Angry Puppy

Finally! Our two favorite g-words collide in one marvelous list! Here, now, for the first time ever is the list of our ten all-time favorite gay geeks. As always, please vote on your favorites and tell us who we missed in compiling this geek-tastic oeuvre!

#10 - Daffyd Thomas (Little Britain)
The only gay in the village is large enough to equal three gay geeks. The curious thing about Daffyd, deplorable wardrobe aside, is that he’s the only misfit on this list who appears to have carefully engineered his own outsider status. Our favorite Daffyd moment is, of course, his failed attempt to attend the local gay Trekkie meeting, when he chases off the competition so he can maintain his virtual gay throne. Our only complaint is that he doesn’t like DS9:

#9 - Velma Dinkley (Scooby Doo)
Velma, like Xena and Snagglepuss, is one of those characters who we all know is gay, even though it’s never been officially addressed. We adore Velma, the brains of the original Scooby gang, as much for her genius at building half-assed, ineffective monster traps as for her uncompromising fashion sense. I mean, it takes a lot of balls to pull off a giant shapeless orange turtleneck sweater and miniskirt combo. Jinkies!

#8 - Lotte Schwartz (Being John Malkovich)
Remember Cameron Diaz under all that hair and frumpy shapeless clothing? That was Cameron as Lotte the animal-lover geek and mousy victim of an unfaithful husband (who, incidentally, spent far too much time in someone else’s head). Poor Lotte. All she wanted out of life was to support her little menagerie of rescued critters. She had no intention of getting caught up in all that brain-invading business. But things ended very well for her, which is partly why we love that movie so damn much! Oh, why can’t our geek lives lead to raising strange children with Catherine Keener?

#7 - Lamar Latrell (Revenge of the Nerds)
Lee says: Lamar is the first gay character I remember seeing and being aware that he was gay. And I had one of those Michael Jackson jackets too. Coincidence?

These same skills later lead us all to vote NO ON 15!

#6 - Chuck Noblet (Strangers with Candy)
It’s clearly behoovy to mention that, even though the last episode of Strangers With Candy premiered in October 2000, we still can’t stop saying “behoovy,” the word coined by Stephen Colbert’s Chuck Noblet in the series finale. Chuck, the nemesis to everyone’s favorite stupid junkie whore, thinks he’s the big shot in control of every situation, including his secret love affair with Mr. Jellineck. Sadly though, Chuck’s as big of a geeky failure as the rest of the faculty, but we love his take on education. Sadly though, Chuck’s as big of a geeky failure as the rest of the faculty. But we love his take on education. In the second scene of this clip, Chuck shares his thoughts on John F. Kennedy’s assassination:

#5 - Waylon Smithers (The Simpsons)
Gotta love collector geeks! If we had space in our apartment, we’d cheerfully turn over a room to Buffy memorabilia. We’re already worried about where the Gallery of Gay Action Figures is going to end up if it keeps growing. Waylon’s hooked up, though. He’s got a house full of Malibu Stacy collectibles and is president of the Malibu Stacy Fan Club; all this despite his assertion that women and sea men don’t mix. Plus, he’s handy with computers and knows how to animate and program naked screen savers of his boss!

#4 - Andrew Wells (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
One of our earlier lists re-sparked the ongoing debate about Andrew’s sexuality over on Whedonesque, in which Joss himself jumped in seemingly disputing the lead argument in the Andrew-is-straight, um, argument. At the risk of rekindling that debate again (we know… too late) we honor Andrew with the #4 slot. When it comes to geekness Andrew wins hands down in the pointless geek knowledge division. Typical Andrew line: “Man, this place gives me the creeps. It’s like in Wonder Woman, issue 297–299.”

#3 - Dr. Toshiko Sato (Torchwood)
We loved actress Naoko Mori as the supergeeky Sarah in Ab Fab, especially after Patsy drove her insane in the later seasons. But even better is Mori’s performance as Torchwood’s bisexual techie geek, Tosh. If we were making this list before season 2, we’d probably rank her lower. But recent episodes, including her fascinating origin story, rocketed her up to number three.

#2 - Willow Rosenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
We’re thinking more early,computer-geek Willow than post-goth, wiccan Willow, and somewhere in the middle of that transition was the adorable geek-lesbian Willow. Willow’s a cool geek, because in her words she “makes her own fun”. What anyone thinks about that really is irrelevant to her. Plus, she has those adorable outfits. Remember the colorful cardigans when she was working the quirky hipster look? We’re so under your spell but somehow we have a feeling that, even if you were a real person, it just wouldn’t work out. Sigh…

#1. Brian and Steve (The Sarah Silverman Program)
We may aspire to be as cool as Willow but deep in our hearts, we know we’re Brian and Steve (except we don’t play Dungeons & Dragons, neither of us likes Tab, and we REALLY hate The Spin Doctors). They’re not just our favorite gay geeks, they may be our all-time favorite gay characters because they’re so wonderfully real and likable, and because their gayness really doesn’t matter at all. We love their commitment to gaming and their obsessions with stupid geeky things, and their geek friends are awfully fun too. Brian and Steve, we’re TOTALLY gay for you.

 Loading ...

Good ol’ Buffy… That show just keeps on giving.

In addition to our inclusion of two of the series regulars into our upcoming and illustrious list of Ten Favorite Gay Geeks, Kennedy becomes the third character from the series to be inducted into the Gallery of Gay Action Figures.

We love Kennedy for shaking Willow out of her post-Tara slump and filling her with love and joy and gushy, yummy feelings, all paving the way for Willow to become the magical white witch and kick those nosferatu wannabes back down the Hellmouth’s stinky gullet.

The Guild is a web sitcom about a group of gamers who make up The Knights of Good in a World-of-Warcraft-style MMORPG. The moments of character development that pop up here and there add a lot to the series, so I’ll hold back on describing the characters:

• Codex is a little like Willow without the witchcraft. Or the lesbianism. The episodes mostly revolve around her, and each one opens with a short and funny (to those of us who make our own fun) entry in her web-cam diary.
• ZABOO’s mis-interpretation an emoticon (and the ensuing crush) drive a lot of the plot. If I were 10 years younger and a foot shorter, I think I’d have a little crush on him myself. Well, at least up until episode 5 or so. Do you remember how Sarah, Saffy’s friend from Absolutely Fabulous, played by Torchwood’s Naoko Mori, went from sweet, shy girl to raving lunatic over the course of the show? It’s sort of like that. Here’s a sapphic Sarah clip if you haven’t seen it (you haven’t seen it?):

• BLADEZZ is the guild’s rogue and does his best to live up to his avatar.
• Vork is the leader of the guild. He’s older than the others and kind of creepy, IMHO.
• Clara is an absent-minded, pleasantly plump, mother of three who became my favorite character after about the fourth episode. You should see the way she treats those kids!
• TINKERBALLA, who always has a Nintendo DS in hand, is what you would call “fierce” or “bitchy”, depending on your social leanings. You should see the way she treats Clara’s kids!

At the beginning of the series, the guild members have still never met IRL, but in “Episode 3: The Macro Problem”, they have brunch face-to-face to discuss a guild problem: BLADEZZ had been banned for spamming a chat room with “fag”. He literally LOLs the whole situation, but I think the series itself stayed well on the funnier side of offensive. It upsets Vork because he wants to maintain The Knights of Good’s untarnished reputation for, well, good. Codex objects that it’s “not cool” and that her father had “turned gay”.

“And her ex-boyfriend too,” quips Clare.

Here’s “Episode 1: The Wake-Up Call”:

There are currently eight episodes available, but the official website says:

We’ve taken our Paypal donate button down for Season 1. Thank you so much to each and every donor! As soon as preparations are made for Season 2 we will replace it!

If Felicia Day, who plays Codex, looks familiar to you, it might be because she also played a slayerette named Vi in a little TV show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You can’t say Joss Whedon isn’t loyal to his actors: she’ll be starring in his upcoming musical web series Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog with Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion.

[Via Slate Cultural Gabfest]

Another week, another vlog.

This week:

• Headlines: Casting the Prince of Persia and Cobra Commander; John Barrowman’s botox tips; George Takei’s secret talents; Uncanny X-Men reaches issue #500; the BBWii
• Stuff We Read: Classic X-Men, The Nightly News, the everlasting Dune trilogies
• The Click List: Best in Short Film
• Doctor Who: “Voyage of the Damned”
• Non-Obligatory Torchwood Comments: “Adrift”
• Stuff We Browse: Name That Robot
• Ten Best Show Openings

We know, we know. The Angry Puppy vlog has the best opening of anything you’ve seen online or off, but we thought we’d open up the race for some lesser known works.

#10 - The Sarah Silverman Program
OK, so it’s not sci-fi, horror or any of those other things in our tagline. But it has everyone’s favorite gay geeks Brian and Steve. What really makes it special is Sarah Silverman’s unique brand of ego-centrism. “People call me on the phone, my parents are dead, I like cookies, why are we doing this?”

#9 - Firefly
This also makes the future list of Ten Shows That Didn’t Have Soundtracks But Really Should Have. The open beautifully sets the tone for the curious half-western/half-science-fiction series. And I can’t get that damned song out of my head.

#8 - The Simpsons
I like the one with the dancing elephants! And the one with the Flintstones! And the bizarre 1930’s one! The fax machine open! The whack-a-mole open! The Monty Python open! The Time Bandits one! The Powers of Ten one! The one with the AOL slow screen load! The awesome monster couches eating the neighborhood! Remember the one where Homer peels off the FOX network bug and stomps on it? The one where Homer evolves from a single-cell organism? And, of course, the staggering genius of the live-action recreation!

#7 - Tales from the Darkside
“Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality. But… there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit… a Darkside.” I always wanted the announcer to replace the last two words with “Delaware” for comedic value, but then that would have ruined the moment. Granted, nobody was impressed with either the cheap title graphic or the stock footage flipping to a negative before spinning off the screen in a cheesy wipe. Look, creepy announcer dude with his scary words made for excellent TV in 1985. Just think about what it was up against. Anyone remember the theme song to Misfits of Science? (Yes, with Courtney Cox as telekinesis girl). Nope.

#6 - Doctor Who
If nothing else the Doctor Who show open wins the prize for consistency. The show launched in 1963 with an awesome jaunty theme song and a psychedelic background interrupted only by the show title, and has pretty much remained unchanged in the four or five decades since. Both the theme song and the background have evolved through various iterations, with the modern version taking the most orchestral approach to the track, while the title emerges on a nifty surfboard-like graphic. Long-time fans of the series get the added bonus of feeling like they’re really traveling through time as they sit down today to re-experience the series they grew up on.

#5 - The Tick (the animated series)
Dub dwee, dub dub dub dwee dow! We love The Tick because it’s a spot-on parody of the superhero genre. Sometimes subtle and sometimes… well, not so much. The show open nails it from the beginning with a mix of overstated sequences demonstrating action scenes and The Tick’s general ineptitude, all overlaid with a fast-paced theme song sung through with nonsense lyrics.

#4 - Dexter
This feels more like a work of art than a show open. It’s a gorgeous cinematic sequence of our anti-hero waking up on a typical morning and getting ready for a long day of examining blood splatters, hangin’ with sis and carrying out vigilante justice. We’re especially fond of any show open that can pack in so many direct and indirect references to blood. Yay blood!

#3 - Lost
Anything we write here will be longer than the Lost intro. Click to see how easily it could have gone wrong.

#2 - Battlestar Galactica
In the face of shrinking attention spans, a lot of shows these days are forgoing opening credits and theme songs altogether. Battlestar Galactica, however, has two!

You don’t care that they have a plan? OK, here’s some pretty music, awesome space fight scenes and that ever-decreasing count of the entire human population.

#1 - Cowboy Bebop
Three, two, one, let’s jam! What’s not to love about the fantastic open to this super-cool anime series that celebrates modern music against a background fusion of western and sci fi genres. The intro looks like what Roy Lichtenstein might see if he dropped acid while reading pulp novels in a really excellent jazz club. The art is incredible, the action, guns, and dancing chicks rival the best Bond opens, and that bit at the end where the trumpet freaks out is pure genius. See you space cowboy…

 Loading ...