Source: Infobae

“We were half naked on the beach the whole time. There was something in the sun and the sea that woke up many things”, confessed the actor David Chokachi in an interview for the British channel ITV in 2016. In fiction he was Cody Madison, one of the lifeguards who ran in slow motion wearing their emblematic red bathing suits – is there a more representative 90s television icon than those opening titles, between the sun and the Californian beaches? – during the presentation of Baywatch or The Guardians of the Bay, as it became known in some Spanish-speaking countries. Such was the impact of that program that it came to warm up the screens around the world and had among its stars David Hasselhoff, Pamela Anderson, Yasmine Bleeth, Stephanie Holden and Carmen Electra, among others, that the comments on what was experienced by those years are multiplied until today.

Without going any further, Anderson herself referred to Baywatch this week. When being consulted in it by the press about a possible reunion of the cast, as happened with programs of the same time as Will & amp; Grace and the upcoming meeting in a special of Friends that could be released before the end of the year, the actress assured: "Ugh, everyone wants to do meetings." PlayThis was the opening of "Baywatch", an icon of the 90s

“I miss you all, we were very close. We were a real team, but I don't know... I prefer to do new things," Anderson said on the Entertainment Tonight portal.

Baywatch hit American screens in 1989. The show, which later ran for 11 seasons and became a global hit, chronicled the lives of a group of sexy Californian beach lifeguards led by Mitch Buchannon, the character who embodied the ineffable Hasselhoff.

In each episode, some kind of mission they had to face was mixed – in the waters near Los Angeles there was no shortage of shark attacks, abrupt drowning, crimes and all kinds of unexpected natural phenomena – with their interpersonal ties . Added, then, high-voltage scenes between the protagonists -strategically, according to the producers, they occurred in the changing rooms of the spa where they worked-, arguments and love entanglements.

Among the most outstanding scenes is the one starring Pamela Anderson, in the skin of her character CJ Parker, with Cody Madison. PlayThe famous shower scene starring Anderson

Despite all these condiments, at the beginning the program did not have the expected rating and the NBC network decided to cancel it. It was then that Hasselhoff himself took the reins of executive production and managed to keep – ahem – the most popular lifeguards in television history afloat.

Over time, there were nightly specials (a sort of spin-off called Baywatch Nights) and some direct-to-video feature films: Baywatch, The Movie: Forbidden Paradise, Baywatch: White Thunder on the Bay, and Baywatch: The Hawaiian Wedding.

The program was so popular that it was even parodied and honored by other fictions. From The Simpsons to SpongeBob the Movie (where Hasselhoff himself makes an appearance) or Friends –Chandler and Joey's characters are so fanatic that they sit religiously watching the show on their couches–, there are references to the guardians of the Bahía for its enormous impact on the so-called “pop culture”.

In 2019, on the 30th anniversary of Baywatch's premiere, several secrets of the program that showed those dazzling bodies of rescuers came to light.

Something similar had happened in 2017, when a new version of those rescuers came to the cinema, starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario and Kelly Rohrbach. On that occasion, both Hasselhoff and Anderson participated with brief cameos, but later criticized the film for its "poor quality".

Among the most surprising details, numerous anecdotes from the Baywatch recordings and behind-the-scenes tidbits were revealed.

Baywatch was the brainchild of American lifeguard Gregory J. Bonann, who served in that role for more than thirty years. Interested in audiovisual production and always linked to different producers of sports programs, in the mid-'70s the man had the intention of bringing to the screen a series that would tell the adventures of a group of lifeguards on a beach. However, none of the producers he told of the idea were interested. For more than 10 years, Bonann persisted with his project, until it reached the ears of TV writer Doug Schwartz, who was engaged at the time to the lifeguard's sister. Schwartz and his cousin Michael Berk convinced an NBC executive to make a telefilm to serve as a pilot for a potential bathing-room series in 1988. The two men with Bonann himself wrote it in three months and immediately began scouting locations. .

As the protagonists revealed to the British network ITV in 2016, during the recordings several of them had intimate encounters on the set. Gena Lee Nolin, who played Neely Capshaw in fiction and her career was just beginning, confirmed the rumors that circulated for years between dressing rooms: “I learned quickly, because that was my first role in a television series. If the trailer moved, you shouldn't knock on the door," the actress revealed. His partner David Chokachi agreed, saying that long days of filming between the sun and the sea "woke up a lot of things." These statements coincided with those of Pamela Anderson, who had stated some time ago: “Everyone had sexual relations everywhere. In the trailers, behind and around them. I think I spent a night with everyone at least once." Play»Baywatch» took place on a Californian beach

The producers of Baywatch even filmed a pilot for the show that contained nudity scenes. They did it, as Michael Berk revealed in 2012, “for the European market”. According to what the producer told Esquire magazine, they came to audition a young woman who was topless. In addition, they later recorded a scene in which several lifeguards used their binoculars to look at a photo session on the beach in the distance where the woman posed nude. However, none of those shots ended up being used in the series. PlayThe attack of a fearsome shark on the beaches of Baywatch

As revealed to the E! True Hollywood Story the actor Billy Warlock, who in the first season of the series played Eddie Kramer, the places chosen for the recordings were usually full of garbage and were not at all idyllic as they looked on screen. Warlock revealed that every time they got out of the water and finished scenes, the performers needed to be cleaned up by production. The dirt was such that, according to what he said, the actors were sprayed all over their bodies with disinfectant products.

On one occasion, while the creator of the series and a group of producers were scouting locations in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, a desperate young man approached them and told them that his brother was drowning. Immediately, the veteran Bonann ran into the water and was able to rescue him. He must have practiced mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and saved him.

As revealed by the E! Entertainment 30 years after the premiere of the series, an actor who was about to be chosen to join the cast was Leonardo Di Caprio. The producers revealed that the artist almost made the cast, but Hasselhoff gave him the thumbs down. The role was that of Hobie, the son of the head of the lifeguards. But Hasselhoff reportedly wanted "a younger son" and ruled out DiCaprio, who was 15 at the time.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, one of the producers told it, during a successful season, actress Nicole Eggert surprised everyone with a shocking change in her image. After reporting that she had fallen ill and missing some recordings, she reappeared with surprising news: an implant in her breast that made her look completely different. Faced with this new scenario, they had to re-record scenes that had already been filmed and recreate others so that, with their new appearance, there would be continuity without the change being so noticeable.

In 1995, Pamela Anderson and her then-partner, musician Tommy Lee, filmed themselves having sex on a yacht during their honeymoon. The intimate images were leaked and the case became one of the great scandals of the '90s. Due to the great worldwide repercussion of this fact, there were several international stations that asked that Baywatch be cancelled. However, that did not happen and, instead, as the scandal of the most popular sex tape of all time increased, the ratings of the program went up.

As the creators of the show pointed out in various interviews, the red outfit of the protagonists "was never intended to look sexy on purpose." The producers asked a well-known swimming sportswear brand for advice and designed the swimsuits “especially for the body of each of the protagonists”.