Surfside 6

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Surfside 6

Margarita Sierra, Troy Donohue, Lee Patterson, Diane McBain and Van Williams in Surfside 6
Format Private detective series
Created by William T. Orr and
Hugh Benson
Starring Lee Patterson
Troy Donohue
Van Williams
Diane McBain
Margarita Sierra
Theme music composer Jerry Livingston and
Mack David
Country of origin Flag of the United States United States
No. of episodes 74 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive
producer(s)
William T. Orr
Producer(s) Jerry Davis
Charles Hoffman
Ed Jurist
Joel Rogosin
Tom McKnight
Mack David
Supervising
producer(s)
Howie Horwitz
Joel Rogosin
Location(s) Flag of California California
Running time 60 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel ABC
Picture format 1.33 : 1 monochrome
Audio format monaural
Original run October 6, 1960
June 25, 1962
Chronology
Preceded by Bourbon Street Beat
Related shows 77 Sunset Strip
Hawaiian Eye
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Surfside 6 is an ABC television series (19601962) 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 Beach hangout at the Fontainebleau Hotel, directly across the street from Surfside 6.

[edit] Description and theme song

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.

In its first season, Surfside 6 was paired opposite the CBS sitcoms Bringing Up Buddy and The Danny Thomas Show and NBC's Western Tales of Wells Fargo starring Dale Robertson. In the second year, Surfide 6 competed against Danny Thomas and The Andy Griffith Show on CBS and NBC's short-lived 87th Precinct, a series about a New York City police precinct.

[edit] Episode list

See List of Surfside 6 episodes

[edit] External links