Flashback feature: the Gold Coast’s many appearances in film, television and comic books

NEW animated action series Pacific Heat will launch next month, bring the Gold Coast to its largest audience ever. Andrew Potts looks back at previous pop culture appearances.

Actor and singer Kylie Minogue in the Gold Coast-made film Street Fighter from 1994. Picture: Supplied

NEW animated action series Pacific Heat will launch next month, bring the Gold Coast to its largest audience ever.

The series, by Working Dog Productions, will be available to around 56 million viewers through Foxtel and Netflix and will showcase the city as the base for its cast of crime fighters.

But it’s not the first time the city’s has been shown off to an international audience as Andrew Potts looks back at some of its previous appearances in film, television and print.

1: The Strip

A short-lived police drama, The Strip was meant to be the Gold Coast’s big TV debut in the rush of high-profile cop dramas following the success of Underbelly, It followed the adventures of the Main Beach CIB detectives who investigated crimes across the Glitter Strip.

Unfortunately its storylines didn’t match the scenery and it lasted just 13 episodes before being cancelled by Channel 9.

2: Gold Coast Cops

THE high-profile reality television series launched in 2014 in the wake of the 2013 bikie brawl at Broadbeach and the creation of the Rapid Acton Patrols (RAP) team.

Hosted by actor Samuel Johnson, it initially received strong ratings and was renewed for a second season.

However, the second season proved to be its last.

3: Paradise Beach

The cast of Paradise Beach.

In the mid-1990s, the commercial television networks were looking for the next Neighbours or Home and Away, with both soaps seeing a decline in viewership and E-Street off the air.

Paradise Beach was set on the Gold Coast and was released in mid-1993 to great fanfare, with a CD soundtrack and plenty of high-profile cast members including Melissa Bell, Manu Bennett, Melissa Tkautz and Ingo Rademacher.

Despite its cast and high-profile launch, Paradise Beach was not a hit with either audiences or critics.

It was cancelled in 1994 after two seasons and just 260 episodes.

The cast of early 1990s series Paradise Beach (L-R) Ingo Rademacher, Megan Connolly, Kimberley Joseph, Andrew McKaige, Anthony Hayes & John Holding.

4: Driven

A little-remembered Sylvester Stallone film about open-wheel racing, the movie featured footage shot of the Gold Coast Indy during the late 1990s as establishing shots throughout the film, which was actually shot in Canada.

Driven was a financial bomb.

5: X-men

The Gold Coast has featured twice in the popular Marvel Comics series. In 2001 the X-treme X-men team visited Australia and spent time at Surfers Paradise beach where they fought a Great White shark the size of a bus.

Later they met two Australian superheroes — the surfing themed character Slipstream who had honed his wave technique on the Coast and his sister, Lifeguard.

Both were written out in 2002.

A decade later, the debut issue of All-New X-men featured a multi-page battle royale in Surfers Paradise’s Orchid Ave between the superteam and a group of villains.

6: A Night at the Pink Poodle

A popular book by author Matt Condon released in 1996, A Night at the Pink Poodle tells the fictional rise and fall of penthouse salesman Icarus.

It was a big hit upon its release and became a celebrated piece of literature, one of the few to focus on the Glitter Strip.

7: Neighbours

Australia’s most famous soap opera has visited the Gold Coast several times and featured many of the city’s landmarks.

In the early 1990s, Neighbours lead character Paul Robinson (Stefan Dennis) spent a week on the Glitter Strip with his new neighbours, the Alessi twins (played by the real-life Blakney twins Gillian and Gayle).

The episodes featuring their visit featured Sea World and the Nara resort.

Earlier this month Paul’s niece Madison Robinson (Sarah Ellen) spent a few days on the Coast with her aunt Lucy, played by Gold Coast resident and long-time cast member Melissa Bell.

Scenes were shot again at Sea World, The QT, Surfers Paradise beach and Currumbin.

8: Schapelle

A 2014 television movie about one of the Gold Coast’s most famous residents, Schapelle Corby. Much of Schapelle was shot on location at Tugun and at the Southport Yacht Club, which was portrayed as the hangout for Corby’s supporters Ron Bakir (Les Chantery) and Robin Tampoe (Vince Colosimo).

9: Mission: Impossible

No, not the classic 1960s-1970s television series or the Tom Cruise Hollywood films but the almost forgotten 1980s revival.

Peter Graves returned as Jim Phelps and stared in Mission: Impossible, which was shot for two seasons in Australia, with the first year on the Gold Coast.

The cast and crew arrived in the state in mid-1988 and filmed at locations across the city including Movie World’s studios, Sanctuary Cove and the SeaWorld Nara Resort to act as stand-ins for Hawaii, Turkey, East Germany and the Bahamas.

10: Street Fighter

Street Fighter, based on the famous video game, was among the first Hollywood blockbusters to be made on the Gold Coast in the early 1990s and featured top-level talent including Kylie Minogue, Jean-Claude van Damme and Raul Julia.

Its production was famously a disaster, with Van Damme famously using cocaine throughout filming and having a fling with Minogue while Julia was dying of cancer.

Locations across the city were used, as were sound stages at Warner Brothers Movie World.