Love, Love, Love

I was fixated with the episode when Julie Newmar has to get married in a bathtub when I was a kid. I think she got her toe stuck in the faucet or something.

OP, ughhh.

r2, was that ughhh for Love American Style or for Robert Reed as swinger?

I was very young when it was on in reruns I think, and I remember one episode that took place at a restaurant. The guy wanted to get home quickly to, I later realized, have sex with his date, and ordered "steak tartare." I think it was the first adult joke I understood!

I'd always remembered it fondly because it brought back memories of watching it during my childhood, both its original Friday night airings, then later in syndication. Always got a kick out of seeing who would be in those iconic opening credits each week: Flip Wilson! Diane Keaton! Sonny and Cher! The Lennon Sisters! Mort Sahl! Sue Lyon! Burt Reynolds! Plus a ton of TV perennials, and stars on the way up and on the way down.

A few years ago, I bought the DVDs of Season One (don't judge!) Definitely a product of its time, and like most anthology shows, the quality fluctuates. But the Charles Fox music is still great, and it's fun to see the casts, and to look at the mores of the period.

My mother wouldn't let us watch it when we were kids because she thought it was too racy. The times, the times. LOL

It would have been forbidden for me as well. I remember I was also ushered out the room or distracted by my mother when Peyton Place came on. Edge of Night was also considered 'racy.'

It's hilarious to think of how social mores have changed.

The nudist wedding!

Good Lord, I'm aging myself. R5, but I remember the sweet episode with Diane Keaton -- she was so endearing! Also remember ones with Arte Johnson and a blow-up doll, Catherine Burns from LAST SUMMER, Kurt Russell, Albert Brooks, Jessica Walter and Jacqueline Susann!

It's amazing a show that centered on sex was even broadcast.

TV today is so conservative in comparison.

[quote]It's amazing a show that centered on sex was even broadcast.

That's why I was so amazed at the Robert Reed swinger episode.

all of those hot muscled studs running around nude, I couldn't control myself!

Sexual television is 70s prime is not to take light for many people watch.

I remember it fondly, too, as part of ABC's Friday night lineup. Sure, some of the stories were silly, but the overall show was sweet. Besides the actors others have mentioned, I remember Elizabeth Ashley, Brandon De Wilde, Bernadette Peters, Desi Arnaz Jr., Frankie and Annette, Broderick Crawford, Gayle Hunnicutt. Such a variety of folks!

[quote]I was fixated with the episode when Julie Newmar has to get married in a bathtub when I was a kid. I think she got her toe stuck in the faucet or something.

That was also the plot of an episode of "The Dick Van Dyke Show".

"C"-listers Sue Lyon and Roger Perry (ex-Mr. Joanne Worley) fighting over a bed, and using one of those tall, narrow, automated, cafeteria sandwich vending machines to divide the bed in half, so they could both sleep in it at the same time. I remember this because Perry back then would've been about 30-35, and was extremely good-looking, and stripped down to his boxers for this episode. Ecstasy!

Not much

[quote]"C"-listers Sue Lyon and Roger Perry (ex-Mr. Joanne Worley)

Excuse me?

Wow, R18 -- you just reminded me of something : the two Mrs. Roger Perrys appeared on the same episode of LOVE AMERICAN STYLE! A bachelor is tired of his picky mother scaring off his girlfriends (the most recent being Ms. Bulifant), so he brings home an obnoxious roller derby queen (Ms. Worley) to give mama some perspective. I don't remember who played the bachelor or the mother, but it's ironic that the then-present and future Mrs. Perry were on the same episode.

R16 -- whatever list Sue Lyon happened to be on, how many actresses can claim to work with Stanley Kubrick, John Huston and John Ford in her first three films?

There was an episode with Mama Cass Elliot and Shecky Greene, both going out on a date together. Each tried girdles and wigs and makeup to look younger and thinner. As Shecky Greene appeared in his new outfit, my mother said I should try that. I was a chubby 12-year old, but that cunt never missed a chance to make fun of me.

Saw it in syndication and exclaimed, Hey, that's Happy Days!

The cast was in an episode that I guess led to its own series?!

R22 It was the pilot for the show. Both were produced by Paramount.

I hated that show even when I was a teenager and it was on prime time. You guys have really bad taste.

So you were a fussy old queen, too, as an adolescent. R24? No wonder you didn't get invited to any parties.

Why hasn't this show been easier to get? I think there were 5 seasons produced, but only the first season is available on dvd.

R26, my guess would be that DVD sales of the first season weren't strong enough to merit the studio releasing the additional seasons.

R25? I'm actually a lesbian, but thanks for your input.

That's not surprise then, R24/28. Lesbians are usually humorless and dour at an early age.

Would this show work today if you rebooted it and updated it to include gay and lesbian storylines?

Not sure if it would work these days -- would need a massive retooling. Like the other posters, my affection for it has less to do with the quality of the show and more to do with the casts, and what it represents time-wise.

The original show kind of had a bouncy, cheeky humor that isn't evident in any of today's tv shows.

Was watching the excellent GOODBYE, COLUMBUS over the weekend, and much of the music score seemed very LOVE AMERICAN STYLE-esque. No surprise -- both were scored by Charles Fox!

R33, speaking of GOODBYE, COLUMBUS, did you know that the role of Brenda Patimkin was originally offered to Lesley Ann Warren? She had to turn it down because of pregnancy, resulting in a star-making turn for Ali MacGraw. Ironically, a post-pregnancy Warren later turned up on LOVE AMERICAN STYLE!

Thank you, OP, this thread has brought up great memories of my childhood!

[quote]Thank you, OP, this thread has brought up great memories of my childhood!

Me too. I just wish they would release the later seasons so I could have some sentimental moments.

Why "ironic," R34?

It was the stupidest show in creation. I used to mock my father for watching it.

I'm not R34, but I suspect what they find ironic is that if Lesley Ann Warren had been able to appear in GOODBYE, COLUMBUS as planned, it's unlikely she would have guested on LOVE AMERICAN STYLE so soon after appearing in the box office hit.

R13 is Sarah Palin.

Fun show, brings back good memories!

R9, I remember the episode with Jacqueline Susann -- her costar was Martha Raye!

Alan Sues as a baker trying to sell a wedding cake that he had made for a wedding that was canceled. And Paul Lynde lusting after Carol Wayne.

I remember that Alan Sues episode, R43! You just knew as soon as you saw it set in a bakery that it would end with a pie fight -- and it did!

What a hoot to see Alan Sues and Paul Lynde attempting to play straight, given today's sensibilities.

Clever title -- and those Lennon Sisters are so pretty!

Never seen it.

Hi, 2015 bump troll. I see you're active tonight. Too many anti-Trump and pro-protest threads for you?

I always though "Happy Days" was a rip-off of "American Graffiti", which was released in 1973, but the "Happy Days" episode of "Love American Style" actually aired in 1972.

It was very adult themed. Something that would make the fundamentalists heads explode today. But here's the dirty little secret - the rates of swinging, triads etc. in the burbs is increasing these days.

The only one I recall from my early 70s childhood took place in a department stores after closing. A newly married couple I believe couldn’t afford an apartment so they set up house in the furniture section of a department store, hiding until after store closure. When I would shop with my parents at Sears or Montgomery Wards On rare occasion, I’d imagine living there.

[quote]I always though "Happy Days" was a rip-off of "American Graffiti", which was released in 1973, but the "Happy Days" episode of "Love American Style" actually aired in 1972.

It was all part of a wave of 50s nostalgia. The musical Grease opened in New York in February 1972.

I would happily shit into the 2015 Bump Troll's shitty shitty worthless pie hole mouth.

In retrospect, it's really weird that barely a dozen years after the '50s ended, everybody was already super nostalgic about that time. Imagine if we did the same thing now, with a ton of movies and TV shows all about those crazy yet innocent days of 2005!

It strange how some shows last forever (I Love Lucy, Leave It To Beaver, Andy Griffith), but some shows just disappear. You can't find Love American Style on any oldies station ever. Same thing with Hollywood Palace.

The episode where Werner Klemperer's daughter, played by Beverly Sanders, wanted to marry a bear!! I mean, this was borderline bestiality...it was funny and bizarre.

As a tiny gayling I fondly recall sneaking into our rec room to watch Broadway legend, Miss Helen Lawson, in her one and only guest LAS spot in "Love and The Groovy Stew." Helen played "Helen," a divorced matron who is forced to fill in for Connie, her fast 22-year-old daughter, who has booked not one, not two, but three blind dates during a short-stay in NYC. Connie has eloped with a pilot, leaving Helen to entertain the swinging bachelors simultaneouslyin her single-gal Village flat ... and pretending to be half her age, in a miniskirt and lace-up gogo boots. The comic antics with the lava lamp? Priceless.

Miss Lawson's lithe dancer's body still looked divine in her Contempo Casuals outfits, at least to this discerning 8-year-old.

Same thing with The Golden Palace.

[quote]You can't find Love American Style on any oldies station ever.

Which is interesting because if any show defined the 1970s, it was Love American Style. You can't get anymore 70s than this show. I had thought in the early 90s when the first Tales of the City was broadcast that it may spark an interest in this show.

One of the decade's absolute worst. I always had a low opinion of Stuart Margolin for appearing in those sketches and a deep sense of pity for Barbara Minkus, whose career revolved around being homely and hence comical. I would call the show a guilty displeasure--a show that makes you hate your life and yourself for watching it and that you hope will get better but never does.

I have the two-volume season one on DVD and rewatch a few episodes from time to time. Despite the "adults only" labels, the show is incredibly tame. The swingers never swing. The adulterers never adulter. The young couples ready to lose their virginity decide to wait. For all its supposed liberation, the show was really as square as Ozzie and Harriet. They just talked about things.

My favorite episode guest-starred June Lockhart and William Schallert as the parents of America's favorite TV family, with their real-life adult children still portraying youngsters -smoking cigars and doing stock deals on breaks between filming scenes. They've been on for years and years -And then they are cancelled! It gave June a chance to parody her Lassie role, and Schallert his in the old Patty Duke Show. I remember the nymphomaniac daughter is supposed to be in junior high, and she's always flinging herself at the crew, while her brother jokes about her character spending three months at school and nine months away at summer camp...

I have warm memories of the show, not because of the show itself (I cannot recall the plot or cast of a single episode), but because its opening/closing themes comprised part of the background ambient music of my life when I was 10-12 years old. During the summer, syndicated 'Night Gallery' (somewhat different from the original network version) aired in the mornings, elevenish - an odd time of day for that kind of show. I would watch the channel in anticipation of it, and 'Love, American Style' either preceded it or followed it, depending on the scheduling.

Same with 'That Girl' and 'The Flying Nun' - they too were part of that syndicated morning block of television, and I sometimes watched them. Ah, the 1970s!

[quote]For all its supposed liberation, the show was really as square as Ozzie and Harriet. They just talked about things.

For the time, talking about sex was a big deal. Remember, Mary Tyler Moore couldn't be divorced and she was very cautious about what a single girl could talk about. Most of Sue Ann's naughty talk was very tame. But sex was not discussed on tv.

The 70's and 80's shows had real music themes that are iconic. I vividly remember the music from this show, but not the content at all. I used to love to watch the variety shows: Flip Wilson (LOVED his Geraldine), The Sonny and Cher Show, The Osmonds/Jackson 5, Shields and Yarnell, Smothers Brothers, Laugh-In, Soul Train and American Bandstand.

R54 I think a lot has to do with the turbulent 1960s and the 1970s not starting so great with inflation, lingering Vietnam war and gas shortages. The 1950s was were looked upon as the last time things were good. Kind of how the 1990s seem to many of us now.

[quote]It strange how some shows last forever (I Love Lucy, Leave It To Beaver, Andy Griffith), but some shows just disappear. You can't find Love American Style on any oldies station ever. Same thing with Hollywood Palace.

[quote]Which is interesting because if any show defined the 1970s, it was Love American Style. You can't get anymore 70s than this show.

I think in past years MeTV has shown a single episode of "Love, American Style" as part of a slate of shows dedicated to a special occasion or holiday (like Valentine's Day) but that's about all. Anytime this happens, I always hope it's a sign that they're getting ready to add it to the regular schedule but they never do. I mean God forbid they take off "The Andy Griffith Show" or "MASH" to show something different for a while.

Anthology shows (like LAS) generally don't do well in syndication. Viewers like the familiarity of the same actors playing the same characters, enacting the same stories over and over again.

There was an unsuccessful anthology series called LOVE BITES that reminded me of LAS. Some of the characters were recurring but it mostly focused on little self-contained episodes about love and sex.

There have probably been other attempts to re-create the success of LAS.

R66: don't take off the Rifleman. My mother will riot.......

MeTV's sibling network, DECADES occasionally runs LAS. They did an all-weekend binge several times in the past few years.