Jane Fonda, Part 1

We've checked out a bunch of celebrity workout videos here at World of Sass, but Jane Fonda is the real deal. She's the urtext. She blazed the trail, showing scores of poor, ignored C-listers that one day, they too might be able to aerobicize their way back to top (of the B-list, at least). There was Barbarella and Nine to Five; there was that whole "Hanoi Jane" thing, which, oof; but for most of humanity, Jane Fonda = workout lady. Her debut offering, Jane Fonda's Workout (1981) exploded its sass all over pop culture, turning home fitness from a burgeoning trend into a "Let's Get Physical" frenzy and becoming the top-grossing home video of its time. She is the prototypical '80s big-hair leotarded sweatmongerer. Her total catalog includes 26 workout videos, and her most recent one was released in 2012. Lady is 75 years old.

Today we're doing part one of a gifsploration of Jane Fonda's NEW Workout (1985). Once I got started making gifs, I quickly went overboard, because the looks and moves in this video are . . . stupendous. Giving me LIFE. I mean, come on:

Turning that visor OUT.

And that's not even the whole outfit. Behold:

Serving hi-cut LSU realness.

Anyway, the video has beginner and advanced levels, and all these are from the beginner's. It's a 35-minute workout with about 10 minutes (not enough) of light-to-moderate cardio and some serious toning work. We start with some light stretches to wake the body up. . . 

love this guy.

He's a big strong man!

I'm afraid I didn't pay much (any) attention to Jane in my gif-making because she's kinda boring for the first half of the video. She's a dece instructor -- though her cuing is always a little behind -- and of course she looks fabulous, but she's pretty blah until the floor exercises start, and then watch out. Suggestive pelvic curls on a mat are for movie stars, it seems. Working up a sweat with some jumping-jack variations? That's yeoman's work, so Jane shifts the focus to adorable Kelly Kapowksi doppelganger Leslie, who breaks into lip-synced song with the rousing "Do It."

Leslie, she's perky. Even though Fonda tries to fool the audience into believing she's actually singing --she tells viewers, "If you can sing along, you know you're breathing correctly!" -- Leslie puts on her button-nosed game face, adjusts the hot-pink ribbon around her softly teased bangs, and sells the shit out of that "Eye of the Tiger" redux. 

There's so much! More! To you than meets the eye. There's so much! More! To you, you're gonna try, she mouths. And once your giggles start to subside, you start thinking, "She's right. There is so much li-ving, li-ving, li-ving, li-ving, living to dooooooooooo!"

I could watch her do this all day.

Then, after making sweet, tiny-waisted Leslie "sing" her song, Fonda has her lead the cardio section -- and I'll be damned if it ain't just good ol' BPM-raising fun. It cycles through pretty much all the basic aerobic moves. . . 

So many leg warmers!

. . . and then brings in some totally silly hoedown stuff that, if you commit to it, will give you the benefits of both aerobic activity and laughing yoga. 

High fives for everyoooooone!

Also, Leslie's hot-pink bottoms have this weird vulva-like thing in the front that flaps around. Somehow I felt this was worth mentioning.

After the aerobic peak, Leslie takes the tempo down and sings "Do It" again. From there on out, it's Fonda's time to shine, which I'll cover in the next chapter of this immensely important anthropological study.

If I could turn back time...I'd have bought this when it was cheaper.

YOU GUYS. You guys. Cher has a workout video. OF COURSE SHE DOES! 

She has two workout videos, actually, both under the arbitrarily word-smooshing brand CherFitness: "Body Confidence," (above), and "A New Attitude," (below). Which is fitting since, at the time of these vids' releases (1992 and 1991, respectively), Cher was very much riding the comeback success of a new attitude and a new, shockingly body-confident look. Remember the duct-tape-n-leather-jacket number in "If I Could Turn Back Time"? (As if you couldn't.) Well her outfit in "Body Confidence" is a total self-referencing homage to that get-up. OF COURSE IT IS! 

BASK IN ITS GLORY!

Amazon is charging an absurd $30ish for each of these videos -- somehow they have the VHS "in stock"? Huh. Can't imagine they were priced this way back in the day. Whatever the case, I'ma get a hold of this shit and do it in full and report back to you. Why? Because I'm strong enough. 

The curious, shiny case of Deanne Berry

VIDEO: "Clubland Work It Out," (2008, Universal Pictures UK)
STYLE: Dance aerobics, dance, kickboxing and toning
INTENSITY: Moderate to difficult
STRUCTURE: 10-minute warm-up; 15 minutes of aerobics; 15-minute dance routine; 15 minutes of kickboxing; 15 minutes of floor exercises; 12-minute cool-down. About 80 minutes total.
GIST: I LOVE THIS WORKOUT. That's it. But it's not available for purchase in the U.S. Wah wah.*

See this creature? Is she the second coming of Xanadu-vintage Olivia Newton-John? A Barbie brought to life?

This, friends, is Deanne Berry, the queen of Clubland. She's a supernova of the sassosphere who burned bright for several thrilling years in the mid- to late-aughts and, after some TV spots and an ill-fated attempt at a recording career, all but disappeared. Where she now roams nobody knows. Intrigue!

Today we're going to be talking about "Clubland Work It Out," which is, in my opinion, Deanne's most solid effort. Like all the Clubland videos, it's not available for purchase in the U.S. *If you buy it off Amazon.co.uk, it won't work on most American DVD players or computers, because it's coded with a different "region." There are ways around this, but they're long and maddening. I don't think I can legally tell you to download it from a file sharing site, but if you don't know how to download it from a file sharing site, you can find most of the workout in the links I provide below.

Ready? Ok!

Like Aphrodite rising from the foam of severed testes cast into the sea, she burst onto the scene a fully-formed workout goddess -- or at least she played one convincingly in the shamelessly lubed-up video for Eric Prydz's "Call On Me."

The video was a crazy gigantic hit across the pond -- one interviewer in a TV spot says she "captured the imagination of the country" -- and even though Berry was just a dancer, not an aerobics instructor, the UK music label Ministry of Sound invited her to host the next in their series of "Pump It Up!" workout videos. THIS IS WHAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF, FOLKS.

So she rustled up some fitness certifications and did just that, bringing her Aussie looks (slammin tanned bod, toothy smile) and dancer's nuance (so much sassy hair-flipping!) to the workout video world. After another title with "Ministry of Sound," she jumped ship and moved over to Clubland, yet another UK house music label with a stake in the fitness video market. (WHY DON'T WE DO THIS IN AMERICA???)

That brings us to "Clubland Work It Out," a dizzyingly ludicrous display of quality dance aerobics, music video fantasizing and a whole lotta ass-cheek. Exhibit A (har har):