While you might have assumed that the cast of ’90s jiggle drama Baywatch had long ago taken the slow-motion jog in different directions that is life’s inevitable journey, many of them have maintained close friendships over the years, based on their not being that famous. Dubbing themselves The B-Team (definitely a catchier name than the “No Yasmine Bleeths Club”), these seven of the show’s supporting stars still hang out and run a website, where they talk about how they hang out and run a website. And now they’re turning that shared experience of being on Baywatch into a movie—except they can’t say the word Baywatch, or do anything explicitly Baywatch-esque, because they don’t have the rights. So they’re doing what anyone would do: They’re concocting a meta story where they’re revealed to have been working as undercover CIA operatives the whole time. Also, John Cleese is there.
The B-Team finds Alexandra Paul, Jaason Simmons, and five others from the show playing semi-fictional versions of themselves, all poking self-deprecating fun at their faded stardom, but also saving the day as spies who are assigned to stopping Cleese’s supervillain before he can unleash an arsenal of nuclear weapons. And while the Baywatch actors are planning on wearing those red, Baywatch swimsuits—and David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson are supposed to make cameos—you definitely won’t hear anyone actually mention Baywatch in this non-Baywatch movie.
“We play ourselves so there are going to be assumptions the television show in question is the one we actually all were on. But no, it most definitely is not. It is not. Not. Shall I say that again?” Paul said for the benefit of The Independent and the legal team at Paramount, which has long been developing its own Baywatch movie with Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant.
According to director Chris Cottam, The B-Team will get around all this with a running gag, where every time someone is about to mention Baywatch, they’re interrupted by “an explosion or the knocking over of an expensive vase” (a joke that, in retrospect, would have vastly improved the original Baywatch). So, to recap: Seven people who were on Baywatch plus John Cleese are making a movie about the cast of Baywatch being international spies, only everyone is pretending as though it’s not actually Baywatch. Based on the novel by Franz Kafka.