This weekend I was thinking about (wangin' it to) one of my favorite mainstream scenes, the Tia Carrere mud fight scene from RELIC HUNTER. I recorded the initial broadcast on VHS back in 1999, which means it's almost 20 years old. Eep! Just think, if I had pumped that first load into a real live female, instead of into the shag carpeting here at the Casa Regis Man Cave, I could have a kid in college by now! What a waste of great DNA.
Anyhoo, where was I? Oh yes. So I looked that episode up on the ol' interwebs and found a few things I didn't have before.
1. The IMDb page for that episode has some behind-the-scenes photos from this episode. The stunt double for the bad girl, Roberta Angelica, is visible in one of them, which is kinda neat.
2. It's been available to stream in HD, so here's a link to the mud scene in a higher resolution than I had seen before.
3. The HD transfer reveals something I'd always suspected from the TV and DVD versions, but couldn't quite be sure about: Roberta Angelica has a legit nip slip when she wipes some mud off her chest. It looks like they noticed it at the time and took out or repeated a frame or two on either end of the slip, but couldn't remove the whole thing without leaving a noticeable glitch in the shot. So it's only one or maybe two frames (see captures below), but it's definitely a basic cable nipple. You're welcome!
I've been working through the Relic Hunter series over the last few weeks. I'm mid-way through season 2 at the moment, but have paused it for a while to binge-watch something on Netflix. Have to say, though, the season 2 is mostly much better than season 1.
It's odd watching these from a distance of twenty years (and I didn't see them first time around), as it's pretty clear that these wouldn't be made in the same way now. I really don't think there would be anything like the amount of lingering camera on Sidney if it were made - although, to be fair, there seems to be every opportunity taken to get Nigel's clothes off in the first series.
It's all good fun, though, and very enjoyable in a silly way. The most recent release of season 1 on DVD is in widescreen, too.
Brownie said: I still get blue balls from this. In an alternate universe Tia Carrere fell face first into that mud.
This scene's reception was a constant reminder to me, back in the day, at how subjective people's tastes were.
I personally rate it negatively for the same reason you seem to have issues with it. Not a drop of mud on her face. For me, it was actively annoying for that reason, yet it was constantly brought up and heralded, often cites as being "perfect" and Oh-so-great. Fuck even here, over a decade or however long it's been later.
My personal grade is an F. My WAM life would be happier without knowledge of it's existence and seeing it has zero impact on me other than annoyance -- but that's just me. If someone gets their rocks off here, happy for you. It's not always just about me and the specific niche-within-a-niche likes and dislikes I have.
We're a fractured community, at least as tastes go. Not a big deal.
This and that fucking Xena scene with Aphrodite taking a mud bath. Just saw it over and over, like a Nickelback song, and no mud on anyone's face whatsoever. At least Xena more than made up for this with other scenes...
That isn't really accurate, though. Carrere gets a little bit of spatter on her face and Angelica gets a fair amount. It's not a great scene for facial coverage, but it's not the Olivia Munn pie dive either.
I was thinking, though, that the RELIC HUNTER scene is guilty of getting all three of the guys muddier than the women (even though the female fight is the primary one). So arguably it's kind of sexist / anti-wam in that sense! And yet it still checks enough catfight / mud coverage boxes to make my top ten list.
XENA had a number of wam scenes and I thought all of them managed to be pretty worthless (and they sure took up a lot of space on many of the VHS cliptapes I paid good money for!).
Love you, too
