I guess they just couldn't help themselves. When Hammer Studios made the transition to TV in 1980, they used every trick in the book to lure in the audience - including, of course, pretty young starlets stripping down to their lingerie for no apparent reason. This tradition was established in the very first episode ("Witching Time"), where the camera lovingly follows Prunella Gee around in her bra and knickers from room to room, leaving very little to the imagination.
Eight years before Marilyn Monroe's iconic scene in The Seven Year Itch, Katy Keene found herself fighting the gale for close on six pages. The strip's creator, Bill Woggon, frequently "spiced up" the action with pin up pages and mild innuendo here and there (well, practically every issue TBH).
"Fanservice" elements were less common in other titles, though they managed to sneak in under the radar from time to time. Billed as "America's Typical Teenaged Girl," Ginger Snapp was a female version of Archie Andrews, complete with bright red hair and oddball supporting cast - although the similarities seem to have ended there. Unlike her better-known counterpart, Ginger occasionally treated her readers to gratuitous lingerie shots, complete with lacy black underwear and thigh-length suspender stockings.
Last (and quite possibly least) we have Owen Fizgerald's Moronica. Published by AGC in the early 50s, Moronica (yes, that was apparently her real name) was portrayed as ditzy, naive and accident-prone, ie a stereotypical "Dumb Dora" played exclusively for laughs. Appearing mainly in the back pages of Dizzy Dames (a more subtle title cannot be conceived), the strip ran for less than a year before its cancellation in June 1953. Strangely enough, the idea of an airhead blonde losing her clothes at the drop of a hat didn't catch on too well at the time. Guess there's just no accounting for taste.
OK, so let's see if this AI program works on a hand-drawn image we found on the web...
Actually...not too bad at all for a free online converter...
Seems to work best at smaller sizes, but it definitely has great potential for the future...
Following Jane's phenomenonally successful run in the 1940s, the Daily Mirror attempted two revivals of the character over the next three decades, first with the short-lived Jane, Daughter of Jane in the 1960s (Alfred Mazure, 1961-1963):
...followed by a mid-eighties reboot which updated the original heroine for a contemporary audience (1985-1990). Veteran cartoonist John M. Burns added an espionage parody recalling Jane's homefront adventures of the war years:
While both strips were initially well-received , neither managed to recapture the charm of Norman Pett's wide-eyed ingenue. Despite some truly knockout artwork from Burns and Mazure, the revivals simply couldn't match the patriotic fervor of their predecessor. Apparently, the key to success involves more than just a pretty blonde running around in her lingerie :)
And now for another (in)famous chase scene from The Benny Hill Show! By the end of the eighties, the starring cast must have been stripped down to their underwear in every manner humanly possible, but apparently, the Old Reprobate still had a few tricks up his sleeve.
More gratuitous lingerie scenes from Pat Tourret's Tiffany Jones. Initially published in London's Daily Sketch, this beautifully illustrated British 'strip' followed the time-honoured tradition established by Norman Pett's Jane (ie featuring the title character in her underwear as often as possible). Strangely enough, cheesecake shots from the strip are somewhat rare on the internet, though they occasionally turn up on Ebay and similar auction sites.
See also this post for more of the same.
Rule number one: you DON'T talk about Club Dance!!
Well...actually, you do. We came across these clips during a routine Youtube search; they seem to date from the mid 90s, featuring a troupe of 'urban cowboy' line-dancers. The venue was most probably the Wild Horse Saloon (the eponymous Club Dance of the title).
Youtuber Dave Anderson appears to have uploaded hundreds of short videos to his YT channel, ranging in length from 13 seconds to three minutes. The resolution isn't too bad considering the source material is well over twenty years old. Our thanks to the inimitable Mr Anderson for his painstaking efforts - by our count, he must've edited well over 500 individual vidclips so far!
...are a nice, long spanking on the panties (needless to say, the debt seems to have been paid in full). Despite the low resolution and amateur production values, the performances are surprisingly naturalistic; both actors 'sell' their roles as angry parent and remorseful daughter to near-perfection.
Yeah, the girls in these two clips are most likely payed actors, but the idea of post-hypnotic striptease is the proverbial dream come true. Both vids are filmed in the quasi-documentary style common to reality TV; apologies once more for the low resolution in the second vid.
