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Episode 58: Bash at the Baywatch
28 Plays1 year ago
At Bash at the Beach 1995, Baywatch crossed over with WCW - now, it's time for WCW to return the questionable favor on Baywatch's version of Bash at the Beach! Can Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage best Vader and Ric Flair to regain that greatest of all wrestling prizes: the escrow papers for a local gym? When Hulk Hogan faces off against a jet ski, who wins? (It ain't physics.) Has any Baywatch editor ever seen any professional wrestling matches, ever? And don't worry - they didn't film enough WCW antics to fill a full episode, but Baywatch's writers came up with exactly the right plot to combine with this fun, lighthearted wrestling angle. For all this and more, let's go to the beach!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/letsgo2thering , or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LetsGo2theRing/
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Let's Go to the Ring'
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode's director is listed as Douglas Swartz, Swart, Swart, ah, German names that for some reason, despite being German, I can't say, Swartz, Swartz, Swartz. Just think of space balls.
Bash at the Beach 1995 & Baywatch Crossover
00:00:39
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days, and not so good old days, of World Championship Wrestling, series by series. I'm your host, Bob Moore, and I'm joined by the guy I'd most want to hang out and ignore lifeguard match duties with, Alec Pridgen. I'm honored that people will die on our watch.
00:00:59
Speaker
It's lifeguard match duties, man, not a... Oh! Oh. Though, you know, I don't know if it's... I mean, I stand by my statement, so... Yeah. How's it going tonight, Al? Pretty good. How's it going with you? I'm doing quite well. I had to do significantly less work preparing for this episode than normal because we're watching a TV show. I said, don't get used to it. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to spoil you now.
00:01:23
Speaker
It's a pleasant break when we do these movie and TV show episodes because Al does more of the story work, and there's less matches for me to recap. Though more official matches than this one than we've normally done, which is interesting. That's true. We've had to call things matches that weren't matches in our previous ones, but this time we've got some legitimate matches. Yeah. Because, well, tonight we're taking a break from watching Wrestling on a Beach. We are watching Wrestling on a Beach on Baywatch.
00:01:53
Speaker
At Bash at the Beach 1995, WCW decided to do some cross promotion, and the popular television series about lifeguards running in slow motion made sense to pair with WCW's most beach-themed show.
Baywatch Episode Details & Cultural Impact
00:02:07
Speaker
We saw the first half of that pairing on our previous episode, so now we're taking a look at the second half, Baywatch Season 6 Episode 15, appropriately titled Bash at the Beach.
00:02:20
Speaker
In case it matters, we are looking at the HD remastered version that's included with Amazon Prime. If you're interested in great coverage of Baywatch as a whole, then please check out Alison Pregler's wonderful series, Baywatching. She's very, very funny. She is very good, yes. This episode of the long-running series, Baywatch, aired February 18th or 19th, 1996. Amazon says the former IMDb the latter.
00:02:47
Speaker
Either way, that's more than half a year after Bash of the Beach 1995, which aired the previous July, rendering its benefit as cross-promotion at least slightly questionable, I'd say. Yeah, it's arguably worse than the Ray to Rumble flambérie, which technically promoted the VHS release of the ship, or the movie rather, but yeah. At least we're pairing up with a release of that film, if not the original, yeah.
00:03:15
Speaker
This episode carries a 6.1 out of 10 rating from IMDB, which is actually on the upper end of the scale for Season 6, and quite a bit better than the prior and following episodes, which earned 4.7 and 5.2 respectively. The prior was a Charlie's Angels parody, and the latter features Mitch getting in a sky-surfing accident and from flipping through it a bit, at least a couple lengthy clip shows of scenes earlier in the series. So that may explain the rating difference there.
00:03:44
Speaker
This episode of Baywatch stars, among others, David Hasselhoff as Mitch, Pamela Lee as CJ, Yasmin Bleeth as Caroline, David Chokichi as Cody, Alexandra Paul as Stephanie, and of course, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Ric Flair, Vader, and Kevin Sullivan as themselves in as much as wrestlers are ever themselves.
00:04:07
Speaker
This episode's director is listed as Douglas Schwartz and the episode writer is listed as Deborah Schwartz with Michael Burke, Douglas Schwartz, and Gregory J. Bonin receiving creator credits. So, which is better, Baywatch on WCW or WCW on Baywatch? To find out, let's go to the beach.
00:05:02
Speaker
It must be said that Baywatch has an absolutely amazing theme song. It does. Yes. Just that's one of the best in TV, I think. Yeah. We get the most famous opening credits of the 90s. It's definitely up there that and friends, maybe really fighting it out there. Maybe X-Files. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say for Mac mass consumption, though. Yeah. It's probably those two be X-Files that definitely the weirdos like us that files is up there.
Baywatch Cast & Storyline Setup
00:05:31
Speaker
I like to describe this song as a so sincere and laughable. The guy that does the song, he fully commits to this. It's amazing. It's a super serious song, even though it's people running in slow motion and shots people from Bikini on the beach. I love it. It like is a genuinely awesome song that is paired with a show that is not always worthy of it. But you can't help but be charged up to watch something when you hear that song. It's great. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
00:06:02
Speaker
There are a handful of cast members that are credit-only, which is a thing that happens quite a lot in the show. Dina Lee Nolan is nearly credit-only, even though she actually appeared at the Bachelor's Beach pay-per-view. She's the one in front in Hulk Hogan's intro.
00:06:18
Speaker
It's notable that when we see that intro later, you don't actually see her. Hmm. They just weird sign angle shot where you see them all walking out. They never do like a front shot of Hogan walking out with his entourage. Despite the fact that some of their Baywatch folks are in it. Yeah. Right. Though, uh, isn't like David Chokuchi in it on the pay-per-view. Yes. And on this he's watching from backstage. So that might be why. My other theory is that I think I should really send a Casag thing, which is oddly timely with what's going on right now. I'm recording this.
00:06:48
Speaker
I think if you show her and you have to pay her. Oh, okay. If you've written the episode, the credits obviously don't count. So I think her appearance in that would count as being in the show and then she gets whatever she would get for being in it. Interesting. That's generally how that works. Also notable, Jeremy Jackson as Mitch's son, Hobie, is also credit only. Yeah. He tends to only appear in Mitch's plots or Mitch appears in his. Oh, that's usually the former, not the latter. And as we'll see, there's probably a good reason why it's not in this one.
00:07:18
Speaker
It's interesting that on an episode that's full of children and teenagers running along with Hulk Hogan, the show's actual main teenage character is not part of the episode.
00:07:28
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it feels like if Mitch is part of the wrestling plot, then it would come up. Mm-hmm. I think what the show is, you don't make this story about him all the time. And it's much as if, oh, they all know him or that's in relation to him, like with the Beach Boys show up. He apparently knew him as a kid and stuff like that. So I'm guessing if he was involved in the wrestling plot, he would have like trained in the same gym as Hogan or something.
Hogan's Jet Ski Mishap & Rescue
00:07:49
Speaker
And yeah, something silly.
00:07:51
Speaker
If you want to make a drinking game of this show, take a shot anytime a random person in the bikini, especially a thong, shows up in the intro, you will not be sober by the time the episode even starts. This is true. Cody's intro really bugs me. I rewatched that three times. It's like a 10 second clip, but I really diagrammed it a lot. So his static shot is him standing outside of the pool. Then his next shot of him running on the beach and then him getting out of the pool.
00:08:20
Speaker
It's a weird order. I don't know why he's out of the pool already than back end. I probably only notice that or cares, but there were two pools. He ran along the beach to the second pool. Oh, OK. Yeah. And to be fair to Baywatch, they really like zooming in on him, pressing his way out of the pool. So it's not not just looking at women that way. It's men, too. This is this is true. Yeah, that's a fair highlight. They highlight the muscle. Yes.
00:08:47
Speaker
They have said proper begins suddenly with macho man, race, having a hogo gun racing on jet skis. They are taunting each other, but the dog all is obviously ADR. Oh my gosh. So yeah. I want to see them in the booth, like just sort of yelling insults at each other. Oh yeah. Fast on you and all that. It's in a room because it's so hilariously ADR. Yeah. Hogan is so much ADR in this episode as well. Let's just see in the is matched later as well. Yeah. Yeah. You get some from flair and macho during theirs as well. Oh yeah. Quite notably.
00:09:17
Speaker
So, as they are racing along, Macho pulls ahead, which apparently is frowned upon by Hogan, which is kind of weird. He cuts him off, which is, I guess you can't do in a race? Hogan is merely distracted by a woman and a jet ski. As a reminder, he's married with two kids right now.
00:09:33
Speaker
This this bit, too, has the funniest ADR by far. Oh, yeah. In the entire episode, I think, because you've got, you know, Hogan circling around and checking the lady out, getting distracted from the race. This had to be gold, like you said, in the booth, him having to make awkward attracted noises like, oh, oh, oh, yeah. Oh, just like picture this man sitting in a recording booth making these noises and somehow not busting out laughing.
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah. There's a bit on, um, toast of London where the guy who's a serious actor, but it does a lot of voiceover to make money. Him and his friend are doing basically doing that for like a porn movie. They're just throwing like grunts and everything. It's hilarious. You never see it. You just hear them grunting along and then the random pickup noises. It's funny.
00:10:23
Speaker
In some ways, this episode, despite being paired with Bash of the Beach 1995, feels like it's a follow up to Bash of the Beach 1994. Because if you recall, Hogan at the end of his promo says, we're going to go ride tiger sharks, which I believe to be a brand of jet ski, not the one they're using, but a brand of jet ski. So maybe this is intended to take place between the Bash of the Beaches. Oh, OK. There's one or two things later on in the episode that actually make it fit better in that part of WSW's continuity as well.
00:10:54
Speaker
Obviously, Macho being there would kind of screw up continuity, but otherwise, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also notable, while Hogan is circling the woman and ogling her, he also nearly bumps into a boat. I really want to picture this as the boat we kept seeing in the far shots on Hyperview. It's like way out there, it seems like it needed help. For some reason, Caroline, a Yasmin Bleas character, decides to look up from her Baywatch tower and use her monoculars to watch the action.
00:11:19
Speaker
I'm not sure if she can see or hear that from how far away that she has to be for this. My best guess is she read the script and knew someone was going to happen. Otherwise, just really weird. So Hogan finally realizes that he's in a race and done looking at this lady on the jet ski. So he proceeds to hit a very small wave, apparently, and has launched off his jet ski.
00:11:43
Speaker
So our first match is Hulk Hogan versus a Sidhu GTX for the remaining air in Hulk Hogan's lungs. The referee for this is presumably Aquaman. Yeah, sure. Hogan wipes out on a wave and defying all laws of physics, the jet ski somehow flies higher in the air than him and lands on top of him several seconds later. The jet ski wins, making this one of the few instances in his career where Hogan jobbed clean. Yes.
00:12:09
Speaker
Seriously though, how does the thing land on top of Hogan? It's clearly not flying as high as he is in the initial clip, and it's also clearly in front of him. So how does it come down after him and from behind him? He slants off his wave and falls backwards off of his jet ski. And the jet ski shoots way ahead, but somehow, I guess, loops back around and then falls flat on top of him.
00:12:31
Speaker
It like flies far enough, fast enough that it loops around the entire earth and comes back from behind. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. That's oh my gosh, it was funny. The oof that he makes when he's hit by the jet ski. Yeah. It's hilarious. Oof. Sounds like a bad guy getting punched in Final Fight. Yes. One last bit of irony here, of course, is that so much of Baywatch is product placement. They keep mentioning wave runners at one point a lot in one season.
00:12:59
Speaker
So it's funny that they feature a product and you see the name very clearly, the CD one there. And it's used to nearly kill somebody. You're like, oh, we're there. So what do we do? I won't tell you. Yeah. Maybe the episode was actually still sponsored by Wave Runner. Oh, the competing brand should be the one you use to kill Hulk Hogan. Yeah. We'll pay you more if it's not ours. Exactly. We suddenly go back to Caroline, who runs the rescue.
00:13:29
Speaker
I would really love to see her real-time reaction to Jessica again looping around the earth and then falling on it. We suddenly get to CJ, Pamela Anderson slash Pamela Lee, at a different tower. She apparently gets a nat 20 on her perception tech and immediately spots Hogan in the water. She wasn't looking for anybody. She just suddenly sees his body float up in the water. Speaking of bad product sponsorship, the fact that he's wearing his
00:13:54
Speaker
His life jacket makes him float, which is great, but it makes him float upside down. He's face down, yeah. Yeah, he's face down in the water. So again, not a great product placement for a brand of a life jacket that they have. Back on the beach, an unseen third person uses the radio to call Julie, AKA the random blind lifeguard we saw in both Randy Savage's Anhogo Dontaraj on Batch the Beach. And she goes in for backup.
00:14:19
Speaker
Everyone on the show looks graceful running on the beach. You know, they have to for those like slow motion shots that the show is famous for. Yeah. But there's not a person on the show that looks graceful when they're running into the water. Oh, yeah. Not not a single person like has figured out a good and maybe there isn't a good way to look graceful and safely run into the water. I don't know. But they all do this like funny little wide stepping run getting into the water. And this is six seasons in and nobody's figured out how to make that look good.
00:14:46
Speaker
There's some lizard that was in the lizard that runs across water. The Basilisk. Yeah, Jesse Mature referenced on the show, didn't he? Yeah. They're also known as the Jesus Christ lizard because it can run on water. And that one runs like that as a big white-leg dance. They could be like, your body is dispersing the momentum until I can get across that. Yeah. No, they're not on the, obviously they're running through the water, so they just look kind of silly. Yeah.
00:15:10
Speaker
The dead weight of Hogan is dragged back to the beach where three more lifeguards show up to take him in. They act like he weighs a thousand pounds, which is oddly funny to me. I mean, he's floating. I'm sure he wouldn't be easy to drag onto the beach, but yeah, it's, it feels like they have a little bit too much trouble for being professional lifeguards. Right. Yeah. This is like, this is your job, guys. As Sita and Carolyn revive Hogan, you can see Pamela's tattoo wedding ring.
00:15:37
Speaker
to Lisa Rick for you, because at this point she is married to Tommy Lee. Hogan awakens, and for a brief moment he seems to think he's in heaven. As Julie, just now, recognizes him. Hilariously, Hogan tries to no-sell the debt to Guinjuri. He's like, oh, I'm fine, I can get up. Yeah, I think that claim fell apart when you needed CPR, buddy. I know, right? It's pretty funny.
00:16:00
Speaker
Savage finally, apparently, during all this, realizes that Hogan's not behind him, apparently missing the crash and the amazing view of Jet Ski flying over his head circumventing the Earth. It kind of feels like he's just he's not used to winning confrontations with Hogan. So he's like, oh, that's funny. Hogan hasn't had his usual comeback and beat me yet. I better turn around and see what's up. Yeah. At this point, that CJ and Julie both acknowledge that they're wrestling fans, but then they go quickly say closet wrestling fans.
00:16:30
Speaker
Way to promote WCW, Baywatch. It's the ready to rumble thing, right? Like, even in WCW's own stuff, wrestling fans are like gigantic dorks. Yes, true, yeah.
00:16:40
Speaker
And also, should they really be letting Hogan stand up on his own and walk around and eventually leave with Macho on this scene? He just got knocked unconscious and needed CPR, and literally they said his heart's not beating. That's true, yeah. That feels like at the very least you should be taken to a hospital, probably on a stretcher, to get checked out, even if you appear to be healthy.
Stephanie's Personal Storyline & Medical Concerns
00:17:01
Speaker
Although, if it's wrestling, you don't get taken to hospital, you get taken to a local medical facility. Because they, I guess, what happens, they realize when they say hospital, people would know, oh, there's only two hospitals that are near this arena, let's go there and see them. Where they can't say, oh no, it was the clinic down on 34th. Right, exactly. I guess people will go in and check if you're there. Which is a weird thing to do for several reasons. Do you not get that the show is fictional, people? Apparently not. Not enough, I guess.
00:17:29
Speaker
So Savage, who again didn't notice his friend nearly dying, is very indignant to Hogan about, quote, leaving him high and dry. Class act. Also, you're on the water, so you're definitely not dry. And you're staying in a relatively level plane, so. You're also not very high, yeah. No, not either one.
00:17:49
Speaker
Hogan, annoyed by this confusing statement for several reasons, says that they need to quote, talk about it right now, and they've received to walk away without saying a word. So, huh? Hypocrite Hogan tells Savage to stop arguing with lifeguards to boot. Yeah, no. He's not the one that's married at this point, buddy. That's true. Yeah, he is.
00:18:14
Speaker
As we know from watching the shows, he is not married. That's a key plot point for months. As awkward as that is. Oh good, here comes the B-plot. In the base, Stephanie prepares for a picnic date with her boyfriend, Tom. Mitch casually explains to the audience that him and Tom have been, quote, best friends his entire life.
00:18:32
Speaker
It's weird how that comes up, isn't it, by the way? Like he starts out asking her questions about her date like he doesn't know who she's dating. Right. And then seconds later, we revealed that he knows who she's dating and it's one of his oldest friends. Yeah. It's it's such a strange progression of conversation. Yeah.
00:18:55
Speaker
Also to note, this is setting up Tom's first appearance on the show. This character has been, been just for his entire life, has never been seen before. Oh my gosh. So, so we are in season six, slight caveat. It's his first appearance as Tom. He played a guy named Vincent, his actual first name in season two. Oh, okay. Interesting. And not the same person, obviously.
00:19:19
Speaker
It's like when Jerry Orbach showed up as a defense attorney like in season one or two of Law and Order and then later gets Lenny Briscoe. Yeah. And just no one talks about the fact that he looks quite a bit like that defense attorney they once dealt with in court. Yeah, there's an even worse version of that with Law and Order SVU where when Lenny actually is like sent to prison for sex crime and then she's like the EADA like a season later. Oh, wow. I was like, oh, okay, there's so many actors in New York City, I guess.
00:19:45
Speaker
Redemption story. Yeah, I'm glad you like so much. You brought it back with a little weird. Mitch and Stephanie have a nice friendly banter for she leaves. It's little bits here that I do kind of like with the show. It makes it feel like characters do know each other. These actors at least have a natural chemistry, which I do like. Definitely agree with that. Yeah, I think Mitch and Stephanie, I think in this episode, you get a strong feeling of them having a long running relationship. We cut to the date where
00:20:15
Speaker
A pager, this is 1996 after all, interrupts things before Stephanie gets too romantic. Her and Tom also do a very good job of ignoring all of the seagulls. They are surrounded by seagulls making lots of noise. By the way, what exactly is Tom's medical specialty?
00:20:35
Speaker
I believe he's a skin doctor. Yeah, I believe he's a dermatologist, right? Correct, yes. And so the pager is going off, presumably summoning him to some sort of medical emergency. Yeah. Now, no disrespect to dermatologists. They're a very good medical profession and do a lot of good work and everything. So I'm not intending this is any kind of slight on them. But I don't picture them as the medical profession that gets summoned to urgent surgical situations or like, you know, emergency room stuff that often.
00:21:04
Speaker
Yeah, but he's like he explains like, oh, if you work in the medical profession, you never have a real day off. And I'm like, maybe I'm wrong. But it feels like the dermatology side of medical care is the one where you can say, OK, schedule an appointment tomorrow or something like that at the very least.
Venice Boys Youth Center Conflict
00:21:21
Speaker
I'm off today. I might be wrong on that, but it just it it feels like they're treating him like he's, you know, the city's only skilled heart surgeon or something like that.
00:21:31
Speaker
rather than the guy who at the very least doesn't seem like he would get the really, really urgent medical situations. While checking out her legs, Tom spots a mole that is right around the edges and tells Stephanie that she needs to see him in his office tomorrow. See, exactly. There's my point. I also guess the date just kind of ended because that's the last we see of it. Yeah. I mean, it kind of would cast a bit of a pall over the situation. Yeah. It's weird how it plays out because it seems like the age can be interrupted by the pager.
00:22:01
Speaker
But then they get romantic and he actually is going to ignore it. Then when the whole thing with the mole happened, he's like, I see you tomorrow. And then they just kind of cut like, so they just both leave and then he's, she's going to see him in the morning. Yeah, I guess so. We've got to film an ending for this guys. And all blue denim Hogan approaches CJ and thanks her. The dark blue cowboy boots are epic. Oh, I love it. Yeah.
00:22:26
Speaker
It's one thing to have the denim jacket and denim jeans. Brett Hart makes that work obviously quite well. But yeah, the blue cowboy boots are a great touch. Yes. Hogan jokes about the deskkeeping told him when it hit him. But then when she questioned him, he goes, oh, no, not really. So you have a fair play. It kind of makes up for you trying to no sell the injury. It literally stopped your heart yesterday. Yeah. Also, do you see a follow up doctor about that? I feel like you would.
00:22:54
Speaker
Maybe while he was scheduled for Tom, but he ignored his beeper. So that's a shame. I appreciate you trying to make the plots intersect. It's the Lord. It's the Lord's work here. Hogan sort of casually says that he heard about the lifeguards doing work for the Venice Boys Youth Center. I don't know if this happened to you, but my brain gets auto corrected. I swear I kept thinking he's saying Venice Beach. Yeah. This is Venice Boys. I'm like, OK.
00:23:20
Speaker
He says that it was, quote, his old stomping grounds, and thanks Sonny, the owner, for keeping him from being, quote, wild on the streets. Fun fact, I saw a film once called Wild on the Streets. There's about a 16 year old pop star become president dosing Congress of LSD. He missed out, Hogan. CJ mentions that someone has recently bought the property, but they don't know who.
00:23:44
Speaker
Hogan agrees to visit the property later with Macho Man. Take an example of Hogan as a friend. Oh, this is really important. I'll make him come with me. Sudden cut to them working out of the center in their gear. Sunny, the owner arrives, and the kids complain about the gym being taken away. Hogan, Savage, and Sunny step aside, and Sunny tells Hogan that it is, quote, out of his hands now. The gym is the kids' support system, and it is apparently keeping them off of drugs. It's a bit of hyperbole, isn't it?
00:24:14
Speaker
If you didn't have the gym or a kid could bench press, they'd just leave and do drugs. I mean, it's a common thing you hear about that kind of stuff, but it seems a bit exaggerated. Believe me, if they didn't have the gym to bench press at, they'd all be playing Nintendo, not doing drugs. Oh, okay. I don't see a downside at this gym. No, me neither. Yeah, I'm all for it. I'm totally with the property developer in this. Oddly, Savage, who grew up in Downers Grove, Illinois, and played baseball with my dad,
00:24:42
Speaker
Well, I was involved in a Hogan story of redemption at this gym in California. Yeah, it's it's really weird. Hogan also was born and raised in Georgia and Florida, actually.
00:24:55
Speaker
But Hogan's at least billed from California, so you can reason that maybe, okay, the character is Californian, even though Terry Belaya isn't. But Savage is billed from and regularly talks about being from Florida. Sarasota, in fact. Yeah, so his real and fictional history are both entirely apart from California. Yeah.
00:25:15
Speaker
Also notable when Lanny Poffo, his brother, was around in wrestling. He wrestled part-time as a manager and he was a bit where he was a good guy wrestler. I've actually seen this on Old Wrestling Fire. They list hometown for the wrestlers. They list Lanny Poffo hometown down as Grove, Illinois. Cool. So they stuck with that for him, but at some point Savage just decided, I'm going to be part of the story too.
00:25:39
Speaker
Yeah, it feels really weird. Even though you just told us about keeping this kid off of drugs and, you know, keep him off the streets and keeping him safe. We don't need them both to have a personal connection to this gym. That's what I was going to say. Yeah, you don't need either of them to have a personal gym like it. I mean, they're both good guy characters. Helping people out for, you know, in charity events and stuff is what good guy characters do. True.
00:26:01
Speaker
Like you can have the Baywatch. People have the personal connection to it. And Hogan and Savage just be like, oh, well, that sounds like a really good cause.
Villainy of Ric Flair & Entourage
00:26:10
Speaker
You know, we'll help out with it. Like it'd be one thing if Hogan and Savage were going to be regular characters on the show in this Venice Boys Youth Center was going to be a regular location. Then I could understand tying it all together more. Right. But it's a one time appearance. It's a lot of backstory for a guest star. Yeah.
00:26:28
Speaker
back to the B-plot as we cut back to the station where Hoff is just finishing his run treadmill. We talked about before him being separated, so it's interesting how that works. And the first time you see him in this, he's making sure you see him running. They cut from Hogan and Savage working out to Hoff working out, yeah. Yes. Equally the same. He steps off of the treadmill and goes to the locker room right where Stephanie's getting ready for her shift.
00:26:54
Speaker
I feel like there should be a door that closes for this place. I mean, she's fully dressed, obviously. But I feel like it's where you change. So I don't know how that works exactly. She asks Mitch if she can work inside and tells him about the biopsies he's having on the mole.
00:27:11
Speaker
Alexander Paul, as Stephanie, she does a really nice job with this. She does. She shows that even though Mitch is an old friend of hers clearly, she's still uncomfortable at first bringing it up and nervous about talking about her situation. It doesn't seem like she thinks that he won't understand or something like that. It's just more if you talk about it, it's real.
00:27:33
Speaker
Well, and once you tell him about the biopsy, then he's going to be want to know more. And you're going to need to bring it up again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas if you said the biopsy and then come back negative, you go, Oh, good. Then you can be mentioned later. Oh, by the way, I had a biopsy. I'm just being more careful. Yeah. They credit to her. She does a good job here. She really conveys that she's worried that she might die. The biopsy determine whether she has skin cancer or not. Yeah. And Mitch as her friend tells her not to worry.
00:28:00
Speaker
We cut back to the gym where Matou was working out separately. As a limo arrives, Sunny says that this is the developer that has taken over the property. Hogan and Gang side to quote, go talk to him. That really sounds like a threat the way they say it. Ultron, we would have words with thee. Yes, yeah, exactly.
00:28:24
Speaker
Oh, Rick Flair. So you're the developer. I thought you'd be in a pond hiding under the scum where you'd feel at home. Oh, ho, get this water, man. I'll wait to see you again. And that's your man. Last time I saw your face, man, it was under my shoe. What are you doing with your time now that you're a washed up ex-wrestler, Flair?
00:28:44
Speaker
You know what they say, brother? Those who can do. Those who can't don't. That's not the quote.
00:29:15
Speaker
Why don't you put your money where your sorry excuse for a mouth is, Flair. Hey, Hogan, as usual, your words hit hard with your fists, man. A fight. One on one, no holds barred. Winner take all. All this property, Flair. Oh, man, doesn't that sound delightful? What's a collateral, Hogan?
00:29:32
Speaker
Something that you could never hang on to, Flair, the WCW Heavyweight title, brother. Wait a minute, I call the shots. We're making a team. Me and Vader and Macho Man, I want you right here, right now. I'd love to tear you apart. Hey, El. Our team wins both matches. They're all bets are off. And whose head am I gonna have the pleasure of ripping off, Flair? No, no, no, Chuck. It's Vader time that's gonna rip your head off. You? I was hoping I'd have to have a match where I had to keep my eyes open, Vader.
00:30:01
Speaker
Save it for the world to see! Save it for the Ring Hogan! Oh, this scene is absolutely wild. The first thing you see after the limo pulls up is Kevin Sullivan walking out. He has this hilarious face paint which is like, it's like two Nessies going different directions on his forehead. He's dressed in a suit and still has the face paint, yeah.
00:30:25
Speaker
Also, he's clearly, it's clearly not his suit, because that does not fit him at all. I don't think it's been ironed, face paint, ill-fitting suit, perfect, no notes. Yeah, Kevin Sullivan, multi-class druid businessman. Yes, there you go. That would be a weird character build unless she's specialized in zoos. Yeah, sure. If Flair is the first person who's actually acknowledged when he steps out a limo after Sullivan, because Hogan fully ignores Kevin Sullivan, his arch rival at this point for like a year,
00:30:53
Speaker
He's also like, does not compute when he sees the man in a suit, so. No, I guess so. Vader is also there and not mentioned for quite a while in this segment, which is a little odd as well. How do you ignore him? I think he's one of those things that you just, your, your brain tries to ignore because otherwise you'd have to acknowledge him and flee in terror. That makes sense. So during this bit, Hogan first do flares. They quote washed up ex wrestler.
00:31:18
Speaker
Yes, this is another thing that made me feel like this show is actually set sometime in 1994. Because Halloween Havoc is the one where flair puts his career on the line. Pause for laughter. Yeah. And loses the match and so has to retire as a wrestler. By the time of Bash of the Beach 1995, of course, he's a full time wrestler again. Yes.
00:31:41
Speaker
So between this and the riding jet skis, you're kind of like, was this a follow up to Hogan's 1994? And maybe, I mean, I don't know exactly when this was filmed, but I could see them depending on when they had to start scripting it and putting things together and filming it. It probably was based around WSW continuity from at least early 95 possible. Flair is brought back into wrestling in early 95.
00:32:10
Speaker
I guess he attacks Hogan Savage and mess with them and they basically asked the people in charge to undo the stipulation that they themselves asked for to get him out of wrestling. Well, so that's one explanation. The other explanation for why this makes no sense is that Douglas Schwartz just really didn't care and kind of knew passing about it. Yeah, entirely probable. But it's just funny how well it links up with 1994 WSW rather than 1995.
00:32:40
Speaker
Yeah, to note, as you said, it's October 1994, where Flair loses a match and is forced to retire. But the time this episode aired in early 96, he actually won the world title two more times. Not even a time from Hogan, of course. The other elephant in the room is, by the time this episode had aired in 1996, Vader was no longer in WCW. Yes. And in fact, Savage had won and lost his world title a couple of times between when they shot this 95 and when it aired in 96 as well.
00:33:10
Speaker
I mean, if the idea of this episode was to attract new fans to your product, you'd think that WZW would want to make sure that they got the characters right so that no one was confused. Yeah. But I was thinking, though, imagine, you know, this episode aired six months after Bash of the Beach 95, right? About pretty much. Imagine if it was about another six months. Hogan would be NWO Hogan. Yeah.
00:33:35
Speaker
like six months after Hogan's crazy Baywatch appearance, he's in the NWO and like everything about WSW is different. Yeah, that's true. Flair is basically a full on 80s movie villain here. Oh my gosh. So this is literally out of break into electric boogaloo. Yes. It's all about having having to win a contest to save a youth center.
00:33:57
Speaker
It is interesting, by the way, that he's planning to turn this gym. He says the gym into condos and like it's an outdoor exercise center. It's not this huge gym facility. Those would be some pretty dang small condos unless maybe he meant that he'd also bought the shops and stuff. Yeah, he's kind of vague about how much land he bought. Like he bought all the area around and then, which would be funny if like, we just want to save the center. So he just built condos around the gym.
00:34:23
Speaker
Don't worry, Sonny, we saved your gym. No one could see it, but it's still here. Guess he'd have a ready-made customer base then, though. True, yeah. Flair decides to make this a team challenge. Yes. That'd be for the team challenge series. Yes, but did you catch exactly how he words it? Mm-hmm. He says, a team wins both matches or all bets are off. Correct. Yeah, remember that. Yes.
00:34:51
Speaker
Also, during this, Flair randomly decides to challenge Macho instead of Hogan, the guy he was originally talking to. Since, as we've noted, that is a match that actually plays a pay-per-view when they are shot. It'd be like if I was trash-talking you, then suddenly I challenged John to a fight. Yes. Hogan really disses Vader here. That's not why you have to have a match where my eyes open. While Vader isn't actually beating Hogan, Hogan has also never pinned Vader at this point. Yes.
00:35:19
Speaker
This leads to Kevin Sullivan speaking up and setting up match number two. Our second match is Vader versus a basketball that he stole from some children.
Stephanie's Cancer Scare & Emotional Depth
00:35:29
Speaker
The referee is the basketball hoop, which has always secretly despised the basketball because so many people dunked it through and did that hanging on the rim thing. Oh, yeah. And that really hurts even though hoops don't have nerves. So think of that in your nightmares. But don't worry, it promises to remain impartial.
00:35:46
Speaker
Vader squeezes the basketball and it squishes and pops almost immediately. Vader wins. Yes. I do love that of all the scary things they could have possibly had Vader do at a gym, they decided to have him pop a basketball. I mean, it is impressive. Don't get me wrong. But if you're going cartoon super villain anyway, have him like bend some barbell weights into pretzels or something. Yeah, like grab like a cinder block and add butter or something. Yeah.
00:36:09
Speaker
You also learn about what's inside a basketball when he crushes it. Because that weird powdery stuff that just explodes everywhere, like the chocolate stuff. I don't know what that is, but it's weird looking. As the confrontation ends, after the death of a basketball, Hogan issues his greatest challenge, Saturday, at the beach, bringing the escrow papers.
00:36:33
Speaker
truly lined that will live on in wrestling history. It is. It is, though, like perfect wrestler gotta set up the pay-per-view. Yeah. Remember to mention the date and the location. Yes. Once they are aside, Sullivan talks to Flair and says that Hogan is quote, too agile for Vader. You know that. Do we? Is Hogan going to start doing Phoenix splashes and space flying tiger drops? Yeah. Vader famous for being 400 pounds in moon salts.
00:37:04
Speaker
Also again, not having been pinned by Hulk Hogan. Yes. Flair just sort of casually says, oh, we'll make it a cage match. But they won't tell Hogan until it's, quote, too late. Dun dun dun. Let's bring the mood down now, shall we? Oh my gosh. We cut to the inside of David Hasselhoff's house as he stares at a picture of Stephanie.
00:37:28
Speaker
which he still keeps in his mantle to know they did date early on, but he has like a fair official like picture as a lifeguard. It's not like a random picture of they took together or it's weird. It's weird. They has that picture. Little, little bit. Also, I went and consulted the official Mitch Buchanan and Wiki page, which is way more thorough than you would think. The picture next to Stephanie is of his dead girlfriend. Oh, right.
00:37:56
Speaker
There's a whole plot earlier in the show where he had a girlfriend who was a reporter and then she had died of a heart attack, but apparently it was murder. And as a bonus, that has solved the actual wife of the, I believe he's still married to, or whoever was married to her for a long time, either way. A knock at the door and Tom comes in and he wants to talk to him about Stephanie. Midge tells him that you shouldn't treat someone you are, quote, emotionally invested in as a doctor. I do have to say, again, so you said this is literally the Tom character's first appearance.
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah, this episode. Yeah, it doesn't actually feel like it. They've done a pretty decent job of making it feel like these characters have been around each other before. Credit to the acting is a little. Yeah, you don't know the credit Baywatch for acting. Yeah, there's some awkward lines in this scene, but I mean, the chemistry between the actors, I think, works with this group.
00:38:46
Speaker
Yeah, for all the flack that Hasselhoff gets of being a bad actor, and I'm not saying that's incorrect, he is, at this point, a pretty experienced actor. I mean, he was doing Knight Rider in the late 80s and that stuff between then and now. He at least has experience to know how to treat certain scenes.
00:39:04
Speaker
There's also a weird exchange here where Mitch wants to get details about what's going on from Tom, who says that he can't share it because of Dr. Patient confidentiality, which is a thing. But then once Mitch tells him that he already knows about, he's having a biopsy, he just kind of lets it all slide. So Mitch is hard on you about being emotionally invested in somebody, but also clearly ignores Dr. Patient confidentiality, the weird rule he has there.
00:39:32
Speaker
It's interesting too that he presses for more information and Tom just basically doesn't have more information to give at this point. Yes. Tom tells him that the odds are good as long as the cancer didn't spread. Mitch asked him for his honest opinion and he doesn't say anything at all. Just like the date, I guess he just kind of left. Yeah. Cause it's the middle of the night, it seems to be, or it's in the evening at Mitch's house.
00:39:57
Speaker
Yeah, there's scenes in shows that you can kind of picture in your head how the rest of that scene went rationally, and then there's scenes in shows like this one and the date one earlier, where you get what you need out of it for the show, but then it feels like, okay, but how did this resolve? You actually need them to film the resolution to it because nothing in your head makes sense.
00:40:24
Speaker
We get to what seems to be the next day, although they don't really give us a good progression of time to show this, where Stephanie is talking to her sister Caroline. Of note, the two of them share an apartment with CJ, so that's why they're together there. So let's talk to Caroline about how she's not wearing enough sunscreen. At this point, she starts to break down a little bit, and Caroline figures something must be wrong here. She, of course, does the dramatic thing of saying the line, turning it back to someone and walking a few feet away.
00:40:51
Speaker
which is perfect setup for Caroline's spot that bandages back of her leg. And she gets the news. They share a nice tender moment between sisters and hug. I, I again have to praise Alexandra Paul's performance as Stephanie. She does a really great job with the scene, even though a lot of the dialogue feels like it's taken from a educational short film about the dangers of not wearing proper sunblock. Yes. But she still captures this like tremendous fear and uncertainty that you would have in that situation. Yeah.
00:41:19
Speaker
I particularly found the, uh, you know, I think Caroline says you're strong. You'll get through this and her, uh, her, I don't want to be strong right now. Responses. She really, really delivers very well. Yeah. And it's not a knock on the housing police. He does fine here as well, but, but, uh, I could, Paul's part here is definitely there's more nuance to it. She has to do more because she has to be, be overt initiated to break down a little bit. And she's got to react to the sister.
00:41:46
Speaker
She has a complex role in this episode and she does it very well. Absolutely.
00:41:52
Speaker
It is, of course, tremendously awkward that we're cutting back and forth between, you know, Vader crushing basketballs and Hogan and flair deciding to hold a team match over property rights to a gym somewhere and all these bright colors and everything. And then smash cut to very serious cancer plot. But, but the cancer plot side of the episode is actually done well by, by and large. Mm hmm.
00:42:20
Speaker
So after that nice, tender moment of sister tugging and facing mortality and trying to be strong, we cut to, uh, Hogan just suddenly walked up to CJ. Apparently he loves to bother her in her lunch break. Cause like the second time he's done that just walked up to her, he confirms to her that the resting show was on. She was there for the conversation. I think she know about that. I guess, but I guess he hasn't signed the papers. I don't know. The legality of this whole situation is very, very vague and nebulous.
00:42:48
Speaker
Hogan is confident that he can beat Vader, which he hasn't done yet, as noted. Elsewhere, we see two kids playing on the rocks, one balancing on an obviously fake rock. HD strikes again! I think you would have seen this even in- Oh, I know! Like, the thing flexes while he's standing on it, and it's obviously different color, yeah. Yeah, the coloration really stands out in HD, but yeah. Once he puts his foot down on the rock and it wobbles a bit under his feet, has a give, yeah, you know it. Yeah.
00:43:14
Speaker
The kid slips off and God himself seems to want this kid dead as the rock slides off for no good reason and lands on his leg, thus holding him underwater. Now if you want to add a fan theory, maybe the rock fell because his friend pushed it. Okay. You can't disprove it and again, the internet works that way. If you can't disprove something, it's true.
00:43:37
Speaker
So the kid, of course, screams for help, but fortunately he's about 20 feet away from the edge of the beach where Hogan and CJ are. As Hogan and CJ run to the rescue, we get a random aside where a kid says that he saw Hulk Hogan and mom thinks that he's, quote, telling stories. Why is it so unbelievable that a child in California might have seen Hulk Hogan built from California and known to like beaches? Also, he was just here yesterday. This is also true, yes.
00:44:07
Speaker
Hogan delivers the real Oscar caliber acting this episode as he struggles and strains to lift the rubber rock off the kid's leg.
00:44:17
Speaker
he actually does a pretty good job of making it look like it was actually heavy. If, if I had not seen the thing bend under a child's weight a moment ago, I like, I might've bought that that was actually a really heavy lift. It is kind of funny. Like I get that you don't want an actual rock to land on the kid, but it is kind of funny that you don't give Hogan an actual rock to lift because I'm sure he could have done it. Yeah. No problem. Agreed. Yeah.
00:44:44
Speaker
back to the B plot, has seemingly nearby, but also not in relation to anything going on just now, Stephanie's on duty in her full gear, covering up. I guess Miss didn't give her opportunity like she asked for, huh? Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, she said, can I have an opportunity because I have a biopsy? Eh, yeah, sure, here, whatever, work at the beach. She looks down and sees some clearly burned girls and tells them to put on sunscreen. Uh, excuse me.
00:45:14
Speaker
Uh, you girls are getting sunburned, so you should either cover up or put on a stronger sunscreen. Because the burns you get today will increase your risk of skin cancer when you get older. So is this what you're using? Baby oil offers absolutely no protection against the sun. Do you have any sunblock? Put it on. Uh, excuse me. Can I see that? Sure.
00:45:41
Speaker
This is just a sun magnifier. You know, you should be using sunblock if you don't want to get burned. OK. Be sure to put enough sunblock on your baby, OK, and on yourself also. Are you using sunblock? You should be putting some on. A high SPF.
00:46:01
Speaker
Excuse me. Do you have sunscreen on? Oh, I do. You do? Good. Good. Sunblock? OK. And keep reapplying frequently, OK? Especially as you sweat it when you go in the water. Yeah, thanks. Do you have sunblock on? Yeah. Yeah? OK. Don't go to your sunblock, OK? Right. I'm obsessed. I mean, I was like a crazy person at the beach today, lecturing people. Why? Why me?
00:46:26
Speaker
That scene is so odd like the music and the enhanced sound of her breathing Yeah, like bring that up a little bit so it makes it sound like she's having a nervous breakdown or a complete freakout It's right over Bernard Ehrman score for Hitchcock or Brian de Palma
00:46:40
Speaker
Yes, but she's actually giving genuinely good advice to a bunch of people who are genuinely making bad decisions about skin protection at the beach. It's, yes, a little weird that she goes through so many of them in so quick a time, but that just appears to be that there's a ton of people that made terrible decisions about skincare within like a 10 foot radius. As you pointed out, the first girls are even visibly sunburned. Oh, yeah, they're like they're Michigan girls in California when the first trip. Yeah, they are burned.
00:47:10
Speaker
Yeah. It turns out they were literally using baby oil. Ladies, save that for Hogan. He uses that. That's his.
00:47:18
Speaker
She apparently heard this music because she tells Caroline, she's acting crazy. Were you? I mean, not really. No. The way they play it out where it's six, seven people over a course of like a minute makes it look a little worse than it really is. I feel like if you've done it in like a soft montage way that's sure like throughout the day or throughout her like eight hour shift, she has talked to people. I think that that makes it look less crazy in their mind, but they chose to do that way.
00:47:43
Speaker
I think if they wanted her to sound more obsessed, what they could have done is have all or most of the people that she talked to say that they were using it and her repeatedly go to the same person. Yes. Sure. You know, something that makes it clearer that she's not thinking rationally or is like she's that obsessed with this concept. But but the fact that she's so clearly right in, you know, almost every person that she approaches. Yeah.
00:48:12
Speaker
They had two different ideas for the scene and they did both of them. Yeah. This is all with actors. So you, you decided how well that played out. And I actually asked random people at the beach and it's happened a bunch of them have actually wearing sunblock. Yeah, it's very odd. That cuts to the, I guess later the same day a somber Tom shows up and was clearly night, despite him telling me that he could test adults that morning and he confirms her fears.
00:48:40
Speaker
They speculate about the worst as Tom does that not exactly help things with his bedside manner. He doesn't like console her or anything. It's just like, yep, you have it.
00:48:51
Speaker
He does talk about it's easier to treat if it hasn't spread. We don't put it spread yet. And she says, but what if it has? The fact that he brings that up is part of the issue. For me, because I get that something you want to tell people, you want to say, oh, it's better if it didn't spread. But by doing that, you're really interested in the idea that it could spread. Which, I mean, she might know that. If she asked you if it spread, then that's one thing. But going, well, if it spreads to your lungs, you might die. Like, what? Now I'm worried about that. Yeah.
00:49:20
Speaker
I do have to again praise Alexandra Paul here, especially when Caroline is getting up to open the door. Stephanie just does some amazing facial expression work where she's facing the camera. Caroline's going to open the door, which is behind her, and you can see her
00:49:39
Speaker
work herself up towards facing the news. Yeah. That she she starts out just like visibly not wanting to address it and then kind of like taking a few breaths and getting yourself ready and then can finally turn around when he comes in. Yeah, again, I can't praise her enough for like the nuances to her acting and what she does here. It's like good acting. It's just weird that it's happening on this show in general and on this episode, particularly. Yeah.
00:50:09
Speaker
Well, enough of that drama crap. We suddenly cut back to Hogan and Macho at the beach, saying that, quote, it is time to get strong. Oh my gosh. This still gives you whiplash in the best and worst ways. Yes, oh gal. So after saying it's time to get strong, they put down their weights and start running. Right, what? On the plus side, we finally get a proper Baywatch montage. Like 20 plus minutes, that kind of commercials. In this episode, it's super cheesy and I'm all in.
00:50:41
Speaker
For a leader who's no good one Made of steel, he's a champion Because he's tougher than tough You know he's got the right stuff When the going gets rough He's more than strong enough
00:51:09
Speaker
Based off of IMDB's credits, I think this montage originally used American Made, Hogan's WCW theme. Ah, okay. But the song here is actually quite fitting. They've done a decent job of doing a replacement if this is one. It's very silly, but it's fitting. Yeah. And the credit, which they might've amended for this airing, they do credit the song. Yes. I did get the lyrics. Oh, great. Would you like to hear them? I do. Yes. All right. Here we go. All right.
00:51:38
Speaker
The world shakes with the clench of his fist. He's a force to be reckoned with. Tough as nails, he's the son of a gun. He means business, he'll get the job done. A born leader, he's number one. Made of steel, he's the champion because he's tougher than tough. You know, he's got the right stuff. And when the going gets rough, he's more than strong enough because he's tougher than tough. And there's a second verse. Oh, good.
00:52:06
Speaker
Made to last, yeah, he's built like a tank. A warrior with iron strength. Pure power like you've never seen. Satisfaction guaranteed. A born leader, he's number one yada-gada.
00:52:24
Speaker
That's a wonderfully like over the top 80s training montage type of song. Oh, it's so great. Yeah. There's, yeah, there's real similarities to this and the Rocky three. Yes. Training montage with Rocky and Apollo, especially with beach running involved. It is worth noting that there's a random cut or two in the montage where they throw them back at the gym. Yes. Bend pressing. So at least they, they, they finally realized, Oh, right. The weights are back here. We ran half across the beach. Let's go back.
00:52:52
Speaker
The idea of this clearly is that it's like several days of working out compressed into one montage. But a couple of weird things, or actually one weird thing and one very cool thing. So the weird thing first, Hogan starts off and the Baywatch lifeguards are running with him. We then get the entire montage of which I don't believe any of the shots of them running feature the lifeguards anymore. It's just Hogan and a flock of children. Correct.
00:53:19
Speaker
And then we cut back at the end and the Baywatch life cards are once again running with him. Yeah. So apparently they just laid, they started out on the first day and sloughed off for the rest of the week and then decided to join him for the finish. Maybe they refused to be seen running because the sequence used inadequate slow motion. Oh, you know, that's true. It does frame skipping instead of slow motion. It's interesting.
00:53:41
Speaker
Yeah, these didn't do that thing where it cuts out a frame and then like two or three frames and someone somewhere else. Yes. Oh, I hate that. Yeah, I know you do. The other thing. Did you catch the one shot of the one kid doing some amazing cartwheel into an acrobatic backflip in one shot? I didn't notice that. Yeah. Yeah. Holy crap. That was cool.
00:54:02
Speaker
Yeah, there's a famous one with Hogan in the 80s where he's like walking down the middle of the street and the crowd of people is behind him. They're definitely imagining that. Yes. Pretty nice. I definitely get whether the training montage, and I love that it's here. It's weird that the only montage in the episode involves the guest stars. Yeah. I guess the other plot doesn't really lend itself to montage, but that makes it doubly weird that the lifeguards really aren't involved in the montage at all.
00:54:31
Speaker
You couldn't picture the same, same song, but with Stephanie, like driving to the dermatologist, you know, checking, signing in, like waiting and then getting, you know, not, not, not so much probably, but you know, okay. Well, you gotta be tougher than tough though. She's dealing with the serious problem. Just is endlessly fascinating to me that we don't get the lifeguards in the rest of the running sequences with it. Again, they, they spend 90% of their time on the show running. You'd think they'd be good at it.
00:55:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's true. Maybe they're too good. But Hogan's like, oh, no, no, you can't remember with me. You'll show me up. Yeah, exactly. It's jarring transition time again. Yes. Mitch is walking on the beach with Stephanie, who is wearing a dress and not covering her legs up. This is the second most jarring transition in the episode. It is, yes. Smash cut from rock music, applause, Hogan and Savage posing triumphantly. Tougher than tough. To, boom, sad Stephanie and Mitch walking quietly on the beach.
00:55:30
Speaker
Yes. A fun little fact that I noticed when you're watching this scene, there's two blonde twins that walk by matching bikinis at the start of the scene. I feel like I've seen a glitch in the matrix. They really, they were in the exact same bikini.
Ongoing Comedy & Wrestling Plot
00:55:45
Speaker
Are their hair a slight different? Are they walking in line? Like one is just a quarter inch ahead of the other one? And it's obviously not an accident there because it's bait watch, but it's just, it's very distracting to me. I see twins walking by in that manner right before the serious scene.
00:56:00
Speaker
Swartz is like, I know this seems really good, you guys are great actors, but I gotta put the blondes in here somewhere. Let's have them walk by. The pair have an odd bit where they reminisce about an earlier episode where they both nearly died and you promise to keep her safe.
00:56:16
Speaker
This is yeah, like including the actual Baywatch history for characters should help the scene and make the characters feel more real and everything. But in this case, it's just like remember that time we were on a cruise ship and drug dealers took over and shot me and we went overboard that we drifted for hours on the water and got attacked by a shark and you somehow fought it off. Just like our lives are ridiculous. Yeah. That's a season three, episodes 15 and 16, by the way. OK, good.
00:56:45
Speaker
Yeah, again, there's some of that's nice. Again, there's a thing about how Stephanie and Mitch did date briefly and I was dating now. It's fine to bring that up, but yes, Bruder brings a very specific thing about like a promise he made to keep her safe from apparently everything as if he could have predicted all these things that happened. Yeah. Poor Mitch wishes he could keep that promise now, but you know, he can't fight skin cancer.
00:57:09
Speaker
I do like his response here overall. He doesn't try to pretend the problem's not there or tell her that it's going to go away, but he does promise to be there for her. Yeah, exactly. That I think, you know, when you have someone facing a serious situation like that, that's a better response than, oh, it's going to be fine. Right. Because you don't know. You don't know that. Yeah. But you do know what you can do and that's be there for them.
00:57:33
Speaker
Yeah, this kind of speaks to people having maybe gone through this episode or released. I've seen enough movies and shows where they sort of do that because yeah, there's nice little touches like you said to that. And again, it makes these well-acted emotional moments just bizarre when we're cross-cutting so much. Yes. Speaking of which, it's time for the show.
00:57:58
Speaker
They reshoot all of the promo segments, specifically for this episode, without meeting Oakland in them. Because obviously those ones, they talk about storylines, and Savage talked about his father being beaten up by Flair and all these things.
00:58:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it is weird to me still, despite that, that they reshoot their own interviews rather than doing the ones from actual Batch at the Beach 95, because they're cutting between them anyway for this segment, like rapid fire cutting between them. You could have found clips from those that were sufficiently, you know, not tied to the exact WCW stories of the time and been fine. I think they could have just used clips from the actual interviews.
00:58:42
Speaker
No, agreed. Again, or I don't know the timeline of this, but they could have easily on the day of, or even like the next day while they're still there. Cause they're in a tent and you could add in crowd noise all you want. You could have just shot a new one with Gene Okulan there. Yeah.
00:58:57
Speaker
Or somehow is it too far to believe that, you know, Glenn is here for this, this wrestling match, which I guess a two match show to determine the ownership of a big pot of land in Venice. I don't know. Yeah. It's like they, they alternate between characterizing this as a small charity event at the beach and an actual like full broadcast kind of situation. That's yeah. Cause there's a whole camera crew here and everything. Yeah.
00:59:22
Speaker
Yes, so we have no generically and sadly and it's place we get CD doing an intro for Hogan It's sunny doing the direct interviews. I believe David Toby's character as well does yeah Hogan is interviewed by sunny Savage is interviewed by Cody and Blair is interviewed by Kevin Sullivan Yes, cuz no one wants to do it. Yeah, it's notable yet noble that Kevin Sullivan is the promo guy here
00:59:47
Speaker
Well, that's a bit I have to mention before we cover the actual promos themselves, which again, we're cut together in this weird, spicy manner. One big, like, smoothie of a promo, I guess you want to say. So CJ is given the job of introducing Hulk Hogan, and you can see from her body language that she does not want to do it. CJ speed through her intro, all the same water sim trying to sell you robot insurance. There's an all us and us sketch from actually around this time, a little later.
01:00:17
Speaker
I'm Sam Waterston of the popular TV series Law & Order. As a senior citizen, you're probably aware of the threat robots pose. Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel. Well, now there's a company that offers coverage against the unfortunate event of a robot attack, Old Glory Insurance. Old Glory will cover you with no health checkup or age consideration. You need to feel safe.
01:00:46
Speaker
And they got Sam Morrison to actually be in the big commercial. And I guess when they're shooting it, he was this sort of rapid fire going through the lines they gave him.
Wrestling Match Setup & Absurdity
01:00:54
Speaker
And they pulled aside because it's pre-tapretaped. It's not done in front of the crowd. And they're like, Sam, you know, you can slow down here and get details. Like, no, actually, if it was me and I'm selling this thing, I don't believe it. And I think it's really stupid. I would just speed through and get as fast as possible done. And that's what CJ does. He goes like, hey, what can I do here? You're a takeaway, Sonny. Yeah.
01:01:16
Speaker
Also, their show is evidently called Bash at the Beach as well. Yes. You think they get sued by WSB over this? WSB doesn't sue people for breaking copyright. WSB gets sued for breaking copyright. Oh, that's true. They do have a fairly nice Bash at the Beach illustration. Oh, they do. Good drawing of Hogan and a decent drawing of one of the lifeguards. I don't know if that's actually supposed to be CJ or not, but probably. She's the face of the show at this point.
01:01:45
Speaker
Yeah, with the Bash of the Beach logo or a Bash of the Beach logo, not the actual WSW one. I kind of wonder if they had used that for the actual WSW show or if it's just for the Baywatch one. Yeah. Because it would work since they had the Baywatch lifeguards on Bash 95. Well, what's funny is that this new branding doesn't include the Slim Jim stuff, but that's all over the stuff that happened obviously on the X PaperView.
01:02:09
Speaker
And effectively, therefore, it does include the Slim Jim stuff. Right. What I mean is they're backstage area. Yes. True. Yeah.
01:02:18
Speaker
Hi, everybody. Welcome to Bash at the Beach. We want all of you to come down because we want to help save the Venice Boys' Athletic Center. And here to help us save it is Hulk Hogan, the WCW Heavyweight Champion. You're going up against one of the meanest bone-grushes in town. Watch your strategy, Hulk. Well, you know something, brother? What he doesn't understand is that Hulkamania is going to be running wild, dude. And we're the largest arms in the world, saving the Venice Boys' Club, the WCW Heavyweight title on the line, and the Baywatch babes.
01:02:46
Speaker
What's in my back? I'm gonna break him in half, brother. So, how do you feel about your match today? Julie, I'm glad you asked me that question. I am the Tower of Power. Too sweet to be sour, funky like a monkey. Sky is the limit and space is the place. Ooh, yeah!
01:03:04
Speaker
Hulk Hogan, the Macho Man, and all those little Baywatch lefts. The way I figured, Taskmaster, we'll get rid of our redneck, because yellow is more their color. Woo! Macho Man? Yes. What's your plan? Cody, my plan is no plan, yeah. I live on the edge, living on the edge. Ride the edge of a lightning bolt across the sky. Do you know why, Cody? No, I don't. Because of the boys' club.
01:03:55
Speaker
Because of Sonny.
01:04:03
Speaker
So what you gonna do Vader and flair when Hulkamania runs wild on you?
01:04:12
Speaker
Aside from the weirdness of Baywatch folks and the Taskmaster conducting the interviews, this was actually kind of great coverage of the basics of all these characters. Yeah. Like, don't get me wrong, it's utterly bizarre, but the guys hit all their usual notes. So if someone was coming over to watch the Beast W after this, they'd understand what they were getting into.
01:04:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely the clip notes version of the character. Yes. Yeah. Flair only forgot to say Space Mountain, I noticed. Yes. A few parts are very, very funny or weird about this, though. Number one, Flair says we're going to get rid of the red because yellow is more their color, which works for Hogan's outfit because his outfit is red and yellow. However, the Baywatch lifeguards outfits are entirely red. Yes. So they're all going to be naked. Well, you know, color is a spectrum, Bob.
01:04:58
Speaker
Sure. And then the other thing I absolutely love is how very earnestly Cody answers when Savage asked him if he knows why he rides the edge of a lightning bolt across the sky. It's like, no, I don't know. He's honestly not prepared for that line. Yeah. I genuinely wonder how many takes it took before he could stop doubling over laughing when Savage turned to him. Yeah. If you watch his face during that, you could see him really fighting the urge to giggle. Yeah.
01:05:27
Speaker
It's definitely an enjoyable, historically insane sort of Hogan, Flair, and Savage promo, sort of, again, smoothie or trail mix or whatever you want to call it. This weird jumbled mix they made. I don't know why they couldn't name all separately. I just showed them in order. It's weird. Or like, you know, do Savage and Flair before the match, which is the one coming up. And then got back to Hogan. Yeah. That's weird. Also Vader gets no promo time here. That's true. Yeah. I mean, while he got to crush a basketball earlier, so he was like, I've got what I need.
01:05:56
Speaker
I guess that maybe that speaks to when they shot this, perhaps, because he's gone, what, September 95, I believe. It feels like they would have shot this before. I would. I would hope so. But it's possible they went back and shot it. I don't know if they were doing retakes or something like that. Yeah, it's a maybe. I mean, the other option is that there is a Vader one and they cut up because he thought the company. It's impossible. Yeah. Yeah. It's wrestling is a very petty sport sometimes.
01:06:26
Speaker
Yeah, I just don't know that you would have had him look awesome by breaking a basketball either then. Right. Well, you can't cut that scene. The way this plays out is funny because we know from watching Bash the Beast 95 that, you know, the crowd interaction have like, you know, with Sting, who's obviously not in this one. What he does is his stinger call, you hear in the background, he's reacting to the bands and all these things happen.
01:06:51
Speaker
obviously they're in some sort of weird vacuum of space where no one hears them around the area they're at because it's all shot like the next day or some some vague time later. You have Julie doing Savage's part first but then like Cody just has a question he must ask him. He then proceeds to slightly reference lyrics from Aerosmith about living on the edge. He doesn't know what it is at all I guess but yeah just a little
01:07:17
Speaker
But actually, that would be our time. I think that's like 93, 94. So yeah, topical line reference. I really wish I could have gotten these separate so you could enjoy, appreciate the little bits there. But together, it's a bizarre, still enjoyable mix of promos going back and forth. Like when they go from savages to flares, it's almost like it's a call response promo. Yes, yeah.
01:07:43
Speaker
That's what makes Vader's absence of promo so odd, because he had nothing to say, I guess. I would wager it's more that whoever was writing this episode looked at him and thought he's the big, tough, dumb guy. Yeah. In their 80s action movie villains, you know, entourage that they've got. He's the he's the ogre character. Yeah, basically. It's very possible. I could see that.
01:08:10
Speaker
I think, again, the issue is just that he's not represented at all. He's not there when Flair's cutting his promo, nor do they talk about what Flair's going to do with it. They just go, yeah, I'm going to beat Savage. Oh, and I guess whatever match was figured is going to happen too for the full title. It makes me a little less important. So after all that promo business, we cut to Savage coming out to the ring for his match.
01:08:36
Speaker
which is shot from different angles, shot by the Baywatch crew from Batch of 1895 with brand new voiceover because they are not going to pay the ring announcer for any of this. It's very strange because you can actually see Michael Buffer in the ring clearly doing the ring introductions in several shots in both this and the Hogan match that's to come. But both are announced by, you know, somebody else doing overdubbing. Yes, correct.
01:09:07
Speaker
So, our third match is the macho man Randy Savage versus the nature boy Ric Flair in a match with a bunch of guys around the ring for some unspecified reason for I guess one half of the world title or one half of the deed to Sonny's gym. I still don't get the bet. Referring for this match is Randy Anderson. I wonder if Slim Jims had to pay sponsorship fees again for the use of the footage. If not, dang, they got a good deal. Yeah, for sure. Get on one of the most popular shows on TV during the 90s for free.
01:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. They exchange blows. There is some absolutely terrible ADR for Flair's noises of pain and for the punches that they're landing on each other, especially in the first moments of the match. Here I got a clip.
01:10:07
Speaker
It's right out of like an American ninja movie. It's amazing. Like if you've watched wrestling, you know what a wrestling match sounds like. And that is not it. No. Like wrestling punches, you know, the wrestling punch sound effect because it's them stomping the mat half the time. It doesn't sound like traditional movie punches or especially traditional like 80s action show punches, but that's what they've used here. Yes. And flares, flares, noises of pain are disinterested, I would say.
01:10:34
Speaker
Yeah, I guess Flair couldn't do ADR like Hogan and Savage did. Yeah. Savage whips Flair corner to corner in charges and Flair's clearly going to get a boot up but we cut and Macho lands punches. Cut and Savage is falling for unclear reasons. Flair clearly sets for the figure four but we cut and now Flair's landing strikes in the corner and a clothesline. They trade more blows. Did whoever cut this together confuse wrestling with boxing? Yeah.
01:11:00
Speaker
We at least get Flair flipping over the turnbuckle to the outside, and Flair dumps Savage through the ropes, which displeases Cody and CJ, who are somehow watching the match all the way from the interview set, which is presumably way up the entrance ramp. Yeah. In a section of the crowd that somehow did not appear on the actual bash of the beach, Sunny and some kids cheer for Savage. Back in, Savage back-body drops Flair, lands Punches, runs him to the corner, and back-body drops him again. Even in this cut-down version, you include that spot twice, goodness.
01:11:30
Speaker
Savage goes up top, and clearly sets for the big elbow. Cut. Flare starts to stand. Cut. Flare is down on the bat again, and Savage starts jumping for the big elbow. Cut. Savage starts his jump again, but lands the flying double axe handle instead, and apparently that's his finisher now, as it gets him the three count and the win. Thoughts on this?
01:11:52
Speaker
Yeah, the real challenger here is the editor. He made a whole mess of this thing. Go back to the last episode where I talked about how my theory is that they wrestled a more, for lack of a better word, cinematic style match, more of like a fight, which also works with the storyline to be fair. They're not friends fighting for a title. They're two guys who were fighting because, you know, Flair beat up his dad and all these things happened. But yeah, the editing is so bad here.
01:12:20
Speaker
Savage suddenly goes down from an atomic drop, which they saw the end of, but not the beginning of. You can see players' knee there when he's falling off of it, but yeah, without watching it for us, you would be very confused at what happened there.
01:12:33
Speaker
Likewise, yeah. And Flair set them for the figure four, which in the context of this match is having like 30 seconds into it. Yes. Says, you know, it's time to go to school, which I think might be from the actual show. Yes. And then doesn't, I guess, I guess schools count schools out for summer schools out forever. That's yeah. I mean, well, DDP is standing at ringside and that was his music at the time. So well, the rep off of it anyway. That is very true. Yes. My favorite part of the whole match is
01:13:02
Speaker
the way they use the back body drop parts. The first one involves Savage being on the outside and sort of being rolled back in. Never clear who these guys outside the ring are wearing the matching batch of the beach shirts. And also quick shout out to Chris Cannon who makes his face on camera. Hopefully he got paid for this one too.
01:13:22
Speaker
Savages roll back into the ring, start to get up, Flair's picking him up like they had to do a suplex something. Suddenly, Savage is switched position with Flair and is backed by dropping him. There's so many nonsensical cuts in this, it's amazing. Yes.
01:13:38
Speaker
The next time you see it, he whips Flair out of the corner, and they start to show him doing an actual back buy drill, which he does. He does twice in the match. But then suddenly, he's doing the Flair-Karma spot, where he's pressing Flair out of the corner. So he does it with zero buildup. It's a press of strength. You just stand to his feet and merely just throw someone over your head like that, like a sack of potatoes. And then to a different move afterwards, it's bizarre.
01:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, and the way they cut the finish is ludicrous. Like he said, he's getting ready to do the elbow drop, but then they cut different shots of Lyric getting up. Then back, he's back down again, and then he's clearly going to the elbow, which he does in the actual match. Right. Also, we cut out all of Arne's thing, and any explanation for why there were lifeguards.
01:14:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's weird because again, they show him going with the elbow, but then he hits the axe handle. Then they cut him getting the pain off of the elbow. And then the answer just says that he won the match in a wide shot. Yes. I don't know why you can't just show a condensed version of a match on here.
01:14:48
Speaker
Yeah, we do get some back and forth here that makes it at least feel like a fight, but it's so nonsensically chopped together that the match makes zero sense and you don't get any feel for what the actual match might have been like. Yeah. They cut out almost every big spot that you did, including both men's finishers. Yeah.
01:15:06
Speaker
Neither the Big Elbow nor the Figure Four makes an appearance. I do get that time is short, but dude, trim down that one training montage earlier or something you'd have enough time to show enough of the match that folks could follow it and actually get to see what the competitors could do. That is, presumably, from WSW the point of this whole endeavor. Yeah. By the way, as you noted, no explanation whatsoever by Baywatch of what the heck all these other wrestlers are doing around the ring.
01:15:30
Speaker
This is a charity show to raise money for this youth center that if they lose, is going to be parking lots and condos anyways. In the darkest timeline where Claire and Vader both win and typically Vader becomes world champion, what happens to the money they raise on this show? I guess they pay it to Sonny for his retirement? I guess.
Critique of Editing & Match Confusion
01:15:55
Speaker
I guess, okay.
01:15:57
Speaker
I didn't think about that before, but yeah, they're raising money, but what if they lose? Yeah. It's weird as well that they sell the cage in Hogan's match as some big trick on Flair's part, but they don't mention or include, as you noted, the bit from Bash at the Beach 95 where Lifeguard Arne Anderson literally cheats for Ric Flair. Yeah. That would have been a great opportunity to be like, aha, I'll bring in my henchmen to do something in my match.
01:16:22
Speaker
Yeah. But they don't, which is strange. Right. Likewise, they could have put in a line since they've re-shot these brand new promos anyhow. Two options. Either Savage goes, I call a bunch of friends to help out for this event to keep it on and make sure they cheat. Or you do the bad guy version where Flair's like, call the worst guys I knew and they're going to surround the ring and make sure Savage can't run away from this fight, you know.
01:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, they had plenty of opportunity to tell you why the heck there's a whole bunch of other people there and just didn't. I wonder if they're in this storyline, if they're getting paid, because that really eats into the profit they're raising for the youth center, doesn't it? We paid like 30 guys. It's right on the ring. Maybe they're all such good hearted people that they came out and did the charity work as well. I mean, one of them is heal DDP, so I don't think so.
01:17:10
Speaker
But he's just having a tremendous time with his buddy Canyon. So, you know, he just he just wandered up. He wasn't even there for the event. He just was like, oh, hey, Canyon, come over here. Let's check this out. Looks cool. I mean, DDP had known for being spur of the moment and not playing things out. That makes perfect sense. Maybe he just he had to get with Savage after the match to work out their future feud because they both clearly already would have been planning that out.
01:17:37
Speaker
That's true, yeah. Gotta plant the seeds there. Yeah, so it's a shame. I know going back to the original show, I liked this flourish that match more than you did. But regardless of how we felt about it, we both agree that they they ruined this thing with terrible editing. They have utterly butchered this. Yes, it's a real shame. As macho was seen celebrating around the ring, we got to the back area where Hogan is stretching, preparing for his match.
01:18:06
Speaker
Flaring Company began setting up the cage, complete with Slim Jim's logos, of course, on it. Which see day spots. Flares' secret plan, the cage bears Macho Man's favorite company's logos. Yeah. Oh no, Hogan, Macho's in on it. It's a double cross, brother.
01:18:23
Speaker
So yeah, the premise of this is that nobody noticed them with all this cage stuff around the ringside area or in the back. They just drove a truck up during the Flare Savage match and loaded it and then walked out to ringside, I guess. Hogan protests, of course, but Flare says his chances are slim now. Vader's got him in a cage. Maybe they'd floated a barge up since they were on beachside. Oh, OK.
01:18:51
Speaker
Actually, it's WCW. You know, they probably drove up White Hummer. That's possible. Or flew a bunch of helicopters because, you know, they love those. Yeah. Flair, by the way, here says that Vader is going to tear Hogan apart and take the title. According to Flair's own rules for this competition, that should no longer be possible, correct? It's a little unclear, yeah. He specifically says a team wins both matches or all bets are off and the title was part of the bet.
01:19:19
Speaker
So there is no possibility that Vader can win the title off of Hogan at this point, according to the rules of their bet. There's still the possibility that Hogan can win the youth center property deed, but according to Flair's rules for the bet, there is no longer a possibility that Vader can win the title. So if Vader is fighting for nothing. Well, actually there is a hidden clause here. So if Vader wins, then it goes to elimination round. Obviously the only people left to fight would be Taskmaster is going to fight and something's got to fight him. Oh, okay.
01:19:49
Speaker
watch Sonny get beaten up the way that Mr. T got beaten up by McKevin Sullivan. Meaning that he's going to pull his shirt over his head and it's going to get stuck there for the rest of the match? Correct. I kind of want to see that match now.
01:20:06
Speaker
Our fourth match is Big Van Vader versus Hulk Hogan with Jimmy Hart, Dennis Rodman, and a ton of Baywatch lifeguards in a cage match for the other half of the deed or, well, nothing. As Flair said, if one team doesn't win, both matches are bets are off. So why is Vader even fighting? He has nothing to win. Referee for this one is Randy Anderson.
01:20:26
Speaker
Vader comes out in his massive helmet. I love that this is happening with absolutely no explanation on Baywatch. Yeah. How confused was Baywatch viewers be at this moment? What is going on with man? Yeah. What is this thing? During his entrance, fake buffer calls Hogan the total package. Yes. Notably, by this point, Luger was in WCW. So folks might have been a tad confused if they decided to watch some WCW after seeing this. Yes, a little bit.
01:20:56
Speaker
Also, Dennis Rodman is here. Not a single bit of dialogue to explain that, but Dennis Rodman is here. Yeah. I love all throughout this match Hogan's buttering ADR. Yes, you guys said too, yes. Yeah, during his entrance and all throughout the match. This feels very legit. It feels like Hogan literally remembers everything he actually said during the match and just repeated it into the microphone. Yeah. Because if you watch Hogan during a match, he is talking all the time.
01:21:35
Speaker
Now Cody and CJ are in the crowd. Hogan chokes Vader with his shirt, throws him into the cage a few times, and unexplained Jimmy Hart appears to cheer for Hulk.
01:21:45
Speaker
Hogan lands punches, climbs up the ropes, and stomps on Vader, then hits a jumping double axe handle. Sullivan is angry at Flair because the cage isn't helping. Hogan takes off Vader's mask, in the actual match, Vader removed it, and slams him in the first try, but sells his back.
01:22:01
Speaker
Vader goes up top and lands a splash, then chokes Hogan for two. Hogan hulks up. Vader is down for some reason before Hogan's done anything. We get weird white flashes between Hogan's strikes as they guess they couldn't figure out how to cut things together so they decide to admit that they were cuts. Vader clubs and knees Hogan, landing big strikes, and Hogan begs for Jimmy, which probably confused Baywatch viewers since they have no idea who the hell Jimmy Hart is. Yeah, why isn't he backstage in the promo part?
01:22:29
Speaker
Vader clotheslines Hogan, smash cut to him ramming Hogan into the cage, then release suplexing him, but Hogan now sells a clothesline as we've cut back to the whole cup. Hogan lands punches, leg drops Vader, then runs him into the cage again as no one editing this has ever seen a Hulk Hogan match ever. Clearly. Hogan breaks Vader's face with his boot, bounces off the rope like he's going for the leg drop again, but we cut to Dennis Rodman yelling at unexplained Zodiac.
01:22:56
Speaker
Cut again, and Hogan slamming Vader. It looks like the exact same slam footage as before, just cut before he sells his back this time. Yep. I only recall him managing it once in the match, so that would make sense. I believe so, yeah. Hogan whips Vader to the ropes, hits a big boot, and wins off-camera by unclear means. Yep. Hogan celebrates in the ring with the big gold belt, which is obviously new footage, since the actual match was won by Hogan escaping the cage.
01:23:23
Speaker
They do a fair job of splicing in this and other new footage and matching the lighting pretty well, but you can easily spot shots they've added because they're all at this high angle where you don't see the crowd. Yeah. That's my, I call it the, this is a reshoot angle. Yes. Thoughts on this? I think this as a whole is less butchered to me than the Savage Flare one. Although obviously there's still a lot of butchering here and I'm encountering, you know, the actual butcher that fronts in that match later.
01:23:51
Speaker
In the actual match, they build up the idea that Hogan can't slam Vader, and then he finally does, and it weakens him. All that buildup is gone, and it's just, here's a body slam. Oh, my back hurts. Yes. And then he's getting beaten up. I don't even think the follow-up part's from the same part. I thought he did a different splash after he goes down the first time with his back sore.
01:24:15
Speaker
Yeah, they have definitely cut back and forth a lot in this match. They cut from the whole cup to Vader getting offense again back into the whole cup. Yes. Most notably. I also like that how even though it's a new footage and shot by them, they could be cut by them. Hogan has a hard time getting the mask off of Vader. Yes. He really struggles at that. Like it's like the 15th take like, you know, fine, we'll get the best one. Don't worry. Just keep going. Keep going, guys.
01:24:43
Speaker
Again, there's no context to why Jimmy Hart is there and why, you know, Rodman's there. And why, as I noted in the intro, Neely is not there, you know, she was there before. Why Kevin Sullivan just hanging out in the back when I was, you know, he runs out in his flash tracksuit. Yes. On the actual show with Zodiac.
01:25:02
Speaker
I was expecting this when he watched it, knowing the context of Vader famously being fired and slash leaving WCW before this aired, thinking they would really bury him in this, because obviously they have full control of the edit, whoever did a terrible job with this. And they do a lot, like that first bit, where again, Hogan is being super-heeless, like we noted on the other one. Sneaking up behind Vader and choking with his shirt and all this trash talk he's doing, except on his face.
01:25:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's, that's bizarre. It's weird that they did get the leg drop in there, but then didn't make it a finish. Obviously there's no pin because he does escape the cage rules in the actual match, but they don't like just cut to the leg drop and then do like the wide shell like the last time and say, Oh, Hogan won. Instead we have the big boot, which everyone, but apparently the editor knows was the setup for the leg drop. Yes. Yeah. And then just like, Oh, go get one, by the way. Hooray.
01:25:57
Speaker
So awkward. Yeah. Yeah, this is still a horrific butcher job of a match at it, but it does do a slightly better job of telling the story of a match than the Flair Savage one and did at least incorporate a few more spots. You'd only see him wrestling rather than boxing. I do appreciate that they got some of the rhythm of a Hogan match. He starts off strong, gets hurt midway, gets beaten down and then comes back. Yeah.
01:26:23
Speaker
It makes it easier for them to at least tell a story, if not a very coherent one. They also kept the turning point of the match, the slam where he hurts his back, too. Yeah. But yeah, seriously, had no one involved in editing this ever seen a Hulk Hogan match? How do you not know the leg drop is his finisher? Why end on the big boot, the setup for the leg drop? Why start the Hulk up, cut away, and cut back later?
01:26:44
Speaker
Also, why include the Rodman spot with no explanation of why Rodman is here and who the heck Zodiac is? Why focus on Jimmy Hart when you've not set him up at all? I get that these folks are unavoidably around the ring, but you could have avoided picking close-ups of them if you weren't going to put them in the rest of the episode. Agreed. And you cut the Vader helmet spots? Really? That's true. Really? Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah.
01:27:08
Speaker
I think they actually do give Vader more offense than I was actually expecting, given, again, like you said, he's gone from the company at this point. It's not as much of a burial as I thought it was going to be. But at the start of it, they definitely do it. But I think that's in part because the match had that strong start going on. If it was a case of WCW doing the edit, which if this is, I'd be really surprised. I'd be shocked if this was.
01:27:34
Speaker
That would make sense that they would do that. But because this is fully done by whoever read it, they watch. It explains a lot of how they got this all wrong. Even though at this point, Hogan had been doing basically the same match, right? For 13 years at this point for coming to 96. Yeah. There's variances on the specific moves, but you know how a Hogan match is going to go unless you're in a very rare situation. Right.
01:27:58
Speaker
Give me the original match footage in a day and I could definitely do a better edit of both of these matches. No question. Yeah, I've seen your edits. I know. I know that's true. Yeah. I cannot imagine that Hogan, Savage, Flair or Vader looked at these edits and thought, wow, they really captured the essence of our matches. I'm glad I put in all the work to get them good shots to use. Yeah.
01:28:20
Speaker
I imagine that instead it was more, geez brother, I'm never giving you one of my matches to use again. And similar from Vader, but with more chairs being hurled around the room. Right, yeah. So yeah, maybe next time hire someone who knows who the characters are to edit the matches. Yeah, that's a good idea. So after the celebration, we then see an awkward tip to the back where the bad guys are waiting. I guess they just throw water back there. And by the way, no one acknowledges the presence of Dennis Rodman still at this point.
01:28:51
Speaker
Hogan boasts about, quote, slowing Luke Flair down with this win. I guess that's true, but that's a weird way to say it. He says they gotta take the deed and Savage junks it from his hand. Yes. By the way, he does it with only one hand, because the other hand is full of Slim Jims. If you wonder how he makes so much money from Slim Jims, this is how. Yes. Savage hands it to Hogan, who of course hands it to Sunny, which I guess makes this legally binding?
01:29:21
Speaker
Weirdly, he hands it to Sonny and says something along the lines of, here you go, Sonny, your dream. Oh, that's true. Yeah. It's like, why are you telling me why my what my dream is, Hogan? I mean, you're probably right in this case, but it's a weird statement. My dream is to own the land I already did own until like a week ago. Yeah, sure. Yeah, it's true. Vader suddenly appears as the crowd runs through the tent for some reason.
01:29:47
Speaker
And they all wanted the beach, which is evidently, by the way, the wrong direction. True. They leave the beach, they leave the beach where they were to go to the tent towards the sidewalk area. And then they're back at the beach. Taking their lives in their hands, by the way, a bunch of kids and teenagers running past Vader who is angry. One kid that yells, you suck. And then suddenly he has a missing poster. Yes. The next day, Hogan's drinking milk from a car and says, all right, guys, I came from the show.
01:30:19
Speaker
They run out to the beach very similarly to how they ran across the beach in their celebratory montage earlier. And everyone is happy. We cut to commercial. Oh no, we're not done yet. We suddenly cut back to Stephanie and Mitch on the rocks. Both literally and metaphorically in this case. My question was, is this a metaphor or just a good location? I don't want to give Douglas Schwartz credit for that one.
01:30:47
Speaker
This is a beautiful shot, though. Oh, it is. Yeah. Like, actually, they're framed slightly from below shot upwards towards them sitting on some elevated rocks below the lifeguard station. And it kind of does this nice slow pan across and, you know, they get even some well timed birds going by and everything, which I think was just luck on that part. But but it works really well. Some excellent camera work there, honestly. Yeah, yeah. Mids tries to come for Stephanie as they wait for the result of the next test.
01:31:17
Speaker
A somber-looking Tom approaches, so you know this is not gonna be good. So the pair get up and Mitch takes off his sunglasses. Why? Drama. Oh, okay. Stephanie asks if it has spread, and he says yes. Stephanie turned away from the duel for proper dramatic staging, and begins to cry as the men comfort her.
01:31:38
Speaker
And seriously, Tom, yes, is the only thing that you came prepared to say. Yeah. You're her doctor. Right. At this point, like presumably you should already have at least some idea in mind of like, OK, what the follow up is going to be, what treatment plan you're going to as a medical professional, you don't just come up to someone and say, you know, when they say has it has it spread and you just say yes. And that are silent. Yeah, exactly.
01:32:05
Speaker
Like Sam said, it's a well shot scene. It's got good acting, it's got good drama, especially now it's Andrew Paul's part. To be credited, Vincent van Paten, who plays Tom, does a good job. Even if he's not given a lot of dialogue, he should be staying. The lines are bad. The acting is great. Yes. Do try to ignore the obvious lifeguard in the background of the shot as they cut out wide and more of those noisy seagulls. Yes. So yeah, this is how this ends. No talk of hope, just bad news and crying.
01:32:33
Speaker
more excellent work from Alexandra in this scene as well. Absolutely, yeah. The slow way that she shows the news sinking in, not immediately reacting big, but silently letting it build up over several moments is excellent and feels real and raw. Yeah. So I'll say it's a running joke, but now it's somebody that covers Baywatching that famously Baywatch never won an Emmy its entire run. I will say it's a little disappointing to hear that, at least in context of this episode, because she is really good.
01:33:03
Speaker
Yeah, she genuinely, genuinely gives it her best in this episode. The flaws with that part of this episode's plot are with the writing, not with the performances on any of their parts, honestly. Yeah, it's unfortunately a probably case of Baywatch just not getting a say based on, to be fair, a lot of what Baywatch is like. Yes. Yeah. I mean, again, as you mentioned at the beginning, the previous episode was a Charlie's Angels parody one. Yes. The show is famous for people running in slow motion, you know, kids being trapped under the death pier.
01:33:33
Speaker
random squids appearing, all sorts of nonsense, ghosts and aliens show up at one point on the regular Baywatch, not even Baywatch Nights. That didn't happen yet. So I think it's a case of they just don't even get noticed. So overall thoughts on Baywatch Bash at the Beach? There are two good to decent stories here. The first one is pretty cheesy, to be fair, and straight out of the 1980s, as mentioned. The other is a serious character drama about someone facing life or death news.
01:34:03
Speaker
Separately, they are very integrative good. It's a cheesy 80s plot, it's fun, enjoyable, and you can really appreciate the drama as you noted with Alexander Paul and the actors involved in the other one. Together, there's just plain bonkers. It's just bizarre. It's so weird. It is. The serious cancer plot makes the wrestling match to save a gym plot seem extra silly. Hogan doesn't even need help being cheesy, but you gave it to him all the same.
01:34:30
Speaker
Likewise, cutting between the wrestling and cancer plot makes for just the worst tone of whiplash. Seriously, they go from, yeah we saved the youth center, let's all celebrate and run the beach happily to, a lady finds out her cancer has spread to her body and she's got serious treatment, she could die. The end result is that, people can't really enjoy your cheesy wrestling plot when they are constantly reminded of human mortality and a seemingly cruel hand of fate.
01:34:55
Speaker
Likewise, your series plot just feels nasty out of place when you're getting in between training montage and land ownership being decided via steel cage matches. As far as the series plot goes, it's generally well acted, noted. It's a bit melodramatic by some, but that's kind of how that works. I mean, this is a TV drama. That's just kind of how you play pretty broad. As you know, there's still a lot of good subtle moments in there and it feels very genuine, but you get, you know, you get big moments because you're playing, it's a TV show.
01:35:23
Speaker
It's like this is us if this is us running in slow motion on a beach, basically.
Failure of Wrestling Plot
01:35:30
Speaker
Like we're looking at it. As for the wrestling plot separately, the matches are shadow of themselves. The touches added in post are just silly. As we've mentioned many times, they cut the hell out of these matches. They make no sense if you watch the record match or watch any wrestling match in your life.
01:35:47
Speaker
representing this weird unreality of what wrestling matches look like as part of your angle to get people to watch wrestling. It's not a good way to do that. So in summary, does the drama please anyone here? Yes. Does the wrestling plot belong here? Hell no. Yeah. I am so very glad that we did this. Objectively, this is not a great show. No.
01:36:16
Speaker
They brought cheesy 80s low-budget action show nonsense with Hogan's plot, complete with Ric Flair filling the stereotypical evil property developer role, Vader as the muscle, and Sullivan as, um, whatever Sullivan is. Is it Cackling Henchman character a lot? Yeah. I wish there'd been a Dungeon of Doom segment. All this needed was master bellowing about the gym being on a sacred ritual site to really, really confuse the audience. Yes, more of that, please.
01:36:42
Speaker
Instead, they mixed in about the most deadly serious plot they could possibly do with Stephanie's melanoma storyline. Yes. The tonal shift from segment to segment is incredible. I cannot for the life of me imagine why they decided to do things this way. It's like if Star Trek's The Trouble with Tribbles episode was paired with cautionary warnings about the dangers of drug abuse when Dr. McCoy was found to be using his medications to get high.
01:37:08
Speaker
It badly damages both plots on this show, as you noted. Yes. Every time you're having a laugh watching the Hogan plot, the show smashes you hard in the face with bad news, non-breakdowny nervous breakdowns, worse news, sadness, and even worse news. But every time you're getting genuinely invested in Stephanie's story and feeling for her pain and worry, here's a quick cut to the WSW folks having one of many over-the-top confrontations, cutting bonkers promos, doing 80s sports movie training montages, or having clip show wrestling matches. Yeah.
01:37:39
Speaker
I'm not sure if it's better or worse that the two plots literally never mention each other, not even once. There's not even a line like CJ saying, hey, after this, let's go check on Stephanie, or Mitch saying, don't worry, CJ and Cody can handle that big charity thing. I'll stay with you, Steph. Sure. I definitely wouldn't want these heavily combined, but it feels odd that two very big things are happening and no one involved with one even notes the other. Yeah.
01:38:07
Speaker
The two bits were clearly written and filmed entirely separately with no connections intended, which makes it even weirder that they were combined. Surely there must have been something else that could have been paired with one of these plots. Yeah. Or maybe just expand both of them to episode length individually. That would solve a lot of problems with this episode. Yeah, for sure. The WSW guys were silly as all heck, but you kind of expect that when you're having them play their over-the-top wrestling characters in a non-wrestling show.
01:38:37
Speaker
On the other plot, everybody involved did fine, with Alexandra Paul being a massive standout. It's not a particularly polished episode, though.
01:38:48
Speaker
Whether it's the absolutely woeful editing of the matches, or the questionable physics of the jet ski crash, or the often weird dub dialogue, or the bits in the cancer plot where characters have to spout factoids so the audience can learn something, or the extremely obvious fake rock, or the sudden appearances of new people in the match segments, it just feels like this one needed some more time planning, writing, and editing.
01:39:11
Speaker
Still, it is ridiculously fun to watch. Agreed. And an easy recommendation for anyone who wants to see what happens when WSW and Baywatch collide. Yeah. After seeing this, I really wish they tried to get more involvement from the Baywatch cast back on Bash of the Beach in 1995. Yeah. I can't imagine it would have gone well, but it would have been amazing all the same. Mm-hmm. Match of the Night and MVP then. So Al, you're Match of the Night. So for me, this is a real Vader-centric choice.
01:39:41
Speaker
I guess like, do I pick Vader destroying a basketball or Vader sometimes destroying Hogan, depending on where the editor feels like cutting. I think I lean slightly more towards the latter part as chopped down and weirdly done is as the match they have in the cages. You still get a good feel for Vader. You guys, you know, see his shouting and his slamming and his jumping and all the stuff he does that makes Vader just so great.
01:40:10
Speaker
So even if it's not a great showcase form, especially compared to the match, it's still at least a showcase form. Even if you couldn't really follow the story they're trying to tell with this cut down match, you still go, man, that Vader guy is really scary looking. Yeah. Makes you want to see him. You at least get something of a match story. It's just not the full match story. Exactly. All right. For mine, can I say silliness versus melodrama? Sure. Because that's clearly the biggest fight in the episode.
01:40:39
Speaker
Yeah, fair enough. Failing that choose an actual action scene. I'll say the opening race and Hogan getting hit by the jet ski. OK. As physics defying as that last part is, the race is the only action or competition scene on the show that you can actually follow because it has a real plot progression to it. That's fair, yeah. MVP. So all the official one official one. OK.
01:41:04
Speaker
For me, show MVP, wrestling wise, like the character he's playing, I gotta go into flare because he has the most work of the bad guys. He has the most permanent time. He's got to set up the plot and everything. He's got to quickly change the fighting seven set of Hogan. He's very enjoyable in his moments. It's a shame he didn't do ADR for himself, but otherwise he's the best part of the show for me. Wrestling wise, as much as I love Vader because he just represented by yelling a bit and crushing a basketball. He's underrepresented here.
Praise for Alexandra Paul's Performance
01:41:34
Speaker
That said, ultimately the actual MVP of the episode is Alexandra Paul because she is by far the best actor on this episode.
01:41:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I'm in total agreement on that. My MVP for this is definitely Alexandra Paul. She got stuck with a really, really tough role handling dialogue that was half emotional drama and half edutainment to say nothing of doing all that. Well, half the episode was silly Hogan and antics. She took the plot seriously and put some real work into the portrayal. She's able to wrestle pun intended the episode back from the goofiness and get a genuine emotional reaction. Excellent job. Great.
01:42:12
Speaker
And that wraps up our review of Baywatch Season 6, Episode 15, Bash at the Beach. If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Twitter or Facebook as let's go to the ring.
01:42:23
Speaker
Links will be available in the episode description. Follow us for episode announcements and other show details, and share your own thoughts about each show as we go through. You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, TuneIn, Verbal, or Audible. And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a rating or review, and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us. Many thanks to Gina Trujillo for our logo.
01:42:52
Speaker
Next up, Bash at the Beach 1996. This is no day at the beach. Somehow, that is both accurate and inaccurate at once. That's true. The show is back in an arena rather than at a literal beach. But, it is an arena in the city of Daytona Beach. Touché. So it is both at and not at a beach.
01:43:18
Speaker
Schrodinger's tagline aside, this show may be the single most consequential WSW pay-per-view in the company's entire run. Yes. This is Bob Moore for Alec Prigin, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy Baywatching.
01:43:48
Speaker
This episode's director is listed as Douglas Schwartz, and the episode writer is listed as Deborah Schwartz, with Michael Burke, Douglas Schwartz, and Gregory J. Bonin receiving creator credits. I say I can't say the name of it, I have to say it three times in a sentence, great.