Stripperella

Stripperella was an adult-oriented animated series created by famed superhero creator Stan Lee. The main character, voiced by and based on Pamela Anderson, is a stripper named Erotica Jones who is secretly also the superheroine/secret agent Stripperella. It is rated TV-MA in the United States.

It debuted on Spike TV in the spring of 2003 and only lasted one season. Anderson described it as not being a raunchy show, despite obvious double entendres and frontal nudity (though often blurred out).

The animation style changed halfway through the show's run, becoming brighter and revamping the looks of many of the show's major characters. Stripperella, for example, was now drawn with a cowl having larger eyeholes, similar to Batgirl's. Fellow stripper Persephone now had a darker complexion and an accent that inexplicably changed from episode to episode.

A box set of the show has recently been released which is not censored or cut. The DVD versions have a new opening theme that replaces the original Kid Rock song.

In Australia, it began airing uncensored on SBS TV, starting Monday, March 13 at 9pm, after being restricted to early-morning airings on the Nine Network.

Recurring characters

Erotica's workplace Tenderloins features the owner Kevin, swishy bartender Leonard, and dancers Persephone, Giselle, and the antagonistic Kat.

Stripperella works for the agency FUGG along with Chief Stroganoff, technicians Hal and Bernard, and special Agent 14.

There are two recurring villains, the Jon Lovitz-voiced Cheapo, the world's cheapest bad guy, and Queen Clitoris (pronounced kli-TOR-is).

Reporter Skip Withers appears when TV news coverage is needed. Weird Al has appeared twice without any lines.

Comics

Originally there was to be a promotional Stripperella comic published by Humanoids Publishing (publishers of Métal Hurlant magazine) alongside the animated series, but creative differences between TNN/Spike TV and Pamela Anderson saw it cancelled before it was published.

Legal Controversy

In 2003 ex-stripper Janet Clover, aka Jazz, aka Stripperella, filed a lawsuit in the Daytona Beach circuit court against Viacom, Stan Lee and Pamela Anderson, claiming she is Stripperella's true creator and Stan Lee stole her idea when she discussed it during a lap dance. Clover filed the original suit herself without a lawyer as she said she couldn't afford the $6000 lawyer fee. The suit was filed in the name of the non-existing "Office of the Professional Nurse Advocate - Moral and Ethical Division" because she said it sounded more impressive than if it was filed by a semi-retired stripper.

A stripper suing Pamela Anderson caught the attention of local media, and from there got picked up by Associated Press and national media, including People and Entertainment Weekly, from where attorneys in New York learned about the case and offered their services. Clover moved to dismiss her own suit before it could be challenged and refiled using a real lawyer specifically targeting Lee.

"I'm just trying to get this off TV because it's not his idea," Clover told The Daytona Beach News-Journal. "She was supposed to be a nurse, which is what I'm studying for. I can't remember much about Mr. Lee, little bits and pieces come back. You know, I meet a lot of men".

According to The Comics Journal, "Clover protested in distinctly unlawyerlike language the damage she anticipated the Stripperella show would do to the public image of sensual entertainers: 'When they turn on their television to watch an animated gyrating pelvis hidden in a man's face, acceptance of professional dancers as healthy sensual entertainers will not happen'". Though later after having watched it, she said: "I didn't have a problem with the cartoon, I thought it was actually kind of cute".

External links

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