Chapter: 4
Ten-Year Boom
- Gidget the All-Powerful
- The Rebel Next Door
- Hobie vs Velzy vs the IRS
- Better Surfing Through Chemistry
- Summer on the Inside
- Surf Fashion, Lightly Salted
- Surfing the Newsstand
- Process of Elimination
- Oil City Showdown
- The Jazz Stylings of Phil Edwards
- Technicolor Surf Boom
- Heroes and Villains
- Blackball Blues
- Dick Dale, Destroyer of Amps
- Surfing in Five-Part Harmony
- Tokyo to Tel Aviv
- Flight of the Larrikin
- Bob Evans Means Business
- Midget Wins It All
- But Will it Play in New York?
- Houses of the Holy
- We Own the Sidewalks
- Beautiful from any Angle
- Duke's Big Contest
- Can You Handle the Penetrator?
- Girls, Don't Panic!
- David Nuuhiwa Walks on Water
- An Invincible Summer
Technicolor Surf Boom
![Frankie and Annette in Beach Party](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/6d5aabe2b6ce2785b5c265b85342a556e157633b-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Frankie and Annette in Beach Party
![Sanda Dee in Gidget, 1959](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/138b182f491f37cd3cc5beb42f65c72180188f06-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Sanda Dee in Gidget, 1959
![Gidget promo, 1959](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/4e61cbafc85dec6b21f1fac89d72fcfff9d5cfcd-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Gidget promo, 1959
![Technicolor Surf Boom](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/21343612e51d0f41c374eff6f471abea54706494-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
![Dora (left) and Noll, in Ride the Wild Surf. Photo: Church](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/e6cc49485bfd1f17bb7b739b7dc5727f2649bbfd-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Dora (left) and Noll, in Ride the Wild Surf. Photo: Church
Surfing returned to the silver screen as glorious farce. Frankie and his surf buddies rode to shore in a pack, while Annette and her girlfriends waved from the beach. Everybody clustered up and danced the Watusi, then set about defeating a biker gang, or space aliens, or a rogue pack of bodybuilders.
Surfing had generated a lot of momentum by 1959—new boards, wetsuits, competition, surfer-produced films; a magazine on the way—and the sport was at a tipping point. Then the movie version of Gidget was released in April of that year and pushed it over the top. A nine-year surf explosion followed. Wave-riding itself became more popular, yes. But the boom was mostly a cultural phenomenon, one that ...
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