The Love Boat

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The Love Boat
Title screen
Format	Sitcom
Created by	Jeraldine Saunders
Developed by	W.L. Barnes
Starring	Gavin MacLeod Bernie Kopell Fred Grandy Ted Lange Lauren Tewes Jill Whelan Ted McGinley
Opening theme	"The Love Boat" by Jack Jones
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	9 + 4 specials
No. of episodes	249
Production
Running time	52 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Original run	September 24, 1977 – May 24, 1986

The Love Boat (simply Love Boat in its final season) is an American television series set on a cruise ship, which aired on the ABC Television Network from September 24, 1977 until May 24, 1986. The show starred Gavin MacLeod as the ship's captain, who encourages his customers to find romance. It was part of ABC's Saturday night "one-two punch"^{[citation needed]} along with Fantasy Island until the latter show ended in 1984.

The original 1976 made-for-TV movie on which the show was based, also titled The Love Boat, was itself based on the nonfiction book The Love Boats by Jeraldine Saunders, a real-life cruise director. Two more TV movies (titled The Love Boat II and The New Love Boat, respectively) would follow before the series began its run.

The executive producer for the series was Aaron Spelling who produced several successful series for ABC from the 1960s to the 1980s.

The sitcom was usually set aboard a cruise liner called the Pacific Princess, whose passengers and crew had romantic and funny adventures every week. Other ships used were twin sister Island Princess, the Stella Solaris (for a Mediterranean cruise), Pearl of Scandinavia (for a Chinese cruise), the Royal Viking Sky (for European cruises) and the Royal Princess (for a Caribbean cruise).

Series stars MacLeod, Bernie Kopell, and Ted Lange are the only cast members to appear in every episode of the regular series, including the last three 2 hour made-for-TV movies, and stayed throughout the entire run. MacLeod was not the captain in the first two TV movies, however. We are told in Love Boat II that Gopher, Doc, Isaac, and the captain in that movie all served together in Vietnam, but no reference to this is ever made to their shared history again. However, when McLeod's character was introduced, there was mention of him being "the new captain." Though Grandy was given an appearance in every episode and stayed throughout the entire run, he missed the last of the three two-hour made-for-TV movies.

The long-running TV series was finally canceled in 1986 (with the exception of the final three made-for-TV movies), not only because of low ratings, but much due to the fact that actor Grandy wanted to leave the series to work as a Congressman for the Republican Party, in his native Iowa, which he successfully won and served four terms for Congress, just the year after the show's cancellation. After the show's cancellation, the show became immensely-popular in reruns, both in syndication and on TV Land.

Cast

• Gavin MacLeod - Captain Merrill Stubing, "Your Captain" - also played Captain Stubing's father, under the name O. D. Warbux, in 2 episodes, as well as Captain Stubing's brother, under the name Sonny Wilde
• Bernie Kopell - Dr. Adam "Doc" Bricker, "Your Ship's Doctor"
• Fred Grandy - Burl "Gopher" Smith, "Your Yeoman Purser"
• Ted Lange - Bartender Isaac Washington, "Your Bartender"
• Lauren Tewes - Cruise Director Julie McCoy, "Your Cruise Director" (1977–84)
• Jill Whelan - Vicki Stubing, the captain's daughter (1979–86)
• Ted McGinley - Ashley "Ace" Covington Evans "Your Ship's Photographer" (1984–86)
• Pat Klous - Judy McCoy, Julie's sister and her successor as cruise director (1984–86)

Guest stars

The series' attraction was in the casting of well-known actors in guest-starring roles, with many famous film stars of yesteryear making rare television appearances. Although it wasn't the first series to use the all-star cast anthology format — Love, American Style used the same device seven years earlier — Love Boat perfected the genre and future shows in similar style (Supertrain and Masquerade to name two) were inevitably compared to Love Boat.

Theme song

The Love Boat theme song was sung by Jack Jones (except for the last season, where a cover version by Dionne Warwick was used). The lyrics were written by Paul Williams with music by Charles Fox. The song has since been recorded and released commercially by Charo in 1978 and Amanda Lear in 2001. Dave Grohl and Chris Moyles sang a tongue-in-cheek version of the theme tune on Dave Grohl's 2009 appearance on the The Chris Moyles Show.

Laugh track

The series was also distinctive as being one of the few hour-long series ever made for American television that used a laugh track (Eight is Enough, on the same network and produced at the same time, being another example).

Writing format

Another unique aspect of The Love Boat was its writing format. Each episode contained several simultaneous storylines, each one written by a different set of writers. Each set of writers worked on one group of guest stars and their story of the week. As a result of this, episodes ended up with ungainly titles like "Disco Baby/Alas, Poor Dwyer/After the War/Ticket to Ride/Itsy Bitsy: Part 1." This also led to notorious continuity errors, most notably in Julie's outfits during boarding and disembarkation, which were often inconsistent between storylines.

There were usually three storylines. There was a pattern to the three storylines: one storyline focused around a member of the crew, a second storyline would often focus on a crew member interacting with a passenger, and the third storyline was more focused around a passenger (or a group of passengers). Additionally, the three storylines usually followed a similar thematic pattern: One storyline (typically the "crew" one) was straight-ahead comedy. The second would typically follow more of a romantic comedy format (with only occasional dramatic elements). The third storyline would usually be the most dramatic of the three, often offering few (if any) laughs and a far more serious tone.

The show shared much the same premise as the 1956-60 television hit The Gale Storm Show (aka Oh! Susanna).

Sequels and spin-offs

• A TV movie, The Love Boat: A Valentine Voyage, followed in 1990 on the CBS network, four years after the show was cancelled.
• A second TV series, The Love Boat: The Next Wave aired on the former UPN Network (now The CW network) from 1998 to 1999. It starred Robert Urich as Captain Jim Kennedy, a retired U.S. Navy officer. Heidi Mark was cast as the cruise director. Several members of the original show's cast guest-starred on a reunion-themed episode, where it was revealed that Julie and Doc had been in love all along.
• In Germany, the TV series Das Traumschiff started in 1981 as a German-made version of The Love Boat. It airs as 90-minutes-specials instead of a weekly basis, traditionally with an episode airing each Boxing Day (Dec. 26) and New Year's Day on the ZDF network. In 2005, the 50th episode was broadcast. Contrary to the original American series, all episodes of Das Traumschiff are shot entirely on location aboard the ship and in the ports of the ship's stopovers. No scene was ever shot in a television studio. Due to this lavish production style, each season consists of only four to six episodes. The ships used for the series were MS Vistafjord (1st season: 1981/1982), MS Astor (2nd season: 1983/1984), MS Berlin (3rd to 10th season: 1986 - 1998) and MS Deutschland (11th season till present: 1999–present).^{[citation needed]}
• A 1979 episode of another Aaron Spelling series, Charlie's Angels, had that show's characters trying to recover a stolen statue while aboard the Pacific Princess on a Caribbean cruise. All of the Love Boat regulars had cameo appearances in the crossover episode.
• A two-part 1997 episode of the sitcom Martin had the main characters going on a cruise and encountering Isaac, Julie, Doc, and Vicki.

Other airings

ABC also aired reruns of the show in their daytime lineup from 11:00 a.m.-noon (10 a.m.-11 a.m. Central) from June 30, 1980 to June 24, 1983 (with the exception of June 15, 1981 to September 11, 1981 when back-to-back reruns of Three's Company aired instead).

DVD releases

CBS DVD (distributed by Paramount) has released Seasons 1 & 2 of The Love Boat in four volume sets. [1]

International

Country	Foreign title	Translation	Network(s)	Notes
Finland	Lemmenlaiva (Ship of love)	Subtitled	MTV3
Sweden	Kärlek ombord (Love on board)	Subtitled	TV4
France	La croisière s'amuse (the cruise is having fun)	Dubbed	FR3	The laugh track was omitted in the French synchronisation which made this a romantic telenovela like series rather than a sitcom.
Germany	Love Boat	Dubbed	Sat.1 Tele 5 9Live Premiere (pay television network) and Anixe	The show was shown originally on Sat.1 and later on Tele 5, 9Live, Premiere (pay television network) and Anixe. Also the laugh track was omitted.
Italy	Love Boat	Dubbed	Canale 5	In Italia, the laugh track was omitted.
Netherlands	The Love Boat	Subtitled	VARA
Poland	Statek miłości (The Love Boat)	Dubbed	TVP2
Portugal	Barco do Amor (The Love Boat)	Subtitled	RTP 1 (first run) in 1980s RTP 2 (rerun) in 1980s and early 1990s as possible choice of phone-vote selection program Agora Escolha Sic Gold (reruns) Sic Comédia (reruns)
Spain	Vacaciones en el mar (Sea Holidays)	Dubbed	Televisión Española (first run) Telecinco (reruns)	* In Latin America known as "El Crucero del Amor" , dubbed
Turkey	Aşk Gemisi (The Love Boat)	Dubbed	TRT 1 (first run) Show TV (reruns)
Cyprus	To ploio tis agapis (The Ship of love)	Subtitled	CyBC
South Africa	Die Plesierboot (The Pleasure boat)	Dubbed in Afrikaans	TV2
Israel	ספינת האהבה (The Love Boat)	Subtitled	IBA

See also

• List of guest stars on The Love Boat
• Pacific Princess

External links

• The Love Boat at the Internet Movie Database
• The Love Boat at TV.com
• Love Boat Theme Songfacts

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