The Beachcombers
Encyclopedia
The Beachcombers is a Canadian
comedy-drama
television
series that ran from October 1, 1972 to December 12, 1990 and is the longest-running dramatic series ever made for English-language Canadian television. In all, 387 episodes were produced.
), a Greek
-Canadian log salvager in British Columbia
who earned a living travelling the coastline northwest of Vancouver
with his partner Jesse Jim (Pat John) aboard their logging tug Persephone
tracking down logs that had broken away from barges and logging booms. Their chief business competitor is Relic (Robert Clothier
) (whose actual name is Stafford T. Phillips), a somewhat unsavoury person who will occasionally go to great lengths to steal business (and logs) away from Nick. The series also focused on a supporting cast of characters in Nick's hometown of Gibsons
, often centring around a café, Molly's Reach, run by Molly (Rae Brown), a mother figure to virtually all the characters in the series (including Relic). Molly had two grandchildren living with her, Hughie (Bob Park) and his younger sister Margaret played by Nancy Chapple in the first season then by Juliet Randall from the second season onward.
The series' pilot show was called "Jesses Car" and was turned down by CBC for broadcast. The first show to air was called "Partners" and described how Jesse and Nick formed their business ties.
During the run of the series, storylines became more complex as the characters developed. Many episodes focused on Nick's Greek heritage.
The series' title was shortened to Beachcombers in 1988 (with the CBC announcing that the intent was to give the aging show a fresh new look). Subsequent funding cutbacks at the government-supported CBC, however, led to Beachcombers being cancelled even though it was still popular in its homeland and had been syndicated around the world, though attempts to revamp the series by giving it more suspenseful storylines and making it more action-oriented had met with much fan criticism.
Music for the long-running series was composed and orchestrated by Canadian composer and producer Bobby Hales and later by Vancouver-based composer, Claire Lawrence. Numerous Vancouver-area musical artists appeared on the soundtracks of this long-running series, including Cos Natola.
The show was an active window into Canada's multicultural heritage. Gerussi's character, Nick Adonidas, as noted, was a Greek (Gerussi himself was of Italian heritage and born in Alberta) and one storyline in a later season chronicled Nick's return to his homeland, while Clothier's character, Relic, was of Welsh
ancestry. Other characters included Nick's Native
business partner and friend Jesse Jim (Pat John), and RCMP
Constable John Constable (played by Alberta
-born Jackson Davies
).
Jackson Davies, Pat John and Charlene Aleck were the only original cast members who had speaking parts in the show's follow-up television movie The New Beachcombers, produced in 2002, which was an unsuccessful pilot for a revived series. Bob Park (Hugh) and Dion Luther (Pat) appeared in cameo roles. By this time, Gerussi, Clothier, and Brown had all died. A sequel, A Beachcomber's Christmas, was also produced, though this too failed to spark a new series.
A short-lived spin-off television show called "Constable Constable" ran in 1985. The show was based on Jackson Davies's Beachcombers character Constable John Constable. The series was filmed in Vancouver and starred Jackson Davies and Walter Learning
.
A documentary about the show called "Welcome Back to Mollys Reach" aired in 2002. On July 27–29, 2007 former cast and crew gathered in Gibsons, British Columbia
for the show's 35th anniversary.
and surrounding area. The café featured in the show was built as a hardware store in 1934 and served various retail functions until rented as a film set for the series, used mainly for exterior shots and storage. The building only became a café after the series ended. After "The Beachcombers" was cancelled in 1991, the building sat vacant for a time with an uncertain future. Eventually private investors converted it into a functioning restaurant under the television-inspired name "Molly's Reach".
Persephone
, the boat used by Nick Adonidas during filming was a tug
and work boat named John Henry built in 1965. The tug was chartered during series production from Harry Smith, who donated it to the town of Gibsons in 1991. The vessel sat outside at a town works department gravel pit where it had deteriorated quite badly until it was restored by the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives. Persephone was installed in a small park near Molly's Reach in 2007.
There were two jet boats used by the character Relic. The one most fans remember was called Hi Baller II and was used from the second season until the end. The first craft, Hi Baller I was used for just the first season. She was slightly smaller than her successor and had more square windows. She did reappear for a episode called "Jet Boat Gemini" in 1974. Both boats were seen together as the man in the second craft was impersonating Relic. He was stealing logs and hassling local residents until Relic saved the day at the end in a duel of jet boats. This episode was considered a fan favourite. It is hoped that someday the craft will be found and restored to sit by the Persephone.
around the world and was shown in the United Kingdom
and on PBS
in the United States
. It has also been shown in Australia
, New Zealand
, South Africa
, Ireland
and Egypt
. The West German
television station ZDF
also broadcast the series, as Strandpiraten ("Beach Pirates").
The show was seen in reruns on Vision TV
in Canada. It is currently seen on ALN in the United States.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
comedy-drama
Comedy-drama
Comedy-drama is a genre of theatre, film and television programs which combines humorous and serious content.-Theatre:Traditional western theatre, beginning with the ancient Greeks, was divided into comedy and tragedy...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
series that ran from October 1, 1972 to December 12, 1990 and is the longest-running dramatic series ever made for English-language Canadian television. In all, 387 episodes were produced.
Series overview
The Beachcombers followed the life of Nick Adonidas (Bruno GerussiBruno Gerussi
Bruno Gerussi was a Canadian television actor born in Medicine Hat, Alberta, best known for the lead role in the CBC Television series The Beachcombers...
), a Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
-Canadian log salvager in British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
who earned a living travelling the coastline northwest of Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
with his partner Jesse Jim (Pat John) aboard their logging tug Persephone
Persephone (tugboat)
Persephone is a steel logging tug used in the filming of the CBC Television series The Beachcombers. Built as a small tug named John Henry, it is today preserved as a museum ship in the town of Gibsons, British Columbia....
tracking down logs that had broken away from barges and logging booms. Their chief business competitor is Relic (Robert Clothier
Robert Clothier
Robert Allan Clothier was a prominent Canadian stage and television actor most famous for his role on the long-running CBC television show, The Beachcombers...
) (whose actual name is Stafford T. Phillips), a somewhat unsavoury person who will occasionally go to great lengths to steal business (and logs) away from Nick. The series also focused on a supporting cast of characters in Nick's hometown of Gibsons
Gibsons, British Columbia
Gibsons is a coastal community of 4,200 located in southwestern British Columbia, Canada on the Strait of Georgia. It is the main marine gateway to the Sunshine Coast....
, often centring around a café, Molly's Reach, run by Molly (Rae Brown), a mother figure to virtually all the characters in the series (including Relic). Molly had two grandchildren living with her, Hughie (Bob Park) and his younger sister Margaret played by Nancy Chapple in the first season then by Juliet Randall from the second season onward.
The series' pilot show was called "Jesses Car" and was turned down by CBC for broadcast. The first show to air was called "Partners" and described how Jesse and Nick formed their business ties.
During the run of the series, storylines became more complex as the characters developed. Many episodes focused on Nick's Greek heritage.
The series' title was shortened to Beachcombers in 1988 (with the CBC announcing that the intent was to give the aging show a fresh new look). Subsequent funding cutbacks at the government-supported CBC, however, led to Beachcombers being cancelled even though it was still popular in its homeland and had been syndicated around the world, though attempts to revamp the series by giving it more suspenseful storylines and making it more action-oriented had met with much fan criticism.
Music for the long-running series was composed and orchestrated by Canadian composer and producer Bobby Hales and later by Vancouver-based composer, Claire Lawrence. Numerous Vancouver-area musical artists appeared on the soundtracks of this long-running series, including Cos Natola.
The show was an active window into Canada's multicultural heritage. Gerussi's character, Nick Adonidas, as noted, was a Greek (Gerussi himself was of Italian heritage and born in Alberta) and one storyline in a later season chronicled Nick's return to his homeland, while Clothier's character, Relic, was of Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
ancestry. Other characters included Nick's Native
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
business partner and friend Jesse Jim (Pat John), and RCMP
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
Constable John Constable (played by Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
-born Jackson Davies
Jackson Davies
Jackson Davies is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his role as RCMP Constable John Constable in the television series The Beachcombers, which he reprised in the TV movies The New Beachcombers and A Beachcombers Christmas . Originally from Wetaskiwin, Alberta and now living in Vancouver, BC...
).
Jackson Davies, Pat John and Charlene Aleck were the only original cast members who had speaking parts in the show's follow-up television movie The New Beachcombers, produced in 2002, which was an unsuccessful pilot for a revived series. Bob Park (Hugh) and Dion Luther (Pat) appeared in cameo roles. By this time, Gerussi, Clothier, and Brown had all died. A sequel, A Beachcomber's Christmas, was also produced, though this too failed to spark a new series.
A short-lived spin-off television show called "Constable Constable" ran in 1985. The show was based on Jackson Davies's Beachcombers character Constable John Constable. The series was filmed in Vancouver and starred Jackson Davies and Walter Learning
Walter Learning
Walter John Learning is a Canadian theatre director, actor, and founder of Theatre New Brunswick.-Biography:Walter Learning was born in 1938 in the small village of Quidi Vidi in Newfoundland. Learning attended Bishop Feild College in St. John's and the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton,...
.
A documentary about the show called "Welcome Back to Mollys Reach" aired in 2002. On July 27–29, 2007 former cast and crew gathered in Gibsons, British Columbia
Gibsons, British Columbia
Gibsons is a coastal community of 4,200 located in southwestern British Columbia, Canada on the Strait of Georgia. It is the main marine gateway to the Sunshine Coast....
for the show's 35th anniversary.
Filming locations
The series was filmed on location at Gibsons, British ColumbiaGibsons, British Columbia
Gibsons is a coastal community of 4,200 located in southwestern British Columbia, Canada on the Strait of Georgia. It is the main marine gateway to the Sunshine Coast....
and surrounding area. The café featured in the show was built as a hardware store in 1934 and served various retail functions until rented as a film set for the series, used mainly for exterior shots and storage. The building only became a café after the series ended. After "The Beachcombers" was cancelled in 1991, the building sat vacant for a time with an uncertain future. Eventually private investors converted it into a functioning restaurant under the television-inspired name "Molly's Reach".
Persephone
Persephone (tugboat)
Persephone is a steel logging tug used in the filming of the CBC Television series The Beachcombers. Built as a small tug named John Henry, it is today preserved as a museum ship in the town of Gibsons, British Columbia....
, the boat used by Nick Adonidas during filming was a tug
Tugboat
A tugboat is a boat that maneuvers vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugs move vessels that either should not move themselves, such as ships in a crowded harbor or a narrow canal,or those that cannot move by themselves, such as barges, disabled ships, or oil platforms. Tugboats are powerful for...
and work boat named John Henry built in 1965. The tug was chartered during series production from Harry Smith, who donated it to the town of Gibsons in 1991. The vessel sat outside at a town works department gravel pit where it had deteriorated quite badly until it was restored by the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives. Persephone was installed in a small park near Molly's Reach in 2007.
There were two jet boats used by the character Relic. The one most fans remember was called Hi Baller II and was used from the second season until the end. The first craft, Hi Baller I was used for just the first season. She was slightly smaller than her successor and had more square windows. She did reappear for a episode called "Jet Boat Gemini" in 1974. Both boats were seen together as the man in the second craft was impersonating Relic. He was stealing logs and hassling local residents until Relic saved the day at the end in a duel of jet boats. This episode was considered a fan favourite. It is hoped that someday the craft will be found and restored to sit by the Persephone.
International broadcasts
The series was syndicatedTelevision syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
around the world and was shown in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and on PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It has also been shown in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. The West German
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
television station ZDF
ZDF
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
also broadcast the series, as Strandpiraten ("Beach Pirates").
The show was seen in reruns on Vision TV
Vision TV
VisionTV is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel that broadcasts multi-faith, multicultural, and general entertainment programming aimed at the 45 and over demographic....
in Canada. It is currently seen on ALN in the United States.
Media References
- The show was featured in the 2001 video for Same Thing Twice by The Flashing LightsThe Flashing LightsThe Flashing Lights were a Canadian alternative rock band, active in the late 1990s and early 2000s.Originally a side project that primarily played as a cover band when Matt Murphy wasn't occupied with his primary band The Super Friendz, the band consisted of Murphy on guitar and lead vocals, Gavin...
External links
- Punk Rock Theme 1994, from the Sick Sick Yeah song National Film Board Security Guard
- CBC article on the making of the series, plus a "where are they now?" for the cast members.
- Queen's University Directory of CBC Television series: The Beachcombers
- Museum of Broadcast Communications: The Beachcombers
- Fernsehserien: Strandpiraten (German languageGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
page) - - The Beachcombers honoured by MasterWorks (2004)
- TheBeachcombers.ca
- Bring Back the Beachcombers! petition to bring back the Beachcombers to the CBC