Entertainment
Raunchy 90s Series Starring The Most Downloaded Woman On The Internet Is A Campy Good Time
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Back in the 90s, Baywatch was the most popular series on the planet, and as a result, Pamela Anderson was the most popular woman on the fledgling internet. Throughout the decade, she would be either one of the top-searched women or the number one search term, depending on which web browser was surveyed.
Remember Lycos? Also lost to the sands of time is her other ’90s series, the action-comedy V.I.P. Airing for four seasons and 88 episodes starting in 1998, the syndicated series gave millions of fans exactly what they wanted week after week: goofy self-deprecating humor.
V.I.P. Is All About Faking It Til You Make It
In 2026, Pamela Anderson is enjoying a career resurgence thanks to The Naked Gun and its press tour, during which she showed off her sharp wit. Anyone who’s seen V.I.P. knew that the blonde bombshell was well aware of her image as a well, blonde bombshell, and frequently made fun of it through her character, Vallery Irons. Accidentally finding herself thrust into the world of high-end bodyguards, Vallery has no idea what she’s doing but always manages to save the day in the end.
It’s an interesting dynamic where the new figurehead boss is forced into the spotlight while the competent, veteran team does all the real work behind the scenes. If you were to guess that everyone else on the cast looks like they came right from a Victoria’s Secret runway, you’d be correct. Even the men on V.I.P.’s staff, Quick and Johnny, were played by martial artists, Shaun Baker and Dustin Nguyen, respectively.
There’s no overarching mythology arc to V.I.P., and every episode follows the same formula of a celebrity/rich person hiring the team to protect them. Val and the rest of the team, Natasha (Molly Culver), Nikki (Natalie Raitano), Maxine (Angella Brooks), and Kay (Leah Lail), will somehow have to put on skimpy outfits in order to go undercover, distract the mafia, act as a body double, or any other countless number of reasons the writers were able to come up with during the 88 episode run.
The Queen Of Syndication
Pamela Anderson served as an executive producer on V.I.P., working alongside series creator J.F. Lawton (a name you don’t recognize, but he wrote Pretty Woman and Under Siege), who had a similar sense of humor. Together, they gave the studio what they wanted: hot people looking hot, but surrounded it with the campiest storylines since Batman ‘66 and constant references poking fun at the premise itself.
V.I.P. was a hit for all the obvious reasons and even launched a line of toys, comics, and, inexplicably, video games. A series built entirely on sex appeal is the logical choice for a Game Boy Color adaptation. After the series went off the air, there was a significantly less successful attempt to replicate Pamela Anderson’s success with Species star Natasha Henstridge’s She-Spies. Turns out there’s only one Pamela Anderson.
Anderson’s movie career may have fizzled out after Baywatch, and V.I.P. wasn’t her first choice after ditching the red swimsuit, but it worked with her second hit syndicated series in a row. Who knew the secret to syndication success was to put attractive people in the skimpiest clothing legally allowed?
Entertainment
Hurdle hints and answers for April 29, 2026
If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.
There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it’ll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.
An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.
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If you find yourself stuck at any step of today’s Hurdle, don’t worry! We have you covered.
Hurdle Word 1 hint
To admire.
Hurdle Word 1 answer
ADORE
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Hurdle Word 2 hint
Heavy.
Hurdle Word 2 Answer
HEFTY
Mashable 101 Fan Fave: Nominate your favorite creators today
Hurdle Word 3 hint
Two-legged.
Hurdle Word 3 answer
BIPED
Hurdle Word 4 hint
Hefty.
Hurdle Word 4 answer
HEAVY
Final Hurdle hint
Pointy.
Hurdle Word 5 answer
SHARP
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Entertainment
Moon phase today: What the Moon will look like on April 29
It may appear full, but the Moon isn’t actually at 100% illumination yet. In fact, we’re still a couple of days away. But it’s still big and bright enough to do some moon gazing, so keep reading to find out what features you might be able to see tonight.
What is today’s Moon phase?
As of Wednesday, April 29, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 94% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA’s Daily Moon Guide.
Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mares Vaproum, Tranquillitatis, and Imbrium. With binoculars, you’ll see the Mare Frigoris, Clavius Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. And, finally, with a telescope you’ll see all this plus the Apollo 17 landing spot, Rima Ariadaeus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.
When is the next Full Moon?
The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.
What are Moon phases?
According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.
New Moon – The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it’s invisible to the eye).
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Waxing Crescent – A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).
First Quarter – Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.
Waxing Gibbous – More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.
Full Moon – The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.
Waning Gibbous – The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)
Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) – Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.
Waning Crescent – A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.
Entertainment
The ASUS TUF Gaming F16 gaming laptop is down to a record-low price at Amazon — now $400 off
TL;DR: Amazon has the ASUS TUF Gaming F16 gaming laptop on sale for $899.99, down from its $1,299.99 list price. That saves you $400 on a 2025 gaming laptop with an Intel Core i5-13450HX processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 graphics, 16GB of DDR5 memory, and a 165Hz FHD+ display.
$899.99
at Amazon
$1,299.99
Save $400
Finding a current-gen gaming laptop in today’s economy for under $1,000 is already amazing, but Amazon’s latest ASUS deal is offering you an all-time low bargain.
As of April 28, the ASUS TUF Gaming F16 gaming laptop is on sale for $899.99 at Amazon, marked down from $1,299.99. Price tracker camelcamelcamel has confirmed that this is the lowest-ever price for this gaming laptop.
For that price, you’re getting the RTX 5050 and Intel Core i5 version of the TUF Gaming F16, which is built around an Intel Core i5-13450HX processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Laptop GPU. It also comes with 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 512GB PCIe Gen4 SSD, so it should be nicely suited for jumping between games, school work, everyday browsing, and plenty of tabs without causing your sessions to come to a sudden crash.
With those sorts of specs, this version of the ASUS TUF Gaming F16 lets you comfortably run games from the latest graphically demanding titles — including Crimson Desert, Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and Pragmata.
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The 16-inch FHD+ display is a big part of the appeal, with ASUS’s fitted 165Hz 16:10 panel with 100% sRGB color giving you extra vertical space compared to a standard 16:9 screen while keeping motion smoother in fast-paced games like Fortnite and Counter-Strike 2. The handy Adaptive-Sync also helps cut down on stuttering and screen tearing when your frame rate starts shifting during intense firefights or brawls with lots of assets moving around at the same time.
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The TUF Gaming F16 keeps the series’ usual more rugged angle, as well. ASUS has had the laptop tested to MIL-STD-810H standards, while its 2nd Gen Arc Flow Fans, full-width heatsink, and full-width vent are designed to help keep performance steady without making the machine unnecessarily loud.
If you’re after a laptop that’s more for work than gaming, Samsung’s ultra-sleek Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 just got a $450 price cut.
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