South Park Super Adventure Team The Ambiguously Gay Duo The Simpsons SHOW INFORMATION A L S O_.T O D A Y Blue Glow "Hercules" and "Xena" begin nightly cable runs: Does it get any better than this? Y E S T E R D A Y Princess Charming By Charles Taylor After years of being the bad girl, Drew Barrymore finally gets the role she deserves (07/31/98) BROWSE THE TV ARCHIVES COLUMNS FEATURES

[ J O Y C E_.M I L L M A N__O N_.T E L E V I S I O N ]___ queertoons Gay-positive messages and campy humor find a TV home in "South Park" and other animated upstarts. While Ellen DeGeneres was showing prime-time viewers that lesbians could be boring too, a more exuberant -- and in some ways, more potent -- gay revolution was taking place in TV's Toontown. During the past couple of years, "The Simpsons" had Smithers brazenly kissing Mr. Burns on the mouth and (in an Emmy-winning episode) guest John Waters teaching Homer and Bart a lesson about homophobia. Flamingly campy superheroes "The Ambiguously Gay Duo" debuted as a recurring feature on the animated "TV Funhouse" segment of "Saturday Night Live." "South Park" got sensitive, with Stan learning to accept his dog's homosexuality. And as for MTV's wiggy new marionette series "Super Adventure Team," let's put it this way: We haven't seen this much gay innuendo from a dummy since Wayland Flowers and Madame did "Hollywood Squares." Maybe it's not so surprising that queer sensibilities have found a home in TV 'toons. For one thing, most of these shows are social satires, and there are few targets for satire as big and juicy as homophobia. And if "The Simpsons" and "South Park" have taught us anything, it's that animated characters can get away with stuff that would shut down a human show for good. Take "The Ambiguously Gay Duo," for instance. Robert Smigel and animator J.J. Sedelmaier's brilliant, hilarious send-up of the coded gayness of Batman and Robin is so triumphantly in-your-face queer, it's a wonder it ever made it to network TV. (Before joining "SNL," the cartoon appeared on ABC in prime time as part of Dana Carvey's censor-taunting -- and swiftly yanked -- 1996 variety show.) The Duo, Ace and Gary, wear skin-tight pec- and thigh-defining leotards with bulging yellow codpieces. They drive a car that looks like a gigantic penis. They end up entwined in suggestive homoerotic positions whenever they struggle to escape from the bondage gizmos of their evil nemeses. While the criminal masterminds gossip among themselves about whether Ace and Gary are, you know, Ace and Gary seem oblivious to their own sexual orientation. Or are they just being coy? The Duo gives "SNL" a shot of the true gay humor it has always lacked -- despite the show's many tittering sketches over the years in which men have kissed men on the lips for hetero laughs. But there's a big difference between finely nuanced gay camp appearing on a show pitched largely to aging hipsters and gay-positive messages showing up on "South Park" and "The Simpsons." After all, those last two shows have a core audience of adolescent boys -- traditionally, one of the most homophobic groups on the planet. So, you have to wonder: Do kids get it? Or are they just, like, laughing at the queers? N E X T_P A G E _| Those tolerance-preaching "South Park" kids