Howard Stern’s Son of the Beach premiered on the FX network in March of 2000 and combined the dumbest parts of Police Academy, the raunchiest parts of Married With Children, and the sexiest parts of Baywatch. The show was vulgar, crass, offensive, sexist, and at times, quite funny … and Fox has released the first two seasons of this “masterpiece” in a three disc boxed set that is quite pleasingly packaged and mastered.

There’s not a whole lot to say about the show, as t…ere’s nothing serial or episodic about it, as each show could essentially stand on its own as 30-minutes of simple comic relief. Son of the Beach is a parody rich program set on the fictional beach of Malibu Adjacent and a typical day finds the world’s greatest lifeguard, Notch Johnson (Timothy Stack), along with other members of his unit - B.J. Cummings (Jaime Bergman), Jamacia St. Croix (Leila Arcieri), Kimberlee Clark (Kim Oja), and Ahhhhhh-nuld wanna-be Chip Rommel (Roland Kickinger) – patrolling and protecting their beach from all sorts of problems. The group solves murders, busts up drug rings and orgies, and according to Fox’s PR, “helps women get over their fear of thongs”. What more could you ask for?

Son of the Beach is funny in a bathroom humor sort of way and if you simply read the episode titles listed later in the review, you’ll find out real quick whether or not you have the stomach for what’s contained within the set. If you find yourself chuckling at the titles, Son of the Beach is just what you’ve been waiting for and you’ll absolutely enjoy the close to 10-hours of episodes included here. However, if you simply don’t see the humor in an episode entitled “Attack of the Cocktopuss” or “Remember Her Titans”, save yourself the trouble and simply stop reading the review right now and make sure you pick up Two Weeks Notice on the 29th rather than Son of the Beach. This series is nothing but low budget, lowbrow, and politically incorrect humor and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else.

Shows from the first two seasons are included on the set and are as follows: (DISC ONE) “With Sex You Get Eggroll”, “Silence of the Clams”, “In The G-Hetto”, “Love, Native American Style”, “Two Thongs Don’t Make A Right”, “Fanny The Professor”, “Eat My Muffin”; (DISC TWO) “Miso Honei”, “South of Her Border”, “Day of the Jackass”, “A Star is Boned”, “Attack of the Cocktopuss”, “Mario Putzo’s … The Last Dong”; (DISC THREE) “B.J. Blue Hawaii”, “From Russia With Johnson”, “Remember Her Titans”, “Rod Strikes Back”, “Queefer Madness”, “Light My Firebush”, “Chip’s A Goy”, and “A Tale of Two Johnsons”.

Audio

The mix here is pretty straight forward, as the Dolby 2.0 Surround mix gets the job done and not much more. There aren’t really any cool effects or bombastic moments to speak of, as the majority of the show is dialogue driven and thankfully, it is presented without any harshness or edginess at any time. The dialogue was firmly anchored in the front surrounds and rarely strayed. The track did contain some nice depth and clarity, but it’s nothing that would approach demo quality or blockbuster status.

Also included is a Spanish 2.0 Surround track, as well as English and Spanish subtitles.

Video

The 21 episodes that Fox has presented here look quite nice and they are presented in their original broadcast ratio of 1.33:1 fullframe. The colors are quite strong throughout the series and the image remained fairly sharp and detailed throughout the entire first two seasons. Fleshtones – something very important to this show – were accurate and natural at all times and actors never suffered from extreme tints or hues one way or the other. (Notch Johnson is definitely pasty white, but that’s through no fault of the transfer.) The image was consistently balanced and contrasted well and Son of the Beach looked as good as it ever has coming in over my Dish Network setup at home.

Issues with the print were minor, as grain seemed to be fairly consistent across all of the episodes and I also noticed an occasional compression artifact or two as well. I saw a sporadic flake and fleck on the print, but the majority of them fell in to the “blink and you’ll miss it” camp. Even so, Son of the Beach was a good-looking transfer and the majority of fans won’t take issue with what Fox has presented them with here.

Special Features

Fox has done a commendable job on the features for Son of the Beach, with each disc getting an interesting introduction from Notch Johnson, as he explains the episodes we’re about to view and he warns us of the hilarity that’s about to ensue. Only funny in spots, but a nice way to open up each disc for sure.

The main feature on the set are multiple Commentaries for selected episodes. DISC ONE has a select scene commentary on “With Sex you Get Eggroll”, “Silence of the Clams”, and “Love, Native American Style”. DISC TWO has commentaries for “South of Her Border”, “Day of the Jackass”, “Attack of the Cocktopuss”, and “Mario Putzo’s … The Last Dong”. Finally, on DISC THREE, we find commentaries for “B.J. Blue Hawaii”, “Queefer Madness”, “Light my Firebush”, and “Chip’s a Goy”. Timothy Stack, aka Notch Johnson, is the constant participant on all of the tracks and while they are funny/informative in spots, there’s too much dead air for them to be completely entertaining or engaging.

The set also contains multiple featurettes scatted across all three discs. On DISC ONE, we find a quick Trailer for the series, a featurette on Behind the Scenes of Son of the Beach, and some rather funny Outtakes.

DISC TWO contains the majority of the featurettes, as here we can view a Son of the Beach Featurette (a legit look behind the scenes), The Crew of Son of the Beach (we learn that the crew is entirely female and they all show up for work in bikinis), a couple of rather sexy Montages of women in bikinis (a “Psychedelic Montage” and a “Baby Oil Montage”), and finally, a Montage Featurette (another excuse to show hot women in skimpy bikinis).

Finally, DISC THREE features another “Too Hot for TV” featurette entitled Makeup Artists. (Actually, it’s just hot women in thongs and lingerie feeling each other up. Two thumbs up!)

Ultimately, there’s some good stuff here on Fox’s Son of the Beach boxed set and some not so good stuff. Either way, the good outweighs the bad and fans of the series have every reason to be excited, as Fox has once again given one of their television series a magnificent DVD treatment.

Final Thoughts

The series is priced to move and Son of the Beach was a funny enough show that I can easily recommend it for those of you who enjoy Farrelly Brother films or other raunchy Fox gems like Family Guy or Married With Children. As a bonus, if you’re a heterosexual male and enjoy a fair amount of T&A with your comedy, Son of the Beach is right up your alley.

For the money, this is a great set and worthy of being in any comedy fan’s collection. Check it out when it streets in late April – you won’t be disappointed.

Special Features List

• Cast & Crew Commentaries
• Multiple Featurette
• Montages