Dude Tube

I was skeptical that the fourth annual Chicago Takes Off, a gay male–oriented benefit striptease (akin to New York's Broadway Bares, although CTO has been around long enough that we can officially drop the comparison) for local org TPAN (Test Positive Aware Network), would be sufficiently sexy. The theme this year was classic television, and I was having a hard time imagining Ward Cleaver in a jockstrap. But I was wrong. The reason this year's event may have been TPAN's finest to date is because TV has always been ripe with homoerotic undertones from Batman and Robin to Blair and Jo. Bringing these tensions to the surface worked like a charm as the 100+ dancers (both male and female) proved they had plenty of tricks up their thongs.

The zingers flew fast and furiously as host Murray Hill, a Brooklyn-based drag king and fixture on the New York queer scene, offered just the right amount of cheesy quips as he bantered with the throngs of gay men, straight women (and two lesbians) in the audience. But we paid big bucks to see the dancers, and Hill was keen to defer the spotlight to them. In one early number, an Eisenhower-era hausfrau gets sexy with her oven, making sure to bend over gratuitously to check on her pot roast while slowly peeling back her oven mitts. Whew! Ditto a number in which dancers, portraying the all-knowing dad in shows like Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best, strip down and get it on with each other. Hot!

Two highlights of the night were the early on back-to-back takes on Batman and The Addams Family. The former certainly indulged all of my superhero fetishes as sexy versions of the Riddler and the Joker took on the caped crusader (including fight scenes complete with the show's trademark onomatopoeias!). The number ended with Batman and—ahem—boyfriend Robin at last getting it on in nothing but thongs. Ditto the feisty and fetishy version of The Addams Family, which played like a cross between Bob Fosse meets Rocky Horror meets IML weekend including a version of cousin It as a glamzon drag queen. It was amazing.

The most daring feats (these are after all, trained dancers) were showcased as takes on Gilligan's Island and the Dukes of Hazzard. When an intrepid Ginger and Mary Ann find a buried pleasure chest full of anal beads, vibrators and other sex-toy goodies, it inspires some funky and truly spectacular pole dancing (decorated to look like a palm tree, naturally). Our only gripe here was that the show missed an opportunity to spoof the underlying sexual tension between Gilligan and the Skipper. Couldn't you just imagine a nerdy hunk dressed as Gilligan getting it on with the Skipper played by a hot bear? Meanwhile, there was plenty of red-state erotica between cousins Luke and Bo who stripped down to their Confederate undergear for a spectacular display of aerial acrobatics, the evening's most jaw-dropping and hot number.

There were a couple of misses among the hits. A Facts of Life number featuring a quartet of older guys in drag needed a lot more oomph and denied us any real skin (indulge our daddy fetish next year, please!). Ditto a Brady Bunch number that, aside from a hilarious striptease from a drag version of Alice the maid, was mostly a tease. But these were compensated by a tawdry take on Charlie's Angels and a delightfully silly parody of Mary Tyler Moore featuring a full frontal Miss Foozie (well, almost). There's an old maxim in showbiz. Always leave them wanting more. At Chicago Takes off, it's mission accomplished.