A Blast From The Past: The Mama Cass Television Program (dir by Sid Smith)

Posted on March 25, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Normally, this is where and when I would post my weekly review of Fantasy Island but, due to this being a busy week, my Retro Television Reviews are on break until Sunday. Fear not, though, we have alternative programming!

From 1969, it’s The Mama Cass Television Program! This was actually meant to be a pilot for a variety show that would have been hosted by Mama Cass Elliott, formerly of the Mamas and the Papas. For that reason, there’s some comedy bits along with Cass singing. Keep an eye out for Martin Landau! The comedy, to be honest, is a bit cringey but it really doesn’t matter when you’ve got Cass Elliott and her amazing voice.

Fantasy Island will return next week but for now….

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 5.7 “The Lady from Laramie/Vicki Swings/Phantom Bride”

Posted on November 27, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

The Love Boat promises something for everyone!

Episode 5.7 “The Lady from Laramie/Vicki Swings/Phantom Bride”

(Dir by Jack Arnold, originally aired on November 14th, 1981)

As I did with this week’s episodes of Miami Vice, CHiPs, and Fantasy Island, I’m going to save time by doing this one bullet point style.

Before getting to the storylines, I want to point out that this week’s episode was directed by Jack Arnold. Jack Arnold may not be a household name but he directed some of this site’s favorite science fiction and monster movies, including Tarantula, The Incredible Shrinking Man, It Came From Outer Space, and The Creature From The Black Lagoon!
As always, this cruise presents us with three stories. One of the three stories definitely does benefit from Arnold’s macabre touch. Juliet Mills and Buddy Hackett play Kate and Julian Garfield, who are married psychic researchers. The board the boat in search of a ghost. Captain Stubing doesn’t believe in ghosts and good for him! (Neither do I!) However, Gopher is totally convinced and he’s soon wandering around the boat with a bunch of garlic hanging around his neck. Gopher, they’re looking for ghosts, not vampires!
At one point, Gopher is convinced that he’s managed to take a picture of a ghost but it’s actually just Kate looking through a porthole.
I have to admit that I groaned a bit when I saw that Juliet Mills was going to, once again, be a passenger on The Love Boat. But then I remembered that Hayley is the Mills sister that gets on my nerves. Juliet and Buddy Hackett had a surprising amount of chemistry. They were likable together.
It is kind of funny that there are certain guest stars — like Juliet Mills — who show up over and over again but who always play different characters. I’m always waiting for someone on the boat to be like, “Hey, weren’t you here last week?”
The least interesting story featured Nancy Dussault as a plain-spoken (or maybe just annoying) widow from Wyomin’ who fell in love with an Italian gigolo (Cesare Danova) who was on the boat with a rich socialite (Marti Stevens). Cesare Danova played the mob boss in Mean Streets and the mayor in Animal House. He did not look happy at all to be on The Love Boat.
Poor Vicki! In this episode, 14 year-old Vicki pretended to be 18 in an attempt to flirt with Todd Andrews (Patrick Labyroteaux), a teenager who was traveling by himself. The Captain grew very worried about Vicki, especially after he heard Todd suggesting that he and Vicki had fooled around late into the night. (Todd was lying and, oddly enough, everyone seemed to be strangely forgiving of Todd’s actions.)
At one point, The Captain tells Vicki that he wanted her to spend time with people her own age. Vicki replies that she was the only fourteen year-old on the ship. And, seriously, Vicki has a point.
Vicki living on the ship has always seemed kind of strange to me and I always appreciate the episodes that try to honestly deal with the situation. How can you not have mixed feelings about spending your teen years on a boat, largely surrounded by people who are quite a bit older than you? That said, Gavin MacLeod was always at his best when he was playing Stubing as a father and Jill Whelan was refreshingly non-cutesy in the role of Vicki. As a result, you couldn’t help but feel that, ultimately, the Captain and his daughter were right where they belonged.
This was an okay cruise. The ghost storyline was fun. MacLeod and Whelan tugged at the heartstrings. When it comes to good stories on The Love Boat, two out of three is not bad at all!

Next week — The Love Boat goes on a Thanksgiving cruise! (If only I had started reviewing The Love Boat a week earlier than I did, the timing would have been perfect.) ‘Til then, set a course for adventure, your mind on a new romance….

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.4 “Going My Way/Dance with Me/Doc, Be Patient”

Posted on August 30, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week’s cruise is all about love and dancing!

Episode 3.4 “Going My Way/Dance with Me/Doc, Be Patient”

(Dir by Adam Rafkin and James Sheldon, originally aired on September 29th, 1979)

Oh no! The ship has just left port and Doc Bricker has come down with the flu! He’s so sick that he can barely walk without getting dizzy. Fortunately, there’s another doctor on the boat. Dr. Emily Bradford (Susan Sullivan) takes time away from her own vacation to not only look after Doc but also check in on his other patients. I have to admit that I found myself wondering if the cruise line agreed to pay her for filling in for Doc or if she just did it for free. It seems like, if she misdiagnosed anyone on the boat, it would lead to an even bigger lawsuit than usual.

It turns out that Doc is not a particularly good patient. He hates having his temperature taken. He hates getting shots. He even resists allowing Emily to take a look at his throat. But when he ends up sick and delirious, he’s thankful that Emily’s there. In fact, he’s so thankful that he decides that he’s in love with Emily and he wants her to spend all of her time with him! Emily reveals to Doc that he’s doing what so many past patients have done to him, falling in love with the person who takes care of them. A chagrined Doc says that he’s going to have to write a lot of apologies to his former patients.

Probably one of the stranger aspects of The Love Boat has always been the portrayal of Doc Bricker as some sort of decadent swinger. Bernie Kopell was very likable in the role of Adam Bricker but there was also absolutely nothing about him that would make one think that he was some sort of fun-loving satyr. While the show insisted that Doc was a legendary womanizer, he actually came across as being a mild-mannered, slightly out-of-touch but well-meaning suburbanite who just happened to work on a cruise ship. In this episode, Doc actually got to show some vulnerability and it was nice to see. Certainly, Bernie Kopell seemed to be more comfortable playing Doc as someone who hated needles as opposed to as a doctor who casually kept adult magazines in his waiting room.

While Doc came down with the flu, Suzy Butterfield (Arlene Golonka) is determined to still take her cruise despite having been stood up by her boyfriend. Because she has an extra ticket and because she enjoyed the jokes that he told while driving her to the docks, Suzy impulsively invites her cab driver, Mickey Greenbaum (Buddy Hackett) to join her on the cruise. Mickey, an aspiring writer, agrees and I assume he also loses his job as a taxi driver as a result.

On the boat, Suzy recommends women that Mickey could date and Mickey recommend men that Suzy could date but, of course, they’re destined to end up together. And, of course, they do. Mickey even proposes marriage. Yay! This was a sweet story, even if Buddy Hackett wasn’t the most convincing romantic lead. He was ten years older than Arlene Golonka and they had an older brother/little sister chemistry that didn’t exactly translate to romance. But no matter. I was still glad that things worked out for their characters.

Finally, world famous ballet dancer William Delaney (John Meehan) boards that boat with his much younger partner, Joanna (Starr Danias). Also on the cruise is William’s former partner, Marcy McGuire (Carol Lawrence). Marcy now runs a dance academy in Germany and she wants William to teach at the school. William realizes that he’s getting older and that he’s actually holding Joanna back by not retiring. William accepts Marcy’s offer, which Joanna’s misinterprets are William and Marcy having an affair. Fortunately, Captain Stubing is there to help gently explain the whole situation. Both John Meehan and Starr Danias were real-life dancers (To be honest, they were far better at dancing than delivering dialogue.) and the story is really just an excuse for the two of them to perform, together and separately. Starr Danias’s solo performance of Swan Lake was absolutely wonderful and, for me, the highlight of the cruise.

I enjoyed this episode. The passengers were likable, Doc Bricker finally stopped acting like a walking HR nightmare, and best of all …. there was dancing! This was a very enjoyable cruise.