When Pamela Anderson first ran down a Los Angeles beach in slow motion on TV's 'Baywatch' millions of guys became overnight fans of the cheesy show.
It was pretty hard back then to convince girlfriends, wives, and mothers that we were watching so closely because of the quality of the acting and depths of the plot lines. The transparent truth was that the mixture of sun, sand, silicon, and peroxide simply made for mind-boggling viewing figures. Hammy Pammy became the definitive blonde icon in less time than it took George W. Bush to make his first stupid decision as President of the United States of America. The show that offers more breasts than Kentucky fried Chicken has run longer than some of the best American TV dramas. If I try to recall a storyline from even one show, I am at a loss. However, this doesn't stop me and millions of other guys the world over, from stopping on yet another rerun of a Baywatch episode as we flick through the endless pulp on digital, satellite, and regular TV.
So last week, while watching an extremely late-night rerun of 'Baywatch late' (which I am reliably informed is the version of the show geared toward a more adult audience?), I got to thinking about the question of whether it is true or not that 'blondes have more fun'.
Indeed Plastic Pammy has had her 'fun' broadcast all over the internet in recent years in the form of her infamous honeymoon video. And in a move that wasn't entirely 'blonde', rather than trying to stop its distribution she managed to sue various distributors for copyright infringement. An action that has seen her make a seven-figure sum in royalties for her and her rock star husbands stunning duet performance.
With the thought that it might just be true that blondes have more fun, and with a trip to America looming, I decided to see for myself if the presence of peroxide could increase my fun factor. So on Sunday, I became a blonde!
Granted, I am probably not the best guinea pig for a 'blondes have more fun' experiment. For a start, I lack an impressive set of fillets and I'm not likely to strut my stuff in a plunging neckline number. But there has been a long line of guys in the media who have gone before me caking their heads in extremely strong and smelly bleach. So surely if these guys are doing it then maybe there could be something to the theory after all?
For me, the whole process of becoming a blonde was relatively easy. I have the pleasure of living above a hairdressing salon and therefore have ended up befriending and sharing a lot of time with a bunch of girls who have more new looks than Madonna. But even if I didn't live here it wouldn't take long to find a salon. It seems that the Wirral suburb of Bebington has more hairdressing salons per square mile than any other place on the planet. These places probably stay in business due to the local fashion that requires most track suit wearing Merseyside males to have very little hair on their heads in order to look as threatening and as 'hard' as possible.
One of the advantages of living above excitable female hairdressers is that you need never pay for a haircut again, and if you are especially brave, trusting, or just plain stupid, you could even be a model for the apprentice. Another advantage of life with hairdressers is that conversation while having your haircut no longer revolves around the subjects of where you are going on vacation.
There are disadvantages though, for example, your business becomes their business and in the end, it becomes pretty much everyone else's business too. If you date one of the girls, then you effectively date all of them, only without the fun bits! Another disadvantage is that pretty much everyone ends up thinking that you too are a hairdresser, and if you're a guy, then by default they will assume you are a gay hairdresser at that!
So on Sunday in return for all sorts of favors I was able to persuade Rachael to work her magic and make me into a blonde. She had been out the night before and was feeling somewhat hungover. Evidently she had so much fun that she couldn't quite remember how she got home. A worrying prospect given the fact that she was about to cake my head in extremely potent bleach.
As Rachael put the bleach on my head I pondered how much of a pain in the ass all this must be for a peroxide blonde. Imagine having to have your roots done every few weeks, what a drag! But then I think this is another one of those differences between men and women. It's right up there with the likes of putting on makeup, curling your eyebrows, shaving your legs, and going to the bathroom in twos.
It's only been a few days now that I have been blonde, so perhaps the expected fun is yet to come. It's true to say that attention has increased, but the attention of a gay waiter in Liverpool wasn't exactly the target demographic I was going for.
Perhaps there are some blonde stories ahead. I'll be in America soon, and that's the land of the Allah of all blondes, Pamela Anderson. America is a country obsessed with the blonde, so who knows, maybe I'll shortly find out whether or not blondes really do have more fun.