Porky's Revenge (1985)

Men longed for the kind of luscious classmate played by Kimberly Evenson (Miss September 1984) in the 1985 teen exploitation film Porky's Revenge. Evenson's lines were few ("Ya, ya.") as Swedish exchange student Inga, but she captivated Pee Wee the class geek with her nonverbal charms. The coveted object of Pee Wee's affection throughout the film, Inga appears in the film's opening fantasy sequence disrobing at the high school commencement ceremony. By the end of the sophomoric comedy, Inga has participated in ribald pranks along with her randy female classmates, going so far as to actually bring Pee Wee's fantasy to life at the real commencement by revealing her attributes to the salivating teen.

Star 80 (1983)

A more downbeat Eighties spin on the Playmate-as-fantasy-object was Star 80, Bob Fosse's revealing 1983 examination of Playmate Dorothy Stratten's rise to fame and eventual murder. Set against the backdrop of the Playboy Mansion and the disco milieu of roller boogie and Rod Stewart, Star 80 included Playmate cameos by Lorraine Michaels (Miss April 1981), Cathy St. George (Miss August 1982), Lonny Chin (Miss January 1983) and Tracy Vaccaro (Miss October 1983). Featuring Mariel Hemingway as the attention-craving Stratten (a role for which Hemingway underwent a highly publicized breast enlargement), the film showed some of the harsh reality behind the glamorous Playboy facade -- as well as how a naive girl like Stratten could become the victim of a manipulative man.

The Playmate look was so much in demand in the Eighties, in fact, that the market was flooded with aspiring beauties scrambling for motion picture immortality. As Playmate Kathy Shower (Miss May 1985), who appeared in L.A. Goddess, American Kickboxer II, Out on Bail and Commando Squad jokingly recalls, "When I got to LA, I found out everyone in town looked like me, even the men."

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