Entertainment
Raunchy 90s Series Starring The Most Downloaded Woman On The Internet Is A Campy Good Time
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Back in the 90s, Baywatch was the most popular series on the planet, and as a result, Pamela Anderson was the most popular woman on the fledgling internet. Throughout the decade, she would be either one of the top-searched women or the number one search term, depending on which web browser was surveyed.
Remember Lycos? Also lost to the sands of time is her other ’90s series, the action-comedy V.I.P. Airing for four seasons and 88 episodes starting in 1998, the syndicated series gave millions of fans exactly what they wanted week after week: goofy self-deprecating humor.
V.I.P. Is All About Faking It Til You Make It
In 2026, Pamela Anderson is enjoying a career resurgence thanks to The Naked Gun and its press tour, during which she showed off her sharp wit. Anyone who’s seen V.I.P. knew that the blonde bombshell was well aware of her image as a well, blonde bombshell, and frequently made fun of it through her character, Vallery Irons. Accidentally finding herself thrust into the world of high-end bodyguards, Vallery has no idea what she’s doing but always manages to save the day in the end.
It’s an interesting dynamic where the new figurehead boss is forced into the spotlight while the competent, veteran team does all the real work behind the scenes. If you were to guess that everyone else on the cast looks like they came right from a Victoria’s Secret runway, you’d be correct. Even the men on V.I.P.’s staff, Quick and Johnny, were played by martial artists, Shaun Baker and Dustin Nguyen, respectively.
There’s no overarching mythology arc to V.I.P., and every episode follows the same formula of a celebrity/rich person hiring the team to protect them. Val and the rest of the team, Natasha (Molly Culver), Nikki (Natalie Raitano), Maxine (Angella Brooks), and Kay (Leah Lail), will somehow have to put on skimpy outfits in order to go undercover, distract the mafia, act as a body double, or any other countless number of reasons the writers were able to come up with during the 88 episode run.
The Queen Of Syndication
Pamela Anderson served as an executive producer on V.I.P., working alongside series creator J.F. Lawton (a name you don’t recognize, but he wrote Pretty Woman and Under Siege), who had a similar sense of humor. Together, they gave the studio what they wanted: hot people looking hot, but surrounded it with the campiest storylines since Batman ‘66 and constant references poking fun at the premise itself.
V.I.P. was a hit for all the obvious reasons and even launched a line of toys, comics, and, inexplicably, video games. A series built entirely on sex appeal is the logical choice for a Game Boy Color adaptation. After the series went off the air, there was a significantly less successful attempt to replicate Pamela Anderson’s success with Species star Natasha Henstridge’s She-Spies. Turns out there’s only one Pamela Anderson.
Anderson’s movie career may have fizzled out after Baywatch, and V.I.P. wasn’t her first choice after ditching the red swimsuit, but it worked with her second hit syndicated series in a row. Who knew the secret to syndication success was to put attractive people in the skimpiest clothing legally allowed?