Son of the Beach

Tim Stack's the master of the suggestive double-entendre and now takes his act to the beach. A broad and sometimes smutty parody of Baywatch, SON OF THE BEACH is far more intelligent and fun, and with the hard bodies, to boot.

There's a bit of BEANY AND CECIL in here, too, in that many of the references might go over the heads of the intended audience. That's all to the good, since this is more than just the natural child of MARRIED WITH KIDS and Howard Stern, whose company is one of the producers. It's a breath of fresh air after endless and mindless cookie-cutter network sit-coms.

If you were a fan of the "Police Squad" tv series and movies and of the 1960s tv show "Get Smart" and enjoy seeing gorgeous bikini-clad women then this is the show for you. The first product from Howard Stern Productions is downright hilarious. Even the character names are significant: "BJ" (received her nickname from her high school football team), Mayor "Massingale", (as in douche), the mayor's oh-so-gay adolescent son "Cody" (in honor of Cody Lee Gifford), and muscular German-exchange lifeguard "Chip Rommel" (I guess they couldn't call him Chip Hitler or Chip Goerring or Chip Eichmann).

As Stern himself describes it, this show is "cleverly stupid". This show is one that must be taped and watched with remote control in hand, because the dialogue's humor is often very subtle.

This show is very, very funny. And real easy on the eyes too.

Only cable TV could get away with this mayhem. Maybe someday the big old dinosaur networks might get close -- but not in the near future. For now, networks serve up assembly line Punch & Judy shows.

Every tired cliche of beach movies, police shows, crime dramas, soap operas, and sitcoms is crammed into this BAYWATCH satire. The puns roll in like breakers on the beach. Faces get mugged along with characters.

I love a delicious satire -- and that's what SON OF THE BEACH delivers. What other show dares give us memorable characters named Jamaica St. Croix, Kimberlee Clark, and B.J. Cummings -- plus studly neo-aryan Chip Rommel? And Notch Johnson is a cross between Frank Drebin and Bugs Bunny.

I commend the people who created this show. I wish all TV comedies were this sharp, crazy, and witty.

Excellent. Reminds me of Sledgehammer of the 80s, early Married With Children or perhaps Red Dwarf... contrived, crude, crass, self indulgent and unrepentant. It's perhaps easy to dismiss, but watch a couple epis and you'll be hooked. Notch Johnson (Timothy Stack), and good writing help this stand out. There's a good amount (if stereotypical) character development with each episode following a predictable, but enjoyable path. The character's names crack me up... Mayor Anita Massingil, rofl. The Steven Hawking character was a bit too much. Perhaps they're finding it tough to one-up South Park. It's a shame it was cancelled. TV needs more of independent voices and less of the contrived, mass market, lowest common denominator Raymond and Survivor tripe. Find it and watch, if you can.

I just bought Volume 1 of the "Son of the Beach" DVDs, which contains the first 21 episodes, and I was quite impressed. I pretty much got what I expected: gorgeous women gratuitously roaming around in skimpy bathing suits and a nonstop barrage of cheap sex jokes. But since the show doesn't aspire to be any more than what it is, it works. I can't doubt that the double entendres get repetitive at times, but most of the time I can't help but laugh. Both Jaime Bergman and Leila Arcieri are extremely hot. Timothy Stack, who I've been a fan of since his talk show parody "Night Shift," is great at playing a dim-witted takeoff on David Hasselhoff's character in "Baywatch." His name is Notch, which is somewhat similar to Hasselhoff's character "Mitch." And since his last name's Johnson, that purposely opens up many opportunities for cheap sex jokes. I don't usually like dumb blonde characters, since they're way overused in movies and TV shows, but most of Bergman's airhead one-liners are quite funny. There are gratuitous montages which feature the beautiful female characters strutting their stuff wearing next to nothing, but in a show like this it's pretty much appropriate. Plus, it also works as a sendup of "Baywatch," a show that uses those montages very often, but still tries to pass itself off is tasteful. "Son of the Beach" is in the poorest of taste, and isn't afraid to show it. But if you buy the DVD set, don't watch all the shows consecutively, because like video games this stuff could rot your brain.

My score: 7 (out of 10)