Jiggle TV Rose-Colored Hindsight

As a kid, I had a strange obsession with television shows featuring hot women. Go figure that before growing up to become a gay man, my favorite television shows as a kid included Charlie's Angels and Wonder Woman.

So, of course, I've jumped at the opportunity to purchase the DVDs for these two shows once they became available, as they became available. (In fact, I'd been patiently waiting for Wonder Woman to come out for years now.) Upon receiving each set, I'd dutifully conduct marathons of each, generally lasting the entire weekend. (Back then, one season included some 26 episodes.)

Unfortunately, of course, it's never the same the second time around. It's incredibly silly as I watch these DVDs what horrible acting and plots passed for exciting television back then.

Here are some of the funniest highlights as I recall them:



In Wonder Woman, some of the editing is frighteningly bad. In one episode, Diana Prince changes to Wonder Woman and continues twirling to reveal a Wonder-Wetsuit (*snicker*). After emerging from the ocean (which looked shockingly like a very shallow pool), we are treated to the rare occasion of seeing her transform from her Wonder-Wetsuit back to her standard costume -- except that it's freakishly clear that all they did was run the tape backward to create this footage.

Then there's the fact that there are many action scenes (mostly involving running and jumping) where it is pretty darn clear that there's a body double involved. Including in the opening credits!

And the reuse of stock footage! I guess no one ever noticed this because the show didn't rerun too frequently. One scene -- where Wonder Woman is purportedly jumping from her own bedroom window after changing in her own apartment -- is reused at least four times, including times when the sun is too high in the sky for it to make sense in the context of the scene.

In the end, I've come to realize Wonder Woman didn't really do all that much that was kick-ass. She mostly jumped a lot. And ran a little. But beating up people didn't happen all that often. The first season was frightfully full of "let's just be good to each other" moments meant to prevent any actual ass-kicking. And many times, she'd actually just stop and look wistfully after a fleeing car (which she should have been able to catch up to) instead of actually chasing after it. WTF?



Charlie's Angels featured gorgeous chicks, but despite accolades that it represented women's liberation by showing three beautiful, intelligent women who were doing "men's work" on their own, man oh man some of the plot lines were stupid. On more than one occasion, the sum total of the girls' plan to get into the heads of the Big Bad Guy was to walk into a bar where he was known to frequent. And indeed, all she had to do was walk in, and Big Bad Guy would walk up to her, hit on her, and spill all his secrets. Yeah. As if.

And importantly, how feminist is it to have three chicks working for a man they never ever see? Doesn't it betray a fundamental lack of respect for the women that you refuse to show your own face? And worse, doesn't it show your desire to maintain a power trip over the women? How does that make the show about "female empowerment"?


All that being said... yeah, these four chicks were hot.