The Christmas Pageant

With Christmas swiftly approaching, Reverend Chapel is keen to raise money for Miyamae General Hospital. Knowing that two of his parishioners are members of The Fabulous Five, the good minister asks Sarah and Anna if they can throw a charity performance on December 24. Both girls agree that the event is worth staging and promise to discuss the idea with their dance company.

Following a prolonged discussion, Karen suggests that they dress up in nurses' uniforms to surprise the elderly patients. More debate follows, but eventually, all of them assent to wearing candy-striper outfits with white panties and black stockings underneath. Taking their cue from a famous British comedy series, they will "shock" the audience with an impromptu cancan (ala The Benny Hill Show). 

 

A few days later, Karen and Sarah go to visit local celebrity Mia Szorkova, asking her to put in an appearance. This naturally requires a considerable degree of persuasion, as Mia is lead singer of rival pop band MIASMA. Under normal circumstances, the two groups would never work together, but given the charitable nature of the enterprise, Mia agrees that she and The MIASMAS will contribute their skills, albeit wearing different costumes.

Meanwhile, Lily and Ava contact Leona Alvarez (chief choreographer for GirlFest) to ask if she can help out with the Pageant. Upon hearing their plans, Leona suggests that she and her troupe could dress in French Maid uniforms, serving food and drinks before launching into a third rendition of the cancan (ala The Two Ronnies Christmas Special). This is exceptionally good news: now there will be three dance groups performing at the Show. Together, they'll raise a small fortune and give the old folk a Christmas present they'll never forget...

 

Love those frilly panties!

Artwork by Tisa. Click these links for the animated videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-pKWp9vB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g78FKi_PEL4

La Chica Video Match

OK, so back to Latin America, where the girls actually compete to see who looks best in their designer lingerie on national TV! In the aptly titled La Chica Videomatch, we have five beautiful starlets stripping down to their bras, panties and suspender stockings while the audience judges their overall performance. Yes, all this can be yours! Please ignore the host at the beginning, he's clearly insane.

British Cop Shows

Flashback to the seventies: punk rock was in its infancy, the Concorde was setting trans-Atlantic records and the hottest part of The Sun was page three (ha ha!). Around the same time, British television was practically littered with cop shows, the most prominent examples being Thames' The Sweeney and LWT's The Professionals. While both series contained hilarious levels of over-the-top violence, the producers managed to sneak in a surprising amount of cheesecake  into various episodes - most often provided by tabloid starlets and page three girls.

 The Sweeney, 1976

 In most cases, the lingerie shots were entirely gratuitous, serving no purpose other than to titillate the predominately male audience. This should've come as no surprise however, as most storylines revolved around various forms of vice, corruption and organized crime. As everybody seemed to be on the take, our erstwhile heroes were frequently as bent as the villains they faced.

Hit Singles

Japanese idol band バンもん! (Panmon!) indulges in some gratuitous fan service on the cover of their hit single 雪降る夜にキスして ( "Kiss me on a Snowy Night").

It goes without saying that 'cheesecake' cover shots are not uncommon amongst all-girl bands; as far back as 1982, the Go-Gos established a precedent with their highly influential photo shoot for Rolling Stone magazine. In the present day, it has become almost obligatory for female musicians to model their lingerie before the camera.

WK in Lingerie

The competitive element discussed in Loiras vs Morenas was "briefly" expanded to international parameters with the introduction of WK in Lingerie, a short-lived sports feature broadcast across Europe during the mid-2010s.

Sponsored by Veronica from 2014-2017, WK in lingerie was pretty much exactly what the label said: beautiful young women playing soccer in their bras and panties. Opposing sides were distinguished by color-coded underwear - presumably so that the audience would know which team to cheer for.

It may seem odd that such a novel idea didn't catch on like a wild fire, but as the French have been known to say on occasion, que sera. Fortunately, there are plenty of high quality episodes still available on Youtube for the committed sports enthusiast.

Loiras vs Morenas

You gotta hand it to those ingenious Brazilians; nobody else could have come up with a show that enticed pretty young women to shed their clothing in public (OK, there's also the Russians, the French, the Italians and the Japanese, but you get my point).

The program in question was Festa Do Mallandro ("Mallandros Party"), and the segment portrayed above was  Loiras vs Morenas - "blondes vs brunettes". As the name suggests, the contestants played incredibly silly games which required them to strip down to their bras and panties, usually cheered on by a rampant audience.

 

Festa ran for a total of six seasons between 1997 and 2002, achieving a level of success rarely surpassed to the present day. Needless to say, the weekly stripteases undoubtedly contributed to the show's high ratings and popularity with the general public.

Colpo Grosso

Colpo Grosso ("The Big Win") was an Italian game show broadcast between 1987 and 1992. Overwhelmingly successful in its heyday, it was infamous for its gratuitous stripteases, some of which included up to eight girls undressing before the camera at once.

The show's premise was similar to a game of strip poker, in which the "contestants" represented various nations of the European Union. Whenever one of the players lost, she was required to strip down to her bra, panties and suspender stockings - sometimes even less, depending on the size of the bet. In a few episodes, the festivities ended with an "all girl" striptease - proverbial Big Win of the title.