[Anchorman]

Japanese TV in the '80s used to roll out the country's biggest pop stars, get them to have water fights in swimming pools and watch ratings skyrocket as big name divas' boobs popped out of their swimsuits.

Though the televised pop star pool parties were huge and demand for their return to the small screen remains strong, Cyzo (September) notes that these shows have disappeared from Japanese TV and tries to find out why.

"Pop stars' pool parties still bring back fond memories of the idol singers who took part in them," Masao Orimo, a former pool party MC, tells Cyzo. "There used to be this weird effect where an idol who wasn't selling well would perform strongly in one of the pool party shows and find their next release would sell like hotcakes. There certainly were a lot of young performers who got their big break in showbiz after standing out in the water fight shows, which in turn made their talent agencies throw their support behind the concept. But it wasn't all fun and games. Some people used to work out just so they'd look good in a swimsuit when the pool party shows were made."

Water fights provided lesser known stars with the chance of rising up through the pop world, which prompted many of them to try their hardest to make an impression. Some tried too hard.

"That's why the boobs sometimes popped out. It wasn't deliberate, the girls were just trying too hard to stand out," Orimo says. "Of course, they never showed the boob bloopers on TV, but the footage would be priceless now."

Even though the booby shots didn't make the airwaves, they were ultimately what spelled the end of the pop star pool parties, the monthly says. The implied opportunity of seeing something unexpected pop up -- or out, to be more precise -- attracted viewers to the screen, also made producers create more water games that increased the likelihood of a wandering breast. But as it become increasingly obvious that the women were being set up for a booby, A-list performers like Seiko Matsuda and Chiemi Hori stopped doing the shows.

Instead, virtually unknown pin-up queens and adult video performers stepped in to their place, and the shows focused more on the scantily clad women than the fun and games that had been the norm. To get laughs, crude comedians got in on the act. The combination prompted school PTAs across Japan to start speaking out against the pool parties.

Though they aired twice a year in the late '80s and early '90s, by 1993 they were only being showed once a year, and there hasn't been a performer pool party screened on Japanese TV since Fuji TV took the plunge in 2003.

But it's not just stricter attitudes toward TV nudity that spelled the demise of pop star pool parties. Yoshiharu Noda, the head of talent agency Suns Entertainment, says the pop star pool party concept simply wasn't working anymore.

"As a promotion concept, they helped to kick start a number of careers. But as the shows got raunchier and raunchier, even pin-up girls were reluctant to appear in them. They were afraid. Even if they were set up to spill out of their swimsuits, they never knew what else would happen to them once filming began," Noda says, adding that changing times helped put paid to the idea.

"When the pool parties started in the '70s, there weren't the number of pin-up magazines that there are now. There was some value in showing idols in their swimsuits just because they couldn't be seen anywhere else. But during the '80s, pin-up magazines became more widespread and even adult movies could be seen easily at home. Seeing a pop idol in her swimsuit simply didn't have the rarity value it once did."

Ratings bear out Noda's claims, with the peak of popularity in the pop star pool parties coming in the early '80s and consistently attracting 20 percent-plus, they fell to just 9.45 percent with the last show in 2003.

TV industry insiders are adamant the pop star pool parties will never return to the small screen. Talent agency boss Noda feels the same.

"They'll never be back," he tells Cyzo. "There's no call for the shows from the performers and anybody who proposed putting on a show like that would never get approval. They don't rate highly enough and, besides, just turn on your computer now and you can see as much nudity as you want. Nobody is turned on just by swimsuit shots." (By Ryann Connell)