Surfside 6 is an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered on a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison (a character recycled from Bourbon Street Beat); and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne. Diane McBain co-starred as socialite Daphne Dutton, whose yacht was berthed next to their houseboat. Spanish actress 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. Surfside 6 was in fact a real address in Miami Beach, where an unrelated houseboat was moored at the time; it can also be seen in the sweeping aerial establishing shot of the Fontainebleu in 1964's Goldfinger.
Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
Description and theme song
Surfside 6 was one of four detective TV series produced by Warner Bros. around that time, the others being 77 Sunset Strip (set in Los Angeles), 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 often been parodied in popular culture. The lyrics varied from week to week, but "Surfside 6" and "In Miami Beach!" stayed intact. When the women were 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 aired 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, Surfside 6 competed against Danny Thomas and The Andy Griffith Show on CBS and NBC's short-lived, but highly acclaimed 87th Precinct starring Robert Lansing, a series about a fictitious New York City police precinct.
Episode list
See List of Surfside 6 episodes
Cast
- Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield II
- Van Williams as Kenny Madison
- Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne
- Diane McBain as Daphne Dutton
- Margarita Sierra as Cha Cha O'Brien
- Mousie Garner as Mousie
Background
The series was announced in April 1960 as a replacement for Bourbon Street Beat. One paper described it as like "replacing a violin with a fiddle". It was given a Monday night slot at 8:30.
The show managed to be renewed for a second season.
Follow-up
After the show was cancelled, Troy Donahue moved over to the cast of Hawaiian Eye to replace Anthony Eisley. Donahue played hotel social director Philip Barton.
Also, a book was released - Surfside 6 by Jay Flynn (US, Dell 8388, October 1962).
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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