Decades before Bryan Cranston would become television’s most villainous meth cook—the kind that dissolves human bodies in tubs of acid and poisons children for sport—the actor was something far more sinister: the star of a Tiger Beat-style, beefcake pictorial. The evidence surfaced recently on the Internet, via scans of a 1985 issue of Teen Talk which show pictures of the dreamboat actor in the shortest, tightest pair of athletic shorts humanly possible. Whatever the photos lack in appropriate leg coverage, they make up for in corny captions. For example, underneath a close-up of his face: “We knew you’d never forgive us if we didn’t give you a closeup of that smile—so here it is!”

At the time of the photo shoot (and accompanying interview!), the actor was appearing on the ABC soap opera Loving. We presume that the feature was facilitated to both increase his exposure and give nemeses leverage in future blackmail negotiations. For the feature, the magazine’s writer and photographer “join[ed] him in his workout in Manhattan’s Central Park” and proceeded to photograph him posing with a catcher’s mitt, stretching, jumping rope (“Jumping rope is one reason Bryan’s got such great legs!” a caption actually reads), and tossing a baseball around. You will appreciate the photos even more once realizing that the actor was nearly 30 when these teen-magazine photos were taken.