"The Strongest Man in History": Robert Oberst and his pals recreate Viking challenges. With bonus Danish dick

  

In The Strongest Man in History, on the History Channel, four contemporary strongmen try to recreate the stunts of legendary strongmen:

William Bankier, who lifed a piano in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

Thomas Topham, who lifted three barrels of water weighing over 5,000 pounds in 1749.

Monte Saldo, who lifted a motorcar and five passengers in 1903 

The guys: 

1. Brian Shaw, "Shaw Strength"

2. Eddie Hall, "The Beast"

3. Robert Oberst, "Strong and Pretty"

4. Nick Best

I watched the first episode, where Nick takes the guys on a tour of Moorhead, Minnesota, across border from Fargo, North Dakota, the "center of Viking culture in the United States."

 Nick is a devotee of all things Viking, even going to Renaissance fairs wearing a horned helmet.  His signature stunt is the Viking Press.

They visit the stave church at the Hjelmkomst Center, go ice fishing, and hear about how the days of the week are named after Norse gods.  But for some reason they skip the biggest tourist attraction in Moorhead, the Hjelmkomst Viking Ship.  It's a replica built by Robert Asp in the 70s that sailed across the ocean to Norway before being housed in the Clay County Cultural Center

Most of the episode is devoted to the guys introducing themselves, explaining what they're going to do, discussing how difficult it will be, and then doing it:

1. Carry a 345-pound boulder. All Viking boys had to carry one to achieve fullsterkur, full strength, and be considered a man.  In Iceland, they still use the 409-pound Húsafell Stone as a test of strength.

Left: 18 year old Billy Crawford, the youngest person ever to lift the stone.

2. Thow a 13-pound hammer, with an ice bath penalty for the guy with the shortest distance. Nick loses, at 70 feet. 

3. Pull a 12,000 pound Viking ship.

4. Hoist a 1,433 pound mast. 

Some of the challenges in other episodes are interesting.  In Stoke-on-Trent, Eddie Hall's home town, they named an oat cake, sort of a savory stuffed pancake, after him.  It has six sausages and three pounds of cheese.  The challenge: whoever finishes first without throwing up wins.

In the last scene, the guys gift Nick with an authentic Viking-era axe, leading to a group hug and: "So, we all going to get on the bed and start making out?"  They jump on the bed, but we cut before the make-out session.

Beefcake: The guys are fully clothed most of the time.

History: Snippets.

Gay Subtexts: Deliberate.  An extraordinary amount of buddy-bonding, with the guys often discussing how attractive they find each other.

Reality TV: The breathless "It's 12,000 pounds!!!!" and the constant repetition become annoying.  I might watch this on the treadmill at the gym, but for regular viewing, it's too darn fluffy.

Bonus Danish dick and other Scandinavian guys after the break.  Warning: Explicit.

Andrew Keegan: From "Teenage Caveman" and "The Broken Hearts Club" to...well, he got to kiss Dean Cain

 

Teenage Caveman, 2002, is not a good movie.  You find out instantly that the cavemen are actually living in a post-Apocalyptic world.  But it's good for beefcake.  Some of the guys strip to show their butts while preparing for sex.  Stephen Jasso, who plays Vincent, also had unsimulated sex in the controversial, "show everything" Ken Park (pics after the break).

And it gave us a memorable scene where the hunky 23-year old Andrew Keegan, playing the head teenage caveman, is tied to a post with his hands over his head, showing us his bulked-up post-teen idol physique. 

Born in 1979, Andrew Keegan was one of the more popular teen stars of the 1990s, playing mostly operators, rebels, and scallawags, such as Zack Dell in Camp Nowhere (1994), and "bad boys" in guest roles on TGIF sitcoms like  Full House, Moesha, Step by Step, and Boy Meets World.

By the late 1990s, he was starting to bulk up, and the teen magazines started going wild.  They specialized in shots of his bare chest peeking out from his shirt, as if he had been caught in the midst of getting dressed (or undressed).

Gay-vague  "not into girls" roles on Party of Five (1997-98) and Seventh Heaven (1997-2004), led to  Broken Hearts Club (2000): 

Andrew played Kevin, one of a group of gay friends who hang out in West Hollywood (others include Timothy Olyphant, Billy Porter, Justin Theroux, and Zach Branff).  They deal with coming out, AIDS, and so on.  Kevin kisses mysterious newcomer Cole, played by Dean Cain, something that was unheard-of for two straight actors in 2000.

Andrew didn't quite make the transition to adult hunk.  During the 2000s, he performed mostly in horror and sex comedies, like Extreme Dating, 2005: Four friends hatch a crazy sceme to get one of them laid.

He plays Sally Boy in Dough Boys, 2008, which is not about World War I, it's about a bakery. And his character is straight.

He produced and starred in A Christmas Too Many (2007), which includes a gay stereotype son among the relatives that Mickey Rooney invites to Christmas dinner. It gets a 14% on Rotten Tomatoes.

More after the break. Caution: explicit

Joel Rush's Hot/Hung Photos, Part 2: Beefcake and nude photos, including the glory hole scene, a bare butt, and a kiss

Joel Rush, playing Sky, was one of the most popular and sadistic members of the Season 2 God Squad.  He undermined Kelvin's authority, forced him and Keefe to move out of the master bedroom, and then subject Keefe to various tortures while he was confined in the tiger cage.  But some of the tortures provided beefcake pleasures for viewers.

When Keefe is imprisoned in the tiger cage after the cross-raising challenge, the God Squad uses a glory hole to sexually assault him.  Since it looks out onto the main quad, Keefe also uses it as an eye-hole.  When Sky shoves his dick through, hoping for a blow job, he accidentally stabs Keefe in the eye.  Or was it deliberate?

Joel Rush has a number of other nude and semi-nude scenes in his work.

A jockstrap shot.

A butt shot

The obligatory bondage scene.

Bonding from one of his gay movies.

Nude photos after the break.

Caution: explicit