Sergeant Deadhead is a 1965 American musical comedy film directed by Norman Taurog and starring Frankie Avalon.

[2] Sergeant Deadhead is a bumbling soldier who is sent to the guardhouse for blowing up a model rocket on the parade ground of the air base where he is stationed.

Private McEvoy decides to break back in, but Sergeant Deadhead hides in a nearby space rocket, not knowing it is set to blast off with a chimpanzee aboard.

When Sergeant Deadhead returns home he is a national hero but has also developed a massive ego due to space travel causing his personality to blend with that of the chimpanzee, and the realization that he has become a media sensation.

Donovan awakes alone in the closet, then goes back to base where Fogg and Weiskopf discover that Deadhead is with Turner and going to meet the President.

Numerous other Beach Party regulars also appear in small roles throughout the film; Dwayne Hickman, Alberta Nelson, Michael Nader, Luree Holmes, Patti Chandler, Andy Romano and Bobbi Shaw.

[6] AIP made the film hoping that military comedies would provide them with a genre as popular as the beach party movies but it proved a commercial disappointment, Samuel Z Arkoff claiming it "bombed out".

[7] Norman Taurog's biographer claimed the film managed to recoup its costs and make a small profit for the studio.