California Dreams aired from September 1992 until December 1996 on NBC.
What’s hotter than teen “surf dudes with attitude” and the girls who love them? Nothing.
NBC and Peter Engel Productions, already partners on the teen sitcom Saved by the Bell, took advantage of that fact, putting a group of cuter-than-cute teens together in a pop/surf band called the California Dreams.
The band started in the basement of guitarist Matt Garrison ( Brent Gore), also the group’s lead singer. Matt’s sister Jenny ( Heidi Lenhart) played keyboards, ditzy blonde Tiffani Smith ( Kelly Packard) played bass, and the drummer was smooth-talking Antoine “Tony” Wicks ( William James Jones). Matt’s next-door neighbor Sylvester “Sly” Winkle ( Michael Cade) served as the band’s slimy manager.
The Dreams lived in Redondo Beach, California, attended Pacific Coast High, and hung out at Sharkey’s. Matt’s parents Dennis and Melody ( Ryan O'Neil, Gail Ramsey)occasionally appeared during the show’s first season, but mostly disappeared (as did Jenny) during the second.
For the second season, bad boy biker Jake Sommers ( Jay Anthony Franke) moved into town and joined the Dreams as a new lead guitarist, while foreign exchange student Samantha Woo ( Jennie Kwan)replaced Jenny on keyboards. At the start of the third season, the Garrisons moved to New York, leaving Matt out of the group. Sly’s nicer cousin Mark ( Aaron Jackson) took over on keyboards and some lead vocals. Newcomer Lorena Costa ( Diana Uribe) was a spoiled rich girl who took Samantha in (she had been living with the Garrisons) and eventually joined the band.
The show managed to mix MTV, daytime soaps, and primetime sitcoms into a hybrid product that kids and teens ate up. Romances (in and out of the band) blossomed and faded with some regularity, and the Dreams continued to put out new songs. Though the singles the band recorded never cracked the Billboard charts, the show ran for five successful seasons on NBC and a few more on syndicated cable. Perhaps the affections of the show's swooning young viewers were best captured by the California Dreams theme:
“Don’t wake me up if I’m dreamin’…
Just let me lay here in the sun,
Until my dream is done.”
A Review from Entertainment Weekly
TV Review
California Dreams (1992)
By Rebecca Ascher
California Dreams can be accused of a lot of things, but originality isn't one of them. This Partridge Family-meets-Beverly Hills, 90210-meets-canned laughter live-action half hour should be outlawed for impressionable viewers lest they pick up such phrases as ''the early bird gets the babes.'' California Dreams, slotted between two episodes of Saved by the Bell, a show about high schoolers, stars a teenage brother and sister who practice in the garage with their rock band when they're not in the kitchen talking to their perfect parents. The girls in the background run around in requisite bikinis and have names like Randi Jo. Life on California Dreams is so groovy that Tiffany, a gorgeous member of the band, can carry her surfboard into the local hangout eatery, resplendent in a Day-Glo wet suit. (She's upset that when she tries to surf, "suddenly there's 20 guys around me — I don't get it. It's such a big ocean.") California Dreams producer Franco E. Bario (who is also behind Saved by the Bell) may have good intentions, but it's hard to imagine what they were. F
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