Why was The Love Boat so popular?

I was a 13 or 14 year old girl when it started. We had moved to a new state - I hadn’t made a lot of friends yet. At 13/14 you are getting that dating grown up urge - but not too fast. Love Boat was very naughty for a young teen back then - in the early seasons Julie and Gopher were really young and attractive but non threatening. The old has been were the people our parents and grandparents knew. The main passengers were stars of tv shows we watched during the week. For a young girl who wasn’t going anywhere on a Saturday night it was like having a standing date. Issac always pointed right at me!

Issac was hot.

I just remember it being a boomer landing spot. My folks would always be saying things like 'she held up, he's fat and is that a toupee? What the fucking blue hell did that bitch do to her face?' I always hated it.

You have to remember at that time we only had probably be three or four channels. So watching something like that was a treat.

Everybody watched it with their grandmother. I know I did.

Guys in Speedos walking about the pool in the background.

What R4 said, TVs only had 13 channels, but out of that maybe 3 or 4 channels had professional content. 3 networks ruled the airways, the rest was local armature crap, bad reception or just off the air.

I was home alone most Saturday nights and it was a ritual to watch it and Fantasy Island. One night, my older brother’s cool friends came by to pick him up. I was a 12 year old gayling, making popcorn and shooting the shit with the guys. I proudly told them that I never missed an episode of The Love Boat, and they were like “Dude, that’s bad. Don’t brag about that.”

[quote]I just remember it being a boomer landing spot. My folks would always be saying things like 'she held up, he's fat and is that a toupee? What the fucking blue hell did that bitch do to her face?' I always hated it.

Clearly your folks had the right attitude and knew how to enjoy it for what it was.

I will say this, even as a young boy, those episodes were cringe worthy. All those recycled old movie starts making cameos were totally unbelievable and awkward even back then.

Maybe if I would have had as much blow as Julie the cruise director was doing on set I would have go it.

One of us was a lot more "happy" than the others, can you guess which one?

Saturday night. Old people well past their party days.

There were some episodes where they went on location. Definitely remember an Alaska episode and I think Hawaii? Panama Canal?

Falkland Islands?

A majority of the show was filmed in a studio. The terrible 2-shot deck scenes overlooking the water, usually at night, were in front of a screen.

The third or fourth season they built a spa/gym set and it was in several storylines.

Some of the plots were clearly written by 80 year old former radio writers. So goofy. It was basically Love, American Style on a boat.

I did love the speedos and hairy men in the background. I saw one episode recently where a guy with a hairy back walked across the screen. You'd never see that now.

Even Peter Lupus appeared on screen in a speedo...though he did Playgirl and wasn't a pussy about it!

Because we didn't have a remote control.

I hated it, but as everyone else has said, there were only a few channels, no video recorders, DVDs, internet ....

Very young and very old people loved it. They weren't going out on Saturday night anyway and the kids could dream of being a grown-up dancing at the disco and finding love on a cruise ship, while the olds got to see all the movie stars of their youth.

It was good, wholesome fun period. No violence, no guns.

Eldergay here. Back in the 70's taking a cruise vacation was everyone's dream. There were very few weekly luxury passenger ships in those days and sailing was expensive. Seeing it on TV made the dream a little more possible for many of us. Now, having done many cruises since those days, I appreciate how hokey the show may seem now, but we waited the whole week to watch the show.

Why was The Love Boat so popular?

One word: Charo

I know one reason....