Love! Love!
Love! Love!
Love, American Style!
Truer than the Red, White and Blu-uuu-uuuue!
Love, American Sty-yyyyyyyle!
That's me, and you.
And on a star-spangled night, my love,
(You can rest)
You can rest your head on my shoulder.
Or by the dawn's early light, my love,
(I will defend)
I will defend your right to try.
Love, American Sty-yyyyyyle!
That's me and you!

CBS DVD and Paramount have released Love American Style: Season One, Volume Two on a three-disc, 12 episode set that should be a welcome trip back for original fans of the show...and a disorienting, confusing waking nightmare for the uninitiated.

I exaggerated there a tad. Actually, I was quite surprised at how well Love American Style held up after all these years, although younger viewers might be a bit puzzled (or frankly bored) by all of its now archaic "trendy" late 1960s themes of sex, sex and more sex. Considering the fact that I've probably watched hundreds of thousands of hours of TV since my earliest years (as most of us of the pre-video game, pre-Internet, pre-Ipod generation did), it's relatively rare when I can pin down the last time I watched an old series. But for Love American Style it's crystal clear: 1971, sitting down for lunch (grilled Velveeta® on rye, strawberry Kool-Aid® - easy on the ice; I don't want it watered down) at my metal Lost in Space lap tray, finishing up with the jazzy Love American Style before Dark Shadows came on. After that, the show disappeared off my radar. I do remember, though, that even during its original run, Love American Style developed a reputation as kind of an unintentional joke for viewers, a pseudo-hip, quasi-"youth generation" sop with delusions of "with-it-ness" that played, in reality, as square as a church-sponsored ice cream social. My hippie brothers - genuine, true, disgusting hippies - wouldn't go near that show.

An hour long, Love American Style usually consisted of three short comedic playlets - totally unrelated in their stories, and with different actors - with each mini-episode revolving very loosely around the theme of "love." Love American Style's novelty factor stemmed from its stories' "naughty" factor, and from the constant parade of has-been or up-and-coming "stars" who appeared each week (along with a heft dose of performers who either were appearing on ABC shows, or who contractually owed them an appearance). By 1969, The Big Three TV networks were just discovering that they could push (ever so slightly) the bounds of decorum on TV and get away with it. What with the sexual revolution, rioting in the streets and Vietnam, American television, the executives must have reasoned, could stand a little innocent smut on their airwaves. And indeed, Love American Style is about smut, despite its insistence in that insanely catchy theme (sung this season only by The Cowsills) that we the viewers are going to watch a comedy about "love."

Watching this second batch of episodes from Love American Style's premiere season, what immediately struck me was how often the stories resembled corny old sex stories and jokes, gussied up for the Swingin' Nineteen-Sexties, or take-offs on then-current sexual obsessions for middle-aged viewers. There are a lot of businessmen chasing their secretaries in Love American Style: Season One, Volume Two (that had to be the most popular fantasy back then for upscale viewers, don't you think?). The old "smoker" jokes are particularly well-represented in Love American Style's celebrated "black-out" micro-skits which were used as bumpers and filler in-between the playlets (certainly most older men watching the series chuckled at the sight of Love American Style Player Stuart Margolin, dressed as a milkman and leering at the nightie-wearing woman of the house, being let in at her back door). As well, then-newly popular fantasies were plugged into the G-rated stories for topical effect. A good example is Love and the Hitchhiker; Bob Denver brings a hitchhiking hippie back to his place, assured in the popular notion at that time, that all such girls were looking for "free love," regardless of how ugly or square their rides were. Other trendy topics like singles bars, one-night stands, co-ed dorms, couples' therapy, and swinging married couples crop up in Love American Style, right alongside ancient groaners like chastity belts that won't open, fixed séances, and window-hopping cheating husbands.

What's potentially fascinating about Love American Style (if you're in a sociological or even philosophical frame of mind), as with any show so of and for its time, are some of the rather quaint (or troubling) ideas about relationships and love and sex that pop up. Here's a warning for you: if you are, live with, or know of any militant feminists, don't watch Love American Style with them. While it's true that some of the episodes are actually fairly forward-thinking in their attitudes toward the never-ending battle of the sexes (Love and Grandma, with the marvelous Ruth McDevitt and Paul Ford, is not only a nicely layered look at perceived gender roles, but also a surprisingly tender examination of love and sex and loneliness among the elderly), many others have, shall we say, more "traditional" views about stacked, young broads (Love and the King, with the funny Herb Edelman, has a couple of seriously good-looking party girls who are basically treated within the story, like sex toys).

There are other potentially disturbing sociological notes played throughout Love American Style: Love and Mr. Nice Guy, for example, is truly one of the more bizarre TV episodes I've seen in quite some time. Wally Cox (yes!) plays what else, a nebbish, who has spent two years letting gorgeous Alexandra Hay walk all over him as a "friend," while she flirts with outright masochism from the likes of "mean" guys like Ray Danton (no!). In a truly unsettling final scene, Alexandra explains how she doesn't like to actually get hit by these men, but that she does like to go right up to that point, because that proves their passion, and more importantly, she forgives Ray for belting her one (we find out later it was self-defense because she was trying to hit him). All of this is accompanied by a deranged laugh track (Hey, America - belting your old lady is funny!), before the final fade out where Alexandra and Wally accidentally hit each other...and fall in love. And...scene. If whacking your girlfriend upside the head isn't your bag, man, then how about Love and the Gangster, where Nehemiah Persoff thinks it's "safe" for Jerry Van Dyke to hang around his daughter, because he's a...ssshhh, interior decorator. The daughter responds sexually to him precisely because she thinks he's gay, and then becomes uncomfortable when she learns he isn't - because he's not "emotionally safe" now. And if obvious stereotyping isn't your thing, try hilarious suicide pacts with Jo Anne Worley in Love and the Optimist. And the list goes on.

To be fair to Love American Style, though, it's important to note that the series is never intentionally cruel or mean-spirited about these, at the time, accepted comedic frameworks. I would imagine that even in this so-called "enlightened" period we live in, people thirty years from now will shake their heads at what some people call "societal norms," so it's rather silly to actually get mad at a little fluffball like Love American Style. And despite all the teases and taunts to really shock or offend the sensibilities of its fly-over country audience, Love American Style stayed resolutely square and conservative in its final denouements. The "naughtiness" factor may have been played up in an individual episode, but when it came time for Love American Style to drop its pants and really show people something, it was as tame as a little kitten. Coitus was the "Great Unspoken" here. Many times, stories would lead right up to the inevitable illicit humping, only to peter out (sorry) with a moral and a return to right livin' and square thinkin'. The real purveyors of the sexual revolution saw right through all this hokum and stayed away in droves; it was the nice homebodies like Merd and Ferd Swampbuggy who laughed at the series' simpler pleasures (and who probably understood it was all bunk anyway, too - TV viewers are never as dumb as network execs would like you to think).

Certainly the performers showing up on Love American Style were the other major draw of the piece. Back during this time period of network TV, it was still a relative thrill for viewers to see their old favorites from movies and TV show up out of context from their more recognizable formats or roles. Viewers sitting down to watch an evening of Love American Style would invariably - and I know this from experience because my parents did it - call out the names of the near-stars and young hopefuls that appeared in the cast call opening credits ("Hey, George Gobel's on tonight!" "Oh, Burt Reynolds! He's so macho!" "I didn't say Karen Valentine was better looking than you; I just said she was pretty, for Christ's sake!" Those are direct quotes, more or less). Watching Love American Style now in the Internet age, it's a blast to keep up IMDB on your computer and try and figure out where you saw some of these faintly familiar faces before, among the more known players. Some biggies from TV and movies appear here at various stages of their careers: Burt Reynolds (failed TV and movie star a couple of years before his second big breakthrough); Kurt Russell (looking about 15 during his Disney years); Dorothy Lamour (sadly reduced to little more than a walk-on); Adam West (flailing after the demise of Batman); Bob Denver (flailing even more seriously after Gilligan sank); Elizabeth Ashley (looking drop-dead gorgeous with that serious mane of brunette hair and smoky eyes); Tony Randall (just a year before The Odd Couple revitalized his career); Steve Allen (on the long, slow road down from The Tonight Show); Suzanne Pleshette (in the ridiculous role of a housewife who keeps a pet fly (?) - thank god Bob Newhart came along); Red Buttons (a long way from his Oscar), along with a whole contingent of brilliant supporting comedy players whose names always escape you (James Millhollin, Kathleen Freeman, Kenneth Mars, Herb Voland, and Gino Conforti, just to name a very few). Those performers go a long way toward making Love American Style: Season One, Volume Two not only palatable, but also quite entertaining.

Here are the incredible array of stars and supporting players for the 12, one-hour episodes (containing a total of 35 individual stories) of the three-disc set, Love American Style: Season One, Volume Two, as described on the DVD insert:

DISC ONE:

Episode 16 (December 29, 1969)

Love and the Medium
Vivian Vance, George Gobel, Dorothy Konrad, Paula Stewart.

Love and the Bed
Roger Perry, Naomi Stevens, Carla Borelli, Sue Lyon.

Love and the High School Drop-Out
Barry Gordon, Melodie Johnson.

Episode 8 (January 5, 1970)

Love and the Pick-Up
Edd Byrnes, Patricia Hartty, Dorothy Lamour, Penny Marshall.

Love and the Proposal
Warren Berlinger, Joe Besser, Joan Hackett, Ron Harper, Joan Van Ark.

Love and the Fighting Couple
Imogene Coca, Shecky Greene, Mariette Hartley, Dick Sargent.

Episode 15 (January 12, 1970)

Love and the Boss' Ex
Whitney Blake, Pat Harrington, Jr., Ray Walston, Virginia Wood.

Love and Mr. Nice Guy
Wally Cox, Ray Danton, Alexandra Hay.

Love and the Gangster
Steve Franken, Lewis Charles, Marianna Hill, Mike Mazurki, Nehemiah Persoff, Jerry Van Dyke.

Episode 18 (January 23, 1970)

Love and Those Poor Crusaders' Wives
Monte Markham, Dorothy Provine, Gino Conforti, Bryan O'Byrne.

Love and the Big Night
Ann Elder, Buddy Lester, Julie Newmar, Tony Randall.

Love and the V.I.P. Restaurant
Kaye Ballard, Julie Bennett, Shelley Berman, Connie Kreski, Carole Shelyne, Dick Whittington.

DISC TWO:

Episode 19 (January 30, 1970)

Love and the Nervous Executive
Carol Wayne, Paul Lynde, Herb Voland.

Love and the Hitchhiker
Bob Denver, Joey Heatherton, Howard Storm.

Love and the Great Catch
Pat Carroll, Nanette Fabray, George Lindsay, Adam West, Mary Charlotte Wilcox.

Episode 20 (February 6, 1970)

Love and the Banned Book
Elizabeth Ashley, B. J. Mason, Burt Reynolds (!), Garrison True.

Love and the First Nighters
Jackie Coogan, Kurt Russell, Debbie Watson.

Love and the King
Herb Edelman, Kathie Brownie, Ron Masak, Leslie McRae, John Myers, Herb Vigran.

Episode 21 (February 13, 1970)

Love and the Coed Dorm
Johnny Collins III, Don Grady, Karen Valentine, Hank Jones.

Love and the Optimist
Jo Anne Worley, Hal Buckley, Don Diamond, David Ketchum.

Love and the Teacher
Bridget Hanley, Orson Bean, Clint Howard, Anita Mann.

Episode 10 (February 20, 1970)

Love and the Safely Married Man
Beth Bracknell, Judy Knaiz, Leslie Perkins, Tracie Savage.

Love and the Uncoupled Couple
Tom Bosley, Darryl Hickman, Janee Michelle, Greg Morris.

Love and the Many Married Couple
Steve Allen, Jack Cassidy, Jayne Meadows.

DISC THREE:

Episode 22 (February 27, 1970)

Love and Las Vegas
Nellie Burt, Jim Connell, Bill Dana, Edward Everett Horton, Ann Prentiss, Patricia Stich.

Love and the Good Samaritan
Kenneth Mars, Sandy Baron, Hope Holiday, Maggie Peterson.

Love and the Marriage Counselor
Jim Backus, Bernie Kopell, Ken Murray, Joan Shawlee.

Episode 12 (March 6, 1970)

Love and the Other Guy
Donna Douglas, Gary Collins, Corbett Monica.

Love and Grandma
Hal K. Dawson, Paul Ford, Meredith MacRae, Ruth McDevitt, Patrick Wayne.

Episode 23 (March 13, 1970)

Love and the Fly
James Millhollin, Darren McGavin, Suzanne Pleshette, Herbert Rudley.

Love and the Millionaires
Jonathan Harris, Jane Kean, Forrest Tucker.

Love and Double Trouble
Phyllis Davis, Steve Franken, Johnny Brown, Sean Garrison, Trish Mahoney, Pamela Mason, Joanna Phillips, Malachi Throne.

Episode 24 (March 27, 1970)

Love and the Minister
Richard Long, Claudine Longet, Van Williams.

Love and the Geisha
Carolyn Jones, Red Buttons, Nobu McCarthy.

Love and the Singles Apartment
Joyce Van Patten, Kathleen Freeman, Mort Sahl, Mel Torme, Julie York.

The DVD:

The Video:
The full-frame, 1.33:1 video transfers for Love American Style: Season One, Volume Two are surprisingly good, considering I wouldn't imagine anybody paid much attention to the original elements over the years (the show was never even a Nielsen Top Thirty hit in its four-and-a-half-year run). Grain and sometimes less-than-saturated color do pop up, but on the whole, a very nice presentation. Episode 10, however, looked fairly dark with increased grain; perhaps it was taken from a second or third generation tape.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono audio track accurately recreates the original broadcast presentation. All dialogue is crisp and clean. Close-captioning is available.

The Extras:
Unfortunately, there are no extras for Love American Style: Season One, Volume Two.

Final Thoughts:
Despite some nice memories of the show as a little kid (which probably had more to do with the snazzy opening theme song and credits than the actual show), I wasn't expecting much from Love American Style: Season One, Volume Two. But these little mini-episodes were surprisingly well-scripted, with some effective performances along the way. Don't watch it with anyone hypersensitive to "today's issues," and you'll be fine. I recommend Love American Style: Season One, Volume Two.