Cru Jones Society

 

Movies have been made since the beginning of time about people’s professions and places of business. This is no surprise considering how much of our lives is dominated by work. This is the only reasonable explanation for people finding Dilbert funny.

No matter your place of business, you add the word “bikini” to it, you’ve not only increased your sales 300% (provided you sell goods marketed at middle school aged boys), you’ve got yourself a staple of mid-90s softcore porn movies! Come on inside as we count down the 6 greatest bikini professions in cinema history.

6. The Bikini Carwash Company (1992)

IMDB User-Written Plot Synopsis: A group of young women decide to help out at the local carwash. To attract more customers and increase profits the girls opt for a simple uniform… the bikini. Cars queue up for miles, but the authorities aren’t happy with the way women are operating.

Analysis: The Bikini Carwash Company is a cable classic and the originator of the Bikini Employment genre. This movie spawned four sequels (yes, four) and basically every other movie on this list. Considering that, it shouldn’t be surprising it’s also the best one of the bunch. Parts of it are actually funny, it came out when softcore porn had some novelty left in it, and bikini carwashes actually exist and thrive depending on the time of year. Who hasn’t thwarted their most pervy instincts and dutifully driven past the high school girls trying to raise money for their swim team despite every fiber in your body telling you to go there and letch at ‘em like you’re fucking Mr. Herbert staring at Chris Griffin for 15 minutes? This movie lets you do that – only the chicks have breast implants, a marked difference from high school. That is, unless you went to high school in Orange County.

5. Bikini Drive-In (1995)

IMDB User-Written Plot Synopsis: Kim Taylor inherits her grandfather’s drive-in theatre. She must raise $25,000 over one weekend or the bank will take the property from her. She also has to deal with pesky capitalist J.B. Winston. This is a fun, not politically correct movie.

Analysis: Compared to this idiotic idea, the Bikini Carwash Company looks like Swiffer in terms of project ingenuity and marketability. A bikini drive-in? Let’s examine the problems, shall we?

1) Drive-in theaters open at night diminishing the eye candy of bikini-clad employees substantially; 2) Drive-ins show movies, which, you know, might distract people from leering at your employees, the entire shaky premise upon which this business model is founded; and 3) Who the hell goes to the drive-in anymore anyway?

Needless to say, Citizen Kane this isn’t. Anytime someone has to deal with a “pesky capitalist,” god knows you’re not dealing with the most nuanced and thoughtful material. Why not just say: “Kim has to deal with annoying plot contrivances in between taking her top off for no reason”? I suppose in a sense this author did that. And believe me, this basic plot construction is going to be extremely familiar by the end of this article. Take for example…

4. Bikini Bistro (1995)

IMDB User-Written Plot Synopsis: Judy is having trouble drumming up business for her vegetarian restaurant, and the landlord gives her four days to pay off the mortgage. Judy calls up her friend Marilyn Chambers for help, and together they transform the restaurant into the Bikini Bistro, replete with scantily clad waitresses. Soon business is booming and the women are falling in lust, but the bartender is skimming the till and the landlord’s deadline is looming. Can the restaurant be saved?

Analysis: When I wrote the intro to Happy Friday last week about Sarah Palin, this was the movie I was most directly referring to. I remember watching this at 14 and getting frustrated as all hell with all the damn dialogue. Judy may be friends with porn icon Marilyn Chambers, but they sure didn’t spend enough time soaping up each other’s breasts or comparing tan lines for my 14 year-old tastes. This was back when a lot of softcore porn directors thought we actually gave a crap about the bartender skimming money and loaded the plot with tons of painfully expositional dialogue that made the movie feel like it was moving at a glacial pace because it was so blatantly obvious where it was going to everyone in the audience but took a ridiculously circuitous route to get there. This isn’t Glengarry Glen Ross, Mr. Director Man! Get back to filming another standing-up bone session next to the salad bar! Some of us have school in the morning!

I suspect this restaurant might have a difficult time with health codes, but if The Karate Kid expects us to believe Daniel could actually beat Dutch in the All-Valley Tournament, I suppose I can suspend disbelief long enough to watch almost naked women carry around drinks glued to their trays.

SPOILER ALERT: The restaurant is saved, the landlord ends up with some sort of hilariously humiliating food substance all over his head, and the chick with the glasses is indeed the hottest one of the group but only has the one nude scene at the end of the movie.

3. Bikini Hotel (1997)

IMDB User-Written Plot Synopsis: Samantha Vance inherits the Tiki Hotel when her father dies. She decides to fix it up but has problems drumming up business. Her friends throw a party at the hotel and an idea is born to make it the “Bikini Hotel” with all of the staff members wearing bikinis. This elicits jealousy in the nearby Regent Hotel who wish to turn Samantha’s hotel into a parking lot. It all culminates in a competition where the winner gets to stay.

Analysis: Imagine that, our heroine falls ass backwards into inheriting a business she knows nothing about, fends off the evil forces of whatever, and triumphs in tanned, silicone-filled, split bathing suit glory! What a wonderfully inventive narrative!

This essentially sounds like that episode of “Saved by the Bell” when Kelly’s grandfather is about to lose his Hawaiian hotel to the nasty conglomerate next door, but thanks to the hardy work of her friends and a moronic tribe of natives that makes Screech their chief, he staves off bankruptcy and defeats the evil hotel chain. Hooray! I love how Mr. Belding ended up on the same relatively remote island, on the same day, at the same time as his students in this episode. In my time on this earth I’ve seen exactly two teachers and one principal in real life. How can these people be this cosmically linked?!

A bikini hotel might actually work, but I think it would border perilously close to “brothel.” You’ve got a bunch of mostly naked women employed where people pay money to sleep. Yeah, this isn’t making it past the City Council. Unless you’re in rural Nevada, but that’s like saying, “in rural Mars.” Why anyone would ever open a business in the miserable desert is beyond me.

2. Bikini Traffic School (1997)

IMDB User-Written Plot Synopsis: This movie has that tired old plot involving our heroes having to make X amount of money in Y amount of time to save the business from the evil clutches of so-and-so. What makes this movie viewable to a horny hetero male like myself are the gorgeous women who take it off quite often. Shayna Ryan, who plays Marcie, is particularly nuclear! I recorded only the nudie parts and ended up with a 30-minute masterpiece.

Analysis: I think the synopsis was written by a 14 year-old which sends this movie into rarefied air. Not only did he describe one of the women as “nuclear,” but he actually re-cut the movie to include “only the nudie parts” for his own personal Orson Welles-style strokefest. Classic.

Too much time on his hands aside, this author certainly seems to have a good grip on the common plot construction of this film and those like it, and given our shared predilection toward this type of cinema, perhaps we could strike up an engaging conversation on which of these businesses is best and which of the “nuclear” babes stands out most. My money’s on the one in the glasses.

Or perhaps I could continue having a real job, handling my real world obligations, and trying not to alienate my real life girlfriend with articles like this one. Either way…

Were I ever to run afoul of traffic law, I think the normally onerous process of attending traffic school would become a much easier pill to swallow were the women attired in bikinis. No one would learn anything considering each demonstration of proper driving technique would amount to the men hoping for the perfect jostle that dislodges one of the instructor’s knockers from her bikini, which in turn impedes retention of many of the finer points of careful driving (the very reason you’re at traffic school in the first place). Upon further reflection, this is a business that causes more harm than good. For the good of the world, driving instructors should be fully clothed. Anything less renders the highways even more dangerous than they are now.

1. Bikini Med School (1994)

IMDB User-Written Plot Synopsis: BIKINI MED SCHOOL is an incredibly bad direct to video T & A comedy that looks like it was slapped together over a weekend. The plot – if you can even call it that – takes place at a medical school party that’s hosting a bikini contest. There are basically two segments in the movie: the first is about several male students and their attempts at scoring with specific co-eds and sexual hi-jinx that follows, and the second centers around, well, pretty much the same thing as the first one.

Analysis: By far and away the finest of the professions done in a bikini. Who wouldn’t want to attend this med school? I grant you the health and sanitation concerns that arise from lack of proper covering (much like we encountered at the Bikini Bistro), but honestly, who cares?! They’re pursuing a medical degree while wearing bikinis for godsakes! Someone could tell me I had butt cancer and that my intestines were going to rocket out my ass in five seconds, splatter against the wall, and crawl away like a character in Oddworld, but if she’s a hot blond wearing a bikini, I don’t think I’d give a crap.

Compounding the awesomeness is the fact that this movie intercuts the action with old stock black & white hospital footage every few minutes for no apparent reason. That means this movie was either or inspired by Ed Wood or directed by the man himself. Either way… righteous.

As it turns out, Bikini Med School is directed by that auteur genius Michael Paul Girard. Truly, this is Mr. Girard’s magnum opus. I hear (read: saw on IMDB) that he aspired for more greatness with Lust: The Movie and Babes 2: Lost in Beaver Creek, but nowhere else did he absurdly combine the simple visual erotic pleasure of watching a woman in a bikini with the solemn and noble pursuit of ensuring the health of a population. If you’re going to make a movie where women ply their chosen trades in the skimpiest of outfits, why not go the full nine? The premise is patently ludicrous, and this movie recognizes that. At least these women aren’t trying to save their business from some malicious mustache-twister who wants to develop the land they haphazardly attained. Sure, he rips off Animal House and lifts his directorial techniques from the worst director in the history of film, but who hasn’t?

I salute Mr. Girard, and I wish these ladies luck in their bikini-clad endeavors. And here’s to you, fair reader. May your failing business fall into the hands of some well-intentioned but clueless blond with breast implants and transform from simple florist, barber shop, or public relations firm to bikini florist, bikini barber shop and full-blown whorehouse. I’ll be cheering for ya’… and waiting for the inevitable movie about it on Cinemax.

Until next time…

edagger@crujonessociety.com