Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/22/billy-eichner-to-play-gay-tv-i.html
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That’s pretty good casting, seems like the obvious choice once you hear about it.
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Yeah, I didn’t realize who it was until I looked him up, remembered his turn on the last two seasons of Park & Rec, and thought “yep, he’s perfect.”
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Smart casting. The only other actor who could probably pull it off is Seth McFarlane.
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His show, Difficult People was great! I like Billy on the street as well, but much like the Eric Andre Show, it is too high energy for me to watch extended bouts lol.
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Lynde was my favorite of the Hollywood Squares
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Was he “as out as you could be” or was he always playing the part of a flamboyant gay man? I’ll bet some of the American public just thought he was always in character, like that was his schtick, and so they were OK with him being “gay”-- an interesting workaround.
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Hopefully this movie will do so well that they will make the biopic I really want to see, HELL TOUPEE: THE CHARLES NELSON REILLY STORY.
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Well they certainly didn’t buy him as a traditional family man in his sitcom, otherwise it would have lasted more than one season.
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Not true; there’s a Seattle drag queen called BenDelaCreme who killed it in an impersonation of Lynde on RPDR:
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Now that you mention it, McFarlane would have been just as good (except, not gay is problematic i suppose)
He may be better than Eichner because McFarlane has the same very non-descript looks Paul Lynde did. Both literally look like what one might draw if told to “draw a random guy”
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It was strange, too, that he was everyone’s favorite and everyone was supposed to recognize that. It was just assumed he was royalty in the way the show was conducted, kind of like how Richard Dawson was the king of Match Game.
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I never thought of it that way, but I guess you’re right. I was a little kid, so probably most of Lynde’s double-entendres went over my head. I just liked his delivery
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I hope this biopic touches on the 1975 Halloween special. Just a movie about how in the hell a TV special with Lynde and KISS happened would probably make a pretty good movie on it’s own.
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I adored my gay TV aunties Paul Lynde, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Rip Taylor!
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…and Margaret Hamilton!!!
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Sure. Next you’re going to tell me that Kaye Ballard and Roddy McDowell were gay.
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Surely you jest!
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At this moment, “learning” (because duh, so maybe just “consciously acknowledging”) that Roddy McDowall was gay has made me go learn about other actors who I am in no way surprised to learn were gay, but am now ashamed on behalf of our society for not allowing them their own sexuality.
Denholm Elliott, Raymond Burr, Kerwin Mathews, Edward Everett Horton, Franklin Pangborn, Cesar Romero, Victor Buono, Roscoe Lee Browne, Jon Polito, Richard Haydn … we did you wrong, and I’m sorry.
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