''Love, American Style'' is an American
anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and g ...
comedy television series that aired on
ABC from September 29, 1969, to January 11, 1974. The series was produced by
Paramount Television
The first incarnation of Paramount Television was operated as the television production division of the American film studio Paramount Pictures, until it changed its name to CBS Paramount Television on January 17, 2006.
History
Desilu Pro ...
. 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 five seasons from September 26, 1969, to March 8, 1974, on ABC. The series revolves around a large blended family of six children, with three boys and three gir ...
'', ''
The Partridge Family
''The Partridge Family'' is an American musical sitcom created by Bernard Slade, which was broadcast in the United States from September 1970 to March 1974 on American Broadcasting Company, ABC. After the final first-run telecast on ABC in March ...
'', ''
Room 222
''Room 222'' is an American comedy-drama television series produced by 20th Century Fox Television that aired on American Broadcasting Company, ABC for 112 episodes, from September 17, 1969, until January 11, 1974. The show was broadcast on 1969 ...
'', 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. She has received List of awards and nominations received by Diane Keaton, various accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, including an Academy Award, a Bri ...
("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 Bunker, Archie and Edith Bunker in ''All in the Family'', for which she won two Emmy Awards, and Babette on ''Gilmor ...
("Love and the Triangle"),
Albert Brooks ("Love and Operational Model"), and
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor. Regarded as a cinematic cultural icon, he has starred in Harrison Ford filmography, many notable films over seven decades, and is one of List of highest-grossing actors, the highest-gr ...
("Love and the Former Marriage").
History
Each episode of the show featured multiple stories 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
flute
The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...
s,
harp
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or ...
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 ...
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 created by Bernard Slade, which was broadcast in the United States from September 1970 to March 1974 on American Broadcasting Company, ABC. After the final first-run telecast on ABC in March ...
(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, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...
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 Italian neorealism, neorealist and genres.
His 1961 film ''Divorce Italian Style'' earned him a Ac ...
and for
Best Actor for star
Marcello Mastroianni. The film was later spoofed in 1967 by ''
Divorce, American Style'', starring
Dick Van Dyke
Richard Wayne Van Dyke (born December 13, 1925) is an American actor, entertainer and comedian. Dick Van Dyke on screen and stage, His work spans screen and stage, and List of awards and nominations received by Dick Van Dyke, his awards includ ...
. The
snowclone
A snowclone is a clichéd phrase in which one or more words can be substituted to express a similar idea in a different context, often to humorous or sarcastic effect. For example, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's phrase "the mother of all bat ...
"(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''. 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. ( ; formerly known as H-B Enterprises, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. and H-B Production Co.), simply and commonly known as Hanna-Barbera, was an American animation studio and production company, which was acti ...
, ''
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 American Broadcasting Company, ABC network from January 15, 1974, to July 19, 1984, with a total of 255 half-hour episodes spanning 11 seasons. Created by Garry Marsha ...
'', 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 received three ...
play and
movie
A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
''
Barefoot in the Park'', 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
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award catego ...
nominations, including two for Best Comedy Series for 1969–70 and 1970–71. The show subsequently became a
daytime
Daytime or day as observed on Earth is the period of the day during which a given location experiences Daylight, natural illumination from direct sunlight. Daytime occurs when the Sun appears above the local horizon, that is, anywhere on the ...
standard on ABC from June 1971 to May 1974, and later in syndication, since it was readily edited down to a half-hour by the proper interweaving of the clips with a main segment. It effectively made nine seasons out of five. This allowed for heavy
stripping.
Episodes
New versions
A decade after the show left the air, a new version aired on ABC's daytime schedule from December 23, 1985 to August 15, 1986 entitled ''New Love, American Style'' (including an updated version of the theme performed by
Lou Rawls), but was canceled after eight months because of low ratings against ''
The Price Is Right
''The Price Is Right'' is an American television game show where contestants compete by guessing the prices of merchandise to win cash and prizes. A 1972 revival by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman of their The Price Is Right (1956 American game ...
'' on CBS. A third edition, starring
Melissa Joan Hart and
Mariska Hargitay
Mariska Magdolna Hargitay Mariska says her own first name and the name of her father; the interviewer, James Lipton, also says her full name near the start of the show. (; born January 23, 1964) is an American actress, producer, and philanthrop ...
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 - #47, 17.2 rating
*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.
**Paramount Picture ...
) 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
American English-language television shows
1970s American anthology television series