It seems like Spring has sprung, and it's the perfect time for a cruise... So let's Stroll on over and hop aboard...
THE LOVE BOAT
The Love Boat was a Aaron Spelling sitcom which was set on a West Coast Cruise Ship. It featured a virtual whose who of weekly guest stars usually in some stage of love which would either blossom on the cruise or fall apart because it was wrong from the start.
The Love Boat, one of Spelling’s biggest hits, might have appeared like cotton candy, but it was only silly on the surface. In truth, the show offered a higher degree of difficulty than most TV productions.
In their book The Sweeps: Behind The Scenes In Network TV, authors Mark Christensen and Cameron Stauth describe Love Boat as a monumental exercise in controlled chaos, in which almost 15 tons of equipment, 300 crew members, numerous high-voltage guest stars, three interwoven plot lines, and the governments of numerous foreign countries had to regularly be controlled, organized, appeased, and made sense of week after week. Customs agents had to be paid off, lovers’ quarrels… patched up, guests stars flown in and out, and new locations constantly scouted. On top of that, each episode had three story lines: the “heart” story, the “tears” story, and the “laughs” story, all of which had to be somehow melded into a cohesive plot. And every show had to have an appeal to the three major age groups; a guest star like June Allyson would be hauled in for the older group, a Tom Selleck type would be brought in for the young adults, and somebody from a kids’ show, like Eight Is Enough, would be shoehorned in to the plot to attract the youngsters. To [the producers], doing Love Boat had seemed like waging a weekly World War III.
To service the passengers needs is the capable crew starting with Captain Stubing (Gavin MacLeod), the Cruise Director Julie McCoy (Lauren Tewes), the ships physician Doctor Adam Bricker (Bernie Kopell), the Purser Burl ‘Gopher’ Smith (Fred Grandy) and of course the ships chief bartender Isaac Washington (Ted Lange). Captain Stubing’s daughter Vicki (Jill Whelan) joins the cast in season two as a regular.
The series utilized the guest-star cast anthology format much like another Aaron Spelling showFantasy Island. Love Boat helped to launch new careers as well as revitalize some with many famous film stars of yesteryear making rare television appearances.
Ratings were consistently top 20 and even top 10 for seven of its nine seasons but eventually the novelty wore off. Rating dropped and the series was canceled at the end of the ninth season. Even after the cancellation however four three-hour specials aired during the 1986–87 television season.
The theme song was one of the best and many of us still know the words...
"Love, exciting and new Come aboard, we’re expecting you Love, life’s sweetest reward Let it flow, it floats back to you
Love Boat soon will be making another run The Love Boat promises something for everyone Set a course for adventure Your mind on a new romance
Love won’t hurt anymore It’s an open smile on a friendly shore Yes, love It’s love
Love Boat soon will be making another run The Love Boat promises something for everyone Set a course for adventure Your mind on a new romance
Love won’t hurt anymore It’s an open smile on a friendly shore It’s love, it’s love, it’s love It’s the Love Boat, it’s the Love Boat"
TRIVIA: The former Pacific Princess was sold to two different cruise lines before a failed sale to a third line prompted the owners to sell her for scrap in 2013. She was 42 years old, and was decommissioned in 2008. A Turkish company acquired her for 2.5 million Euros ($3.3 million).
Seems like a sad ending for the ship but we did get to see many of the stars continue in other works...
It was fun ride but like all cruises you have to depart and go home.
Cya on the Boat!!!
