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DO EFF HOFF
Bringing back Baywatch is a bad idea but if they must please let’s fill it with fitties not fatties says Julie Burchill
REBOOTS are a curse of our age.
A woked-up entertainment industry scared of taking a chance on something new is all over the books, films and television shows we loved like a pimp at a beauty pageant.
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It’s like having your memories mugged — or mugged off, as the ghastly modern copies betray everything that made you love the originals in the first place.
It’s comforting to think of stuff that they can’t muck about with, such as Jaws, which these days would have the animal rights lobby up in arms at the misrepresenting of a noble non-human as a cold-blooded killer.
But just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, they’re remodelling Baywatch . . . again.
As The Sun revealed on Monday, production company Fremantle (lucky owner of The X Factor) is in talks with networks and streaming services (of course!) about taking us all back to those dreamy — and dangerous — Californian beaches.
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My first reaction to this is: Why would anybody tamper with perfection? History shows us that this can be a really bad idea.
In 2017 even the star power of Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron couldn’t save a Baywatch film which reimagined the fantasy of sun, sea, skimpy red swimsuits and endless summer into a frat-house gross-out featuring a prolonged inspection of a corpse’s scrotum, a penis trapped in a sunbed and Efron in drag.
‘Jiggle television’
Bringing back original stars David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson for cameos merely highlighted how much time had passed since the free-and-easy days of the 1990s, when perfect physical specimens could be filmed running about scantily clad without viewers feeling we were participating in something seedy that might well end up as Exhibit A in an #MeToo media circus.
And don’t get me started on Baywatch Nights — Hasselhof’s late-Nineties spin-off series (he also sang the end-credits tune) which was so ludicrous that producers decided to turn it into a science-fiction drama for series two.
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![[20020520 (LA/E1) -- David Hasselhoff -- PHOTOGRAPHER: All American TV Inc. 99-09-22 -- Looking this good doesn't just happen; it takes body makeup. -- PHOTOGRAPHER: All American TV 95-06-21 -- COLOR, HIS OTHER CAREER: What do DAVID HASSELHOFF and Michael Jackson have in common? Well, they're both wildly popular in Europe and they're both promoting new albums. The"Baywatch" star will be at Tower Records in West Hollywood tonight at 6 to autograph his new album. And you thought he was only a thespian. PHOTOGRAPHER: All American TV Inc. CA.David.0619.HO.f.] *** []](http://www.mcb777.site/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/SUNGLA_lat-hotties_dmh8twgw20120727112108jpg-JS148615908.jpg?strip=all&w=632)
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That second run-out bombed and it never came back.
So you could forgive fans like me for wishing they’d leave it alone.
I feel great affection for the original Baywatch.
With a whopping 11 seasons running from 1989 to 2001, it took me from my late twenties — when I’d never been anywhere more exotic than the Isle of Wight — to my late thirties, by which time I’d become quite a globetrotter, frisking on beaches from Antigua to Zanzibar.
But no beach I ever saw lived up to the Baywatch dream.
Though I didn’t realise it at the time, I was a typical viewer; the audience was 65 per cent female, most aged between 18 and 34, whereas I would have thought dirty dads and teenage boys would have made up the majority.
Speaking in 2001, producer Douglas Schwartz said focus groups had found this was so because “most of the lead characters were strong, independent women who were heroic, who were saving lives, who were equal to men”.
And there is something refreshing about how it was the first “jiggle television” (the term used to describe prime-time TV shows in which a good part of the appeal was the moving parts of the leading ladies) to send men and women in similar states of undress running in slo-mo through the surf.
From the opening credits of Baywatch — that irresistible non-specifically epic theme song I’m Always Here, the churning surf, the burning helicopters — it’s clear this is an equal-opportunity ogle-fest.
The pecs of David Hasselhoff and David Charvet got easily as much air-time as the racks of Erika Eleniak and Donna D’Errico.
Of course, that would change when the ineffably gorgeous Pamela Anderson joined as C.J. Parker (she only went along to an audition to keep her actor boyfriend company) — bringing stand-out star quality, and permanently stand-out nipples, to what was up until then a cast of cookie-cutter cuteness.
It is surprising to remember how steeped in peril Baywatch could be even before she rocked up on that golden Malibu beach.
The first episode centres around Mitch (The Hoff) being stalked by Shelly from Twin Peaks in a Play Misty For Me-type scenario where she ends up trying to kill his girlfriend.
In the second, the beach is terrorised by a gang of jet-ski louts who intentionally ram a windsurfer, knocking her off her board and drowning her.
The peril is relentless — earthquakes, hang-gliding accidents, children trapped in waterlogged cars, tropical storms and a rather topical sinister man in make-up (in an episode intriguingly called The Cretin Of The Shallows) who turns violent when he can’t have his own way.
On another dodgy note, it’s interesting to realise that even classic Baywatch was a little woke right from the start, with Anderson’s character displaying an unhealthy interest in New Age thinking which the actress shared.
In the Baywatch reunion film in 2003, she reveals that her biggest interest is now meditation, which surely couldn’t utilise the advantages of a thong bikini the way jogging along a beach would.
Yet there’s something very appealing about the original show; without wishing to sound pretentious, Baywatch packs a punch — as well as packing red swimsuits — because we’re aware that the sea is far more powerful than us.
And we know that lifeguards, though they may seem like sexy slackers working on their tans, could well be called upon to wrest weaker humans from its grip at any moment, imperilling themselves.
It also recalls a time when physical beauty could be straightforwardly celebrated without any self-censorship over whether it showed unconscious bias to prefer conventionally attractive people over fat ones or freaky ones.
There was television which was pushed as harmless fun when I was young and looks creepy and demeaning now — Miss World comes to mind.
As recently as 2016, the BBC happily used women as sexy victims stalked by drop-dead gorgeous rapists in The Fall.
Baywatch wasn’t Happy Valley or Killing Eve, and our idea of what constituted a Strong Woman back then was somewhat different — probably someone who could carry two of those little red life-rafts at once — but it certainly wasn’t a sexist perve-fest.
There’s a surprising scene in the very first episode where David Hasselhoff, the senior member of the lifeguard crew, is ribbed by a young female colleague about being overweight.
I’d bet that we’ll look back at a time when drag queens with such misogynistic names as Cheryl Hole could be seen shamelessly promoting woman-face on TV with far more incredulity.
In an age when mainstream television offers such dubious delights as Naked Attraction, Naked Education and a naked transsexual playing a piano with their penis, it’s funny to think that some Republican congressmen took umbrage at the provision of federal funding to caption Baywatch so that deaf people might enjoy it too.
It all looks so innocent now. So please, rebooters, don’t stick the new cast in surfsuits and burkinis; by all means show diversity and inclusivity in terms of ethnic origin and sexual preference.
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But please, do keep the Baywatch babes of both sexes buff, and don’t get any bright ideas about making them “mature” or “plus-size”.
“Fit” (healthy) and “fit” (attractive) may well have different meanings, but when the issue is rescuing deadweights from a watery end while wearing minimal clothing, it really is about the survival of the fitties.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
DAVID HASSELHOFF, 70, played Mitch Buchannon: Has admitted to being a recovering alcoholic and married his third wife, Welsh model Hayley Roberts, five years ago. The former America’s Got Talent judge is currently available for video messages on Cameo.
YASMINE BLEETH, 54, played Caroline Holden: Former child actress was dismissed from Baywatch in 1997 for drug issues and was arrested for possession of cocaine in 2001. Out of the spotlight since 2003.
JEREMY JACKSON, 42, above, played Hobie Buchannon: Having taken the role of Mitch’s young son in Baywatch at the age of ten, Jeremy was caught in possession of drugs at 19 and jailed for 270 days after stabbing a woman in 2015. Now a personal trainer.
PAMELA ANDERSON, 55, played C.J. Parker: Ex-Playboy model is now an animal rights campaigner. Married five times, to four different men, she last year split with the fifth, Dan Hayhurst.
DONNA D’ERRICO, 55, played Donna Marco: Previously wed to Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx, she continues to act and pose in swimwear for her 1.7million Instagram followers.
GENA LEE NOLIN, 51, played Neely Capshaw: Pressure to look good on TV led to an eating disorder, but the ex-Playboy model has continued to act, most recently in 2017 comedy movie Killing Hasselhoff.
TRACI BINGHAM, 55, played Jordan Tate: Twice-divorced model did Celebrity Big Brother in 2006 and has been in three short films in the past decade.
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