Original subtitles

[narrator] The golden age of television.

I Love Lucy didn't just change American television,

it invented American television.

[narrator] Back when one screen

brought everyone together.

Watching television was a family event.

[narrator] The shows that shaped us.

The Brady Bunch was part of the American soul.

-It's timeless. -[narrator] The familiar faces.

[man] Ralph Kramden was loved on The Honeymooners.

-Pow, right in the kisser! -He was a presence.

[narrator] The unforgettable moments.

Dynasty captured the essence

of what the 1980s were about in America.

[narrator] These are their stories.

[man] Cheers is the pinnacle of how great the sitcom can be.

[narrator] This is TV We Love.

It's 1976.

The Vietnam War has finally ended.

America is celebrating its 200th birthday.

People all over the country celebrate.

Disco music is on the rise,

and Jimmy Carter has just been elected president.

There's a new sense of peace and optimism in the air.

And with it, a whole new kind of TV series.

[The Love Boat theme song playing]

The Love Boat started something new.

It had great characters who we wanted to hang out with.

You know, have little crushes on Gopher.

[narrator] It broke ground by luring Hollywood legends

to television.

You just have to pinch yourself when you're sitting

between Lana Turner and Anne Baxter,

and you don't know which way to turn.

[narrator] And giving future megastars their start.

The Love Boat very carefully made sure

there was something for everybody.

It had enormous ratings.

[narrator] The Love Boat was a ratings smash...

but incredibly, almost didn't happen.

Reviewers said that The Love Boat

is going to go down like the Titanic.

[ship horn blowing]

The premise was very simple.

You get on a boat with problems,

and it goes to all these different ports.

And when it circles back to Los Angeles,

you've figured out how to solve the problems

that you got on with.

Jeraldine Saunders wrote a book

called The Love Boats, plural.

And so, with her luck of the Irish,

brought her to the attention

of ABC and Doug Cramer.

Doug Cramer was a producer at Paramount,

and was the original conceiver

of this idea.

[Jim Colucci] And so, when he happened to be at the beach

with his boyfriend one afternoon,

reading a review of Jeraldine Saunders' book,

The Love Boats, he said, that's it.

And so, he put in a call

to Jeraldine Saunders' people.

And I called the author,

and I suggested

that we buy her book.

She seriously thought about it.

We discussed a price,

and we bought it.

When Doug Cramer went to make The Love Boat into a pilot,

he made it as a TV movie for ABC,

which was common practice in the day.

It was a smart idea, because as a business practice,

you get a TV movie out of it,

whether it becomes a series or not.

And if it flopped, we pretend it was just a movie.

The audience doesn't have to know

it was a pilot for a series.

So I read the script, and it wasn't particularly good,

but I thought it could still work.

The problem with the first pilot

was that the crew was not right.

The very first pilot, I wasn't in,

Bernie and Fred wasn't in.

Nobody on that crew was somebody you really wanted to spend

a lot of time with, or captured your heart.

They kept the boat and threw out the actors.

[Colucci] One of the reasons why the first cast

of The Love Boat pilot did not work

was the casting of the captain.

They cast an Australian actor named Ted Hamilton.

Captain, what's the emergency?

Ha, that was your little monster.

He just set off every fire alarm on board the ship.

And the president of ABC was furious, and they said,

"Why? He's good looking, he's a good actor."

And the president said, "You don't understand.

The purpose of The Love Boat is supposed to be

that these passengers all want to [bleep] each other.

On this show, they're all just going to want

-to [bleep] the captain." -[ship horn blowing]

The captain was too [bleep]-able.

Luckily, ABC did realize

that there's a good idea buried here.

They had to figure out a way.

They had an idea for a show,

but they didn't know how to execute it exactly.

Nobody believed that this piece of junk

could do a 50 share, so we didn't have

enough faith in it to make a series out of it.

We said, let's do another pilot.

And so they gave Doug Cramer permission

to make a second pilot.

The whole thought that it might actually become a series,

and a successful series, was a bridge too far.

This time, Doug Cramer had a smart idea.

About that time,

Doug Cramer partnered with Aaron Spelling,

because he was in the business of creating this kind of magic.

[Colucci] Aaron Spelling was the darling of ABC.

Well, I think Aaron Spelling understood

what the audience wanted,

even at a time if network executives didn't.

He had seven hours of primetime television.

[Colucci] Including Charlie's Angels

and Starsky and Hutch.

And in fact, ABC was nicknamed around town,

around Hollywood, Aaron's Broadcasting Company.

You know, it makes sense.

A for Aaron, B for Broadcasting,

C for...

Broadcasting Company.

So, Aaron and Doug made a second Love Boat pilot.

This time just called so inventively The Love Boat II,

the Roman numeral 2.

And while we're at it, let's see

if we can get the casting right this time.

The second pilot, Ted Lange,

Bernie Kopell and I were in it.

They decide to do a cruise

on the Pacific Princess,

on a real cruise ship, on a real cruise.

One of the most beloved things from the second pilot

is the very first note you hear,

that foghorn leading into the theme song.

♪ Love, exciting and new ♪

Just about anyone you talk to of a certain age or older...

♪ Come aboard, we will welcome you ♪

...knows the song more than they know the show.

♪ Love Boat ♪

♪ Soon will be making another run ♪

That theme song was unique.

It was what drew you into the show.

That was the best thing from the second pilot.

So, the second pilot,

the guy playing the captain was having some difficulty.

Quinn Redeker was a good actor,

but he was a very serious actor,

and the captain had to have a little humor.

And I think that was one of the problems.

He didn't feel comfortable with comedy.

[Grandy] There was a different cruise director.

The girl wasn't working,

and the network looked at that and went,

"Eh, I don't think so."

And the second pilot didn't go.

Here's the problem. ABC gets the pilot again,

and they air it, and it's just not quite right.

So they didn't go ahead with the show.

And Doug Cramer was dejected.

He was standing outside

ABC President Brandon Stoddard's office,

really close to tears,

because this project meant so much to him.

And Aaron Spelling saw that.

And so, Aaron walked into ABC and said,

"As the key producer at ABC,

give us a third chance."

Almost unheard of.

And so they gave Aaron and Doug a last chance.

"Get it right this time."

The network never does three pilots.

I don't know of any other show

that had that many chances at failure.

Normally, if you make a pilot, it doesn't go,

you're out of the sketch, it's over.

So we did a third one,

and we took another shot at casting it.

We just couldn't seem to get it right.

They agreed that Bernie Kopell was good as the doctor.

You're the doctor.

And I'll be back with your prescription.

Bernie was known around town.

He'd been on shows like Get Smart

and The Doris Day Show,

Bewitched and others.

So Bernie Kopell, who played the doctor,

one of the great characters, one of my favorite shows.

That Fred Grandy was a great find as Gopher.

Going a little heavy on the cologne, aren't you?

No, just gave myself the usual dab.

With what, a mop?

I guess Gopher was a comic foil

for the most part,

and dreamed of being sweetly dangerous

among the women and never was.

I usually got all the animals, you know,

like the chimps and the dogs, and a snake once.

Ted Lange was wonderful as Isaac.

-Hi, I'm Alan Bundy. -Hi, I'm Isaac Washington.

He didn't have to audition for the show.

Apparently, he just went into Doug Cramer's office

and answered a question about being seasick.

He asked me if I got sick, I said, "no."

-And then got a big contract. -And he said, "That's it."

I, on the other hand,

had nine or ten auditions,

and had to provide proof of citizenship and a urine test.

You just need a captain and a cruise director.

And so, the search was on.

[dynamic melody playing]

Aaron Spelling, who had

all the muscle in the world,

said, Mary Tyler Moore is over.

I'm going to go to Gavin MacLeod and offer him this show.

My agent called and said,

Aaron Spelling wants you to do

this thing called The Love Boat.

He says, "I think it sucks, but do you want to read it?"

I said, "sure."

So, I invited Gavin to my house and talked to him.

Aaron said, "Okay, they're going to have big stars."

I said, "wow."

And these five regulars? "Wow."

And the captain? "Double wow."

He said, "I'm yours."

[upbeat music playing]

Gavin McLeod? That's brilliant casting.

But that's why Aaron is so good at what he does.

And Gavin McLeod is perfect.

Gavin was always so fabulous,

and such a great state of mind.

I mean, he was just up all the time.

The character of Julie McCoy was

the bête noire for the casting people,

and they couldn't get the right actress.

Candy Spelling, Aaron's wife,

takes credit for saying to Aaron,

"What about that girl who was in that Starsky and Hutch

and that Charlie's Angels that you made?"

Because Lauren Tewes had indeed done an episode

of Charlie's Angels and of Starsky and Hutch.

And so, they called in 22-year-old Lauren Tewes.

Now, she was a really struggling actress.

She was driving on a flat tire,

and had a blowout the night before.

She was really on her last dime as a struggling actress.

And she got the part.

But it was out of desperation, it was down to the wire.

She got the part because they were literally shooting

the next day.

[Ted Lange] Literally the day before.

The day before we go to shoot.

[Colucci] And I think she had to borrow money to fix the tire

on her car to get herself to the Queen Mary in Long Beach,

where the show would start shooting that third pilot

the very next morning.

I'm Julie McCoy, your cruise director,

also your girl Friday,

and your all-around chief cook and bottle washer.

Everybody was so surprised

that we were even making a third pilot.

And Gavin did like this, "We'll run for ten years."

Man, oh man, this guy's delusional.

When the third Love Boat pilot aired as a TV movie...

...it had enormous ratings.

It was undeniable that this was a concept

that people wanted to watch.

For some reason,

the mix of the five of us gelled.

And so, it finally got the green light to go to series.

[bright melody playing]

So we gave them 13 episodes.

[Colucci] It must have been a huge relief

to Doug Cramer and Aaron Spelling,

after they put their necks on the line

to get three pilots made.

And so, it went right into production.

At that time, there was no real show

dedicated to romance.

[Lange] You had these young, hot girls,

young, hot guys, going on a cruise,

falling in love.

And for some reason, that hit a nerve.

And so, we put that on the air at the end of Saturday night.

But back then, Saturday was actually

a hot night of television.

That meant that the hottest shows were on,

which was things like The Bob Newhart Show

and The Carol Burnett Show.

And in fact, The Love Boat

gets scheduled on Saturdays.

It's going up against The Carol Burnett show.

Everybody was in a panic.

I mean, nobody looked at ABC on Saturday night.

Everybody thought, "Well, all right,

this is going to be a show, goes for a bit, dies."

It was a paycheck.

You know, the people who resented it the most

were the television critics across the country,

they hated these shows.

"It's-- it'll sink like the Titanic."

-"Down like the Titanic." -Sink like the Titanic.

[Grandy] "It's banal

and trite and stupid.

And if it weren't for Aaron Spelling,

it would be in a watery grave."

The show was never going to be a critical hit.

And we understood this.

But it was instantaneously a popular hit.

And believe me, in this business,

if you have to choose one, you choose the popular hit.

We began, I believe, in 1977.

At that time, television was mostly

situation comedies and evening dramas.

It was just so silly.

Three different stories playing,

and almost everybody who left the ship

at the end of the cruise was engaged.

You are definitely invited to the wedding.

Wedding?

Everyone's problems could be wrapped up

within the space of an episode.

-Well, Isaac. Gopher. -Hi. Walter.

Thank you for a very inventive cruise.

You're welcome.

And so, that was a whole new way

of doing a TV show.

The Love Boat started something new.

Each episode would consist

of three, or four sometimes, stories.

There were three writing teams that would write

the three different storylines per episode.

So, each of those writers were really able to concentrate

on their own little one-act play.

There would be one melodramatic story.

Sally, wait a minute. Sally, you don't understand.

Oh, believe me, I understand.

There would be a romantic comedy story.

You're the one who interests me.

Why don't we go back to my cabin

and discuss it over a drink?

And then there would be a slapstick comedy story.

[audience laughing]

That combination

of romance and escapism

was absolutely unique.

I really thought that boat was real.

I thought it was amazing.

The Love Boat is a fantasy set

on what people think a cruise ship was like

in the 1970s and 1980s.

Now, you have to remember that cruising,

after World War II, was totally out of fashion.

At the time, the cruise industry was dying.

Then they started saying, "Okay, now we're going to film

an entire episode on a real ship,

on a cruise to Mexico."

As far as shooting on a ship,

there were always conditions

that we had to deal with.

To actually shoot on a cruise ship

the first time is a daunting challenge.

We ran into some problems

that we could not have anticipated.

The real passengers on the ship

were not particularly delighted

to have large camera cables and lights

and people disrupting their vacation.

The ceilings of these ships were very low.

The lights were so close to the ceiling,

they set off the sprinkler system.

[laughs] So, you know...

the flaming baked Alaska parade was drowned out.

We had one cruise

from San Francisco up to Alaska, and we hit...

a tremendous gale.

And the ship was listing like this.

They were putting out barf bags in the lobby,

because everybody was sick.

It was undeniable

that this was a concept that people wanted to watch.

So that meant, "Okay, now we have to make

26 episodes of this every year."

The Love Boat became this machine

that devoured guest stars.

Make way for the star of my son's show.

Mom!

If you were anybody in the 1970s,

you wanted to be a guest star on The Love Boat.

They were the first show

to not only have guest stars on the show,

but have guest stars clamoring to be on the show.

It was fun to go down to the set

and say, "Who's shooting today?"

"Oh my God, I turn around and I'm in a scene

with Ginger Rogers, and we're dancing."

-Vincent Price. -Richard Roundtree.

-Florence Henderson. -Alan Thicke.

-Joan Fontaine. -John Ritter.

-Eva Marie Saint. -Mark Harmon.

-Milton Berle. -Craig Stevens.

-Ernest Borgnine. -Colleen Dewhurst.

-Ray Milland. -Shirley Jones.

Cesar Romero.

Betty White, oh my God. Betty White.

-Bob Guillaume. -Olivia de Havilland.

-Debbie Reynolds. -Hayley Mills, Elizabeth Ashley.

-Charo. -Koochi, koochi, koochi!

One smart cookie.

Peter Graves.

Don Ameche came on the show.

There were just so many fun guest casts every week.

Part of the fun of The Love Boat

was seeing who was going to show up.

That's part of why we tuned in

Saturday nights at nine o'clock.

It was a lifetime of show business

compressed into eight or nine seasons of television.

We'd get casting lists,

suggestions from Doug Cramer or Aaron Spelling.

We would have to tell them which ones were still living.

Aaron Spelling said early on,

"We're going to honor old stars."

[Colucci] Aaron Spelling and Doug Cramer

were just fans of old movies.

And so, they were excited to get to bring

some of these people back for a victory lap.

And for some of these people, it would end up

being the last thing they ever did.

You know what else was good about working with old timers?

Is their professionalism.

Greer Garson.

Big MGM movie star, came on the set.

She knew everybody's name.

She knew the cameraman's name.

You know, I mean, that's old school.

You know, somebody like Ray Bolger does the show.

He comes not just to do his role,

but he's got all of these stories to tell.

Have yourself a wonderful cruise.

I'm sure I will, I'm sure I will.

It was really one of those things

where you just have to pinch yourself,

where you're sitting between Lana Turner and Ann Baxter,

and you don't know which way to turn,

because they had such great stories.

[Colucci] Now, Lana was, at that point,

a little bit frail.

She plays this woman who meets Stewart Granger,

who is managing the musical group Menudo,

-including Ricky Martin. -Oh, I love soccer.

The young men can't play, Mrs. Raley.

She's like, "Let me show you some moves!"

Well, let's go, boys, I'll show you how it's done.

Come on, I'll teach you.

And she's, like, kicking the soccer ball.

She can barely walk at this point in real life,

but it's this old white lady kicking a soccer ball

to this Latin group of boys,

and they were like, "Wow, you're really good."

So Lana Turner taught Menudo

everything they needed to know about soccer,

that's believable.

[ship horn blowing]

The Love Boat very carefully made sure

there was something for everybody.

If you had Betty White in an episode

that was appealing to an older audience,

you had Scott Baio, that was appealing to the teenagers.

And you would find Tom Hanks,

or Courteney Cox,

or Michael J. Fox, or Kathy Bates,

or Jamie Lee Curtis,

playing alongside Luise Rainer.

And you'd get to see the only time

these people would probably ever get to share a screen together.

Lauren Tewes, on a break, went up

to Ruth Gordon and said, "Miss Gordon, I'm such a fan.

I loved you in Harold and Maude,

but I have to ask, why are you doing this?

Is it for the visibility?

Is it for-- to get a new set of fans?"

And Ruth Gordon's answer was, [bleep] the visibility,

I need new drapes.

[producer laughing]

So, sometimes the actors were doing it

for a very mundane reason, the paycheck.

And the paychecks were good on The Love Boat.

What do you remember most about the show?

What did you love most about it?

The money was so great.

I tell you, I got so rich doing that show.

Sometimes in order to get a big star on the show,

Aaron had to be very generous.

There might have been some bribes

strung in there along the way.

Jackie Smith from Charlie's Angels,

She didn't want to do our show.

And so, Aaron says, "What's your favorite car?"

She said "Jaguar, green."

She got a Jaguar, green.

I don't feel somehow deprived

because Aaron never bought me a car.

All he did was fly me around the world first-class.

One of the things about The Love Boat,

where there was a little bit of a slush fund,

was when it came to wardrobe.

[soft piano playing]

And it was really a training ground

for Aaron and Doug's later show, Dynasty.

When there would be a big star coming on board,

money was no object.

Aaron would be like, "Make it work.

We'll figure out how to pay for it."

We were known as a company that used guest stars

and took care of guest stars.

We sent a limo to pick them up.

They had a dressing room with red carpet.

But they appreciated the treatment.

Word got out, and word got out that if you do this show,

it will bring you visibility with a whole new audience.

It may help boost your comeback that you're looking to do.

It also will certainly be a great experience.

They will treat you well, everything is first class.

It's first class hair and makeup,

it's first class wardrobe.

They have all the tricks of the trade,

the wigs, the tape, anything you need

to make you look your absolute best.

So that was really a lure

for a lot of old Hollywood.

That was part of the selling point of the show,

everybody was glamorous.

You knew you were going to look great

and be dressed well.

The attitude was gratitude on that show.

And it really began

to spread the reputation for the show.

I mean, there were always certain actors,

"So I'm not going to do Love Boat, that's beneath me,"

but very few.

They also realized that the stories they were doing

were not Shakespeare.

And the crew's stories would be silly.

And they were okay with it.

I love you, Coral, but I have to let you go.

[somber piano music]

[echoing] Alan! I love you!

[ship horn blowing]

[The Love Boat theme song playing]

The Love Boat had kind of the air

of an MGM musical to it.

And they said,

"Why don't we actually do a musical?"

"The Follies" is the ultimate Love Boat episode.

They got Hollywood and Broadway royalty

to act out this show.

It features

Della Reese, Ethel Merman,

Carol Channing, Ann Miller,

Van Johnson, Cab Calloway.

That's six legends from Broadway and from Hollywood,

still able to be at the top of their game.

[Kim Friedman] They would rehearse musical numbers

like we were doing a Broadway show.

And I said, "Well, you know, we can leave it.

They said, "No, we want to do it again,

and again, and again."

They were perfectionists.

The one who can sit the longest

without moving wins.

They said Ethel Merman was kind of near the end of her life

and would sit and slump over in the director's chair.

But when they called action, it was, you know, curtain up!

I mean, Ethel Merman played my mother.

I sang "You're the Top" with her.

Who's going to get to do that?

♪ But if, baby, I'm the bottom ♪

♪ You're the top ♪

[audience applauding]

They were incredible to work with.

They got it.

They knew what they were there for.

They were in on the joke.

It is an amazing episode to watch.

[audience applauding]

The show was always looking

for more and more high-profile guest stars,

particularly in the 9th season,

when the show was suffering a ratings decline.

And Doug Cramer, he had this idea,

let's have Andy Warhol on as a guest star.

-Hello, I'm... -...Andy Warhol.

Maybe my favorite guest star we had on the show

was Andy Warhol.

And of course, he was a legend by then.

I've read all about you.

Andy was a character.

Very shy, very, very shy.

Andy was extremely shy.

And people were afraid of him, intimidated.

But one of the reasons he was shy

is he was intimidated, by the cameras

and by the process of television.

He was so nervous, he couldn't speak.

The moment they would yell "action,"

he would lose his voice and clam up.

And he was shaking, he was terribly nervous.

Hi, Marina.

[audience laughing]

So, we had another actor

play his assistant.

And gave him most of Andy's lines...

[William Bickley] ...who would speak for Andy.

If you don't mind, please.

So that Andy could just stand there

and croak out maybe a thank you and nod.

-Thanks. -[audience laughing]

So they have Andy Warhol, but barely saying anything

because he was so nervous, which is very endearing.

Hi.

Rachel Johnson, reporting for her first cruise.

I certainly hope it won't be your last.

Are you trying to tell me the captain is a rotten driver?

A story that I keep thinking about,

because of the political climate we live in these days,

was an episode in which Mackenzie Phillips

came on the ship.

And she had been an old college pal

of Gopher's when she was a man.

Oh, that's funny, I had a roommate

my freshman year named Ray Johnson.

I mean, you are Ray's sister, right?

Gopher, I am Ray.

I'm your old college roommate, Ray Johnson.

So she had had

a profound sex change operation

and was now a woman.

Well, it's obvious that I'm embarrassing you.

-No, I'm not embarrassed. -Oh, no?

Well, then how can you keep looking around

to see if anyone can overhear our conversation?

I'm not doing that.

I really thought I could hang on to some of my old friends.

You proved me wrong, though.

You're doing a show about that on The Love Boat?

We were good friends in college, we had a lot of laughs together.

Now, why shouldn't I like you, just because you're...

just because you're a woman.

That was the beauty of our show.

We could tackle anything

and get a message over about compassion

and empathy and tolerance.

All of that was in our show.

-Okay, you can come out now. -Are you traveling alone?

Oh, I'm with my partner, I'm in men's clothing.

Oh, I certainly hope so.

Otherwise, I'd be very embarrassed.

It was, I think to some degree,

very forward-looking and very unlike what we did...

I'm very lucky to have a friend like you.

No, I'm the lucky one.

...but it was handled with respect and grace.

[Gopher] Passengers taking the Puerto Vallarta tour,

please report to the desk in the purser's lobby

at 11:00 a.m., hey, that's 11 a.m.,

and this is Burl "the Pearl" Smith saying

"Thanks for listening."

The third season, they began to say,

"Why not the world?

Why don't we go to Australia?

Why don't we go to Greece and the Mediterranean?

Why don't we go to England,

and Norway, and Copenhagen, and places like that?

And eventually, why don't we become

the first show to ever go to China?"

[Colucci] And for a lot of us

who didn't have the means to travel,

or a lot of Americans at that time

didn't have passports,

this was introducing new parts of the world

to our living rooms every week

from the comfort of our easy chairs.

They took you around the world

to these beautiful places.

[Bickley] Whenever we were shooting overseas,

you would have thought they were the Beatles or something.

There were huge crowds of fans,

and we were treated like royalty, by the way.

All those years traveling all over the world,

first-class, and all we had to do

was know our lines and hit our marks.

When there was travel involved,

it was first-class to a whole other level.

Not only are you going to go on a real cruise,

you get to bring your family.

Not only you get to bring your family,

you all fly first class.

You'll go places where American tourists

don't normally get to go, because the show has such clout.

And so, when you go to China,

you'll go to the Forbidden City.

When you go to Egypt,

you'll get a private tour of the pyramids.

[Grandy] I think one of the things that bonded us together

is we all traveled together,

and that was true of the guest stars too.

Many of them that went with us have very fond memories.

We got to go through the Panama Canal.

I mean, come on, how can you say no to that?

[Colucci] But also, you would be shooting

maybe one or two days out of the seven-day cruise.

The rest of the time was yours, and it was all expenses paid.

It was so much fun on this magnificent ship.

It was something they didn't want to turn down.

[upbeat disco music playing]

The thing about the '70s and '80s

that you have to keep in mind now

is that it was a party time.

It was great fun, because they'd shoot all day,

and then we'd all party at night.

[Grandy] "Was there drinking on the ship?"

Yes, people go on these ships to drink,

and that's true to this day.

We'd party together, we'd get drunk together,

we'd have dinner together,

you'd think we'd get tired of each other.

There was a party atmosphere in many cases,

particularly, you know, when you had

all of these high-priced players working together.

It was actors, it would be writers or producers,

people across the board

just letting loose, it's letting your hair down.

There was a disco on every ship,

and that was usually filled at night,

and there was a casino.

As Fred liked to say, "Our relationship lasted longer

than our first marriages,"

which is true.

Let's face it, I mean, this is a business

where a lot of people use controlled substances

in one way, shape, or form.

[serious tone playing]

Lauren Tewes, she really made headlines

when she was fired from The Love Boat ostensibly

for having a drug problem.

For me, it was an issue with cocaine

when it was a popular drug,

but if you ask anybody, I was the only one doing it.

In all of Hollywood, it was just me.

[Friedman] Lauren Tewes was ridiculously let go.

Everybody was doing drugs, every actor, every crew member.

A lot of men were caught at the time

and didn't get fired.

They got suspended, they got reprimanded.

It was bad.

It was a different time.

I was a woman, so I was blacklisted for that.

In those days...

if you did that kind of thing, you were punished.

You didn't get help.

I really wanted somebody to say,

"You need help, can we help you?"

Unfortunately, by the time she made headlines

for having a drug problem, she actually was in recovery.

But also, she was playing this goody-two-shoes,

The Love Boat character, you know,

so I guess maybe they were worried about the brand,

but it wasn't right, you know?

My one regret about her situation

was that I never really

came forward and defended and supported her

in a way that we should have, so...

there is some regret there,

at least as far as I'm concerned.

Fans loved Julie McCoy.

It's Julie, it's Julie!

Sylvia!

The pressure was there to bring back Julie,

and so, she did come back.

She was so untimely thrust

into this very highly visible role

on this phenomenally successful show.

Much was expected of her.

There was a lot of fussing about her hair

and the size of her breasts.

We were there at 10 o'clock at night,

cutting her hair, changing the color,

working her over, redoing her.

And that can be

terrifying for a young woman.

I'm proud now to have been a part of it,

and I'm glad to be part of American history

and American television.

Any show, as it goes on through the years,

starts to show its age.

The formula wears thin.

The fluff element of The Love Boat

wasn't necessarily going to play

to young audiences who wanted younger and hipper.

And so, just as The Love Boat

had reinvented TV in its own way,

and now a new generation was coming.

And so, they needed to do things

in the later days of The Love Boat to spice it up

and to bring in particularly younger viewers.

They brought in Ted McGinley, a very successful change.

[both] Ace!

Incredibly good-looking guy,

tall, muscular, blond.

He was just like, oh, come on, this is not a real human.

On screen and off, just heart-stopping good looks.

Is there an imperfection that you see

when you look in the mirror?

A couple little things that bug me.

You know, they tried to do things

to revive

the thing that they had at the opening.

But you can't do that.

Aaron thought it was saveable.

And we had a meeting at his house.

His very expensive house.

And listened to him pitch the idea

that he thought would save The Love Boat.

"We're going to add girls, like the Ziegfeld Follies."

[Bickley] Not gross sex.

Sexy, but not gross sex.

Ziegfeld Follies, that is not a young, hip idea.

That is like the oldest, creakiest idea

you could possibly think of.

So that was Aaron's contribution.

So, they brought in The Love Boat mermaids.

Amy.

[in chorus] Dance!

[in chorus] Dance!

[audience applauding]

At one point, they tried to bring a dog on.

We had a dog, that little, white, husky dog.

-What's her name? -Tundra.

That's because she reminds us of Alaska.

And her nose is cold, too.

Sadly, the dog was not a good actor.

[whimpering]

We needed, what--

We needed another dog story to add to the other three?

No. [laughs]

By the time Love Boat

really found its audience,

there was an entire new industry that was created.

[Colucci] Now, at the time, there were very few ships

sailing the oceans, because it was viewed

as old-fashioned to take a cruise.

The Love Boat completely flipped that.

And so, cruises exploded in popularity.

The show was wonderful for the cruise industry.

Princess Cruises are still reaping the reward.

Every cruise line still is reaping the reward

of the Love Boat being on the air.

If you look at the statistics of how many people

took cruises pre-Love Boat and post-Love Boat,

it was a game-changer.

Princess Cruises, which I think had

reluctantly taken on

the sponsorship of this show, I think realized,

this is the most successful product placement experiment

in the history of media.

It was essentially a weekly commercial

for 10 or 11 years for the cruise industry in general,

and Princess Cruises in particular.

Because of that, Princess, which had two small ships,

now I think Princess has 18 ships.

And today, these ships accommodate

between 3,500 and 4,000 passengers.

And the Pacific Princess that we were on

could fit inside these ships.

[heartfelt piano playing]

By the end of the ninth season, Fred Grandy had already decided

in season nine that he wanted to leave the show.

[audience applauding]

This has been a great run for me.

Nine years on Love Boat.

I've had everything that I ever wanted

out of a television show.

He also didn't see his future in showbiz.

As he said, "I was now like the fifth banana on a series,

so what was the future for me?

I wanted to try to get a show

where I could be the fourth banana?"

It ran out of gas.

TV has a shelf life.

After losing Julie and seeing ratings drop,

they were now going to lose Gopher

and see ratings drop,

and so, ABC finally pulled the plug

on The Love Boat after season nine.

I really shut down when it was over.

Anyway, that's show business, so what do you do?

You just go, you just roll with it.

And you think that it's going to go on forever.

The Love Boat, which was predicted to sink

like the Titanic by every television critic,

went on to do nine years and six weeks.

It lasted a long time,

and had enormous ratings.

It was a phenomenon

that I don't think any of us saw coming.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to the Captain's Farewell Party.

This is our last night on board

before we arrive in Los Angeles tomorrow,

and I hope you all had a wonderful cruise.

[audience applauding]

I think there is...

a kind of bittersweet nostalgia for the show

for a lot of people that say,

"Oh, I remember the world then,

and I remember The Love Boat then,

and it's too bad it's not like that anymore,

but at least we still have this."

Just the phrase, The Love Boat, the opening bars of the song,

it brings us all back to that same place.

You feel like you could practically smell the salt air.

A lot of the people that are now

quite well-known in the business, for example,

Mindy Kaling and Tina Fey,

and people who I've worked for on their shows,

grew up with The Love Boat.

It wasn't too trite or banal for them.

It was a Saturday night experience,

and that's why I think the show now has

at least three generations of followers.

And I still am very grateful for that,

because it changed everything in my life.

It gave me a bank account.

And it also,

and this is something about The Love Boat

that unfortunately,

I think is unique,

is it makes you feel good,

and there just aren't that many shows that do that anymore.

♪ You're the sail on my love boat ♪

♪ You're the captain and crew ♪

♪ I'd be lost without you ♪

[ship horn blowing]

[jazz melody playing]