“Love seen from all sides; young and old, rich and poor, unmarried, just married, long-married and multi-married”.
Love American Style was an hour-long television anthology which aired between September 1969 and January 1974 and presented three or four unrelated comic stories each week.
Each episode consisted of a series of one-act plays with love in the title: ‘Love and the Practical Joker’, ‘Love and the Legal Agreement’, ‘Love and the Roommate’, ‘Love and the Hot Pants’, ‘Love and the Hippie Girl’, ‘Love and the Watchdog’, ‘Love and the Pill’ . . .
The episodes featured unrelated characters, stories, and locations, although the show often featured the same actors playing different characters in many episodes. In addition, a large and ornate brass bed was a recurring prop in every house in every story.
In between the stories, there were terrible skits featuring the loveless loser Lamar, played by rubber-faced Stuart Margolin, the actor who later became Angel in The Rockford Files.
Charles Fox’s delicate yet hip music score, featuring flutes, harp, and flugelhorn set to a contemporary pop beat, provided the “love” ambience which tied the stories together as a multifaceted romantic comedy each week.
Love American Style was a wonderful vehicle for ABC sitcom stars to stretch their abilities and soon became a haven for washed-up old actors of the Cesar Romero and Rudy Vallee variety.
Over five seasons, other notable guest stars included Sonny and Cher, Phyllis Diller, Paul Lynde, Milton Berle, Tiny Tim (as a suspected vampire), Jacqueline Susann, and Burt Reynolds.
The intro song was sung by The Cowsills. It was released as a single but failed to make the charts.
Love, Love, Love
Love, American Style
Truer than the Red, White and Blue
Love, American Style
That’s me and you
And on a star-spangled night my love
(My love come to me)
You can rest your head on my shoulder
Out by the dawn’s early light my love
I will defend your right to try
Love, American Style
That’s me and you
An updated series of romantic vignettes, titled New Love, American Style, was produced for ABC’s weekday daytime lineup more than a decade later, running from December 1985 to August 1986.
TRIVIA The pilot episode of Happy Days first appeared as a segment of Love American Style entitled ‘Love and the Happy Days’. It featured Ron Howard and Anson Williams as Richie and Potsie.
Mary Grover
Stuart Margolin
Buzz Cooper
Barbara Minkus
Bill Callaway
Lynne Marta
Tracy Reed
Phyllis Davis
Jacki De Mar
Richard Williams
Jim Hampton
Clifton Davis
James A Watson Jr
Jed Allan
