Watching The Love Boat with Grits and Gravy
A 1981 television time capsule from the world of Midnight Miami
One of the great things about writing fiction is that you can give your characters whatever traits you want. And sometimes those traits can overlap with your own.
Like your favorite television show.
In my first novel, Midnight Miami, releasing May 12, 2026, celebrity private investigators Grits McCoy and Gravy Watkins spend their days as the public faces of the Stone Detective Agency and their nights hunting creatures that prefer to operate in the shadows.
Except from 9 PM to 10 PM on Saturdays.
Because that is when they watch The Love Boat.
To better explain the world of Midnight Miami, which takes place in Miami during the tumultuous summer of 1981, I decided to revisit an episode of The Love Boat that Grits and Gravy might realistically have watched.
For those unfamiliar with the show, The Love Boat was one of the defining television programs of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Airing on ABC from 1977 to 1986, the series followed the weekly adventures of passengers and crew aboard the cruise ship Pacific Princess. The show mixed romance, comedy, and light drama while featuring a rotating cast of celebrity guest stars, many of whom played exaggerated or comedic versions of their public personas.
Each episode typically followed a three-storyline format. One storyline, usually a comedic one, focused on the ship’s crew—Captain Stubing, Cruise Director Julie McCoy, bartender Isaac Washington, purser Gopher Smith, or my favorite character, the four times divorced Dr. Adam "Doc" Bricker—while the other two stories were a romantic comedy and a dramatic (or melodramatic) tale. The narratives would unfold simultaneously and intersect during the voyage before resolving neatly by the time the ship returned to port.
During the summer of 1981, Grits and Gravy would have been watching reruns from the show’s 1980–1981 fourth season, which included 28 episodes.
For this review, I chose the seventh episode—a special 90-minute episode whose title alone might require the extra running time to process:
“The Horse Lover / Secretary to the Stars / Julie’s Decision / Gopher and Isaac Buy a Horse / Village People Ride Again.”
The episode originally aired on November 22, 1980, during the television industry’s November “sweeps” period. Sweeps months were when television stations measured viewership to determine advertising rates for the following year. Networks traditionally responded by bringing out bigger guest stars and bigger stories.
The Love Boat responded by giving viewers five storylines instead of the usual three, along with the star power of the Village People.
The connecting thread for the episode is that the Pacific Princess is sailing to Acapulco for a horse race—the Acapulco Steeplechase.
Will hijinks and romance ensue?
Let’s find out.
The Horse Lover
This terribly named storyline features real-life married couple Allen Ludden and Betty White—yes, that Betty White, who is absolutely delightful here.
Ludden plays a man who convinces his wife to take a cruise without revealing the real reason for the trip: he plans to race his beloved horse, Jessica, in the steeplechase. Unfortunately for him, the horse receives far more affection than the wife does.
Betty White’s neglected spouse begins to drift toward the attention of David Doyle, best known as Bosley from Charlie’s Angels. Doyle was a frequent Love Boat guest star, appearing in six episodes, and he often played smooth-talking romantics.
While Doyle was never exactly a leading-man heartthrob, the script makes Ludden’s character so oblivious to his wife’s feelings that the possibility of Betty White running off with Bosley starts to seem almost reasonable.
Doyle even makes an indecent proposal, which she briefly considersand informs her husband about.
Just as it appears Betty White may be headed for a Dutch honeymoon, Ludden sells the horse to Bosley and recommits himself to his wife.
Love is saved.
Jessica the horse changes owners.
Everyone learns an important lesson. Don’t love a horse more than your wife.
Secretary to the Stars
Watching Loni Anderson in 1980 is like watching a great athlete in their prime. Picture Michael Jordan in 1993, except in a tight sundress.
When she walks onto the ship, she is pure va-va-voom.
Still riding the success of WKRP in Cincinnati, Anderson plays a famous movie star who boards the ship hoping to escape the press. When a persistent young admirer begins following her around, she decides to hide in plain sight.
Her solution: a brown wig, oversized glasses, and a British accent that would make Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood blush.
And to also pretend to be her own secretary.
Naturally, the admirer—played by the blandly handsome Charles Frank, portraying a schoolteacher who happens to be extremely farsighted—falls in love with the disguised alter ego.
The deception eventually collapses when Anderson “fires” her secretary persona, prompting Frank’s character to angrily denounce the star. Eventually she reveals the truth, and he somehow finds it within himself to forgive her.
Big surprise.
Julie’s Decision
Cruise Director Julie McCoy finds herself falling for Robert Stack, who plays an “international playboy.”
Despite having recently played Rex Kramer in Airplane! earlier that same year, Stack plays this role completely straight. He is suave, worldly, and impossibly confident.
The age difference between the characters is notable—Stack was 62 in 1980, while Julie McCoy was written as being in her twenties—but Stack sells the romance with considerable charm.
Eventually he proposes marriage.
But after reflection, he decides he is too old for her and stages a fake scene with another woman to push Julie away.
The classic television sacrifice play.
Also, this episode hints to Julie’s search for a husband. Eventually, this will lead to a trip to Australia in the next season, and a two-part episode which features the greatest Love Boat storyline of all time.
The Mongala.
But that is tale for another day.
Gopher and Isaac Buy a Horse/Village People Ride Again
The comedic storyline is the highlight of the episode.
Gopher and Isaac decide to capitalize on the upcoming race by purchasing their own horse, which they name Captain Stubing.
The humor is broad but effective. When the horse’s name is announced, the human Captain Stubing assumes he is being summoned. When the horse appears sick, Doc Bricker gets to deliver the inevitable “healthy as a horse” joke.
Meanwhile, the Village People appear largely as comic relief and musical guests.
By the time they reached the gangplank of the Pacific Princess, disco was already fading and their film Can’t Stop the Music had flopped. But on this episode, you would never know it.
They arrive singing an a cappella version of “In the Navy” and later perform “Magic Night” while the cast smiles and claps enthusiastically.
Their best moment comes during the steeplechase.
After losing a coin toss, Gopher earns the privilege of riding Captain Stubing. The Village People enter their own horse named Magic Night.
When Felipe Rose (the Indian) prepares to mount his horse, he exchanges the following dialogue with the Leather Man:
“I thought Indians rode bareback.”
“I’m not taking off my clothes.”
Soon both Gopher and Felipe lose their horses but continue running the race on foot. As the rest of the riders finish—Allen Ludden beating Robert Stack by a nose—the announcer declares that Felipe wins the footrace by a “feather.”
Captain Stubing the horse is later sold for $200, which coincidentally is the exact amount of damage the animal causes aboard the ship.
As the Village People depart, Felipe trades his headdress for Captain Stubing’s captain hat and declares:
“I’ve always wanted a kinky hat like that.”
S. M. Chase is the author of the supernatural detective novel Midnight Miami, a neon-soaked paranormal mystery set in Miami in 1981.
Midnight Miami is the first installment in The Grits & Gravy Mysteries.