"Love! Love! Lo-ooove...!" - Love American Style theme (sung by-yes-the Cowsills)
Love American Style: Season One, Volume One DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
Imagine The Love Boat without the boat. Or Fantasy Island without the creepy moralism of Mr. Roarke (not to mention the creepy bowl cut of his wee aide, Tatoo). You might come up with Love American Style, ABC's hit anthology sitcom that examines romance in all its shapes and sizes. And love is back in style with the DVD release of Love American Style: Season One, Volume One.
Unlike The Love Boat and Fantasy Island which had several storylines running concurrently, each episode of Love American Style featured two to four stories. Each story played through before moving on to the next. In between, viewers were treated to Laugh-In-style blackout jokes.
In the candy box of love, this format can lead to moist, delicious coconut smothered in dark chocolate; rich, creamy caramel; or those practically indigestible jellied candies and orange crème. One funny segment might be followed one that puts you in a coma.
In one of the better segments, a mother tries sneaky ways to get her daughter to take the pill on her European vacation ("Love and the Pill"). A too-concerned mother and father think that their son's new girlfriend only wants him for his money ("Love and the Unlikely Couple"). A newlywed gets into trouble on his honeymoon ("Love and the Doorknob"). After returning from a party, a couple discusses what phonies their friends are...as they remove their makeup, wigs, and falsies ("Love and the Phonies"). A hick couple, new to the city, answers an ad for a "Swingers' Party" figuring they'll fit right in with the other square dancers ("Love and the Wild Party"). Just what everyone wants in their honeymoon suite-champagne, soft sheets, and the mother of the bride ("Love and Mother").
Other segments feel a bit musty. A woman gets her ex-husband's engagement ring stuck on her finger...before he gets a chance to propose to his new lady ("Love and a Couple of Couples"). A pool shark finds himself hustled by the person he thinks is the most unlikely to be a shark ("Love and the Hustler"). A separated couple decides that they are mature enough to share the same home ("Love and the Legal Agreement"). A man wakes up after a night of partying and doesn't remember anything he did...especially the marriage license sitting beside his bed ("Love and Who?").
Love American Style didn't have a recurring cast, only the blackout players (including Stuart Margolin, The Rockford Files). Instead, the show relied on a series of guest stars to fill out each episode. These include Yvonne Craig (Batman), Penny Fuller (Mad About You), David Ketchem (Get Smart), Bob Cummings (The Bob Cummings Show), Jane Wyatt (Father Knows Best), Larry Storch (The Ghost Busters), Robert Clary (Hogan's Heroes), Margaret O'Brien (Meet Me in St. Louis), Reni Santoni (Manimal), Estelle Winwood (Batman), Arte Johnson (Laugh-In), Alice Ghostley (Designing Women), Barbara Rhoades (Soap), Dwayne Hickman (The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis), Stefanie Powers (Hart to Hart), Kathleen Freeman (Singing in the Rain), Gary Lockwood (2001: A Space Odyssey), Stafford Repp (Batman), Chelsea Brown (Laugh-In), Stu Gilliam (Laugh-In), Barry Nelson (My Favorite Husband), Bill Bixby (The Incredible Hulk), Connie Stevens (Hawaiian Eye), Sid Caesar (Your Show of Shows), Marjorie Lord (Make Room for Daddy), Don Porter (Gidget), Richard Deacon (The Dick Van Dyke Show), Phyllis Diller (The Pruitts of Southampton), Bob Crane (Hogan's Heroes), Allan Melvin (Archie Bunker's Place), Broderick Crawford (Highway Patrol), Herb Edelman (The Golden Girls), Ozzie and Harriet Nelson (Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet), Carolyn Jones (The Addams Family), Red Buttons (The Poseidon Adventure), Tina Louise (Gilligan's Island), Avery Schreiber, Ted Bessell (That Girl), Judy Carne (Laugh-In), Jeannine Riley (Petticoat Junction), Robert Reed (The Brady Bunch), Rich Little, Jessica Walter (Arrested Development), Carl Betz (The Donna Reed Show), Harrison Ford, Frank Campanella (Skag), Hans Conried (Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends), Norman Fell (Three's Company), Henry Gibson (Laugh-In), Morey Amsterdam (The Dick Van Dyke Show), Tom Smothers (The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour)...But wait! There's more, including Paul Winchell, Scatman Crothers, Shari Lewis, George O'Hanlon, Jack Carter, Ruta Lee, Regis Philbin, Andy Devine, Peter Marshall, Andrew Prine, Lesley Warren, Jesse White, Ann Sothern, Brandon de Wilde, Hamilton Camp, Sandra Gould, Ann Rutherford, Mary Ann Mobley, Edward Andrews, Rosemary DeCamp, and David Hedison. Whew!
Another frequent guest star, appearing in practically every episode, is a shiny brass bed. Its curlicues and filigrees often serve as the bed of the sketch's main characters. Sometimes it even pops up for a blackout vignette.
Love American Style represents networks attempting to dip their toes in the pool of late '60s free love and the sexual revolution. References are made to someone being a swinger without ever acknowledging what being a swinger actually entails. It's naughty, but nice. When a bride tells her new husband that his only flaw is a smallish mouth, he attempts to rectify the problem by wrapping his mouth around one of the honeymoon suite's doorknob ("Love and the Doorknob"). When his mouth gets stuck, hilarious slapstick ensues, but the fact that he is essentially fellating a doorknob is mostly ignored.
But the series can't really shake off its old-fashioned attitudes. It turns out that the overprotective mother who wanted to slip the pill into her daughter's O.J. needn't have worried-pure as snow daughter has decided to save herself for marriage ("Love and the Pill"). It's better to stay together rather than divorcing, even if your marriage has become miserable ("Love and the Legal Agreement"). Shacking up is okay, as long your daughter's boyfriend secretly tricked her into getting married before they moved in together ("Love and the Single Couple").
The show is fun, though, for its mod '60s fashions and interior design. Who says that a Day-Glo orange wall wouldn't look good with an equally colorful green wall...in the same room?
Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson scored a hit by adapting Neil Simon's The Odd Couple from the Broadway stage to the small screen. Almost every TV enthusiast knows that the pilot episode for what eventually developed into Happy Days originally ran as a segment on Love American Style. But did you know that the duo also wrote and produced the Volume One, Season One segment "Love and the Good Deal," based on yet another Neil Simon play? If not, don't beat yourself up. It's easy to see why this one never made it past Love American Style.
The twelve episodes that make up Love American Style: Season One, Volume One are divided onto three discs. All three discs are housed in what, from the outside, appears to be a standard DVD keepcase. An interior swinging arms holds two discs while the remaining disc is affixed to the interior rear cover. Each DVD is individually accessible, meaning that you won't have to fumble around and remove one disc to get to another. There is one flaw in the design-the keepcase is clear, allowing the double-sided coversheet show through to the inside of the case. The interior features episode numbers, original airdates, segment titles, and segment guest stars. Because disc three attaches to the interior cover, the disc must be removed in order to read the episode guide. Of course, the rear cover only lists episodes on disc three, so this isn't really any big deal.
The static menus are simple to navigate, but perfectly fit the series. There are no scene selection menus, but chapter stops are included. This is especially shameful because the individual episode menus actually list the name of each segment in the episode. Why not allow viewers to choose them?
The episodes are presented in the order in which they were originally aired, not by when they were produced. This explains why disc three contains episodes 14, 6, 9, and 17.
