Review of Bikini News

It’s a concept brilliant in its simplicity – videotape yourself mocking the news and creating satiric skits, all while half naked. For such a task it helps to look like busty mock news anchors Jen Jackson and Mary Clark (each of whom also broadcast on their own individual video blogs), who wear their bikinis well while peddling sex-infused guffaws. And that’s more or less it, except to note that Bikini News launched on Livevideo in November 2006 and that Clark replaced Jackson’s original co-anchor – cute and cuddly Rachel Jacobs – five episodes later. Did I mention it features girls in bikinis?

Let’s face it: would anyone care about the Daily Show-lite material of Bikini News if it weren’t delivered by two hot, squeaky-voiced females? Probably not, although calling it out for low-minded intentions is like trying to divorce Baywatch from its titillating agenda. So, sure, the show’s pranks, parodies, and puns are pretty damn lame, with typical targets culled from the latest in TMZ

and UsWeekly headlines – Paris, Britney, and Lindsay all get theirs in short sketches where the girls dress up as the notorious celebrities and interpret scripts written, it seems, during bathroom breaks. But like Stuff4Dudes and a lot of the programming on Ripe TV, Bikini News knows how unashamedly vapid it is, and spoofs itself with episodes that take viewers behind the scenes and revelations of the show’s origins. So one can’t blame it for being what it isn’t, or for not being sufficiently aware of its tackiness. OR for not featuring girls in bikinis.

Episode 37 perfectly encapsulates Bikini News’ trash-tastic, wink-wink-nudge-nudge, ongoing-Ninja plotline sensibility, while Mary Clark’s Guide to Getting Your Crappy Video Seen Online demonstrates their media-savvy humor. Plus, they also feature girls in bikin….sorry, I’ll stop.