"We have nine ships and in the next two years will have ten, eleven and twelve. So things are going very nicely and all because of that program that people thought was mindless and so forth"
About this Quote
There is something endearingly odd about the way Gavin MacLeod frames success here: not in awards, not in prestige, but in ships. The numbers stack up like a scoreboard, and that choice matters. MacLeod, forever associated with The Love Boat, speaks in the language of his most famous set piece. It is brand-as-biography: the actor’s cultural afterlife collapses into a fleet count, as if popularity can be measured in hulls and itineraries.
The intent is defensive optimism. He’s not just reporting growth; he’s rebutting a sneer. “People thought [it] was mindless” is the tell. MacLeod is pushing back against the long-standing hierarchy that treats “serious” TV as art and breezy, escapist entertainment as junk food. His cadence - “and so forth” - dismisses the criticism as lazy, already stale. The repeated “and” does the work of a shrug and a victory lap at once: look, the results speak.
Subtextually, it’s a pitch for the dignity of the crowd-pleaser. The Love Boat wasn’t trying to be grim or radical; it was trying to be reliably pleasant, a weekly vacation in an era when broadcast television still aimed at the whole family. In that context, the expanding fleet becomes proof that “mindless” can be a misread for “accessible,” and that comfort has its own kind of cultural power. MacLeod isn’t arguing theory; he’s arguing receipts.
The intent is defensive optimism. He’s not just reporting growth; he’s rebutting a sneer. “People thought [it] was mindless” is the tell. MacLeod is pushing back against the long-standing hierarchy that treats “serious” TV as art and breezy, escapist entertainment as junk food. His cadence - “and so forth” - dismisses the criticism as lazy, already stale. The repeated “and” does the work of a shrug and a victory lap at once: look, the results speak.
Subtextually, it’s a pitch for the dignity of the crowd-pleaser. The Love Boat wasn’t trying to be grim or radical; it was trying to be reliably pleasant, a weekly vacation in an era when broadcast television still aimed at the whole family. In that context, the expanding fleet becomes proof that “mindless” can be a misread for “accessible,” and that comfort has its own kind of cultural power. MacLeod isn’t arguing theory; he’s arguing receipts.
Quote Details
| Topic | Success |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Gavin
Add to List
