The Aquanauts

The Aquanauts was a one hour action/adventure drama series that aired for one season from 1960 to 1961, Wednesday nights on CBS at 7:30pm. Keith Larsen and Jeremy Slate starred as California scuba divers, which provided teen viewers with a hip alternative to Lloyd Bridges' Sea Hunt.

The show's lead characters, Mike Madison and Larry Lahr, own a dive shop called The Aquanauts. They also take diving jobs on the side and that's where the adventure begins. Lahr and Madison evoke that 60s California cool including having hip bachelor pads at the Holiday House in Malibu.

Each week, what usually started out as routine jobs would never turn out that way. And the show featured supporting actors whom would become stars in their own right, such as Inger Stevens, William Conrad, Peter Falk, Mary Tyler Moore, Robert Vaughn, Dyan Cannon and Burt Reynolds.

About half way through the season Larsen had to leave the show after he developed an ear infection and was replaced by Ron Ely. In hopes of injecting new life in the series, it was re-titled Malibu Run but it was not enough to get the show renewed for another year.

Ely would go on to star in the tv series Tarzan and Slate would become well known for his work in feature films and daytime dramas.