THE LOVELY BOAT

LOVE BOAT
1977-1986 ABC

This is the second of two posts of Love Boat parodies. Go back one day to see the others.

The program was an hour long sitcom that feature two or three interweaving storylines taking place aboard a cruise ship, the Pacific Princess, different passengers as the guest stars each week carrying the show even though the regular cast was the ship's crew. Cracked parodied it twice using their tradition of combining several shows together.

The crew of The Love Boat was Capt. Merrill Stubing (Gavin McLeod), Adam 'Doc' Bricker (Bernie Kopell), yeoman purser 'Gopher' (Fred Grandy), Isaac the bartender (Ted Lange), and cruise director Julie McCoy (Lauren Tewes).

THE WILDEST AND WEIRDEST LOVE BOAT CRUISE OF THEM ALL
Cracked #187, July 1982
a: John Severin

Here passengers include Bo (John Schneider), Luke (Tom Wopat), and Daisy (Catherine Bach) Duke of The Dukes of Hazzard.

And their car, the General Lee. Other guests include Mork (Robin Williams) and Mindy (Pam Dawber) from their eponymous show. Their last season included their son Mearth (Jonathan Winters), and the joke was that on Mork's planet children aged in reverse like Benjamin Button. Burt Reynolds was “The Bandit” in a series of movies called Smokey and the Bandit, which inspired The Dukes of Hazzard.

Last but not least is Arnold (Gary Coleman) of Diff'rent Strokes and sometimes girlfriend Tootie (Kim Fields) from Facts of Life.

In the seventies and eighties, a car called the General Lee and having a Confederate symbol wasn't considered a big deal though I understand its gotten The Dukes of Hazzard pulled from syndication in some markets.

Their second spoof combined the show with The A-Team.

: THE A-A-AAYY TEAM TAKES A RIDE ON THE LOVELY BOAT
Cracked #197, September 1983
a: John Severin

The leader of the A-Team was Hannibal Smith (George Peppard) and the other members were Face (Dirk Benedict), Murdock (Dwight Schulz), and B.A. Baracus (Mr. T.)

The A-Team always had a female member, but she was always a token and didn't last more than a season. At this time it was Amy (Melinda Culea).

Gag taken from A Night at the Opera. Then again, dozens of Marx Brothers jokes, as well as their personalities, have been copied many times, and people think those places are the original sources.

Not only did somebody take the time to alphabetize all the guests and edit this, but they happen to have already had every episode on tape. (Like I'm one to talk about anal curation of trivial pop culture).

THE LOAF BOAT
Crazy #48, March 1979
w: Stu Schwartzberg
a: Kent Gamble

Before this show, Gavin MacLeod was a character on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

The guests are probably Sean Connery, Diahann Carroll, Arthur Godfrey, and Shelley Winters and probably taken from Mort Drucker caricatures. You can tell this is an older article because it has an O.J. Simpson joke but it's not about him being a murderer.

Another passenger is Don Rickles.

Love, American Style was an earlier show with a similar format in that it was an anthology comedy show about love that relied on celebrity guest stars. The cops are caricatures of George C. Scott and Stacy Keach taken directly from MAD's The New Centurions parody without even having to remove the hats.

This is Crazy's other parody.

THE LOVE BORE
Crazy #77, August 1981
w: Murad Gumen
a: Kent Gamble

Guest stars here are Herman and Lily Munster (Fred Gwynne, Yvonne DeCarlo), Mr. Ed, Micky Dolenz, Larry Matthews, Burt Ward, June Lockhart, Judy Carne, and Ann B, Davis, who weren't all drawn by Drucker, so I'm not sure where the references came from.