Surfside 6

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Surfside 6 was a television series (1960-1962) about a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat, featuring Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield II, Van Williams as Kenny Madison (a character recycled from Bourbon Street Beat, a similar series that had appeared in exactly the same time slot the season before), and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne. Diane McBain co-starred as socialite Daphne Dutton, whose yacht was parked next to their houseboat. Margarita Sierra also had a supporting role as Cha Cha O'Brien, an entertainer who worked at The Boom Boom Room, a popular Miami hangout.

Surfside 6 was one of four detective TV series produced by Warner Brothers around that time, the others being 77 Sunset Strip (set in L.A.), Hawaiian Eye (set in Hawaii), and the aforementioned Bourbon Street Beat (set in New Orleans). Plots, scripts (changing the names and locales), characters, and almost everything else crossed over from one series to another, not a difficult feat since they were all actually shot on the studio's backlots in Los Angeles.

Surfside 6 had a memorable theme song, written by Jerry Livingston and Mack David. The theme has been parodied in popular culture, most recently on Family Guy. In the episode "Fore Father", Stewie sang the theme to Brian, as Stewie worked on a papier-mâché model of the houseboat from Surfside 6:

Surfside 6!

Who lives there?

Surfside 6!

Young bachelors?

In Miami Beach!

The lyrics varied from week to week, but "Surfside 6" and "In Miami Beach!" stayed intact. When the women would be introduced, the melody picked up with back-up singers singing "Cha Cha Cha" when the announcer introduced Margarita Sierra, who vamped exaggeratedly and winked at the camera during this brief weekly sequence.