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''Love, American Style'' is an anthology comedy television series that aired on ABC from 1969 to 1974. The series was produced by
Paramount Television The original incarnation of Paramount Television was the name of the television production division of the American film studio Paramount Pictures, that was responsible for the production of Viacom television programs, until it changed its name ...
. During the 1971–72 and 1972–73 seasons, it was a part of ABC's Friday primetime lineup that included ''
The Brady Bunch ''The Brady Bunch'' is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz that aired from September 26, 1969, to March 8, 1974, on ABC. The series revolves around a large blended family with six children. The show aired for five seasons and, af ...
'', ''
The Partridge Family ''The Partridge Family'' is an American musical sitcom starring Shirley Jones and featuring David Cassidy. Jones plays a widowed mother, and Cassidy plays the oldest of her five children, in a family who embarks on a music career. It ran from ...
'', ''
Room 222 ''Room 222'' is an American comedy-drama television series produced by 20th Century Fox Television that aired on ABC for 112 episodes, from September 17, 1969 until January 11, 1974. The show was broadcast on Wednesday evenings at 8:30 ( EST) ...
'', and '' The Odd Couple''. It featured some of the earliest work of future stars
Diane Keaton Diane Keaton (''née'' Hall, born January 5, 1946) is an American actress and director. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over six decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Glo ...
("Love and the Pen Pals"),
Sally Struthers Sally Anne Struthers (born July 28, 1947) is an American actress and activist. She played Gloria Stivic, the daughter of Archie and Edith Bunker (played by Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton) on ''All in the Family'', for which she won two Em ...
("Love and the Triangle"),
Albert Brooks Albert Brooks (born Albert Lawrence Einstein ; July 22, 1947) is an American actor and filmmaker. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for 1987's '' Broadcast News'' and was widely praised for his performance as a ...
("Love and Operational Model"), and
Harrison Ford Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor. His films have grossed more than $5.4billion in North America and more than $9.3billion worldwide, making him the seventh-highest-grossing actor in North America. He is the recipient o ...
("Love and the Former Marriage"). ''Room 222'' star
Karen Valentine Karen Valentine (born May 25, 1947) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as young idealistic schoolteacher Alice Johnson in the ABC comedy drama series '' Room 222'' from 1969 to 1974, for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award ...
appeared in four episodes. ''Brady Bunch'' star Ann B. Davis and ''The Partridge Family'' star Dave Madden each appeared in two episodes.


History

Each episode of the show featured a story of romance, usually with a comedic spin. Episodes were stand-alone, featuring various characters, stories and locations. The show often featured the same actors playing different characters in many episodes. In addition, a large, ornate brass bed was a recurring prop in many episodes. Charles Fox's music score, featuring flutes, harp and
flugelhorn The flugelhorn (), also spelled fluegelhorn, flugel horn, or flügelhorn, is a brass instrument that resembles the trumpet and cornet but has a wider, more conical bore. Like trumpets and cornets, most flugelhorns are pitched in B, though some ...
set to a contemporary pop beat, provided the "love" ambiance, which tied the stories together as a multifaceted romantic comedy each week. For the first season, the theme song was performed by
the Cowsills The Cowsills are an American singing group from Newport, Rhode Island, six siblings noted for performing professionally and singing harmonies at an early age, later with their mother. The band was formed in early 1965 by brothers Bill Cowsill, B ...
. Beginning with the second season, the same theme song was sung by the Ron Hicklin Singers, also known as the voices behind
the Partridge Family ''The Partridge Family'' is an American musical sitcom starring Shirley Jones and featuring David Cassidy. Jones plays a widowed mother, and Cassidy plays the oldest of her five children, in a family who embarks on a music career. It ran from ...
(based on the Cowsills), among others, featuring brothers John and Tom Bahler (billed as the Charles Fox Singers). This second version of the theme was kept for the remainder of the series, as well as on most episodes prepared for syndication. The title is loosely derived from a 1961 Italian comedy film called '' Divorzio all'italiana (Divorce, Italian Style)'', which received
Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment in ...
nominations in 1962 for Best Director for
Pietro Germi Pietro Germi (; 14 September 1914 – 5 December 1974) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor, noted for his development of the neorealist and commedia all'Italiana genres. His 1961 film '' Divorce Italian Style'' earned him a ...
and for
Best Actor Best Actor is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actors in a film, television series, television film or play. The term most often refers to th ...
for star Marcello Mastroianni. The film was later spoofed in 1967 by '' Divorce, American Style'', starring Dick Van Dyke. The
snowclone A snowclone is a cliché and phrasal template that can be used and recognized in multiple variants. The term was coined as a neologism in 2004, derived from Journalese, journalistic clichés that referred to the number of Inuit words for snow. ...
"(xxx), (nationality) Style" became a minor cultural catch-phrase as the 1960s progressed. The original series was also known for its 10- to 20-second blackouts between the featured segments. These were performed by a house troupe that featured future '' Rockford Files'' cast member Stuart Margolin, future '' Vega$'' leading lady Phyllis Davis and a young character actor, James Hampton, who was known to television audiences of the era as Private Dobbs from the TV series ''
F-Troop ''F Troop'' is a satirical American television sitcom Western about U.S. soldiers and Native Americans in the Wild West during the 1860s that originally aired for two seasons on ABC. It debuted in the United States on September 14, 1965, and c ...
''. These clips allowed the show to be padded to the required length without adding to the main segments. They generally consisted of risqué,
burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.
-style comedy-of-manners visual jokes. During its first four years on ABC, ''Love, American Style'' was popular with viewers and received decent ratings, although it never ranked among the top 30 shows in the Nielsens. For a few seasons, it was part of a lineup of ABC Friday night programs that included ''The Brady Bunch'', ''The Partridge Family'', ''Room 222'', and ''The Odd Couple''. Some of the show's segments also served as pilots for proposed television series. Many never made it beyond the pilot stage, but two resulted in a series: * On February 11, 1972, the show presented the animated segment "Love and the Old-Fashioned Father." This would become the pilot to a first-run syndicated animated series by
Hanna-Barbera Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ) was an American animation studio and production company which was active from 1957 to 2001. It was founded on July 7, 1957, by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera following the decision of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer t ...
, '' Wait Till Your Father Gets Home'', which debuted that fall. * Two weeks later, on February 25, 1972, the show aired a segment titled "Love and the Television Set", a story about Richie Cunningham, his family and friends. The premise and characters were later used for the 1974 television series ''
Happy Days ''Happy Days'' is an American television sitcom that aired first-run on the ABC network from January 15, 1974, to July 19, 1984, with a total of 255 half-hour episodes spanning 11 seasons. Created by Garry Marshall, it was one of the most su ...
'', and the episode would later be recognized as a ''de facto'' pilot for the series. (It had originally been produced as a pilot for ''New Family in Town'', which was not picked up). For syndication, the segment was retitled "Love and the Happy Days." ''Happy Days'', in turn, launched an extensive franchise of spinoffs into the 1980s. The series was also flexible enough to include repurposed pilots that had already failed or been retooled. One first-season example was "Love and the Good Deal," which was actually the original, unaired pilot for the sitcom adaptation of the
Neil Simon Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He has received mo ...
play and movie ''
Barefoot in the Park ''Barefoot in the Park'' is a romantic comedy by Neil Simon. The play premiered on Broadway in 1963, starring Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley. It was made into a film in 1967, which starred Redford and Jane Fonda. Productions ''Barefoot ...
'', with a different cast than the series. At the start of the 1973–1974 fall season, the ratings for ''Love, American Style'' and ''Room 222'' had plummeted. As a result, both shows were canceled mid-season. The series received several Emmy nominations, including two for Best Comedy Series for 1969–70 and 1970–71. The show subsequently became a daytime standard in syndication, since it was readily edited down to a half-hour by the proper interweaving of the clips with a main segment, effectively making nine seasons out of five. This allowed for heavy stripping. The 1985 film ''
Back to the Future ''Back to the Future'' is a 1985 American science fiction film directed by Robert Zemeckis, and written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale. It stars Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, and Thomas F. Wilson. Set in 19 ...
'' featured an homage to the series. The cinema marquee behind Marty and Jennifer when they discuss their forthcoming camping trip reads ''Orgy American Style''.


Episodes


New versions

A decade after the show left the air, a new version premiered on ABC's daytime schedule in 1985 entitled ''New Love, American Style'' (including an updated version of the theme performed by
Lou Rawls Louis Allen Rawls (December 1, 1933 – January 6, 2006) was an American record producer, singer, composer and actor. Rawls released more than 60 albums, sold more than 40 million records, and had numerous charting singles, most notably his s ...
), but was canceled after a few months because of low ratings against ''
The Price Is Right ''The Price Is Right'' is a television game show franchise created by Bob Stewart, originally produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman; currently it is produced and owned by Fremantle. The franchise centers on television game shows, but also i ...
'' on CBS. A third edition, starring Melissa Joan Hart among others, was shot as a pilot for the 1998–1999 television season, but was not ordered as a series. Nevertheless, ABC aired the pilot on February 20, 1999.


Nielsen ratings

*1969-70 - #58, 13.2 rating *1970-71 - N/A *1971-72 - #33, 19.3 rating *1972-73 - #41, 18.4 rating *1973-74 - #75, 11.7 rating


Home media

On November 20, 2007, CBS DVD (distributed by
Paramount Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...
) released ''Love, American Style'', Season 1 Volume 1 on DVD in Region 1. Season 1, Volume 2 on DVD was released on March 11, 2008.


References


External links

*
Release of ''Love, American Style'' on DVD planned
{{Happy Days American Broadcasting Company original programming 1960s American anthology television series 1969 American television series debuts 1974 American television series endings 1960s American comedy television series 1970s American comedy television series Television series by CBS Studios English-language television shows 1970s American anthology television series