The Love Boat and Fantasy Island were a great one two programming punch for ABC in the late seventies and early eighties. At nine folks would tune in for an hour to watch people looking for love board the Pacific Princess with the help of regulars Doc, Julie, Gopher, Isaac the bartender, Captain Stubing and his daughter Vicki. Then at ten they would be transported to Fantasy Island, a resort island where people would arrive not looking for love but looking to have their wildest dreams come true with the help of Mr. Roarke and his diminutive assistant Tattoo. Using powers beyond understanding, Roarke would make their fantasies reality!

   With both shows on the same network, on the same night, both produced by Aaron Spelling, both sharing the same audience and similar formats (multiple stories per episode revolving around guest stars), a crossover event was bound to happen.

   On November 22, 1980 ABC started the night's programming with a special half hour episode of Fantasy Island. A young girl and her family arrived on the island wanting to deal with the young girl's problem - a slight case of demonic possession! With this single group of guests leaving the plane, Tattoo asked Mr. Roarke where the rest of the guests were. Mr. Roarke explained to Tattoo that the situation with the little girl was so dangerous, he could not risk putting other guests in jeopardy by having them on the island while she was there. Oooooh. Oddly enough, when this episode showed up in syndication where it needed to be a full hour long, more guests were added and present on the island. I guess the little girl wasn't as big a threat in reruns. Roarke probably figured it had turned out okay in the first airing so it would be safe to let more guests on in the repeat.

   At the end of the original half hour cut of the show, as the guests left the island, Tattoo announced that he had a fantasy he wanted to come true some day. When Mr. Roarke asked what it was, Tattoo produced a glossy photo of The Pacific Princess Cruise Ship - The Love Boat. Tattoo said he wanted to take a cruise on the Love Boat one day! Mr. Roarke assured Tattoo that someday it might happened. I must say I'm disappointed in Tattoo. He lives on an island where practically anything you can dream can come true and the best fantasy he can muster is to take a cruise? And he dreams of it so much he keeps a glossy photo of the boat itself like other people hold on to photos of movie stars they like? Whoa. Dare to dream bigger little man! But it did serve as a nice transition into the special 90 minute episode of The Love Boat that followed.

   There were a number of guests on that episode of The Love Boat needless to say - they had a whole extra half hour to fill! And a special episode of course demanded the presence of - The Village People! Nothing says wholesome high seas romance like an all male gay rock group on a cruis ship! As far as the crossover stunt was concerned though there was only one guest that mattered: a famous actress played by Loni Anderson. Upset with how her fame had disrupted her life, she came on board the ship looking to hide out. The crew tried to get her to give romance a try and in the end she did. But by the end of the show her fame ended up ruining her chance for a lasting relationship with the man she had met. For maybe the first time in the show's history a guest left not only not in love but even more upset than when she arrived! As she left the ship, Captain Stubing's daughter ran up, excitedly telling everyone that the unhappy actress had told her she was going to Fantasy Island! Vicki produced an aerial glossy photo of Fantasy Island to show them all. What is with these glossy photos? Did the actress actually hand Vicki the photo. She seemed pretty pissed off to be distributing promotional material for resorts. Or did Vicki just happen to have this photo? If so, what's up with that? That's even weirder than Tattoo's photo. At least he had his picture because the Love Boat was his fantasy. With Vicki Fantasy Island just came up casually in conversation and, boom, she had the appropriate picture! Does she just walk around with all sorts of random photos so that if someone brings up certain topics she can impress them by providing visual aids?

   Anyway, Loni Anderson did head to Fantasy Island still wanting to escape her fame. Mr. Roarke sent her on an adventure down a jungle river. There she met a doctor who worked far from the real world with the local natives. She fell for him, safely knowing that he could have no knowledge of who she was or of her fame. It was her he loved and not her fame. Living in the jungle also forced her to step out of her snooty actress ways: it's hard to stay pompous and arrogant in a humid muddy rain forest! As it turned out though, the man of her dreams did know who she was. Turns out even in the rain forest they did have generators, TVs, VCRs and movie nights! But in the end she realized he did love her for her and not for her fame and they lived happily ever after! Awwww.

Other Fantasy Island Crossover Links
Fantasy Island and Fantasy Island (1998)

Other Love Boat Crossover Links
The Love Boat and Charlie's Angels
The Love Boat and Love Boat: The Next Wave
The Love Boat and Martin


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