Entertainment@Home Magazine vol. 1 number 1 (winter 96/97?)
_Satellite Surfer_: "Baywatching On Those Dimly Satellit Nights"
by Michael J. Nelson

Reprinted without permission.


I read recently that David Hasselhoff's nautical safety program _Baywatch_ 
is viewed by as many as one billion people per week. 

	Should we be at all concerned? Does this portend the end of time? 
Nostradamus predicted Hasselhoff's coming in his 27th quatrain, which reads:
"A man with the legs of an egret will come from the west, and many will 
follow him. Tan shall be his skin, and his gut shall he suck in." The 
quatrain finishes by describing a piece of lumber with a red hat that will 
carry berries to a powerful monkey, but I didn't find that at all relevant, 
so I chose to leave it out. Frankly, I think the saturnine Frenchman 
pioneered the use of cannabis. Even as he roamed Europe, teaching people 
about the bubonic plague, he always had a huge bag of Cheetos Paws.

	The point is, there's nothing to worry about, and if _Baywatch_ keeps 
half a million Germans off the street for an hour a week, I think everyone 
-- especially people from neighboring countries -- feels a little safer. 
(The European preoccupation with our _Hollywood Squares_-grade actors has 
always puzzled me. I picture French television as a medium populated with 
dark, moody films starring Donny Most and Bonnie Frankin.)

	I myself have not watched the show since its halcyon days when Nicole 
Eggert,* as Summer, romanced real-life surfboard hero Kelly Slater. Slater 
tried, but the poor guy just couldn't act, and he always looked as though he 
had just taken a board to the back of the head. Consequently, eve Pamela 
Anderson acted circles around him. This is when Pamela was new to the show 
and hadn't her trillion lonely .GIF-downloading fans as of yet. It may even 
have been before she had all her skin removed and replaced with 
easy-to-clean vinyl siding. The show was unselfconciously stupid back then, 
full of a raw and ragged energy. Like the early days of _We Got It Made_.

	My disenchantment with _Baywatch_ has led me to other, more freshly 
moronic shows. I had a brief and bitter dalliance with _Thunder in 
Paradise_, the Terry "Hulk" Hogan/Chris Lemmon vehicle. Hogan and Lemmon 
gamboled about in tiny Speedos, the kind that make a nearly life-long 
boxer-short wearer like myself shift uncomfortably in my seat. They cruised 
about in a huge, super high-tech boat, displaying their shiny, be-Naired 
bodies as they conquered drug dealers and gun runners. In the end, I was 
left mostly with the impression of Hogan's why-bother mustache. Small, 
blond, and barely perceptible, it sits mysteriously on his imposing head, 
appearing and disappearing as it shifts in and out of light and shadow. 
It's the Brigadoon of facial hair, and if you're unfamiliar with it, it can 
leave you with a vaguely uneasy feeling, as though you've left the iron on. 
Perhaps men like him, Martin Mull, and Ed Begley, Jr. look in the mirror and 
see Edward James Olmos-like mustaches, where the rest of us see only those 
pale, blond patches of fuzz.

	I can't help but wonder whether Chris' dad, Jack Lemmon, ever visited 
the set of _Thunder in Paradise_ to give tips to his son. "Break down your 
script into beats to better chart your emotional growth, son. Oh, and shift 
your swimsuit, I can see the little sizzler."

	I didn't last long with _Thunder_, so I was excited when the USA 
Network began running _Pacific Blue_. _Blue_ stars Jim Davidson, Darlene 
Vogel, Marcos Ferraez, and Paula Trickey as police officers on bike patrol 
in a beach community. To enjoy the show, it's important to get over your 
skepticism concerning intrigue in the world of bike-patrol cops. Let go your 
image of them as doughy loners busting roller-bladers for going the wrong 
way on the bike path. Quell the impression of them as lackluster 
donut-vacuums sullenly enforcing leash laws. Overcome your belief that 
they're hostilely confiscating your Genuine Draft because of feelings of 
inferiority in comparison with even meter maids, and you'll find a world of 
gorgeous women and buff hunks matching wits with _criminally_ gorgeous women 
and _nefarious_ buff hunks. 

	Its success gives me hope for the new show I'm developing. It's called 
_Hot Ice_, and it's the story of a group of sexy snow-cone salesmen who go 
undercover in the shady world of beach vendors. In the first episode, they 
bust a crooked Dreamsicle salesman who is running a prostitution ring out of 
his cooler.

	My main competition is the already entrenched _Baywatch Nights_, 
obviously a spinoff of, well, _Baywatch_. Its permise is that David 
Hasselhoff is a private eye who, during his down time from life-guarding, 
runs his business out of Lou Rawls' night club. This is a tougher 
Hasselhoff -- a return to the almost _Knight Rider_-ian Hasselhoff of the 
'80s. A Hasselhoff who takes no guff from anyone, regardless of her cup size. 
I'm told the new season will involve more of the supernatural, a fresh idea 
certainly. I look forward to seeing poltergeists in thong bikinis and those 
classic, onion-headed aliens flexing as sexy shapeshifters look on.

	Actually, that gives me another idea: _Hot Ghosts_. It'll be a 
reality program that profiles the workouts, sex lives, and diet secrets of 
really cute apparitions. Or how about _Rescue 36-24-36_?

	Or perhaps I'll just become a hugely successful pop star in Germany. 


*Eggert had cut her teeth on the Scott Baio and Willie Ames sitcom _Charles
 in Charge. I liked _Charles_, though it was clear that the Ames/Baio 
chemistry that had been so evident in _Zapped!_ was lacking somewhat.


Michael J. Nelson is the host and head writer for _Mystery Science Theater 
3000_.