Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/29/i-was-too-young-to-understand.html
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I knew of it, but never watched it even to hear the theme (my parents watched Love Boat and Fantasy Island for their weekly celebrity mocking). However, from this special report LAS seems to have been quite nefarious:
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I used to watch it regularly as a kid - go figure- but the only episode that I recall is one where this man was courting a woman who would not remove her gloves before getting married.
The entire episode was him plotting some way to get her to remove her gloves without having to commit to marriage.
She would apparently take off any other piece of clothing, but NOT the gloves.
He was totally obsessed with what her hands looked like but he could never see them.
This drove him mad.
You’ll never guess how it ended!
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That’s a pretty sweet tune.
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That’s the kind of programming we’ll probably never see again. The third-place network (of three) sticking an anthology show in the final hour of Friday prime time, when “no one” was watching. (Of course, the lowest-rated show of that early 70s week would still draw more viewers than some of the best shows today.) In that time slot, they might as well go cheap.
It was a great place to give hungry B- and C-list TV stars a chance to play different characters and get another paycheck. ABC could also use the slot to run pilots up the flagpole and see who saluted.
And johnson, that glove episode is the only episode I remember, too. Weird! And the song is a serious earworm.
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He fixes the cable?
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Love, American Style spawned the spin-off “Happy Days” so…how 'bout that!?
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This is what the future bodes for us all.
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…by the co-writer of “Killing Me Softly With His Song”.
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Of course, the Partridge Famiky sang the song.
Actually it’s The Cowsills a real life family that formed a band, and mom sang along. The Partridge Famiky is supposed to be based on The Cowsills.
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I enjoyed the series when I was a kid. Finally tracked down a couple DVD sets collecting some of the episodes. Now I just need to take the time to sit down and watch them, to see if/how the humor held up.
I was also too young to get the network-TV friendly sexual innuendo. Besides the catchy theme song and the intro (which a friend used as the basis for his parents’ 50th anniversary video) what sticks with me is actors like Stuart Margolin and Larry Storch playing swingers and proto-PUAs with heavy sideburns.
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watched it regularly, and just sat through the intro song for the first time in decades and still know all the words. now THAT’S branding, children.
…most of the stories went over my little head, too, i’m sure. it would be fun to see them as an adult. they are pure uncut 1970s time capsules, i’m sure, untouched by the reframing of our nostalgia.
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I picked up the first season from the library awhile ago. I didn’t make through all of them but it was fun to watch and well done. Also so many great character actors in it.
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Some of the weirder aspects of the Cowsills didn’t make it into the TV version.
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Not well I’d guess, given the times. In the reruns I remember (or maybe this was some other show?), it had vignettes between stories that featured a nighty-clad woman on a bed, purring double entendres with a finger in her mouth, etc, ad nauseam. 
Never, ever, of course, with a man on a bed doing the same thing.
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The third-place network (of three) sticking an anthology show in the final hour of Friday prime time, when “no one” was watching.
Yeah - the economics of broadcast TV in before the rise of cable are fascinating.
It makes me wonder how much money they made on advertising as the “loser” of the time slot - they clearly made enough money to produce the show, pay everyone involved and I’ll bet still make a profit on it, so it was worth doing. And it gives us some interesting little artifacts.
I do wish that someone would try making some anthology shows that weren’t sci-fi/horror shows in our brave new world of streaming though. I think it’s a model that could produce some fascinating shows.
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I thought that was “American Graffiti”.
edit- Well, I stand corrected. I will have to find that episode.
I also now have the theme song in my head.
Now I have to know! Tell us!
