Hang ten with Slater

Surfer Magazine’s television show from the late 1980s is getting a reprise on late-night TV. Today they’re reminiscent of “Miami Vice,” complete with gaudy surfboards and host Sonny Miller’s pastel jacket and Wayfarers. Wave riders surf to the tune of upbeat jazz.

One particularly amusing episode features an extended interview on Cocoa Beach, Fla., with a 17-year-old high school senior who became, many think, the world’s best surfer. Kelly Slater was splitting time as a student and an amateur competing alongside the world’s best pro surfers. Slater is shown as a bushy-haired youth. Getting decent grades was “something to fall back on after my career is over,” said the teenage Slater, a six-time world champion still competing at top levels 16 years later.

-- Emmett Berg