15 years ago, an NBC soap opera shocked and horrified audiences with a turkey baster.
Via: NBC
It had a cult following as big as Passions, yet when most people think of a crazy soap opera, they think of the one with zombies and witches and tiny dolls. But fans of the NBC soap opera Sunset Beach know that in one fateful summer 15 years ago, this show managed to outdo any of the insanity Passions could muster with two simple words.
Turkey baster.
If you know what that's referring to, then you're already having flashbacks to the most ridiculous soap opera story ever cooked up. And that's saying something when it aired alongside the aforementioned Passions and Days Of Our Lives, both of which have tapped into the demonic possession well. But this show didn't need monsters to lure people in, it starred hot actors and was set on a beach, so it was essentially Baywatch with crazier storylines.
The show only aired from 1997 to 1999, but let's all take a look back at the summer that our lives were changed forever and we were never able to look at Thanksgiving dinner the same again.
Sunset Beach was the first daytime soap opera produced by hit-maker Aaron Spelling (Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210) and dove headfirst into the exciting world of "the internet" that young people were into in 1998. Meg Cummings (basically Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, right down to the living on a farm in Kansas part) discovered her fiancé was cheating on her and so she ran away to Sunset Beach to be with a man she met online named SB. As you do. SB turned out to be Ben Evans, a really hot, wealthy recluse so it's a good thing that worked out for her. Meg spent all of her time trying to make Ben love her, doing psychotic things like breaking into his home and dressing up in his dead wife's clothes.
The show borrowed heavily from pop culture. Characters frequently had fantasies that they were on programs like The Jerry Springer Show and Friends, Pop-Up Video-style captions appeared in the middle of scenes, and there was a summer long Scream rip-off homage with a summer-long storyline called "Terror Island" where a slasher picked off none of the important cast members. Cast members were made up of scheming Annie who accidentally buried herself alive, the hunky Father Antonio who accidentally made a sex tape with his brother's fiancé, and Real Housewife Brandi Glanville's philandering ex Eddie Cibrian walked around with his shirt off a lot.
But the characters at the center of the show's most controversial storyline — yes, this is about the turkey baster — were lovers Michael and Vanessa.
