Originally telecast September 17, 1976,
Love Boat was the first of two pilot films for the long-running TV series of the same name. On this maiden voyage of the Pacific Princess (from California to Mexico), we zero in on four separate sets of passengers.
Gabe Kaplan plays a goofy salesman who falls for sexy model Jette Speer.
Tom Bosley and
Cloris Leachman are the haughtily rich folks who disapprove of their daughter's "common" boy friend. Suave businessman
Hal Linden finds himself attracted by
Karen Valentine. And
Don Adams, about to undergo an expensive divorce, plots and plans to do away with wife
Florence Henderson. The luxury-cruise setting and multistoried format of the subsequent
Love Boat series are already in place, but the series' cast of regulars is not. In this first
Love Boat film, Ted Hamilton is the Captain, Teri O'Mara is the cruise director, bartender Isaac is
Theodore Wilson, the ship's doctor is
Dick Van Patten, and Sandy Helberg is Gopher, the purser. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide