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Heroes Community > Tavern of the Rising Sun > Thread: DF's nostalgia corner
Thread: DF's nostalgia corner
Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted May 23, 2017 09:57 AM

DF's nostalgia corner

It's been a while since I wrote something on HC. Some people told me they actually miss my ramblings and they'd like to read some more... so there you go. As a very nostalgic guy, I've decided upon revisiting some of the more prominent aspects of my youth, or specifically, stuff I was growing with. Let's see how it fares today

Episode 1 - BAYWATCH

You didn't expect this one, did you
Back when I was a kid, Poland was coming out of the influence of soviet russia and turning towards the "Western culture". It was totally new for us sovietized people, completely different from what we were used to. And Baywatch, a 90s "drama/soap opera" show, was something I remember being the most "American" thing around. A glimpse of a different world, as twisted and unrealistic as possible, but a total novelty at the time for us, Soviet Poles.

I guess most of you heard about the show, but if you didn't: Baywatch was probably the most sucessful low budget show of the 90-s. It starred (mostly) beautiful young people in tight outfits running in slow motion at the beach. There was some plot, but it was lame, so nobody care about that. Instead, everyone watched it for the soap opera stuff: romance, atmosphere and a metric ton of huge, fake boobs on virtually every actress save a few.

Did I like the show? Well, honestly, I was like 10 years old, and the whole concept was completely new to me. Compared to crude, "Soviet" stuff I grew up with, this was different. A whole lot of half-nude, attractive girls, the atmosphere of endless summer, and some cheap action to boot. What was there NOT to like for a kid?

Nowadays, Baywatch is mostly subject to ridicule, which is honestly not unjustified. True, the show didn't age well, and the "classic american cheese" no longer fascinates anybody (rather than that, it's a source of annoyance nowadays - I guess "our generation" is fed up with American culture after 20 years of being bombarded with it on every occasion). Being bored out of my mind in my "office", I actually decided to revisit it, so I'm freshly after re-watching the show. So... let's take a look

To start with the ugly stuff: Baywatch is repetitive. Even thought they virtually tried everything, including FBI cover operations, terrorists, weapon smugglers, gangs, drug dealers, earthquakes, fist fights and volleyball tournaments, the core of the show consists of lifeguards pulling people out of the water. Pretty much every episode you see 1-2 people being rescued, and it quickly gets old. To make it worse, a lot of those rescues are plot devices. If there's a guy that a) things lifeguards are a bunch of jocks that play in the sand and pick up girls b) has a personal problem with his son/mom/granddad/dog/pet cacodemon, you can bet your butt he or his sidekick will be pulled out of water to demonstrate that a) Lifeguarding is serious b) you care about a person, just need to see him drowning to realize.

The repetetive nature of this show goes for the characters as well. Now let me get this straight, David "The Hoff" Hasselhoff is KING, but even he gets boring after a little while, mostly because of the never-ending stream of young girls that droll all over him, making him date 90% of girls on the beach over the course of the show (guess if the show ran a little longer, he'd start to do men - since there would be no girl left in California for him to date).

And when it's repetetive AND stupid at the same time, it does start to feel like a chore. And it definitively feels stupid. The script is lame, the plot is just plain stupid, and there's too much nonsense around. People that are supposedly lifeguards are also doubling up as Policemen, Doctors, Surgeons, Special Agents, Professional Sportsmen, Globetrotters - pretty much everyone in Baywatch is a one-man army. What's worse, not only 90% of the cast are Mary Sues, but also - they are the moral-warrior kind of Mary Sues that everybody seems to hate. Baywatch tries to introduce a fair share of "moral nonsense" such as disabled people (of all kind) being shunned by their families, which suddenly start loving and accepting them after our heroic lifeguards save them and give some sort of boring speech about loving and accepting everybody around. Sounds like a typical american show from the nineties, you say? yep, that's exactly what it is.

However, there are some good things about Baywatch that people mostly forgotten nowadays. I really liked the art direction, if one can say it like that. Baywatch was the first show (at least to my knowledge) that made popular the use of filters, slow motion and music videos within the show. They did got carried away a bit with it, of course, and you could expect a 10-minute video of guys surfing/skating/doing some other weird sport, accompanied by some music, but it did greatly contribute to the atmosphere. Some of the scenes, using orange and red filters, coupled with surprisingly good (at times) music, totally made it feel like the "endless summer" stuff they were going after. I guess this paradise-like feeling made us, Soviet Poles, so attracted to the show.

Finally, there have been some good actors on the show, too. Some of them (Like the fan-favorite Pamela Anderson) were there just for the looks and their acting was just horrible, but others actually did a fairly good and believable job, creating characters one could actually like. Like I said before, the main character, Mitch (THE HOFF) was a ridiculous case of Mary Sue, but for all it's worth, Hoff actually did a fairly decent acting and was a fairly convincing character. Other characters that I liked were Stephane (Alexandra Paul) and Matt (David Charvet), mostly because their acting (esp. Miss Paul's) was pretty good for a cheap show about girls running in bathing suits.

When it comes to characters, though, one must complain (and I guess this is what caused the series to jump the shark, eventually - aside from the concept itself, of course) - most of them were simply badly thought. The typical Baywatch character, with the exception of the ever-present Mitch B., was a teenager with some sort of conflicted past and a voracious apetite for a fellow rookie of the opposite sex. Once they went thorough the past and got together with the intended "other", there was nothing more about them worth showing. This is possibly why most of the cast lasted only 2 seasons (out of 11), three at best - there was nothing more to do with them. That made it really hard to grow attached to the cast, or your favorite character, because you'd know 50% of the cast would change the very next season. The charcters were kinda okay for their debut season, boring for the next one, and basically only there for fan service on subsequent seasons if their appeal was high enough (such as Pamela Anderson). Mitch (THE HOFF) was pretty much the only character that had character arcs lasting through several seasons and the only one they actually cared about, I guess. Everybody else? Fillers in bathing suits, sadly.

One can't talk about baywatch without mentioning the babes, obviously. I'm not going to rate all of them, so I'll just mention my favorites from my childhood. What immediately drawn me to Baywatch was Summer (Nicole Eggert), which was kinda different from a typical Baywatch girl, being petite, with round hips, bubbly butt and a charming smile. Of course, that only lasted for a season, after that she got more like Pamela Anderson and got a boob job and platinum blonde hair, but she did remain pretty attractive throughout the two seasons she was starred in. Another very attractive girl was Caroline (Yasmine Bleeth), featuring more hair on her head than three average girls combined, a pretty face and a nicely shaped body - she remained an eye candy for like 3-4 seasons and for Baywatch standards, the actress actually did fairly good acting as well, making the character kinda chaotic and cute. Pamela actually looked pretty nice when she was young (season 3), but started doing excessive makeup afterwards which contributed to her bimbo look (and was a total turndown, if you ask me ). Finally, Alexandra Paul, despite lacking the "boobs" and "butt", did the best acting out of all of them, and had a really charming smile. The rest? I don't care, sorry

It's also worth mentioning that the series totally jumped the shark at some point. Some say it's after the original season, some thing 1-2 were pretty good, some think 1-4 is where it was best. personally, I only could stand the first six seasons out of 11. After season six they were not only running out of ideas, but also out of cast, introducing weaker and weaker actors every season, making this even more painful to watch then ever. Also, everyone I liked as a kid has quit by seasons 6-7 (except the immortal mr. Chestfur, THE HOFF, of course), so there was no point continuing, even in the 90s.

Finally, I have to admit that Baywatch did have some pretty cool music. I like the piano pieces that accompanied the views (mostly of Sunset over the sea and alike) + some of the songs used were pretty good and turned out classics later on (such as "Over my Shoulders" by Mike and the Mechanics).

So, how does it feel to watch this show around the beginning of Mid-life Crisis? (I turn 30 this year ). Pretty decent, surprisingly. That is, if you disregard the lame acting, lame jokes, lame plot, everpresent moral crusade and one milion stock footage clips (they've reused the same shots for several seasons, like some of the lifeguards running dramatically across the wave - even if their haircuts have changed throught the seasons, haha - not to mention the shots of older truck models in later seasons ). There's still some magic left in this pile of garbage, surprisingly. While it was "a better world" magic to a kid in the 90-s, it's a kind of "an age long gone" magic in 2017, still managing to make a guy smile, not to the "unreachable western civilization" anymore, but to the naive dreams of a young kid. It's a trip to the past, showing all of the childhood times in true colors, but still managing to make you smile towards the youth that's just no longer there - neither in Baywatch, nor in yourself

Would I recommend watching this if you didn't? Hell no. Spare yourselfs time AND brain cells, please. But if you're a nostalgic guy that grew up watching this crap and wondering who will romance who in the next season... hell, you can give it a try. Might be worth it, if only to giggle at the sheer stupidity of the show. And some babes at their prime. Both Nicole Eggert and Yasmine Bleeth look horrible now (gaining weight and/or being wasted by drugs), but they remain eye-candies on this piece of history.

And HOFF IS KING. Never forget that.

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phe
phe


Famous Hero
Life and Freedom
posted May 23, 2017 10:02 AM

Bit better than Bold and Beautyful...

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Darkshadow
Darkshadow


Legendary Hero
Cerise Princess
posted May 23, 2017 10:57 AM

One does not simply

Hassel the Hoff
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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted May 23, 2017 11:02 AM

words of wisdom


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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted May 23, 2017 11:46 AM

The show aired here too, but being ten years older than you, it had no significant impact on me. I had a crush on Nicole Eggert as a kid, when she was the hot teen in Charles in Charge though, just like David Hasselhoff will always be the Knight Rider to me, not some stupid life guard.
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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted May 23, 2017 01:17 PM

well, Nicole was hard not to have crush for in her youth I'm not really into blondes but yeah, she was one cute cookie
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Kipshasz
Kipshasz


Undefeatable Hero
Elvin's Darkside
posted May 25, 2017 08:48 AM

I remember very little of the show, except that at one point, for some time, before airing an episode on Lithuanian TV, there was a bogus clip claiming that it was filmed at Lithuania's beach resort, Palanga.


Oh yeah, also if you want another cheesy as f show with tits and whatnot, try V.I.P. as well. but that is even more cheesy than Baywatch.


Also, Doom, what's your take on Cztery panceri i pies(four tankers and a dog)?
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"Ashan to the Trashcan", "I got PTSD from H7. " - LizardWarrior

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Galaad
Galaad

Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
posted May 25, 2017 11:02 AM

From what I remember (been quite a while heh) I really thought Baywatch was crap, but this is a nice thread!
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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted May 25, 2017 11:04 AM

Kipshasz said:

Also, Doom, what's your take on Cztery panceri i pies(four tankers and a dog)?


It sucks. Typical "commie Poland" low budget crap - absolutely godawful acting, and a single T-34/85 tank owns everything everywhere.

Galaad said:
From what I remember (been quite a while heh) I really thought Baywatch was crap, but this is a nice thread!


because it was crap! just with some redeeming factors.
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Galaad
Galaad

Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
posted May 25, 2017 11:14 AM
Edited by Galaad at 11:34, 25 May 2017.

Doomforge said:
because it was crap! just with some redeeming factors.


TLDR version of the OP
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Kipshasz
Kipshasz


Undefeatable Hero
Elvin's Darkside
posted May 25, 2017 11:27 AM

Doomforge said:
Kipshasz said:

Also, Doom, what's your take on Cztery panceri i pies(four tankers and a dog)?


It sucks. Typical "commie Poland" low budget crap - absolutely godawful acting, and a single T-34/85 tank owns everything everywhere.



still better imo than the "post-commie, but not really" Poland low budget take at adapting the Witcher books to TV and film. despite all the propaganda crap in there, which I think is unavoidable in a war themed series.

but sometimes commie produced stuff is better than what our "independent" film studios produce.
Nobody Wanted to Die and Herkus Mantas is still the best of Lithuanian cinema, despite those being filmed in soviet times.
Way better than the kitsch patriotism bull they released a few months back, where the actress playing the main heroine doesn't even present herself as Lithuanian actress.
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"Ashan to the Trashcan", "I got PTSD from H7. " - LizardWarrior

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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted May 25, 2017 06:25 PM

Yes, not all "commie" stuff was crap, but that particular show was like the showcase of bad film-making of the "commie" times
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Kipshasz
Kipshasz


Undefeatable Hero
Elvin's Darkside
posted May 25, 2017 06:58 PM

what else would you expect from a war film? wooden acting and ultimate historical inaccuracies.

Fury is the best modern example of this.
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"Kip is the Gavin McInnes of HC" - Salamandre
"Ashan to the Trashcan", "I got PTSD from H7. " - LizardWarrior

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted May 29, 2017 07:34 AM

Never watched but I guess you've watched enough for all of us doom Sounds like what I could have expected, except several times more overblown.

I'm sure you'd love piranhas 3DD, it even has Hasselhoff in it!
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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted May 29, 2017 10:53 AM

Fury was a perfect example of formulaic Hollywood mentality spreading like cancer and slowly taking over a 'might have been decent" film, in the end, to the point where a single tank team with a broken tank (inanimate target) wiped out about 100 elite German commandos who somehow all rushed into the tank like some raging bull on a charge, one by one! They seriously tried to pull such ridiculous crap as epic heroism, we were expected to feel impressed as if it was not funny at all.

Such things are not inevitable though, there are decent war films from Hollywood or from the Soviet Union, the Thin Red Line would be a good example of the first, Come and See would be a good example of the latter.
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Blizzardboy
Blizzardboy


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
posted May 29, 2017 04:50 PM

Fury. That movie sucked.
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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted May 31, 2017 12:42 PM

Fury would be much better if the "last, heroic battle" wasn't there.
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