Robert Smigel and J. J. Sedelmaier | The Ambiguously Gay Duo: Fan Club / 1998

love letters

by Douglas Messerli

 

Robert Smigel, Michelle Saks Smigel, and Adam McKay (screenplay), Robert Smigel and J.J. Sedelmaier (directors) The Ambiguously Gay Duo: Fan Club / 1998

 

Of all The Ambiguously Gay Duo animated series, The Fan Club is perhaps the very weakest in both script and direction. Here Ace and Gay simply read letters from their fans, oddly mostly criminal convicts, who comment on their sexuality while the duo can’t seem at all to comprehend why they might even be interested.

     One of the convicts writes, all in clipped letters from newspapers and journals, “Watching you fly gets me so excited. When I get out of jail I’m going to come and find you.” Gary’s response: “Thanks for the letter Arch, and good luck!”

      Ace adds, “We know it’s never easy to be (as he puts quotes around the words with his fingers) “in the hole.” Beside them are they workout equipment and a calendar which features a male physique figure. Not very ambiguous any more are this duo.

      From Camden State Prison they get another message from Lester: “Dear Ace and Gary, I love looking at you. Please send photographs of yourselves, some with you costumes off.”

      They explain, quite nonchalantly, “Sorry Lester, we can’t reveal our secret identity.”

      Gary adds, “Good try though!”

      Ace attempts a third letter from another convict which he admits is comprehendible, with only “gay coded clues” which he—and for that matter even we cannot fully read—featuring phrase such as “stainless steel pole,” “rabbit sack,” and “mayonnaise.”

      Gary enthusiastically adds, “Keep those letter comin!”

   As a sort of add-on, Gary and Ace advertise their newest “attraction” for they young juvenile admirers, X-ray specs, the “tools to see through anything.” They tell their young admirers that they can find stolen treasure or Christmas presents.

      But they use it see what the postman might be carrying in his suspicious “bulge” which might be a hidden weapon. Standing behind Gary, with his cock to his butt, Ace checks it out, the two agreeing, it looks all right to them. But the neighborhood boys are not so sure they want to get to special specs.

       And so ends the special cartoon adventures of his super-charged sexual duo.

 

Los Angeles, June 28, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (June 2024).