I saw a few tapings of Brothers in Hollywood

I was recently watching old VHS tapes from the mid-80's made from Showtime broadcasts for Seasons 1 and 2 and the beginning of Season 3. If anyone remembers this show, it seems that the most of the gay themed episodes were done in the first two seasons. Sometime around Season 3, they started doing mostly straight-themed episodes. The emphasis on the straight characters continued through Season 5. I heard at the time that they were concerned that gay-themed episodes would be bad for syndication. I don't know if this is true, but the show was syndicated on local televisions stations toward the middle or end of its run on Showtime. I saw an edited version of the Pilot that was shown on Channel 5 in Los Angeles. The syndicated shows had about 3 minutes removed for length and content.

For the tapings in Hollywood, they wanted gay male audiences who would laugh at most of the gay jokes. I seem to recall that on at least one occasion, they sent a Yellow bus to our Gay Student Union in Fullerton to pick us up to attend a taping. I remember seeing the following episodes taped at Paramount Studios:
--Penny wears extremely large falsies and pretends that she had implants.
--A two-parter involving an old lady who did NOT want to stay in a rest home.
--Lou discovers that he may have had a daughter in Korea, when a young woman from Korea shows up and says he is her father.

Overall, I do recall that the cast was very professional. They did not goof off and waste time. For the two-parter, however, the cast was pushed to their limits. They taped both parts in one day. This meant that the cast had to tape this hour-long show in the early afternoon and again in the evening. I was at the evening taping. They had a lot of technical problems and starts and stops. It took forever to tape the show, and they kept throwing candy bars to the audience to keep us from leaving. We were on uncomfortable wooden bleachers. The actors were getting a little testy from the long taping. I remember Phillip Charles Mekenzie (Donald) getting upset about something in the middle of the taping and walking off the set for a few minutes. I would not call it a major tantrum. He just seemed a little upset and had to cool down for some reason.

Looking back on this show, it is dated, but is a great time capsule of how gay men behaved in the mid-1980's. It was the only major show I recall that had gay characters that were real people. Say what you may about Donald, but there were many queeny gay men who acted like that during that time. Donald was not a caricature. He was a real person, and probably the most intelligent and well adjusted character on the show. The show about Joe's Football buddy revealing that he had AIDS was very well done. The ending was a real tear jerker. And you have to remember that many people who became HIV positive in the mid-80's did not survive. The jokes on this series were always very funny, but they really ran that dumb brother Lou routine into the ground.

The show was rated by ShowTime for mature audiences, but only because there were gay characters. The most controversial moment that I saw was when Cliff's rich boyfriend gave him a quick peck on the lips. That was a BIG deal in 1985! Compared to Queer as Folk, this show would be considered very tame. They could show it on the Disney Channel.

The episodes were about 25 minutes. During the second season, they replayed the first season episodes with introductions from the cast.

I can't imagine a big demand for this show. It's been off the air since the 1980's, and very few people know about it. I have recently watched a few first season episodes on VHS. In all of these early shows there are several jokes that only gay men over 40 would understand. Younger gay audiences might not understand what is going on and would not get most of the jokes. Straight people may miss a lot of the gay humor. But it would be great if LOGO could show it.