Game Dummy

Gaming for Dummies

Gaming Industry 

Take Advantage with Sega – Perverted Ad or Innocent Parody? (NSFW)

Edward Hyman 2 Comments

There was once a time when game companies had the tennis balls to get away with something like this. This is an advertisement for “Davis Cup World Tour” for the Sega Genesis. There appears to be a young female tennis player holding up a copy of the sports game while simultaneously lifting up her tennis dress. Oops! It looks like she forgot to put on an article of clothing as well! Can you imagine the backlash if ads like this were made today? It would have exploded into a social media frenzy for better or worse.

So where did they get the idea to make this ad anyway? Did they just say “I know! Let’s advertise our game with the bare butt of a female tennis player!” or is this image inspired from something else? Well, it turns out that the image in the ad is basically just a “parody” of a famous image that came from 1976. Here is the source image where the “inspiration” came from, which was taken by Martin Elliott:

 

Timeless image: A teenage boy's bedroom was not complete without the poster in the Seventies

The “Tennis Girl” image is so popular, it has many parodies apparently:

Lego Tennis Girl by photographer Mike Stimpson

Lego Tennis Girl This Lego Tennis Girl was created by photographer Mike Stimpson as part of a series of classic photographs replicated in Lego. Given the restrictions imposed by his inflexible subject, this is a pretty great image. See lots more Lego classic photographs on Mike Stimpson's website

Kylie Minogue

Kylie Minogue Perhaps the only true homage (as opposed to parody) to the Tennis Girl, this photo of Kylie Minogue comes closest to capturing the eroticism of the original. It also showcases her most famous asset, but unlike 100% of the readers of GQ magazine, I am more excited by the fact La Minogue is wearing BOBBLE SOCKS!

Raving Rabbids, a more recent video game doing a parody of Tennis Girl:

Helen Flanagon

Helen Flangan

Identical twins Byrony Frost and Katherine Frost

Pink Panther calendar poster

Pink Panther I had this poster as a kid and thought it was hilarious, despite never having seen the original.

Heck, there is even a sculpture based on casts from the original Tennis Girl model, Fiona Walker.

Benjamin Dearnley's Tennis Girl Intended to mark the publication of his book about the Tennis Girl, this sculpture was commissioned in 2011 by Christopher Nightingale, the art director on the original 1976 photoshoot. Artist Benjamin Dearnley based the sculpture on casts he made from the body of the original Tennis Girl herself, Fiona Walker. Read more about the project on Dearnley's website.

The original Tennis Girl image was so popular, the poster version of the image has sold over 2 million copies and is still a popular poster today. The original image has become more and more of a cultural icon over recent years. So when you consider the source the Genesis ad came from, does that give them a “free pass” to create the ad as “parody” or do you think they were just wanting to make something to strictly draw the attention of teenage boys?

Edward Hyman

Besides gaming, I'm really into technology in general.