This really IS a quickie. Life keeps handing me lemons and I can only make so much lemonade. LOL! But I wanted to put something up before the holiday weekend. (Not to make it all about me, but in case anyone is curious... among the latest calamities is having my smartphone croak, switching home internet service and having it render my laptop useless and then a fault in my newly-remodeled bathroom shower - "Paging Mike Holmes!" There's even more, but I won't bore you with any of it.) I've had an almost psychotic preoccupation with showers these last several weeks. I wonder if somehow I telekinetic-ally broke it! But I digress... You probably ought to recognize the man above left as David Hasselhoff of
Knight Rider.
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Surprisingly enough, Knight Rider (which aired from 1982 to 1986) is a show I never watched beyond a time or two. And any recent attempts to do so have failed. It's just not my cup of tea. And even though 'Hoff truly had my type of physique, he was somehow so inherently campy in his posturing that I rarely could take him seriously. If you look up his publicity photos... well, it could almost form a comedic art installation!
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Even though the poses on either side of this Baywatch shot are as Zoolander as ever, at least I prefer him with shorter, more manageable hair.
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After playing teensy walk-ons for The Dean Martin Show and Police Story, he landed a primo gig on the daytime serial The Young and the Restless in 1976 and proceeded to a fairly consistent career as an actor thereafter.
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See what I mean about the awkward pinups? "Vee are heah to pump... you up!"
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Anyway, as Snapper Foster on Y&R, Hasselhoff sets hearts afire. He's pretty loosey-goosey in those white trousers! But right about the time he was making his way on TV, there was a blast from the past that popped up to embarrass him somewhat.
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In 1974, Hasselhoff had taken part in a seriously low-rent (and low-down) sex/drug movie called Revenge of the Cheerleaders. It earned him his SAG membership card, though the movie didn't get released, at least not right away. It came to light in 1976 when he was riding high on Y&R.
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I'm not sure what's worse... that his participation in this hoot was finally discovered or that his character's name is "Boner!" (I thought I was skirting disaster when I played a character called "Stump" in my own first movie...!) He's been drugged here. That's not his usual visage in the film.
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Hasselhoff is the star basketball player (on a Hawaiian team, although the movie was filmed entirely in California.)
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The 6'4" young man was very lean and gangling at this stage. As you might have guessed, there's more... The movie, which is almost completely preoccupied with sex and drugs within the confines of a wafer thin story line, offers up a variety of scenes with "teen" skin (he was 22 at the time.) About 30-minutes in, there is a pretty revealing shower scene.
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Five basketball players, including the Hoffmeister, are in the high (!) school shower room when a quintet of naked cheerleaders creep in to join them.
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Pretty soon there is a lot of soaping up amongst the playful kids...
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I mean a LOT of soap! I half expected Lucille Ball and Gal Gordon to pop up in here. Ha ha!
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| My alma mater was nothing like this... |
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As an aside, I give you my long-ago take on this movie from imdb. Apart from the flimsy theatrical release that took place in 1976, the movie made it's way onto VHS in the 1980s in order to exploit his presence in it.
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Whereas he hadn't been billed or even depicted on the film's initial poster, he was now being listed as "starring" in the opus on cheapo, blurry, second or third generation videotapes.
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That injustice has been rectified as the (truly bad, but strangely fascinating) movie has now been released on Blu-Ray! This was not something lensed by Sven Nykvist or James Wong Howe to begin with, but there is nonetheless an increased visibility over previous available versions. And, bless them, Tubi has made this available so that those who wish to can get some pretty good looks at David as he and his friends take it all 'Hoff! Ha ha!!
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The End! (By the way, there are four visible people here... not the optical illusion of three!!)
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