Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Son Of The Beach: Cast Photo

Son of the Beach aired from March 2000 until October 2002 on FX.

Exceptionally raunchy sitcom about the intrepid lifeguards of Malibu Adjacent, California, led by flabby, out-of-shape-but resourceful-Notch Johnson ( Timothy Stack). His buff team consisted of B.J. ( Jaime Bergman), a part-time model who held the beach record for number of saves ( 52 mouth-to-mouth rescues); Jamaica ( Leila Arcieri), an inner-city sexpot with a "happening attitude" who became a lifeguard after her brother was killed in a swim-by-shooting; Chip ( Roland Kickinger), a beefy German bodybuilder; and Kimberlee ( Kim Oja), whose intelligence made her severely overqualified for the " SPF 30" team. Kimberlee , it turned out, was a spy sent by scheming Mayor Massengil ( Lisa Banes), who was plotting to get rid of Notch, but her loyalties quickly switched to the honest Notch. Kody ( Jason Hopkins) was the mayor's fey, gay teenage son, who, like his uptight mother , lusted after Chip. Joining the team in 2002 was another beauty named Porcelain ( Amy Weber).

Among the unlikely threats that befell Notch and his "unit" were the toxic Unidumper, evil Professor Milosevic's female robot lifeguards, a mythical beast called the cocktopuss ( part rooster, part octopus ), and villians Stinkfinger and Heinous Anus ( RuPaul). Nor were the adventures limited to Malabu Adjacent: Jamaica became the first black lifeguard in space, and the team traveled to Japan, South America, and the Middle East ( where Notch became best friends with Israli Noccus Johnstein, played by Gilbert Gottfried). A highlight of each episode was a fantasy sequence loosely tied to the plot, depicting such activities as amorously feeding grapes to members of the opposite sex, beautiful models slowly rubbing on sunscreen, etc.

This wild parody on Baywatch ( or cesspool of double entendres, depending on your point of view) was created by none other than Howard Stern, the radio "shock jock."

A Review from Variety

Son of the Beach
((SERIES; FX, TUES. MARCH 14, 10:30 P.M.))
By PHIL GALLO

Powered By Filmed in Los Angeles by Howard Stern Prods. Executive producers, Tim Stack, David Morgasen, James R. Stein, Howard Stern; producers, Scott McAvoy, Gil Wadsworth; director, George Verschoor; writers, Stack, David Morgasen, Stein; director of photography, Armand Gazarian.

Notch Johnson ..... Tim Stack
Jamaica St. Croix ..... Leila Arcieri
Anita Massengil ..... Lisa Banes
B.J. Cummings ..... Jamie Bergman
Chip Rommel ..... Roland Kickinger
Kimberlee Clark ..... Kim Oja
Cody ..... Jason Hopkins

A juvenile spoof on "Baywatch," this lifeguard-themed comedy series is an innuendo machine intent on exploiting every racial and ethnic stereotype possible. Were it just a goof --- Tim Stack as the older out-of-shape lifeguard teamed with a trio of buff eye-candy --- it might draw a cult audience the way Stack's "Nightstand With Dick Dietrick" did. But this is too far over the top, and even fans of FX's "The X Show" will find it wearisome after a few weeks. How often can you laugh at a dog humping a woman's leg?
Show has all the earmarks of a Howard Stern production: sex talk, sex jokes, sex puns and politically incorrect humor. And it can be funny and even clever. After the three are warned about using more sunblock, show goes into an inspired and comical Playboy-esque video sequence; one string of puns even includes a clever jab at fascism, which is about as intellectual as the show gets. Opening credits are a quality Quinn Martin Prod. takeoff.

Debut of series, six episodes of which have been ordered, introduces Notch Johnson (Stack) as a local hero deemed the world's greatest lifeguard. His "unit" --- yes, as with Johnson's name, there's a penis joke lurking at every turn --- consists of the naive B.J. Cummings (Jamie Bergman), Jamaica St. Croix (Leila Arcieri) from the inner city, and Aryan nation member Chip Rommel (Roland Kickinger).

Kim Oja plays Kimberlee Clark, the team's newest member, hired as a spy by Mayor Anita Massengil (Lisa Banes), who needs dirt on the lifeguard to jump-start a run at Congress. Convoluted plot takes Johnson to an Asian massage parlor where he intends to break up a prostitution ring. In first half-hour, show beats into the ground running gags --- all painfully obvious --- about Cambodian food, black lingo and terminally ill children.

Production has the sheen of "Baywatch," and all the actors perform their duties admirably and straight-faced. There's never a knowing wink from any of these characters --- they're believable dolts.

A Review from Entertainment Weekly

TV Review
Son of the Beach

B+ By Ken Tucker Ken Tucker

If I worried about such things as the collapse of the culture, I'd be wringing my metaphorical hands over the fact that one of the silliest shows in the history of television, Baywatch, now has a transcendently silly parody of it in Son of the Beach, a new half-hour sitcom that is the sand-gritty fruit of Howard Stern's latest foray into TV production. Meanwhile, Baywatchitself has yielded an inadvertent self-parody in Baywatch Hawaii, a syndicated thong-fest featuring high-drama lines like ''A lifeguard dating a victim is a potential time bomb!''

It is this sort of poker-faced melodrama, combined with years of familiarity with the middle-aged pectoral clenching of star David Hasselhoff and the seismic chest heaving of Pamela Anderson Lee, that has inspired Son of the Beach. The exact TV equivalent of a good MAD magazine spoof, Beach stars Tim Stack, seen most recently as the fake talk-show host of Nightstand With Dick Dietrick. Here, Stack, who's also a writer and producer for Beach, plays head lifeguard Notch Johnson, a scrawny buffoon with skin the color of oatmeal and delusions of sun-dappled grandeur. As he proved on Nightstand, Stack has a gift for absurd solemnity, and he utters his intentionally cornball jokes and single entendres with all the gravity of a big wave crashing into the surf. When a character says, ''I was reared by my grandmother,'' and Stack's Notch responds with soulful quietness, ''Really? I was reared by two uncles,'' you know that Howard Stern's brand of strenuously adolescent humor has found an ideal performer.

As you'd expect from a Stern project, the female lifeguards are all Lycra-bursting babes, with special camera attention paid to the show's Anderson Lee knockoff, Jaime Bergman, who plays B.J. Cummings with chesty assertion but rather less comedic skill than Stack. Funnier than Bergman, but less intentionally so, are all the actors in Baywatch Hawaii. Anderson Lee, the ultimate bouncing beach bunny, left Baywatch a few years ago to launch her highly successful bodyguard-in-platform-heels show V.I.P.She and most of the original cast have been replaced, in relocating from California to Hawaii, by a platoon of pretty boys and girls whose acting ability is somewhat below the requirements for the daytime soap opera Passions.

Go to the Baywatch Hawaii webpage and you'll find this description of the show's randiest minx, Brandy Ledford's Dawn: ''a complex, intelligent, and sensual woman. A physiology and kinesiology specialist, she knows everything about the human body, and her role on the team is to try to maximize everyone's potential.'' In the episodes I've seen, the only thing Dawn has maximized is the number of ways one can shake one's hair to let the sun glint off it.

Baywatch episodes have never been brow-furrowing epic poetry, but lately they've become nearly wordless and wholly suspense-free. Two recent examples: (1) Woman falls into a sulfurous air pocket in the water; three Baywatchers dive in and get her — plot complete. (2) Interchangeable Baywatcher Jason (Jason Momoa) meets an actress; they go out to dinner. Cut to commercial. Then Jason gives her a lei (hey, hey get those smutty Son of the Beach-type jokes out of your head!), and she gets on a plane back to L.A. — plot complete. While it may be true, as Anderson Lee recently told Jay Leno, that ''it's not about the dialogue,'' an hour-long TV show does require some minimal amount of drama; Baywatch Hawaii, however, is more like a listless behind-the-scenes photo shoot for Victoria's Secret swimwear, with the occasional brandishing of a snorkel for authenticity.

It's no wonder that, while Hasselhoff is still in the show's opening credits, he doesn't appear in the show for weeks on end. Scheduled to leave at the end of this season, the ol' Hassler is reportedly miffed that the script calls for him to die in an explosion. But he's blowing up just in time, because after people get a load of Son of the Beach's definitive deconstruction, no one will ever be able to look at syndicated lifeguarding with even the smallest suspension of disbelief again. Son of the Beach: B+ Baywatch Hawaii: D

For an episode guide go to http://www.tv.com/son-of-the-beach/show/2469/summary.html

For an episode list go to http://epguides.com/SonoftheBeach/

For a Page dedicated to Timothy Stack go to http://www.bradyresidence.com/timstack.html

For a Page dedicated to Leila Arcieri go to http://www.leila-arcieri.net/bio.htm

For a Page dedicated to Jaime Bergman go to http://www.deptq.com/jaime_bergman.htm

For the Official Site of Roland Kickinger go to http://www.kickinger.com/

For a Page dedicated to Roland Kickinger go to http://www.getbig.com/pics/bbmen/k/kickinger.htm

For the Official Site of Amy Weber go to http://www.amyweber.net/

To find when Son of the Beach JTS go to http://www.jumptheshark.com/topic/Son-Beach/Son-Beach-General-Comments/1826

For more on Son of the Beach go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_the_Beach

To watch the opening dredits go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R09GZh2j0U