Nudity on Cable TV

When HBO first came on Cable TV it ran a number of different forms of entertainment. Its main draw was uninterrupted and uncut movies. Then it branched out into airing its own productions. These are a few that broke new ground, not only HBO, but other cable/streaming services.

Dream On: created by Marta Kauffman and David Crane; that followed Martin Tupper, a divorced New York City book editor played by Brian Benben. It ran for six seasons on HBO between July 8, 1990, and March 27, 1996.

The show broke television norms in two ways. It was original and exclusively on HBO. It contained unfettered language and nudity; lots of nudity.

The premise of Dream On, was Martin Tupper was raised watching TV. Whenever an event happens it reminds him of a scene in a movie or TV show and a clip was inserted into the story. He also meets lots of women and hooks up, in today’s parlance.

It’s hard to imagine that this came out 35 years ago. Today, Max, Stars, Showtime, Netflix and other streaming services dominate swearing. and nudity.

Back then Dream On was breaking new ground, and Ms. Kauffman and Mr. Crane broke a lot of it. According to Mr. Skin 27 women appeared nude in the run of the show. The most prominent was Catherine Bell, who went on to appear in JAG and Army Wives. I’ll spare the reader from skipping over the list of 26 other actresses.

Other notables who were on the show, but didn’t show skin was: Lisa Boyle, Courtney Cox, Sally Kellerman, Gates…