8 TV Shows That Owe Their Longevity To Boobs

1. Baywatch

A show about lifeguards at a resort beach lasted for 11 seasons. Wrap your head around that. Baywatch was on the air for 11 !*$% seasons. That's longer than Friends, Smallville, Scrubs, The Love Boat, All In The Family, Everybody Loves Raymond, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, The X-Files, 24, and Seinfeld.

That's more than Twin Peaks, Firefly, Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks, and Deadwood combined. And sure, Baywatch had to last at least 100 episodes to reach syndication (where it thrived during its afternoon time slot because of that key Pubescent Boys Faking Sick To Get Out Of School demographic), but they would have reached that in five seasons.

So what about those other six seasons of television that were produced without the scantest of believable or even semi-functioning plot lines? Are you telling me there was really a desire to watch all of these lifeguards do decidedly un-lifeguardian things while fully clothed? (Every episode in the 8th season has something to do with stopping drug smugglers, or jewel thieves, or...mermaids.)

The plots were secondary. Baywatch kept people returning because it was forthright with its silliness and never shied away from the fact that this was a show about beautiful people running around on the beach in slow motion. Also, whenever ratings started to dip, they'd simply bring in some guest boobs (Jenny McCarthy, Daisy Fuentes, Hulk Hogan) to help keep things afloat.

If you really think this show didn't last as long as it did because of the hot bodies, just take a look at the abysmal spinoff, Baywatch Nights, which pretty much exorcised every instance of bare skin in favor of a more "serious" tone. It lasted only two seasons.