I HEART BRUNO GERUSSI

[snousle]

Been watching some of the few old episodes of The Beachcombers available on YouTube. Alas, the series is not available on DVD so this is the best I can do.

I'm finding I have a really intense emotional response to seeing this again. It's been more than 25 years, give or take, since I saw an episode on TV. Guess I'm pining for the fjords. And for Bruno Gerussi. I think he had a pretty strong influence on my development.

[snif]

Comments

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

I once owned a fjord. It had 8 cylinders.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

What a beautiful head of hair!

[sig-info.livejournal.com]

Huh, I hadn't heard of that series. The web doesn't have much about it. What was it like? Was it more action-adventure, character-based comedy, Lake Wobegonish soap opera, or...?

More specifically, what was it about Bruno Gerussi's character that influenced you?

[snousle.livejournal.com]

It was the longest-running TV series in Canadian television history, and was rebroadcast in many countries. HUGELY popular. You can read all about it on Wikipedia. It was sort of like "Cheers" on a boat.

Gerussi's character Nick was pretty much my masculine ideal - hairy, adventurous, strong and rough, but thoughtful in his own way. Kinda ugly and kinda sleazy and VERY VERY SEXY. Curiously I don't remember him ever showing interest in women on the show, he seemed unaccountably chaste. Hmmm... but this was before every show suffered the compulsory, in-your-face heteronormativity we see on TV today.

He also bore a strong resemblance to a real-life person I knew very well when I was a kid, and who I was also desperately in love with.

What I didn't remember was that the show made such a big deal about cultural/immigration issues, Nick's Greek origins in particular. For the most part, contemporary Greek culture rubs me the wrong way but he is a special case. ;-)

[progbear.livejournal.com]

Thanks to this, I can’t stop thinking of him as “Bruno Juicy.”