Kids DVDs for Queer Adults

Everyone knows that H.R. Pufnstuf — well, actually, any of the psychedelically strange kids shows produced in the '70s by Sid and Marty Krofft —was even more fun if you watched as an adult (with or without other indulgences). A look back at a few new DVDs released from Warner Archives shows that's true for a great deal of tot TV. These five series prove that sometimes the best time to watch shows aimed at kids is when you're all grown up.

BY Diane Anderson-Minshall

February 21 2013 6:00 AM ET

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids
If the white polyester pants and blue neckscarf didn't give you a gay vibe, almost everything else about this show will. The theme song tells the angle of the show: "I pick that axe and then I get a call. Some bad guy's gonna take a fall. One by one, we're gonna meet them all and solve that mystery! Come along with me, Butch Cassidy." Yes, it was a Scooby rip off, but a re-reviewing of this two-disc, 13-episode collection of the Hanna Barbera animated series about an undercover teen superspy posing as the biggest teen pop star in the world shows it has some (ahem, queer) sparks of its own. Butch's manager (for he and the band, and for his super sleuthing) is a sentient supercomputer named Mr. Socrates who sends him and his band on missions, who cares about crime and Cassidy in a pretty sensitive way. And Mickey Dolenz, from The Monkees, plays the sort of Shaggy role a little too well. Watch and infer your own relationships between Butch and his peeps.