Love American Style: Season One, Volume One DVD Review

Love American Style—that’s me and you! Who can forget the ever-famous theme song made popular by The Cowsills? Or, for that matter, who can forget the fireworks of love, bursting at the opening credits and in-between the different segments? Love American Style is the memorable 1970s comedy show, turning ordinary romantic situations into hilarious vignettes, a revolutionary idea of showing four stories in one hour of television. The three-disc collection includes twelve episodes from the first season, all hilarious and all transport you back to 1969 with the situations, acting styles, and atmosphere. When you first insert the DVD, there is a small preview for the CBS DVD collection, but besides the advertisement, there are no special features in the collection. The regulars of the show are wonderful, for they play a variety of roles in each episode. Interspersed in the stories are dozens of guest stars including Jane Wyatt, Margaret O’Brien, Sid Caesar, Broderick Crawford, Red Buttons, Shelley Fabares, Regis Philbin, and Harrison Ford.

The opening of each show starts with the title song and still frames of the guest stars; right away you know you’re in for a hilarious night! Each short story is written to include a simple premise, a problem solved, and a happy ending. The writers start out with a realistic situation, and as the episode progresses, the ridiculousness of the situation is increased to add to the hilarity. For example, in “Love and the Living Doll,” nerdy Harvey (played by Arte Johnson) wants to make his beautiful neighbor Barbara (played by Marlyn Mason) jealous so she will want to go out with him. The conflict is so generic, but realistic, so the audience can relate. However, as in every episode, the real factor is thrown out the window after the action picks up. In “Living Doll,” Harvey’s date is made of a blonde wig, a flashy dress, and an inflatable dummy. As the story progresses, Harvey uses a variety of inventive ideas to make his doll seem like a real date and succeeds in making Barbara jealous. Harvey has to “dispose of the body,” but in the process, another neighbor witnesses this action, calls the police, accusing Harvey of murder, adding to the absurdity. Harvey tells the truth, Barbara admits her jealousy, and boy-gets-girl, fulfilling the happy ending.

Love American Style’s topics were sometimes quite risqué for the time period. In “Love and the Letter,” the love story not only involves a student-teacher relationship, but the two romantic leads are of different ethnicities, two controversial issues during that time. Although “the pill” had only been invented less than ten years before, Love American Style, as usual, kept up with current events and addressed the issue in the episode “Love and the Pill.” In this story, the situation was written to be as awkward as possible: a young girl’s parents invite her boyfriend to the house to discuss the possibility of their daughter taking birth control pills. However raunchy the episodes are, they always have a degree of truth in them, such as in “Love and the Phonebooth.” A total city swinger tries to teach the ways of the world to his innocent friend from the country. As usual, the show teaches a good lesson, but without broadcasting moral values, and the country boy wins the object of his affection without the charm and tricks of his friend. In between each of the vignettes, two or three very short comedy bits are shown, to cleanse the viewer’s palette. They are always hilarious, and always give the audience what they don’t expect to see: A man helps a beautiful woman take off her coat, and then takes off with her coat; a couple is sitting on the grass and a policeman points out the “keep off” sign, to which the young man replies “I’m not touching her!” The skits revolve around one-liners, some predictable, but funny nonetheless, and are a great refresher between stories.