‘Beach Blanket Bingo’ Turns 60! Here’s Where to Watch Frankie Avalon & Annette Funicello’s Best Movies
On April 14, 1965, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello boogied back to the beach in Beach Blanket Bingo, the fifth of the Beach Party films. Beginning with 1963’s Beach Party, which first paired clean-cut, 22-year-old pop heartthrob and sometimes-actor Avalon with raven-haired, 20-year-old former Mouseketeer Funicello, the duo sang, surfed and watusi-ed their way into moviegoers’ hearts throughout the ’60s.
The iconic duo almost wasn’t, however — Fabian was AIP’s first choice for Avalon’s role and Funicello’s former boss, Walt Disney, disapproved of her playing a beach babe, clean cut or otherwise. But pair struck gold, and Frankie and Annette played variations of their Beach Party characters in five more AIP beach films, with Avalon’s part eventually dwindling as he sought meatier roles. But to movie buffs around the globe, they would forever be Frankie and Annette, the Big Kahuna of the beach and his bubbly queen.
In 1987, Avalon and Funicello reunited — this time as middle-aged married Frankie and Annette — in the beach-movie parody Back to the Beach (a planned sequel fell through), and later embarked on a multi-city musical tour.
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July 2017
Summer nights at the drive-in, summer love, songs for the beach and tiki time!
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Anthropology professor Robert Sutwell (Bob Cummings) arrives in Malibu to study the mating habits of teen surfers, leading to romantic misadventures for sweethearts Frankie (Avalon) and Dolores (Funicello) — plus a little trouble with a motorcycle gang for suspense. The film also launched Dick Dale & the Del-Tones — and surf music as a whole — into the lexicon.
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Adding a little, er, muscle to the beachy theme, Muscle Beach Party sees Frankie, Dolores (now called Dee Dee) and their surfing pals’ summer fun threatened — this time, by a crew of bodybuilders, their knucklehead coach (Don Rickles) and an Italian countess (Luciana Paluzzi) with her eye on Frankie. Fun fact: 13-year-old Stevie Wonder — billed as “Little Stevie Wonder” — makes his film debut.
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Bikini Beach
Avalon does double duty, playing both Frankie and a John-Lennon-esque drag-racing British rocker known as The Potato Bug (a cheeky poke at the Beatles). Bikini Beach‘s complication arrives in the form of millionaire Harvey Huntington Honeywagon III (Keenan Wynn), who plans to turn their beloved beach into a retirement home. Of note: AIP was eyeing a new series of racing-themed movies for Avalon, a possible reason for the dual role.
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Pajama Party
The phasing out of Frankie and Dee Dee begins, as Funicello’s fellow Disney alum Tommy Kirk takes over as her leading man, playing a Martian newcomer named Go Go who is sent to Earth as a scout and finds beach life — and beach bunny Connie (Funicello) — to his liking. Fun fact: Teri Garr and “Mickey” singer Toni Basil appear as go-go dancers.
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Linda Evans signs on as chanteuse Sugar Kane, whose high-flying publicity stunt ensnares Frankie, Dee Dee and the gang. Bingo also features the one-two comic punch of Paul Lynde (as Kane’s sketchy manager) and Don Rickles.
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Avalon appears for mere minutes in the pair’s beach-movie swan song, which sees Navy man Frankie realizing his own attraction to the Tahitian girls around him might mean that Dee Dee’s also sowing her oats at home. At his request, a witch doctor (Buster Keaton) conjures up a gorgeous sea creature to lure the boys away from his girl.
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