Each week, the show featured unrelated stories of romance, usually with a comedic spin. Episodes featured different 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 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 show's theme song was performed by The Cowsills. Beginning in the second season, the same theme song was sung by the Ron Hicklin Singers, also known as the voices behind The Partridge Family, among others, featuring brothers John and Tom Bahler. This second version of the theme was carried on 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 , which received Academy Award nominations in 1962 for Best Director for Pietro Germi and for Best Actor for star Marcello Mastroianni. The film was later spoofed in 1967 by Divorce, American Style, starring Dick Van Dyke. The snowclone ", Style" became a minor cultural catch-phrase as the 1960s progressed. The original series was also known for its 10- to 20-second drop-in silent movie-style "joke clips" between the featured segments. This regular troupe featured future Rockford Filescast memberStuart 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 then-risque, burlesque-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, either as an actual pilot that also served as segment, or as a segment that would be repurposed as a pilot after the fact. Many never made it beyond the pilot stage, but two resulted in a series:
On February 25, 1972, the show aired an episode with a segment titled "Love and the Television Set", a story about Richie Cunningham, his family, and friends. The premise and characters would later be used for the television series Happy Days, and the episode would later be recognized as a de facto pilot for the series. For syndication, the segment was retitled "Love and the Happy Days". Happy Days, in turn, launched an extensive franchise of spinoffs into the 1980s.
Two weeks earlier, on February 11, 1972, the show presented an animated segment, "Love and the Old-Fashioned Father". This would become the pilot to a first-run syndicatedanimated series by Hanna-Barbera, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, which debuted that fall. Incidentally, Tom Bosley portrayed the father characters both on this show and the aforementioned Happy Days.
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 at 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.
Episodes
New versions
A decade after the show went off the air, a new version premiered on ABC's daytime schedule in 1985 entitled New Love, American Style, but was canceled after a few months because of low ratings against The Price Is Right 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 into 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 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.
