Setting Sail Forty Years Later

We talked to the cast of ‘The Love Boat’ about how they are doing and how close they are even 40 years after the ending of the program.  Also we wanted to know if they would be up for making a reunion show. They said that it would be a great experience to have a reunion and many people would love to see what they are doing now.

The Love Boat series was aired from 1977 until 1987. This beloved series was set aboard a Princess Cruises Cruise line called the Pacific Princess. This program was aired on ABC Television Network and ran for ten seasons, including specials. Even though it was cancelled after only nine seasons there were a number of three-hour specials that aired during the 1986-87 season.

[pullquote style=”right” quote=”dark”]Genuine affection            of love and respect.”[/pullquote]

It was very successful for the first seven years. ‘The Love Boat’ even made it among the top twenty and even the top ten popular shows that were then currently on television. The highest ranking that the show was ever at was number five as the most popular television show.

The writing format for ‘The Love Boat’ was another unique aspect. Each episode contained several simultaneous stories. Each of those stories were written by different writers and each set of writers worked on one group of guest stars and their story of the week. As a result the episodes ended up with ungainly titles. One of them was: “The Grass Is Always Greener/Three Stages of Love/Oldies But Goodies.”

The Love Boat had many different guest stars on the program. One of the episodes even had the cast of Charlie’s Angels in it where the girls were making a case on the ship. They also had Robert Reed and Florence Henderson, formerly from the Brady Bunch, guest star in separate segments and they crossed paths, ask the other “do I know you”, do a double take and then begin on their way once again not speaking to each other.

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Since the episodes were broken down into different segments there was usually a different theme that would go with each one.

First Segment:

Follows a member of the crew, and is supposed to be a comedy.

Second Segment:

Has us following a crew member interacting with a passenger, and is supposed to be a romantic segment.

Third Segment:

Takes place following a passenger or even a group of passengers, and is more of a dramatic or serious segment.

There were about 5 sequels, spin-offs and crossovers all together. There were reruns from June 30, 1980 to June 24, 1983 between 10AM and 12PM Central Time. Now in 2014 reruns are Sunday afternoon at 1PM Central on MeTV and aired the program Monday through Friday 9AM Central and TVGN airs the program at various times throughout the week (particularly on Thursdays.)