Basic Trope: A work prominently features full-figured female characters, typically engaged in some kind of activity that keeps them on the move.
- Straight: Hit 70s TV show "Pageant Police" follows Officer Bob and Officer Alice as members of a newly created police unit, that focuses solely on beauty pageant-related crimes and offenses. Incidentally, this always involves new pageant themes/casts every week, with lots of close-up, slow-motion shots of their pageant-worthy talents.
- Exaggerated:
- The entire show is literally just close-up, slow-motion shots of women's chests moving.
- Every episode has some ridiculously contrived reason as to why Bob has to get all of the contestants nude at once: checking them for contraband, trying to find a ticking time bomb, or looking for a criminal confirmed to have a certain birthmark are favorite excuses, among others. Sometimes this is in the changing rooms, and sometimes it's up on stage as the pageant is taking place, the beauty queens all standing there mortified with their hands up while the audience screams or cheers.
- Downplayed: The show features attractive women with full figures, but doesn't dwell on their breasts with any slow motion or lingering shots.
- Justified:
- The network wanted to cash in on the craze, at the time.
- Bob is written to constantly have to inspect, search, and occasionally seduce the pageant contestants. Incidentally, the actor playing Bob is also the show's writer.
- Inverted: The show is about a group of women who have A-Cup Angst, but learn to not let their insecurities define who they are. The show wins several awards, and is lauded for its brilliant writing and realistic characters.
- Gender-Inverted: The show is called "Law Lifters," and follows Officer Bob and Officer Alice as part of a unit that focuses solely on male weightlifting contest-related crimes and offenses.
- Subverted: All of the women on the show wear heavy, obscuring garments.
- Double Subverted: That is, until each pageant arrives at its swimsuit/gymnastics/lingerie/whatever portion.
- Parodied: Charles hears about this new "jiggle show" on TV, that's basically 30 minutes of nonstop bouncing, jiggling action. He turns to the right channel at the right time, and discovers that the show is a documentary series about the fluid properties of gelatin desserts, under varying conditions.
- Zig-Zagged: Sometimes, Pageant Police tackles serious plots and handles social issues of its time with maturity, dignity, and respect. And sometimes, an episode features a pageant with a baking portion, where in order to neutralize a rare "breast-based poison," Officer Bob has to dip each contestants' bare breasts in bowls of melted chocolate and then subsequently lick it off of them. Episodes can really go either way.
- Averted: Pageant Police is cancelled before the first episode is shot.
- Enforced: "We need a show with tons of Fanservice, without making anyone look like sluts. I know! Beauty pageant cops!"
- Lampshaded: "I feel like this show is just tons of Fanservice, wrapped around a flimsy premise. Wait a sec, rewind that last bit, and play it again. The part with the swimsuit contest."
- Invoked: Writer-director-lead-star Bob really wants a show about pageant contestants and their, er, talents. He convinces the network execs that this is a good idea.
- Exploited:
- A thief at a convenience store notices that the owner is watching a TV behind the counter. He recommends that the owner switch to "Pageant Police," and as the owner is spellbound by the actress' large talents, the thief shoplifts an impressive haul.
- The actress who plays Alice tells the network execs they need to give her a raise on her contract, and when they ask why, she simply turns their office television on to the latest episode. Officer Alice has to go undercover as one of the contestants, at a topless trampoline acrobatics pageant. Just as Officer Alice is about to undo her bikini top and jump onto the trampoline, the actress who plays Alice turns the television off. The next day, she gets her raise.
- Defied: Bob pitches this idea to the network execs, but they turn it down. They suspect that pageant police might not even be a real thing.
- Discussed: "Time to turn on Pageant Police! This episode's all about the seedy underworld of Carnivale samba dancing pageants."
- Conversed: "It's like a show, within a show. About, well, talents." "Man, I kinda wish that was the actual show."
- Implied: The parents of the actress who plays Alice ask her what her new show is about. She says it's about beauty pageants, and their contestants', uh... talents.
- Deconstructed: People protest the show at the studio, on grounds of decency.
- Reconstructed: The producers tell the male protesters that if they want, they can be extras at today's episode: the oil-wrestling pageant. The female protesters point out that oil-wrestling isn't really an event with pageants, but then the male protesters are shown in the audience, cheering and hooting as bikini tops and bottoms fly from the wrestling ring into their hands. The protests lose steam after that.
- Played for Laughs:
- Following the success of Pageant Police, the same creative team creates a number of spinoff shows: Spring Break Party Patrol, Strip Club Coppers, and Cosplay Convention Constabulary. The quality wanes with Nudist Narcos, as viewers feel like the plots don't leave enough to the imagination. But everyone agrees their follow-up show, Bikini Barista Brass, is a return to form.
- The actor who plays Bob really takes the show seriously. He rehearses the strip-search scenes with actresses beforehand so they can get it right at the real shoot, and is always looking to get new talent into the cast. Did he insist on shooting seventeen takes of the locker room group shower fight scene with all the pageant contestants mid-shower, for fun? No. He did it for the art.
- Auditions to be on the show are comprised of crowds of young, attractive, full-figured actresses, waiting in multiple lines to be "inspected" by male production assistants sitting at a long table. As actresses reach the front of each line, we see them lift up their tops from behind to flash the P.A.s, and the P.A.s stare at their chests with clinical seriousness as they jot notes down. The camera pans across the table, to show a number of inspections from behind the actresses: we see a seated P.A.'s gaze moving up and down in time with a topless actress jumping up and down, another P.A. pawing at the front of a different topless actress, and then two P.A.s with their faces leaned into the front of another topless actress, amid slurping sounds. One of the P.A.s pulls away, wipes his mouth, and says to the camera that they're really looking for women who can get their teeth into the role. His face disappears back behind the actress' front, and she gasps as we hear a comical biting sound.
- Played for Drama:
- The actress who plays Alice has a hard time landing serious, dramatic roles after starring on Pageant Police. She discovers she's become typecast for her talents.
- The actor who plays Bob finds it difficult to maintain serious relationships, as his partners often feel insecure about his numerous scenes where he strips or seduces pageant contestants.
Head back to Jiggle Show, and check out some more slow-motion, er, talents.
