The Love Boat

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For the Taiwanese youth program informally known as "Love Boat", see Overseas Chinese Youth Language Training and Study Tour to the Republic of China.
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The Love Boat
Image:The Love Boat.jpg
Title screen
Format Sitcom
Created by Aaron Spelling
Starring Gavin MacLeod
Bernie Kopell
Fred Grandy
Ted Lange
Lauren Tewes
Jill Whelan
Pat Klous
Ted McGinley
Marion Ross
Opening theme "The Love Boat" by Jack Jones
Country of origin Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States
No. of seasons 10
No. of episodes 249
Production
Running time 43 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel ABC
Original run September 24, 1977 – May 24, 1986
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

The Love Boat (simply Love Boat in its final season) is an American television series set on a cruise ship, which aired on the ABC Television Network from 1977 until 1986. It was part of ABC's Saturday night one-two punch along with Fantasy Island until that show ended in 1984. The original made-for-TV movie on which the show was based was itself based on a book, The Love Boats by Jeraldine Saunders, a real-life cruise director.

The executive producer for the series was Aaron Spelling, who produced several successful series for ABC in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

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 twin sister Island Princess, 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).

Contents

[edit] Guest stars

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.

Further information: List of guest stars on The Love Boat

[edit] Laugh track

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).

[edit] Writing format

Another unique aspect of The Love Boat was its writing format. Each episode contained several simultaneous storylines, and each one 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 ungainly titles like "Disco Baby/Alas, Poor Dwyer/After the War/Ticket to Ride/Itsy Bitsy: Part 1".

There were usually three storylines. There was a pattern to the threes storylines: One storyline focused around a member of the crew, a second storyline would often focus on a crew member interacting with a passenger, and the third storyline was more focused around a passenger (or a group of passengers).

The show was based on the same premise as the 1956-60 television hit, The Gale Storm Show (aka Oh! Susanna).

[edit] Theme song

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 Paul Williams with music by Charles Fox.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Sequels and spin-offs

  • A TV movie, The Love Boat: A Valentine Voyage, followed in 1990, four years after the show was cancelled.
  • A second TV series, The Love Boat: The Next Wave aired on the UPN Network from 1998 to 1999. It starred Robert Urich as Captain Jim Kennedy, a retired U.S. Navy officer. Heidi Mark was cast as the cruise director. 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.
  • In Germany, the TV series Das Traumschiff started in 1981 as a German-made version of The Love Boat. It airs as 90-minutes-specials instead of a weekly basis, traditionally with an episode airing each Boxing Day and New Year's Day on the ZDF network. In 2005, the 50th episode was broadcast. Contrary to the original American series, ALL episodes of Das Traumschiff are shot entirely on location aboard the ship and in the ports of the ship's stopovers. No scene was ever shot in a television studio. Due to this lavish production style, each season consists of between 4 and 6 episodes only. The ships used for the series were MS Vistafjord (1st season: 1981/1982), MS Astor (2nd season: 1983/1984), MS Berlin (3rd to 10th season: 1986 - 1998) and MS Deutschland (11th season till present: 1999 - present).

[edit] Other airings

ABC also aired reruns of the show in their daytime lineup from 11:00 a.m.-noon (10 a.m.-11 a.m. Central) from June 1980 to June 1983 (with the exception of June 1981 to September 1981 when back-to-back reruns of Three's Company aired instead).

[edit] International

  • In Finland, the show was shown by MTV (currently known as MTV3 channel, at the time known as MTV, buying airtime on TV1 and TV2 channels) and was called "Lemmenlaiva" (Love boat, or literally: Ship of love)
  • In France, the show was shown on FR3 and was called "La croisière s'amuse" (Cruising Fun)
  • In Germany, the show was shown originally on Sat.1 and later on Tele 5, 9Live and Premiere (pay television network).
  • In Poland, the show airs on TVP2 on workdays, several minutes after 5 am, and is called "Statek miłości" = "Love boat".
  • In Portugal, the show was shown on SIC, afterwards SIC Gold, and it aired until 2006 in SIC Comédia.
  • In Spain the show was shown on RTVE and was called "Vacaciones en el mar" (Vacation on the sea)

[edit] DVD Release

On March 4, 2008, CBS Home Entertainment will release The Love Boat Season 1, Volume 1 on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. [1]

DVD Name Ep # Release Date
Season 1, Volume 1 12 March 4 2008

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

es:The Love Boat fr:La Croisière s'amuse it:Love Boat he:ספינת האהבה nl:The Love Boat pl:Statek miłości fi:Lemmenlaiva zh:愛之船

Retrieved from "http://india.smashits.com/wikipedia/The_Love_Boat"
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