I looked for nude photos of various cast members, and found several of Atticus Mitchell, who played an ensign "scared by a dog" in one episode.  

You are probably more familiar with him as Benny Weir of My Babysitter's a Vampire (2010 movie, 2011-12 tv series):  teenager Ethan (Matthew Knight)  battles demons, zombies, and various paranormal perils with the help of his buddies, Benny (Atticus, left) and Rory (Cameron Kennedy), plus his sister's vampire babysitter. 

Everyone was intensely hetero-horny, but there was a lot of beefcake. Here the guys agree to be sacrificed so an ancient Aztec goddess can be reunited with her boyfriend.  She's not interested in them, and they're going to die, but that's not important.  She's a girl, so whatever she wants, she gets. 

My earlier review of the series pointed out a lot of gay subtexts.  Here Benny distracts Ethan's girlfriend so he can smooch on Rory.  It's probably a behind-the-scenes shot. 

Born in Toronto in 1993, Atticus became interested in acting in elementary school, and performed in four plays while at St. John Elementary School:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of the Black Forest

James and the Giant Peach

50 Below Zero

When he graduated to Malvern Collegiate Institute (a public high school, in spite of the ponderous name), Atticus switched to on-screen acting with the teencom How to Be Indie (2009-2011), which is about an Indian-Canadian girl, not indie rock. Dylan Everett (26 years old in this photo) played her best friend.  Atticus played a bully.

Next came Vampire, followed by the teen movie Radio Rebel (2012), about a shy high school girl with a secret identity as an underground radio dj. So she's Hannah Montana.  Atticus plays Gabe, a musician who tries to sneak and snark his way into air time, and his future boyfriend or good buddy Adam DiMarco plays as Gavin, the girl's "love interest."  

Aside from Vampire, Atticus is best known for his role as Mickey Hess on Fargo (2014): he runs a shady trucking company with his dad and brother. No girlfriend, but he is established as heterosexual by playing with a female "sex doll."

I was more interested in the role of Matthew in Stonewall (2015), about the 1969 riots that started the Gay Rights Movement, with Danny (Jeremy Irvine) as a white masculine Saviour from Indiana.  

Problem: Matthew doesn't appear in the synopsis, and I don't recall him from watching.  But surely he's gay.

Nude photos after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Jonny Gray: Researching the "Max and Shred" skater and Boots boyfriend. With Jake's junk, Daniel's dick, and a bonus Priestley butt

 

 I have so many guys waiting to be profiled that I forget who some of them are.  Today I looked in a folder entitled "Johnny Gray,", with a lot of screen shots, probably taken from the IMDB or his Instagram before I moved on to other tasks. They haven't even been adjusted (converted to .jpgs, cropped, reduced,  brightened, desaturated).  

Problem: I have no idea who Johnny Gray is.  

But he's obviously gay (this photo is entitled "JohnnyBoyfriend"), and probably an actor, so I don't mind conducting the research.  

The research sent me down quite an internet rabbit hole. Various configurations of John/Johnny and Gray/Grey yielded:

A famous brand of guitars.

A runner who won at the Olympics four times and holds the record for the 600 meter sprint.

A rugby player who received the Sir Willie Purves Quaitch Award in 2014.

The author of the gender-polarized and heteronormative best-seller Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

A Wall Street broker, played by Mickey Roarke, who gets involved in heterosexual BDSM games in 9 1/2 Weeks.

A "secretly gay" 18th century gentleman, played by Oscar Kennedy and David Berry (left), in the tv series Outlander.

Returning to the folder for clues, I found photos of two n*de guys.  Maybe boyfriends or co-stars?

1. Brazilian actor Daniel Rangel, who appears mostly in telenovelas like Novo Mundo (2017) and Amor Perfeito (2023-205).

2.  Jake Goodman, left, best known for the Disney Channel teencom Max & Shred (2014-16):  he plays the superego in the gay-subtext buddy bond, science nerd Shred, who must mentor a professional skateboarder, the indefatigable id Max (Jonny Gray).  

Found him. 

Our Jonny Gray was born in 1999, and grew up in a suburb of London, Ontario   His on-screen career began in 2012, when he reported on the King's Cup Elephant Polo Tournament in Hua Hin, Thailand.

It's to support elephant conservation, but it still looks strange.

Next came Disney stardom with Max & Shred, and three Bruno & Boots movies: Go Jump in the Pool (2016), This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall (2017), and The Wizzle War (2018).

Based on the Macdonald Hall book series by Gordon Korman, the movies feature two students at an exclusive private school near Toronto.  Jonny changes from superego to id as the impulsive "let's put an iguana in the headmaster's bed" Bruno, who buddy-bonds with the wet-blanket "but I have to write a report on thumbtacks" Boots (Callan Potter).  

The book series seems to push up the gay subtext and eliminate the hetero-romance.  I'm not sure about the movies.

More after the break

Jason Hervey: Did the "Wonder Years" big brother hook up with guys in West Hollywood? How big was he? With explicit photos

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Travis Turner: Short Guy Brigade, gay subtexts, cutesy cartoons, Christmas romcoms, and hip-hop. With n*de photos and Drake Bell

In Final Destination: Blood Legacy (2025), a 1960s Elevator Operator encourages the soon-to-be-skewered couple to squeeze into his already overcrowded elevator, in a scene reminiscent of the "Room for one more, honey" episode of The Twilight Zone.  Then, when things start crashing, he tries to take everyone down the elevator again -- and ends up splattered. 

Look at this guy! He's shorter than Noah Bromley, who plays the evil Penny-Throwing Kid.  Of course I've got to research him.

He's Travis Turner, born in Oliver, British Columbia, in 1987,  raised in nearby Penticton in the Sylix Okangan Nation, although he doesn't mention being First Nation.  Cody Kearsley, Moose in the Riverdale series, is from Oliver also.  Maybe they knew each other.

After high school Travis painted oil rigs and sold vacuum cleaners, then moved to Vancouver to study film at Langara College.  He received his diploma in 2009.  .

He appeared in a lot of shorts in 2009-2010, such as "Henchin'," "Scars," "Snow Tramp," and "Dream a Little Dream," plus the Vancouver-based  Easter Bunny Bloodbath (2010), as one of the victims of a psycho-killer dressed as the Easter Bunny.  Here he appears in an illustration in the novelization.  There was a novelization?

Travis' first high-profile role was in a 2010 episode of Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica spin-off.  He played Ashok, a resident of a virtual world who briefly interacts with Tamara and Heracles ( Richard Harmon).

According to the IMDB, Travis is best known for Final Destination: Blood Lines (2025).

A 2024 episode of Wild Cards, a Canadian police procedural featuring a "will they or won't they" couple, Max (a lady) and Cole (Giacomo Gianniotti, left).  They investigate a missing butcher in a small town, and find a murderous cult.  Travis plays Daryl, who doesn't appear in the plot synopsis.

A 2023 episode of Upload, where you can be uploaded to a virtual afterlife when you die (if they get to your body right away).  Focus couple Nora and Nathan (Robbie Ammel) have returned to the real world, look for jobs, and discover that Nathan has a duplicate (apparently you can return to the real world multiple times).  Travis plays Tom, who does not appear in the episode synopsis.

The anime Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction (2024): Two high schoolers (a boy and a girl, of course) face an alien invasion.  He voices the English dub of Makato Tainuma, a boy who dresses in girls' clothes.  According to TV Tropes, he denies being gay or trans; he just wants to look cute. 

Some Assembly Required (2014-16), a Nickelodeon teencom starring Kolton Stewart as a teenager who becomes CEO of a toy company, and hires all of his friends. Travis played Aster Vanderburg, the snobbish, snarky, fashion-obsessed head of the Design Department (named after the Gilded Age Mrs. Aster).  He's gay-coded for 45 episodes before queerbaiting viewers with The Girl of His Dreams.

Most of his work has been in animation: Nils Holgerson (an adaption of the Swedish children's classic), Tobot Galaxy Detectives,  Marley & Me, Lady Jewelpet, Whisker Haven Tales with the Palace Pets....um....Littlest Pet Shop: A Smashing Birthday Party....

The others have even more embarrassing titles.

Travis has also appeared in some Christmas romcoms, like A Princess for Christmas (2011): he plays Milo, the troublemaking, holiday-hating teenage nephew that focus character Jules is saddled with as she visits the family's palace and falls in love with Sam Heighan.

A Fairly Odd Christmas (2012) is a live-action installment in the Fairly Oddparents franchise: the adult Timmy Turner (Drake Bell, right) screws up Santa Claus's Naughty/Nice list, so he has to go on a perilous journey with his friends and two elves (Travis Turner and a girl).  There's a fade-out boy-girl kiss, but not between the elves.

I may have a n*de photo of Drake Bell after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Caleb Brown: Is the former "Lay-Lay" star closeted or gay-teasing? With a switch to Peyton Perrine and Chris Redd's cock

A 2016 episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is notable for a rare sighting of the bulge of Rebeccca's crush Josh (Vincent Rodriguez III), Paula's song about the nefarious deeds she's engaged in to help Rebecca snare him, and a young prince played by Caleb Brown.

Who grew up to be a goofy, swishy, obviously gay hunk.

Caleb Brown did musical theater and commercials before breaking into tv with Bella and the Bulldogs. A number of teencoms followed, including Bizaardvark and Henry Danger.

Plus he played the femme son of macho Oscar's girlfriend in two episodes of the Odd Couple remake (with Matthew Perry as Oscar)

He got his big break in That Girl Lay-Lay.  The premise: Sadie brings her AI (Lay-Lay) to life, and must teach her how to be human while hiding her secret from the world. Meanwhile, Lay-Lay helps Sadie break out of her shell and do things like join drama club and run for class president.  Caleb played Jeremy, the girls' gay-coded classmate and sometime ally.  He never gets a girlfriend, but buddy-bonds with guys a lot.

Left: Sadie's father is played by Thomas Hobson, who is gay in real life, but he has no nude photos online, so I'm posting Danny Hobson instead.

After Lay-Lay, Caleb went to college to study filmmaking.  He is producing a student film, Spring Creek, based on the true story of a camp for troubled teens that was closed down after numerous allegations of abuse.

Caleb's instagram shows him hugging guys, going on trips with guys, and taking guys to formal events.  Here he and his date are attending a fundraiser for the Visalia Emergency Fund.

More after the break

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).

Matt Cornett: "Bella and the Bulldogs" and "High School Musical" alum shows his d*ck . With gratuitous Buddy Keaton

Several years ago, I reviewed the Nickelodeon teencom Bella and the Bulldogs (2015-16), about a girl on the previously all-boy football team.  The premise sounded like a critique of gender polarization, acknowledging that sometimes boys like to cook and date other boys, but, at least in the episode I watched, there were no queer codes at all. Even  the obviously gay boy had a crush on a girl.

Now I'm profiling some former Nickelodeon/Disney teencom stars who informed our childhoods.  Should I go with the Bella cast member who is gay but has no adult videos online, or the one who is straight but shows us his stuff?

Buddy Keaton (née Handleson), the gay guy, played Newt Van der Rohe, a geek with an unrequited crush on the geek-hating Sophie.  Eventually she warms up to him.

I believe that the expression is "woof!," not "bark!"

Matt Cornett, the straight guy, played Zach Barnes, a player from a rival team who invited Bella to the homecoming dance, but uninvited her when his teammates disapproved (Two houses, both alike in dignity....).   After a few more "are they or aren't they?" episodes, they kiss.

Ok, Buddy with just some beefcake, or Matt with the Full Monty?

That's what I thought.

After Bella, Matt Cornett did the guest-spot circuit, playing girls' crushes (in Speechless, Game Shakers, and The Goldbergs), a girl's boyfriend (in Life in Pieces), a girl's friend (in the Middle), and for a change of pace, a bully murdered by one of his victims in Criminal Minds 

Also A-Lan in Disney's Zombies 3, which adds aliens to the already crowded world of zombies and werewolves.  He is dating the female alien A-Li.

But Matt is best known as jock-turned-thesbian E. J. Caswell in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (2019-23).  The rationale for the clunky name: it's a tv series about high school students putting on the musical based on the movie High School Musical (which starred Zac Efron as the jock-turned-thesbian). 

In later seasons, they put on musicals based on the Disney films Beauty and the Beast, Frozen, and High School Musical 3: Senior Year.

Anxious to get to Matt's junk?  After the break.  Caution: Explicit