Trivia
Pride of the Pacific/The Viking's Son/Separate Vacations/The Experiment/Getting to Know You: Part 1
The Love Boat
All but one of the five subplots in this two-hour special were co-written by Fred Grandy, who played Gopher on the show.
Gavin MacLeod (Captain Merrill Stubing) and Ted Knight (Captain Gunner Nordquist) previously worked together on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) as Murray Slaughter and Ted Baxter respectively.
This two-hour "Love Boat" was the last of four episodes guest starring Sonny Bono (this one later syndicated as separate episodes making for a total of five by that measure), who along with series regular Fred Grandy would later serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, the two respectively for the California 44th District and the Iowa 6th and 5th Districts on successive terms. Ironiically, Grandy's time in office started on January 3, 1987 and ended on the day that Bono's term started on January 3, 1995, with Bono serving until his death in a skiing accident on January 5, 1998. During Grandy's time in office, Bono had served as the Mayor of Palm Springs, California, from April 1988 to April 1992. Both served as Republicans.