Aaron Spelling's track record with comedies, dating back to his days at Four Star, was never great. His first series after leaving Four Star was Rango, a midseason replacement series for ABC in 1967 that was Tim Conway's first post-McHale's Navy effort (previously reviewed).
Spelling's niche, he later discovered, was in crime drama and, to a lesser extent, westerns (Guns of Will Sonnett ran for 2 seasons). Blending comedy and drama? Spelling found out that worked, with the success of The Love Boat, so he decided to try a mix of comedy and some light crime drama.
The San Pedro Beach Bums began with a pilot movie that aired in the spring of 1977, and by the time it went to series in September, one cast member was replaced, and ABC hoped to hit the ground running with a crossover with the stars of Charlie's Angels, just in time for Cheryl Ladd's debut in that series. Adding to the pressure was being placed as a lead-in to Monday Night Football.
Unfortunately, it didn't work. ABC cancelled the series after 10 episodes.
The following video from Gilmore Box is for the pilot, which went by The San Pedro Bums. ABC & Spelling added Beach to the title when they went to series.
Of the cast, Kristoff St. John, who had been on NBC's ill-fated Saturday morning sitcom, Big John-Little John a year earlier, would find greater success years later upon joining The Young & The Restless, a gig he would have until his passing last year. Stuart Pankin is currently doing infomercials, long after the end of HBO's Not Necessarily The News. It's too bad none of the episodes are available, including a crossover with Love Boat, and one entry with a guest appearance by Arnold Schwarzenegger, a year removed from "The Villain".
No rating.
3 comments:
I read about this show in Rick Mitz's 'The Great TV Sitcom Book', but Mr. Mitz omitted the part about the guys being detectives. Probably because that tidbit of information was overlooked from the book's entry, the detective thing seems kind of tacked on to me, a bit like how it was in the first season or two of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
In addition to Not Necessarily the News, Stuart Pankin would also achieve some light but notable fame as the voice of dino dad Earl Sinclair on ABC's Dinosaurs.
Years later, Stephen J. Cannel would also try his hand at a show about dudes living on a houseboat who double as detectives, Riptide, which found greater success, running for a few seasons.
The 'detectives on a houseboat' genre dated back to SURFSIDE SIX, which ran two seasons from 1960-62. One of Warner's many 77 SUNSET STRIP variations, but what I saw of it on Warner Archive Instant a few years back was about up to that show's quality.
Stuart Pankin was playing a high school nerd three years later at 33(!) on HOLLYWOOD KNIGHTS.
The Bums were just a group of guys who would be filed under amateur detectives, since they seemed to be fighting bad guys in some episodes.
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