[00:00:00] Clip: We're all sold out. There isn't another cabin on the entire ship. You got a spare lifeboat? No. You got room in the swimming pool, the shallow end? How about the deeper end? She's a good swimmer. [00:00:30] Matthew: Hello, and welcome to the IMMP podcast from the Inter Millennium Media Project. My name is Matthew Porter. [00:00:38] Ian: And I'm Ian Porter. [00:00:39] Matthew: I'm his dad, he's my son, and I've made him watch some more television. [00:00:44] Ian: We've set sail for an old show that, whose name I knew and content I did not. [00:00:51] Matthew: Those blissful days that are now behind you since I've made you watch [00:00:54] Ian: this show. Absolutely. Yeah, this is one of those, like, my goodness,... I feel like I never saw the impact, but I've lived on the edge of the crater of what this is. You know? Changed the landscape to some extent. There is- [00:01:12] Matthew: Well, the time- [00:01:13] Ian: There's always that area ... [00:01:14] Matthew: the timing I think was inevitable because o- on the last episode, we went back to In Search Of, and we w- went in search of boats, or in search of on a boat. We watched all of their, episodes involving boats in one way or another. So I thought, "Okay, what are we gonna follow that up with?" The most famous boat in television, The Love Boat. [00:01:34] Ian: Love... The Love Boat. Oh, goodness. See, I knew of this, but just, I, but I also don't know how. It's like I can't point to who referenced it. I just know it existed. [00:01:51] Matthew: It's just in the culture. It's hard to escape. [00:01:54] Ian: Exactly. Uh, like, if I boiled away the rest of culture- ... I could probably find the little crystal of where the dissolved Love Boat reformed somewhere in there. [00:02:08] Matthew: It's like some kind of alchemy. You can rebuild the entire media universe if you've got, , Shakespeare, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Love Boat. [00:02:17] Ian: Probably. Actually, I, I do wanna double-check if Love Boat is Westfall. [00:02:22] Matthew: Oh, that's an interesting idea. Uh, you think that's an early Tommy Westfall universe entry? [00:02:28] Ian: oh, wow. I'm not getting anything. that's an odd one. Okay. It exists [00:02:32] Matthew: outside the Westfall universe. [00:02:34] Ian: Apparently. but yeah, when you started showing me this though, I was like, there's something about this show that just has an, an odd tone is the best way I can describe. [00:02:48] Matthew: It does have an odd tone, but it has a very particular tone from its time. [00:02:55] Ian: Yes. [00:02:56] Matthew: A specific kind of comedy that ex- that specific kind of TV romance, and it's a tone that apparently the network or the producers knew what they had in mind and had a hard time getting there. [00:03:10] Ian: Yeah. [00:03:11] Matthew: Because, I did not actually get to show you all of The Love Boat that I wanted to show you. Because we started with the TV series. It was on every Saturday night, on network TV, and I think it was on, usually on back to back with Fantasy Island. [00:03:26] Ian: There was a crossover, right? [00:03:28] Matthew: I don't know. I don't know that there was. [00:03:31] Ian: Oh, come on. [00:03:33] Matthew: and yet before the TV series, there were three different TV pilots, three different TV movies. The first two with a completely different cast, or mostly a different cast, different captain, different cruise director. And what I, I, I was trying to find these. I could find like the very first TV movie, which had the different cast, and I thought that really, that was so different. That didn't fit what I wanted to show you of the TV series that I knew, because I had never seen any of the earlier pilots. And then finally there was a third pilot which introduced the key cast members, uh, that became the, the core of the TV series, and that is mysteriously unavailable. It's not available on any of the streaming services, including the streaming service on which the en- entire series is available. Although now, I, I've, I've heard maybe there are some others we should check. But it is also not available on any of the more questionable places one can get video on the internet. [00:04:36] Ian: You're making this sound like an internet creepypasta. [00:04:39] Matthew: I'm wondering- It's like- It's like, does anybody remember the second and third pilots of Love Boat? Why are they missing? What do they, what do they not want us to see? [00:04:50] Ian: Love Boat: special guest star Cthulhu. [00:04:54] Matthew: Yeah. Were they part of the Russian sleep experiment? [00:04:56] Ian: Yeah, exactly. [00:04:58] Matthew: Oh, [00:04:59] Ian: there's someone out there, someone's just got a journal entry that says, "You know, I went to the arcade, played Polybius, went back home, watched Love Boat- ... pilot." It's like, what's going on here? [00:05:09] Matthew: And the original pilot, it had a different captain. The captain was this young, handsome Australian actor. And from what I've read about, oral history of the development of this series, the producers had a problem with that because he was just way too handsome and too sexy. And what the, the pro- the way I'm gonna rephrase this because I do wanna keep our clean rating in, uh, in iTunes. But the way the producers complained to the casting people was, "The whole idea of this show is that people get on the, the cruise ship and they wanna get with one another. This c- captain is too handsome. Everybody's gonna wanna get with the captain instead of each other the way the stories are going to require. We need a captain who's less sexy." Uh, um- [00:06:00] Ian: Oh, poor Gavin MacLeod. [00:06:02] Matthew: Yes. Yeah, they- Ow ... they cast Gavin MacLeod as, as Captain Stubing, and they introduced, in that third pilot they introduced, uh, Lauren Tewes as, uh, the cruise director, Julie. And then it kind of gelled. And I can understand that because it fit the, the comedic tone, and it made the recurring characters mainly the both the funny characters and the characters who could observe and comment on what was going on around them. [00:06:34] Ian: It does have this weird element of, like, our crew has their own little internal stories, but they also act as almost a chorus for everyone else's, where they're this through line pulling things together or reiterating aspects of it. [00:06:50] Matthew: Yeah. They, they become kind of, of ... And I'm saying this as somebody who just watched this week after week for a year. Mm-hmm. They sort of become our friends, and we get together with our friends to watch all of these weird people come in and out of our lives as cruise ship passengers. [00:07:06] Ian: I'm bewildered with the fact that The Love Boat's feels more ... It feels like you could translate it to a stage play better than I'd expect. [00:07:16] Matthew: You could. And that's an interesting comparison because really every episode was three short teleplays interwoven. [00:07:25] Ian: Yeah. Mm-hmm. [00:07:27] Matthew: And you can see, uh, there's three different writing and directing credits because every episode is a cruise out and back from, San Pedro or San Diego, California. And on every cruise there are three couples or groups of people that we are following in their own independent stories, which all, just like in any TV show, they, they have a crisis that pops up and then everything's resolved by the time they're back in port. Yeah. I- But there is something very stagey about it [00:07:57] Ian: With the limited variety of locations, because they filmed this on a boat. They filmed parts of this on a boat- and the rest of them were sound stage. But even the parts on a boat are limited and constrained because of, well, there's other people on this boat. Right. And that keeps all of the environments a little smaller, which helps the idea of like, this is very, very stage performancy because there's that limited space to move around. They're not doing big dramatic things with changing the set every time. It's a character piece every time, three character pieces interwoven, and here's what's there. [00:08:43] Matthew: I'm imagining somebody having a, a stage revival of The Love Boat now. [00:08:47] Ian: I will say, the fact that it's three distinct pieces can sometimes be its problem as well. [00:08:53] Matthew: Yes. this reminds me of another show that was on earlier in the '70s. I never watched it. I had no interest in it, but I, I kind of knew in the background from like my parents watching it and such. And I don't think it was... I think there were a n- number of shows like this. The one that comes to mind was called Love American Style, which was another comedy romance anthology show where any given episode was two or three short stories, all with a different cast, different setting, and this was sort of the same idea, but they didn't show them in sequence. They interwove them over the course of the 52-minute TV show. [00:09:33] Ian: So it's a format that had been done before there's similar interwoven narrative pieces here. [00:09:39] Matthew: And it must have been interesting for writers having this, this different format to write. You're writing for television, so there are certain requirements for television, and yet you're writing a story. You only have a certain amount of screen time. It's not going to be contiguous screen time. Of course, you're l- you're constrained in the case of Love Boat to being on a boat. And yet within that story, you've got a lot of freedom to create brand-new characters because these are one-shot characters. [00:10:07] Ian: Just in the handful of episodes we watched, the fact that every single story involves a brand-new person arriving with their issues, with whatever's bothering them, with whatever they expect to get out of the trip. Each of these people have to be introduced, their situation introduced, and go through something about that, go through some arc about that issue before leaving the boat. They can throw everybody from every walk of life they can imagine, as long as th- that person can afford a boat ticket, and sometimes if they can't. [00:10:42] Matthew: It was hard to come up with good examples because there was such difference episode to episode because of the characters and because of the cast. [00:10:50] Ian: Yeah. [00:10:50] Matthew: This is, uh, a couple of references back to other shows that we've talked about on the podcast. First of all, we've seen Gavin MacLeod before. [00:11:00] Ian: We have? [00:11:01] Matthew: We [00:11:01] Ian: have. Well, where do I recognize him from? Where do I recognize him from? [00:11:05] Matthew: It goes way back, one of our first episodes of the podcast. Uh, [00:11:09] Ian: ah. I'm having to check our own website. Did you know on I, immproject.com you can check all of our old episodes and see our entire catalog. Please, oh, goodness. Which one is he from? Oh, no. [00:11:24] Matthew: Oh, let me know when you tap out. [00:11:28] Ian: It... Was he in an episode of The Incredible Hulk? [00:11:32] Matthew: Not to my knowledge. It wouldn't surprise me- Okay ... but. [00:11:35] Ian: Okay, I'm tapping. What is it? [00:11:36] Matthew: He was a r- regular character on Mary Tyler Moore. Oh. He played Murray Slaughter, the news guy at the radio station. [00:11:46] Ian: Oh. [00:11:47] Matthew: Or the, the news writer, reporter. [00:11:50] Ian: Oh, that makes sense. Oh, yeah, okay, I see him on there. Oh, he was also in My Favorite Martian at least a couple times. Oh, [00:11:56] Matthew: was he [00:11:56] Ian: really? More than one time, yeah. [00:11:58] Matthew: Cool. [00:11:59] Ian: Okay, very nice. [00:12:01] Matthew: And- This also, this, this has something in common with another early, uh, uh, podcast episode, another show that we watched early on, which is Murder She Wrote, in that it's one of these- Oh shows where they needed a steady, steady supply of guest stars. [00:12:23] Ian: Yes. [00:12:23] Matthew: So they tended to go with these well-known, recognizable actors who were no longer in their prime. They were no longer getting their own TV series or big movie deals, and yet people would recognize them, and it would be comforting, and it would, "Oh, yeah, that's, uh, what's his name? Cool. Oh, yeah- That's a- ... it's Artie Johnson. He's fun." [00:12:44] Ian: That's a good point. Yeah, it's, it's a lot of, "I recognize that guy." [00:12:49] Matthew: Right. "Oh, Tom Poston. I remember him on Bob Newhart. Cool." [00:12:54] Ian: I will say especially with a... Oh, this is a wild thing to pull. [00:12:59] Matthew: Mm-hmm. [00:12:59] Ian: We were just talking about how the writing for Love Boat is restricted in some ways because you've got, what, a 50-minute episode if you've got one of the longer ones. Mm-hmm. And you are getting less than a third of that to tell your story. You're getting 12 minutes maybe. [00:13:19] Matthew: Yeah, 12, 15 at the most and, and- 12 ... because they've got little interstitial bits with the crew and all. [00:13:25] Ian: And now you've got casting, which is all about pulling older actors with a known history, or people who at very least have a known history in the industry already. [00:13:36] Matthew: Mm-hmm. [00:13:37] Ian: There is something weirdly similar to, I can't believe I'm saying this, fan fiction in terms of the concept of relying on an audience's preexisting knowledge in order to expedite pieces of the narrative. Love Boat will cast an actor and play them either slightly similar or completely against the typing you expect from that actor based on their previous works. And so they expect you to bring that in to be able to understand faster. I'm certain there are, there are sections from the episodes we watched that went right over my head in some ways because I didn't have the reference that they expected their audience to have about who this person was. It wasn't unwatchable, but I could tell I didn't get a depth that this person showing up on screen was supposed to convey, and that's because they expected the, the actor to act as shorthand. [00:14:44] Matthew: Oh, that's an interesting point. And you're right, it works. Thinking of the last episode that we watched, as Will Geer, as , the curmudgeonly old man whose heart needs to soften. He's, he is the guy you get when you need a curmudgeonly old man in the late '70s. As soon as you see him on screen, you have some sense of what kind of character you're dealing with. [00:15:05] Ian: Yeah. I was able to pick up on that eventually, but I'm pretty sure it took me longer- ... than the rest of the audience because I haven't seen him do this as many times. [00:15:15] Matthew: Right. [00:15:16] Ian: And in the same sort of way, our main cast also fill in preexisting narrative concepts sometimes. Yeah. The captain defaults to being kind of a gruff person organizing these fools. The ship's doctor defaults to being just this side of inappropriate - Yeah ... repeatedly. [00:15:40] Matthew: He has this weird combination of he is , the wise but approachable older crew member, and yet he's also the, , flagrant womanizer, which- Yes yeah, creepy thing for the only doctor aboard the ship to be. [00:15:53] Ian: Yeah. [00:15:55] Matthew: And, the captain is , the stereotypical stern commander who's nevertheless a real softie and cares about his people when it comes down to it. , Gopher a junior officer on the ship. , He wants importance and recognition, but he's also the comedic goofball. And he occasionally gets, led astray by his own, interest in either a get-rich-quick scheme or something that's going to get the captain to like him or things like that. [00:16:23] Ian: Yeah. [00:16:25] Matthew: And then there's your bartender, Isaac. actually- - Played by Ted Lange. He , becomes more of a character later on in the series. But he's kind of the cool guy and the, the level of life character who seems to have his head attached right. And he's the butt of jokes sometime, but he's also another of the, the wise people who kinda knows where it's at. [00:16:45] Ian: There's something of a lightning rod to him. If the weirdness of the episode gets a little too high, it will discharge in the form of- ... some spectacular moment that hits, Isaac, our bartender. There's something about that. It's ... I noticed a couple of times that butt of the joke element was a grounding force [00:17:06] Matthew: And, another fun fact about, Fred Grandy, who played Gopher. [00:17:10] Ian: Oh, yeah? [00:17:11] Matthew: He had a bachelor's degree from Harvard in English. And, after The Love Boat, he went on to serve several terms , in the United States Congress. [00:17:23] Ian: Eh? [00:17:27] Matthew: Talk about a certain not a popular whip- okay, Congressman Gopher. What's going on here? Congress- He actually was a popular congressman. [00:17:34] Ian: Okay. That, I mean, that works. Uh- [00:17:38] Matthew: He had been a speech writer and had been politically, active. And, when the guy he was working for decided not to run again, he thought, "Well, okay, I'll run for the seat," and he won, and stayed in it for a while. [00:17:48] Ian: Oh, I m- I miss the days when people you saw from television could wind up in politics, and it was just fascinating and not terrifying. [00:17:58] Matthew: Yeah. Oh, yes. So we of course had to pick a few episodes to watch. We couldn't ... Like, I wouldn't subject you to eight seasons or whatever this was. [00:18:08] Ian: Yeah. Uh, yeah, th- th- this is the thing, you know. We did not watch 250 hours- ... of television. [00:18:17] Matthew: And we actually, we, we kept it to, I think they were all in the first season, [00:18:22] Ian: oh, my goodness. That was all season one. [00:18:25] Matthew: And we actually wound up watching ... I, I picked three episodes, and then I realized I'd made a terrible, terrible mistake. [00:18:33] Ian: Oh, yes. [00:18:34] Matthew: So we had to watch a fourth. Because I, I mentioned on Blue Sky that, uh, for a... Well, first of all, I was wondering. I was saying that I have to pick several episodes of the TV series Love Boat for an upcoming podcast. Uh, but I didn't know, is the proper p- plural, uh, Love Boats or Loves Boat? [00:18:55] Ian: What, what is the correct- What is the collective noun for Love Boat? [00:18:59] Matthew: Your Uncle Jim, repeat guest here on the podcast, he responded saying, "Well, it should be Love's Boat because it's one boat and many love stories." So Love's Boat. So I had to pick several Love's Boat for the podcast, and he recommended some. [00:19:15] Ian: Okay. [00:19:16] Matthew: One of the ones that he recommended was one that had Pat Morita as a guest star. And of course I had to choose that because we have just seen Pat Morita in The Karate Kid, a few podcast episodes [00:19:30] Ian: ago. Absolutely. [00:19:32] Matthew: And little did I know, there were two episodes in which Pat Morita appeared as a guest star- Please ... in season one. They didn't even give it a few seasons for us to forget that he'd been on there. [00:19:44] Ian: Yeah. And I will also note, two episodes where Pat Morita shows up as two different people. He's not playing the same guy. [00:19:54] Matthew: Yes. It's not a, a recurring character. They were very different characters, too. . And sometimes we did have, as we were saying, the actors who had been stars in their own right previously and were, were getting older. Sometimes they needed younger actors, in which case there would be a guest star who was well-known even at the time for a TV show. One of the episodes we watched had a, an actor who's best known for being on Happy Days. And of course, that always got people watching as well. "Oh, it's that guy we like from Happy Days. He's on Love's Boat today." [00:20:24] Ian: Hey, it's him. [00:20:25] Matthew: So we did- ... watch the first episode of season one. So not the pilot. We never, we still can't find that movie. But we watched season one, episode one, which again, there are certain things, and I know that s- to some extent it might be the time when this was made. To some extent, it's the fact that in romance stories, there's a certain acceptance of things that would just be totally unacceptable in real life. [00:20:54] Ian: Yeah, that is very true. [00:20:55] Matthew: Like, uh, like JJ Walker, uh, known from the, the TV series Good Times, playing a, uh, an indefatigable stalker- [00:21:08] Ian: Yeah, yeah ... [00:21:09] Matthew: to his, his girlfriend who is trying to get away from him. [00:21:15] Ian: That was odd. That was really weird. [00:21:19] Matthew: Yes, and That was kind of the most comedic of the three stories in that one. He is, he has been living with his girlfriend for a while. She wants to get married, he doesn't, so she says she's had enough with him and she goes on this cruise alone. And he follows her from port to port, driving his exterminator business van down through Mexico to meet her at each port. [00:21:45] Ian: Yeah. [00:21:47] Matthew: But he's also, he's trying to, he's, he's trying to find out what her cabin is, and Gopher just tells him. So Gopher- Yeah ... is the stalking enabler. Again, things that, that they put in there for the sake of a, a romance story or a comedic love story. Uh, but no, that would be, be pretty bad in real life. [00:22:12] Ian: Yeah. And I will say, that's one of those fine examples of, like, not only can there be such different tones, but, like, the level of cartoonishness changes. [00:22:23] Matthew: Yes. [00:22:24] Ian: Like, in that story, he's able to get this van- all this way and keep pace with the boat. And we see him have breakdowns and such, but he does okay. And there's this cartoonish heightened sense that's designed to, I think, take some of the edge and the creepiness off of that story- Right ... on one end. But over- [00:22:48] Matthew: He's so goofy he must be kind of harmless [00:22:51] Ian: exactly. But in the other stories, the, the s- there's a serious solid reality to their events. [00:23:00] Matthew: Yeah. Another of the stories in that one was, the fiance of an up and coming congressional candidate, - years ago had done a, a nude photo shoot for a magazine, and now that she was in the news because she's engaged to this politician, those photos have surfaced and they're going to be in the new issue of some girly magazine, which is available for sale in the, gift shop, on the boat. And people are just out on deck reading this magazine. I don't know if that was just popularly accepted for people to be reading these magazines out in public, uh, in, uh, in the 1970s. Yeah. Or that was just a conceit for the show. It surprised me though. It's like, because she's of course trying to find every issue of this magazine that might be on the boat so that her, her husband-to-be does not see this. [00:24:00] Ian: Uh, attention passengers. We have now crossed into international waters and the gift shop is now selling magazines. Like, for all you... Like, what, what is going on here? Uh, uh, uh. [00:24:13] Matthew: So that story had a few comedic bits where she's kind of looking around and coming up with ways to destroy or steal people's copy of, of Kitten Magazine. [00:24:25] Ian: Yeah. [00:24:27] Matthew: But ultimately it's their more mature, heartwarming romance where he eventually it becomes clear he knew about this, he heard about this before they left port, and it doesn't matter to him. He's in love with who she is now. She is the love of his life and, uh, he can't wait to get married. [00:24:45] Ian: Which is, which is really, really heartfelt. [00:24:47] Matthew: Yes. [00:24:48] Ian: I'm very surprised the third story in that first episode- [00:24:54] Matthew: Yeah ... [00:24:56] Ian: which was the captain's ex-wife. Which I will say does give a great opportunity to introduce all of the crew- Because all of them have to deal with this weird thing happening to the captain. But it really is odd that, you know, the first episode of this show as a TV series, and you just undercut the captain. [00:25:21] Matthew: His ex-wife is on board, and I don't remember, was it she or her new and silent and older husband is a member of the board of the cruise line? [00:25:31] Ian: I take it that, her new husband is, like, one of the head executives or something, and he's just kind of this, this quiet man- ... sipping his coffee, reading his paper, maybe fixing his mustache. That's all he does. And there's this entire, like, little cavalcade of chaos going on around him. [00:25:54] Matthew: And she, the, the captain's ex-wife, she has this animosity towards him, and she keeps finding every excuse she can to find fault with the ship that she's going to report back. And it, it works as that first episode, because it gives you an opportunity to see how that... The captain is very stern and very demanding of his crew, but he's also under a lot of stress and under a lot of pressure, and has a lot of responsibility to deal with. And he sees and overhears how the crew is concerned with him, and how they are trying to help him and have his best interests at heart, and you can see him soften a little bit and you realize that, yeah, he does have that, that heart of gold, and he does care about his crew. And that it sets that balance that is then established for the rest of the series. [00:26:46] Ian: Exactly. [00:26:48] Matthew: And his superciliousness and his self-importance is the butt of jokes as things go on. But ultimately, he's looking out for his crew. [00:26:58] Ian: It's, it's an interesting balancing act, but it do- it gives everyone a good opportunity. [00:27:03] Matthew: there were a couple of other things from that episode. Having been on, on a couple of cruises, in recent years, and before that, of course, when I was watching Love Boat on TV, not the case. When the lady's trying to get rid of the copies of magazines, she's doing, - things like setting fires on board, and setting... Um, no, that's bad on a boat. You don't want to set a fire on a ship. Yeah. I don't care if you're right on the, next to the rail. Don't do that. [00:27:30] Ian: Yeah. No. No. [00:27:34] Matthew: But there, there are also ways in which this is the most unrealistic cruise ship in the world. For, for the benefit of filming, like, every cabin is enormous. Yes. Even when they're, they are characters who are clearly- just about able to afford this cruise and probably getting the cheapest cabin. Oh yeah, but it's a cabin that's big enough to get a camera crew in, . And the, the hallways or the passages inside the ship- [00:28:01] Ian: Oh, my goodness [00:28:02] Matthew: I think maybe they were repurposed from a hospital show because they are enormous. Honestly, that makes sense- These huge wide cabins ... [00:28:10] Ian: that makes sense- Or corridors ... with the door, with the doors and everything too. They filmed a lot of stuff on, the cruise ship the Pacific Princess, especially establishing shots, a couple of railing, and out- external shots and such. But yeah, they really did use sets that are more like... Those are huge. [00:28:34] Matthew: They also did some filming in Long Beach on RMS Queen Mary. [00:28:40] Ian: Oh, really? [00:28:41] Matthew: Which is, kind of a museum ship docked there. So when you see things that are, they're at the rail of a ship, and there's the ocean in the background, but you can't see much else, some of those are, , shot on, the Queen At least early on. Maybe later on they didn't have to do that as much, but for some of the early episodes where they had to get a lot of that, those kind of establishing shots. And that's something else I noticed throughout season one, and I don't know if they continued this. They had these weird little interstitial jokes as sort of a scene change, where you would just have two of the crew members on deck, usually at the rail, just telling some little joke that had nothing to do with any of the stories. [00:29:22] Ian: Yeah, it's like a stand-up act. [00:29:24] Matthew: It's as if they thought, "Okay, we need some kind of a break to let people know we're shifting from one storyline to another." And maybe they decided they didn't need that as much, that they just trusted audiences to go with the change in actors at all. [00:29:37] Ian: . Wait a minute, wait a minute. The Love Boat used stand-up comedy moments. [00:29:41] Matthew: The [00:29:42] Ian: way anime uses eye catch scenes. [00:29:44] Matthew: Yes, that's right. [00:29:46] Ian: Oh, goodness. Honestly, wow, that's a side note. I do wonder how well The Love Boat did internationally- [00:29:53] Matthew: Oh, I wonder. I could see- Because the- ... it being popular ... [00:29:56] Ian: I could see it being popular in a, in plenty of places. It's got a, an approachable enough format and styling. [00:30:04] Matthew: And then there was another episode that we watched, season one, episode four, and we had to choose that one because it means- Oh, of course ... the Bixby boys are back. The [00:30:16] Ian: Bixby boys are back. [00:30:18] Matthew: Bill- Whoa ... Bixby. He, you can go back, I'll, I'll leave a link to our prior episodes why, uh, why the Bixby boys are important for the podcast. But, , Bill Bixby is in one of the storylines in, uh- Yeah ... episode four. And that was, that was the sort of their, their dramatic romantic- [00:30:37] Ian: Oh, yeah. That- ... [00:30:38] Matthew: storyline. [00:30:39] Ian: Yeah. This is Bill, Bill Bixby's sports writer is romancing a former tennis pro played by Brenda Bennett. [00:30:47] Matthew: You could build a movie around this premise for this- [00:30:50] Ian: You could [00:30:50] Matthew: storyline here because yeah, it's the sports writer and the tennis pro, and they are at odds with one another. It's, so it's cal- sort of an enemies to lovers storyline. and she has been injured, so she hasn't been able to play tennis for a while. And they still throw barbs at each other, but he also makes it clear and says it outright, "You know, get better soon because the game needs you." [00:31:19] Ian: Mm-hmm. [00:31:19] Matthew: And then there, then it appears that the surgery... Now, she's going on a cruise while preparing for back surgery to save her career. That surprises me a bit, but- I- ... you know, it's a weird choice, [00:31:33] Ian: I got the feeling there was something of a, "I need a place to relax where I can't be hounded by reporters," and then there's a reporter right here who's, who's romantically- Yes interested in... It's like, "Hou- hounded by any reporter except you." [00:31:47] Matthew: Right. I'm, I'm thinking that a remote cabin but on land, it might be a better choice, but it- [00:31:53] Ian: Might've, [00:31:53] Matthew: yeah ... worked for the show. And she's in a wheelchair. He winds up in a wheelchair briefly because he injures , his leg on the cruise. [00:32:01] Ian: I could definitely see this is , a short story in that sense that could've been expanded into something bigger. I will say it was a fine example as well of the strange tonal differences you can have across the three stories. [00:32:13] Matthew: Oh, gosh, [00:32:14] Ian: yes. Because the doc will go from showing up in one scene to say, "She's, the surgery's not gonna be able to be done. I don't think she'll be ever able to walk again." And immediately cutting over to dealing with Charo As a stowaway who's taken over the doctor's cabin, who I didn't know who this was. That's another instance of, like, expected existing knowledge. [00:32:39] Matthew: Yeah. [00:32:40] Ian: But a very, very different narrative. [00:32:46] Matthew: And that, that's an interesting point. I never quite thought about it that way, but it was... The, the recurring cast had the most challenging roles there. Because it's one thing to have Bill Bixby and his costar. You're in a, a, a dramatic, romantic story. Fine. [00:33:02] Ian: Yeah. [00:33:02] Matthew: Or you're JJ Walker and you're in the comedic romance story. But it's the c- the central cast here who have to bounce between those within the context of a single TV episode. And granted, they're not filming in sequence, but still, they have to reach for different tones depending on which storyline they're interacting with at a time. [00:33:23] Ian: Yeah. So, it's like you might be showing up less than a minute later, but you are going to need to give a very different performance. There's a lot of range in the, the c- the, the cast playing the crew. [00:33:41] Matthew: And somehow Bernie Kopell as the doctor makes that work, given the inconsistencies in the, the stories he has to take part in, But also the inconsistencies we've talked about with him as a character. Yeah. Where he's the wise, compassionate doctor, and he's also the womanizer. Because in that, uh, in that episode, there's also the first appearance of Charo- On The Love Boat. And she is one of the '70s fixtures of television. She was an early example of somebody who was famous for being famous, mostly. also did comedy and music, and her- Not being a native English speaker and getting words wrong was part of her shtick. So she was essentially playing Charo as Charo appeared on TV talk shows for years, in this character on Love Boat who s- is a stowaway and eventually charms the crew, and they wanna help her. And ultimately, she gets a job as an entertainer on another ship on the cruise line. [00:34:45] Ian: Hmm. [00:34:46] Matthew: And, gives us opportunities for lots of double entendre and lots of scenes in which the doctor's interests and activities with re- regard to her are, are suspected and then misconstrued. And it turns out the doctor's being a gentleman after all, et cetera. [00:35:05] Ian: E- exactly. It's, it's a lot of that kind of... Uh, I'll admit, it's a lot of stuff that makes me cringe from sitcoms. Yes. But very well done, and I can appreciate that. [00:35:17] Matthew: I really couldn't stand the other storyline from that episode, though. [00:35:22] Ian: Oh, was that the practical joker who- Yes ... they had to, like... A guy constantly is messing with everyone else, and so they decide to make him think he got his wife killed? [00:35:32] Matthew: Yeah. [00:35:33] Ian: Uh. [00:35:34] Matthew: Milton Berle. Talk about somebody who is past his prime but still super famous. Milton Berle as, um, old- older man who is, uh, just obsessed with practical jokes including things like throwing his hat overboard and then shouting, "Man overboard." I'm sorry, that's the kind of thing that gets you imprisoned. [00:35:55] Ian: Can we get The Love Boat security officer- and they can just make the little set for the brig? [00:36:01] Matthew: Yes. That's what we need. We, we need the security officer on aboard ship. [00:36:06] Ian: Yeah. What in the world? The jokester in that one gets the same comedic through line of reality that the guy in his van had done in the first episode. And once again, it's like, in any normal situation, this wouldn't resolve well for anybody. [00:36:25] Matthew: No. [00:36:30] Ian: The sort of questions this show, I mean our podcast, but also, this TV show- ... lead me to ask in my life. The question of, did anyone on The Love Boat ever just get punched in the face? It's, it's, it's one I never expected to say, but it's very true. I'm like- how? There's [00:36:49] Matthew: occ- the occasional dramatic slap. [00:36:53] Ian: Hmm. [00:36:53] Matthew: And then we watched our third episode, which I thought was gonna be the final episode we had to watch, which was a Pat Morita episode. [00:37:04] Ian: Yeah. [00:37:04] Matthew: But it was the wrong Pat Morita episode. I was watching this, I'm thinking, "Oh, Jim, you suggested we watch this?" And then partway through I realized, oh, no, this is not the one that Jim was recommending. Sorry, Jim. [00:37:19] Ian: Yeah. [00:37:20] Matthew: Um, the storyline that involved Pat Morita, and he was the, like, head of a, or high executive in a huge Japanese industrial conglomerate. And this was, you know, late '70s. This was the, I'd say the beginnings of a lot of stereotyping and a lot of concern or fear about Japanese industrial might, and how much industry- Mm they were controlling, how much real estate they were buying, including the US, and that grew into the '80s, uh, dramatically, and into the '90s. So he was this executive, and a very stereotypical Japanese executive with some ability in English, but not a lot. And his American assistant was there. And they were mostly on this cruise because also on the cruise was a woman recently widowed who controlled what had been, owned by her husband, I think it was a chemical plant or a manufacturing plant. [00:38:22] Ian: Yeah. [00:38:22] Matthew: That this Japanese company wanted to buy, and she didn't wanna sell. And A romance grew between the assistant and this widow. And the assistant also had his own dreams because he had invented something that the Japanese company and the exec- Japanese executive didn't think was a viable product yet. But it was- Yeah ... pretty darn amazing for 1977. [00:38:45] Ian: It would be pretty darn amazing for now. He made a voice-to-text s- program that was so accurate it was putting proper punctuation, including, like, multiple exclamation points to indicate intensity, in a way that I can't get a modern thing on an iPhone to do. [00:39:03] Matthew: And this was typing it out on paper in a on a, an IBM electric typewriter. And it was just listening to all the speech in the room and typing it out. I, I'm sorry, that is a, a multi-multi-million dollar invention- Yeah ... in 1977. And this Japanese, uh, executive thought it was not worth anything. [00:39:23] Ian: We're seeing the technology that causes the, uh, the timeline of the, of The Love Boat's reality to diverge from ours. It's like- What in the world? in that single moment, Love Boat looks more like a precursor to Blade Runner than it does to re- to modern reality. but yeah. The fact that we've got that. We've got Gopher being convinced to, like, join an anarcho-syndicate. Like, what's going on here? [00:39:52] Matthew: Every once in a while, one of the three storylines involved one of the crew members getting involved in some kind of a romantic entanglement. And in this case it was, Eve Plumb, who's best known for being on, Brady Bunch. [00:40:06] Ian: , I thought I recognized her ... [00:40:08] Matthew: she was there with her father, She was a very '70s, late hippie culture, anarchist, everybody should be totally free, everybody should t- be totally equal. Uh, which, you know, I can get behind that. But rejecting any acceptance that, of any organizational structure. She was into the personhood movement. There's no men, there's no women, there's no leaders, there's no followers. There's just persons. And [00:40:35] Ian: that- That goes... That g- that gets Gopher fired from his job. [00:40:39] Matthew: Yeah, because he's smitten with her. He follows this hook, line, and sinker, and it doesn't go well when he starts rejecting orders from his captain. [00:40:48] Ian: Oh, yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm surrounded by nothing but water, and I've just r- and I've just gotten fired from my job. Hmm. [00:40:58] Matthew: The whole bit about the personhood and following and not following and all this, there were a couple of bits where we get a sort of a, a who's on first- ... bit of comedy dialogue trying to make sense of [00:41:09] Ian: that. I'm not following. Exactly the point, sir. [00:41:16] Matthew: And it, it really struck me how they would make some references to things that were old references then, and must be utterly impenetrable now. Like references to Hedda Hopper when talking about gossip, and she was, like, a super famous gossip columnist, Hollywood columnist. And like he, it, in 1977, that was a very, very old-timey reference. [00:41:41] Ian: The third one was just like an infidelity story, if I remember correctly? [00:41:46] Matthew: Yeah. Yeah, that was another, it was, uh, another creepy story where, um, a man who was on the cruise, he was really there to see his mistress, and his wife was staying behind. And the excuse for that was he was, he worked in advertising, and this was a research trip because he was working on an advertising campaign for the cruise line. But he was really there to see his girlfriend, who he kept promising he was gonna leave his wife for her, and never did. And they thought that on this cruise they could be themselves and be together, but their neighbors from where they live, people who knew him and his wife, were also there, and he had to pretend that it was just a work trip, and he didn't know this woman who kept sitting next to him. [00:42:33] Ian: Ah. [00:42:33] Matthew: And it was all, it was all so creepy. Eventually it was, the mistress talked him into giving his marriage another try, and try to do it right. [00:42:43] Ian: It's weird. It [00:42:45] Matthew: seemed like a very low-effort storyline. The performances were standard for Love Boat, but there wasn't much there story-wise. [00:42:53] Ian: Yeah. Fell extremely flat. [00:42:56] Matthew: And I thought that's where we were going to, uh, to end our c- our initial survey of Love Boat. I don't know, but this might be a, a show that we wind up coming back to in a we kept watching. Yeah. But then I realized, a- as I said, partway through that last episode, I realized that, no, that's not the episode that, Jim had recommended. So we went back and watched season one, episode 12, the other Pat Morita episode. [00:43:27] Ian: Which I was, I was bewildered by. [00:43:30] Matthew: And I think this is the best of the episodes that we saw. [00:43:35] Ian: I think [00:43:35] Matthew: so. Had the strongest storylines. Why they g- had the, such a weak episode at the very end of the season, I don't know, because right here smack in the middle of the season was this really good episode. [00:43:47] Ian: Yeah. Our heartfelt story is, William Gere as an older man who has a stowaway of a runaway teen hide in his cabin- But he kind of has to open up to people and relax- Yeah ... about some things, become more friendly and approachable because he makes this care, this, you know, caring connection. It's like, "No, no, she's not a stowaway. She's my granddaughter. I'll pay for her, her room," and tries to make things work out there. It's, it's a very sweet adoption story [00:44:23] Matthew: in some ways. It [00:44:23] Ian: is. Yeah. [00:44:24] Matthew: Because they're both s- they're both characters who need family. He is, uh, we see at the very beginning, he's angry and, and, uh, gruff and mad at the world, and it turns out that he is... He recently lost his beloved wife of- [00:44:40] Ian: Mm-hmm ... [00:44:41] Matthew: 35 years or more, and they were never blessed with children, so he was alone suddenly. And she was an orphan, very unhappy with the foster, family in which she had been placed, and she had met a guy at a concert and was going to meet him in Acapulco and, and get married at 16. Yeah. And so she stowed away on this ship. And they, they kind of help each other out. He persuades her not to, to do something this rash. "Uh, you're only 16. You should become your own person first." And, she gives him someone to care about and someone to share advice with. And yeah, they become a family. [00:45:25] Ian: Exactly. And uh, I'm trying to remember the mid-story. [00:45:33] Matthew: The second storyline was another one in which one of our main cast was a prominent character, and it was Julie, the cruise director. [00:45:41] Ian: Yeah. [00:45:41] Matthew: And she sees, getting on board just as a passenger, is a guy she knew when she was a little kid because it was her brother's best friend, and they had been out of touch for a long time, but they immediately knew one another, and they had nicknames. And obviously she had had a crush on him when they were kids. Yeah. And she still does. . And this , guy was played by Anson Williams, best known as, uh, Potsie from Happy Days. And she really likes him, really wants him to be interested in her. Eventually is practically throwing herself at him, and he is very standoffish and keeps finding excuses for them not to be together, not to be alone together. And later it turns out it's because he's a priest. [00:46:27] Ian: Yeah. was such a weird one. [00:46:30] Matthew: It was. And we also get Tom Poston as his roommate, his cabin mate, who is a, older man who wants to go out dancing and meet ladies and all this. And, uh, it's when he gets sick and apparently needs last rites that it's revealed call a doctor and a priest. Well, just call the doctor. [00:46:54] Ian: Yes. [00:46:55] Matthew: And that's something else we see in this show, and I don't know if this was a common thing on cruises in the '70s, but we see people being put together into the same cabin. People who are cruising solo- Yeah ... are just assigned a cabin mate. And I know that there are some people who cruise that way, but I don't think it was just assigned randomly by the, the, a cruise line and cruise ships do have solo cabins. I don't know if that was not a thing. But it always struck me as weird. A great mechanism for TV, but weird. [00:47:24] Ian: A great mechanism for TV, and I always got the feeling that, or, like, just out of these four episodes, it was like the cheaper ticket was the one that might room you with someone else. [00:47:34] Matthew: Mm. [00:47:35] Ian: And that meant that the variety of people who might be on this cruise for whatever reason- was different. Because there is an element of, like, a cruise being an equal option to get from point A to B that might be less expensive or better time-wise than trying to fly there. [00:47:50] Matthew: That's true. This was in the days of heavily regulated, airfares. So- Mm-hmm ... maybe the cruises were not necessarily a, a astronomically more expensive way to get to places in Baja California. [00:48:03] Ian: Yeah. They're, they are not an inherently round trip. They, uh, they might be a, "Oh, I'm, I'm getting off at the stop at this other place." [00:48:12] Matthew: Right. Yep. [00:48:13] Ian: The, the final one, though. That's, that's Pat Morita teamed up with Art Johnson. [00:48:19] Matthew: Yes. This [00:48:20] Ian: was- Oh, my goodness ... [00:48:21] Matthew: one of the biggest just slapstick comedy storylines in the whole season, I think. [00:48:28] Ian: Yeah. Oh, my word. The, this is, they keep on messing up painting. [00:48:35] Matthew: Yeah. They're, they're the painters or the, the tint engineers- That- who have been arranged by Julie. And I'm, I don't think that the cruise director hires people to paint offices on the ship. But anyway. [00:48:48] Ian: I don't think so. [00:48:49] Matthew: They were to paint the , the captain's quarters, and he had picked out this very, very specific and precise- shade that he wanted It was something saffron sunset. [00:49:01] Ian: Yeah. It, it, just- I will say, like, tint engineers feels- ... such a modern joke. Oh, no. [00:49:07] Matthew: It does, doesn't it? It's like a- But- ... very, very specialized Photoshop skill. [00:49:13] Ian: Yes. But they're, they're painting the wrong room. They're... Ugh, it, it's, it's a mess. But it's good comedy. [00:49:21] Matthew: We have not yet, for the podcast, watched any Laurel and Hardy. [00:49:26] Ian: I don't think so. [00:49:26] Matthew: Which we- we're gonna have to do, because I was raised on a lot of Laurel and Hardy. Huge... My dad was a huge fan of Laurel and Hardy, and I saw so much of it, and I like it a lot. They were essentially doing Laurel and Hardy. [00:49:38] Ian: Yeah, [00:49:39] Matthew: they were. The two characters who, they were always working together, and yet they were always getting mad at each other for something, and it would, devolving into this weird slapstick comedy. [00:49:51] Ian: It, it was a little odd, but it was, it was very good and it was very fun. And I was amazed at how much chemistry those two had as a comedy duo. [00:50:01] Matthew: Yeah, Pat Morita had comedy chops for this. It was great. [00:50:04] Ian: He had comedy chops for it. They were, they were just in sync. They were doing well. I'm... That was brilliant. [00:50:11] Matthew: It sheds a little bit of light on that very mischievous sense of humor that's under the surface of Mr. Miyagi- Yes ... in, in Karate Kid. [00:50:22] Ian: Yeah. Pat M- Pat Morita, he just had s- he had so much joy and fun in his action. [00:50:33] Matthew: Yeah. [00:50:33] Ian: Like, he understood the silliness in the moment just as much as anything else, and when he wanted to emphasize it, he could do so. [00:50:41] Matthew: But- [00:50:42] Ian: So yeah ... [00:50:43] Matthew: so we watched four episodes, all from the first season. [00:50:47] Ian: Mm-hmm. [00:50:48] Matthew: And while the show did change, it had some changes in tone. There were some additions in cast and replacement of cast members, uh, over the years. But I still think this was a pretty good initial survey to give you an idea as to what this cultural phenomenon that you were aware of was actually like. [00:51:07] Ian: Yeah. 'Cause I mean, if this exists in the background, if it's something that feels, feels consistent and inherent enough to be referenced in so many other places, I'm glad I at least know what they're referencing. [00:51:23] Matthew: And we still do have , our final questions. I think that's next. [00:51:27] Ian: Oh, yeah. [00:51:28] Matthew: So stay tuned, listeners, for final questions, our assessment of the show, whether we recommend it, whether we wanna go back to it in some way. But first, if you're enjoying the IMMP podcast, please go to immproject. .com where you will be able to, uh, find all of our back episodes, including the other episodes from the Bixby Boys. [00:51:49] Ian: Woo! [00:51:50] Matthew: And you'll also be able to contact us. We'd love to hear from you on Blue Sky or Mastodon or our Discord, or we would love to hear from you by actual honest-to-goodness US mail, at our PO box. And, you'll also find ways to support the show. That includes our Patreon where, starting at the $3 a month, content companion level, you can get bonus audio content, and if you join us at the movie club level, you'll get a mystery DVD in the mail every few months. [00:52:20] Ian: If you wanna join me in experiencing things you might not have ever seen before, it's a wonderful time. [00:52:26] Matthew: And another way to have fun and support the podcast is to go to our shop where you can get coffee mugs- Hey! ... and T-shirts and notebooks and all kinds of fun things like that, not just with the podcast logo, but also jokes about some of the shows that we've talked about, like The Prisoner- Yeah ... or, uh, Space 1999- Yeah or that holiday classic, Die Hard. [00:52:51] Ian: Yeah. You care about Phobos, don't you? Ah. [00:52:57] Matthew: And Ian, where can people find you? [00:52:59] Ian: I can be found online at most places as ItemCrafting, be that ItemCrafting on Blue Sky or ItemCraftingLive on Twitch. I'm trying to stream more regularly most every Thursday, so come on over. I'll make some things. We can play some games and have a fun time talking. And Dad, how about you? [00:53:19] Matthew: You can find me as ByMatthewPorter anywhere on Blue Sky or Mastodon. Best place to go is bymatthewporter.com, where you will find links to everything else I'm doing online, including my YouTube channel, where I review movies and movie theaters on the Drafthouse Diary. And also at bymatthewporter.com, you'll find information about my book coming out on May 19th, Questions For The Dead. It's a psychic paranormal private eye mystery and Kirkus Reviews called it, "An immersive mystery full of inventive characters and concepts." [00:53:52] Ian: Very nice. [00:53:53] Matthew: And that's available for pre-order now, and, you can have it in your hands as a paperback or an e-book on May 19th [00:54:00] Ian: Woo. [00:54:01] Matthew: So, final questions. [00:54:03] Ian: Final questions. Well, it's a TV show. [00:54:08] Matthew: Binge [00:54:08] Ian: or [00:54:08] Matthew: no binge? [00:54:13] Ian: So... I'm giving this a no binge. But that's not because it's a don't watch. It's because watching multiple episodes of The Love Boat in a row is mind-numbing. There's something about the repeated, repeated frequency of tonal shift, and something about that late '70s, early '80s style. It reminds me of being a little too tired and awake- a little too late at night, where everything's that little bit off and heightened. It was just disorienting. I think it was a fine thing to watch, but if you're gonna watch The Love Boat, drip feed it. [00:54:57] Matthew: Yeah. [00:54:57] Ian: My goodness. Don't try to binge this show. [00:55:00] Matthew: I am gonna say binge, but I'm starting to wonder if instead of just a yes or no binge or no binge, we need some kind of a, of a scale or a, a, a vel- a velocity or you know, a frequency. That's it. Frequency. We, we wanna rate it at a, a zero to five, you know. Zero is do not binge, and, you know, one is binge- ... but every one, only every once in a while. I think- Yeah. ... having this on as background viewing, uh, every, uh, once a day or two if you've, you've, you've got other things to do, that could be fun. Because it's low impact, it's fun, the characters and the actors are engaging. And, uh, even within a given episode, if one storyline is just, uh, intolerable, like the Milton Berle one- Mm ... there's gonna be something else intertw- interwoven with it that- Yeah ... is fun to watch. So I say- If, if- I say binge. [00:55:53] Ian: Yeah. If you're out there playing the Intermillennium Media project drinking game, A, send me a copy of the rules. I ha- have... Who made that? Thank you. Uh, but second of all, probably take a, take a shot, 'cause I'm about to suggest this is a fine thing to watch while folding laundry. [00:56:09] Matthew: Oh, I think you're right. [00:56:10] Ian: It's got, it's got that- ... like, low impact, you know, second screen viewing kind of attitude stuff that I've mentioned in other p- pieces before. This is a fine example of that. [00:56:22] Matthew: and while you're watching, you can think about, being sad about some of the things we've lost, like some of the really cool '70s fashions. And you can think about the things you're glad we've lost to some degree, like the acceptance of really, really inappropriate behavior. [00:56:38] Ian: Yeah. [00:56:42] Matthew: So that's, uh, that's our, our answer to our first question, where we, our, our- Mm-hmm ... answers differed here. But our next question is revive, reboot, or rest in peace? [00:56:53] Ian: Well, The Love Boat, like any popular series that lasted for nine seasons- ... uh, did get a revival. Short-lived, two years, 1998 to 1999, Love Boat: The Next Wave, which is a story apparently of a similar ship, crewed by a younger and more fashionable group dealing with similar problems to the first one, but in a very different style. It's, it's a formula that other shows have done, you know, you know, a, a, a generation later doing the same things that we saw in the previous. I, I, I will say, if you look at pictures of Love Boat: The Next Wave, it looks aggressively late '90s. Like, I've never seen a show whose screenshots look so much of an era- that it is disturbing. It also kind of looks like someone put Jag through a rock tumbler until it came out smooth and shiny. But it's there. I'm like, "Okay, then." The Next Wave is not a f- an offensive thing. The scary thing is what they tried to do in 2022. [00:58:12] Matthew: Oh, yes. [00:58:14] Ian: The Real Love Boat. This is not a licensing issues like the Ghostbusters Animated Series things. No. This is them deciding to turn The Love Boat into an, into a reality TV competition. [00:58:31] Matthew: Oh, gosh. That sounds like a bad storyline from the original series. [00:58:36] Ian: Yes, it does. It really does. Apparently, it did badly because it got a single season and nothing else, and it was so bad it didn't even finish its showing on network TV. It was moved over to the streaming platform to die quietly. So they keep trying to make Love Boat happen. but, but should they? [00:59:05] Matthew: And oddly enough, you could see that as sort of being full circle because the original TV series was, I don't know, but if based on is appropriate or was inspired by is more appropriate, a 1974 book called The Love Boats. It was a memoir, an autobiography of Geraldine Saunders about her experiences working as a cruise ship hostess. [00:59:37] Ian: Oh. [00:59:37] Matthew: So taking that nonfiction book, turning that into the romantic sitcom kind of show that it became, eventually bringing it back to some kind of a reality show seems weirdly almost full circle, but not quite. [00:59:53] Ian: Yeah. [00:59:54] Matthew: But yeah, I imagine a, 2020s, I don't, don't wanna even wanna use the term romance. A lust competition show. [01:00:02] Ian: Yes. Oh, goodness. [01:00:03] Matthew: A reality show. Uh, yeah, that, that... How many different distasteful things have we crammed into one TV show there? [01:00:09] Ian: I, uh, yeah. [01:00:11] Matthew: My, my view of this, my answer though to our ultimate question I think is rest in peace. [01:00:19] Ian: I think it is as well for me, but I've got the weirdest comment. [01:00:24] Matthew: Yeah? [01:00:25] Ian: If The Love Boat would ever rise again, now is the time. You've got a weird confluence happening right now. [01:00:35] Matthew: Yeah. [01:00:35] Ian: Cruises are more and more popular. They're being seen as a more, a more popular form of, uh, travel and vacation, even amongst my generation, which means that the concept of a thing being set on a cruise is more popular. [01:00:51] Matthew: Mm-hmm. [01:00:53] Ian: We have an, a, a large number of popular actors, but there's a number of them that are getting older and aging out, and we don't still have a cameo-centric series out there anymore. That formula has died out such that a revival that gives them a chance to- Hmm ... show up occasionally- [01:01:13] Matthew: Yeah ... [01:01:14] Ian: would be something that they'd love to do. I could see a lot of them even being okay with the smaller amounts just to still be acting and on the record for years later. So the, the shifts in age of a specific- set of actors makes it more popular and possible. Streaming kind of works for this formula because if you can do the smaller bursts setup- [01:01:43] Matthew: Oh ... [01:01:44] Ian: of release, you don't have to build up as much. [01:01:47] Matthew: Just have a streaming service make six Love Boat episodes every few years kind of thing. [01:01:52] Ian: Exactly. Interesting. You've, you've even got the weird thing of the rise of the concept of themed cruises- Yes ... in the modern era, giving a Love Boat revival the opportunity to do strange themed episodes where it's like, "Yeah, we've got a convention for an old TV show happening on our boat this time." So everyone's talking about this old thing, and it's some actors from it or referencing it. And they can do that as an episode that cuts through all the episodes as a, uh, all the little stories as a through line. [01:02:26] Matthew: Oh, it, thinking in terms of, of writing this, I'm th- all the meta possibilities, because there have been Love Boat themed cruises where they have cast members and talks and reminiscences and showing episodes of the show and all this. Exactly. So you could go on a cruise that is a Love Boat themed cruise. So I could imagine a, a, a revival of Love Boat in which the c- and there's an episode in which the cruise ship is hosting a fan cruise for this old '70s and '80s TV show. The Love Cruise- A good ship- ... or whatever they're gonna call it. Yeah, Good Ship [01:03:02] Ian: Romance [01:03:03] Matthew: or something. [01:03:03] Ian: Right. [01:03:04] Matthew: That would be very meta. [01:03:06] Ian: It would be very meta, but it's the sort of thing you could do. Yes. And then, like, if, if the Love Boat would ever rise once more and sail once again, it could right now, and I'm still not sure if it should. Right. [01:03:20] Matthew: The fact that it could- [01:03:22] Ian: Could [01:03:23] Matthew: does not mean that it should. [01:03:25] Ian: I, I do think that there is a, a g- a wide open gap for the, the cameo-centric dramedy series- [01:03:37] Matthew: Yes ... [01:03:38] Ian: like this, was. And that is a comment that I wish its format and formula returned. [01:03:45] Matthew: Mm-hmm. [01:03:45] Ian: But that does not mean it must be in the shell and the trappings of The Love Boat. [01:03:51] Matthew: True. You could do the interwoven romance anthology in some other setting. It would have to be a setting where people arrive and spend time there and then go their separate ways, but- Yeah ... there are different ways you could do that. [01:04:05] Ian: But so yeah, um, I think I'm doing a rest in peace, but a strange lo- A, a rest in peace that is not buried as deeply as some others. Oh, [01:04:15] Matthew: yes. Rest in peace, but re- be ready with the stake and the hammer. [01:04:23] Ian: Oh, absolutely. [01:04:26] Matthew: A few years ago here on the podcast, Mrs. Darling Wife and I were preparing to take our first cruise, and to prepare for that I decided to show you The Poseidon Adventure Yeah, might be a questionable choice of movie- Yeah ... to prepare for a cruise. Now we're, we're planning for another cruise end of this year, and we thought, "Okay, it's time to watch Love Boat." So again- Okay ... maybe not the best- ... preparation for taking a cruise, but- [01:04:54] Ian: Maybe not ... we'll see ... but we'll see. [01:04:56] Matthew: But this was fun. Glad I finally got to show this to you. Who knows if we'll come back to this at some point. But at least now you've got some direct knowledge of this, cultural icon. [01:05:07] Ian: Oh, yeah. Oh, boy. [01:05:10] Matthew: And we're not done, of course. We will be back soon, with more tales, of media from the 20th century or other times. [01:05:20] Ian: Or other times. Hmm, there might be some aquatic fun to be had. In the meantime, go find something new to watch.