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Surfside 6
1960 - 1962 5.0 (2 votes) 2 Seasons
Genres
Drama
Networks
ABC

Surfside 6

Overview

Surfside 6 was an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered on a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison; and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne. Diane McBain co-starred as socialite Daphne Dutton, whose yacht was berthed next to their houseboat. Margarita Sierra also had a supporting role as Cha Cha O'Brien, an entertainer who worked at The Boom Boom Room, a popular Miami Beach hangout at the Fontainebleau Hotel, directly across the street from Surfside 6. Surfside 6 was in fact a real address in Miami Beach, where an unrelated houseboat was moored at the time; it can also be seen in the sweeping aerial establishing shot of the Fontainebleu in 1964's Goldfinger.

Key Crew

Producer: William T. Orr

Top Cast

Troy Donahue
Troy Donahue

Sandy Winfield II

Van Williams
Van Williams

Ken Madison

Lee Patterson
Lee Patterson

Dave Thorne

Diane McBain
Diane McBain

Daphne Dutton

Margarita Sierra

Cha Cha O'Brien

Seasons

Season 1 (1960)

No overview available.

34 episodes

Episodes
Episode 1: Country Gentleman
1960-10-03

An ex-con moves to Miami from New York with his muscle man. No one believes he's gone straight, especially when a yacht club commodore turns up dead after denying him access to the yacht club.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 2: High Tide
1960-10-10

A woman, who identifies herself as a ""boring stenographer on vacation"", shows up at the houseboat with three thugs after her. After Sandy and Ken fend off the men, Sandy takes the woman for a drink -- and she promptly disappears on him. He's out to find out where the ""boring stenographer"" went and why men were tailing her.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 3: The Clown
1960-10-17

A hated dictator, living in exile in Miami, is murdered during a birthday party for his son. Lt. Snedigar thinks he has an open-and-shut case against Pepe the Clown, who performed at the birthday party, but Pepe insists he was not at the party. Dave has to prove to the skeptical policeman someone else went to the party in Pepe's costume.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 4: According to Our Files
1960-10-24

Bearer bonds have been missing for seven years while the man convicted of their theft has been in prison. An insurance agent asks Sandy to try to recover the bonds before his company has to pay on the insurance policy. One problem: every lead in the case turns out to be bad.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 5: Local Girl
1960-10-31

A woman is on the run with $20,000 that was intended as a bribe. She hires Ken as a bodyguard to accompany her back to her hometown, unaware that the brother of the man the bribe is intended to free is on their tail.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 6: Par-a-kee
1960-11-07

Daphne goes to visit her horse, Par-a-kee, at the stable the night before a race. She interrupts a man trying to inject the horse with a fatal virus. Daphne's father hires Dave to investigate, while a bookie begins spreading rumors about the Dutton stable to have Par-a-kee disqualified.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 7: Deadly Male
1960-11-14

A woman, having an affair, turns up dead after her lover attempts to blackmail her. The woman's husband, who suspected the affair, is the prime suspect, and asks Dave to find the truth.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 8: Power of Suggestion
1960-11-21

The girl in a mind-reading act hires Dave to look after her because she feels that the star of the show has given her a post-hypnotic suggestion to kill someone.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 9: Odd Job
1960-11-28

Ken is paid $2000 to meet a business executive in Fort Lauderdale. En route he is kidnapped by men posing as police officers. He escapes and arrives at the hotel to meet the businessman, discovering someone else posing as Ken Madison has already contacted the businessman.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 10: The International Net
1960-12-05

A theatrical producer's wife receives a note implicating her husband as a killer. He intercepts a second note and asks Ken and Sandy to find who sent the message. A man the producer hated, a former love rival, turns up dead, and there are no shortage of suspects.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 11: The Frightened Canary
1960-12-12

An obnoxious comedian makes advances toward a nightclub singer friend of Sandy's. She publicly embarrasses him after he beats her boyfriend up, so he seeks his revenge with threats and harassment.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 12: Girl in the Galleon
1960-12-19

A diver discovers five boxes of gold coins in a shipwreck while on a dive for a museum. He goes to ask for a percentage of the find. The next day he turns up dead, an apparant drowning victim. Sandy thinks it was murder, so he enlists Ken to find out what happened and if it is related to a woman the diver reported seeing in the sunken ship the day before his death.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 13: Bride and Seek
1960-12-26

Dave is asked by a woman to find her missing husband. While investigating he discovers he's not the only one looking for the missing man -- and the woman who hired him isn't really the bride she claims to be.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 14: Little Star Lost
1961-01-02

When a beautiful starlet finds out she is adopted, her old friend Sandy tries to keep her from being duped by someone claiming to be her real mother.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 15: Heels Over Head
1961-01-09

Dave and Ken are dropped into a criminal's hunt for $70,000 after Dave refuses the job of protecting a closed-mouth man who leaves behind a letter with a fake address and blank paper inside.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 16: Facts on the Fire
1961-01-16

A woman has an unusual request of Ken: she wants him to prove that she's guilty of murdering her husband, although she was cleared of wrongdoing by an inquest. Before he begins investigating in earnest Ken is beaten up by some ""admirers"" of the dead man and ordered to make certain his investigation does prove her guilty. The more Ken digs, the more he uncovers that makes it appear that the woman did murder her husband.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 17: Yesterday's Hero
1961-01-23

Dave has wounds from the past opened up over his best friend from the Korean War. The man was reported to have been executed by a dictator for aiding revolutionaries, but his widow shows up and claims she wired him money long after the alleged execution. Dave tries to find his old buddy while controlling his feelings for his friend's wife and dealing with the suspicious exiles.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 18: Thieves Among Honor
1961-01-30

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 19: License to Steal
1961-02-06

A former USO singer who knew Dave in Korea is trying to make a name for herself. To help, she gets a ""gimmick"" - $130,000 worth of jewelry to attract publicity. The ""gimmick"" indeed attracts publicity -- thieves, who rob the nightclub during the show.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 20: Race Against Time
1961-02-13

Dave is poisoned while flying back to Miami. Ken and Sandy have five hours to find what poison was used in order to save Dave's life. That task is complicated by uncooperative passengers from Dave's flight and the accidental death of the prime suspect, a man Dave once prosecuted.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 21: Black Orange Blossoms
1961-02-20

Barbara Page, a friend of Sandy's, invites him to Jamaica to celebrate a carnival. While there, a friend of Barbara's father dies from a snake bite. Since there are no poisonous snakes on Jamaica, one of the plantation workers, often accused of importing poisonous snakes for voodoo rituals, is the prime suspect. Both Barbara's father and the plantation worker ask Sandy to investigate.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 22: The Chase
1961-02-27

Dave Thorne aids a murder witness.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 23: Ghost of a Chance
1961-03-06

A Treasury Department engraver retiree disappears from Bass Creek on his honeymoon. A federal agent thinks he's being forced to work with conterfeiters so she hires Ken, who vacations frequently at Bass Creek. When they arrive, posing as newlyweds, Ken discovers that his old friends have been replaced by new, unfriendly owners.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 24: The Impractical Joker
1961-03-13

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 25: Inside Job
1961-03-20

A man suspects that his bank is going to be robbed because he has seen the pattern before. The police cannot act on hunches, so the man hires Dave to gather information and to possibly infiltrate the group planning the robbery.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 26: Invitation to a Party
1961-03-27

A young woman feels she is being blackmailed to keep an accident from making headlines and ruining her father's chance at political office. To prove her case Sandy poses as the wild son of a millionaire who is in danger of having his inheritance cut off if he gets into trouble.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 27: Spring Training
1961-04-03

The manager of a baseball team hires Ken, a one-time aspiring pitcher, to keep tabs on a rookie pitching sensation who may be involved with a bookie.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 28: Double Image
1961-04-10

Sandy meets a beautiful tourist, a woman who has a strange obsessive interest in a local mobster.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 29: Circumstantial Evidence
1961-04-17

A performer in a water ski show is blackmailing her former boyfriend. He will lose a multi-million dollar inheritance if he gets married before the age of 30, but she discovers he secretly got married to a rival in the water ski show. When the woman turns up dead, Cha Cha's nephew, who had an almost obsessive crush on her, is implicated in the murder.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 30: Vengeance Is Bitter
1961-04-24

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 31: Little Mister Kelly
1961-05-01

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 32: Spinout at Sebring
1961-05-08

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 33: The Bhoyo and the Blonde
1961-05-15

Kevin Flanagan is a famous, profane novelist vacationing in Miami. He has a love of women and drink, which causes his wife to hire Dave as a bodyguard ""to protect him from himself"". Dave has much more to protect Kevin from: while on a drinking binge he witnessed a murder. The criminals are not sure whether Kevin's alcohol fog will allow him to remember what he saw, so they make arrangements to kill him.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 34: An Overdose of Justice
1961-05-22

Runtime: 60 min
Season 2 (1961)

No overview available.

40 episodes

Episodes
Episode 1: Count Seven!
1961-09-18

Ken is hired to investigate theft at an amusement park. He befriends a little girl while there, then finds himself between the girl's divorced parents when the man's fiancee turns up murdered and the little girl's stuffed birthday present is stolen at gunpoint from her home.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 2: The Wedding Guest
1961-09-25

When Daphne is kidnapped on the way to a friend's wedding in Nassau, Sandy discovers the truth about the prospective groom.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 3: One for the Road
1961-10-02

When Daphne falls in love with a mysterious young nomad, the detectives are suspicious of his past.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 4: Daphne, Girl Detective
1961-10-09

Daphne invites a friend of hers and her actor husband to a party on the houseboat. The couple argue and leave separately. He waits for Daphne's friend and kills her. Daphne strongly suspects this, but since Lt. Plehn and the SurfSide detectives refuse to listen to her theories she decides to take matters into her own hands.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 5: The Empty House
1961-10-16

A wealthy businessman hires Ken to look after his wild daughter. The girl is enamored with an ex-con who owes a crime boss $25,000. When the man turns up dead, she confesses to his murder.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 6: Witness for the Defense
1961-10-23

Dave Thorne tries to defend Sandy, who is facing a murder charge after slugging a drunken attacker who was found dead only minutes later.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 7: Laugh for the Lady
1961-10-30

Dave Thorne runs into an old girlfriend who turns out to be involved in a marital triangle that leads to attempted murder.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 8: The Affairs at Hotel Delight
1961-11-06

While preparing to leave a tiny hotel Ken finds a young woman passed out in the hall outside his room. He revives her and discovers she is carrying $45,000 ransom money for her abducted boyfriend. Ken, against his better judgment, decides to help her ""negotiate"" with the kidnappers because she is $5,000 short of their ransom demand -- and she keeps fainting.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 9: Jonathan Wembley Is Missing
1961-11-13

Sandy is persuaded to help a ventriloquist whose dummy has been kidnapped.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 10: The Old School Tie
1961-11-20

Jersey State, Dave's alma mater, is holding its class of 1951 reunion at the Fontainebleau Hotel. The reunion opens up old wounds that lead to murder.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 11: A Matter of Seconds
1961-11-27

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 12: Prescription for Panic
1961-12-04

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 13: A Slight Case of Chivalry
1961-12-18

Dave is the focal point in the hunt for Dan Castle, Dave's one-time employer in a private investigative office in New York. People inquiring as to the man's whereabouts include a bounty hunter who is out for the $5,000 reward on Castle's head on a murder charge in New York and a woman who claims to be his wife. Dave tries to sort out who is telling the truth about his one-time co-worker before the bounty hunter makes Castle his sixth victim.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 14: Pattern for a Frame
1961-12-25

A judge's daughter trips and falls on the beach near Ken, injuring her ankle. The ""accident"" leads to the two going out for dinner. What Ken doesn't know is the woman is being blackmailed by a racket boss to lure Ken into a trap where he will be accused of murder.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 15: The Roust
1962-01-01

When Ken inquires as to why his partner left the Boom Boom Room in an angry huff, Dave says he saw a man he wanted to kill. The man in question is Bernard ""Chilly"" Childress, a ruthless criminal whom Dave once unsuccessfully prosecuted in New York, and who was responsible for Dave once being shot in the chest. Lt. Plehn has word that Childress is planning on moving to Miami, so Dave sets out to do what he failed to do in New York: finish off Childress.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 16: The Quarterback
1962-01-08

A woman, the former girlfriend of a convicted mob boss, tells Lt. Plehn's brother, a star quarterback preparing to play in the Orange Bowl, that she is Lt. Plehn's mistress, and he stole evidence. Her boyfriend approaches the football star and tells him that, unless he throws the outcome of the Orange Bowl, the district attorney will be contacted and Lt. Plehn will be arrested. The charges aren't true, but the quarterback is so angry at his brother over the story that he refuses to talk to him. Sandy knows something is wrong after he sees Lt. Plehn's brother with a racketeer, but he has only one day before the big game to sort everything out.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 17: Separate Checks
1962-01-15

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 18: Artful Deceit
1962-01-22

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 19: Anniversary Special
1962-01-29

A famous TV star's plans for a gala program coinciding with his wedding anniversary face a potential shipwreck when his wife tells him she wants a divorce. He hires Dave to look after her, presenting her as a ""nervous"" type who might try suicide. Dave believes there is something more sinister behind her ""emotional"" problems, centered around her husband's ego and political aspirations.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 20: The Surfside Swindle
1962-02-05

Not realizing that he is being taken by a conman, Garibaldi Dinato pays a year's rent up front to lease the Surfside 6 houseboat as a new location for his Italian restaurant.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 21: Who Is Sylvia?
1962-02-12

Sylvia, the head of a flourishing swimsuit company, walked off the job. Her husband hires Dave to find her, portraying her as mentally unstable and having made threats on his life. Dave finds Sylvia but she runs away rather than return to her business. When her husband turns up dead, Lt. Plehn seeks her arrest, ignoring the information Dave and Ken uncover about other possible suspects.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 22: Find Leroy Burdette
1962-02-19

A woman from South Carolina shows up at the office while Ken's trying to go fishing and asks him to find the boyfriend that jilted her. Initially reluctant, Ken takes the job and discovers that her ex-boyfriend has mob ties. Meanwhile, Daphne and Cha Cha attempt to improve her wardrobe in case Ken finds her boyfriend, and Lt. Plehn is trying to establish a case on a murdered mobster.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 23: Many a Slip
1962-02-26

Sandy is hired to find an old acquaintance, the director of a lingere show. He encounters a number of romantic double-crosses. One member of the show entourage turns up dead, an apparent suicide, but Sandy thinks otherwise.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 24: The Green Beret
1962-03-05

Dave is temporarily reactivated into the military as a training officer. Intelligence has an enemy agent under surveillance and knows that her contact is in the unit Dave is training, but they don't know who the spy is. Dave must discover who the spy is to prevent his unit's ordered simulated attack on a nuclear power facility from becoming real.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 25: Vendetta Arms
1962-03-12

Daphne befriends five retired old crooks sharing a house together. A young crook is staying there and is stealing things and threatening everyone.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 26: A Piece of Tommy Minor
1962-03-19

Singing sensation Tommy Minor has a problem -- gambling. His manager asks Sandy to get the mob off his back. Sandy knows a gambling boat outside the territorial limits runs crooked games, but he has to prove it, and keep himself and Tommy out of danger.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 27: Portrait of Nicole
1962-03-26

An insurance company hires the boys to find the beneficiary of a life insurance policy named Nicole Johnson. Things get complicated when the boys find three Nicole Johnsons.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 28: Elegy for a Bookkeeper
1962-04-02

A former client of Ken's is murdered in prison before he can be released to testify against a racket boss. In order to prove the boss was behind the murder, Ken must make everyone think the murdered man is still alive -- and that Ken and Dave have split up in an argument over the man's daughter.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 29: The Money Game
1962-04-09

A prince is developing a new co-op with oil. Sandy has been hired to ask the prince to consider a rival partner for the ""black sand"". With the amount of money at stake, rivals will stop at nothing to be the prince's partner.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 30: Irish Pride
1962-04-16

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 31: Green Bay Riddle
1962-04-23

The small town of Green Bay doesn't like outsiders. One such outsider was acquitted of the murder of his father-in-law, although everyone still considers him guilty. Ken is hired by the man's wife to prove to the townsfolk that the man is indeed innocent.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 32: Love Song for a Deadly Redhead
1962-04-30

Jeff, a private investigator from L.A. and friend of the SurfSide detectives, is called to Miami to investigate a threatening note left for a lounge singer. He meets a redhead, who takes him to her home. He passes out and wakes up the prime suspect in the murder of the redhead's husband, leaving his SurfSide friends to clear him.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 33: Dead Heat
1962-05-07

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 34: Squeeze Play
1962-05-14

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 35: A Private Eye for Beauty
1962-05-21

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 36: Masquerade
1962-05-28

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 37: Pawn's Gambit
1962-06-04

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 38: The Neutral Corner
1962-06-11

Someone is trying to kill a former boxing champion, so his manager hires Ken to find out who is behind the ""accidents"" (including a bomb placed at SurfSide 6 during a party for the champ). Ken finds no shortage of suspects, including the boxer's ex-wife, a crusading sports writer, and a mob boss who owns the boxer's contract.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 39: House on Boca Key
1962-06-18

A drug store delivery boy borrows a formal jacket from Sandy for a prom. As he leaves the houseboat he is shot. Sandy thinks it was a case of mistaken identity and the bullets were meant for him.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 40: Midnight for Prince Charming
1962-06-25

As part of the latest scheme of a husband and wife con artist team the husband seeks to hire Ken, portraying his wife as cheating on him with the intended scam victim. Ken refuses to take the job because the man named is a friend and frequent client, but he becomes involved when a cohort of the couple turns up dead.

Runtime: 60 min

Videos

Classic TV Theme: Surfside Six

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