Voluptuous Blondes 1, Common Sense 0

It’s always great running into the waves! Exactly 20 years ago, the lifeguard series “Baywatch” began running in the United States. Pamela Anderson in her red bathing suit and David Hasselhoff in his form-fitting swim trunks became famous. No other series had as many viewers, and it didn’t make a bit of difference who was rescued from the pounding surf.

In order to fully understand the extent of the craziness unleashed by “Baywatch,” take a look at the Chinese. More specifically, look at a brief scene in the film “Spy Game,” starring Brad Pitt and Robert Redford. It deals with two agents and the plot is very complicated, but it all boils down to a scene where Redford has to negotiate with the Chinese over the phone: the Chinese are threatening to turn off the electrical power supply to an entire island.

The Chinese boss constantly nods his head in agreement. He’s watching television. The Chinese are haggling over money, a lot of money. The amounts are thrown back and forth but the Chinese boss and his henchmen are still watching television. On the television set, we clearly see the opening credits for “Baywatch.” Buns in bikinis become visible. Water splashes and Pam Anderson undulates past; her red bathing suit smacks the Chinese right in the eye. They quickly cave into every one of Redford’s demands.

There’s no more brutal masculine stimulation than the opening credits to “Baywatch.” We watched Borat travel to the United States purely on account of “Baywatch,” and we saw him strut around on the beach, much sexier than Hasselhoff himself. But it’s not just Asians and Kazakhs who fall victim to the “Baywatch” sedation. Anyone may be infected. Pure reason evaporates in the presence of voluptuous blondes. The brain? Temporarily shifted into neutral: you may put it back in gear 45 minutes from now.

Twenty years ago this Tuesday, NBC premiered the series that was broadcast in Germany with the subtitle “The Lifeguards of Malibu.” There were 243 episodes in which so many people were pulled out of the water that you had to start asking yourself if anybody in California could swim, surf, snorkel or what? At any rate, the lifeguards ran elegantly into the surf, arms and legs flying, and the surf thundered.

The California dream of the eternal good life, discovered originally by the Beatniks and the Hippies, proved, in the end, to consist of running around with boundless energy in tight bathing suits. For the guys and girls, muscles became the meaning of life and their reason for existence. Cultural critics incorporated the lifeguard images of “Baywatch” into the body culture of the 1990s, which in turn morphed itself into the hedonism of the cult of beauty. Everything natural was simultaneously artificial. Whoever wanted to be healthy had to ingest pills and steroids. Oh, yes, breast augmentation will also help. Always.

And so “Baywatch,” as hard as it is to now admit, became the most successful television series of the twentieth century, broadcast in 144 countries. In its heyday, upwards of one billion people weekly watched David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson splashing through their shallow, but always water-drenched, adventures. Hasselhoff, who appeared in 208 episodes, had previously starred in Knight Rider, in which he had conversations with his car, a car that most people swore up and down was gay. The first “Baywatch” series was a flop; it was only after Hasselhoff himself became producer that success took hold.

The lifeguard crew changed constantly; when Pam Anderson left and took her red bathing suit with her, Carmen Electra became the sex symbol for the next two seasons. After nine seasons, the lifeguards abandoned Malibu for Hawaii. David Hasselhoff, meanwhile, played a detective in a series called “Baywatch Nights.” Hasselhoff was often ridiculed in the United States, at the same time as he was being praised as a singer in Germany. The fact is, his “I’ve Been Looking for Freedom” became an infamous part of our pop culture history when it went to number one on the German hit parade for eight weeks. Hasselhoff sang the song, produced by Jack White, at the newly opened Berlin Wall before an audience of a half million people. When people are euphoric, strange things are likely to happen.

Meanwhile, Hasselhoff has turned into a truly pathetic, ridiculous figure. Ever since his daughter made a videotape of him falling down drunk – bare-chested, at that – crawling on the kitchen floor and trying in vain to eat a hamburger, his health problems have become common knowledge. Much like Pamela Anderson, he has become a “trash icon.” Both of them flip-flop back and forth between public and private images; dramatic roles, staging and melodramatic reality have merged into one.

Hasselhoff the actor, however, managed to caricature himself in a marvelous burst of self-mockery. In the wonderful “SpongeBob” film shot in 2004, he appears suddenly on the beach (in red swimming trunks, of course) just as SpongeBob and his friend Patrick are in need of rescue. The former lifeguard puts the sponge and the starfish on his back and swims out to sea with them. Then – and I’m dead serious here – he puts them between his pecs and squirts them back down to Bikini Bottom.

That’s how we want to remember David Hasselhoff. Thanks, “Baywatch.”