Double Trouble

By Saryn Chorney

Whether they're best friends or mortal enemies, pop culture has a long, richly colored history of teaming up blonde and brunette dream duos. Let's check out a few of our favorite — and hottest — hair pairs on the big and small screens, shall we?

Like many blondes and brunettes before their "Gossip Girl" times, Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) and Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) have a stormy past. The relationship between this elite twosome is best described as "friendly frenemies" on the show, but in real life, we hear the gals are true besties. Rumor has it they even share a hair brush.

Da-na-na-na, da-na-na-na — chh-chh! Kelly Taylor and Brenda Walsh (aka Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty) were the ultimate '90s blonde/brunette duo. They started out as best friends, but eventually the bad boy of West Beverly, Dylan McKay, came between our dark and light coiffed frenemies.

In fact, according to co-star Tori Spelling, the actresses allegedly got into a fistfight in real life. Both Garth and Doherty deny this claim, and even agreed to act together again on the new "90210." Donna Martin graduates … or Donna Martin lies? That IS the question.

When we talk about hot teen starlets with amazing heads of hair, we'd be remiss to leave out Summer and Marissa (i.e., Rachel Bilson and Mischa Barton) of "The O.C." From episodes spent hanging poolside to partying at the prom, we can probably thank — or, rather, blame — the So-Cal gal-pals' luscious locks for the rise of MTV's "Laguna Beach," "The Hills," and even "The City."

Speaking of "The Hills," when blond star Lauren Conrad and former BFF Heidi Montag's friendship hit the skids, brunette bestie Audrina Patridge readily took the latter's wing-woman role. This plot device made much more sense, of course, because reality TV shows need stuff like hair color to help define characters … uh, we mean, real people with real problems that aren't at all manipulated by producers.

Back in the early days of The WB, Katie Holmes was best known as Joey Potter, the sweet, wholesome brunette next-door on "Dawson's Creek." Meanwhile, Michelle Williams played the sexy, bad-girl blonde, Jen Lindley, who threatened to steal our young hero Dawson (James Van Der Beek) away from his true soul mate (Joey, duh).

But times sure have changed: Nowadays, Katie lives the glamorous life as Mrs. Tom Cruise, while Michelle keeps things extremely low-key in Brooklyn. Their tresses — particularly Katie's — are still a major concern of tabloids and women's magazines throughout the Western world.

You don't need to have actually seen the "High School Musical" movies to know that Vanessa Hudgens' character Gabriella ("the brunette") is the good, sweet protagonist and Ashley Tisdale's character Sharpay ("the blonde") is the evil, scheming antagonist. It would simply break high school movie tradition for the main actresses's manes to be any other way — or hue.

Just when we thought we had all of Hollywood properly categorized, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler came along. The "Saturday Night Live" lady duo defied stereotyping by being smart, funny and sexy on the show. You see, usually the brunette gets to be the brainiac while the blonde plays the bimbo. Of course, they reverted back to business as usual with their big-screen debut, "Baby Mama," but it was refreshing while it lasted.

Ah, now here we have a duo (well, threesome, actually) who know how to conform to stereotype. On the '70s hit sitcom "Three's Company," Suzanne Somers played the ditzy blonde, Chrissy Snow, while Joyce DeWitt got to be the down-to-earth brunette, Janet Wood. Unlike most on-screen scenarios, the ladies did NOT fight over their male roommate, Jack Tripper (John Ritter). In that way, one might even argue that the show was progressive. We said MIGHT.

OK, let's forget the '70s and move on to the '80s. That's when real progress took place on TV, exemplified by the decidedly non-jiggle police detectives of the Emmy-winning series "Cagney & Lacey." Tyne Daly may have been a brunette and Sharon Gless a blonde, but their hair had little do with story lines — which is a lot more than we can say for that other lady-crime-fighters show: "Charlie's Angels."

Last, but certainly not least, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge of Archie Comics fame have been the staple "Blonde vs. Brunette" pair since 1942. While the term "frenemy" wasn't around back in those days, it probably best describes their rapport. As you may recall, the high school gals often competed for the affections of redhead heartthrob Archie Andrew, which, in retrospect, set a bad example for early feminist tweens. Regardless, their cartoon coifs were always just right.