Come Aboard The Love Boat While Not Cruising!

Come Aboard The Love Boat While Not Cruising!

Come Aboard The Love Boat While Not Cruising!

With the pandemic, it seems like a lot of our cruise dreams have been cut short. Many cruise ship destinations are off the table, and Princess Cruises have extended their pause of certain global ship operations until (at least) December 15th. Although there is hope (How And When Will Cruises Start Again), there is one thing you can do to ease the pain in the meantime, though – you can board the S.S. Pacific Princess and hop on The Love Boat!

What is “The Love Boat”?

The Love Boat was a campy comedy/drama TV series set on the actual Pacific Princess cruise ship (and occasionally other Princess Cruise ships as well), and it was known for frequently having star-studded guest star line-ups. The Village People, Tom Hanks, Jamie Lee Curtis, Betty White, Patty Duke, and a whole lot more have all appeared on The Love Boat over the course of its nine-season run. Notably, Florence Henderson guest-starred nine times and played multiple different characters during her stints, though she usually didn’t appear as Carol Brady. Robert Reed, who played Mike Brady on The Brady Bunch, also guest-starred during one of Henderson’s guest spots, resulting in a cute little in-joke where the two pass each other on the ship and do a double-take. And, since the series was executive produced by Aaron Spelling, naturally we get some guest spots from his daughter, Tori Spelling, during its run, too.

Regular Cast of The Love Boat

With all those guest star spots, the series only had room for a few series regulars. Only three characters appeared in every episode and the subsequent TV movies: Gavin MacLeod (Your Captain, Merrill Stubing), Bernie Kopell (Your Ship’s Doctor, Doc Bricker), and Ted Lange (Your Bartender, Isaac Washington). Fred Grandy was in most of the episodes as Gopher, but he actually took a little hiatus during the TV movie filming in 1986 because he was running for Congress.

The World of The Love Boat

The world of The Love Boat is huuuuge. Clocking in at 248 episodes and five different made-for-TV movie specials, the show had multiple crossover episodes. It had a special two-hour crossover with Fantasy Island (also produced by Aaron Spelling), and the ladies in Charlie’s Angels hopped aboard The Love Boat in a special, as well. It even had a two-part crossover episode with Martin in 1997, years after The Love Boat had finished its run. There was even a short-lived reboot in 1998 called Love Boat: The Next Wave, though barring a reunion episode, none of the original cast was actually on the boat.

Essentially, if you’re bored during this quarantine and craving some cruise action, you will have PLENTY of Love Boat to fill the void because there is a ton of lovin’ to go around. And, if you somehow finish the entire series, there’s even a book called Love Boats written by the first female Princess Cruises cruise director, Jeraldine Saunders. This memoir is actually what inspired the very first Love Boat TV special. It’s a little bit more grounded and realistic than the series – surprisingly, it tackles some more serious subjects like sexual assault and even a cruise ship suicide. It also makes a point to let readers know that working on a cruise ship is grueling work and NOT all fun and games like it is on TV.

The Love Boat Tune

The Love Boat’s theme song and closing song are pretty iconic, too. Composed by Charles Fox, who’s responsible for a ton of catchy TV ear-worms like the original Monday Night Football theme, The Love Boat theme is sure to get stuck in your head once you hear it. For the first eight seasons, the song was sung by Jack Jones, but for its ninth and final season, Dionne Warwick belted out the theme. Lyrics were written by the legendary Paul Williams, who actually guest-starred on two different episodes of the show.

Generally, the episodes would have three distinct story arcs – one would focus on the actual ship’s crew, another would dip into more dramatic territory, and the third would be straight up comedy. And, of course, there would always be love on The Love Boat, with romance plotlines ranging from the scandalous (like a guest cheating on his wife but being caught by a neighbor on the cruise) to the touchingly sentimental (like a wild rock star falling in love with a deaf girl and trying to connect with her). Other plots would touch on topics ranging from racism, disability, the Vietnam War, alcoholism, and sex…or the plot could be as simple as Lauren Tewes’ character Julie accidentally dyeing her hair green. Clearly, it had a little something for everyone with its jam-packed storytelling and equally jam-packed guest star line-up.

Critics notoriously poo-pooed The Love Boat, criticizing its gimmicky premise and corny jokes. In a 2013 show reunion on The View, Fred Grady said that, “The critics hated it, said it would sink like the Titanic.” The New Yorker called Aaron Spelling a “schlock merchant,” but that certainly didn’t stop Spelling from helming The Love Boat and multiple other hit TV shows. After all, the fun was in the goofy escapism. We don’t all need realism in our TV, and families enjoyed the opportunity to kick off the end of their weeks with a fun cruise every Saturday…even if the cruise was just on their TV sets.

Critics often dissed the laugh track, too – at the time, laugh tracks were pretty unpopular. The Love Boat is actually one of only four hour-long shows that features a laugh track. The others are Love, American Style (1969), Eight is Enough (1977) and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957). Funnily enough, when the series aired in France, it had no laugh track because the canned laughter was especially unpopular among the French. Because of this, it has more of an adventure angle as opposed to a comedy angle. So hey, if you’re still missing cruise life in a few months and start to get tired of watching all of The Love Boat, why not check it out in French, too? It’s like a totally different show!

Episodes of The Love Boat

Now, you probably don’t actually have the time to sift through all of the many episodes of The Love Boat, so here are some highlight episodes that you can check out. The series is episodic in nature, so you can jump in pretty much anywhere and not worry about not being able to follow along.

The Love Boat Season 2, Episode 9 – “Till Death Do Us Part – Maybe / Locked Away / Chubs”

This episode is one of two The Love Boat ghost episodes – one plotline focuses on a widow who is being stalked by her husband’s ghost. This episode highlights just how hokey the show can get. It doesn’t get much goofier or more unrealistic than a dramatic ghost love plotline. Still, that’s part of the show’s charm!

The episode is also notable for featuring real-life mother-daughter combo Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis. Their plotline is light-hearted – Janet Leigh plays half of a divorced couple and they run into their daughter (Curtis) with her husband. They accidentally lock themselves in an unused cabin, and hijinks ensue.

Guest star line-up: In addition to Leigh and Curtis, we have Vernee Watson of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air fame, politician Jimmy Walker, Greg Morris, Diff’rent Strokes’ Conrad Bain, and Little House on the Prarie’s Melissa Sue Anderson.

The Love Boat Season 2, Episode 25 – “Murder on the High Seas / Sounds of Silence / Cyrano de Bricker”

This one is worth checking out just to see Sonny Bono decked out in Kiss make-up! His character is a rock star who wants to be taken more seriously and move away from this crazy rock shtick. While on the cruise, he ends up falling in love with a deaf girl. It’s quite sweet, despite Sonny Bono’s silly rockstar look.

The slapstick portion of the episode is pretty darn amusing, too – two writers chat with each other about a new murder-mystery book, and bartender Isaac accidentally thinks that they’re actually trying to kill Captain Merrill!

Guest star line-up: Sonny Bono, Charlie Callas, Arte Johnson, Peter Lawford, Jill St. John, Dana Wynter, Sheila Lenham, James Dobson

The Love Boat Season 3, Episode 1 and 2 – “Carol and Doug’s Story / Peter and Alicia’s Story / Julie’s Story / Buddy and Portia’s Story: Parts 1 & 2”

This episode is one of the most gorgeous episodes that The Love Boat has to offer. The episode takes place during a wedding cruise up the Alaskan coastline, and there are some really beautiful shots along the water here. What a great advertisement for Princess Cruises, huh?

On top of the pretty scenery, we have a genuinely gripping storyline. This season three opener is a special two-part bonanza, and like all ventures on The Love Boat, it is absolutely packed to the brim with romance. There’s the couple getting married at the center who have to deal with a mettling ex-girlfriend, leading to plenty of goofy slapstick moments. The heart-string tugging storyline focuses on the groom’s divorced parents – his father has terminal cancer and doesn’t want his ex-wife to know, and meanwhile she doesn’t want her ex-husband to know that she’s filing for bankruptcy. Finally, there’s an incredibly sweet romance that develops between two family members of the bride and groom. This episode perfectly showcases all The Love Boat’s charm.

Guest star line-up: A young pre-NCIS Mark Harmon, Lisa Hartman, Ray Milland, Eleanor Parker, Caren Kaye, Tony Roberts, Lorne Greene, Happy Days’ Donny Most, Audra Lindley, and Canadian politician Robert Lussier.

The Love Boat Season 5, Episode 1 – “Sergeant Bull / Friends and Lovers / Miss Mother

Of course Tom Hanks’ episode is worth checking out! Hanks was still unknown at the time, and his role as Gopher’s old frat buddy actually helped him land a role on 1980’s Bosom Buddies. In this one, Gopher convinces Julie to pretend to be his girlfriend so that he can impress Hanks’ character, but it doesn’t turn out too well for the buddies in the end. Other plotlines for this episode include a pregnant woman falling in love with a man who is too afraid to tell him that she’s pregnant.

There’s also a storyline where three army buddies reunite with their old sergeant…but then get annoyed with him once he can’t stop talking to them like they’re still in boot camp. To get him off their backs, they attempt to set him up with a housekeeper aboard the cruise.

Guest star line-up: Besides Tom Hanks, we have Nipsey Russel, Harvey Lembeck, Jack Somack, Vic Tayback, Shelley Smith, Dennis Cole and Doris Roberts.

The Love Boat Season 10, Episode 4 – “Who Killed Maxwell Thorn?”

This one is one of the later 1987 specials, but it’s worth checking out for the whodunnit plotline – a billionaire famous for giving out free cruises goes missing, and it’s suspected that one of the six prize recipients may have murdered him. This one’s notable because Florence Henderson and Robert Reed guest-star yet again, but this time they are playing their characters from The Brady Brunch. They have a brief argument on the ship about their kids in an amusing nod to the series. There’s another great cameo here featuring Tony Dow, Jerry Mathers, and Barbara Billingsley from Leave It to Beaver, too.

Guest star line-up: In addition to the ones mentioned above, this episode also has Happy Days alums Tom Bosley and Marion Ross, Arlene Dahl, Peter Graves, radio personality Steve Allen (as himself), Don Knotts, Carol Channing, Christopher Norris (as himself), Alan Thicke, Milton Berle (as himself), and a ton of other actors playing themselves.

Real Guests on The Love Boat Cruises

Believe it or not, the cruise ship did book real guests during filming – patrons would pay quite a bit of money for a chance to join the star-studded cast on a trip out to sea. According to a 1983 article in People magazine, tourists were paying between $3,370 and $8,550 for the cruise. A quick crunch of those numbers in the inflation calculator says that that would be between $8,880 and $22,530 in 2020 money

Being a guest on The Love Boat was kind of a mixed bag. Shooting schedules would often throw off the scheduled activities for tourists. It was also pretty easy to get mega sea-sick on there, too, considering the fact that the ship would slow down to reduce engine noise during filming and then speedup to try and make up for the lost time. Usually, the ship would follow its regularly scheduled route from the Virgin Islands to Alaska, but occasionally it would pop over to Australia, the Mediterranean, or China for special episodes. Sometimes, these special trips would end up screwing over the tourist’s accommodations – that same People magazine article mentions that when the ship went to Tianjin in China, the cast and crew snatched up the best hotels and forced over 100 passengers to spend two nights in a “flea-bag hotel.” Still, the cruises were always booked up, and the promise of catching a glimpse at a star or two or three was enough to keep fans coming back.

Not ALL the scenes in the show were filmed on the cruise ship, of course. A great deal of the series was filmed on a traditional sound stage at either 20th Century Fox Studios or the Old Warner Brothers Hollywood Studios. Still, all things considered, it was quite a hectic production process. Not only did the writers need to blend multiple storylines with multiple guest stars in an attempt to create a cohesive plot, but the actual filming schedule would be very frenzied as well due to the various shooting locations. In the book The Sweeps: Behind The Scenes In Network TV, the production is described as “a monumental exercise in controlled chaos, in which 15 tons of equipment, 300 crew members, numerous high-voltage guest stars, three interwoven plot lines, and the governments of numerous foreign countries had to regularly be controlled, organized, appeased, and made sense of week after week.”

The End

Eventually, it became too difficult for The Love Boat to keep its guest roster full and the appeal up. Tewes was infamously batting cocaine addiction, which led to her being replaced after season seven. Losing a popular cast member certainly didn’t help the series get footing as the ratings dipped. In the final season, they added extra elements like an on-board casino, a dancing troupe called The Love Boat Mermaids, and a musical episode. Still, despite the studio’s best efforts, The Love Boat kicked the can in ’86, though it did squeak out a few more of those TV movies up until ’97.

Sadly, post-Love Boat, the S.S. Pacific Princess became much less glamourous. It wound up becoming more like the “Drug Boat,” actually. During the 90’s, it became frequented by drug smugglers, with the ship eventually being detained in Greece after 25kg of heroin was found on board. Yikes! Eventually, the ol’ Princess was retired to Turkey in 2013 and was scrapped. Still, she lives on in our hearts and in our binge-watches. To this day, Princess Cruise will have its ships toot out The Love Boat theme song over its horns, and Gavin MacLeod has been a sort of brand ambassador for the company for over thirty years.

A good start to The Love Boat is the first 3 Seasons DVD-Pack. CLICK HERE TO BUY IT FROM AMAZON.

Markus

I have been passionate about cruising for many years. My first cruise was a Royal Caribbean on Liberty of the Seas. Many others have followed since then, now also with our children. Cruiselines I traveled with entail Royal Caribbean, Costa Crociere, MSC, Mein Schiff (tui cruises) and Norwegian Cruise Line as well as a one-week river cruise from St. Petersburg to Vologda and back in Russia. Hope you enjoy this blog and get some practical hints! Feel free to leave any comments and contact me. Keep on cruising! Markus

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.