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The Love Boat
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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 1977 until 1986. It was part of ABC's Saturday night "one-two punch" 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.
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Encyclopedia
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 1977 until 1986. It was part of ABC's Saturday night "one-two punch" 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).
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.
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, and each one was written by a different set of writers. Each set of writers worked on one group of guest stars and their story of the week. So episodes ended up with ungainly titles like "Disco Baby/Alas, Poor Dwyer/After the War/Ticket to Ride/Itsy Bitsy: Part 1".
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).
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.
Cast
- Gavin MacLeod - Captain Merrill Stubing, ("Your Captain")
- 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)
- Pat Klous - Cruise Director Judy McCoy (1984–86)
- Ted McGinley - Ashley "Ace" Covington Evans ("Your Ship's Photographer) (1984–86)
- Marion Ross - Emily Hayward Stubing (1986)
Sequels and spin-offs
- A TV movie, The Love Boat: A Valentine Voyage, followed in 1990, four years after the show was cancelled.
- A second TV series, The Love Boat: The Next Wave aired on the UPN 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 cast of the original series guest-starred on one 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 between 4 and 6 episodes only. 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).
- 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.
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 Home Entertainment has released Season 1 of The Love Boat on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. Season 2, Volume 1 will be released on January 27, 2009.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date | Additional Information |
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| Season 1, Volume 1 | 12 | March 4 2008 |
| | Season 1, Volume 2 | 12 | August 12 2008 | The New Love Boat (pilot TV-Movie) | | Season 2, Volume 1 | 13 | January 27 2009 |
International
Lemmenlaiva
(Ship of love)
| Subtitled
| MTV3
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| Kärlek ombord
(Love on board)
| Subtitled
| TV4
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| La croisière s'amuse
(the cruise is having fun)
| Dubbed
| FR3
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| Love Boat
| Dubbed
| Sat.1
Tele 5
9Live
Premiere (pay television network)
| the show was shown originally on Sat.1 and later on Tele 5, 9Live and Premiere (pay television network)
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| The Love Boat
| Dubbed
| Canale 5
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| Statek milosci
(The Love Boat)
| Dubbed
| TVP2
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| Barco do Amor
| Subtitled
| RTP 1 (first run) in 1980s
Sic Gold (reruns)
Sic Comédia (reruns)
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| Vacaciones en el mar
(Sea Holidays)
| Dubbed
| Televisión Española
| * In Latin America known as "El Crucero del Amor" , dubbed
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| Ask Gemisi
(The Love Boat)
| Dubbed
| TRT 1 (first run)
Show TV (reruns)
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| To ploio tis agapis
(The Ship of love)
| Subtitled
| CyBC
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| Die Plesierboot
(The Pleasure boat)
| Dubbed in Afrikaans
| TV2
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| ????? ?????
(The Love Boat)
| Subtitled
| IBA
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See also
External links
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