This was a simply awful attempt at returning or redoing the old Love American Style series from about 16 years earlier, but whereas the sixties version was racy and risqué, this '80s rendition was going to be a bit more, . . . well, loving.
Lou Rawls sung a soulful version of the old theme. Filmed in front of a live audience and not with the canned laughter of the previous offering, this LAS had plot ideas even Love Boat would have rejected. Whereas the first LAS had bumpers with Stuart Margolin and Barbara Minkus, this '80s take had the same with Norm Crosby and Marcia Wallace, tho they didn't do it silently as Margolin and Minkus had done. Crosby and Wallace chatted it up.
I remember seeing ventriloquist Jay Johnson on one (think he had Bob with him) and mime Robert Shields also appeared (he didn't do the robot bit) and I believe Loraine Yarnell also appeared once (tho she isn't credited. Well, neither is Johnson for his appearance).
So what is the new Love American Style's distinction?
The show was put into syndication and whatever time period it aired in areas, in my area, CST, it aired around ten in the morning and was what I was watching when it was interrupted on ABC by Steve Bell, looking deathly ill, to report on the space shuttle Challenger explosion.
Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly what episode of Love American Style it was I was watching.
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