TV tonight: 'Community,' 1960s 'Beach Party'

By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

Posted April 18, 2012

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TCM toasts the '60s with four beach films featuring Frankie Avalon, left, and Annette Funicello (with unnamed actors in 1965's 'Beach Blanket Bingo'). (Credit: MGM)

•If you can put aside the show's backstage squabbles and concentrate on what's on-screen, you may just find that Community (8 ET/PT) is still NBC's best, most consistently amusing sitcom.

And with The Big Bang Theory (CBS, 8 ET/PT) in repeats, this could be an excellent night to find out.

•Many people who were young in the '60s have fond memories of the Annette Funicello/Frankie Avalon beach movies you'll find on TCM tonight, starting with Beach Party (8 ET/5 PT) and swimming through Muscle Beach Party (10 ET/7 PT), Bikini Beach (11:45 ET/8:45 PT) and Beach Blanket Bingo (1:30 a.m. ET/10:30 p.m. PT).

For older viewers, the movies are a reminder that they have no room to mock the dopiness of any teenybopper idol their children or grandchildren embrace.

And for younger viewers, they're a lesson that everything and everyone in the '60s was not Mad Men sleek and cool.

•Bravo launches Kathy Griffin's weekly talk show tonight, Kathy (10 ET/PT).

If nothing else, it's nice to have something other than Top Chef on Bravo you can watch without feeling the need to shower afterward.