Yep. Lt. Flap designed as a black, Vietnam-veteran officer.
This was the basis of a popular joke around here at the time:
Blowing Rock!
Blowing Rock is a resort town in the North Carolina mountains
Yes. They’ll be shocked, positively shocked!
Huh! Not that I payed any attention to his career but I too remember all the jokes about him and Rock Hudson after Hudson died of AIDS, and I thought that he and his agent denied both the rumors and that Nabors was even a homo?
Jim Nabors married a guy? ‘Surprise, surprise, surprise!’
No, it isn’t.
Actually, I thought he’d drowned decades ago. Someone said he was found bobbing up and down on the Hudson.
But seriously, good for him. Thirty-eight years is a long time to be together; longer than many marriages. May he and his partner be happy to the end of their days.
Yes, but he climbed up on a Rock.
Though I was surprised to learn that Ron Howard has been with his wife that long as well. They married in '75.
Speaking of Opie (and others), I saw a political photo on FB. It’s a photo of Andy, Barney, Aunt Bea, Opie, Gomer, and Otis, and references Conservatives’ desire to ‘return to Mayberry’. The caption says:
‘Maybe the conservatives are right. Maybe we can learn a lot from the folks in Mayberry… Andy, a Democrat, supported Obamacare. Opie grew up to be an outspoken Liberal. Gomer just got gay married.’
Not to turn this into a political thread, or to extol or disparage the virtues of Mayberry. Just something I found amusing that referenced Nabors’s wedding.
I don’t remember when or how I found out Nabors was gay, but I was surprised that some people were still surprised to learn it. I’m 54, and I can’t remember ever NOT knowing he was gay.
Ditto Rock Hudson; I remember being amazed at how many were surprised when he was outed following his AIDS diagnosis in the '80s, and at that time I had never even heard the Hudson:Nabors rumor.
There are several versions of how the Hudson-Nabors rumor started, all of which seem to stem from the “once he marries Gomer his name will be Rock Pyle” punchline, but per publicists the two barely knew each other and in fact made a point not to be in the same location after the rumors. Though that said it would be funny if we were to learn that no, they were indeed in a marital type relationship in the '70s.
Wanna see a video of Jim’s Maui house and acreage? It’s impressive, and you get to see him holding his nuts.
Those would be his large hairy nuts, I presume?
Watch the video and you’ll see that he pays people to sit in his old director’s chairs and handle his nuts, even drying them as needed.
Count me in as one of those who thought he had passed. And while I remember his show, it was never a favorite, and vaguely knew he was singer, but never realized how good he was until I saw this clip. Still not quite my cup of tea, but an amazing voice.
Congrats that he could realize his ‘impossible dream’, to paraphrase one of the comments.
But that would have been very hard for the audience to accept if all the Germans hadn’t been played by Jews. (I’m assuming that was fairly well known at the time. I may be wrong.)
Now, I’m beginning to believe the original rumors about the marriage. Of course, there was no real marriage between gay people back then, but, IIRC, allegedly they were at some party, and there was a theme of ‘gay marriage’ night, or some such, and some of the participants let it slip out to somebody who blabbed. Even het parties do dipshit, trying-to-be-funny things, so I most definitely see it as possible, even back then. Per the rumor, Rock and Gomer were one of the couples. Since the outing of both, I also wonder if the original rumors were true.
Minor hijack: To me, even more amusing than the fact that they were Jewish, was that Major Hochstetter, IRL Howard Caine, was a big time bluegrass fiddler!
"Klink! Der Fuehrer vants answers! Ve haff vays of making you talk! But first, let’s have a quick session of “Turkey in the Straw” and “Orange Blossom Special!”
That’s what confused me about this thread - everyone seemed surprised that Gomer is gay. In school back in '75 it was common knowledge that Jim Nabors was gay. The rumor was that he was partnered with Rock Hudson in Hawaii. That part would seem to be untrue.
ETA - further reading shows that others heard the rumor about Rock Hudson as well.
Not fiddle, banjo :).
[quote=“Sampiro, post:45, topic:648783”]
The two biggest jawdroppers of '60s sitcoms were probably how Hogan’s Heroes, set in a p.o.w. camp and featuring real life concentration camp survivors in the cast, was not only a hit and not only didn’t receive boycotts and outrage out the wazoo QUOTE]
I believe the POW camps were run by regular German soldiers. Most of them were not members of the NSDAP and they certainly weren’t SS.
Pity you missed the episode in which Gomer marches into Andy’s office singing The Marines’ Hymn and shouting “I’m in, I’m in!” Now we all know why he was so excited about signing up… :rolleyes: