<description>&lt;p data-rte-preserve-empty="true" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"&gt;My guest this week on &lt;em&gt;The Sewers of Paris&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://jbattis.com/"&gt;Jes Battis&lt;/a&gt;, who’s just written an appreciation and analysis of the movie &lt;em&gt;Labyrinth&lt;/em&gt; entitled &lt;a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://ecwpress.com/products/its-only-forever"&gt;&lt;em&gt;It’s Only Forever&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. Labyrinth turns 40 this year, which marks 40 years of Jes’ particular fascination with the goblin characters — and wondering why he’s always felt so eager to descend into their weird scrungly world. Fortunately, writing a book about it provided some clues.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Beauty and the Beast, Labyrinth, and portals into fantasy worlds

My guest this week on The Sewers of Paris is Jes Battis, who’s just written an appreciation and analysis of the movie Labyrinth entitled It’s Only Forever. Labyrinth turns 40 this year, which marks 40 years of Jes’ particular fascination with the goblin characters — and wondering why he’s always felt so eager to descend into their weird scrungly world. Fortunately, writing a book about it provided some clues.

To Be a Goblin (Ep 566 - Labyrinth/Jes)

<description>&lt;p data-rte-preserve-empty="true" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"&gt;To mark the recent re-re-re-rebooting of &lt;em&gt;The Muppet Show&lt;/em&gt;, this week we’re heading into the &lt;em&gt;Sewers&lt;/em&gt; archives to revisit my 2020 interview with Dan Steadman. Dan grew up in a household that was so religious, his parents forbade him from watching certain episodes of &lt;em&gt;The Muppet Show&lt;/em&gt;, due to a guest appearance by Alice Cooper. His upbringing in a sheltered religious community found him placed in a lot of unusual circumstances, including a reboot of his entire identity when his family swapped lives with a family in Brazil. A career in showbiz took him to Los Angeles, where he worked alongside big-time celebrities and also faced a crisis — the more comfortable he was living as an openly gay man, the more he realized that he’d have to cut ties with some of the homophobic celebrities he worked with.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

The Muppet Show, Christian broadcasting, and Amy Grant

To mark the recent re-re-re-rebooting of The Muppet Show, this week we’re heading into the Sewers archives to revisit my 2020 interview with Dan Steadman. Dan grew up in a household that was so religious, his parents forbade him from watching certain episodes of The Muppet Show, due to a guest appearance by Alice Cooper. His upbringing in a sheltered religious community found him placed in a lot of unusual circumstances, including a reboot of his entire identity when his family swapped lives with a family in Brazil. A career in showbiz took him to Los Angeles, where he worked alongside big-time celebrities and also faced a crisis — the more comfortable he was living as an openly gay man, the more he realized that he’d have to cut ties with some of the homophobic celebrities he worked with.

I Saw Myself in Kermit (Ep 565 - The Muppet Show/Dan)

<description>&lt;p data-rte-preserve-empty="true" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"&gt;A few weeks ago I came across an online video from a comic convention featuring a phalanx of comic book figures — life-size statues, painted to look like they’d walked off the pages of a comic book. Their creator is &lt;a href="https://www.instagram.com/gregmaraio/"&gt;Greg Maraio&lt;/a&gt;, an actor and artist in Boston who fills his time between shows with this unique project that’s turned into an artistic calling … though for many years, it seemed like it was bringing him to financial ruin.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="" data-rte-preserve-empty="true" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;We’ll have that interview in a moment. First a quick reminder that I host weekly livestreams every Sunday &lt;a href="http://twitch.tv/mattbaume"&gt;on Twitch&lt;/a&gt;, and I hope you’ll join me for those. Plus — check out my book &lt;a href="http://gaysitcoms.com"&gt;Hi Honey, I’m Homo!&lt;/a&gt; at &lt;a href="http://gaysitcoms.com"&gt;GaySitcoms.com&lt;/a&gt;; subscribe to my email newsletter at &lt;a href="http://mattbaume.com"&gt;MattBaume.com&lt;/a&gt;, and if you’re enjoying The Sewers of Paris, &lt;a href="http://patreon.com/mattbaume"&gt;support the show on Patreon&lt;/a&gt; at &lt;a href="http://patreon.com/mattbaume"&gt;Patreon.com/mattbaume&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Catwoman, Shakespeare, Miss Piggy, and The X-Men

A few weeks ago I came across an online video from a comic convention featuring a phalanx of comic book figures — life-size statues, painted to look like they’d walked off the pages of a comic book. Their creator is Greg Maraio, an actor and artist in Boston who fills his time between shows with this unique project that’s turned into an artistic calling … though for many years, it seemed like it was bringing him to financial ruin.

 We’ll have that interview in a moment. First a quick reminder that I host weekly livestreams every Sunday on Twitch, and I hope you’ll join me for those. Plus — check out my book Hi Honey, I’m Homo! at GaySitcoms.com; subscribe to my email newsletter at MattBaume.com, and if you’re enjoying The Sewers of Paris, support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/mattbaume.

Theater is My Version of Church (Ep 564 - Catwoman/Greg)

<description>&lt;p data-rte-preserve-empty="true" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"&gt;The day this episode comes out, March 26 2026, is the 115th birthday of renowned playwright Tennessee Williams. And to mark the occasion, we’re heading into the &lt;em&gt;Sewers &lt;/em&gt;archives to hear my 2020 interview with writer William V. Madison, whose career was inspired in part by a moving experience in college involving a &lt;em&gt;Streetcar Named Desire&lt;/em&gt;. That brought William to a series of adventurous jobs, from working on Broadway shows to producing the news alongside Dan Rather, singing to Angela Lansbury, earning a nickname from Fidel Castro, and writing &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/M/Madeline-Kahn"&gt;a biography of Madeline Kahn&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Madeline Kahn, Tennessee Williams, and Dan Rather

The day this episode comes out, March 26 2026, is the 115th birthday of renowned playwright Tennessee Williams. And to mark the occasion, we’re heading into the Sewers archives to hear my 2020 interview with writer William V. Madison, whose career was inspired in part by a moving experience in college involving a Streetcar Named Desire. That brought William to a series of adventurous jobs, from working on Broadway shows to producing the news alongside Dan Rather, singing to Angela Lansbury, earning a nickname from Fidel Castro, and writing a biography of Madeline Kahn. 

The Most Expensive Flop in Broadway History (Ep 563 - Madeline Kahn/William)

<description>&lt;p data-rte-preserve-empty="true" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"&gt;My guest this week is illustrator &lt;a href="https://www.ricardobessa.com/"&gt;Ricardo Bessa&lt;/a&gt;, whose beautiful art features lush colorful fantasy settings and characters on fabulous adventures, often very queer. Ricardo knew he was a fish out of water in the town where he grew up, and planned to move to London to find others like him … and that worked, at first, but he didn’t count on running into burnout that nearly ended his career.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

The Fifth Element, Station 11, and Dungeons & Dragons

My guest this week is illustrator Ricardo Bessa, whose beautiful art features lush colorful fantasy settings and characters on fabulous adventures, often very queer. Ricardo knew he was a fish out of water in the town where he grew up, and planned to move to London to find others like him … and that worked, at first, but he didn’t count on running into burnout that nearly ended his career.


The Fire that Came with Creating (ep 562 - Fifth Element/Ricardo)

Revealing stories about the books, movies, tv, music and more that have changed the lives of gay men. Each week, a guest plucks a piece of entertainment from their past, and answers the question: how did it change your life?

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