Love American Style - Season 1, Vol. 1

Love American Style (1969-74) was a comedy featuring well-known guests stars of movies and television. Each one-hour color episode (later 30 minutes) contained 2 or 3 and sometimes 4 different stories of love and romance. In between the stories would be short, funny skits with a regular cast of Stuart Margolin, Barbara Minkus, Phyllis Davis, James Hampton, Tracy Reed, Lynne Marta and many others.Everyone remembers the song "Love American Style". In the first season, it was sung by The Cowsills, who returned 30 years later to sing it again at the 2nd TV Land Awards in 2004.The way we mostly remember "Love American Style" being sung will be heard in Season 2.You also remember the red, white and blue heart and fireworks.You might also recall some episodes with Paul Lynde or the one with Phyllis Diller about women's liberation and burning your bra (not in this DVD set).However, did you know the tv series, Happy Days - The Complete First Season (1974-84), got its start from a story on "Love American Style"? The Season 3 episode, "Love and Happy Days" starred Marion Ross, Ron Howard, Anson Williams.This DVD contains the first 12 episodes, but you will get 37 different stories with recognizable guest stars:Michael Callan, Penny Fuller, Yvonne Craig, David Ketchum, Don Diamond, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Mantan Moreland, Flip Wilson, Gail Fisher, Robert Cummings, Jane Wyatt, David Ladd, Arte Johnson, Marilyn Mason, Estelle Winwood, Richard X. Slattery, Reni Santoni, Robert Clary, Margaret O'Brien, Yoshio Yoda, Henry Corden, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, E.J. Peaker, Larry Storch, Alice Ghostley, Lou Jacobi, Wes Stern, Barbara Rhodes, Dwayne Hickman, Peter Kastner, Pamela Austin, Gary Lockwood, Stephanie Powers, Paul Smith, Stafford Repp, Kathleen Freeman, Paul Hartman, Connie Stevens, Bill Bixby, Chelsea Brown, Bob Crane, Patricia Crowley, Allan Melvin, Denny Miller, Barry Nelson, Elena Verdugo, Richard Deacon, Phyllis Diller, Marjorie Lord, Don Porter, Herb Edelman, Dorothy Neumann, Broderick Crawford, Emmaline Henry, Dave Willock, Patsy Kelly, Hal Smith, Ozzie & Harriet Nelson, Vito Scotti, Avery Schreiber, Aldo Ray, Tina Louise,Red Buttons, Carolyn Jones, Judy Carne, Noel Harrison, Ted Bessel, John Beck, Anjanette Comer, Diane McBain,Robert Reed, Francine York, Noam Pitlik, Dennis Day, Rich Little, Jessica Walter, Skye Aubrey, Phillip Clarke, Frank Campanella, Norman Fell, Hans Conried, Carl bentz, Elliot Reid, Dana Wynter, Harrison Ford, Chris Connelly, Shelley fabares, Kay Medford, Morey Amsterdam, Paul Winchell, Shari Lewis, George O'Hanlon, Scatman Crothers,Marty Allen, Henry Gibson, Joe Flynn, Reva Rose, Peter marshall, Leslie Parrish, Andrew Prine, Lesley Ann Warren, Jackie Joseph, Jesse White, Ruta Lee, Jack Carter, Regis Philbin, Mabel Albertson, Hamilton Camp, Ann Rutherford, Sandra Gould, Iris Rainer, Mary Ann Mobley, Edward Andrews, Rosemary De Camp, Ann Southern, Brenda Benet.The first episode and first story starring Michael Callan and Penny Fuller was so cute, they continue the couples story in episode 11.Michael Callan & Penny Fuller also appeared in the same "Barnaby Jones" tv series episode, "poisoned pigeon" in March 1975.Love, American Style was shown on ABC on Friday nights on rotation with Room 222: Season One (1969-74), The Odd Couple - The First Season (1970-75) and The Partridge Family - The Complete First Season (1970-74).You probably remember them on syndication during the afternoon. There was no more Dark Shadows, so it was Love American Style or the KABC 3:30 Afternoon movie.These season one episodes were one hour long. They changed to 30 minutes in 1970-71 and back to 60 minutes in 1971-74.A revival, The New Love American Style (ABC,1985-86) was a daytime tv series.A pilot, Love American Style (ABC,1999) was finally aired as a tv-movie, but did not become a series.Released by CBS DVD, this 3-disc set list each episode inside the containerThe print of each episode is perfectly crisp and clear and the color is rich, much better than what we saw in syndication when we were...well let's not date ourselves.Let's go back to our youth and enjoy love in the afternoon.The next 12 episodes are available in Love American Style - Season 1, Vol. 2.As of 2017, they still have not released Season 2 nor 3 and no complete series set either.

It was the late 1960's often looked at as "an age of agonizing reappraisal." Taboos in movies were being broken. And so followed Broadway with "Hair" and "Oh! Calcutta!" Oh! Calcutta!"Oh! Calcutta!" raised a lot of eyebrows back then. I was too young back then to see it, but what my friends and I heard about "Oh Calcutta," nudity on stage. "OH BOY!!!" I remember the large billboard ad for it in Timess Square in New York City. A painting of a naked woman (white, shoulder length brown hair) with her back towards you with her head turned towards you and with a white towel around her waste.Like I said, I was to young to see it back then, but a number of years ago, I had the fortune of finding a VHS copy of the video presentation of "Oh Calcutta" in a video rental store."Oh Calcutta" was a set of racey comical vignettes in which in between the vignettes, they had performers dancing in the nude.In 1969, about two years after "Oh Calcutta" opened on Broadway and became a hit, The TV comedy "Love American Style" appeared on TV.I have come to realize that "Love American Style" may have been influenced by "Oh Calcutta." It certainly dose come across as a version of "O Calcutta" made acceptible for TV. The show was racey for its time and at times did push the envelop, but it still was TV and unlike in "Oh Calcutta" you could not show nudity or use strong language. But like I said, the show for its time was racey and did seem to push the envelope at times. Still being under 18 years old, it was good enough for me and other teens under 18 at the time.Like "Oh Calcutta" the shows consisted of three comical vignettes. They did not have nude dancers in between the vignettes, but they did have short quick commical sketches in which some can be racey and some can be corny.Each show of "Love American Style" would have appearing for the week's show a number of popular TV actors that appeared in a sucessful show or shows.Of course, by today's standards "Love American Style" may not appear to be as racy as it did when the show first aired on ABC in 1969 to 1974, but the show is like a time capsule. It does show the attitudes towards sex at the time. Also, you have a number of great TV stars apppearing in these shows that give great performances. The vignettes are funny.AS A SIDE NOTE: In 1972, an episode of "Love American Stle" featured the pilot for "Happy Days" called "Love and the Happy Days." It had Ron Howard, Anson Williams, and Marion Ross but the other characters were played by other actors. The character of Fonzie was not on it. Richie's older borther Chuck was originally supposed to have been the one Richie would go to for advice.

Because of The Cowsills, Sonny Liston, Tina Louise, Kurt Russell and Carolyn Jones, the first season of this series is far superior to all the later seasons. Starting with season 2, The Cowsills no longer sing the opening theme song. Also starting with season 2, the actors and other performers are less appealing. Weirdly, the first season was withheld from 1970s rerun syndication. In 1975, I watched many reruns on WTTG channel 5 in DC, and I am certain The Cowsills’ singing voices were never included. The singing group I did hear was mediocre. Season 1 disappeared totally from public access from 1970 to the 1990s when a basic cable channel (in the United States and possibly Canada) revived those superior episodes.