Trivia
The Italian Cruise: Venetian Love Song/Down for the Count/Arrividerci, Gopher/The Arrangement: Part 1
The Love Boat
Gopher's explanation for wearing the white gloves in this episode is given as poison ivy. In actuality, they are covering the aftermath of burns he received earlier in the year when, riding in a Turkish taxi, some hydrogen-filled balloons exploded, burning him and 3 other people.
Not only were Shelley Winters and Ernest Borgnine both Academy Award winners, but, ten years prior, they were shipmates in The Poseidon Adventure (1972).
This two-part episode features some of the most improbable casting in the series' history: Americans David Birney, John James, Ernest Borgnine, and Fred Grandy were all called upon to perform with Italian accents, while Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Meredith Baxter, Marie Osmond,and Candice Azzara, none of whom even slightly resemble one another, are portraying members of the same family. Inexplicably, Borgnine speaks with a thick Italian accent, while none of the women in the family have even a trace of accent in their speech.