I got an e-mail recently from Al Bethke of
Al’s Ramblings
regarding fantasy baseball. He mentioned that he names his teams after
attractive actresses. From what he wrote me, and from perusing
The Uncouth Sloth website
frequently (where he mentions attractive actresses quite often), I
thought that this could make an interesting and fun topic for me to
discuss.
So today, I am going to discuss nine actresses that I really, really
liked when I was in elementary and high school. At the time, I probably
wasn’t smart enough to know what it was, but it was certainly a crush.
So, let’s get to my list. I would love to hear your thoughts, and maybe
more names of the actresses that you liked growing up (ladies, you can
e-mail me your thoughts
on actors too, if you like), so after reading this,
send me an e-mail and
let me know what you think.
DANIELLE
FISHEL
The name of Al’s most recent fantasy team is
Danielle Fishel.
You remember her from her role of Topanga Lawrence on the
excellent show Boy
Meets World. Now, she is the youngest member of my list.
Actually Boy Meets World didn’t even air until my first year of
college, but it was so good. Of course, she was the girlfriend of
Cory Matthews (played by
Ben Savage) for the
eight year run of the show. I really liked her, and I have always said
that if I ever have a daughter, I want her name (probably middle name,
huh?) to be Topanga! And, well, she was always pretty cute, especially
in the early years. Danielle will soon turn 23 years old. Since Boy
Meets World concluded in 2000, she has been in a couple of movies
that I had never heard of.
CHERIE JOHNSON
I frequently watched
Punky Brewster. I was never a huge fan of
Soliel Moon Frye
(although now I am!), but I really liked her friend
Cherie Johnson.
Interestingly, her character’s name was exactly the same as her real
name. Of course, she, and I, were just 9 when the show started, so maybe
that was planned. I thought she was cute then. After Punky rapped up in
1988, she went on to play Maxine on
Family Matters,
another excellent show, but I didn’t find her as cute in it. The 28 year
old has not been in a TV show or movie since Family Matters.
LISA DEAN RYAN
She is probably going to be the least known name on this list, but
Lisa Dean Ryan
played Wanda, the girlfriend of
Doogie Howser, M.D.
Having a girlfriend was one of the many monumental things affecting
Doogie as a teenage doctor. I think "Wanda" was worth any problems!!
Ryan is now 31 years old.
ANDREA ELSON
Remember the show ALF?
Of course you don’t, but you know ALF from those stupid commercials with
Mike Piazza… something about a dollar, I think! Anyway, ALF
was on TV from 1986-1990 and was one of the first shows I remember
watching. Anyway,
Andrea Elson played the daughter on the show, Lynn Tanner. She
was a cutie in the cutesy, teeny-bopper role. After ALF, she was
on a couple of shows that didn’t last more than a couple episodes. Then
in 1998, she made a two show appearance on
The Young and The
Restless and hasn’t been in a movie or TV show since. Andrea
Elson just recently turned 35 years old. She has been married for 10
years and has a seven year old daughter.
NICOLE EGGERT
I really liked the show
Charles in Charge,
and no, not because
Scott Baio starred in it, or because it had such a catchy theme
song, "Charles in Charge of my days, and my nights, and you see, I want,
I want Charles in charge of me.." OK, it was partially because of the
theme song. But the main reason was because of Jamie Powell, one
of the kids that Charles helped raise and took care of. Jamie was played
by Nicole Eggert.
She was way too cute for words, the long blond hair and those eyes!
Anyway, she was on Charles in Charge until it ended in 1990. She
turned the cuteness into a role as a
Baywatch Babe
(with further assistance from some surgery!) where she played Summer
for two years. The 32 year old has remained quite busy ever since the
Baywatch stint ended in 1994. She has been in a couple dozen movies,
many TV movies and no big feature film successes, but she has stayed
employed. Fellas, she was married in 2000 and has a child. Sorry!
STACI KEANAN
Staci Keanan
first entered my world (OK, my 'tv fantasy world'... Didn’t LFO
sing a song about falling ‘in love with a girl on TV’? UPDATE - I
picked out my LFO CD and Track #2 is ‘Girl on TV.’) when she appeared as
the daughter of both
Paul Reiser and
Greg Evigan on
My Two Dads. I
loved that show, but it only lasted a year. I guess that Reiser guy
ended up Mad About
… Something. Anyway, Staci ended up being on the show
Step by Step from
1991 through 1998 where she changed quite a bit, especially her hair,
but it was ALL good! Since Step by Step ended, she has stayed out of
television and the movies. However, this year, she is in a movie called
Stolen Poem.
Did you know that the lovely 28 year old (who is actually just over two
weeks older than me) was given the name Anastasia Sagorsky at
birth. I like Staci Keanan better, but I think I could like her
even if I had to type out or spell her given name all the time!
ALYSSA MILANO
Alyssa Milano
has millions of fans around the world; fans that love her because of her
role on Charmed,
or from her days on
Melrose Place, or maybe because of those outfits from the phone
commercials. And that’s cool. But, you can only be a true Alyssa
Milano fan if you started liking her in the early days of
Who’s the Boss?
when she was 12 and a tomboy who was tough and rugged and just wanted to
play baseball. To be able to have seen her potential back them makes me
feel like I should be a talent scout. It’s hard to believe that the
Bronx native is 30 years old. All I know is that Florida Marlins righty
Carl Pavano is a lucky man, and it has nothing to do with winning
a World Series Championship last fall!
DANICA McKELLAR
"Winnie" Cooper. How cute was she on
The Wonder Years?
Danica McKellar
and Fred Savage
combined to make such a cute couple. I remember watching the episode
where they kissed for the first time. It was a huge event, and I had to
watch that episode with my parents. I was so embarrassed, yet, at the
same time was so jealous of Fred Savage!! Oh my goodness, those
eyes were amazing! The Wonder Years concluded in 1993, and Danica
went to college. She graduated from UCLA with a BA in Mathematics in
June of 1998. While there, she had a paper published in Britain’s
"Journal of Physics" called "Mathematics & General" which provided a
mathematical proof for a theorem dealing with magnetism in two
dimensions. OK, I love her! I don’t know what that even means, but I am
totally impressed! (I was a math major until I got to my senior year of
college and took a class called Real Analysis where we spent the
whole time proving proven proofs and theorems. Let’s just say that after
getting a couple of 17%’s on the first two tests, it ended my math major
dreams!) So, her intelligence totally moves her up this list! But, I
digress. Since her graduation, she has stayed pretty busy with roles in
a bunch of TV series and movies. She has lent her voice to many projects
(which makes sense because ‘how cute is her voice?’) including
King of the Hill
a few times. I don’t know her marital or dating status, but if anyone
does, and you happen to know her, please mention this site to her and
help me out, k?
TIFFANI-AMBER
THIESSEN
Yes, I know that she removed the ‘Amber’ from her name in recent years
so that she would be taken more seriously as an actress, but I am
writing about the girls that I always thought were cute when I was
growing up and at that time the Amber was still there.
Saved by the Bell
was one of the greatest TV shows of all time and had such a
great cast; Zach, A.C., Screech, Jessie, Lisa and of course, the amazing
Kelly Kapowski. I would watch four episodes of this show every
day in high school. And yes,
Tiffani Thiessen
was a big reason for my enjoyment of the show. Another thing that you
may find interesting is that these kids went through high school as I
did. They were freshman when I was a freshman. They graduated the year I
graduated. Then came
Saved by the Bell: The College Years, which I watched when I was
in college (although it didn’t last the four years, just one actually!).
I had never watched
Beverly Hills, 90210 until I heard that Tiffani was going to be
on it. But, once she appeared, I became completely hooked on the show,
never missing an episode. She had cut her hair and ummm, developed, and
played a character, Valerie Malone, who was completely the
opposite of sweet Kelly. Interestingly, I also graduated from college
the same year that the characters on 90210 graduated and entered the
workplace at the same time. When 90210 ended its eleven season run,
Tiffani was involved in many TV and movie projects. She was a star of
Fastlane, a show
that lasted a year on Fox, but she did kiss
Jaime Pressley on
it, so that’s cool! Most recently, she was added to the cast of NBC’s
Good Morning, Miami.
She is #1 on my list for a lot of reasons, other than her incredible
attractiveness. It sounds very corny, but it almost seems like we did
grow up together through the shows she was on. Thiessen just recently
turned 30.
So there you have it. A list of nine actresses that helped me get through my adolescence. It really is in no particular order, as they appeared throughout a 10-12 year period and each were important. What do you think? Do you agree with my selections? Who would you add to the list? I’d love to hear from you. E-mail me.