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California Fever

MAYBE it’s the water? Maybe it’s the air? Maybe it’s the sunshine that gets in your hair? Maybe it’s the ladies and the clothes that they wear? I don’t know, and I don’t care! Teen Coffee-Shop-Convergence stuff of legend, in which hot-rod tinkering Ross (Marc McClure), pirate-radio tinkering Vince (Jimmy McNichol), and synth-tinkering Laurie (Michele Tobin) plotted surf’n’disco-centric escapades in cahoots with standard issue part-Frankie-Avalon-part-Fonz-part-Kramer-part-Bob-Markley ‘older pal’ Rick (the brilliantly named Lorenzo Lamas). Bombed and cancelled mid-season in the States, where it was presumably considered too close to what the target audience got up to in their everyday lives anyway, but which bizarrely found its way into the BBC’s school holiday childrens’ schedules, where the gang’s exotic (and occasionally jaw-droppingly ‘spicy’) beach-themed exploits caught the imagination of many a viewer burning their own selection boxes for warmth in front of the BBC Christmas Skaters, and in a classic example of the ‘Red Hand Gang Gambit’ became a much-loved favourite over here yet almost forgotten in its homeland. And yes, there was inevitably a ‘roller showdown’…

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Damon

    September 19, 2015 at 6:41 am

    In one episode they put the radio station’s transmitter in the back of a car and drove it around to confuse the authorities who then couldn’t track down where the illegal pirate signal was coming from. I guess you don’t really need to do pirate radio any more, not when you can setup your own station on the internet. nice sunny show.

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