One show that was never a hit in the UK was that of 'A Family Affair'. It could be hilarious, it could be shit - I have no idea but I do know that I would watch it faithfully every week if it was shown here. For one reason only. The reason being Sebastian Cabot. Using my in depth wikipedia reading skills, I am able to inform you that the show centred on a wealthy bachelor who suddenly has to look after his niece and nephew after their parents die in a car accident. Totally how every sit-com should start. Mangled corpses and orphaned children - Zing!!!! As he was a wealthy bachelor, he needed to have a valet. The valet was Sebastian Cabot. Now, it is interesting to note that in the synopsis of the show it doesn't call him a 'valet' or a 'servant' or even a 'butler'. The synopsis reads:
"A wealthy bachelor often dating socialites, he lives in a large Park Avenue apartment in Manhattan, and has a quintessential gentleman's gentleman, Giles French."
I want a gentleman's gentleman. Especially if he looks like this. As Cabot is a Londoner, I am forced to say 'Cor Blimey, love a duck, I want his big, bubbly, naked ass on my face!....guv'nor'. Interestingly, for a guy from London, before he went into acting he was a wrestler under the pseudonym "Pierre Sauvage, the eighteen stone champion of Belgium". Eighteen stone of hot bear cock quite frankly. Now, as the role of Giles French was his most famous role (although he attains sheer awesomeness by being the voice of Bagheera in the Jungle Book) there were a few pictures of him with children in shot. He looked too good not to show them but I felt funny about having pictures of kids on this site. It just seems wrong. So - what to do? Well, I decided to alter the images. I didn't want to alter the images in any way that could be construed as sexual so I replaced the children with something that no-one can find attractive. Thus freeing you to focus on Sebastian and not feel weird about getting a hard-on.
See? It's not distracting at all
This is how gay bear sex starts..... so I am told
Cabot's reaction to being shown his boss's 'gentleman's gentleman'
This will haunt your dreams
As a bona fide Yank, I can tell you a bit about "Family Affair" which aired in the U.S. at a time when I was just a tad to young to know about yanking my wank. It was both a comedy and a drama, and it was neither very good, nor very bad. There was always a moral to the story line, a learning experience for the children, and a happy, heartwarming ending. In "Family Affair," Cabot's character was called, amusingly, Mr. French, in an irony that delights me to this day. I watched "Family Affair" religiously, because I was taken with both men despite my tender young prepubescent age. My partner and I both agree that we were riveted to the idiot box by the image of Mr. French on the screen while our tiny members grew firm under our trousers. I always wondered if he wore boxers and shin garters under his formal morning suit. The show's other male star, Brian Keith, did a turn with Doris Day in a movie called "With Six You Get Eggroll," so check out the scene of him traipsing about suburban California clad in nothing but boxers and carrying a large Teddy Bear. America has long had a strange fascination with television shows that featured the unspoken homo-erotic undertones of households devoid of women. In addition to "Family Affair," there were "My Three Sons," "Bonanza" (Ben Cartwright annually made a pilgrimage to spend time with an old merchant marine buddy in San Francisco), then "The Odd Couple." Later we had "Full House," and more recently "Two and a Half Men." As long as American audiences aren't bombarded with men kissing, nor sleeping in the same bed, they'll lap it up with blissfully innocent ignorance.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really interesting insight. There are a lot of shows that have this strange take on relationships. In the UK, one of the most popular comedy shows of the 70's and early 80's was the "morcombe and wise show'. This was mainly a variety and sketch type show (the type you don't get any more). In that show, for some bizarre reason, there were sketches that showed them living together and sharing a double bed at night. No one thought about it at the time but it looks distinctly odd nowadays. It's like a safe version of gay relationships. Like straight men in drag
ReplyDeleteOK, mogan, you've hit a nerve. Sebastian Cabot and Brian Keith were two of my many masturbation help-mates when I was young (I fantasized, they helped) and I watched this show, not religiously, but pretty regularly. There was always something paradoxical about Mr. French in that he looked like he could kill you with one swipe of his furry bear paw yet, when he opened his mouth to speak, what came out was all sort of politely, well-spokenly, British-y squishyness. I wanted him to seduce me with that voice and then smother me with that ass. Back in those days, scripts were heavily controlled and rarely offered more than their face value but I always enjoyed imagining a lot more going on between him and Keith, just as I like to do with any butler/employer-type relationship. This works particularly well with an herbal assist. There's lots of clips of this show on YouTube, by the way, if you haven't already discovered them. Here's one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpYn2GdDIg0
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, as well, about the undesirability of leaving children in shots that turn up on blogs like yours. That guy over on the creepy site solves that problem by bringing in a fog machine to make problems like that disappear.
And, if you haven't already discovered him, another candidate for a bear-right-up-your-alley is Raymond Burr, in his later years. He's a Canadian by birth but an American Icon by junk culture, something that Carrot Top, sadly, will never be.
"Family Affair" was on French TV starting in 1987, more than twenty years after its initial American run, under the title "Cher Oncle Bill" (Dear Uncle Bill). For some reason, mister French became monsieur Félix in the French version. That show seemed to be on all the d--n time on TV in the late 1980s, and the annoying kids were much more on display than Sebastian Cabot, I'm afraid. Or maybe at the time, I'd just stopped paying attention to things TV-ish.
ReplyDeleteYou do realize that both Sebastian Cabot and Raymond Burr were gay.
ReplyDeleteI once saw a few minutes of an episode of "Beverly Hillbillies" where Sebastian Cabot was the guest. One scene he was without a shirt and he was quite furry. Ever since then I've been looking for that episode but have come up with nothing so far.
ReplyDeleteI had convinced myself I hallucinated the episode of Beverly Hillbillies with a topless Sebastian Cabot. Glad to hear I'm not loosing my marbles. I've searched high and low for a clip from that episode but with no luck. If I remember correctly he just had a towel wrapped around him. It would almost be worth buying the entire series just to find that episode.
ReplyDeleteI know Raymond Burr was gay - his partner still runs their vineyard in California and bottles wine in his name. I never heard anything about Sebastian Cabot's sexuality, but I certainly fantasized it from the time I would have been old enough to sit on his lap!
It doesn't proves nothing about his sexuality but at least it seems that Sebastian Cabot had a real wife & children , not like the imaginary Burr's dead wives. Anyway, Mr cabot was a very hot bearded man.
ReplyDeleteAnd If you want to see another bearded/moustached butler character played by a real gay actor , try watching "Jessie" with Kevin Chamberlin (this time for sure, he's openly gay). The show has some points in common with Family affair, a bearded fat man living with kids, bachelor; although the main plot is more focused on the nanny than the butler, he has some kind of attention by the writers. You may notice some ambiguity around the character: he supposed wants to date with a woman, but it runs on opposite direction. Sometimes open/sometimes camouflaged there are references of the bear culture , there's a teddy bear named 'chubby the bear', even sometimes he is refered as bear, or papa bear.
I remember very little of this kind of 'gay propaganda' at the tv shows of my childhood, but fortunately one of my memories is related with Angel de Andres López, playing some kind of short sketches in a kids or teen show.
I'm too young to saw Cabot in Family Affair (and I guess it doesn't aired in my country,) and too old to "win" my first erection with Chamberlin watching Jessie. But I don't care, I watched at these days and enjoy it very much...
Mmmm....talking about my childhood and about big boys surrounded by kids, there's one iconic actor of one tv series produced in my country that was gay, and when it was revealed it was like : oooh he was gay !!! and I realized that probably I watched his show one summer, and other, and all the reruns of "Verano azul" in a unconsciously manner attracted by the role of Chanquete played by Antonio Ferrandis.
Now Mogan searches his name on google and moans ... xD
Now the homoerotic episode of Beverly Hillbillies it's avaliable, i found it;
ReplyDeleteS4 Episode 10 "The Poor Farmer" Time:12:45
Yes, he had a towel, but you need some paper towel to see this scene.