What John Stamos Regrets About The Beach Boys’ ‘Kokomo’ Video
“Kokomo” is an iconic part of The Beach Boys’ career — and John Stamos’ career. After all, he appears in the music video for the hit song. Here’s a look at why Stamos appeared in the video even though he didn’t plan to.
How John Stamos met The Beach Boys in the first place
Stamos has performed with The Beach Boys on multiple occasions and even covered their song “Forever” in episodes of Full House. During an interview on The Kelly Clarkson Show, he said he never expected to meet The Beach Boys, much less perform with them. It all started when he attended one of their concerts and got recognized by some of his fans, who chased him backstage. While he was there, he met Mike Love and other members of the band.
“The show was over; they were still going to do the encore,” he recalled. “And these cheerleaders chased me and Mike Love turns to my friend and says, ‘Who’s that?’ And he says, ‘That’s John Stamos; he’s on General Hospital and always has girls chasing him.’ And Mike Love, without missing a beat, says, ‘Get him onstage.'”
How John Stamos unexpectedly appeared in the video for The Beach Boys’ ‘Kokomo’
Later, Stamos appeared in the video for “Kokomo” even though he didn’t expect to. “We were doing a special and the main thing was we were doing a version of ‘Wipeout’ with the Fat Boys, who were a rap group,” Stamos told The Birmingham News. At the time, Stamos and The Beach Boys stayed at a Disney resort called Grand Floridian. They were the resort’s first guests.
“So we were doing this ABC special and it was this last minute thing: ‘Hey can you guys just run “Kokomo” real fast. We’ll put up a couple cameras,’’’ he recalled. “It really wasn’t part of the plan for the day, and we just kind of threw it up there and did it maybe twice. It started raining and we went back to the hotel. And that was it.”
In retrospect, Stamos regretted wearing a fuchsia tank top in the video. He doesn’t know where he got the tank top. He joked he’d like to give whoever made him wear it a piece of his mind.
How the world reached to The Beach Boys’ ‘Kokomo’
“Kokomo” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming The Beach Boys’ final No. 1 hit. It stayed on the chart for 28 weeks. In addition, “Kokomo” was their only song to reach the top 10 during the 1980s.
“Kokomo” appeared in the Tom Cruise movie Cocktail. The song reached a younger audience when Kermit the Frog and company covered it for a memorable Muppets sketch. The public seemed to embrace “Kokomo,” even if Stamos regretted his wardrobe in the video.
