It was usurped by detached irony.

Was veeeery tnteraasting. What happened to sharp irreverence in American comedy?

To mattbill, who responded on my mention of the glove-episode...When I read your post, I suddenly remembered it was--I think--Barbi Benton who played the girl with the gloves. I was quite young, but I remember knowing she was Hef's girlfriend/former girlfriend...

Thank you for fleshing-out the episode better for me!

I'm sorry that was a recent nightmare, not an episode of this frequently witty show.

The episode where Mickey Rooney and Eve Arden play a couple who try to regain their sexual vigor by attempting to role play. The sight of Eve Arden in a low cut french maid outfit stroking Mickey Rooney's bare chest still sends shivers up and down my spine.

said Arte Johnson as the horrified neighbor asked what he'd done to his "date" - a now deflated blow up doll he'd been lately dancing with (thanks to rubber bands around his shoes).

As I recall the doll flew around the room when he let the air out of her with a knife, trying to get rid of the "evidence".

Hysterical.

I saw the movie "Lovers and Other Strangers" a couple months ago and correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Love American Style have a similar tone and perhaps was spawned by that film?

I loved the show, personally. It was titillating enough for a pre-adolescent and silly enough for adults. Good clean fun.

One last thing: Isn't it "I will defend your right to cry"?

(I also see it online as "I will defend your right to try".)

I best remember an episode mentioned in one of the other letters, the woman with the gloves.

As I recall, she was a playboy-type model who would show everything, just not her hands (which she was saving for marriage). The guy who was dating her quickly became obsessed with her hands of course, but she held firm. I think it was after he proposed that she finally took off one of her gloves, and by that time I was thinking, oh, god, she's showing her bare HAND!

So, the show had some brains; that one was a great riff on how our sexual fixations can be pretty arbitrary. Gave me that bit of self-awareness at an early age.

I am also fonder of this show than it probably deserves, and I agree that it's probably the light-hearted approach (and sexy actors) that appeals to me. Also the very definately of-its-time-ness of it.

One episode that sticks in the mind is where a man and a woman had to share a hotel room for some reason, and they a feisty rapport between them. Neither wanted to give up the bed so they laid a long narrow vending machine thing down the middle. At one point the man says he should spank her and she replies "That would be 7B" refering to the food slot number. This was very sexy to my pre-teenage self.

Also, I think this show was responsible for Karen Valentine's career (more so than Room 222).

I watched this show when it was first on. So did some of my friends. I was in junior high and high school. We all knew the show sucked -- it kept on promising sex stuff it never delivered -- but we watched it anyway. Why? . . . Because it was a window into a world of more tolerant attitudes, access to birth control, unmarried and happy sexual relationships . . . a place where liberals existed. Liberals did NOT exist where I was growing up -- not among our parents, not among the teachers, and really not among too many of our friends either.

There was no other show on TV where you could see such subject matter, except occasional episodes of stern-warning-type shows like Room 222 or Mod Squad. "Love, American Style" was attractive because it was lighthearted. People could have sex without the world going to hell. A contrary and welcome message.

And "Love and the Single Couple" made me cry, for reasons I can't remember.

should be in the Hall of Fame. Can't believe they're not.

March 9, 1966, is my birthdate. The cavalcade of mem'ries would date to '73 and '74, when I was 7 or 8. America's prime. (The group.)

Godmonkey mentioned this in his/her ode to young love in 60s: 'America -- because you always knew you'd like an America album and besides,'

I don't think the band 'America' released any music until c. 1969.

Great group, though. That girl had taste :-)

March 9, 1966, to spare you the math. Two babysitters in earliest gradeschool: Rusty and Brenda.

Now, Rusty was possibly touring the world and elsewhere, I've since come to recognize. Rusty had hair to his shoulders. Rusty had the best beard a 15-year-old suburban boy could grow. Rusty's Badfinger album was scratched on the best song. Rusty knew all the latest, shocking antics of Alice Cooper. He relished them -- or more accurately, relished telling them to me. Rusty was stoned to the bejesus. Rusty was going to make a phone call later to a girl he knew. Rusty never made a phone call later to a girl he knew.

Rusty watched Love, American Style -- truer than the red, white and blue -- and he let me watch, too. He offered play-by-play commentary designed to instruct my impressionable mind on the ways of women and the proper way to manipulate them to one's advantage. What Rusty knew about the ways of women and the proper way to manipulate them to one's advantage, he had learned from Love, American Style. Truer than the red, white and blue. The pot back then was probably pretty scraggly compared to a few years later.

Brenda had straight, straight hair long enough to obscure her buttocks. Brenda could only babysit until 11 o'clock sharp. Brenda's parents were very religious, and she wasn't allowed to associate with boys. Brenda's parents weren't so sure about her associating with me. I was eight. She was 15. Brenda was going to buy a record album with a portion of her proceeds from babysitting. America -- because you always knew you'd like an America album and besides, Mick Jagger was trying to act like he was black these days. He sang like a woman on their last album. A black, woman. Mick Jagger was probably a homo -- that meant he liked to do you-know-what things with other men. Elton John was definitely a homo.

Did you know Olivia-John is bisexual? That meand she does you-know-what things with men and other women. Well, she is -- it was right there in a magazine. So a girl says, Billy, I know you want to hold my hand. How can you tell? By the twinkle in your eye. Billy, I know you want to kiss me. How can you tell? By the twinkle in your eye. Billy, I can tell you want to fuck me. How can you tell? By the bump in your Levi's. (Mom, some days later: Who told you that joke? Who!)

Brenda watched Love, American Style -- truer than the red, white and blue -- and she let me watch, too. Brenda gave me a play-by-play commentary, designed to titillate me, I came to recognize later, and succeeding as best as could be expected. Brenda ran away from home at roughly the same time the show was cancelled, although I'm not suggesting her running away was related to the show's cancellation.