(Minimal linguistic content — but some homoerotic shirtlessness, if that’s your thing)
Two comments on my Doug McClure posting: from Chuk Craig (“I always liked his cousin Troy”) and Christopher Walker (on whipping scenes: #3 in my posting is a whipping scene from The King’s Pirate). So the whipping theme led of course to Robert Conrad in The Wild Wild West and his scenes of shirtless bondage.
Troy McClure. From Wikipedia:
Troy McClure is a fictional character in the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. He was voiced by Phil Hartman and first appears in the second season episode “Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment”. McClure is a washed-up actor, usually shown doing low-level work, such as hosting infomercials and educational films. He appears as the central character in “A Fish Called Selma”, in which he marries Selma Bouvier to aid his failing career and quash rumors about his personal life. McClure also ‘hosts’ “The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular” and “The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase”.
McClure was partially based on B movie actors Troy Donahue and Doug McClure as well as Hartman himself.
(#1)
Troy Donahue. From Wikipedia:
Troy Donahue (January 27, 1936 – September 2, 2001) [born Merle Johnson, Jr.] was an American film and television actor and singer. Donahue became a popular male sex symbol of the 1950s and 1960s.
Donahue in A Summer Place (1959):
(#2)
Whipping. Christopher Walker writes:
Hollywood B pictures & television have offered a fair number of whipping scenes for Our Fair Generic Hero. A couple that come to mind are Casper Van Dien in Starship Troopers (1997); Sam Heughan in Outlander (2014); and, if I remember correctly, Stephen Dorff in Space Truckers (1996).
Robert Conrad. And, oh my, Conrad in The Wild Wild West on television, who was regularly subjected to shirtless bondage and, often, whipping.
From Wikipedia on the show:
The Wild Wild West is an American television series that ran on CBS for four seasons (104 episodes) from September 17, 1965 to April 4, 1969. Two television movies were made with the original cast in 1979 and 1980, and the series was adapted for a motion picture in 1999.
Developed at a time when the television western was losing ground to the spy genre, this show was conceived by its creator, Michael Garrison, as “James Bond on horseback.” Set during the administration of President Ulysses Grant (1869–77), the series followed Secret Service agents James West (Robert Conrad) and Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin) as they solved crimes, protected the President, and foiled the plans of megalomaniacal villains to take over all or part of the United States.
(#3)
The show featured the train the pair rode through the West in, a large number of inventive gadgets they deployed, dastardly villains (in particular the evil dwarf Miguelito Loveless), and violence extreme enough to get the show cancelled.
On the hunky Conrad, from Wikipedia:
Robert Conrad (born March 1, 1935 [as Conrad Robert Norton Falk]) is an American film and television actor, best known for his role in the 1965–1969 CBS television series The Wild Wild West, playing the sophisticated Secret Service agent James T. West
Conrad showing off his body:
(#4)
He appeared shirtless in (I think) every single episode, usually being tortured in one way or another and glistening with sweat:
(#5)
If you’re gay, it was the best soft porn to be found on commercial television.
In one episode, “The Night of the Underground Terror”, West tries to track down a Civil War prison commandant and ends up once again in shirtless bondage; then during a fight, his pants split open, esposing his tighty-whiteys:
(#6)
