17 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :- The Bold and the Funny, 31 May 2001
Author:
Matthew Ignoffo (mermatt@webtv.net) from Eatontown, NJ, USA
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.
10 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :- Cool Baywatch satire, 26 January 2002
Author:
David, Film Freak from Palmerston North, New Zealand
A very funny take-off of the cult TV series 'Baywatch'.
With stereotypical characters that take the p**s out of David Hasselhoff,
Pamela Anderson and David Charvet this group of lifeguards will have you
rolling along the floor!
Of course it helps when major hotties Jaime Bergmen (BJ Cummings - c'mon!)
and Leila Arcieri (Jamaica St. Croix) are the main stars!
I hope it lasts because it is a well-written and refreshingly interesting
show.
12 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :- Funniest original cable show ever, 11 April 2003
Author:
Rapier25 from Bloomsburg, PA
Son of the Beach follows the misadventures of the world's greatest
lifeguard Notch Johnson and his unit, Shore Patrol Force 30. Notch's
unit
is made up of Arkansas beauty BJ Cummings; Kimberlee Clark, the "smart,
flat-chested one"; lifeguard from the 'hood, Jamaica St. Croix; and Chip
Rommel, descendant of the German general Erwin Rommel. After the first
three seasons, Porcelein Bidet joined the team. With his SPF 30 team,
Notch
set out to do things every lifeguard has to do, like stop illegal
importers,
drug dealers, mad scientists, almost graduate from Southern University
College at Malibu Adjacent (SUCMA), and found a school for Retards and
Orphans.
Just from this description, how can you not want to watch this show?
With
show titles like "BJ Blue Hawaii" and "Witness for the Prostitution,"
every
show is full of innuendoes and double entendres. Many people may be put
off
by the fact that Howard Stern produced this show, but that is a lame
reason
to not watch. If you don't watch this show, it should be for two
reasons:
1)You don't get cable or 2)you don't like insanely funny shows.
Seriously,
how can you not laugh when Notch is talking about his Hawaiian friend
King
Kumonnha and his nut farm? Plus, just about every episode has a scene
where
Leila Arcieri and Jaime Bergman get to show off their, uh, attributes
more
artistically than normal. How can you not like that?
In summation, there's comedy, high comedy, and then there's Son of the
Beach.
7 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :- Great, 1 July 2004
Author:
Andrew Taylor from Calgary, AB, Canada
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.
4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :- Baywatch meets Police Squad meets Get Smart, 16 March 2000
Author:
Jerry Hermes (mr.hermes@cox.net) from San Diego
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.
8 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :- Utterly devoid of any intellectual value, but funny and entertaining, 17 June 2004
Author:
MovieLuvaMatt from New Jersey
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)
3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :- One of the best TV comedies, 13 March 2003
Author:
Phil Karn from San Diego, California
As you can tell from the other comments, this show is not for everyone.
It's
definitely not for kids or religious bluenoses. But if you like your humor
with a highly irreverent and politically incorrect edge, this show is one
of
the best.
Yes, "Son of the Beach" is a "Baywatch" parody. But that doesn't do it
justice. It's a Baywatch parody that mixes elements of "Police Squad!",
"Get
Smart", the 1960s "Batman" TV series and "South Park" with Timothy Stack's
own brand of humor.
The show has its share of sight gags, but clever dialogue is its real
strength. Almost every line is a sexual double entendre, tortured word
play
or horrendous pun. It helps that most of these fly right over the heads of
the characters who, save one, are far too thick headed to catch on. The
one
exception is straight-laced, overly serious Kimberlee Clark (Kimberly
Oja),
whose embarassed frowns and double takes are always fun to
watch.
The leader of the "SPF-30" lifeguard unit is Notch Johnson, played by
chief
writer Timothy Stack. A running gag is that everyone sees and treats
Johnson
as a perfect physical specimen even though Stack is middle aged, balding,
has an overbite and is definitely not in the best possible physical
condition. Stack gives himself most of the show's best lines.
All the other characters are humorously broad caricatures. Chip Rommel
(Roland Kickinger, obviously cast for his close resemblance to a young
Arnold Schwartzenegger) is a good-natured but brain-dead hunk who's
surprised to learn that America and his native Germany had fought wars
with
each other. His incomplete command of English is always getting him into
trouble, and he never knows why. (Example: he decides to help kids with
attention deficit disorder. He calls his program "Chip Rommel's
Concentration Camp").
Anita Massengil (Lisa Banes) is an evil, sadistic scheming politician in
the
Cruella DeVille mold. B. J. Cummings (Jaime Bergman) is a naive bimbo from
the rural south. Jamaica St. Croix (Leila Arcieri) is a streetwise black
from an urban ghetto. A late addition was Porcelain Bidet (Amy Weber), a
bitchy, jealous, gold-digging bimbo.
All in all, if you are not easily offended and revel in outrageous,
politically incorrect humor, you will love this show.
5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :- hilarious stuff, 17 April 2001
Author:
JBoze313 from Evansville, Indiana
This is one of the funniest shows on tv today. There have actually been
few shows as funny in a long time. Most of the time, the stories are
really
cheesy, but that's purposeful, so you really can't complain about that.
Stack is a comic genius if you ask me, and I have thought so ever since
Nightstand. He shines throughout the series, and the others do as well.
The show is PACKED full of laughs, it's the kind of series that has a joke
in every line, and it works perfectly here. Great actors who are
genuinely
funny, and a comedic undertone that is just plain outstanding, this show
is
a 10.
5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :- Baywatch Meets Nightstand, Rated RF (really fun), 19 September 2000
Author:
Peter A. Lake from Marblehead, MA
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.
2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :- It's stupid! It's offensive! I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, 10 August 2001
Author:
jlessard from Rochester, NY
I just recently started getting FX for the NASCAR races, so I didn't know
much about it. I saw ads for "Son" during the races, and I thought it
looked
like the dumbest thing I'd ever seen. One night I couldn't find anything
else to watch, so I thought I'd watch "Son" just once to confirm my
suspicions. Boy was I WRONG! The show is stupid and offensive, but that's
what it's supposed to be. That's what makes it hilarious! Hyper-sensitive
people should not watch this show, but if you don't have a problem with
laughing at yourself, tune in! You don't know what you are missing! The
cast
of "Son" is excellent, especially Tim Stack. I remember seeing him in guest
roles on "Night Court" years ago, but I had no idea how funny he is. I
can't
believe it took Howard Stern to get Tim his own show. Watch "Son of the
Beach" one time and you'll be hooked!
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17 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
The Bold and the Funny, 31 May 2001
Author: Matthew Ignoffo (mermatt@webtv.net) from Eatontown, NJ, USA
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.
10 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Cool Baywatch satire, 26 January 2002
Author: David, Film Freak from Palmerston North, New Zealand
A very funny take-off of the cult TV series 'Baywatch'.
With stereotypical characters that take the p**s out of David Hasselhoff, Pamela Anderson and David Charvet this group of lifeguards will have you rolling along the floor!
Of course it helps when major hotties Jaime Bergmen (BJ Cummings - c'mon!) and Leila Arcieri (Jamaica St. Croix) are the main stars!
I hope it lasts because it is a well-written and refreshingly interesting show.
12 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Funniest original cable show ever, 11 April 2003
Author: Rapier25 from Bloomsburg, PA
Son of the Beach follows the misadventures of the world's greatest lifeguard Notch Johnson and his unit, Shore Patrol Force 30. Notch's unit is made up of Arkansas beauty BJ Cummings; Kimberlee Clark, the "smart, flat-chested one"; lifeguard from the 'hood, Jamaica St. Croix; and Chip Rommel, descendant of the German general Erwin Rommel. After the first three seasons, Porcelein Bidet joined the team. With his SPF 30 team, Notch set out to do things every lifeguard has to do, like stop illegal importers, drug dealers, mad scientists, almost graduate from Southern University College at Malibu Adjacent (SUCMA), and found a school for Retards and Orphans.
Just from this description, how can you not want to watch this show? With show titles like "BJ Blue Hawaii" and "Witness for the Prostitution," every show is full of innuendoes and double entendres. Many people may be put off by the fact that Howard Stern produced this show, but that is a lame reason to not watch. If you don't watch this show, it should be for two reasons: 1)You don't get cable or 2)you don't like insanely funny shows. Seriously, how can you not laugh when Notch is talking about his Hawaiian friend King Kumonnha and his nut farm? Plus, just about every episode has a scene where Leila Arcieri and Jaime Bergman get to show off their, uh, attributes more artistically than normal. How can you not like that?
In summation, there's comedy, high comedy, and then there's Son of the Beach.
7 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Great, 1 July 2004
Author: Andrew Taylor from Calgary, AB, Canada
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.
4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Baywatch meets Police Squad meets Get Smart, 16 March 2000
Author: Jerry Hermes (mr.hermes@cox.net) from San Diego
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.
8 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Utterly devoid of any intellectual value, but funny and entertaining, 17 June 2004
Author: MovieLuvaMatt from New Jersey
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)
3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the best TV comedies, 13 March 2003
Author: Phil Karn from San Diego, California
As you can tell from the other comments, this show is not for everyone. It's definitely not for kids or religious bluenoses. But if you like your humor with a highly irreverent and politically incorrect edge, this show is one of the best.
Yes, "Son of the Beach" is a "Baywatch" parody. But that doesn't do it justice. It's a Baywatch parody that mixes elements of "Police Squad!", "Get Smart", the 1960s "Batman" TV series and "South Park" with Timothy Stack's own brand of humor.
The show has its share of sight gags, but clever dialogue is its real strength. Almost every line is a sexual double entendre, tortured word play or horrendous pun. It helps that most of these fly right over the heads of the characters who, save one, are far too thick headed to catch on. The one exception is straight-laced, overly serious Kimberlee Clark (Kimberly Oja), whose embarassed frowns and double takes are always fun to watch.
The leader of the "SPF-30" lifeguard unit is Notch Johnson, played by chief writer Timothy Stack. A running gag is that everyone sees and treats Johnson as a perfect physical specimen even though Stack is middle aged, balding, has an overbite and is definitely not in the best possible physical condition. Stack gives himself most of the show's best lines.
All the other characters are humorously broad caricatures. Chip Rommel (Roland Kickinger, obviously cast for his close resemblance to a young Arnold Schwartzenegger) is a good-natured but brain-dead hunk who's surprised to learn that America and his native Germany had fought wars with each other. His incomplete command of English is always getting him into trouble, and he never knows why. (Example: he decides to help kids with attention deficit disorder. He calls his program "Chip Rommel's Concentration Camp").
Anita Massengil (Lisa Banes) is an evil, sadistic scheming politician in the Cruella DeVille mold. B. J. Cummings (Jaime Bergman) is a naive bimbo from the rural south. Jamaica St. Croix (Leila Arcieri) is a streetwise black from an urban ghetto. A late addition was Porcelain Bidet (Amy Weber), a bitchy, jealous, gold-digging bimbo.
All in all, if you are not easily offended and revel in outrageous, politically incorrect humor, you will love this show.
5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
hilarious stuff, 17 April 2001
Author: JBoze313 from Evansville, Indiana
This is one of the funniest shows on tv today. There have actually been few shows as funny in a long time. Most of the time, the stories are really cheesy, but that's purposeful, so you really can't complain about that. Stack is a comic genius if you ask me, and I have thought so ever since Nightstand. He shines throughout the series, and the others do as well. The show is PACKED full of laughs, it's the kind of series that has a joke in every line, and it works perfectly here. Great actors who are genuinely funny, and a comedic undertone that is just plain outstanding, this show is a 10.
5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Baywatch Meets Nightstand, Rated RF (really fun), 19 September 2000
Author: Peter A. Lake from Marblehead, MA
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.
2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
It's stupid! It's offensive! I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, 10 August 2001
Author: jlessard from Rochester, NY
I just recently started getting FX for the NASCAR races, so I didn't know much about it. I saw ads for "Son" during the races, and I thought it looked like the dumbest thing I'd ever seen. One night I couldn't find anything else to watch, so I thought I'd watch "Son" just once to confirm my suspicions. Boy was I WRONG! The show is stupid and offensive, but that's what it's supposed to be. That's what makes it hilarious! Hyper-sensitive people should not watch this show, but if you don't have a problem with laughing at yourself, tune in! You don't know what you are missing! The cast of "Son" is excellent, especially Tim Stack. I remember seeing him in guest roles on "Night Court" years ago, but I had no idea how funny he is. I can't believe it took Howard Stern to get Tim his own show. Watch "Son of the Beach" one time and you'll be hooked!
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