V.I.P. (1998)

V.I.P. is an American action comedy television series created by J. F. Lawton. The series stars Pamela Anderson as Vallery Irons, a woman who accidentally saves a celebrity and then is hired by a real bodyguard agency V.I.P. a.k.a. Vallery Irons Protection. Anderson served as an executive producer of the series. It aired in syndication for four seasons from 1998 to 2002.

Synopsis

Anderson stars as Vallery Irons, a woman who accidentally saves a celebrity and then is hired by a real bodyguard agency (V.I.P. a.k.a. Vallery Irons Protection) as a famous figurehead while the rest of the agency's professionals work to solve cases. Her lack of investigation skills ends up defeating the antagonists in every episode.

The other team members are an assortment of people of different backgrounds: a former member of the KGB, CIA, FBI, a computer expert, a former law officer, a former street boxer/martial artist and, later, a karate master/stuntman joined.

The series uses a mixture of action, comedy, and camp, with Anderson often poking fun at her tabloid image. In November 2001, a video game version of V.I.P. was released on the PlayStation console.

Many first season episodes opened with cameos of famous celebrities being protected by Vallery. Among them were Stone Cold Steve Austin, Jay Leno, Charles Barkley, Jerry Springer and Alfonso Ribeiro. Loni Anderson, of no relation to Pamela Anderson, guest-starred in one episode as Vallery's mother. In season 2, Lisa Marie Varon had an uncredited appearance as a bodyguard. Kathleen Kinmont-See was a guest star in the season 4 episode "South by Southwest".

Cast

Main

Pamela Anderson — Vallery Irons, the glamorous figurehead

Molly Culver — Natasha "Tasha" Dexter, Vallery Iron's lead associate, a former spy and model

Natalie Raitano — Nicole "Nikki" Franco, the team's weapons and explosives expert

Angelle Brooks — Maxine De La Cruz (Seasons 3–4, recurring seasons 1–2), Vallery's best friend

Shaun Baker — Quick Williams, a former boxer and martial artist

Dustin Nguyen — Johnny Loh (Seasons 3–4, recurring seasons 1–2), a karate master and stuntman

Leah Lail — Kay Simmons, the team's computer expert

Recurring

Gerry Anderson as Relic

Javier Grajeda as Detective Grispy

Jillian Barberie as Foxy Levin

David Groh as Don Franco

Erik Estrada as Himself

Angela Harry as Dr. Tina Stokes

Loni Anderson as Carol Irons, Vallery's mother

Guest stars

Episodes

Merchandise

On March 14, 2006, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the first season of V.I.P. on DVD in Region 1.

V.I.P. received video game adaptations from Ubi Soft, for the PC, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance in 2001 and 2002. An adaptation for Xbox was announced but cancelled.

In 2000, Johnny Lightning released two sets of V.I.P. themed diecast cars in 1/64 scale. There were 8 different vehicles issued in total.

TV Comics! published a comic based on the series in 2000.

The series V.I.P. was co-produced with Telewizja Polsat from Poland. This is the first foreign series co-created by Telewizja Polsat, which exclusively aired the show in Poland.

Awards and nominations

In 1999, the series was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music. In 2002, V.I.P. was nominated for three Daytime Emmy Awards, winning one for Outstanding Single Camera Editing.

Syndication

The show premiered in syndication on September 26, 1998. Among the stations that carried it was the ensemble of Fox's 22 owned-and-operated stations, who signed when the show was in pre-production in December 1997. As of 2026, the series is currently airing on MeTV+ and is available for streaming online on Amazon Prime Video, The Roku Channel (both via the Howdy subscription-video-on-demand streaming service that Roku owned) and the Fox Corporation-owned Tubi (that added in May 2021), but formerly on Crackle (until 2023). Episodes in Spanish debuted on CineSony on February 14, 2014.

Select episodes of the show (including the pilot episode) are also available on the Piece of the Action and Throw Back TV YouTube channels (managed by Sony Pictures Television, the show's current international distributor).

Notes

References

External links

V.I.P. at IMDb