The Surfer King

Seventeen-year old Robbie Zirpollo (Randy Wayne) has a problem. As our story opens, his mother Connie (Lindsay Wagner) is driving him to his new summer job. We learn that Robbie has grown up in Oceanside, California, but now he and his mother have moved to Colorado for a fresh start, as his father has taken the family’s savings and his secretary to Mexico. Robbie’s mom has, through an uncle, gotten him a summer job at Water World on the grounds crew.

On his first day on the job, standing in line to get his uniform, Robbie meets Alex (Ben Ziff), a concessions worker who works for Aokee (Gabriel Iglesias), the manager of “Aokee’s Surf and Snack Shack.” Walking to the front of the line demanding (quietly but firmly) her uniform is Tiffany (Cerina Vincent), the daughter of park owner Mike "Big Mike" Maxwell (Denis Berkfeldt). She is a drop-dead gorgeous girl, and as the owner’s daughter, does pretty much what she wants. Robbie is stunned by her.

Later, we learn that Aokee is one position short, as a kid who worked there last year has decided to go to work at The Gap. Alex remembers Robbie, and convinces Aokee to give Robbie a shot. Alex and Aokee run over to extricate Robbie just as he is being handed his Grounds Crew plunger.

The park opens the next day and Robbie, getting a tour from Alex, meets a lifeguard named Katie (Keri Lynn Pratt), a pretty girl, very nice and sweet. Alex makes it his personal mission to get Katie and Robbie together. We get to know the kids working at the park as well as the characters who just “hang out” there.


We also get to know Aokee, a gentle Hawaiian who works the park every summer. His dream has been for one of his concessions staff (Why is it always a guard?) to win the coveted trophy from the park’s annual Employee Olympics, a contest culminated by a surfing competition in the park’s wave pool. Robbie reveals that he has surfed in California all his life. Aokee convinces him that he will be the new “Surfer King”.

As the Employee Olympics approaches, Aokee gets Robbie together with the legendary “Pipeman” (Alan Thicke) a park plumber and former surfer who knows how to make the transition from ocean wave to park wave. Tiffany, unbeknownst to him, hatches a plot to distract Robbie so that her boyfriend, The Cowboy (Travis Perkins), can retain his title.

The rest of the fun unfolds from there, leading up to the final scene when Alex explains, “Just another summer at Water World.”