(who had appeared in his first picture for AIP, The Fast and the Furious) and the popular Bob Cummings as adult supporting characters, but he needed a couple of names for the lead teenagers. Arkoff already had a working relationship with Frankie Avalon, who had starred in two films for AIP, Panic in the Year Zero and Operation Bikini, and had become a much brighter star than AIP regular, singer/actor John Ashley. Arkoff next made a deal with former Mouseketeer Annette Funicello, whose contract with Walt Disney had a clause stating that she could work in non-Disney films subject to the approval of Disney's legal team. The deal came with one caveat, that Funicello not appear in a bikini (reportedly, Disney himself had to be settled down by Arkoff when he discovered that his subordinates had allowed Funicello to appear in the AIP film at all). With Avalon and Funicello on board, a shrewd pairing was evident. CinemaEditor magazine summed it up this way: Beach Party was able to use Ashley as Avalon's sidekick; picked up Jody McCrea and Eva Six from AIP's own Operation Bikini; and secured "red-hot" surf music pioneer Dick Dale and the Del-Tones (whose second and third albums would be released by Capitol Records in 1963) to bring in their usual demographic. Success When Beach Party hit screens in July 1963, it was a huge hit with the first five-day grosses reportedly well ahead of its competition, which consisted of the popular concurrently running major studio films Hud, Tammy and the Doctor, The Nutty Professor and The Birds. AIP followed up with Muscle Beach Party barely seven months later in March 1964, and Bikini Beach, released only four months after that, was the highest-grossing film in their history – as well as the highest-grossing film of the genre. The complete AIP series American International Pictures produced a series of twelve films that fall into the genre. With the exception of Sergeant Deadhead, Fireball 500 and Thunder Alley, all were related by recurring characters. For example, much of the cast in Bikini Beach appear in the follow-up Pajama Party, albeit with different names – however, biker Eric von Zipper appears in the film, along with his gang of "Rats," playing the same characters as in two previous films. In addition, Ski Party would appear unrelated, except that the characters of Todd and Craig also appear in the