The Love Boat
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The executive producer for the series was Aaron Spelling, who produced several popular and successful series for ABC in the 1960's, 70's and 80's.
The sitcom was usually set about a cruise liner called The Pacific Princess, whose passengers and crew had romantic and funny adventures every week. Other ships used were the Stella Solaris (for a Mediterranean cruise), Pearl of Scandinavia (for a Chinese cruise), the Royal Viking Sky (for European cruises) and the Royal Princess (for a Caribbean cruise).
The series' attraction was in the casting of well-known actors in guest-starring roles, with many famous film stars of yesteryear making rare television appearances. Although it wasn't the first series to use the all-star cast anthology format — Love American Style used the same device a decade earlier -- Love Boat perfected the genre and future shows in similar style (Supertrain and Masquerade to name two) were inevitably compared to Love Boat.
The series was also distinctive as being one of the few hour-long series ever made for American television that used a laugh track (Eight is Enough, on the same network and produced at the same time, being another example).
Another unique aspect of the Love Boat was its writing format. Each segment was written by a different set of writers. Each set of writers worked on one group of guest stars and their story of the week. So episodes ended up with ungangly titles like "Disco Baby/Alas, Poor Dwyer/After the War/Ticket to Ride/Itsy Bitsy: Part 1".
The show was based on the same premise as the 1956-60 television hit, The Gale Storm Show (aka Oh! Susanna).
The Love Boat theme song was sung by Jack Jones (except for the last season, where a cover version by Dionne Warwick was used). The lyrics were written by composer Paul Williams.
From June 1980 to June 1981, and again from September 1981 to June 1983, ABC aired daytime reruns of the show from 11:00-12:00 (ET) each morning.
Cast
- Gavin MacLeod - Captain Merrill Stubing
- Bernie Kopell - Dr. Adam "Doc" Bricker
- Fred Grandy - Burl "Gopher" Smith
- Ted Lange - Bartender Isaac Washington
- Lauren Tewes - Cruise Director Julie McCoy (1977–84)
- Jill Whelan - Vicki Stubing, the captain's daughter (1979–86)
- Pat Klous - Cruise Director Judy McCoy (1984–86)
- Ted McGinley - Ashley "Ace" Covington Evans (1984–86)
Sequels
- There was a TV movie after the show was cancelled, The Love Boat: A Valentine Voyage (1990).
- A second TV series, Love Boat: The Next Wave aired on the UPN Network from 1998 to 1999. It starred Robert Urich as Captain Jim Kennedy. Several members of the cast of the original series guest-starred on one episode, where it was revealed that Julie and "Doc" had been in love all along.
See also
International
External links
- [] at TV.com
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