Love, American Style

during the early to mid seventies, i looked forward to Friday nights on ABC to tuning in on the first and only comedic anthology series featuring a slew of well known actors, writers and directors. it's sad that the attempted updated version recently shown wasn't as successful as the version from the seventies. what the world needs now are series such as these in a world full of violence. Although the premise of the show was silly, it did have it's romantic overtones in a funny type manner which most of all the vignettes were family oriented, which i think was one of the keys toward its popularity. i personally enjoyed viewing performers Charles Nelson Reilly and Louisa Moritz to Flip Wilson and Gail Fisher. it would be nice to have it return more often in reruns or on video tape.

With Boy Scout meetings getting over at 9:30 during Fridays from age 11-16(1967-1972) I missed the Partridge Family, Wild Wild West, Room 222, and Brady Bunch during their original runs(have seen most Brady Bunchs since but not the others which were never rerun fixtures). However, I remember walking into house on Friday night to see a big American Flag, Fireworks, and a pleasant song and would sit down to watch not knowing anything about Love, sex, girls etc. I did not mind it, and would love to go back to see now what I saw then, and would like to envision what my 14 year old head was thinking about all the changes that were to come over my life in the next 20 years. Bravo Love American style and I always love that "Love and the Happy Day" story where the combination of American Graffiti(great movie) and Grease combined to resurrect this little short into a 10 year TV show.

I haven't seen this show since the late '70s, but I remember it fondly. The one thing that really sticks out in my mind for this show was the theme song, and the big brass bed that was the trademark, and appeared in nearly every episode short. It used to play at 10pm on Fridays up until 1974, and it was truly missed when it was cancelled. It would be nice if the original pilot movie was available on video, but until then I just have the memories of a show from a great bygone era of TV.

Having been born in the 1970's, I still recall my parents watching this and other 70's shows like it all the time. It's harmless in content, and in its day it made an otherwise turbulent world feel safer. Here we are in more times of turbulence; it would be nice to have this show back. They just don't make'em like that anymore! It's nice to be able to sit down and laugh at the ridiculousness of a show and forget your troubles outside your front door. It would be nice to have this show on DVD! How come it got tossed by the wayside? The Brady Bunch, which was much less popular at that time, is on DVD- All 5 seasons now! Though truly I loved the Brady Bunch, and am a member of one of the many ubiquitous web rings, I really think it was a much more ridiculous show than Love American Style. It's not fair they forget about this classic.

This show is definitely a show that worked for the era it was produced in, the late 60's/early 70's. This show came out at the height of the sexual revolution and could have easily been called "Lust, American Style". Each episode pretty much was about the same thing, men and women in constant pursuit of each other. Also, the most memorable trademark was the ever present brass bed. However, despite the emphasis on sex there were a few more touching episodes in this series. One that comes to mind is an episode in which an old man creates a sculpture of his deceased wife on the anniversary of her death and the angel of death (played hilariously by Soupy Sales) comes down to inform him that he is about to die. At the end of the episode, there is a shot of the old man, who has become a statue himself, holding his wife's hand. This was perhaps the most moving episode from one of the wildest show's of the early 70's.