SAN PEDRO BEACH BUMS

[jimmy66]

ANYONE REMEMBER THIS SITCOM FROM THE MID-LATE 70'S ? ITHINK IT GOT CANCELLED AFTER IT'S FIRST RUN .

[sar]

I remember it. One of the guys was called Boychick. Stuart Pankin was one of the guys and I'm not sure, but they may have lived on a boat.

[Jimbo]

I also remember this program. It was about a group of guys who shared a houseboat in San Pedro. There were about 5 or 6 of them in the group. I can't remember the names of all of the characters, but a few of them were "Dancer", "Moose", and "Boychick". If you've ever seen any of the old Bowery Boys/Dead End Kids movies, you will see a lot of similarities between those movies and this show.

[Du Mont]

That's what I remember most about 'The San Pedro Beach Bums', which came from Mr. Aaron Spelling's production house, and for which ABC gave a huge promo push as part of their fall 1977 season launch.

In an era where comedies never lasted longer than 30 minutes, 'Beach Bums' was a half-hour sitcom that seemed to be stretched out over a full hour (a bit on the boring side). Reminiscent in a way of last seasons 'Big Shots' on ABC (exactly 30 years apart for these two Alphabet dramedies), this buddy genre was thought to be something that the male demographic watching 'Monday Night Football' would fancy, but ultimately, it was pretty slow moving, especially given Mr. Spelling's golden touch for watchable television (though it did feature quite of bit of pretty young females in supporting roles that were the hallmark of so many Spelling series).

I remember having my doubts about whether this show would work when I first heard the series described in May 1977 as part of ABC's upfront, and it never came anywhere near the ratings generated by 'The Captain & Tennille' and 'The Brady Bunch Variety Hour' from the season before. In the end, it ended up being not all that compatible with football either.

But it was an interesting early dramedy experiment, and one that ABC had very high hopes for. Or at least Mr. Fred Silverman and Mr. Aaron Spelling did.

[bencasey]

I remember watching the show and being disappointed. As one of the above posters stated, they appeared to be going for a Bowery Boys kind of feel. The only problem was the BB mixed comedy but would also brawl at some point in the movies whereas the San Pedro Bums were depicted as a bunch of ******* and they never fought. It was like the Bowery Boys if the whole gang was like Satch.