The other day, David Collins and David Metzler, executive producers of Bravo and NBC's runaway makeover hit Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, went toe to toe. Voices were raised. Faces reddened. Tempers got, well, frazzled. It wasn't the sort of flare-up that could be written off as an everyday occurrence in any entertainment industry partnership - especially one that has unleashed a surprise pop culture phenom and turned five unknowns into the ever-snappy, rarely snippy sultans of swank: Ted Allen, Kyan Douglas, Thom Filicia, Carson Kressley and Jai Rodriguez. The argument had nothing to do with any directional swerves planned for the show's second season, debuting June 1, nor with any disagreements over such ancillary booty as the soundtrack, calendar or coffee-table book it has spawned. Neither was it over the Queer Eye franchise, poised to go global with local versions featuring home-grown, handpicked Fab Fives in such places as the UK, Australia and Iceland.

It was all about a pair of really, really good shoes.

Says series creator David Collins, 36: "You know you're in trouble when two men in a store are saying, 'No, I saw them first!" Laughs Metzler, 32: "It was a pretty animated fight and became pretty scary for us."

Before Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the argument might never have occurred. In matters of style, Collins - who is gay - says he helped nudge Metzler - who is straight - into rampant metrosexuality, but he quickly adds, "The weird part is that Dave is actually surpassing me in the student-teacher thing. In fact, these days the gay guy goes in and asks the straight guy if he likes his outfit. It doesn't get scarier than that. And the straight guy won the argument about the shoes - maybe just because he's taller."

Such changes - along with such ultimately inconsequential matters as tall/short, gay/straight - are par for the producing duo and the phenomenon they birthed. In case the Queer Eye juggernaut rolled by too fast for you to notice, it was roughly two years ago that Collins, cofounder (with Michael Williams) of ten-year-old Boston-based Scout Productions, found himself rushing to the defence of a man in an art gallery. His wife was berating him for his aesthetic and cultural deficiencies. After remarking to friends that the incident was "kind of like a queer eye for the straight guy," he immediately took the idea to Scout and to Metzler, a friend and business colleague. Collins recalls, "The moment I said to Dave, 'Hey, straight boy, you be the straight guy and I'll be the queer eye,' that union of gay and straight launched the show into a real television idea and format.

Enter Frances Berwick, senior vice-president of programming and production for Bravo to whom Collins brought the idea, having worked with her as a producer on the critically acclaimed but low-rated series First Person. "I can now categorize David Collins and Scout as having delivered Bravo's highest and lowest rated show," Berwick says. "When David pitched the Queer Eye idea, it immediately felt right to us, both in style and content. When we did some focus-testing, the show appealed very widely to a female viewership and to a very high male viewership. A large part of that is due to the sensibility of the two Daves."

And the lighthearted ease of the duo's gay-straight dynamic proved the perfect tone to set of the show, right from it's socko Bravo debut last July. "Just because you like shoes doesn't make you gay," Metzler says. "Just because you watch football doesn't make you straight. Gay and straight guys may do things a little differently in the bedroom, but in the end we all want to feel good about ourselves. One of the things that David has done so well is, first, to come up with the brilliant title of the show because, although Queer has been manipulated and changed through generations and in the media, at its core it is defined as exceptional." Adds Collins: "We never wanted the show to be mean-spirited or to make straight guys feel bad. We were sharing the gay-straight thing and, for us, the story and the journey were always about the straight guy getting lifted up and feeling better about himself."

But its the delivery boys with that upbeat message who supply much of that genius and popularity. Metzler, Collins & Co.'s nationwide net for camera-friendly, personality-endowed experts in fashion, grooming, culture, interior design and food and wine early on found Kressley (fashion savant) and Allen (food and wine connoisseur). Kressley was an out-there, shoot-from-the-hip quipster with long experience as a menswear stylist for Polo Ralph Lauren. The yin to his yang was found in authoritative, buttoned-down Allen, a freelance journalist and contributing editor to Esquire. Neither had on-camera experience except, says Kressley, "I'd been on the security cameras at Saks."

Scout productions starred the two with three other guys in a promising pilot. The NBC began negotiations to buy Bravo, which put the show in limbo until Berwick championed the series and NBC signed on. Scout and Bravo execs vetted more than 500 gay potential cast members to replace the three who had appeared in the pilot with Kressley and Allen; candidates ranged from young unknowns to famed entertainment columnist Michael Musto, former Details editor Joe Dolces and fashion designer John Bartless. Making the cut were grooming guru Kyan Douglas (a colorist for an upscale New York hair salon_, design doctor Thom Filicia (founder of a high-end interior design firm) and culture vulture Blair Boone, a journalist replaced after two episodes by Rodriguez, a singer-dancer in such New York stage hits as Rent and Zanna, Don't!

The show notched niche-busting ratings for Bravo and also for NBC, which have rebroadcast episodes to audiences averaging 8 million. For the cast, it wasn't so much that viewers embraced them as gave them each a big sloppy kiss. Now there is virtually nowhere these guys can go without feeling the love. "The celebrity aspect of all of this is surreal, a little bit disruptive and kind of fascinating," says basso-voiced, coolly saturnine Allen. "People yell things from across the street like, 'Miami loves you!' which can be a little nerve-wracking. Yet it's been so unanimously positive that it's kind of hard not to like. Now I feel like I can't leave the house looking too bad, so there are times I want to put on a pair of sunglasses, pull a hat way down low and just be a schlub."

The spotlight has proved a mixed blessing for the spiffily groomed Douglas, who has emerged as the show's soulful, spiritual hunkster. "I recently ran into a friend from high school," he relates, "who said, 'You were the last person I'd ever thought would become famous on a television show.' I was always very shy - friendly, but one of those kids who would rather disappear and not be talked about. With the show, the loss of privacy was not easy. I remember a couple of weeks of, 'I think I want out of this - this is scary.' It's now getting to the point where I enjoy it. It's almost like having friends everywhere you go. But, really, there's nothing special about me and no reason for me to be cocky or arrogant about any of this. This is simply the universe teaching me a lesson, and there are good and bad things about it."

For Kressley, the instant celebrity is a joyride, even if a slightly disappointing one so far. "Getting to meet Cher, who said, 'Oh, I watch your show all the time,' was amazing," he says, "because for a gay man, meeting Cher is like meeting Jesus. It's also great that people are always coming up to us saying things like, ‘You made my boyfriend change his underwear more often.' Now, that's real gratification, people! But it hasn't gotten me a boyfriend yet. So if you hear that Owen Wilson is looking for someone, let me know because I'd love to see us with two babies, a Range Rover and a Great Dane."

Kressley's love woes aside, the sweet so far outweighs the sour. One remarkable achievement is that the cast has become almost as beloved as those of Sex and the City and Friends. More remarkably, these guys aren't actors. Maybe more remarkable, they aren't acting gay. "A year ago I'd walk down the street and somebody would yell, 'Ooh, there's a queer guy!'" Kressley says. "Now, it's 'Yay, there's one of the Queer Guys!'" Says Allen: "Think about what happened here. We're five gay guys being openly gay on American television, and Americans like it. They think we're heroes. On the same day that jackass in the White House issued a proclamation for a ban on gay marriage, which I find sad and staggering beyond belief, we went walking off our set in Bergenfield, New Jersey, to find all these regular folks waiting hours in the snow, wanting our autographs."

Queer Eye was not conceived as a political statement, but as Berwick says, "If the show is leading to a more open minded culture, that's fantastic." Still, there are some who wish the Fab Five would become political on the show. "Our culture is more open and sophisticated than we think," Filicia says, "so long as things are presented in a way that isn't uncomfortable. The door was ajar - we just sort of kicked it open. People say, 'You've got to talk about this or that issue,' but my response is always, 'I feel the same way in regard to the issue and would love to see it change.' However our fan base isn't about 'political.’ It’s really important if we can change the way they think, but we didn't do it with a political agenda. We did it with sofa pillows, jeans, theater tickets and bottles of wine. Who knew that a sofa pillow would be so powerful?"

And who knew that such fab fripperies could be so work-intensive? The shooting schedule has left the Five with little time to fluff up their own houses, let along date. "I don't have a social life anymore," Rodriguez says. "Even when you're not working, you're working. You're always on call for an autograph session, a photo session, and when you sit down in a restaurant, people stare, which is the biggest compliment you could ever get. I'm thrilled by the attention, but I don't want to get caught up in the celebrity of it all because it will get taken away or its time will run out."

But with forty episodes to shoot between now and October, downtime (let alone anonymity) won't be coming any time soon. Although each episode is shot to look as if it takes place in what Kressley calls "one gay day," Filicia and his invisible design mavens actually have two and a half frantic days to work wonders on the straight guy's living space. The workload can be daunting. "I thought, this will be fun and glamorous and I'll make a million dollars," Douglas says. "I'm working harder than I ever have in my life. I haven't made a million dollars - and I'm doing fine as far as all that stuff goes - but it comes a lot harder than a lot of people realize." As Kressley says, "We help the produce all our segments, determine our locations - we basically do everything except select the straight guy. Certainly our director and producers have input during meetings about what we're going to do for each of these guys, but we really do drive our own bus, so to speak."

Rumors persist that one cast member might hop off that bus. Rumbles of dissatisfaction heightened when the Five reportedly demanded pay hikes. The network would not discuss salary, but according to published accounts, the guys' salaries increased from $60,000 each for the first season's twenty episodes to somewhere between $240,000 and $400,000 for season two's forty two shows. Meanwhile, underused culture maven Rodriguez is recording a solo CD, and breakout fashion king Kressley has popped up in commercials and covered Oscar parties for Today. Filicia has replaced Kirstie Alley as the spokesperson for Pier 1, Allen was hired by Smirnoff's, and the while gang - including Collins - has appeared in a pot for American Express. Filicia puts the kibosh on talk of defection or dissension: "We're so close, I can't even talk about us as five guys anymore - I say five brothers. We're having too much fun with each other, kind of pushing each others' buttons. I'm always locking them in the bathroom in the mobile home on the set. I've always been parodied in the press or on TV shows as the fat guy, so the others joke with me about being obese and I call Jai 'Useless.'" Kressley puts it this way: "With five fags, if we didn't like each other, someone would be missing an eyeball by now." And of defection rumors, Rodriguez says: "NBC has mandated so many episodes and we have to fulfil our commitment. Even if someone wanted to leave, they can't. I really don't think anyone wants to right now. This show is too fresh to want to, at this point." Certainly Collins has heard the rumors. "We love the Fab Five," he says. "They're amazing guys, these brothers that have come together. In our minds, can we ever see anyone else on the show? No. Is it possible that these guys go on and have different futures and there's a new Fab Five? Of course it is."

Despite the espirit de corps, a few cracks are showing in the Queer Eye facade that no amount of - Kressley's creative vocabulary - szhooshing will cover. Rodriguez, a warm, outgoing personality and strong stage performer, has taken more than his share of knocks on Saturday Night Live, for instance, for having an undefined (read: extraneous) role. "I don't want to be famous for cleaning toilets," he says. "I'm sad that an entire nation is getting to know me as someone who takes men to buy gifts for their wives. I am so grateful and appreciate [for the opportunity]. We're all really paid well, and it's a blessed time in our lives. I try to enjoy it, even though we're in the eye of the storm. But I also have massive amounts of anxiety every day that I'm on set. I don't think people really get that I've stopped doing what I'm passionate about to be a part of this production. I've been on the Broadway stage since I was eighteen, and to not have that right now, the better part - the larger part - of me is missing. When Sarah Jessica Parker came up to us at the Emmys and said wonderful, complimentary things about Queer Eye, I almost wanted to remind her that she had seen me a few years ago in a play at Lincoln Center, a play for which the New York Times gave Hope Davis and me the best reviews. I'm dying to do something on American Dreams or Boston Public. I don't have time. We work every week until October."

Some of the guys also fret about exposure. "We might actually flirt with the limits of overexposure," Douglas says, "but we're cast members, not producers or executive producers, and we don't own the show. Hopefully, there'll be some wisdom there that prevails at the end of the day, and I think most of the people who work with the show respect that it can be overexposed." Rodriguez, too, wonders if the cast isn't being spread too thin. "Again, I'm so grateful for all of this," he says, "but I hate feeling like I'm a commodity, like I'm not a person but a unit." Allen takes a different view. "Is Bravo working us like dogs?" he asks. "Would I not like a couple of weeks off on a tropical island? Absolutely. It's hard work, but people work their whole lives to get this kind recognition, and we're privileged to have it. I'm not worried at all about overexposure. We have a calendar, a gorgeous, very high-quality book and a soundtrack, not bobble-head dolls, lunchboxes, shirts, bumper stickers, Happy Meals and stuffed animals. Scout and Bravo have been pretty classy about it. If you look at four consecutive issues of Us or People, there are a hell of a lot more people who are in every issue, and Britney and J. Lo are doing fine.

Now, with local versions or Queer Eye being readied for the UK, Australia, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland, the show's cast and makers are about to learn whether the on-camera team or the overall concept and philosophy of the show are its keys to success. "The straight guy is the star of the show," Kressley says, "but I think our casting brings a lot to the equation. So when they cast in different countries, they'll have big Gucci loafers to fill. To try and duplicate us would be the wrong approach, like the many Chrissie Snow's on Three's Company. There was only one Suzanne Somers, and there's probably only one me."

For Collins, "the Queer Eye philosophy - the idea of helping people in a positive way - is bigger than the mythology of the Fab Five. Maybe one of the UK or Australian guys will come over here or maybe all our guys will get to go to the UK. We're just completely blessed that this idea is spreading multiculturally. Which just goes to prove that good style is, is..."
"Universal," says Metzler, completing his colleague's sentence. Just like any brother would do.