Beach Party Film - Influence On Popular Culture and Parodies

Influence On Popular Culture and Parodies

• The beach film genre is one of several satirical targets in George Axelrod's offbeat 1966 cult SoCal comedy, Lord Love a Duck.

• The Batman TV series spoofed the beach films and surfing culture in the third season episode: "Surf's Up! Joker's Under!" (1967). The Joker (Cesar Romero) challenges Batman to a surfing contest. Yvonne Craig, who was also in Gidget, appears as Batgirl.

• In 1978 Saturday Night Live did an extensive parody sketch of the beach movies entitled "Beach Blanket Bimbo from Outer Space." Bill Murray and Gilda Radner, wearing thick black wigs, imitated the Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello characters. John Belushi played biker Eric Von Zipper, and Dan Aykroyd played a curiously effeminate Vincent Price. Guest host Carrie Fisher, dressed in a gold bikini, reprised her Princess Leia character from Star Wars.

• Without mentioning a specific film, The B-52's 1978 song, "Rock Lobster" relied on 1960s beach party movie imagery and featured a surf guitar sound, with lyrics referencing 60s dances like the Frug and the Twist, as well as bikinis, surfboards, flippers, flexing muscles, and tanning butter. The song ends with a list of sea creatures, culminating in the fanciful Bikini Whale, whose name is greeted with a shriek of hysteria from the band's female members. During the late 70s, female bandmembers completed the period effect by donning bouffant wigs and clothing from the early and mid-60s and doing 60s dances like the Pony and the Swim during performances.

• The Revillos 1980 song, "Scuba Boy", also featured 60s beach movie-influenced lyrics and sounds, with its chorus of "Scuba! Scuba!" and lyrics expressing the lead singer's desire to join her scuba boy "in the deep". A repeated drum flourish within the chorus is so authentic-sounding that one almost expects Candy Johnson to pop up and send men flying with her hips. The accompanying video showed band members wildly doing the Swim.

• Surf II: The End of the Trilogy (1984) was a modern send-up of 1960s beach films and 1970s horror films, revolving around a mad scientist turning surfers into garbage-eating zombies through chemically-altered soft drinks.

• The Dead Milkmen's 1986 album "Eat Your Paisley!" featured the song "Beach Party Vietnam" which included references to typical Beach Party film characters and scenarios (Frankie and Annette, cook-outs, etc.) but uses '60s mid-war Vietnam as its setting.

• That Thing You Do! (1996), this film touches briefly on the phenomenon, with the fictional music group The Wonders making an appearance in a beach party movie called Weekend at Party Pier.

• Psycho Beach Party (2000), film based on the off-Broadway play of the same name, directed by Robert Lee King. Set in 1962 Malibu Beach, this is a parody of beach movies and Gidget.

• Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, "Beach Blanket Bizarro" episode (2001) of this TV series pays homage to the AIP films with Frankie Avalon appearing as himself. Concerned about her plans for a wild spring break weekend in Florida, her aunts use their magical powers to send Sabrina and her friends into the alternate reality of an innocent '60s beach film. Series regular Beth Broderick ("aunt Zelda") was also in Psycho Beach Party.

• Camping Cosmos is a Belgian parody on the classical Beach Party films and Baywatch. Miss Vandeputte (Lolo Ferrari) is C.J. Parker and Harry, the lifeguard ( Arno), is Mitch Buchannon. The movie starts with the evergreen song Maria Elena and the view of a bird overlooking the campsite on the beach. Lolo Ferrari coming out of the sea as an Aphrodite with the song of Vera Lynn ( is the Land of Hope and Glory : Belgium?) and having her first orgasm with the comic strip Tintin in the Congo, is focused on as a central figure, but the movie treats all characters with the same interest (in this movie Lolo Ferrari has the looks of Brigitte Bardot).