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Comedy director John
Landis was asked by Universal to see if he could
make a show out of all the old TV programs that
Universal owned from the 1950s, a lot of which were
anthology shows. Landis then asked some writers to
come up with an idea. This was the result, a
titillating and humorous HBO series in which Brian
Benben starred as a newly-divorced dreamer whose
romantic adventures were pictured in parallel to
B&W scenes from the TV shows he remembered from
his childhood.
I really liked the
early seasons of this show. The writers came up with
some astoundingly funny old clips, the parallel
"contemporary" material was always reasonably cute,
and a lot of the women took off their clothes.
But ...
Frankly, this series
was really annoying me by the time the final season
got underway. I was really into the series in
seasons one and two, but it wore out its welcome.
One problem was that the series was starting to
repeat the gags from the old films, so the ideas
which had been clever in season one had become
completely predictable by the time season six rolled
around. In addition, the funniest idea (his
ex-wife's god-like second husband, whose triumphs in
every field of human endeavor made Martin seem
utterly insignificant) was basically shut down when
the writers killed off that character so the two
stars could reconcile and re-marry.
Those were not the
biggest problems. The real failing of this series,
the difference between this and the great sitcoms
like Mary Tyler Moore, is that it failed to create
any characters with whom we might empathize or even
root for a little tiny bit. Martin was a lying,
spineless weasel with no self-control. His ex-wife
Judith was stiff and pretentious. His best friend
Eddie was unrealistically shallow - sort of an
African-American version of Ted Baxter. His boss
Gibby and his secretary Tobey were both
one-dimensional assholes. His parents, who were the
only complicated characters, were gone from the
picture in the final season.
The main characters
all got a happy ending eventually, but I just didn't
care.
NUDITY
REPORT
Here's the summary of
the nudity in Season 1, which aired in 1990:
-
Episode 1: "The
First Episode". Not much nudity, but scream
queen Laura Albert looked great tied to a bed,
covered with whipped cream. See her topless in
Party Plane and Dr Alien, as well as in season
two, episode ten of "Dream On".
-
Episode 2: "Death
Takes a Coffee Break". Nice nudity. Playing a
college girl, Jeannine Renshaw seduces Martin by
removing her shirt. I think this is your one and
only chance to see her stuff. Jeannine gave up
on acting and became a writer. She wrote several
episodes of Angel.
-
Episode 3: "Sex
and the Single Father". Nice nudity. Susan
Lentini is topless in broad daylight, in one of
Martin's daydreams. Lentini was out of show
business by 1995, based on her IMDb entries.
Martin (Brian Benben) also shows his bum in this
episode.
-
Episode 6: "...
and Sheep are Nervous". Almost no nudity. DeDee
Pfeiffer did a sex scene, but DeDee wasn't into
nudity in those days.
-
Episode 8: "Martin
Gets Lucky". Nice, if somewhat dark, sex scene
between Martin and Dierdre Imerschein. Dierdre
eventually moved to the other side of the
camera, and has no performing credits after
1997.
-
Episode 12:
"555-Hell". Martin knocks on the wrong door and
is greeted by a topless hooker expecting a
client with specialized tastes! The hooker in
question was one of our familiar faces, Monique
Gabrielle, dressed in scuba gear. I assume you
all know who Monique is if you are reading this
page.
Here's the summary of
the nudity in Season 2, which aired in 1991:
-
Episode 1: "The
Second Greatest Story Ever Told". Mimi Rogers
does not take off her bra, but still manages to
give us a great look at her mammoth mamms. There
is some excellent nudity in this episode. A
couple of cuties are seen topless on the set of
a monster movie (Martin stumbled into the wrong
sound stage), and they re-appear in his
fantasies.
-
Anastasia
Barzee never made it as a TV star, but went
on to a very successful career on stage in
the musical theater. She played Emma in
Broadway's Jekyll and Hyde. I don't know
anything about the subject, but I gather
than she is now a major stage star, since a
Google
search for her turns up
500 valid responses, many of them very
impressive Broadway credits.
-
Lisa Saxton's
career was more mundane and predictable. She
started as a model in Playboy Newsstand
Specials, and her film roles consisted of
such classic roles as "Naked Lady in Bed".
See her nude in the immortal cinema classic,
Terminal Exposure
-
Episode 2: "And
Your Little Dog, Too". Nice nudity again.
Carolyn Lowery played a notorious groupie.
Martin published her biography, "Starfucker". No
sign of Carolyn in the past three years, but she
was still getting plenty of work in TV and B
features as recently as 2000-2001.
-
Episode 3: "The
37-Year Itch". Nice nudity from gorgeous Mimi
Craven, a famous gal-pal of Sharon Stone, who
still works in TV here and there, and is also a
"semi-professional photographer." She comes by
her last name through a 1984 marriage to horror
film maven Wes Craven (they divorced three years
later).
-
Episode 5:
"Futile Attraction". Very pleasant nudity from
Paula Trickey and Connie Woods as two women with
whom Martin had performance problems.
-
The scene with
Woods is really cute. She dons a cheerleader
outfit and waves her pompoms for Martin, all
to no avail. As far as I can see, this was
her last job in show biz.
-
Trickey failed
in an attempt at a sexy B movie career, but
has had a solid mainstream TV career, and
has been working steadily on the boob tube
ever since she quit the movies. You can she
her breasts in another timeless screen
romance, Killer Cop 2.
-
Episode 7: "What I
Did For Lust". Susan Ashley shows her breasts.
This was her last credit at IMDb. Her few
previous credits are softcore sex films. See
full frontal nudity from her in Private
Passions.
-
Episode 10: "Pants
on Fire". Laura Albert is back, playing the same
character she played in Episode 1 (the whipped
cream girl). This time she shows her breasts,
but not in the show's typically clear and
well-lit context.
-
Episode 11: "The
Charlotte Letter". Fleeting topless exposure
from three typical Cinemax stars: Kimber
Sissons, Lisa London, and Cheryl Boudreau. Only
two of them got topless, and the quality is poor
because they are seen in a stag film which is
popped into a VCR and seen on a TV screen.
Sissons and London have appeared naked in many
films, mostly of the straight-to-vid variety.
-
Episode 12: "The
Name of the Game is Five-Card Stud." Cherie
Michan takes off her top in a cute scene in
which she lost her blouse playing poker. She
made several more appearances on Dream On, and a
few other similar guest shots, but had
disappeared from the landscape by 1998. There
was also male nudity in this episode, a bum from
Sean Masterson.
Here's the summary of
the nudity in Season 3, which aired in 1992:
- Episode 1 - Brian Benben had a
sex scene with Teri Garr, but only Benben showed
anything (buns).
- Episode 5 - Sherrie Rose
showed her breasts in a sex scene.
- Episode 6 - incidental male
nudity only (buns from an unidentified patient in a
hospital gown)
- Episode 8 - Buns from Benben
and breasts from Lysa Hayland in their sex scene.
- Episode 10 - no female nudity,
but a pre-Friends Courteney Cox looked spectacular
in lingerie. Male: Brian Benben and Darien Wilson
showed their buns in the aftermath of their
threesome with Courteney.
- Episode 11 - Honey Lauren
appeared topless as a stripper.
- Episode 15 - there was female
nudity, but only in the old-time clips, from an
anonymous hula girl.
- Episode 16 - there's no
nudity, but Helen Slater looked awesome in a
see-through robe. This was lensed eight years after
Supergirl, but she had not aged a day.
- Episode 17 - Michelle Brin
showed her breasts in a fantasy sequence.
- Episode 18 - Natasha Pavlova
(aka Natasha Pavlovich) showed her breasts as a
stripper at a bachelor party, and some porn stars'
breasts were seen in a stag film on a TV screen.
- Episode 19 - Maureen Kedes
showed her breasts in a sex scene with Brian Benben.
- Episode 20 - none, although
Benben gets to make out with a young Salma Hayek!
- Episode 21 - lots of T&A
from Barbara Alyn Woods!
- Episode 24 - breasts from Kim
Shirkani
- Episode 25 - buns from several
guys at the gym, buns from Brian Benben, brief
breasts from Roxanne Hart
- Episode 26 - breasts from a
vacuuming neighbor seen through a telescope
Here's the summary of
the nudity in Season 4, which aired in two separate
waves. The first 12 episodes aired in the summer of
1993. The series then took a four-month hiatus. The
second half of the season aired from December of
1993 to late March of 1994.
- Episode 3 - female: T&A
from Trula Marcus; male: buns from Darien Wilson
- Episode 4 - various topless
women in magazine pictures
- Episode 5 - random women on
TV's "naked channel"
- Episode 7 - male nudity only:
the top of Benben's bum.
- Episode 8 - no nudity,
although Benben has a long sex scene with Gates
McFadden (Dr Crusher from Star Trek: TNG).
- Episode 9 - female: modest
side boobs from Elizabeth Pena in various sex
scenes, and breasts from Trish Ramish in a shower
scene; male: buns from Benben in the Pena scenes.
- Episode 10 - three topless
scenes featuring statuesque Linda Dona.
- Episode 11 - male: Steve
Blackwood showed his buns while getting a tattoo;
female: Marie Caldare shows off heavily tattoed
breasts.
- Episode 16 - male: Benben
shows his butt; female: Sally Kellerman shows some
side-boob
- Episode 19 - Heidi Sorenson
shows T&A in two sex scenes.
- Episode 24 - Melissa Justin
shows her breasts
- Episode 25 - Melissa Justin
shows her breasts yet again
Here's the summary of
the nudity in Season 5, a short season which aired
in the summer of 1994.
- Episode 3 - female: Annabelle
Gurwitch, later to become host of Dinner and a
Movie, bared her breasts, as did Finola Hughes, and
various other employees of a brothel which moved
into Martin's buildings; male: some
unidentified actor in assless chaps.
- Episode 4 - none, but a
brilliant performance from blaxpolitation legend
Melvin van Peebles in an episode worth seeing if
ever you get a chance. Martin's mother dies in this
episode. Melvin plays her ex-lover.
- Episode 6 - I guess Kim
Cattrall shows a breast, but the scene is so damned
dark, who can tell? Even if you can see what's goin'
on, you better not blink, or you'll miss the breast.
- Episode 7 - female: La Joy
Farr shows her breasts as a girl too dumb for
Martin. Harley Jane Kozak shows her breasts as a
girl too smart for Martin. (This is about your only
choice if you want to see Harley Jane's breasts,
except for a dark flash in that volleyball movie.)
Jennifer MacDonald comes along at the right
intellectual level, but she's too beautiful for
Martin, despite the promise of her topless scene;
male: Brian Benben sits on a toilet naked and
contemplates, ala Rodin's The Thinker.
- Episode 8 - Joey House shows
T&A in a good scene.
- Episode 9 - Catherine Bell
shows some delectable breasts in a long scene.
- Episode 12 - The series offers
its first glimpse of pubic hair in a very hot scene,
but the woman is unidentified.
- Episode 13 - Lisa Boyle shows
Martin her breasts.
The nudity started to
come less frequently in the final year of this
series because Martin was reconciling with his
ex-wife and was staying faithful to her whenever
they were together. Most of the previous seasons'
nudity had been generated by Martin's active sex
life. In this season the bare flesh was often
generated by passing fantasies, and therefore was
not only occurring less frequently, but was
generally shorter in duration when it did happen.
Martin had a fling in episode 15, then hooked up
with his ex, so the eleven episodes from #16 through
#26 had almost no nudity. Eight of the eleven had
none at all! The entire season was free from male
nudity, even the episode when Martin gets into the
porn industry.
Here's the summary of
the nudity in Season 6, a long series which ran
almost continuously from July of 1995 to March of
1996 (there was a two-month hiatus for the
Thanksgiving/Christmas season):
- Episode 1 - breasts from
Colleen McDermott and large breasts from Meadow
Williams (she's cute as well).
- Episode 2 - none, but Annette
O'Toole exposed a lot of cleavage.
- Episode 3 - breasts from
Sandra Reinhardt. She was later to be known more
commonly as Sandra Ferguson.
- Episode 5 - breasts from our
old pal Barbara Alyn Woods, who was playing a
different character from the one she played in her
previous nude appearance in this series.
- Episode 10 - breasts from Sara
Suzanne Brown.
- Episode 13 - quite a bit of
nudity, as Martin enters the porn business as a
scriptwriter. Breasts from Karen Roe (FILM CLIP),
and from a bevy of "porn actresses," including Kim
Anderson, Azalea Davila, and Carol Boudreau. Traci
Bingham was supposed to be in there as well, but I
can't figure out where, given that all the porn
actresses seemed to be white.
- Episode 15 - Melora Walters
shows a breast while in bed with Benben. This was
"Martin's" last fling before he reconciled with his
ex.
- Episode 18 - Tamara Landry
was topless in one of Martin's fantasies.
- Episode 20 - Azalea Davila
returned to expose her breasts again. Another woman
was topless in the same scene in a virtually
interchangeable role, but strangely enough, only
Azalea was credited.
- Episode 23 - Martin fantasizes
about large-breasted women while he showers. The
tootsies in question are Karen Russell, Jennifer
Leigh Edwards, and Traci Adell.
- Episode 27 - breasts from
Stacy Terrio; breasts and buns from Gail Harris.
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