Malibu U.

I was the "2nd" Stage Manager on Malibu U. during the summer of 1967. It was one of my earlier assignments through my newly acquired Director's Guild of America card. I would generally agree with the first commentary. This show was a summer replacement. (They did summer replacements back in those days.) As the prior person stated, Ricky Nelson was the host---a very quiet, private person. During the taping he would walk to a quiet corner of the beach bluff, briefly chat with me, and wait until I called for his scenes. The particular episode on which I worked featured The Turtles (singing, "Eleanor"), Dionne Warwick stood on a rock several yards out in the ocean, shivered and lip synced her hit song, "Alphie" as the wind blew her yellow chiffon dress to the point of sticking to her legs. The surf was so loud that she could barely hear the playback. James Darren of "Gidget" fame sang a song and walked along the waters edge, and I believe Harper's Bizarre sang a song for which I don't remember the title, ("Feelin' Groovy" or "Anything Goes"?) Of course, Ricky Nelson sang his hit songs as well. The beautiful "beach bunnies & handsome buff buddies" were all freezing in a temperature that hovered around 65F. I remember the bikini clad girls were wrapped in heavy coats and blankets until such time as they were required to broadly smile and joyfully run into the icy water, acting as though it were a hot 90 degree day! The one "scary" event was when the director had one of those big, old video cameras set into a deep hole that had been dug in the sand for a ground level shot of "The Turtles" playing with live turtles while they sang. It was late in the day, the high tide was upon us and a big wave arrived in all it's glory, heading for the hole where the electronic cables, camera, cameraman and I were located. Fearing electrocution, the cameraman and I jumped out at the speed of light!!! I'll never forget that day.

Silly jokes great music and hot girls.What more can you ask for? Patricia Wymer, so cute. I really hope the entire season is released on dvd or bluray. I will be first in line to purchase.Light hearted and fun'

I have seen the entire 1967 episode of Malibu-U with the Leonard Nimoy Bilbo Baggins video. Star Trek WAS NOT canceled at this time (contrary to what the other reviewer says) and Nimoy had just released an incredibly well selling record called Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock's Music From Outer Space on Dot Records. Ricky Nelson introduces the clip while sitting on the beach with one of the dancers from the show. Nimoy's performance was to promote his new single AND his role as Mr. Spock on Star Trek. The song is a lot of fun and was a lip sync performance prerecorded for the show. Nimoy was at at all time high with his popularity at this time. He was out to prove nothing. The previous reviewer should keep get his facts straight.

I was only five years old in 1967 when "Malibu U." first aired; my family and I were then living in the Detroit suburb of Warren, Michigan, where we saw this show on then-ABC-owned WXYZ-TV, Channel 7.

My folks watched almost every episode of this summer show, but one episode I seem to remember was when the New Jersey pop singing group The Happenings performed their recent Top 10 smash version of "I Got Rhythm" (the part of the chorus where they sang, "dit-dit-rhy-thm, dit-dit-rhy-thm" stood out in my mind).

Does anybody else remember this episode? What were Bob Miranda and Company "lecturing" about before they performed their hit?

It's too bad that the Four Star Television shows, including this one, are now controlled by 20th Century Fox Television (explanation: Four Star officially ended in 1989 when it was purchased by New World Communications, and then seven years later New World itself was purchased by 21st Century Fox, Inc. - then doing business as NewsCorp - and absorbed into 20th Century Fox Television). So, Fox, if you even bothered to renew the copyrights on "Malibu U." - and I can only hope you *did* - would you *please* see about putting this show on DVD, or if you don't want to bother with it yourselves, then maybe loan out the DVD rights to Shout Factory or some other "classic TV" DVD label? It would not only be nice to see said Happenings episode again, but also the ones with Mrs. Miller and Tiny Tim since, judging by the other readers' reviews, they sound really funny!

In the meantime, however, I would strongly urge anyone who wants to see that happen to go to TV Shows on DVD.com; as of this posting, "Malibu U." amassed only 42 votes. Let's make the total number of votes more than 100!

(I am having someone restore a Seeburg jukebox for me as of this posting. One of the records I located for when the juke is finished was the reissue of the Happenings' "I Got Rhythm," with their version of "Go Away, Little Girl" on the B-side. I have no doubt that, even though it's monaural, "I Got Rhythm" should sound great on the juke when it's ready!)

'Malibu U.' was a mindlessly enjoyable summer replacement series, featuring lots of bronzed young Californians (of both sexes) with impressive physiques in revealing beachwear. Each episode featured guest performances by mid-level musical acts, and a case could be made that the elaborately-staged musical numbers on this series were forerunners of today's music videos. For instance, an act called The Fifth Estate showed up and performed their cover version of 'Ding, Dong, the Witch Is Dead'. Instead of straightforward visuals of the band performing the song, viewers were shown weird visuals of squeaky-clean bikers in mod beachwear riding motorcycles on sand dunes.

The running conceit of 'Malibu U', as confirmed by its title and in the lyric of its very catchy theme song, was that there was some beachfront university that gave courses in surfing and sunbathing and all that fun stuff. This idea didn't work very well. Between the musical numbers, there were unfunny and painfully slow (but brief) skits on this theme. Some musclebound blond guy would be conducting a 'class' in how to climb onto a surfboard, only to get distracted and make a fool of himself when some beach girl in a skimpy bikini wiggled past. As attractive as the bikini girls were on this show, the skits were terrible. The blame for this goes to scripter Bob Lauher, who had distinguished himself on screen ten years earlier as a stooge for Ernie Kovacs, but who lacked Kovacs's inventive ability.

The female surfers on 'Malibu U' included one Oriental and one light-skinned black girl, but all the male surfers were (of course) white, although heavily tanned. The kids made attempts at 'groovy' slang to show us how 'hip' they were, but this was intentionally a very non-threatening TV series: the counterculture were nowhere to be seen.

This entire series had a Beach Boys mentality without ever actually giving us the Beach Boys nor their music. The musical guests on 'Malibu U' were consistently well-known acts whose songs actually got airplay, but they were never first-rank names. One episode guest-starred Mrs Miller. Anybody here remember Mrs Miller? She was a novelty act, briefly popular at about the same time as Tiny Tim (remember him?) and with similar appeal (if that's the proper word). Mrs Miller was a tone-deaf granny who screeched pop songs in a monotone voice. (She actually had a couple of hit records before her 'camp' appeal wore off.) On 'Malibu U', Mrs Miller screeched her musical number while staggering along the beach ... I guess a moving target is harder to hit. I kept wishing a convenient tsunami would grab this warbling yenta and wash her out into the Pacific.

The weirdest episode of 'Malibu U' was the one guest-starring Leonard Nimoy. 'Star Trek' was on the brink of cancellation, and Nimoy was eager to prove he could do something besides impersonating pointy-eared aliens. On 'Malibu U', Nimoy croaked his way through a wretched song called 'The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins', backed by a chorus of tone-deaf bikini girls. This song recapped the plot line of 'The Hobbit' to a discotheque beat. Nimoy's dancing ability is about as nonexistent as his singing ability, so I leave the choreography to your imagination. The bikini girls wear badges with 'groovy' slogans like "Hobbits Unite!" and fake pointed ears ... which supposedly refer to Bilbo, but also remind us of a certain Vulcan. When Nimoy got to the part about the magic Ring, he threw a quoit at the camera. Beam me up, Scotty. Nimoy is a better singer than William Shatner, I'll admit that much.

'Malibu U' retains some nostalgia value, and some of the musical guest acts deserve to be remembered. Although this series isn't good enough to be revived in its entirety, a 'best of Malibu U' compilation video would definitely be worth viewing. Leonard Nimoy's big number deserves to be included on one of those compilation albums featuring musical performances by celebrities who can't sing, but who tried anyway.