Love, American Style Season 1 Volume 1 DVD Review
Posted by Ryan Byers on 11.30.2007
Performances from Phylis Diller, Regis Philbin, Harrison Ford, Sid Caesar and many more stars highlight the first twelve episodes of this classic television series recently released on DVD.
Love, American Style made its debut on American television in 1969, airing on ABC. The series adopted an anthology format and featured between two and four skits every week, with each skit exploring some aspect of romance in late 1960's/early 1970's society. The series, which featured an impressive list of television stars in guest appearances, was successful enough to run for five seasons with its format remaining virtually unchanged.
Now, almost thirty years after the series first began airing, its run on DVD has begun. Rather than putting out the entire first reason, the fine folks at Paramount Home Entertainment have selected twelve of the first reason's episodes and put them out on three discs, referring to it as "Season 1, Volume 1." For some reason, the episodes are not shown on the discs in sequence, and the episodes chosen for Volume 1 are not simply the first twelve of the season. A few episodes are completely missing, and a few are moved up from later in the season. I've dug around online to try and find an explanation for this, though none has been forthcoming. Regardless of the reasoning, the set promises to provide a look at both a style of humor and a format of television show that is no longer in wide use, so I'm interested in seeing how things come off.
Episodes
(Note: I am reviewing these episodes in the order in which they appear on the discs, and the episode numbers given correspond to those provided on the DVD packaging.)
Episode 1
Love and a Couple of Couples: We kick off the series with the tale of a divorced gentleman who is preparing a romantic dinner for his new girlfriend, at the end of which he plans to propose. His prep work is interrupted, however, by his ex-wife. She invents a cockamamy story about dropping by the apartment to see their bed, which the hubby got in the split. He tires his hardest to shoo his ex out the door, but when the new girl's engagement ring gets stuck on her finger, she's forced to hang around. Lo and behold, the soon-to-be fiancee (played by 1960's Batgirl Yvonne Craig) arrives, and she is none too happy with the scenario. As you might expect, there's a blowup, and the former spouses wind up reuniting by episode's end. This was a very good skit with which to begin the series, as it clearly displayed what the show was all about, namely witty comedic writing that brings to light very real attitudes towards romance and sex. There was also some high quality slapstick-style humor sprinkled throughout the show.
Love and the Hustler: Flip Wilson's character makes his living by betting on pool games, and he's got a particularly important one this evening. He picks up an attractive young lady on the hall, and, somewhat predictably, she winds up being his opponent. She beats him soundly, but a side bet leads to the new happy couple going out on a date. Granted, the show is from a different era, but I felt a little uncomfortable watching the skit as the portrayal of the African American characters was a bit on the stereotypical side.
Love and the Pill: It's the 1960's, so let's hit on a hot topic . . . BIRTH CONTROL PILLS~! A married couple is worried about their teenage daughter getting knocked up on her upcoming trip to Europe, so they call the girl's beau over and attempt to get him to slip the pills in to her drink every morning of the vacation. Fortunately, the youngster recognizes the medication and refuses to use it, assuring the couple that he has not been intimate with their daughter and will not be at any point in the near future. This skit highlighted something that I feel is lacking from television in the twenty-first century, namely sticoms that are able to discuss important current events while still managing to bring the funny. Nowadays, it seems as though everything has to be hilarious for the sake of being hilarious, and it deprives the current generation of comedies that are an accurate depiction of everyday life. (Which, in my experience, are generally the funniest.)
Episode 2
Love and the Living Doll: Here's something that I'm surprised got past standards and practices almost forty years ago. Comedian Arte Johnson plays the role of a man who is attempting to woo the girl who lives down the hall in his apartment building. When she labels him as being a bit too eager to please, he decides that he'll play hard to get. To do this, he lets the girl of his dreams know that he's got a hot date lined up for this weekend and then (stick with me here) buys a blow up doll. I'm not kidding. He dresses up the doll and cooks dinner for it, all the while making sure that the real target of his affections can view the goings on from her window. However, when she gets jealous and decides to intervene, he pops the doll, creating a wacky misunderstanding in which he's almost arrested for murder.
Love and the Letter: An Italian immigrant falls in love with his night school teacher, who is attempting to perfect his English. He turns a letter writing assignment in to a missive about his undying affection for the American tutor, but he gets frustrated and walks out on the class when she's more concerned with critiquing his grammar than she is getting at the deeper messages. Of course, everything is resolved by the end of the episode. The real highlight, though, is the classroom full of immigrants of varying ethnicities. All of them were such over the top caricatures that I couldn't help but laugh. This was especially true when we learned that our protagonist's career was "pizza maker" and that, for this job, he dressed as though he was an extra from Lady and the Tramp's most memorable scene. Is that a double standard given what I said previously about "Love and the Hustler?" Probably.
Love and the Joker: Larry Storch works at a greeting card company, as does his lover. She grows frustrated with his quirks, which include a propensity for perpetual practical joking. We're treated to many shots of him attempting to get one over on her, with a few of the "jokes" being outright meanspirited. Though everything was supposed to be fine in the end given that the closing shot was Storch's ladyfriend getting a bit of revenge, by that point I had grown so tired of his antics that I had a hard time liking the characters and therefore the story as a whole.
Love and the Unlikely Couple: Here's another tale of parents attempting to get involved in a child's love life, although this time around the child is very much an adult. He brings home his new girlfriend, and the folks worry that their son has become the male version of a gold digger, only after the woman for her money. Ultimately this misunderstanding is cleared up in a rather unmemorable fashion.
Episode 3
Love and the Phone Booth: We've only got two skits this episode, so they both get plenty of time to play out. The first is the story of a small town boy who winds up dateless in the big city. His friend gets him to call a number that they find on a phone booth wall, and, though the girl on the other end is at first appalled by the "pervert" who has reached out to her, they ultimately wind up talking for hours and set up a date. More mixed signals on the date itself result in the woman believing once again that our simple country boy is out for nothing but the satisfaction of his basest instincts. As you can imagine, they wind up happy together by episode's end. This was a cute story overall, but, by the climax, there had been so many comical misunderstandings that the realism of the situation was strained, even by the low standards of sitcoms.
Love and the Doorknob: If you like physical comedy and sight gags, this is the skit for you. An offhand comment between two honeymooners results in the groom feeling insecure about the size of his mouth, so he sees if he can fit it around a doorknob in the hotel. Of course, it gets stuck, and it remains there for the majority of the episode. There's not much of an exploration of romantic issues here, but it does provide a few comical moments.
Episode 4
Love and the Legal Agreement: This is the story of an unconventional separation, as a couple decides that they're going to split up but continue living together in a platonic manner. As one can imagine, this presents some issues for them, especially when both of them wind up having dates with other people on the same night. And, of course, they get back together. In terms of the basic plot, this was almost a direct copy of "Love and a Couple of Couples," although the strong performances were enough to differentiate it and make it worth viewing in its own right.
Love and the Militant: A college student winds up holding the university president and his secretary hostage with a supposed vial of explosives, all because he wants the secretary to take notice of him. Shockingly, she does not immediately fall in love with him. The portrayal of the black characters here once again made me feel a bit uncomfortable, although the skit's final gag involving the mother of the "militant" provided me with my biggest laugh of the season up to this point.
Love and Who?: A typo in an early draft of this review listed this skit as "Love and The Who," which would have been an entirely different episode, albeit an interesting one. Instead of Pete Townsend, we get Sid Caesar, who wakes up in a Las Vegas hotel room after a wild party that began in California. He also finds various female garments strewn across the room, leading him to believe that he's cheated on his wife . . . with a woman whom he remembers nothing about. Ultimately the big reveal is that the mystery woman was his wife all along, as the two decided in a drunken haze to run off and renew their vows. Caesar is a veritable comedic legend, and this was essentially him doing a one man show. He was absolutely brilliant, particularly in going back and forth between the fear of having potentially harmed his marriage and the joy that many men would feel after a one night stand, regardless of the circumstances.
Episode 5
Love and the Modern Wife: A young woman takes a night course on how to make marriages work. This begins to annoy her husband, particularly when she becomes convinced that all men cheat on their wives. She attempts to be "modern" and accept his assumed indiscretions, but all he wants her to do is realize that he's never done anything to accept. This results in a fight, and he hits the road, having decided that he may as well give her something to worry about. Of course, he can't bring himself to do it, and he winds up reuniting with his spouse by the end of the skit. You could see the finish of this one coming a mile away, but there was really nothing wrong with how they got there.
Love and the Phonies: This is one of the quicker skits of the series, featuring classic comedians Phyllis Diller and Richard Deacon complaining about the airs that their friends put on, all the while revealing that they are also not everything they seem to be. A worthwhile five minutes of entertainment.
Love and the Single Couple: A college-aged couple sharing an apartment out of wedlock has their evening disrupted when the young lady's parents burst on to the scene, having learned that their daughter is living in sin. The older pair attempts to convince the youngsters that they should tie the knot, but the daughter is staunchly opposed to the institution, feeling that it forces people to love each other instead of allowing that emotion to flow organically. She's outraged at her folks, and she also spews venom at her beau when it appears that he is siding with the older generation. Little does she know that he's had his "change of heart" because he actually had the two of them married months earlier in a Spanish language ceremony that she did not realize was occurring. He notes that, because marriage hasn't changed him, it probably won't change her either. This skit initially came off as relatively forward-thinking, as it portrayed an unmarried couple living together in a positive light. However, by the end, it had done a complete 180 and gave us the age-old line about married life being the "right" way to do things. Oh well, I guess we were still a few decades away from the twenty-first century at this point.
Episode 11
Love and the Dating Computer: Now THIS is hilarious and probably my favorite vignette of the season thusfar. A man named Marion goes to a computer dating service and is set up with a woman named Francis. When "she" arrives for their date later that evening, Marion is shocked to discover that Francis is actually a man. Francis isn't too happy about the situation either. Because neither of them have anything better to do that night, they wind up spending the evening together exactly as they had planned. This highlighted some of the bizarre parallels between dating and our platonic relationships with non-romantic friends, and each man had some great reactions when that line started to get a little too blurry for his own comfort.
Love and the Busy Husband: This is the fairly basic story of a man whose work life has overcome his personal life to the point that, when he arrives home form work one day, he has a twenty minute conversation with his wife despite the fact that she's been rushed to the hospital. When she returns, he vows to pay more attention to her. This was another example of the show taking a somewhat hackneyed plot but executing it well although not really turning it in to anything spectacular.
Love and the Watchdog: After a rash of crime in their neighborhood, a husband is dead set on moving his wife to a nicer area. She doesn't want to leave because of a sentimental attachment to the apartment and decides that a better course of action would be obtaining a guard dog. A guard lhasa apso to be specific. Unfortunately, the dog's hay fever and weak bladder make it more of a burden than a benefit, and hubby determines that the canine must go. A local nogoodnik agrees with this assessment, as he kidnaps the dog and holds it for ransom. The lovers grow closer through their quest to regain the pup, though they do wind up stuck on a train to Philadelphia.
Episode 7
Love and Take Me Along: Television legends Ozzie and Harriet Nelson put in an appearance on Love, American Style with Ozzie playing a reverend and Harriet playing his wife. Ozzie is headed out of down on a plane, and he runs in to a young lady who is despondent because she can't afford a plane ticket to go see her brother, who is visiting from out of the country. He hatches a decidedly un-reverendly scheme in which she will pose as his wife so that she can receive a reduced fare. Unfortunately, the flight is cancelled due to snow, and the airline puts the two up in a hotel room together. Needless to say, this makes them both highly uncomfortable, and things go from bad to worse when Harriet shows up. Everything does get explained in due time. It was great to see a couple of icons from televisions past in new roles, and that made the skit more than worth watching.
Love and the Advice-Givers: A man and a woman are having difficulty in their marriage, which is hard for me to imagine since the woman is Tina Louise. (Yes, Ginger of Gilligan's Island fame.) The gentleman's friend tells him that he needs to be more assertive to fix the relationship, while the lady's friend tells her that she needs to be more submissive. The result is an epic blowup at the skit's end, in which the husband attempts to do everything in his power to spark a relationship-ending fight only to have his wife agree with him at every turn. Naturally, by the end of the episode, everything is fine. The build up to the final scene was a little dull, but, once they got there, it was great.
Love and the Geisha: Red Buttons plays an avid sports fan whose wife leaves him because he spends too much time glued to the television. While she's gone, a Japanese woman who he had a fling with while fighting in World War II shows up, and ole' Red neglects to mention that he's been married since the last time that they saw each other. Eventually the wife does show up, and, unfortunately for our male character, the women come to realize his faults and double team the poor guy.
Episode 13
Love and the Burglar: A down on his luck British immigrant resorts to a life of crime, and, surprisingly enough, he winds up breaking in to the home of another U.K. import. He slowly but surely discovers that she has nothing of monetary value worth stealing, though he does manage to steal her heart. (I'm terribly sorry for the lame pun.) When the police show up to apprehend him, the young lady protects her would be assailant, and yet another potentially negative outcome wraps up with your 1960's happy television ending. Awww.
Love and the Roommate: A young man engages in what is some rather uncharacteristic behavior when he goes to a singles bar and attempts to have a fling with a female patron. When he gets back to her apartment, though, he falls for her roommate. The man and the roommate attempt to court each other, but they're repeatedly thwarted by woman number one, who all the while thinks that the gentleman still has the hots for her. Fortunately the great power of dues ex machina takes her out of the picture after a while, leaving the two lovers to continue their affair unabated. The body of the skit in this one was nothing special, but I loved the payoff with the young man almost falling in love with his girl's replacement roommate, only to be snapped back in to reality at the last second.
Love and the Wild Party: Here's another episode featuring a television icon of my childhood, as Robert Reed (a.k.a. Mike Brady) stars as a gentleman who has organized a wife-swapping party. Given both his role on The Brady Bunch and what I've come to learn about his real-life sexual leanings, it's certainly an odd role in which to see the man. Anyway, the party is crashed by a couple of country folk who have just moved the big city and mistake an advertisement for the get together as an invitation to come over and square dance. When they leave the party together, they inspire the swingers to engage in some good, old-fashioned monogamy. It was interesting to watch this particular skit, because although general societal attitudes to things like birth control, race, and divorce have all changed since Love, American Style initially ran, this was the one topic on which contemporary mores still match up with the old values.
Episode 14
Love and the Big Leap: A couple is getting ready to be married while skydiving, but the groom gets cold feat . . . not because he doesn't want to tie the knot but because he doesn't want to die. This leads to the pair discussing the nature of their relationship and deciding, at the end of the skit, that they really do want to be together. Though the focus is on the couple, the scene is repeatedly stolen by their stuttering priest, who first makes the engaged couple wonder if he's going to be able to reel off the vows before they splatter on the ground and then continues to bring the awesome for the big skit-closing gag.
Love and the Good Deal: A pair of financially challenged individuals are having difficulty with their bed, as the one that they currently have is too small but no larger models will fit in their tiny apartment. They determine that the only solution to this problem is to have some new furniture custom made, and they wind up engaging in what appear to be some rather shady business dealings in order to get the job done. As is often the case when one engages in such dealings, they don't get what they bargained for. In fact, one of them winds up in the hospital . . . though it is there that they discover the solution to all their problems. This skit struck me as being fairly uninspired, which made it a poor choice to run for as long as it did.
Love and the Former Marriage: A recently divorced man grows tired of being called over to the home of his ex-wife and her new husband, who apparently are incapable of accomplishing anything on their own. I have to give this skit a massive thumbs up in comparison to the other fare on this episode, as the gentleman's delivery of his deadpan lines to the needy newlyweds had me laughing out loud on several occasions. Also noteworthy is a brief appearance by none other than Harrison Ford.
Episode 6
Love and Mother: Newlyweds have their first night as a married couple disrupted by the mother of the bride, who has had a falling out with her husband and takes sanctuary in the first place that she can think of: The new couples' honeymoon suite. Of course, this disrupts the plans that the two had for the evening, namely consummating their relationship. Though the bride is more understanding, the groom's frustration grows throughout the evening. Ultimately they get the opportunity to do just what they wanted, as the father of the bride ultimately appears to retrieve his wife. I was enjoying this skit, but everything went downhill when I realized that the father was being played by one of my favorite comedians of the era (Morey Amsterdam of The Dick Van Dyke Show) and that he wouldn't be receiving nearly the screen time that he deserved.
Love and the Dummies: Remember Shari Lewis of "Lambchop" fame? Sure you do. She's in this episode putting her puppetry skills to use, as she plays a young ventriloquist on a casting couch who meets a gentleman also in her line of work. They flirt with each other through their dummies and ultimately wind up heading out on a date. There were a few cute puns inserted in to the story, and I'd forgotten that, at one point, Shari Lewis was a rather fetching young lady. Between those two factors, the skit was able to hold my attention.
Love and the Athlete: This is just a quick bit, as a gentleman who works for an athletic commission (presumably a take on the Olympic committee) is sent to investigate allegations that a female East German runner is actually a man in drag. When he goes to confirm the findings of a blood test, the runner proves that she's everything she claims to be and does it in the bedroom. This was just a six or seven minute build up to one gag, and it was fine for what it was.
Love and the Shower: A recently separated gentleman is visited by three of his friends and two dancers, who decide that they're going to throw him a "divorce shower." The friends bring him gifts that will allow him to get along well in his single life, and I think we can all figure out what the dancers are there for. Eventually his soon to be ex-wife shows up to crash the party, and, surprisingly enough, they reconcile in short order. I know that the name of the show is Love, American Style and not Painful Relationship Difficulties, American Style, but I'm beginning to grow frustrated with the number of skits involving divorce/separation that end with the parties getting back together. Can't we have a slightly more realistic story about a dead relationship that stays dead? Just once?
Episode 9
Love and the Mountain Cabin: We've got another honeymoon episode, and this time the young couple have decided to rent a cabin in the mountains for their big trip. Unfortunately, they're disrupted by local law enforcement, who are hot on the trail of a robber that has been known to use the cabin as a hideout. If there's one thing that can take a man's mind off of sex, it's money, and the groom is immediately tearing apart the cabin in an effort to find the loot that the thief may have stashed away. He does find some, but his bride forces him to hand it over to the authorities . . . so the gentleman once again winds up looking for money. This one was a little bit odd, as the fellow's greed got the better of his love for his bride right up until the end of the episode. You'd think that he'd have some sort of realization about the importance of his relationship towards the end.
Love and the Divorce Sale: A model who married her photographer walks out on him after he determines that she's matured and is no longer capable of posing in the sorts of photos that he shoots. Subsequent arguments result in the two deciding that a divorce is in order, and, in lieu of dividing up their property in the court action, they sell it off and agree to split the proceeds. The last item they have left is their bed, which they sit in for a while before (wait for it . . .) DECIDING TO STAY TOGETHER! I am shocked by this novel Love, American Style plot twist. Anyway, I had difficulty getting through this skit, because the wife character was being unreasonable in most of the couples' arguments and was quite unlikeable, though I don't think this was what the writers were going for, as she going the majority of the screen time.
Love and the Comedy Team: A female television writer has two big deadlines approaching: One for her next script and one for her wedding. She attempts to prepare for the nuptials despite the fact that her writing partner is perpetually there and pitching unfunny jokes for the big show. (Jokes that are scripted to be bad to advance the plot, that is.) Eventually his revelation for the big, scene-closing line comes at the end of the skit, which just happens to be the wedding ceremony. The highlight here was not either of the "writers" but rather a young Regis Philbin playing the groom. I kept waiting for Kelly Rippa to run in, but then I realized she had not yet been born when this was filmed.
Episode 17
Love and the Positive Man: Our protagonist here is a short man whose goal is to spark a romance with a local tall women. Most people who look in on the situation consider his aspirations to be unattainable, but our "positive" hero sees things differently because he's got the power of self-help books on his side. It's television. It's 1969. He gets the girl. He doesn't just get the girl, though, he manages to woo her in a rather charming fashion which even managed to melt my cold heart for a few seconds.
Love and the Other Love: A married couple has some difficulties stemming from the husband's acquisition of a new sports car. When the wife realizes that she is playing second fiddle to the auto, she determines that the only way to make herself an equal to the inanimate object is to learn how to drive it. Using a rather suspect definition of the phrase "community property," she cons her hubby in to giving her lessons on how to operate the machine. Needless to say, said lessons do bring them closer together. It's getting to the point where I could write these blurbs blindfolded.
Love and the Bachelor: A young man brings his newest girl over to meet his mother, who has difficulty approving of any of the women that her little boy brings home. However, there's one key difference this time around: The woman that her son is dating is a doctor. Once she figures this out, suddenly all of her apprehensions about her son's dating live vanish. Funny how things like that work out . . . and how they sadly sometimes mirror real life.
The 411: In the twenty-first century, Love, American Style is a decidedly un-modern television show. I can see some individuals watching it and claiming that the episodes don't hold up well, primarily because the type of comedic television that they've been watching over the last couple of decades is written in a completely different manner, with less emphasis on relatable characters and subtle humor and more of an emphasis on over the top gags and nonstop non sequiturs. If you're an individual who is a loyal devotee of modern TV, chances are good that you'll watch this show and twice and never want to see it again. However, if you're somebody who enjoyed the series during its initial run or a younger individual who has more of an open mind towards the older ways of doing things, there are more than enough laughs provided by this set to make it a worthwhile purchase. Throw in a handful of stories that also reflect very well on contemporary society despite the fact that they're almost forty years old, and this Season 1, Volume 1 of the series gets an easy thumbs up.
