-Bikinis and six packs.
Probably the first thing that comes to my mind
when I think about "Baywatch".
-In the 1990s,
a lifeguard soap opera has the world tuning in.
-It would start with the girls running on the beach
and their breasts rising up and down.
-The red bathing suit is so iconic.
-All of a sudden, a billion people around the world
were watching it.
-But the brightest sun has the darkest shadows.
-No 15-year-old kid should be worried
about not having a six pack.
-"Am I pretty enough? Am I good enough?
Am I thin enough?"
-Addiction
and anger issues.
-Tommy Lee destroyed her dressing room
because he was so jealous.
-And violations of privacy that will forever lower the bar.
-I'll kill you! You... asshole!
♪♪
[ Dial-up modems screeching ]
♪♪
-It's the early '90s, and this may be
the most recognizable piece of music on the planet.
[ Jimi Jamison's "I'm Always Here" playing ]
-♪ Some people stand in the darkness ♪
♪ Afraid to step into the light ♪
-From the opening theme's first note,
"Baywatch" promises action, romance,
and the chance to see some skin.
-It was about Pamela Anderson
and all these beautiful girls, this California dream,
borderline playmates running around in the sand.
Like, I can see why it was popular.
- "Baywatch" will grow into a world wide phenomenon,
but the show was born out of two down-and-out writers
who go to get high.
-And our agent said, "Look, you're screwing up.
You got to come up with something."
So Doug and I went to the beach, smoked a joint.
We're walking along, trying to think
of what kind of show can we do
when we see a lifeguard run down a tower,
run into the surf, pulling people out caught in a riptide.
And here come these yellow trucks with lights and sirens
and boats are coming from offshore
and everybody's in bathing suits.
How could no one ever thought of this before?
I'm Michael Berk. I created "Baywatch",
executive produced and wrote.
There's Abby. [ Chuckles ]
It was created with my partner, Doug Schwartz,
who I think is probably going to be appearing in this show.
-Michael is not only my first cousin,
he's also my best friend.
Nobody believed in the show originally
because they did not understand a show about lifeguarding
because there's never been a show about lifeguarding before.
-They said, "Now, Beach Boys?
Who's going to watch people getting tans?
How many different rescues can you do?"
-So the only way we could convince them
that there was a viable show here,
Michael and I and our third partner, Greg Bonann,
who's my brother-in-law,
we went out and shot our own three-minute presentation
of what "Baywatch" is.
-Greg had just come back from filming
the Olympics as a documentary,
and it shot all those sprinters in slow motion and stuff.
He still had his equipment, all his camera equipment
that he hadn't turned in.
And we edited it to Don Henley's "Boys of Summer".
♪♪
-For the promo, they cast their friend,
Mike Newman, a real lifeguard.
-It was the Southern California lifestyle
with real lifeguards and the action-adventure.
It was the beach and beauty and the sunsets every night,
and once they saw that, they got it.
-Grant Tinker, who is the president of NBC
and "Mary Tyler Moore" and all this other stuff,
he watched it. He goes, "It's great. I get it.
It's action-packed. It's beautiful.
But I don't think there's a series in it.
So do a movie.
But I want you to put 'Panic' in the title."
So we wrote and shot "Baywatch: Panic at Malibu Pier".
-When it's time to shoot the movie, they recast.
Mike Newman is demoted to a bit player,
and the role of the head lifeguard goes to this man.
-Here is David Hasselhoff.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-David Hasselhoff start in "Knight Rider".
We also cast Billy Warlock, Erika Eleniak.
Erika had been in "Playboy". NBC said, "No, we won't cast her."
We stood up for Erika Eleniak, and they finally gave in.
-This out! Alright, circle clockwise.
- Johnny, you alright? - I forgot everything we learned.
-You'll remember when you hit the water.
-Go!
-Not only was "Panic at Malibu Pier" successful,
but it was the highest rated movie on NBC the entire year,
and they greenlit the 22 episodes of "Baywatch".
-♪ I've been looking for freedom ♪
-Hasselhoff is a huge singing star in Europe.
The Germans inexplicably worship him.
To capitalize on his appeal,
the "Baywatch" creators looked for ways to feature him.
-I was a single father, so we gave Hasselhoff a son
because we could tell those father-son stories.
-Women especially loved the relationship
between David Hasselhoff as a single father
raising a young boy, Hobie.
And our largest audience that watch the show was women.
- Can I ask you something? - Sure, go ahead.
-Well, if you're just friends with a girl,
is it all right to rub sun tan oil on her back?
-Yeah.
-The show did very well in the ratings.
-After season one, Berk and Schwartz meet with the studio,
expecting to be ordered back to the beach for a season two.
-What happened was Grant Tinker,
who was the chairman of GTG Entertainment,
Grant said that NBC has decided to cancel the show.
-GTG, because they were so bad as a studio,
went out of business.
There was no one left to finance "Baywatch".
-"'Baywatch' is over. You guys can pack up your stuff.
Everything's done."
So it was the worst day of our lives to have a series canceled
that we really believed in as much as we did.
-That's when we went to a Passover dinner
with Uncle Sherwood Schwartz.
-My uncle, Sherwood Schwartz,
who was the creator, executive producer,
showrunner of both "Gilligan's Island" and "The Brady Bunch",
he was a big fan of "Baywatch".
-And he said, "Look, 'Baywatch' is your 'Gilligan's Island'.
Don't let it go. Go see if Grant Tinker
will sell you the rights back to 'Baywatch'."
-So we literally went to Grant Tinker
and told him that we would like to get our rights back.
-So he sold us the rights to "Baywatch" back for $10.
Everybody thought we were crazy.
They never thought we'd get it back on the air.
We paid $10 for "Baywatch",
put the old gang together.
-Hasselhoff not only signs on to star in the second season,
but he also becomes one of the show's producers.
Berk and Schwartz hope his popularity internationally
will help to secure the financing
to make the show in syndication.
-He was a big boost, and we raised
about $600,000 per episode from Europe, especially Germany.
And with that, we launched in syndication
September of 1991.
-But before they start production,
Hasselhoff's on-screen son, Hobie, needs to be recast.
-Yeah, well, it's a fresh start for both of us, huh?
-Good luck today, Lieutenant.
-I'm playing in the pool with my friends,
my mom runs out, it's the middle of summer,
and she goes, "Jeremy, you got an audition.
We got to drive to L.A., like, right now."
And I'm like, "Mom, I'm playing. I don't want to go"
And she's like, "[Scoffs] It's with the Knight Rider."
So that kind of changed things a little bit.
My name is Jeremy Jackson, and most people remember me best
as David Hasselhoff son on the number one
TV show in the world, "Baywatch".
It was a crying scene, you know? I had to, like,
knock this crying scene out of the park
and get some real tears.
And so my mom would always do this trick.
She would sing "You and Me Against the World", right?
And like, that would always just choke me up
because it was, like, me and my mom,
you know, from the get go,
just trying to take over the world together.
And then those tears just started flowing.
-[Sobbing]
-Boom. I walked in there. It was pretty much mine from the start.
-Jeremy almost didn't get the part
because there was another actor
that came in that we really liked.
And that actor was Leonardo DiCaprio.
But he was a teenager, almost teenager,
and he was tall at that point, and David Hasselhoff said,
"I can't do the kind of scenes with my son on the beach."
So we decided to go with Jeremy Jackson,
who was not as experienced an actor as Leonardo DiCaprio,
but had a innocence to him.
-♪ I'll be ready ♪
-Jackson joins the cast for season two,
but when production wraps,
there are even more changes.
-At the end of the year.
Billy and Erika left "Baywatch"
and the distributors were freaked
because they were the young, hot, sexy talent.
-We needed to get a powerhouse actress
that would get attention, and we were looking and looking
and we got a phone call from Hugh Hefner,
who said they just brought a girl down from Canada
to do a "Playboy" cover shoot named Pam Anderson
and was so impressed with her beauty
and her personality that he called Michael,
and they were friends, and said, "You've got to meet this girl."
-She started on "Home Improvement".
She was the tool girl on "Home Improvement".
-And by the way, she missed her first three auditions.
So we thought she was never going to come in.
-Pam finally came in for the audition.
We said, look, "Do you mind if we see you in a bathing suit?"
I said, "We have a rack. You can pick..."
She said, "No, I don't need a bathing suit."
And she starts taking off her clothes, and she said,
"Oh, you've seen me in 'Playboy'.
What difference does it make?"
But it turned out she had her own bathing suit on under it.
She had come prepared.
And she killed it. She's incredible. She's perfect.
And Hasselhoff says, "No."
"What are you talking about?" "She's been in 'Playboy".
I don't like all those girls in 'Playboy'.
And in the scenes that I'm in with her,
no one's going to be noticing my performance.
They're going to be watching her boobs."
And we said, "David, we love you. We appreciate your input.
But we're hiring Pam Anderson."
Of course, he quickly, quickly, quickly came around
when he realized she was just wonderful on screen.
Her presence was great.
People weren't just staring at her boobs,
even though they were part of the character and who she was.
-Pamela's arrival doesn't just change the show.
It changes some of the women who are watching.
-The rate of breast augmentation
went up about 500%.
-It was just a huge boom for plastic surgery.
-At the beginning of the decade,
America's changing the way it does business with the world.
No longer are automobiles and agriculture
its main exports.
Entertainment takes top spot,
pulling in a whopping $60 billion a year.
-One of America's greatest export is our culture,
and television media being part of that culture.
My name is Dr. Robyn Goodman.
I am chair and an associate professor in advertising
at the University of Florida.
It is basically enjoyable voyeurism.
-And there's no voyeurism more enjoyable than "Baywatch".
-Move down!
-With Pamela on the show,
our ratings jump from about a 3 to a 10 rating,
and then we started picking up audience members,
picking up more and more countries.
-We're a... success. We're a hit.
"TV Guide" comes out that says,
"The first billion-viewer show in history is 'Baywatch'."
It was the first U.S. show in China.
So we got that huge audience.
In South America,
all the villagers would come in their boats
to this one hut and crank up a generator
and watch "Baywatch".
In the Middle East,
they risked imprisonment to use a satellite to watch "Baywatch".
It started expanding to so many countries,
like 142 countries
in 42 different languages.
-Until we ended up airing
on every continent except Antarctica.
-Although Hasselhoff retains top billing,
most of that success is due to Pamela Anderson
and the other sexy women who get cast.
-Pamela Anderson became an international icon
because of "Baywatch".
-I always liked Pam.
I thought, here's a woman who really understood
how to make the system work for her.
I'm Tanya Hart. I'm an entertainment journalist.
When I was at E!, we covered "Baywatch" stuff,
you know, that was going on,
mainly because of Pamela Anderson.
-Pamela was like the sweetest, the cutest, most authentic,
you know, good-hearted person. She was like my big sis.
Well, you know, the show always had beautiful people.
-When it comes to casting bombshells,
the "Baywatch" producers don't stop with Anderson.
-Michael and I recast the show every season.
We would add new cast members.
Other people would leave. New people would come in.
-The people I worked with were all gorgeous,
and back then, it was a natural situation.
There wasn't any fillers. We didn't have Botox.
I mean, so, that was all off the table.
I mean, other than, you know, the obvious.
I'm Gena Lee Nolin,
and I played the bad girl, Neely Capshaw, on "Baywatch".
-As one of Barker's beauties on "The Price is Right",
Gena fits right in with her hard-bodied castmates.
-[Blows whistle] You girls! Girls, come here!
-My first day of "Baywatch", Pamela,
she was the first person that came up to me
and welcomed me to the show
and just a really nice girl.
-In the fall of '94,
Pamela makes her second appearance in "Playboy",
showing off a newly enhanced bustline.
And like Pamela Anderson, Gena is also not shy
about showing off her body.
In the '90s,
posing nude is seen by some celebrities
as a way to take control of their own sexuality.
Kim Basinger and Sharon Stone
both boost their profiles by appearing in "Playboy",
and the Material Girl, Madonna,
publishes a bare-all a coffee table book
that breaks down even more sexual boundaries.
But on "Baywatch", it's what keeps the women from baring it
all that fuels its success.
-We had a beautiful environment
to feature all these beautiful people,
but that red bathing suit always popped out.
-Karen Braverman was the wardrobe genius
for the entire time of "Baywatch".
She personalized each swimsuit for each girl.
So they were really tailored, really trimmed.
-Although the "Baywatch" swimsuit winks
at something more carnal,
it gives the illusion of being modest, sporty, and functional.
-It was the actual uniform worn by L.A. County lifeguards.
We just made them a little sexier.
We really established a new beauty level
in terms of a glamor level,
yet they were still American heroes, saving lives.
-Pamela proudly flaunts her augmented body
and owns her status as a sex symbol,
and millions of viewers of "Baywatch"
are similarly inspired.
-From the early '90s into, you know, the 2000s,
the rate of breast augmentation went up about 500%.
The most popular age category
were 19 to 35 year olds.
So "Baywatch" helped normalize plastic surgery.
The actresses on that show were very open
about their own experiences.
Prior to that, it was really taboo.
-In the '90s, "Baywatch" was the biggest advertisement
for plastic surgery.
Well, my name is Dr. Leonard Grossman.
I'm a plastic and reconstructive surgeon.
I have performed over 7,000 breast augmentations.
-Advertising of plastic surgery
became very common during that time period.
There was the magic of payment plans.
So now all of a sudden, it's something attainable.
We did interviews with college-age students
that had had breast augmentation in particular,
and we found that most of them regretted it
and it made them feel very uncomfortable.
-People have that notion that somehow,
by having cosmetic surgery, their life will change
because they're going to look like Pamela Anderson.
-You fantasize about having that kind of attention.
But the reality of it is, you know,
these women really didn't like it.
The other thing that we saw is an increase
in the size of the implants.
So, implants went up 40% in size during that era.
-This is 600 CCs.
What Pamela had was actually even larger than this,
by another 30%.
Those implants weigh almost two pounds
or basically a kilogram each.
-And it didn't feel near as glamorous
as what they thought it was going to feel like
because it doesn't really fix what they had hoped
that it would fix.
The '90s were kind of interesting
because there were really two beauty ideals.
One was the fashion. Some people called it heroin chic,
but it was exceedingly thin with the bony look to them.
The second ideal, you know, was more seen through
like Victoria's Secret models, "Baywatch",
where it's still slender.
It was muscular, but not hyper muscular.
So it was toned.
You had the smaller waist, the smaller hips.
Mostly, it had disproportionately
large breasts,
which doesn't happen for most of us, naturally.
[ Camera shutters clicking ]
-Emulating the "Baywatch" standard of beauty
isn't just pressuring female fans of the show.
The cast feel it, too.
-We brought Summer in as this new young lifeguard,
and Nicole Eggert was, you know, on "Charles in Charge".
She was cute as could be.
She was athletic. She was adorable.
You know, she was never 100% comfortable
in the red bathing suit.
-She had very small breasts and she was always insecure.
-Nicole was, you know, kind of intimidated,
I think, by Pam.
-So an episode that I was doing,
I was in the middle of a scene, and we shot the scene
on a Friday.
-During the holiday weekend,
she went out and got breast implants
and went from an A-cup to a double D.
-And came back to complete the same episode,
having had her boobs done.
We were on a schedule. We had to complete the episode.
-We had to put a jacket on her to cover her breasts
so you didn't notice that she went from small to big.
So, the rest of the episode, we kept her covered.
And then after that, she wasn't featured
in a couple of episodes.
- "Baywatch's" obsession with body image
eventually impacts its youngest cast member.
-By the time Jeremy was 18, 19 years old,
he was getting in real trouble.
-By the mid-'90s, "Baywatch" is playing to a global audience
of 1.1 billion viewers.
But even as the number of fans gets bigger and bigger,
the women in the cast feel the pressure
to get smaller and smaller.
-Looking back, I was so nervous.
I was on the number one show in the world.
I ate very little, and I was extremely disciplined
when I knew that, you know,
I had three or four heavy days of work.
I mean, that meant no salt, you know,
not as much water as I should have had.
I mean, it was unhealthy, looking back.
I was almost too thin.
I did hear, like, rumored through the years
that other girls had this clause
in their contract that they had to,
you know, be a certain weight or that type of thing.
-We're not allowed to get fat.
That's what it says in our contract.
- Kosher salami. - Bologna.
-That's how we keep the "Baywatch" figure.
-You know, the problem with being so restrictive,
you're creating a problematic relationship with food.
Restricted eating is related to disordered eating
and then to eating disorders.
And so, when you have an unrealistic,
unattainable ideal out there
and that is what you're being told you need to achieve,
well, you're going to feel bad about yourself.
-I'm sure there's a ton of girls on the show that struggled,
that maybe had made really, really unhealthy choices
because of the pressure.
-Wearing a bathing suit
to work is part of the job on "Baywatch".
And the pressure to look good is universal.
-Some people would say, "Oh, they were exploited
in their bathing suits."
Well, the men were in bathing suits, too.
You know? We had a lot of hot looking guys
that were very popular.
-Guys would wear trunks so their bodies would be featured.
And we were the only show on television doing that.
-You always think about the women, like,
well, what did they go through and how did they struggle
and how do they keep fit?
But, you know, the men had to... You know, David Chokachi
was ripped. Like... I was like,
"What the heck are you doing? I mean, clearly working out.
But..."
And even David Hasselhoff,
like, he kept in excellent shape.
-Just to go back to the body image stuff,
did you ever notice steroids
or did you ever hear people talking?
-No. That's funny you mention that.
I heard a lot of other things, but not steroids.
I'm sure there was definitely that going on.
I think that that would have been kept quiet.
I don't think that they would have advertised that.
-Because it was a lot of pressure, man.
I went from this cute kid to like puberty boy, you know.
All of a sudden, you're, like, weird-looking, you got zits.
You know, producers are telling me
I need to diet, and, like, it's not easy.
You know, no 15-year-old kid should be, like,
worried about not having a six pack, you know,
or like having no carbs for lunch or feeling guilty
for whatever or, like, needing a personal trainer.
♪♪
-Jeremy grew up with a mother, but his father was not there,
so David Hasselhoff really became Jeremy's dad
in real life as much as he was
Jeremy's dad on the show.
-Why do I have to spend the night at someone's house?
-Because I'm on 24-hour shifts.
-What, you don't think I can survive
that long without adult supervision?
-Jackson struggles with the pressure of being a teenager
on a hit TV show.
Then, thanks to encouragement from his surrogate dad,
he embarks on a whole new career.
-♪ You can run ♪
♪ You can do anything that you wanna do ♪
♪ Be whatever you wanna be ♪
David Hasselhoff and I are at lunch,
and he had already been doing music in Europe,
you know?
So he calls his producer, and he's like,
"Hey, I think I want to do a song for this kid", right?
So we're in the recording studio.
We're recording this song, "You Can Run".
Right? And we drop the single.
It hits number three on the Billboard European charts.
And I'm going out there performing
at the Olympic Stadium in front of 15,000 people,
like, ready to pee my pants as they're chanting,
"Jer-e-my! Jer-e-my!"
Like, lighters up and everything. [ Chuckles ]
-So Jeremy, he started getting all the press
that the girls on the show were getting
because he was now becoming a rapper.
-And Jeremy became like a teen idol
and he was making all this money.
-Hobie, what are you doing here?
-I'm here to win the $1,200.
Let's go! Yeah!
-By the time I was 16, going to mansion parties
and nightclubs.
-Drinking, doing drugs, staying up late,
coming to the set hungover.
-I'm in the limo with the 21-year-old girls.
They're not going home.
I'm going to go to the after party
and then I'm going to go to the after-after party.
And I don't know if you've ever been to an after-after party
when the sun's coming up.
You know, things get real crazy.
♪♪
-Jackson's underaged partying is alarming,
but it's nothing compared to the crazy behavior of adults
that surround him.
- "Baywatch" is a worldwide phenomenon,
and that's blood in the water for the tabloid sharks
who see a chance to get rich from invading
the private lives of the show's stars.
[ Camera shutters clicking ]
-As "Baywatch" got more and more popular,
the paparazzi got more and more bold
to get pictures, so they would chase after
especially Pam.
When Gena Lee Nolin first came on the show,
we actually had them stage a fight,
and "The National Enquirer" covered it, about
how the new girl on "Baywatch" and the old girl are fighting
and all this other stuff. They loved each other.
We did it just to kind of, you know, get the press,
because it turned out that every story about "Baywatch",
positive or negative, helped.
-Paparazzi, at that moment in time...
It was truly maddening.
They would follow me home. We didn't have social media,
luckily, back then.
They went to my mom's house in Minnesota.
You know, she's like, "Oh, there's people
that are out front.
They're taking pictures and oh, jeez, I don't know what to do.
Do I go out and talk to them?" I'm like, "No.
You don't talk to them."
[ Camera shutters clicking ]
-While the entire cast draws attention of the paparazzi,
there seems to be a bottomless obsession
with the show's biggest star.
-There were lots of aspects to our life
that people found fascinating and they found her glamorous
and were very intrigued by her and her life.
In some ways, I would kind of consider
her the '90s version of the Kardashians.
-[ Whistles ]
-And is the Kardashians will do decades later,
Pamela Anderson finds herself in some explosive relationships.
-Pamela owned a nightclub,
and that's where she met Tommy Lee.
On New Year's Eve,
she saw him and she sent over a drink
and he came back over with a bottle of champagne,
and kind of climbed in between her girlfriends and Pam
and licked her face from the chin to the temple.
-Well, if some is great, more is always better.
You know? I think once you get a taste
of something, like, that delicious,
you just want to like, you know...
It's like carbs. Just don't eat the donut.
You won't want more. Pamela Anderson is the donut.
If you get a little lick of that,
you're out of ketosis, homie.
It's all bad.
-Pam went down to do a photo shoot.
Tommy Lee followed her to Cancun.
As a matter of fact, that white bathing suit
that she brought with her,
she took off the set of "Baywatch".
Four days later, they were married,
and it was this, you know, fairy tale romance.
-The interest level in this couple was off the charts.
You know, she's just this gorgeous little Canadian girl
and you see the bad boy, you know, rock and roller,
and it's like the perfect mix for a storm for paparazzi.
-Tommy Lee was a rock star in the truest sense of the word.
And Pamela, she's got a whole audience
that has never even heard of Tommy Lee.
I don't even know if he'd been a jealous person before,
but it heightened any sense of "insecurities".
Let's put it that way.
-Pam and Tommy Lee had a dynamic
that impacted "Baywatch".
Tommy Lee was very jealous.
So, when I wrote a passionate scene
between Pam and David Chokachi,
where they're falling for each other and they have to kiss...
So she kissed him in the scene, you know, and later on,
Tommy kind of trashed her trailer,
and we had to kind of get him out of there.
Rock stars don't necessarily have the most self-control.
-I definitely did see the circus that went on
with this relationship
and the people that were so interested
in every little thing that they did, you know,
especially when he would come to set.
-He would disrupt them in the middle of a shoot
and say, "Oh, no, no, no, you got to come to my trailer.
We're going in here right now."
And he would keep her in there for hours.
-The red hot dynamic between Anderson and Lee
and the core of their personal life
will soon be served up in a way the world has never experienced,
when the newfound Internet gets a hold of something
the couple don't even know they're missing.
-In the mid-'90s, compact camcorders become available
to consumers for the first time.
The new technology puts the art of filmmaking in the hands
of amateurs, including rocker Tommy Lee,
who directs and costars in his own biopic
featuring his honeymoon with Pamela Anderson.
The now-infamous video was never intended
for global distribution,
but it happens when an electrician who gets fired
by Lee steals a safe belonging
to the couple as revenge.
When the thief cracks it open, he discovers the tape
and decides to share it with the world.
-Internet Entertainment Group of Seattle
somehow got a copy, digitized it,
and put it on two of their dozen adult Web sites.
-On the set of "Baywatch",
a humiliated Anderson tries to keep it together.
-She's very private, very private woman,
and I respect that privacy.
You know, if you can lend support
or, you know, a hand in any way
just because it is such a violation
between a husband and wife to boot.
I can't even fathom...
I can't fathom what they went through.
-I think we all just pretend it didn't happen,
you know, since we all knew her, you know, she was our friend.
It's kind of like don't ask, don't tell.
-But the Internet turns their private moment
into an international sensation and redefines
the phrase "invasion of privacy".
Anderson, celebrated for her confidence in sexuality,
finds herself in the center of a storm of judgment,
with few coming to her defense.
- asshole. You're a... asshole.
- You're a drunk fiend. - How dare you?
-Where's your child this time of the morning?
-I'll kill you! You... asshole!
-Tommy, you're a... prick!
-Watch them, make sure they don't get hit.
-At first, even the producers
are nervous about Anderson's sex tape.
- "Baywatch" had romance instead of sex.
We were sexy, but not sexual.
But what happened is when Pam's sex tape came out,
the distributor said, "Oh, my God, this is terrible.
We're a family show. You've got to write
Pam out of the show."
We argued about it, but they said,
"Write her out of the show. That's an order."
So I started to write her out of the show.
All of a sudden, Doug...
I remember him coming in my office saying,
"Don't write her out of the show.
The episode for this week just aired
and it's twice the ratings that we had before."
So the sex tape totally shot up the ratings.
-Like the ratings for "Baywatch",
sales of the sex tape soar.
The company that distributed the stolen video
makes upwards of $50 million,
and Pamela and Tommy Lee go after that money.
-It's too late to stop the tape.
I mean, it's all over the world.
That's trying to put the spilled milk back in the bottle.
-After a judge orders the video company
to pay a hefty settlement, the company declares bankruptcy.
Pamela and Tommy Lee walk away with nothing.
In the new and unregulated world of the Internet,
Andersen loses an early battle in a war
that will rage on for years.
-My fight is not for me alone,
but for all celebrities whose privacy has been invaded.
I will continue to fight not only for myself and my children,
but also for legislation
that would make what they're doing to me a crime.
-Pamela's call for legislation is ignored,
and soon, being victimized in this new technological
Wild West will be just one more price of fame.
-That was one of the first sex tapes,
by the way, that people started doing
because they had video cameras and they could do that.
-That's today's fame. It's very different.
Now, it's like, "Yeah, so what? I got a sex tape. Yeah.
You're not famous unless you have a sex tape."
Like, Pamela Anderson once again changed
the whole dynamic, flipped the script.
-For Anderson, there's one financial upside
to all the exposure.
Her salary at $5,000 an episode
when she started on "Baywatch"
rises to 40 grand a show in her final season.
But there's a cost...
Her private life is now just tabloid fodder,
including the physical abuse she's experiencing at home.
Then she quits everything,
first the show in 1997,
and then Tommy Lee the following year.
"Baywatch" also goes through a breakup.
-After seven years shooting in Los Angeles,
because of other, you know, budgets
and the state of the business, we moved the show to Hawaii.
-The new location is cheaper to produce in,
and "Baywatch: Hawaii" also makes
a notable wardrobe change.
-We had a big debate
about changing the colors of the bathing suits to yellow.
I didn't particularly agree with it,
but I was outvoted, and they look great.
But I always felt that the the red bathing suits
had become so iconic.
-Jackson puts his rapping career behind him
and joins the cast in Hawaii.
Now 18, he can sense that
it's not just the swimsuits that are different.
-Ratings are low. You know, we're on syndication.
We got to hit these numbers.
They're bringing in one beautiful girl
after the next to try to boot it.
-The show's struggle to retain its audience
mirrors Jackson's own struggles.
-He was making millions of dollars on "Baywatch".
He was getting in real trouble.
-He's an example of what happens
to a lot of young kids who become stars.
-♪ I'll be ready ♪
-♪ Never you fear ♪
-♪ No, don't you fear ♪
-The boy who grew up on the beach
now spends his days in darkness
using crystal meth and cocaine.
-You know, I had to go to a few rehabs
sometimes before I would work in the summer
because I'd be like, "Oh, crap,
I got to work in a month and I don't want to stop."
So I'd go to rehab, getting a little Betty Ford action.
When your performance starts to dwindle down
based on lifestyle choices, you're like...
Can't remember your lines or you don't feel good
and you got dark circles under your eyes.
And David Hasselhoff kind of pulled me aside.
He's like, "Dude, you know, what's going on, man?"
He's like, "Are you smoking pot?"
And I'm like, "Pot would probably help me right now.
I probably need to smoke some weed right now.
I might be better,
but if I really told you what I'm doing,
you would probably call an ambulance right now
or like put me in a psych ward."
- If you'd rather... - This show,
you know, used to be about this cool father-son dynamic.
And now I'm not in it as much because I'm not as adorable.
So there's also, like, some underground resentment going on.
And so I walked off the set that day
when he called me out thinking I was stoned.
I just, like, told everybody, "Screw you. Eff you.
I'm out of here.
I don't frickin' need this show anymore."
-And while Jackson fights his inner demons,
his on-camera father figure
will come face-to-face with his own.
-It's a lot of money.
-In 1999, Jeremy Jackson quits "Baywatch",
but not the drugs and alcohol
he battled with as a cast member,
and the show's body image obsession
soon creates a new problem to overcome.
-He has probably an addictive personality.
You know, he got into bodybuilding
and was really into that.
-I was just going to get jacked, you know,
and I was way too young to get on hormone replacement therapy.
But, you know, I found a doctor that would do it.
And so I got on prescription steroids
to, like, get all jacked and I'll be huge
and that'll be great and super fit.
And everybody will be like, "Whoa, he's so fit.
We got to give him money. Let's just give him money.
He looks great."
Where does that idea come from?
Well, maybe growing up around
David Chokachi and, right, David Charvet.
It's like, if you look great, you get airtime.
So that was my mindset in getting into steroids.
-Soon enough,
Jackson's substance use takes its toll.
-We're talking destitute.
We're talking depression. We're talking addiction.
-By 2015, Jackson goes to jail for nine months
after stabbing a woman during a heated argument.
It's rock bottom,
but Jackson's former cast mates don't give up on him.
-At one point, he was in jail,
and three or four of the cast members
came to jail to visit him.
And, you know, they stayed a family.
Absolutely stayed a family.
-After more than two decades wrestling with addiction,
Jackson cleans up his act.
-Well, I've been working in the recovery community
for some years as a breath work meditation healer,
certified as a drug and alcohol counselor.
I love what I do. I have a good time. I help people.
-You know, I think Jeremy's better now today
for having gone through all that.
I think it's made him stronger, given him a lot of character.
[ Fake sobbing ] I'm still trying to get a sick pack!
[ Laughs ]
-Jeremy's on-screen dad, David Hasselhoff,
also struggled with addiction issues,
as evidenced by this video.
-This is a mess.
-Shot by his real world daughter,
in which a drunk Hasselhoff
eats a hamburger off the floor.
Hasselhoff claims he asked her to record him
so he could see for himself how he acted under the influence.
"Baywatch" spends the '90s
indulging the world with its American dream,
but after moving to Hawaii,
the show's U.S. viewership steeply declines
and "Baywatch's" syndicator finally pulls the plug.
In 2001, its record breaking run comes to an.
-The world changed, syndication changed.
If you look, there's no more shows like "Baywatch"
or "Hercules" or "Xena".
All those shows were syndicated shows.
They don't exist any longer.
So it was unique to the time. The '90s were the right time.
We were the right show, and we struck the right chord.
- "Baywatch" continues to live on in reruns
and in the public imagination.
Pamela Anderson retains her captive audience
as the media tracks her career and continued activism.
-I was involved with PETA
long before PETE knew that I was involved.
You know, as a person back in Canada
sending donations and everything.
-Anderson will also famously remove her implants in 2001,
symbolizing another change in body ideals.
-When Pamela Anderson got her implants removed,
that was all over the media, and in some ways,
it was kind of like the end of the "Baywatch" era.
What's interesting is around the time
that she had her implants removed,
there were also increases in other women
going and having those implants removed.
I'm not saying that she caused it.
I'm just saying that it just so happened
- "Baywatch" and its cast surf the wave of worldwide success
and mostly kept its head above water.
-One, two, three.
-And proved that a made-up show about lifeguards
can even help save a life.
-There's an article about this eight-year-old kid
whose four-year-old brother was drowning
and he dove in the pool,
got his four-year-old brother out,
and gave his brother CPR, mouth to mouth resuscitation CPR.
They asked this eight-year-old kid,
"Where did you learn that?" He said, "Watching 'Baywatch'."
-One, two, three, four, five. Breathe!
-We did 270 episodes.
That's a lot of stories.
-All of this exists because of my Uncle Sherwood
saying, "You guys should go back and buy back your rights,"
which we did with that 10 bucks.
So, amazing what you can do with $10.
-It was life changing because there was nothing,
nothing that superseded "Baywatch".
As crazy as it was, I would do it again and again
and again. I would do it again.