Busy, busy, busy!

Man, I just realized that I haven't updated in couple of weeks. I've been SUPER busy getting geared back up for school starting. NOT READY. Summer's almost over, and I've gotten used to being able to just do whatever whenever. Structure, man. I hate it. Dad says I NEED it, but it's such a pain. Plus, I can't stay up half the night watching whatever I want.
But anyway, the combo of getting ready for school and the TONS of crazy stuff going on around here over the past few weeks (seriously -- you guys wouldn't believe me if I told you about it), I've been pretty lazy about getting this blog thing updated. It's not that I haven't been watching movies, though! I've got a huge backlog of this stuff to get posted! I just have to tie up a couple or three loose ends on the piles of crap that have been developing lately, and I'll be back in the game!

Dissecting the Beach Party movies...

Okay. So here goes.

Last summer, the park had one of those "screen on the green" kind of things where they show movies for free outside, and Dad and I went with Mr. and Mrs. Holiday to see BEACH PARTY (1963). It was a lot of fun, and there was a surprise cameo by Vincent Price! He made some goofy PIT AND THE PENDULUM joke, and fell asleep! It was almost like watching a live-action cartoon or something. There were stupid musical number segments (except for the Dick Dale ones – he's cool!), but the villains in the movie – Eric Von Zipper and the Rats (his gang of bikers) more than made up for it.

So I decided to watch all of the Beach Party movies that summer. And I did it again this summer! And I came to this kind of weird idea: there are like at least two different dimensions that these movies take place in. There are also all kinds of weird connections and continuity things going on. It might not be more than meets the eye, because these things aren't DEEP in any way, but it's WEIRD. It's like they were paying a little more attention than you might expect from the guys who made them.

Okay, first there was BEACH PARTY. This is probably one of my least favorite of these movies, it turns out. But it sets up the whole series. There's Frankie (Frankie Avalon) and Delores (Annette Funicello), and their pals. The main friend of theirs is Deadhead (Jody McCrea), who's a big stupid lunk of a guy. There are some other people who show up in all these movies, like John Ashley. He plays "Ken" in this movie, and I can't stand him. Enough about him for now. Then there's the constant of Eric Von Zipper and his gang.

The next movie is MUSCLE BEACH PARTY (1964), which is probably my second favorite in the bunch. It's great! It's got the first appearance of Don Rickles in these movies, it's got Stevie Wonder (!!!) and it's just a lot more over-the-top funny. The only real change here is that everyone is calling Delores "Dee Dee," which I think makes sense. It's probably a nickname she picked up over the year between the two movies in this universe. The coolest thing is seeing the cameo appearance of Peter Lorre (!!!!!!) as Mr. Strangdour, the king of the strong men (this movie's about a bunch of bodybuilders who move in next to the surfer kids, but none of it really matters much).

That same year, there was BIKINI BEACH, which is kind of a blow-out. It's got some goofy Beatles stuff going on because I guess Frankie felt like his career as a helmet-haired crooner schmuck was in danger. Besides this, the movie's all about car racing, which doesn't really fit, and about Keenan Wynn trying to prove that his pet chimp is smarter than a  teenager. There's too much plot and not enough wackiness. The highlight here is that Boris Karloff shows up for a minute, and he's always great to see. But Don Rickles is back, and he's hilarious like always, and Timothy Carey shows up for the first time playing South Dakota Slim. He's WEIRD.

Okay, now get this. The SAME YEAR, there's another movie that everyone always counts as part of the Beach Party series of movies, but I DON'T THINK IT IS. This one is called PAJAMA PARTY, and it's COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. It's got a lot of the same people in it, but they're playing different people!!! This one is about a martian, Go Go (Tommy Kirk, who gets ON MY NERVES), who comes to Earth to plan an invasion, and winds up falling for Connie – who's played by Annette Funicello!!! SHE'S NOT PLAYING DELORES/DEE DEE!!! Also, she's not dating Frankie in this movie, she's dating Big Lunk, who's played by Jody McCrea WHO IS NOT PLAYING DEADHEAD!!! We're in a whole other universe now, people!!! There's a whole thing about Big Lunk's aunt Wendy (Elsa Lanchester!!!!!! THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN!!!!) being ripped off by this guy named J. Sinister Hulk (Jesse White). Weirdly, Eric Von Zipper shows up, and this movie sets up the running gag through these of silent film star Buster Keaton being paired up with a hugely tall Swedish girl. So those two things are constant through a lot of these movies, no matter the universe. I guess in parallel universes, Eric Von Zipper will always show up. Frankie Avalon shows up at the end as the Martian In Charge, and it's stupid.

Okay, next thing you know, it's 1965, and the best one of these movies comes out. BEACH BLANKET BINGO. It's got the best theme song, it's got the best plot, and it's the funniest. It's all about sky diving (Don Rickles runs the sky diving school with Buster Keaton and his Swedish girlfriend) and a mermaid who falls for Jody McCrea (whose nickname has changed from Deadhead to Bonehead for some reason, but he's obviously the same guy!). John Ashley plays an asshole sky diving instructor, and Deborah Walley plays his girlfriend who is probably NUTS (she tries to frame Frankie for rape!!!) but who is probably the hottest girl in any of these movies. (Her and whoever plays this "Animal" girl that shows up a lot. Nobody talks about Animal, and she's FANTASTIC.) Paul Lynde shows up with Linda Evans! South Dakota Slim shows up and tries to cut Linda Evans in half in a sawmill! Eric Von Zipper drives his motorcycle into the ocean! It's the best. But again, no real changes here.

Next, though, is 1965's SKI PARTY. Like PAJAMA PARTY, this is a whole OTHER universe!!! In this one, Frankie is playing Todd Armstrong who shows up at a ski resort with his buddy Craig Gamble (Dwayne Hickman). They decide to dress as girls to get in with some ski bunnies and learn to ski. You've seen this thing a million times in other movies and TV shows, and it's not much better here. But James Brown shows up and the whole thing RULES for a few minutes! He skis into the place and starts singing "I Feel Good!" WHAT A GUY!!! But then he's gone and the whole place turns to stupid again.

The whole Beach Party series comes crashing down with HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI. In this one, Frankie's in the Navy (when did this happen???) and stationed in Tahiti, and he gets the local witch doctor (Buster Keaton) to conjure up some girl named Cassandra to distract Ricky (Dwayne Hickman) from trying to pick up Dee Dee. There are WAY TOO MANY MUSICAL NUMBERS HERE. This is probably my least favorite of the whole series. It's too bad. If they'd stopped with BEACH BLANKET BINGO, everything would have been great. The only real notable thing here is that South Dakota Slim is replaced by North Dakota Pete, who's played by Uncle Leo from SEINFELD!

Following this up was what seems to be a pretty unrelated movie: 1965's DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE. Vincent Price stars as Dr. Goldfoot, who is going to take over the world with beautiful girl robots who seduce the rich and powerful. One of them goes after Frankie Avalon, who has to be rescued by a secret agent played by Dwayne Hickman. Now get this: their characters have the SAME NAMES as their characters in SKI PARTY, only swapped around! Now, they're not the same characters as before, obviously, since they don't know each other in this movie (and they've got switched around names), but maybe there's ANOTHER universe, where these two idiots' lives were different and maybe they got swapped at the hospital or something! It boggles the mind. This movie does, too. It's pretty lousy, but it's got a great theme song by the Supremes. Annette shows up for a second, as does Eric Von Zipper.

Then the whole thing dies off with 1966's THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI. This takes place in the same universe as PAJAMA PARTY! J. Sinister Hulk is back trying to rip people off and there's a fake Buster Keaton as pretty much the same Indian chief Buster had played in PAJAMA PARTY (he'd died the same year). Basil Rathbone is a villainous lawyer and Boris Karloff is a ghost, but neither one can save this turkey. It's too full of Tommy Kirk. Eric Von Zipper can't even help this thing. Everywhere I read about this movie, they say that this is the final Beach Party movie, but IT'S NOT A BEACH PARTY MOVIE. The last one is HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI from a year earlier!

Okay, so let's break this down. We have at least three different universes going on here. There's the Beach Party universe. That contains BEACH PARTY, MUSCLE BEACH PARTY, BIKINI BEACH, BEACH BLANKET BINGO and HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI. That's five movies, and that's all. They're all about the relationship trials of Frankie and Dee Dee. Then, there's what I want to call the Supernatural Party universe. That's PAJAMA PARTY (which is all about aliens) and THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI (about ghosts). Now, BEACH BLANKET BINGO has a mermaid in it, but it's not what the whole story was about. The focus in that one is on Frankie and Dee Dee still. Then there's the Craig Gamble/Todd Armstrong universe, where SKI PARTY and DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE take place (which are really two sub-universes of their own because of the weird differences there).

There. That's the entire series (which are actually THREE series) broken down for you. So if you want to concentrate on just the Beach Party movies, which are the BEST of all of them, you know what to stick with. Just don't consider the other ones part of the same thing because THEY'RE NOT.

I'm glad I got all this down, because I've been driving my dad NUTS with this for the past year, and he's sick of hearing about it.

(I'm not discussing 1987's BACK TO THE BEACH since that's more of a parody of the series, and Frankie and Annette aren't the same people – the script mixes up GIDGET with the Beach Party movies, Annette isn't called Dee Dee or Delores, etc.)