I picked up the new DVD of the first season (well, part one, at any rate) of LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE during the Deep Discount sale. Not having seen the show since its initial syndication run, I was looking forward to revisiting it without any expectations of great art.

So I've only watched a couple of eps so far, but as you might suspect, the guest stars are the real attraction here. One of the segments in the premiere ep about a pool-hall hustler immediately got my attention when I realized it featured the intriguing combo of Mantan Moreland, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Flip Wilson, and Gail Fisher!

I don't think the series has aged as well as some other contemporaneous sketch comedies - it's definitely of its time, but I sometimes find that an attraction in itself. Anyone else seen this yet?

Been waiting for Netflix to ship it, as it's still a Very Long Wait. I understand the DVDs include the original Cowsills rendition of the popular theme song. The Cowsills were replaced by the Charles Fox Singers sometime during the original network run, and all syndicated reruns, including the first season shows, included the Fox Singers song. I imagine few of us remember the Cowsills' (slower) version. I don't know if the Cowsills released the song on LP, but there is a LOVE AMERICAN STYLE soundtrack album with the Charles Fox Singers.

Actually, I don't know if LOVE AMERICAN STYLE has been seen intact in syndication. Weren't segments moved around and re-edited for half-hour time slots, as SCTV and NIGHT GALLERY were?

Fox wrote the themes to LOVE AMERICAN STYLE and THE GREEN SLIME at pretty much the same time.

Yep, the Cowsills are credited in both of the eps I watched.

It's been many years, but my admittedly fuzzy recollection is that a half-hour in syndication sounds about right - I used to watch it on one of the local UHF channels, and I don't recall it running for an hour.

I do recall the original hour-long formula, so it has been fun to revisit the series. The guest stars are indeed a great group, a heady mix of old pros and up and coming talent. A few of the episodes now fall flat, but others are still comic gems. All in all, it's been great to see it again, as I never watched the shorter syndication versions. I hope that there will be subsequent volumes released.

Just after BARBARELLA, too.

I just checked "Love American Style" on IMDB and they list Joseph Barbera (of Hanna-Barbera fame) as one of the directors--it's his only live-action credit. I find it very hard to believe that he would have stepped away from Hanna Barbera's extremely BUSY '60s-70s production slate to direct episodic TV. Anybody know anything about this? Or is it just another IMDB glitch?

RE: IMDB and BARBARELLA: Charles Fox is listed only as a "conductor" on IMDB, yet I seem to remember him credited as composer in both the film's credits and on the soundtrack LP (which I own--did this ever come out on CD?).

Hanna-Barbera produced at least a couple of animated shorts that aired on LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE. One episode was "Love and the Private Eye," starring the voice of Richard Dawson as private dick Melvin Danger. Probably Barbera and/or William Hanna received directorial credit.

I'm intrigued. That's an episode I'd like to see.
(And that explains Barbera's inclusion on the directors' list.)

So I have fond memories of the show - it was the cap to one of my favorite childhood line-ups:
Brady Bunch
Partridge Family
Here Come the Brides (with hottie Bobby Sherman)
The Odd Couple
Love, American Style

This was ABC's Friday night line-up from 8-11 and when I visited my great aunt she was appalled that my parents let me stay up so late to watch it. I remember enjoying the sight of all the beautiful women frolicking about in babydoll pajamas. :rolleyes:

According to a book I bought pre-internet called 'Harry and Wally's Favorite TV Shows' the show aired one hundred twelve 60min episodes AND one hundred twelve 30 min episodes from 1969 - 1974. So it looks like the shows weren't chopped down to fill timeslots. There was also a brief revival called 'The New Love, American Style' in 1986 as a 30 minute daytime offering (I wonder what 80's talent appeared in those eps). Also this interesting tidbit: "In retrospect, Love, American Style's only claim to fame in TV history is it's role as the vehicle for the pilot episode of 'Happy Days', which was aired in 1972 as 'Love and the Happy Days'.

Instant flashback:
cowsills snipet

If I remember correctly it also served has the vehicle for the pilot of 'Wait Till Your Father Gets Home'. But that's more of a claim to TV shame.

Hey, I have that book too! That sounds like a lot of episodes for a 5-season run (Wikipedia also claims "224" episodes). I have the feeling they are counting each individual segment (the episodes normally had 2 or 3) as an "episode." IMDb's list runs to 108 30- and 60-minute episodes, which seems right. That could well have translated to 224 half-hour episodes in syndication.

I have that book as well! And also fond memories of watching this on ABC every Friday when I was a kid (with Shock Theater on later that night on top of everything else)! When it went into early evening syndication, being a kid of course, I was always searching for those two animated episodes (the private eye one and the "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" episode) and would occasionally see them pop up in the run.

I agree with Marty - I suspect they're looking at the individual stories to make up the numbers there instead of full epsiodes. Just a hunch, however.

Of course, younger kids missed out on the glamor (heh) of the program and had to do with the weaker substitute - LOVE BOAT. :lol:

But will we eventually see that HAPPY DAYS pilot in another set down the line? I assume so off-hand, but I remember there were some questions about adding it to the first HAPPY DAYS season boxset and legalities standing in the way.

I also have Harry and Wally's book. Bought it when it came out in 1989, if my memory serves me right. They wrote a book earlier in the 1980's called WATCHING TV that is also a very good read.

224 episodes for a 5 season run is impossible. Has to be a misprint. 112 would be about right for that era.

I never saw it in anything other than 30 minute episodes in syndication. For a while it aired on the short-lived HA! network in 1990-91.

HCH

Of course, I never missed it. But what smarmy crap!

I did have fun talking to Gary Lockwood about an episode in which he had a doorknob stuck in his mouth when I met him at a Chiller con!

tv.com lists 358 sketches for the show during its five seasons. The one-hour format seems to have run 112 episodes if I'm counting right--no guarantees on that!

Looks like the following breakdown:
Season 1: 24 episodes
Season 2: 25 episodes
Season 3: 24 episodes
Season 4: 23 episodes
Season 5: 16 episodes

The 30-minute version was a syndication repackaging so I don't see how you can count them as different episodes.

Paramount/Fox (?) has just announced, as per The Digital Bits website, Season 1, Volume 2 of LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE. The DVD will street on March 11th, 2008.