Love, Sidney

This was one of the first attempts at a gay leading character in a prime-time television series. Tony Randal played Sidney, a middle-aged gay man with some sort of relationship with a straight woman. The woman had a small daughter, or something.

The image that has lasted in my mind for years was of Sidney having a party and inviting his mother's friends. You see, he was gay and therefore had no friends of his own. Right.

It was the last days of disco, this guy was gay, and couldn't scare up enough friends for a party? Right.

It was really sad that the series implied that gay people are to be pitied because we have no friends and that a meaningful relationship, platonic as it may be, is only possible with a straight person.

I know a lot of gay people who hated "The Living End", which featured fatalist gay people shooting up stuff with guns. "Too violent," they say. I say that I prefer the "Living End" image over "Love Sidney". Maybe if Sidney would have had a gun and shot up a few gay bashers it would have been more interesting.

And in all seriousness, this stupid TV show left indelible images on a gay 13 year-old's mind that stuck for years, leaving him afraid and ashamed. That 13 year-old was me. Though I'm now out and happy, I think the show's creative team should issue a public apology for this crap.

I remember watching this show when I was a kid. Me and my sister would make fun of it the whole way through. From the corny opening song to the cheesy stories to Swoozie Kurt's awful hair and outfits. It was just really lame and pathetic. Truly one of the worst theme songs from a television show ever! I never "got" that Tony Randall's character was supposed to be gay, so I guess that part was REALLY toned down. All the stories were disgustingly sickeningly sugary sweet and idiotic. Regardless, I still "blame" this show for being the inspiration for "Punky Brewster" which had a very similar premise, but with a sassier child and a crankier stepdad. Although both were probably the result of "Diff'rent Strokes" which was a runaway adopted child hit. It beats those other two shows by a longshot.

OK, let's clear the air. No, this was NOT the first openly-gay character on television. But this WAS the first openly-gay LEAD character on television.

Billy Crystal was a supporting actor on 'Soap' and so was not a Lead. And while the writing was not all that great and the concept was paper-thin, this show did break new and important ground on television. Shows like 'Will & Grace' and 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' owe a lot to this program. Was the show any good? Yeah, it was decent. Was it important? Yes, unbelievably so. As Tony Randall passes away from our sight on this day, we should remember that we all owe him a debt of thanks.

Thanks, Tony; We will miss you.

This series popped into my head this evening, and I checked out IMDb. I have read the other comments, and would like to add my two-cents worth.

One fact that I have not seen mentioned is this: Sidney is miserable and friendless because he is bitter over the loss of his lover, which he seems incapable of getting over. If I remember correctly, his boyfriend had died, and - with the great reluctance to explore that relationship on the show - it is easy to assume in retrospect that the boyfriend was a victim of one of the big issues - gay bashing? AIDS? ...Anyway....

The whole message of the show, as sugary sweet as it was, is that everyone needs someone to share his life with, and, while the ideal is to have a lover (whatever your sexual persuasion), good platonic friends can be a pretty good substitute. Families are made, not born.

The great achievement of the show was that it shattered stereotypes - that was the whole point of Sidney being neither a disco-dwelling, toy-boy hunting sugar daddy, nor a camp, shrieking queen. The show also captured an ennui that was soon to swamp the gay community, and those who saw it as a pop-culture touchstone, as AIDS took a greater and greater toll.

Love, Sidney was soulful and complex, and is owed much by all involved with, and fans of, such shows as Will and Grace.

One of the earlier comments about this film is a rant about how it marred the life of a young gay. It wasn't intended to. In the day in which this show was made, you couldn't be as open about being queer as you can now and the producers were always trying to find a way to place Sidney's humanity ahead of his sexuality so that viewer's would see him first as a person and second as a gay person.

His loneliness was not the result of his being gay, it was the result of his not having made lasting relationships. Remember, Sidney wasn't all gay men, he was just A gay man. He was living outside of the stereotype the way we all do.

It wasn't a great show, but it surely was a well-intentioned one and it was very well acted by the two leads.

It's hard to appreciate now, but Tony Randall was taking a huge chance when he took this role. Playing gay used to cost actors work in other projects and if you look closely at Randall's resume, you will see that his career did take a few hits from having taken on this role.

Kudos to Randall and Swurtz and the producers and writers who were trying to tell a story about some humans and the ways that humans create connections and family. Big kudos to all of them for having the guts to make one of those characters a gay man.