A celebration in our Marvelous Midwestern town!

Prior thread.

Also, a reminder that the mentally ill soap troll posts in these threads often. If you see multitudes of posts about the toilet habits of actresses, fat characters and fat TV show names, snatches being eaten, or other demented obsessions, do yourself and the board a favor - do NOT engage, simply FF and block.

Joe Lando in the Locher Room next week.

Wow, he looks MUCH older. Wonder if he'll have anything interesting to say about his GL stint. I am brainfarting on what his character did, though - wasn't he involved with Harley or Mindy somehow?

Joe Lando has been playing a judge itermittently on B&B in recent years. He was on a few weeks ago. He's the judge that dropped the charges against Sheila.

Definitely aged a lot in 30 years since playing Jake on OLTL.

His GL character was named MacCauley West and he was somehow involved in stopping Jewel thief Jenna. It was just 3 or 4 week role to help promote his role on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Any judge who would set Sheila free deserves to look 90 years old.

Good news, everyone! I understand that Sam Fowler is manning the kissing booth at the Ada Day festivities!

If it's Danny Markel's Sam, I'll buy ALL the tickets.

If it's RKK's Sam, I will prelube.

I'll be in line for RKK's Sam too.

Maybe Jamie Frame can man the kissing booth when San gets tired.

Just as long as its Richard Bekins or Stephen Yates or Larry Lau or Russell Todd's Jamie, I'm there.

Fuck you, R9

The Cuntkicking Finals have just begun! There's a surprise entrant from Springfield ... Bert Bauer! ... Oh dear, she fell down.

That crazy KooKoodora is still upset that she never got to eat out Anne Heche’s snatch. FANNE Heche went and fried her own snatch before kookoo could eat it out.

I'm sober today..

Hello, my P&G friends. I have resumed my Another World habit and spent the past few weeks watching what exists online of 1982-86 (I believe I am at October 1986). I've watched 1979-81 and 1988-89 and am trying to fill in gaps. There are observations and questions.

Rhonda Lewin was as bad a Victoria as anyone said. I didn't believe. Now I do.

The actor playing Reginald Love is miscast. He does a great job, but he's still miscast (he looks too young to me).

There's a heartbreaking scene right after Sally Frame dies. Aunt Liz appears to have gone mad with grief. Irene Dailey is especially good and the scene comes close to being horror.

I did not get the appeal of Sally Frame and her death seemed needlessly violent (yet I also just didn't care, maybe because of too many recasts). Did Margaret DePriest do that? Weren't cruel deaths a "thing" with her?

Catlin Ewing makes me fall asleep. Snooze. Sharon Gabet's Brittany is horrible. Every time it shows her, the show grinds to a halt.

Julie Osburn was a bright spot in the mid-80s. A nice performance. La Frangione looked terrific during her limited run in 1986. I hated the fake Blaine/Judy Dewey and barely noticed when Blaine and Sandy left.

WTF was going on with that Egypt/mummy story? There were only a few of those available, from fall 1985. I see that Sam Hall and Gillian Spencer were head writers then.

I'd never seen any of Ellen Wheeler as Victoria/Marley. She's good but Anne He He remains my favorite (she's one of the few celebrity deaths that ever got to me). I was surprised how quickly the initial storyline was wrapped up to facilitate Eplin and Wheeler's exit.

Anna Stuart is a genius. There's a scene where Michael brings her to Mary's Place and leaves her at a table where Donna is to be in the background while others talk. Yet each time we see her over Michael's shoulder, Anna is doing some of sort of fabulous business. Fixing her hair, nibbling on peanuts or some kind of food from a nearby table. In character every second. She is about to be replaced by Philece Sampler and I'm not looking forward to that.

That's enough for now. I've missed watching and talking AW. For belated Ada Day, see the clip collection below.

I went and shit on that AW bench.

The remaining shows are unwatchable. They need to pull the plug. They all have super low ratings.

Connie Ford is one of my favorite actresses. I always love it when she shows up in an old movie or one of those old 60s TV shows like Perry Mason. I guess she was considered an Eve Arden type.

Even though it didn't play out on screen you could sort of picture Ada's entire backstory before she became a teen mom after getting entangled with Gerald Davis. Connie played it all through subtext. Just a top notch performer.

Connie sings! Beginning at 5:29.

Has Cray Cray Donna found her way over here? Ugh!!!

BNSD!!!! How divine to see you! (((waves)))

Oh god, must you bitches keep on discussing the milquetoast P&G shows and their low-energy actors? These shows were coma-inducing and virtually indistinguishable from one another. I realize you're all posting from nursing homes or hospice care, but still... If you want shows with vitality and energy, let's talk about Days or the ABC soaps, or the Bell soaps. B&B is one of the most brilliant soaps ever, and much more entertaining and memorable than the P&G swill.

[quote] The Cuntkicking Finals have just begun!

The surprise dark horse candidate, Kim Hughes, has zoomed past competitors to make it to fifth place after the first few rounds!

When is KooKoo getting banned from SON? Why isnt Vee who is in the biz doing his job?

BNSD!!!

You've been gone far, far too long. Wonderful to have you back. Hopefully, you'll stick around for a long time.

The Sally character is hard to understand. She was a legacy character and in 1983, she and Aunt Liz and Julia Shearer were the last remnants of the Matthews family on the canvas.

The popularity comes from the casting of the dymano Mary Page Keller, who was so strong, the show cast her as Sally despite her refusal to dye her hair blonde. The two previous adult Sallys were both adequate, but that's about it. Mary Page Keller was spectacular.

And then when they paired her with Thomas Ian Griffith, it was electric. Sally and Catlin's first few months of scenes were amazing. You couldn't take your eyes off them. They were AW's answer to Bo and Hope, who were taking off at the same time on Days.

But then the two actors got together in real life (and are still married today). As often happens once they consummate the relationship in real life, the onscreen electricity was no longer there. Nonetheless, the show kept trying to get that electricity back and played the pair steadily, even bringing in a badly miscast Sharon Gabet as the deaf Brittany as a foil for them.

Then, when Mary Page Keller left, they put Taylor Miller in the role. Taylor was so good as Nina on AMC and so miscast as Sally.

Show stupidly killed off Sally. Yes, that was Margaret DePriest doing that. To add insult to injury, they didn't even bother to bring Alice back for Sally's funeral.

Then, the show eventually wrote Catlin and Brittany off by sending them away together and none were ever mentioned again.

[quote]The actor playing Reginald Love is miscast. He does a great job, but he's still miscast (he looks too young to me).

That was John Considine's second role on the show. He also play Vic Hastings, who worked for Steve Frame, in the mid 70s.

John Considine is the brother of Tim Considine, who played Mike Douglas, the oldest son on My Three Sons during the first five seasons of the show (the black and white episodes).

Wikipedia says John Considine was born in 1935, so he would have been 51 when cast as Reginald.

Incidentally, John Considine also was the original actor to play Katherine Chancellor's husband Phillip Chancellor II on Y&R in 1973-74.

When you look at the history of the hour GL, GH shared, it's amazing either survived much less thrived against various competition. GH was almost gone before writing revived it. It's immense popularity didn't affect GL at all, which stayed in the top 4 or 5 shows. So many popular game shows, and other soaps, were put against them yet failed to bring them down.

Another Locher Room announced.....Peter Boynton aka Tonio Reyes.

I actually want to see this one....I loathed that character but I think Boynton was probably given a somewhat impossible task, playing a Latin revolutionary when he looks to be about as New England blue blood as they come. LOL

R26 At the time GH had its tremendous resurgence there was more than enough audience to go around.

It was really much later on when the audience dropped to the point where the bean counters came in.....which killed most of the remaining shows.

AW was in the 3 p.m. time slot throughout the 1970s. It only moved to the 2 p.m. in 1980 with the debut of Texas.

AW is the one that suffered while GH surged. AW fell from #2 in the ratings to #8 in a year's time in 1978-79, while GH roared to the top of the ratings.

Miss Kathy Glass as nuSally would've been electric. Her Q score was at its peak in the 80s, and it brings a tear to my eye thinking about all the teen fan mail that would've flooded that Brooklyn studio had she joined the show. Alas.

The P&G shows should’ve brought on Scoche Marin. She has singlehandedly saved Y&R as Mrs. C!

Two additional things to consider about Sally and Catlin:

1. Brian Frons became head of NBC Daytime in 1983. He's the one who pushed hard for Bo and Hope on Days. No doubt he was also the one that pushed the Sally and Catlin pairing as well, even though the sparkle had left once the two got together in real life.

2. Taylor Miller was cast as Sally as part of that mid 80s push where NBC cast people popular on other daytime shows in roles on their shows. That's how Larry Lau ended up playing Jamie, Denise Alexander ended up as Marissa/Mary and Philece Sampler ended up as brand new sexy Donna.

They should have written Sally out instead of killing her off. She was a legacy character with ties to the Frame and Matthews families. Or have her get back together with Peter Love, who was a better character before he was turned into Reginald Jr.

I HATED the Mary McKinnon storyline. It didn’t make sense. Mary suddenly reappeared in her children’s lives without much drama, it was odd. Why not just make Denise Alexander the matriarch of a new core family or have her take over a long vacated role with ties to the past, like Missy Matthews (Scott LaSalle could have been Liz’s grandson instead), or the elusive Pammy Davis? But, as we always say on these threads, you needed someone with knowledge of the show’s history, and hack Maggie DePriest was more interested in killing off legacy female characters.

Taylor Miller said she had a difficult time at Another World and she couldn’t get a handle on Sally.

Got to 0:37 for Kim Sullivan at her wedding to Bob Hughes...and elsewhere for other soap-connected actors.

BNSD - your pussy still stinks! We can all smell it from here. Pee you!

AW should have never been moved out of it's 3:00 PM EST time slot. Texas, Santa Barbara, and Sunset Beach would have stood a better chance being sandwiched between Days and AW. Hell, they should have just kept The Doctors on between Days and AW and just tried to fix The Doctors instead of bring in Search and moving TD to noon.

The idea of Days at 1, The Doctors (still 30 minutes) at 2, another half-hour show (Texas? Something totally different?) at 2:30 and AW at 3 intrigues me. On the one hand, it's potentially two shows falling to OLTL in the 2 p.m. hour, but it does make you wonder how the half-hour Texas or whatever would have done against Search and later Capitol when CBS had a sandwich show in the 2:30 slot.

A half-hour Texas would presumably have been just as bad as the hour version, so I don’t think it would have gotten any more traction in a shorter format.

R29 But GL never suffered like the others did.

My life fell apart 50 years ago when they dropped THE from THE GUIDING LIGHT. It went farther downhill when they dropped Fat Ed and Fat Bert! Pam Long and Gail Kobe ruined my life!

I don't think AW would have suffered too badly if it would have stayed at 3. I think what happened is everyone who was watching AW at 3 just moved over to GL instead of starting a new soap.

What was Search for Tomorrow like in the late 70s/early 80s, before moving to NBC? From what I read it seems they made an effort through the 70s to be more contemporary than their P&G stablemates ATWT and AW.

I think GL was just so good so consistently it never suffered in the ratings.

I think people only remember 3 things about Search. Mary Stuart, Jennifer Pace falling through the glass patio door and Liza and Travis.

I think the bottom started falling out for Guiding Light once a growing amount of CBS affiliates decided they'd rather use the 3 p.m. hour for syndicated programs. GL started getting moved to the morning or dropped, although I think my hometown station didn't mess with it.

The P&G soaps were always the old lady soaps. Grandmas liked them. The hip young people watched ABC.

[quote]A half-hour Texas would presumably have been just as bad as the hour version, so I don’t think it would have gotten any more traction in a shorter format.

I disagree. Granted the first year of the show was not very good. The Corringtons turned out not to be wunderkinds a second time after their success with Search in the late 70s. It really wasn't until Gail Kobe came in as EP about a year into the Texas run that the show started getting on the right track. The final year of the show then turned out to be wonderful.

But if Texas had debuted as a 30 minute show, presumably they would have focused on the stronger plotlines and never even bothered to introduce half the characters they would ultimately discard in a year's time anyway.

More importantly, a 2:30 time slot would have meant people would have stuck around waiting for AW to start at 3 p.m. That was always my attitude about the Doctors -- you watched it in between Days and AW. And sometimes the Doctors plots were really good.

Presumably people would have had a similar response to Texas at 2:30 p.m.

R45 But that was way later on when soaps were in decline in general. GL survived at a very competitive time slot, being one of the, if not the, oldest soap, and wasn’t hurt by the competition. At all. It actually thrived being opposite juggernauts. It was a juggernaut itself. It really is amazing. I think GL’s history is the most fascinating of all the soaps given the obstacles it over came.

R34 That was AMAZING. *SOBS*

R45 Agree.

The weird thing is, the show was so good in 1991-92, and had an anniversary and a strong few years after Kim Zimmer departed where the whole cast was in great story.

But something happened in 1993 at CBS where the show lost network support and a lot of affiliates also started in late '93 to play it in the AM or not at all. GL was almost cancelled in 1995 but somehow stuck it out for almost 15 more years.....but from 2000 on it was pretty much an annual guessing game as to whether the ax would fall. CBS and P&G pretty much slowly drained the tub until GL was a shell of itself.

GL 1991-92 was just some damned fine soap opera. And it was nice because AW was going off of a really solid run and started to sputter around that time, so GL picked up the slack.

GL was great from 88 to 93. Period. Some damn fine soap opera.

Yes, its only bad time was really between Pam Long 1 and Pam Long 2, and even some of that (e.g. when they brought back Alan) was decent. But there was a long horrible stretch with The Sampson Girl, Infinity, etc.

ORD and Aunt Liz, thanks for the warm welcome back to Bay City. Aunt Liz, your responses to questions on the show and the genre are always so informative and well-written. Also, I often "read" them in Irene Dailey's Aunt Liz voice.

The departures of Jake, Marley, Cass, Kathleen, and Original Recipe Donna at the end of 1986 must have hurt the show. Wallingford seems to be fading into the background. It'll be interesting to see how this all leads into 1988 and Lemay's return. 1980s AW was pretty schizo.

BTW, AW-oriented: I finally watched the posted episode of Somerset (11/7/1972). Jingles the Clown did not disappoint! I'd read and heard about it for decades and can honestly say that it was even creepier than I had expected!

I figured out why John Considine looked so familiar: he was a recast Scooter Warren on Knots Landing. He's handsome! Lovely eyes.

Infinity at least had action, Francis Fisher, Beth & Lujack. It wasn’t all bad Sampson Girl was horrific.

[quote]That was always my attitude about the Doctors -- you watched it in between Days and AW. And sometimes the Doctors plots were really good.

That's how a lot of people felt about OLTL. You watched it in between AMC and GH and sometimes you got some really good plotlines on OLTL along the way.

And if the OLTL plotlines weren't all that good, it didn't really matter because GH was coming on afterwards.

It also had Brand New Sexy Philip.

Who I still loved even though he wasn't Philip.

A few posts ago, I suggested two half-hour soaps on NBC at 2 circa '78-'79. What about this idea? The Doctors at 1, Days at 1:30 (which would have kept it right up against ATWT), the new half-hour show at 2:30 and AW at 3.

That would have worked very well r58. Too bad NBC daytime heads didn't have the good sense to follow that plan.

The bottom fell out of GL when it was hit with a string of very, very bad luck in the summer of ‘92 when it was absolutely red hot that seemed to follow it for years. GL was finally ascending in the ratings, sometimes landing at #2, in ‘92 after years of being phenomenal watching. Then it lost several actresses within months who were in huge, vital storylines. The impact of their departures cannot be expressed enough. It let the air of the tires of a red hot shot. It was devastating.

Then Maureen

Then Frank Beatty not being able to complete the riveting Marion/Brent storyline which was like nothing else on daytime.

Then losing its best writers while many shows keep the same writers for years and years.

Sigh

^red hot show

I worked in the production office at AW 1994-1995 (way past its glory days). They were a pretty tight company of actors and creatives. Unbelievably they went through three Executive Producers in a little over a year. There was a lot of upheaval but everyone just seemed to roll with it. My two favorites to watch work - Anna Stuart and Charles Keating.

Mostly agree, R60, but the Brent/Marion story was considerably later, well after the bottom had fallen out of GL.

The other things you mention all happened in 1992, 1993 and 1994, which was about when the last vestiges of the Curlee/Demorest/Mulcahey writing team really blew apart, and you had various stories not really working, including "Tangie", Alan Michael and Lucy, et al.

It was Megan McTavish writing in 1995 and Michael Laibson as producer that launched the Brent/Marian story (supposedly, Marian's appearance was an homage or a swipe at Jill Farren Phelps). The only decent thing that really happened during the McTavish reign was Dinah's return. Most of the rest of it was a mess (including the criminally misused return of Nola).

But who knew it would get worse from there? Ugh.

[quote] Unbelievably they went through three Executive Producers in a little over a year. There was a lot of upheaval but everyone just seemed to roll with it.

This really killed AW - within its last 15 years or so it changed writers and/or producers every nine months or so on average. You'd get used to a story or a set of actors and like the direction they were going and boom, a month later it was a new sea of faces.

As mentioned in the new (March 13) edition of Digest - This Week in Soap History:

- On AW Michael and Donna (albeit BNSD) were married on March 9, 1987.

- On GL, Alexandra and Roger were married on March 12, 1990.

- Also on GL, Henry Chamberlain's funeral was held on March 6, 1996. MARY!

AW had 15 different headwriting regimes between 1979 (when Lemay left) and 1988 (when Lemay returned and then Swajeski took over). 15 in 9 years-almost a new headwriter every 6 months.

After Swajeski left in 1992 they had 11 headwriting regimes before cancellation in 1999.

Jill Farren Phelps raised AW’a ratings to the point where AW actually beat GL in households and women 18-49.

My (wet) dream would have been for the wonderful Cameron Mathison to take over the role of Andy Dixon from looks-challenged Scott DeFrietas, change his name to Drew, and turn into a Tad the Cad Martin on steroids type, becoming totally amoral and fucking his way through Oakdale with women AND men for money and expensive gifts. His two motives in life are sexual and material conquests. And then for mopey Iva to develop a split personality ala Viki Lord named Godiva, a totally raw sexual being. She and Drew would team up and form a deeply mutually sexual and amoral relationship and turn every character and relationship on their head.

Sheesh, it was even worse than I thought R66. Thanks for the details.

[quote] I hated the fake Blaine/Judy Dewey and barely noticed when Blaine and Sandy left.

Sandy had been such an integral part of the show for four year and then suddenly he was gone and barely ever mentioned again. It was very strange.

Chris Rich and Nancy Frangione were married in real life. Had been since 1982. So, show knew they intended to leave when their contracts were up. Nancy left in Nov. 1984, Chris in March 1985.

In the months leading up to Chris Rich leaving, show had been hinting at a Sandy-Donna pairing, so show clearly intended to continue with the character. Presumably, they would recast the part.

But all the mess with Laura Malone not loosing her baby weight fast enough and being replaced by her maternity leave temp actress Judy Dewey happened.

Suddenly, it was just easier to write both Sandy and Blaine out and barely speak of them again, so, that's what happened.

As we've said before, if the HW and/or the EP had a long history with the show, they would have realized the importance of the Sandy character and recast the part, either right away or after a brief break.

My all-time favorite stories were Justine and Lumina. So campy and fun to watch. Victoria Windham was amazing. She finally came into her own with Justine. I tried watching some of the 70s and early 80s stuff on YT but tbh it put me to sleep. Talk, talk, talk. That's all people did, was talk. Endless talking and recapping. No plot. No action. And the acting was ridiculous. So overly theatrical to the point that it seemed like parody. You don't need to play to the back row when you're on a sound stage. Mid/late 90s AW rocks.

Surprising no one, I suppose, r71 is indeed the Drew Dixon Troll.

Oh NO!!!!! Crazy nasty KooKoodora hasn’t posted at SON for 2 days! Did Vee give her a timeout again? Such drama with Vee and crazy Donna aka KooKoo.

I'll never forget the day they removed "THE" from "THE Guiding Light." My world changed forever that day. Once they slimmed down the name, they began eliminating all the fat people one by one. Fat Ed, Fat Bert, Fat Steve Jackson, Fat Hope, Fat Hillary, Fat Bea, Fat Nola, Fat Floyd, and Fat Rita were all axed. Kobe and Long did try and rectify the situation with Fat Reva, Fat H.B., Fat Sally, Fat Rick, Fat Maureen, and Fat Billy, but it just wasn't the same amount of extreme girth. Damn P&G. Damn them to hell!

Don’t forget Fat Miss Sally. And Fat Sarah Shayne.

[quote]15 different headwriting regimes between 1979 (when Lemay left) and 1988. After Swajeski left in 1992 they had 11 headwriting regimes before cancellation in 1999.

It's amazing it lasted as long as it did.

Fat Lainie Bauer was a poor imitation of Fat Bert Bauer.

As mentioned in the new (March 13) edition of Digest - This Week in Soap History:

- On AW, Liz first ate out Ada's snatch on March 9, 1978.

- On GL, Jennifer first ate out Holly's snatch on March 10, 1981.

- On EON, Miles first rimmed Derek on March 12, 1983

Even less surprising, Spicen is the Drew Dixon Troll.

It’s Serial Scholar, aka MonticelloEdge on twitter who is a sick bastard. Spicen dumped MonticelloEdge. Such daytime drama.

R78 Those were the days! I remember so vividly when Jennifer Richards ate out Holly’s snatch. Hillary Bauer was SO jealous! That was soaps all time best triangle.

And yet none of those personalities are tolerable.

R10, your expletive befuddled me till I read who signed it.

R76, there's a book in all that.

Another in what happened to Y&R since Bill Bell stepped down, died, Lucy Johnson left, Babs Bloom came in and then -- Angie baby, she was a special lady. She lived in a world of make-believe.

R84 and a lot of midday orders from El Pollo Loco.

Celebrating Rachel?

For what? Being the town bicycle?

Jesus, those P&G shows were so drab and poorly produced. ATWT came off like a bad high school production of "Our Town." AW had all the dramatic force of a bus and truck company of a Tennessee Williams play. Now, Y&R and B&B had the lush production values that made them watchable and entertaining. The Bells were geniuses.

Where is the son you've ever given him? r86

CREDIT CARDS ARE NOT FREE MONEY

JWS and Marsha Clark were soul mates. Shame they never got married.

YOU LOST YOUR VIRGINITY!

JWS was and still is a big pussyhound. I know that Marsha Clark was in love with him, but he couldn’t love just one woman. He needs a different pussy everyday.

JWS and Marsha Clark had the type of love you could never know.

So many soap people found true love. Velekka & Joel, JWS and Marsha Clark, Geri Court & David O’Brien and so many more.

Nancy McGowan is a human roach nest!

I wish they had turned Sabrina Hughes into a bitchy whore, so we could watch vinegary Nancy try to set her straight.

R96 Yeah, that was one of Marland's mistakes - the Sabrina story up to the reveal was fabulous but after she came to Oakdale they didn't seem to have any clue what to do with her.

Actually, not sure if that was Marland's writing or the fact that Julianne (seriously) couldn't quite land the British accent.

Just out of curiosity, is anyone on here old enough to remember watching Somerset or Lovers & Friends/For Richer For Poorer other than clips on YouTube?

R98 Remind us. Who ate put whos pussy? I only remember snatch rating on those shoes.

>>>>>>>>

Cheryl McKinnon is a human roach nest.

She's so boring. She's worse than Melissa Anderson on Days was during the same period.

Roaches? I thought those were limited to Felicia's boa. Or Donna's closet......

Jake, Kathleen and the first MJ were the only interesting McKinnons. Otherwise they were dull and the writing and casting was all over the map.

Before Denise Alexander came on the canvas they appeared to be toying with a Vince/Ada pairing, then they recast Vince and made him 10 years younger.

The first MJ was Bay City’s answer to Margo Hughes, then they replaced her and made her a whiny ex-hooker.

Were Richard Bekins and Kyra Sedgwick at item for a while? I distinctly remember a Daytime TV article showcasing them out and about together in Manhattan, tons of photos. The article was something about how Richard wanted to find the right girl, and the gist of the article is that sometimes the right girl is right in your own backyard. At least they hinted that they wore than castmates.

Richard Bekins was such a pussy chaser. Did he ever find the right woman to settle down with?

[quote] they replaced her and made her a whiny ex-hooker

Sounds a bit like Margo.....

That vinegary Helen Wagner hated CZP and her trolloping ways and various dui’s. Helen had no time for that bullshit.

Anyway.....

I'm liking our discussion on soaps following the leader (like Catlin and Sally being AW's answer to Bo & Hope). The Lewises, of course, were GL's version of the Buchanans (who were daytime's version of the Ewings). Can we think of other examples?

Sandy Alexander was supposed to be AW's answer to Luke Spencer on GH.

Show even had Chris Rich perm his hair like Tony Geary's hair at that point.

R110 Um, hello? I'm right here!

As a OLTL and Y&R watcher- may I add I say that AW had lovely production values in the mid 70's. The show looked Y&R esque... and just really good...

It's funny that Rauch turned out such a good looking show in the 70s at AW.....and then went to OLTL where everything looked like it was filmed under unforgiving hideous fluorescent office lighting.

R113- OLTL's Paul Rauch horrendous lighting and utterly brilliant background music is a life long obsession of mine!!!!! I am not lying!

I have a weird memory- so here it goes-

The only interview I have ever read regarding Rauch's aesthetics for OLTL was in 1990... The lighting director (who I recall was Michael Thornborough?) said this when asked by (Soap Opera Weekly) about the bright lighting on OLTL

This is all Paul Rauch- Paul Rauch wants the actresses eyes to SHINE. He wants an upbeat look. (this upbeat part is verbatim)

If you watch the show- it looked very good in an 80's way from 86-88. Something happened in 1989- and the lighting was flipped on ultraviolet levels.

I will give Rauch this-if you watch these episodes- the actresses key light did make their eyes shine- Every one one of their eyeballs has what looks like a ring light in every scene. Even ladies with dark eyes, like Barbara Luna- they have this ring of light in their eyes.. Its crazy- but the actresses eyes DO SHINE.

It is funny, when Gottlieb joined OLTL, Linda Thorson (Julia Medina) said that "Linda is going to make us look like those beautiful people on The Young and The Restless".

The current lighting is so bright that it shows every mark on our faces. (Near verbatim)

Gottlieb hired one of the top lighting designers she could find. And the show looked every bit as good as Y&R,

But of you go and check out the late 80's OLTL episodes, you can actually see what Rauch was going for. Its interesting in an artistic way.

Erika Slezak said Rauch got bored and burned out onOLTL by the time the Eterna storyline came around in 1989.

I think the same could be said of his work on AW by 1978-he was distracted by the spinoffs and the expansion to 90 minutes, it was too much for him and for Lemay. There is a definite decay in quality on AW by 1978, and I would say the Janice/Mac/Rachel/Mitch was the last compelling storyline until possibly the Alma Rudder story in 1982.

I loved Lovers and Friends, and the most interesting character to me, was Ellie (played by Flora Plumb, Eve's older sister). Ellie was a status climber, desperate to assert herself with the snobby Nancy Marchland character, who treated her like a discarded tissue. Richard Backus - my God he screamed gay - played her younger brother, an ass kisser to the rich family. Their mother was Pat Englund as Josie, who worked in a thrift shop, and instead of preachy wisdom, she used good humor to keep her kids in line. I hated both of the men who played the alcoholic father, Lester. One was drippy and a wimp, and the other was too young.

Interesting posts....I always though the insanely bright lighting was more of an ABC studio thing because both AMC and OLTL (and Loving, I suppose, though I don't remember much about it) had that intense lighting.

Agreed- However 1989 was REALLY great, until September.. The show lost its entire spark.

Anyway back to these P&G shows!!!

I kind of liked the P&G shows aesthetics- they looked like real homes and NOT sets... ATWT often looked good in the 80's

and I recall GL looking cheap as shit, but the JFP era looked great-

That's great to hear! Ada Day is a celebration of Ada Lovelace, a pioneer of computer science and the first computer programmer, who is known for her work on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Ada Day is typically celebrated on October 9th, which is Ada Lovelace's birthday. It's a great opportunity to celebrate the contributions of women in STEM fields and to inspire future generations of women in science and technology. I hope you have a wonderful celebration in Bay City!

I love AW’s sets from the late 80s-I wanted to live in Vicky’s house and eat at Tops (the nicest soap restaurant set ever in my opinion).

R118- All My Children was ugly as shit to me as a kid, i hated that show, Its nadir was that 1990-1992 era... Ugly as fuck.

Loving looked extremely luxe in that 1983-1987 era from Youtube- it was weird that it even looked better than OLTL and GH.. especially the sets-

OLTL had some great sets in that 1986 era- Tina's penthouse and the Waterside Inn, were both amazing.... Dorian's penthouse was beautiful as well..

But it was odd to me the look that Rauch set for OLTL, when AW looked so elegant and dimly lit during his tenure- and the sets were lovely as well...

R121- I always thought that AW looked amazing in the late 80's until its end.... Soap critics said it looked low budget, but I thought that it was one of the more elegant looking shows..

This is going to sound weird, but I always wondered if the Cory living room set in the 90s was a different room, than the wood paneled room that was shown in the 70s - 80s. I loved that wood paneled set, it was very masculine and clubby and it had the doors to the patio and I kind of tried to recreate that look in my living room. (Go ahead and call me Mary! [not McKinnon, but Matthews])

I don't recall them ever saying that Rachel was redecorating. That room kind of just showed up one day.

I may be misremembering, R124, but the renovations to the Cory mansion were a major plot point, with Quinn hiring Mitch to work on the construction project. I think the new living room appeared as a product of that.

The worst set ever was ATWT’s Mona Lisa. So cheap and garish, like a set from community theater.

[quote]people only remember 3 things about Search. Mary Stuart, Jennifer Pace falling through the glass patio door and Liza and Travis.

Any videos of Jennifer falling through the glass doors on Youtube?

R125, I am currently rewatching 1986-87 AW and can confirm for you that the Cory living room was indeed remodeled in the fall of 1986. Just saw that episode a few days ago.

I wonder if it was sad for longtime viewers when they realized they'd never see the Matthews house again. I'm not well-versed in GL and ATWT -- did the longtime Bauer and Hughes houses more or less make it to the end?

R126, I wouldn't touch that place with a 10 foot pole!

R130 = Lucinda Walsh

The last time we saw Bert Bauer's house was Christmas Eve 1982 when she hosted most of the town, and Mike and Sara sang Christmas ditties. Gail Kobe and Pam Long Hammer remodeled the set to create a house for Billy and Mindy,

On ATWT, they definitely shifted from the action being in Tom and Margo's living room to their kitchen, which they were still using at the end. We saw Kim's kitchen later than her living room, but I don't recall how late. Carly's house was shown near the end. Barbara definitely lost her sets, though.

When Lily still lived at Lucinda's they had a very specific rec room sort of set they showed of Lucinda's home, but after that it changed.

Did the Snyder Farm Kitchen (with eavesdropping porch) make it to the bitter end?

Sets (storage and putting up and taking down) and the cost of studio space are two of the contributing factors that killed soap opera production in New York City.

R135 It did. Shockingly enough, it survived.

It's odd how you dizzy queens ridicule real-life Midwestern flyover fraus, yet worship and adore their fictional counterparts. Gays are weird.

Gays still think that producers and writers care what they think. They don’t.

Soaps are super-low-brow entertainment. I get that it's some sort of art form, but then again so is professional wrestling. I can't imagine anyone with a hint of intelligence watching these shows for anything other than a few laughs, or at least to gawk at the hot hunks. My theory is that damaged gays, rejected by their families for being different, see these characters as as surrogate families who would accept them for who they are, and thus the strong emotional attachment to these fictional towns and their characters. Pretty tragic, if you ask me.

Sharon Case was on with Alan last week and she said the Snyder kitchen set always had the most amazing fresh apples.

I'm seeing several soap threads here. I thought the moderator banned them, and rightfully so.

Alan, as in homely Alan Sarapa? Does he still speak so unclearly that you can’t understand a word he says? Terrible podcaster. Plus he's an idiot for thinking that he's an influencer. lololololololololol

R141 Oh that's right, I always forget she was on ATWT for the blink of an eye.

Sharon played Dawn, Monica’s daughter on GH, she was the third actress in a year in the role. Then she was part of the dull early 90s ATWT teen set, the only interesting member of that group was Parker Posey.

Well, Parker and Jim Wlcek's chest and obscenely heavy bulge.

The likes of which hadn't been seen at that studio since Robert Tyler.

The obese soap twitter queens are rebooting the P&G soaps as podcasts! The wave of the future! LOL Beth Ehlers dropped them like a hot potato. lololz

I was at the memorial service for Doug Marland and it was held in a Broadway theatre. Tamara Tunie sang something in addition to a delivering a powerful eulogy. I happened to sit a few rows behind a very distraught Martha Byrne and other cast members. After it was over Sharon Case, who’d never met Marland and had only been on the show for a few months, walked over to them and chirped “So do you guys wanna go bowling?” They just stared at her. Sharon was sweet but not the brightest bulb in the pack.

Did Colleen show up drunk to the funeral? Did she get pulled over on the way home?

Tell us more r148-who else was there?

Was Marland gay?

Am pissing myself at the bowling comment.

Hey but FAT twitter soap queen Casey has 4 soaps on podcasts that no one listens to. They get 3 likes and he thinks its 3 million likes. Dumbass. Fat twitter queen Casey sets up book displays at minimum wage. He’s garbage.

//////

Do the actors get paid for calling in to the podcast soaps? Do the other soap twitter queens have acting parts?

What was Beth E. promised as her per episode rate?!? A gift card to Carrabba’s?

Cue card please!

Felicia Minei Behr and Lorraine Broderick were the best things to ever happen to ATWT. There, I said it. They infused a traditionally dull and low-energy show with ABC pizazz, which is what it desperately needed. And fuck Allison Rice Toilet or whatever the hell her name was. She was so lethargic and low energy. Susan Batten energized the character, but the old biddies and gays who watched this show were not good at dealing with change.

Anyway.

The median age of P&G soap viewers was 103. No wonder they were cancelled.

Lord, give me strength.

Did the "legendary" Betty Rea go out of her way to hire low-energy actors? I mean, seriously, Peter Simon, Ellen Parker, Maeve Kinkead, Beverlee McFlimsy, etc., were more effective than ambien with a melatonin chaser at putting the audience to sleep. JFP and the focus groups got it right regarding Parker. Good riddance. And with her dismissal, JFP gave us Justin Deas and the Cooper family. Win win.

If only there was a market for YOUR podcast, you loon, but no one wants to hear an hour about clogged toilets, fat names, and snatches being eaten.

They should of did a storyline where Pappa Bauer was found out to be a Nazi and extradited to Germany to stand trial for war crimes. They could of used the Peapack courthouse to double for Neuremberg. And speaking of which, why did the waspy named Steve Jackson have such a thick German accent? Was he a nazi to?

Yes, JFP made the decision to kill off Maureen Bauer. But that decision was made because a focus group found Maureen to be boring and expendable. I wasn’t in that focus group but I completely agree with them Boreen Bauer was dull and killing her off made for superb daytime drama and an Emmy for Ellen Parker and the writers. It was a great decision by JFP. Bravo!!

The least Latino man ever, lol.

What's the story behind McCunty up and leaving so abruptly? Such a selfish thing to do. I realize the poor thing was so overworked, what with her 2x/week appearances and 16 weeks vacation, but she should of perservered and stuck it out. Plus it left her screen partners in story limbo. That really was a cunty thing to pull.

Poor overworked Bev pulled the same crap at Texas. The overworked part. She didn’t dramatically leave after counting the days like she did at GL but it shows a history of her feeling overworked. She left Texas because she was overworked. Poor dear. She chose acting. She chose to be on soaps. She knew what she was getting into. And she only worked less than 100 days a year at GL. WTF.

Bev sounds like a miserable human being. And she was no great shakes as an actress. Where's her Emmy if she was so wonderful? Susan Lucci, who has an Emmy, is 10x the actress Bev ever was and a much nicer person. She always read her lines as if she were bored. That annoying velvet voice or whatever the hell THAT was masked her acting flaws. I caught her on an old Mannix episode a while back. Very amateurish. Overrated.

Peter Boynton at least kept his accent throughout.

I never saw Tonio as a real threat to Craig and Sierra. And Tonio and Sabrina was entirely forgettable. But his story with Meg was a geat use of that character.

(And my late mother always ALWAYS called him Antonio...so he clearly never mattered to her!)

Today is the 30th anniversary of Doug Marland's passing.

One of his greatest story beats (and he played it a lot) was someone showing up with someone they're estranged from and they want a reconciliation only to learn the person they want to reconnect with.

Case in point: Craig tracks down Sierra after she learns that she's Lucinda's daughter and that Craig and Lucinda had sex.

She's with Tonio who informs Craig: 'The woman you know as Sierra Esteban is now Mrs. Tonio Reyes!'

Great intro to Tonio; we HATED him from Day One.

March 5 was the anniversary of AW's expansion to 90 minutes in 1979.

In that episode, Olive Gordon set fire to Alice's house, intending to kill her nemesis. Instead, she killed John Randolph.

To counter program the 90 minute expansion, other shows had some powerful stories playing out that week. On OLTL, Karen was on the witness stand while on GL, Roger raped his wife Holly.

And I'm pretty sure that this was around the time that Rick and Monica hooked up on GH, the event that made them think he was A.J.'s father.

I was too little to watch soaps in the late 70s, but from the clips I have seen of AW, ATWT and GL, the first two seem dated and old fashioned, although the acting and dialogue are superior on AW.

GL on the other hand seems a lot more contemporary, almost like an ABC soap, like AMC, in terms of writing, directing, acting….

Is that a correct analysis? It explains why GL flourished in the first half of the 80s while the other two stumbled.

Pam Long mentioned somewhere that she used AMC's formula at the time...innocent young love, social issues, and comedy to reshape GL. AMC ruled the demos when she started at GL so that would make sense. Maybe that's why GL seemed more contemporary than ATWT and AW. Those two always seemed like conservative old granny soaps, while I agree that GL (as well as Edge and even Search) seemed less stodgy. I don't think I ever made it through a full episode of ATWT.

R173 I believe GL was seen as contemporary and obviously very popular with younger crowds. Although the oldest soap, it maintained a sense of hipness.

Guiding Light almost had a Californian hipness about it during that time.

It also looked cheaper than ATWT/AW, which gave it some things in common with ABC.

I think PG made a deliberate choice to keep their shows conservative and somewhat old fashioned. PG soaps were the last soaps to leave organ music behind and stayed away from some of the more provocative stories that the other shows were doing. Then there was a change in the 80s. ATWT and SFT blatantly copied GH. AW was still trying dig itself out of the Lemay era and wasn't GL in a very strange place in the era between everything Rita and the introduction of the 4 Musketeers and the Lewises? Edge went through a weird period too.

GL’s weird era was short, and the show wasn’t seen as very conservative.

THE Guiding Light truly ended when they dropped THE from the title.

I still love how ATWT revealed that John and Lucinda were married. I didn't see it coming.

I guessed a lot of the other stories, though that was part of the fun. I knew Sabrina would end up being Frannie's sister though I didn't know about the Kim/Bob/Jen story then.

I also figured out early on that Beatrice was Duncan's daughter and not his sister.

R172, Doug left GH by October 1979 (Pat Falken Smith wrote Luke's rape of Laura -- not Doug); but I give Pat props for playing out the who's the father of AJ story.

This was a great payoff and a rare day when there was no Luke and Laura on the run in the summer of 1980.

I wondered once the difference between Carly and Monica as Monica was a liar back then; someone posted in response Monica has more class in her pinky than Carly does in her whole body.

Subjective, I guess. But made sense.

I always thought Doug wrote the rape. But he just created Luke Spencer and Bobbie Spencer....and Tracy Q, too, then?

Why is March 1 "Another World" day?

I was a huge fan but only caught it's final years (in the 90s) so the significance of March 1st is lost on me.

*its

R183 I think that was just a joke because it was the day this thread began.

If we were going to do a true AW Day it should be May 4, as that's the day the show began (in 1964).

Is it true that the AW bench was dismantled?

Is Charita's leg in the Smithsonian?

The AW bench snapped in half after a visit from the obese soap twitter queens.

I'll never forget the day it went off the air - June 25 1999.

Monkey business aside, a perfect finale, even when thrown together on such short notice.

Frankie and Charlie reuniting? Paulina forgiving Cindy? Rachel and Carl in the livingroom with the photos?

R62 that's so cool!

Was Charles' hair real? It looked real, but it was so thick that I questioned it...given his age and all. Good genetics I guess.

He really was a brilliant actor. Better than Patrick Stewart, even, for my money. Wish he'd had another big show. He deserved better. They fucked Carl over when they fired him. The finale somewhat fixed it but....yeeeaaah. It was literal character assassination. I hated the producers for that.

His departure royally fucked up the mood of the show. First it was Ryan's death (well-written but cruel), then Frankie's (nauseating and random as fuck) and finally Carl's (just a big FU to the actor and fans).

I miss him. He seemed so joyful and adept at switching gears. Amazing actor. Any anecdotes about him?

....was it obvious to you guys in production that Victoria Wyndham was emulating him more and more? Fans started to resent Rachel for acting like The Lady Of The Manor during her marriage to Carl - much more airy and grand than the character had ever been before. Was she like that off camera as well? Just mirroring Charles somewhat?

Thanks...always wondered how much she got lost in her respect for him.

Oh! Did you get to see Grayson McCouch shirtless???

Well it kind of made sense for a woman in Rachel's position to have ended up that way.

Spoiled all her life, and than earthy for a lengthy period, followed by the grandiose belief she is “special” and can only be understood by other special people.

I think Wyndham made a perfectly logical acting choice in "mirroring" her onscreen husband. But I hated it. I always preferred Rachel with a bite.

R62 Charles Keating was really one of a kind. He was a wild man with a great heart. And that hair was all his. It was impressive for a man in his fifties. He helped me both personally and professionally and we remained friends until his death in 2014. He was a straight man but he would have been a classic Datalounger. Wit and wisdom for days. I didn’t have much interaction with Vicky Wyndham. From afar she was professional and game, if a little guarded. My sense is that she was the gatekeeper on that set and unofficial head of quality control. I know she pushed for her character to link up with Charles’ because she just wanted to play with him. He gave her a second wind and re-energized her. Both she and Charles loved their cigarettes. I kind of miss the days when we could openly smoke on sets. Grayson Mccouch was a striking man with a disarming smile. Sadly, I don’t remember being on the floor when he had shirtless scenes. I worked mainly upstairs in the production office but I always found myself back on the set. They were fun to watch. I do remember him bringing Betty Buckley to the AW Christmas party in ‘94. Seemed weird at the time and seems weird now.

Ugh, sorry for that formatting. How do we separate into paragraphs?

And, ugh again! That Charles Keating/Vicky Wyndham post was for R190. I’m a mess this morning.

Thanks for posting R193. I have a question that I'm not sure if you can answer. I love Victoria Wyndham, but I always got the impression that she couldn't stand Jensen Buchanan. Did they have any kind of relationship? Is it also true that she hated the writer Michael Malone?

I've heard delicious rumors about Grayson - he's very straight, mostly, but if two separate men are to be believed, he also really likes/loves to be worshipped, no matter who does it.

R196 Not sure this helps but I saw little to no interaction between Vicky Wyndham and Jensen Buchanan. That doesn’t mean they had beef though. Jensen was fairly quiet but she seemed pretty tight with the male cast and Judi Luciano. Wish I knew about Vicky and Michael Malone but it wouldn’t surprise me if she problems with him.

[quote]How do we separate into paragraphs?

Hit the Return/Enter key twice.

A friend of mine who’s now dead told me Charles Keating was one of her best friends in England back when he was a hairdresser!

Charles was very talented. I sadly did not really care for his villainous characters and most of the time he was directed to go over the top.

I did appreciate the nuances he found in Carl but it was hard to forgive Carl's earlier misdeeds. I think AW was really hoping to do a bit of a Roger Thorpe thing with Carl, but I'm not sure they quite landed it.

Roger’s redemption worked because he was remorseful about Holly, and because they had characters like Maureen, Mindy and Blake expose his vulnerable side.

Maureen and Mindy weren’t around when he was terrorizing Springfield in the 70s, and Blake was his child, so it didn’t seem out of character for them to see him as not just a villain, even with characters like Holly, Ed and Ross there to remind us he wasn’t perfect. It also made sense for Maureen to gravitate to Roger after Holly slept with Ed.

In contrast, Rachel was one of Carl’s victims in the 80s, as was Mac, her sister Nancy, and her stepson Sandy. One of her best friends, Cass, was “widowed” when Kathleen went into witness protection after testifying against Carl. She saw that Carl absconded with Donna’s money.

Rachel knew firsthand Carl was bad news and yet she still fell for him. It didn’t make sense to me, he targeted her family for years. That’s why I don’t think it really worked, and I think it damaged the character of Rachel.

Well said R202.

Carl's misdeeds were more on the level of James Stenbeck, but they never really tried to redeem Stenbeck in any of his appearances. There was a time during his initial resurrection they did a bit of that, but a leopard never changes his spots, etc.

And as great as most of Roger's story was after he reappeared in 1989, that reappearance/resurrection only worked because GL sort of collectively forgot that it wasn't just marital rape between Roger and Holly....it was also Roger's rape of Rita, and one other character, if I remember correctly.

[quote]Rachel knew firsthand Carl was bad news and yet she still fell for him. It didn’t make sense to me, he targeted her family for years. That’s why I don’t think it really worked, and I think it damaged the character of Rachel.

That's what I had problems with. Mac and Rachel had been Carl's target. How in the world could she have ever fallen for him?

Charles Keating was a very good actor. I admired his talent. But this is one case where if they were going to cast him as a romantic lead and have him courting Rachel, I think they should given Carl an identical twin brother. Or maybe removed a brain tumor.

Roger having a daughter and being protective of her worked to his advantage of redeeming him as well.

By contrast, they made Carl into Ryan's biological father. They tried to play that angle up for redemption some, but it was never as effective as the Roger-Blake thing. I think gender stereotyping played into -- fathers being protective of daughters elicits more sympathy than fathers being protective of sons.

Yes, the only thing they should have done was to have had Carl been attacked, in surgery and they completely removed the part of his brain which contained memory. A blank slate Carl. And this new Carl went out of his way to “make up” for what old Carl did to his victims. And then Rachel falling in love with him might have made sense.

I could have lived with that r207. Would have been very happy about that, in fact.

Charles Keating and Victoria Wyndham did have good chemistry. Too bad the show didn't follow your idea to help make their romance more palatable.

I concur with all the reasons mentioned above as why I did not like Rachel and Carl. They tried to play it as Rachel doing for Carl what Mac did for her. Rachel just sent baby clothes to a woman who just miscarried, she wasn't stalking and terrorizing Alice. It was a good story, but I couldn't forget the history.

Same thing for Jake and Victoria. For anyone who watched the Who Shot Jake story and everything that lead up to it and happened after knew that there was no way that Victoria could ever be with Jake again. I could see them having an uneasy friendship, but the show's signature couple, no way. And even if you pretend the Jake and Marly stuff didn't happen, Jake still fucked her mother.

As for the Roger thing, it was a different time and soaps played fast and loose with rape on the regular. As an example, we were an NBC house, but when I would stay with my Grandma in the summer for a couple of weeks, she watched CBS soaps. She loved Roger and hated Rita. That's how I learned what a strumpet was.

[quote] As for the Roger thing, it was a different time and soaps played fast and loose with rape on the regular.

Yup. In the 70s there was a very lurid, potboiler novel sort of vibe to it. Even with stories that had a bit of reality/social problems aspect - the marital rape thing, when women's liberation was really coming forth and the idea that a man owned his wife was pushed back upon - it was still portrayed as "oh, John Dixon just got so excited and just HAD to fuck Dee!" Or was it Kim? (Or both?)

Original Rachel was the blueprint for Meghan Markle.

Happy Rachel Day!

Robin Strasser debuted as the iconic Rachel Davis on this day in 1967,

Rachel? I don't know her.

I don't think I'm familiar with her either.

Rachel Davis?

She's a cock juggling thunder cunt!

“That Rrrrrrr-ACHEL is getting on my last nerve!”

Just finished watching Tina Sloan in the Locher Room. It was fairly good. I learned several things, including:

1. When GL hired Tina to play Lillian in 1983, they told her the role would only last a year.

2. Now that the show has been canceled, Grant Aleksander has a Christmas Eve party with the GL people he's closest too, including Tina, Ron Raines, Michael O'Leary, Beth Chamberlain and Justin Deas and their spouses.

3. When Tina was on Somerset in the mid 70s, her character was paired with Joel Crothers' character. At one point, the two were making out in scene. After the scene, Joel said to her, " A woman has never turned me on as much as you just did." Tina said it took her a little while to realize what Joel was really saying to her.

We wish you a pendulous Christmas......

Did Tina talk about her brief time as Patti#800 on Search? Mary Stuart complemented her as the 'loveliest' Patti ever, in Both of Me.

Which, in Mary speak, meant "This bitch knew her lines and didn't try to steal Mama's spotlight" LOL

I'm glad that Mary liked at least one Patti. It seemed like she despised most of them.

There's only one star of a Mary Stuart show, baby, and that's ME!

ME!

I often wonder who Mary hated more:

1) The Various SORASed Pattis (except, apparently, Tina Sloan)

2) Ann Marcus

3) The McCleary Brothers

Tina said she was brought on Search for a limited role, the purpose of which was to give Jo a grandchild.

Mary was the predecessor to Kim Zimmer in the press.

Complaining about the story, or that there was too much story, or too little, or that the story wasn't sexy enough, or too sexy, etc. etc. etc.

No matter what, those bitches were unhappy.

Nothing brings me joy more than Mary Stuart being a bitch stories. Well, Pete Lemay's description of his lunch with Ginny Dwyer is pretty damned funny, but Mary Stuart is a gift. One of my faves is a story that Matt Ashford tells about some fan event where Mary thought that Matt was trying to upstage her and she shot him a look that made his balls go back up into his body and then lectured him about professional protocol afterwards. 🤣

Qui etait cette cunt?

Mary Stuart, that's who!

Apparently there were 12 actresses to play Patti in the show's 35 year history.

Wasn't Patti also offscreen for several years, though? That's a lot of Pattis.

It was the Patti Parade, and Tom Hughes on ATWT was re-cast as many times, and it was The Tom Train.

Patti was supposed to be 6 years old when SFT premiered in 1951, and Lynn Loring -who Mary truly adored - played her until 1962, I think Mary could never get over Lynn leaving for Hollywood, and the Patti replacements, except for Leigh Lassen, barely lasted a few months. Mary didn't want a grandchild for Jo, so Patti and her husband, Len, 'adopted' Len's illegitimate child, so technically Jo wasn't a grandmother.

As R212 mentioned.....now on Digest's website

there's a big difference between Rachel sending Alice some baby clothes and Carl trying to KILL Rachel in the mid-80s

AW failed time and time again to find a proper worthy love interest for Rachel/Vicky W. after Watson died.

They should have tried harder.

Charles Keating has good chemistry with Wyndham. Certainly better than Louis Arlt pretending to be Indiana Jones.

And r207 had the right idea for how to handle the fact that Carl terrorized Mac and Rachel in the mid 80s. He said:

[quote] have had Carl been attacked, in surgery and they completely removed the part of his brain which contained memory. A blank slate Carl. And this new Carl went out of his way to “make up” for what old Carl did to his victims. And then Rachel falling in love with him might have made sense.

I'd have gone the brain tumor route, that would be an excuse for his behavior. Amnesia is just a cover for it. And I don't think amnesia transforms the essential nature of a person. I know, it's a soap ... so I'd also would have preferred a twin brother. )

I mean, I guess when DAYS had a serial killer become one half of the supercouple quibbling about Carl is almost quaint.....

it's too bad Mitch Blake didn't stick around; I would have bought him with Rachel.

So much they could have done; try to bring back an actor to play Ted Clark or an ex-flame of Iris's to start up that feud again.

Rachel ending up with Robert Delaney or a recast Brian Bancroft sounds intriguing. They brought Nic Coster back for the 25th anniversary and established there was still a spark between Iris and Robert.

Rachel getting back with Russ Matthews - Sam Groom version - would have been fun. Full circle, Rachel turns into Mary Matthews.

R210 - I believe John Dixon did rape Kim. At his trial for raping Dee she wound up recanting the accusation while in the witness stand and admitted that she mistakenly thought he was Brad Hollister… seemed like a cop out. I wonder if that had been the plan all along, or if the writers changed course to sort of save the character of John.

R239, Sam Groom was IN the last episode; I think they booked him to reprise Russ but then had him play the minister instead.

what a waste;

GL had everyone but India von Halkein come back for its finale -- we saw Nola, Bridget, Fletcher, Dylan, Holly -- and so many others.

ATWT was pretty bad in terms of bringing folks back but we got mean ole Johnny Dixon.

But AW was the worst. On one hand, they got out some old photos of Ada and all the Jamies, Sandy and Blaine...but we should have seen lots of those folks back for the final weeks. Pat Matthews, Alice, Iris etc.

These shows are often written and produced by people who just don't know them for audiences that do know them.

r241

ATWT got Julianne Moore though

R235, you mean Carl would have had a brain tumor for many years which caused his villainous behavior? I don’t think so.

Yes, that was HUGE; she came back when she knew the show was ending and her brief scene was great. Her toast....wonderful.

I remember when she was leaving the show, Frannie left town first. She was going to spend Christmas in Boston with Casey's family.

Sabrina is at the Hughes home with Seth; the door bell rings; Bob runs over to it and it's Frannie! She says, 'Daddy!' and I'm like oh, cool; they got Julianne back. Then, I'm like um duh Sabrina was there; Moore was IN THE BUILDING THAT DAY. That's a testament to her creating two such different characters.

Though I do agree with posters that say the setup and reveal of Sabrina was better than the aftermath. Kim just ripped her one day saying you're not letting us get to know you. That was cool. RIP Kathy Hays.

I still watch soaps now but lord knows I don't refer to these folks with a familial tone in my voice that do with the families on ATWT and GL and AW (more in the 70s).

I'd pay 30 bucks a month for a streaming service that showed P&G shows from the 70s 80s and 90s; and Marland's GH from late 77 to 79

btw, ironically, we have Noelle Beck (Trisha, LOVING) to thank for Moore's return; she and Moore have kids near the same age maybe?

Beck reached out to Moore and she agreed to pop back in.

I can't imagine Moore's agents ever passing along a request to her from the show.

I think that came out in the Locher room.

I'm not sure if this is fan fic, but I swear that I heard/read the original ending scene of Another World was supposed to be Rachel opening the door to Iris as played by Beverlee McKinsey, but they couldn't get Beverlee. She may have been sick. That would have been the best soap ending ever.

For me the only good soap ending was Edge of Night. They actually thought about it and the show and it was a satisfying conclusion. All other soap endings were clearly rushed and not thought through. "To Texas" wasn't awful.

I can't vouch for the quality of the storylines leading up to it, but surely Jo and Stu sharing a few last words is worthy of some praise?

R246 It's a lovely idea but considering what a huge cunt Goutman was at the end of ATWT, I don't think he would have been that creative or honoring history that much at the end of AW.

I remember there were several times Beverlee was asked back to both AW and GL after her departure. I think she considered returning to GL for a hot second when Paul Rauch was heading GL and Claire Labine was writing, but ultimately I think her health issues precluded it by then (around 1998).

To bring Bev back for just a wordless scene would have been a crime. But a week's worth of scenes in the last week of AW might have set up a continuation if another network wanted to pick it up.

[quote]But AW was the worst. On one hand, they got out some old photos of Ada and all the Jamies, Sandy and Blaine...but we should have seen lots of those folks back for the final weeks. Pat Matthews, Alice, Iris etc.

AW had just a few weeks to wrap up the show. There was about 6 weeks time between the cancellation announcement and taping the final show.

On the other hand, ATWT had 8 months notice of cancellation.

Goutman was at the helm for both shows. He had 8 months to prepare for ATWT; he had about 4 to 5 months before Helen Wagner died and could have taped her saying 'good night, dear' giving viewers a full circle moment. While Moore and Bryggman were A-list what about Rosemary Prinz? She's a live NOW, 12 years later so I imagine a decade plus ago, she was still camera presentable.

The worst thing Goutman did was not give us Holden and Lily with Martha back; Noelle volunteered to step aside; I think she was recurring and TPTB decided to fuck the fans and give us Trisha Alden and Holden.

But the worst was his treatment of Fulton. He could have given Lisa a one-way phone call from Grant Colman; "Grant! Oh, my goodness! Grant Coleman! Wha-at?? You're coming back to Oakdale! Oh, Grant. No. Ask me now over the phone! Yes! Yes, my darling! I will marry you!"

What would have that have taken? 30 seconds? Okay with Fulton maybe a whole act. Kidding. The woman put the show on the map. She was robbed.

The problem with AW is that it lost all its history; by the end all they had was Rachel, Donna, Matthew, Amanda, and I guess Carl.

But the show never should have lost Sharlene and the Frame presence and the Matthews.

I give Jill Lorie Hurst MAJOR props for not only bringing Grant back (who knows if the numbers would have gone up if he'd been back earlier) and all the others towards the end -- Ed, Vanessa, Billy, Holly, Nola, Bridget, Dylan...

Again, these shows are mostly written and produced by people who don't know them for audiences that know and love them.

That set up is designed to fail.

Every now and then, I would spit on Goutman's red Emmy winner circle on the walk outside the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon. And Jill's too.

R251 On my next trip to Pittsburgh.....well, let's just say my "homage" will include a stool softener and a late night trip to Taco Bell before visiting Goutman's circle.

[quote]Goutman was at the helm for both shows.

Biggest difference is he was still answering to MADD when AW went off the air in 1999.

By 2010 when ATWT said sayonara, he didn't answer to anybody. MADD had been gone for 5-6 years at that point. Thus his ego could take over, as did his many grievances against his cast.

People in the soap world had disdain for the fans.

But these execs are the biggest star fuckers in the universe.

MADD hiring Susan Batten to play Connor.

Babs Blooms hiring most of the cast of Port Charles to play roles on ATWT.

Brian Gaskill as Dylan? WHY? Morgan was willing and able to reprise the part.

Bill Bell hired his old pal Susan Hayes to play Joanna on Y&R. She played out her contract and six months before it was up, he told her he was going to let her go. The part just didn't have a future.

She went back to DAYS where she belonged.

ATWT's Luke/Reid ending, with them never having sex(!) and Reid dying, was for me, on par with how Lisa was treated. And I was a little kid who remembered Lisa and little Tommy (my name as well), from the time I was 4-5 years old. Lisa was outrageous, and hated, then she left came back, and was loved. ATWT's ratings were about Penny, Ellen, Bob and Lisa when the show was at its peak. It's WHO got you there. When Y&R's 50th comes up, people who think Victor and Nikki, and Jack, Cricket and Paul made the show, don't have a clue how addictive it was in the beginning, how it wasn't shown in affiliates, yet its popularity grew from word of mouth, fan magazine coverage and innovation (John Conboy's production).

I try to be fair to EPs and HWs especially when they are working under difficult conditions. ATWT (and GL) had no money, no real support from the network, PG was more or less done. I figure that at some point he was like I've got to do something to get some eyeballs on this show, even if it meant bringing in half the discarded cast of General Hospital.

In hindsight those probably weren't the best choices, but when you're working with a gun pointed at your head, you're kind of scrambling.

[quote]Again, these shows are mostly written and produced by people who don't know them for audiences that know and love them.

Unfortunately, the people who know and love them don't have a clue about the realities of budgets and network interference.

R256

I think both Wheeler and Goutman were scrambling like you said.

Both did what they could. Goutman was the innovator at the time he was at AW but by 2007 or so he was just fried and so ATWT suffered for it, I think.

For all of the oddities of Peapack I give credit to Wheeler. She tried, she had a vision. I find her questionable personally because she went on to work for Glenn Beck. But GL in its last days had some resemblance to GL as it was, and even if it was filmed looking like someone's bad senior year public TV project, the heart was there, and I appreciate that now that we are 15 (!!) years out from the end.

[quote]For all of the oddities of Peapack I give credit to Wheeler. She tried, she had a vision. I find her questionable personally because she went on to work for Glenn Beck. But GL in its last days had some resemblance to GL as it was, and even if it was filmed looking like someone's bad senior year public TV project, the heart was there, and I appreciate that now that we are 15 (!!) years out from the end.

The main thing to remember is that it wasn't Ellen Wheeler or even David Kreizman who made sure the show honored its past during that last 9-12 months. It was Jill Lorie Hurst who made sure GL's past was front and center. She's the one that got Grant to come back. She's the one who got Peter Simon back. She knew the show's history and put it front and center during those last months.

R259 Yes, absolutely. If JLH had been given the HW reins earlier the show might have had 2-3 more years. But they only gave her the reins once the show's fate was all but sealed. Sad.

Reportedly, Ellen Wheeler tried to get Rick Hearst to come back for a few episodes before the GL finale.

Problem was, Rick was on contract at GH playing Ric Lansing at the time.

Not sure whether Rick was not interested in returning to GL (he apparently had declined previous offers to return, preferring to live on the West Coast) or if ABC just absolutely refused to release him for a handful of episodes.

Don't forget, JFP was GH producer at this point. She knew how vital Rick's Alan-Michael had been to the show while she was GL EP. It seems like JFP could have persuaded ABC execs to let him pay a return visit to Springfield if she had really wanted to.

How many AW fan events were held and where was the '92 get together filmed?

I’ve probably mentioned this before; I used to attend the GL fan club luncheons. They really were a ton of fun. During the JFP years she would attend the luncheons dressed as a security officer and stand in front of the dais, pretending to guard the actors.

[quote]If JLH had been given the HW reins earlier the show might have had 2-3 more years.

As I've posted before, I think the GL Peapack experiment was about 10 years too early, but I don't think anything could have saved the show. PG wanted out and CBS wanted that hour.

R264 here. That first sentence isn’t worded correctly. I meant to say, “As I may’ve posted before…”

I wish Jill LH would have then gone to ATWT, but by that time P&G and Goutie were fried and done and wanted out.

[quote]I wish Jill LH would have then gone to ATWT,

Interestingly, it was David Kreizman and Donna Swajeski and Lloyd Gold who went to ATWT, not Jill Lorie Hurst.

And then Kreizman and Swajeski moved to AMC for its final year.

Kreizman killed three shows in a row

Not specifically a P&G thing but....I think Digest may be shutting down. MAY.....speculation on my part thus far. But....

The news stand I've gotten it from for years said they can't order it any more, and the library where I was reading it on line during COVID said they aren't getting any new issues.

If DAYS or GH gets axed.....that will just expedite it all, I guess.

showrunners have always been under pressure

yet, Claire Labine managed to bring back Faith, Rae, and others.

GL brought back a slew of people.

I don't care what your budget is; extend an invitation to some old faves to give audiences closure.

I have heard how Goutman and Wheeler were working 24/7 non stop getting their shows out; no one should have to work that hard to make shows so shitty.

I hope they don't read this; I know it's harsh but these shows used to mean something

And they were just thrown away after being ruined.

[quote]I don't care what your budget is

Said no one in the entertainment industry ever.

I think some of the GL people at the end came in for free or for scale.

I doubt Lisa Brown got paid, or if she did it was scale, maybe. Same with Melissa Hayden, Mo Garrett.

Since Forbes was on ATWT I'll share this here.

Who knew you could get arrested for fucking Wessonality?

Isn’t Ulster a pretty bleak place? What is going on there-meth? That seems like a methy thing to do.

R271, fine, I'll rephrase; take the money you were going to spend on anything else -- and throw it to familiar faces and invite them back.

I mean I suppose I should give Ellen a pass; she was shooting GL in a park and the actors were changing clothes in their cars.

But dear God, it didn't cost Goutman anything to give Lisa a final moment on ATWT that didn't have her standing there with her mouth open; she's already in the show; she's already being paid. Give her the one way phone call with Grant!

Same with AW; they rehired Sam Groom to play a part on the show; make one of the regular contract players a minister; use Sam to reprise Russ and he comes back and gives Rachel a full circle moment.

DO SOMETHING; instead, they killed all these shows.

R276, I understand your frustration and I understand what you're saying. I think the reality of the situation is most actors are not going to work for nothing (like Lisa Brown) for love of the show, most producers and writers don't really know the history of the show to really work in a lot of full circle moments.

Would it have been nice if Sam Groom would have played Russ and he and Rachel had a moment, sure. But they would have had to explain who Russ is and his back story and by that point David Bailey was more or less Russ to most of AW viewers. And how would that have been fair to the actors already on canvas and the fans who loved those characters to take time from their faves to showcase characters from a different era of the show?

Lisa should have played a bigger role in the ATWT finale, but that isn't what killed ATWT.

I am the cheese who stands alone in this. I don't think that any writer or EP sets out to destroy a show. It is not in their best interest to be out of work or to be branded a show killer.

What killed (is killing) these shows is the same thing that is happening across most linear network television. An aging audience, 500 channels, streaming services, iPhones, social media, and quite frankly people are getting their serialized drama fix from other places and in ways that daytime soaps, with limited budgets, just cannot compete with.

Again, I understand your frustration. It just that the answer to why these shows died is more complicated than so and so killed it. In my opinion, soap opera thrived for so many years because it was a inherited. You watched the soap your mom and grandma watched. Most moms are working during the day. Most Grandmas (who aren't still working) are at the senior center going on road trips and taking arts and crafts classes and exercising. Most kids would rather be on their phones or gaming.

R277, I do get passionate about these shows because yes, they were handed down.

We probably more agree than disagree.

I'm not asking actors to work for free but EPs setting out to kill these shows or not isn't the point; for example, Goutman could have been the bigger man, taken Noelle Beck up on her offer to step down as Lily, picked up the phone, called Byrne and said, 'please come back for the fans.' I think she would have if Goutman had met her halfway.

Even the 'bible of the industry' wrote that watching Hensley and Beck was like watching Holden and TRISHA FROM LOVING.

And yes, it would have been nice to give Lisa a happy ending; that is my point. I'm not saying giving Lisa more story would have saved the show. We've all seen soaps go off the air. Some have more satisfying endings. But it would have taken ONE scene to give Lisa that ending and nobody there thought to do it, but instead Janet Spaghetti got tons of airtime that sucked up the show.

The EDGE gang was left in the middle of a mystery, Beth and Miles happily married, Mike springing into action with Nancy by his side and Sky and Raven sharing a passionate kiss. It sucked watching that show leave but viewers were left satisfied.

The Ryan clan gathered to wish Jack and Leigh a happy life -- and Kate Mulgrew (I'm sure she didn't need the AFTRA minimum they paid her) literally got on the phone to do a call from heaven. Sure, heaven sounded like a phone call but it gave us Jack and Mary one last time.

AW, I suppose, satisfied some viewers by getting Carl back; as for taking the time to explain things to newer viewers by telling us who Russ was, well, that's also kind of my point. If they hadn't let the Matthews clan dissolve, then maybe the show might have lasted into the 2000s.

Bob ending ATWT with 'good night' was a nod to the show's opening...they didn't have to explain that; it just stood on its own. Those who knew that's how it all began knew.

GL -- God Bless Jill Hurst -- gave us the four Muskateers (sp?) together, Ed and Holly reunited (fitting; Roger and Maureen were gone...) Bud and Reva riding off into the sunset...always.... they even took time to give us happy endings for Blake and Frank and Alex and Fletcher.

I think you have to start with good storytelling; this genre died, in a way, when Doug died. Bill and Aggie dying nailed the lid shut. Soaps do very well on streaming platforms and network dot coms so there IS still an audience out there.

One thing ATWT did towards the end that I loved was having Bryggman bring John Dixon back; Kathy Hays' Kim BLASTED Katie, telling her to stand by Chris or get out...brilliant. THIS was my ATWT; what had become of the show in recent years? ATWT had been infected by the cast of Port Charles and the show was unrecognizable. There was Pinson, Lindstrom, Shriner, Wilson, even Herring and Stuart Damon, briefly. Was it nice to see these folks? Sure. I guess. But I'd rather have seen some of Doug's classic characters instead.

I don't believe the EPs out to kill shows but they sure do a good job of making people think that; firing Bryce as Craig? Grant as Phillip? It's like they were asking people not to watch. You love these guys? They're gone. And then, they're shocked when the numbers fall. It's not rocket science.

What those shows needed were strong network execs/execs in charge of production who would step in and make sure show runners didn't run them into the ground. In the original Ryan's Hope long term Frank was supposed to be killed; a network exec sent Labine a note: "what if Frank lives?" that was it. not an order. Just asked her to consider it. She did.

I could go on. Someday someone will write a detailed book about this and every ego-driven exec will say it was socio-economic downward spirals, blah blah, women in the workforce, blah, blah, kids and phones and computers blah blah; not one of them will say: we fucked with the audience and they walked out on us.

End of rant. (For now.)

David Bailey was ok as Russ, but Sam Groom was wildly popular as Russ from 67-71. Hardcore fans would remember him, even though Bailey played Russ longer.

[quote]If they hadn't let the Matthews clan dissolve, then maybe the show might have lasted into the 2000s.

SPOILER ALERT: It wouldn't have made a difference.

[quote]Someday someone will write a detailed book about this and every ego-driven exec will say it was socio-economic downward spirals, blah blah, women in the workforce, blah, blah, kids and phones and computers blah blah; not one of them will say: we fucked with the audience and they walked out on us.

I've been itching for such a book. There have to be writers and producers wanting to set the record straight. But I think that, just as there's not really an audience for soaps anymore, publishers figure there's no audience for books about them.

SORASING drove me away from more than one soap. In retrospect, it was so stupid to age a 6 year old to 16, then leave that character's mother holding the bag. Eileen Fulton was smart as hell to have the Granny Clause. Poor Susan Seaforth was 33, and a grandma on DOOL. I think they did that to Zimmer. Dee Dee Hall has been a GREAT Grandmother for over 10 years.

r281

Well Dee Dee is 75 so at 65 especially with Sami giving birth as a teen is completely logical... getting pregnant in her mid 50s? lol

The book that was closest to my vision for a book about the end of the P&G soaps was the One Life to Live book written by Jeff Giles.

Or should I say edited by. That was the genius of it. It was more of what academically would be called an "ethnography." Aside from some introductory paragraphs for context, the whole book was just comments from the actors, directors, crew etc.

R280, it may not have made a difference as to when NBC and P&G pulled the plug, but the show wouldn't have sucked as much so in that respect -- SPOILER ALERT -- it would have made a difference in that regard.

We all knew the shows were going down in flames.

Why it was so fucking difficult to just give the remaining loyal fans what they wanted.......I'll never in a million years understand.

Decent Alan interview with GH writer Dave (?) Rupel today. He was one of the scriptwriters for GL in its Peapack years. He had nice things to say about Ellen Wheeler. During an earlier stint on the show Paul Rauch fired him in front of 25 staff sonthat was cunty.

Yup!!!

Rauch was a prick but it's like he was playing a role at the same time; of course, that didn't matter much to the folks he canned.

According to the new SOD, it was 35 years ago (March 20) that Johnny D and Lucinda Walsh were married.

Doug did that particular beat well.

Emma shows up to John's apt. to tell him she knows he didn't intentionally keep Sabrina from Kim but...too late, he's wed Lucinda now.

Something similar happened when little Evie went to Ben to make up and boom! He's wed to Amanda on GL.

He did Emma wrong!

I say this with all due respect to Kathleen Widdoes....but she looked terrible at the end of ATWT. And yet somehow, she seems to be still among the living and Lisa Brown is gone.

Not a contest, of course, just very surprised that Lisa would go first.

I think Kathleen had some mind of medical issue that required steriods and well, she blew up a bit.

I look back at 1985-86 ATWt and she is practically lilthe

I didn't recognize ATWt towards the end; to me, the Snyders were Emma, Iva, Holden and Meg.... even Seth and Caleb and Ellie who came on later didn't seem as core as they truly were.

Caleb was originally written as a hotter older bigger more intimidating Holden but they couldn't find an actor to pull that off.

Caleb was the one role ATWT ***could*** have recast in later years, because he was open to be reinterpreted. Ellie too.

Instead, they all but ruined Meg. Terrible recast and terrible destruction of that character's journey.

I read Wilson didn't even necessarily wanted the role; she auditioned against other names and she got the part.

Loved her as Karen; she was NOT Meg.

Yeah, no insult to Wilson. Although if the rumors about her and Roger Ho were true, sounds like that was a distraction.

It's a lovely spring day here in Springfield. I'm going out to pick some daffodils in the yard and have them on the dinner table tonight as a celebration of spring's arrival.

I think that mysterious man who's staying here at the boarding house will like the daffodils. He looks so familiar. I think I've seen his picture in the paper before.

Dearest Bea, I'm sending Rita your way.

It's past time this slut gets off my couch, and she can rent a room from you, though you may need to keep an eye on her visitors.....

Oh Bert! Send Rita over. We'd love to have her. She's so lively and vivacious. I'm sure my Nola would enjoy her. Rita could probably give Nola some tips on life and love.

Actually, now that I think of it, my daughter Maureen would enjoy Rita too. I'm sure Maureen would love hearing about Rita's marriage to Ed. Maureen's always dreamed of being married to a doctor.

Ugh! Being married to a doctor sounds like....such a suburban joke, Ma!

Original Recipe Mo always came off a bit dykish. Felt like she should have been a police officer rather than a hospital administrator.

Mo vs Mo

R302 is there a corresponding Margo v Margo v. Margo v Margo column?

My dears,

Looking upon my calendar, I see the 67th anniversary of both Oakdale and Monticello is fast approaching. April 2 is the date.

We need to at least have a Bauer Barbecue style celebration to observe this stupendous. Perhaps something much grander.

What should we do? Suggestion?

I'll be happy to parachute into the celebration.

Shirtless.

We can celebrate on our eavesdropping porch. If it's warm enough, we can go swimming at the pond. But please, no damned Hubbard squash.

I'll sing Proud Mary.

Here's a sample of how I do it. Go to 3:30

The last time Oakdale had a community picnic, there was a hair in that tramp Emma Snyder’s potato salad. i would never allow such filth in MY kitchen.

Reva, you may sing Proud Mary provided you get Phillip to accompany you again in both the singing AND the dance moves.

Geraldine, I have a few friends to introduce to you.

Ada Hobson, Olivia Spencer and Holly Lindsey.....I think you ladies might have a thing or two in common!

She may come with Dr. John Hudson, but she's gonna come with Grant Harrison!

R307 Reva....Shayne?

That low born gutter slut!

India, I heard someplace that you were living in Tanquir now.

Vying with Cecile to become Queen of Tanquir?

Well, I supposed its better than Montega or San Cristobal.

The photo in OP's post somehow remind me of my grandfather

[quote]Geraldine, I have a few friends to introduce to you.

Why does no one ever want to fix me up?

R313 Blake? Is it true you hooked up with.....Frank Cooper, of all people?

Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

Would Alexandra, in the WOKE world of today, have gotten away with calling India and Blake 'cows' as she did in the day?

Cecile,

When you get bored in Tanquir, you can always move to San Cristobel. We're sure your will help liven up the place. But fair warning, Prince Richard, albeit handsome, is dull as dishwater. He so boring, he puts the citizens to sleep routinely.

That's why we need someone exciting to liven the place up. Last time we has any excitement here was when Prince Richard was married to Princes Katherine. But then she disappeared.

So come on over to San Cristobel.

R317 What can I say but....moo!

If anyone was a cow in Springfield, it was that fat family fucker Reva. She looked like Tulsa trash in that Dress Barn muumuu she wore in the final episode.

Josh should have taken one look at that and run off to have a JO session with Phillip.

For the Oakdale-Monticello anniversary celebration, I'm happy to set up a kissing booth and let all the women throw themselves at me.

R322 Die in a fire, you turtle faced rapist!!!

Every city needs a man-whore. I'm happy to fill those duties in Springfield and Oakdale and Bay City too.

Jeffrey O'Neill? Sounds like a door-to-door salesman. How dreary.

Anyone more interesting for, shall we say, a more sophisticated palate?

And a more pampered palate, too!

Wasn't Jeff a little light in the slippers?

Every woman in town threw themself at Jeffrey at one point or another. But only Reva Shayne got a wedding ring from him.

[quote]Wasn't Jeff a little light in the slippers?

The straights can keep Jeffrey. We don't want him.

For the big Oakdale-Monticello celebration, I volunteer to baptize people in the fountain.

For the big celebration, I'll do something called "The Helicopter."

Trust me, everyone will be enchanted and entranced!

*scowls with jealousy and yet is strangely turned on*

Carl Tye Evans is gay, right?

I don't think Rick Hearst is entirely straight.

Interesting essay on Maureen.

A few points: GL had not lost just Kimberly Simms and McKinsey but also Sherry Stringfield. That's three.

Maureen was the Bauer matriarch; if she did nothing more than act as a 'talk to' to all the kids just as Bert once did then that would be more than enough.

As we saw in the cabin scenes with Ed and the kitchen with Lillian, Parker was capable of so much more.

Would it have stretched credibility to have Roger whisk Maureen away; either she'd be comatose or she'd beg Roger to help her get away. The funeral, which was done well -- using the extra nurses as extras at the gravesite was a nice touch though we should have had Reardons there -- would have felt flat if we'd known Maureen was alive. And would she willingly left Michelle?

Keeping her comatose and having Roger be behind it all would have been good.

What few often call Phelps out on was that she supposedly axed Ellen to make room for Deas to come on as scenery chewing Buzz Cooper.

Soaps need matriarchs. I'm not saying that killing Maureen wasn't great story. Worth it? Who knows? It made no sense that Claire and Hope didn't come back for the funeral and stick around to help raise Michelle.

Soaps are about FAMILIES. It was GL and others losing sight of that that contributed to their demise.

GL also had too many older/younger love affairs going on after Mo's death. Ross/Blake, Roger/Dinah, Vanessa/Matt, Ed/and that forgettable drab chick from GH. Things were getting out of hand. You DO need a moral compass, a talk to, and that's not something you got with Alexandra, Mindy, Blake. They were all re-cast with mixed results. Ellen Parker was a huge loss.

R336 Yes.

GL also had a tendency in those years to find one couple that clicked.....and then play them so frequently that you wanted to pay someone to make them go away.

Especially Ross/Blake and Matt/Vanessa.

Liz is a lovely woman and a longtime GL fan.

Alas, she was never Blake.

Better to have brought Trish back for Ross; or see if Jane Elliot was around to finish up Carrie.

If Claire had come back, GL could have told a Holly/Ed/Claire/Fletcher quadrangle; maybe reveal that Fletch was indeed Michelle's dad.

I liked Liz as Blake, but she wasn't Sherry, for sure.

Like Marj, Liz was great when the writing was there, but neither Marj nor Liz could overcome poor writing. Some can....they could not.

Let's do a Monday what if.

La Bev joined GL back in February 1984. But what if she had decided to go back to AW instead (AW was courting her heavily, trying to get her back in time for the show's 20th anniversary in May 1984).

Who else was available in early 1984 who could have created the part of Alexandra?

Lydia Bruce, of course.

I think Liz Hubbard was available then too (or on recurring on OLTL).

Good question Aunt Liz. What about Carla Borelli, she looks like she could be related to Vincent Irizarry. And she’s 17 years older than him. I liked her on Falcon Crest and her guest sports on TV in the 70s and 80s; I always thought she would be perfect on a soap.

Bev and Chris Bernau were definitely well matched. They seemed like siblings.

I was thinking Tudi Wiggins might have been an interesting choice - she was still around at that point, although it was around the time she started wrapping her acting career up.

How about Susan Seaforth Hayes?

I wonder if Robin Strasser could have been enticed?

[quote] I wonder if Robin Strasser could have been enticed?

She famously almost met with JFP about the role when Bev left, but when she told OLTL they asked her back.

[quote]Good question Aunt Liz. What about Carla Borelli, she looks like she could be related to Vincent Irizarry. And she’s 17 years older than him. I liked her on Falcon Crest and her guest sports on TV in the 70s and 80s; I always thought she would be perfect on a soap.

r342, Carla Borelli joined AW in late 1979 as Reena Bellman Cook Dekker and then moved to Texas when that show debuted. She was one of the best things about Texas. Fantastic as Reena.

Carla had also played Mary Anderson on Days for a year in the mid 1970s.

Carla and Pam Long became good friends while at Texas and it's long been rumored (but never confirmed) that Carla was Pam's first choice to play Reva on GL. But some the CBS and GL bigwigs made Pam audition a few others and Kim Zimmer obviously won the role.

I'd never thought of Carla playing Alexandra before, but she could have been fierce in the role. Perhaps the show would have gone with Carla is La Bev hadn't been available.

Liz Hubbard joined ATWT as Lucinda in April 1984, so she clearly was available to play Alexandra.

Susan Seaforth Hayes was still on contract at Days in early 1984, so she wasn't available. But by summer 1984, Susan and Bill Hayes would both quit in a storyline dispute.

Robin Strasser was on contract at OLTL in 1984 and had just won an Emmy a year before, so she wasn't available.

Tudi Wiggins would have been available since Love of Life had been canceled in 1980 and her role as Sarah Kingsley on AMC was over by that point.

Lydia Bruce was available since The Doctors was canceled at end of 1982. Lydia actually subbed as Alex in summer 1984 when La Bev's husband, Berkeley Harris, died.

Judith McConnell would have been good as Alexandra, Santa Barbara didn’t appear until the summer and she was still in New York.

What do you all think about Marie Wallace or Judith Barcroft?

R349 Ditto Louise Sorel.

[quote]I've been itching for such a book. There have to be writers and producers wanting to set the record straight. But I think that, just as there's not really an audience for soaps anymore, publishers figure there's no audience for books about them.

Michael Logan always teased that he was going to write a soap tell-all one day. His book would have been better than Carolyn "The Devil Wears Lane Bryant" Hinsey's awful Afternoon Delight book.

Most of those actresses were too young to be Alexandra, if you are making her older than Alan, as she was supposed to be. They kept getting that wrong lol. Alan was born and their mother died giving birth to him. Ron Raines was a lot younger than Bernau. If you wanted a grand dame, Bev was it. I'm sorry she didn't go back as Iris, though. Loved, loved her with Vivian, who humanized Iris and brought out Bev's best comedic skills.

I think the day for any of that to happen is long gone.

The hot island dude that Reva met when Annie tried to kill her is now a therapist.

I thought I read on here or somewhere that Pam and Gail Kobe wanted to bring on more Texas actors, but it was either CBS or P&G who sort of stopped them.

R356 Yes, Pam or Gail (or both) wanted Jerry Lanning, who'd been on Texas, as Billy Lewis. And it seems clear Reva was supposed to be a wilder, more working class version of Reena. I think Pam/Gail were hoping to sort of transplant those actors/that energy to GL, but P&G wasn't as convinced.

Jerry Lanning did eventually appear on GL a few years later as Cain - sadly he was on at a time Pam was not and they destroyed that character pretty quickly and made him a villain. Lookswise he would have made more sense as Kyle Sampson than Larkin Malloy, but alas, it didn't happen.

I should add, despite all the fabulous things that happened during Pam's first stint at GL Gail and Pam got a LOT of pushback for making GL "Texas East."

Just as JFP would a decade later for turning GL into "Santa Light."

Pam and Gail brought in a good share of Texas actor, but mostly the lesser known Texas actors like Harley Kozak as Annabelle, James Rebhorn as Bradley Raines, Michael Woods as Jim Reardon, Lisby Larson and Calla Matthews. Mary Pat Gleason as Alex's first maid.

But CBS and/or P&G would not let them bring over actors who had played primary characters on Texas. At least not at first. Pam wanted Jerry Lanning as Billy Lewis. Jerry had played Justin Marshall on Texas. His character was married to Pam's character, Ashley. Pam wrote the character of Billy Lewis with Jerry in mind.

If rumors are to be believed, Pam also wrote the Reva character with Carla Borelli in mind. Carla's character of Reena was a main character on Texas. Reena was also the rival of Pam's character Ashley Lindon Marshall, so Pam was well aware of how versatile an actress Carla was.

Texas had promise, but God it was boring. De-fanging Iris didn't work. Taking her away from Mac, Rachel, Ada, Clarice just didn't cut it. I guess they tried chemistry with Donald May, and that bombed. Poor Kin Shriner getting lured to NYC in thoughts it would hurt GH. Fat chance.

CBS and P&G's reluctance to cast the main actors from Texas on GL is odd.

Usually when a show in cancelled, other shows quickly scoop up their most popular actors.

When Edge of Night was cancelled, look how quickly Larkin Malloy and Sharon Gabet got picked up at GL and AW, respectively.

When NBC cancelled Passions, it moved the most popular actors -- Galen Gering, Eric Martsolf and Lindsey Hartley -- to Days.

When Port Charles was cancelled, other shows picked up its actors quick (but oddly, GH did not).

Clearly they overcame their unwillingness and cast Bev as Alexandra.

Kind of a surprise since she left Texas so quickly.

[quote]Texas had promise, but God it was boring. De-fanging Iris didn't work. Taking her away from Mac, Rachel, Ada, Clarice just didn't cut it. I guess they tried chemistry with Donald May, and that bombed. Poor Kin Shriner getting lured to NYC in thoughts it would hurt GH. Fat chance.

I've said this many times before, the first year of Texas was BAD. A very poor launch to a show, especially one going up against GH just as Luke and Laura are going on the run. Poorly planned out storylines, failure to understand why audiences loved Iris, too many characters that didn't work (like Kin Shriner's).

When the show brought in Gail Kobe as EP in summer 1981, she began to make strong improvements. Show was steadily improving in the last half of 1981. And then it is final year, it was FANTASTIC. Everything was clicking together. I'm so glad I got to see that final year of the show. It was such an improvement over the first year.

And that last week of Texas was the MARY!est MARY! that has ever been MARY!ed on any soap.

But in the very best way. Very Pam Long, full of heart.

Ashley returning home.....

M!

A!

R!

Y!

I think Texas was a Paul Rauch money grab. Texas was the first soap I ever got to watch from the beginning, so it holds a special place in my heart, but did we really need Texas? And was AW's ratings in a place where someone would have spun another soap from it. The should have invested in something completely different. A new soap, without any ties to an existing soap.

Texas was clearly P&G/NBC's attempt to capitalize on the whole Dallas craze.

P&G was not especially known for being on the cutting edge. Most of their shows that were on - and survived - the 80s either copied Luke and Laura and GH, or copied Dallas/Dynasty. By the mid 80s they were also copying DAYS.

When Texas was first conceived, it was a period soap opera set 100 years or so earlier. They updated the concept to be modern day Texas with the success of Dallas.

Iris was originally not part of the plan for Texas. Carla Borelli was to be the star of Texas. That's why they brought her in as Reena to AW in fall 1979, in preparation for launching Texas in summer 1980. It was only 3 or 4 months before the launch that they decided to add Iris.

[quote]Loved, loved her with Vivian

That's Vivien, with an E, Mrs. Wheeler.

Carla Borelli and Brenda Dickson (before she went nuts) could have played sisters. Similar coloring and mannerisms.

[quote]Judith McConnell would have been good as Alexandra

She failed to catch fire as Miranda, a rich bitch-type AW brought on to fill the vacuum left by Beverlee leaving, so I don't know that she would have worked as Alexandra. Though she did fine on Santa Barbara.

Susan Hayes auditioned for Alexandra when Marj got the role.

I thought Marj was good for the first few days. But ...then all the yelling and wheezing.

She was queen of the recasts; took over for Carolyn Jones on Capitol; filled in for Sorel as Vivian; was the second Pamela on Santa Barbara.

I liked her as Vanessa on AMC. But she wasn't right for Alexandra.

I thought of Judith for Alex because Sophia Capwelll had that sense of melancholy remorse for not being there for her kids when they were young-similar to Alex and Lujack. And her ATWT character started off as a troublemaker.

[quote]Susan Hayes auditioned for Alexandra when Marj got the role.

Have never heard about Susan Hayes auditioning for Alexandra in 1993 when JFP was recasting the part. But she would have been available since Days had written her off earlier that year.

SSH has often said that Bill Bell wanted her for the role of Stephanie Forrester when they were launching B&B in early 1987. But they asked her to come in to screen test. Actually it was more like chemistry test with some other actors they were considering rather than a screen test. Her acting abilities were never in question; Bill Bell certainly knew what she was capable of.

However, SSH was scheduled to be on vacation during the time they wanted her for the screen test and she said she couldn't come in. As a result Susan Flannery got the role of Stephanie instead.

r348

Why did SSH and BH quit days? what was the storyline they objected to?

Doug and Julie were reduced to playing the heavy in Hope's story. They were just objecting to her dating Bo and didn't have a real story. I think they got tired of playing that and left.

I always thought the show did SSH kind of dirty when they SORASed David. She was still a very young woman. Sort of what ATWT did to poor Patsy Bruder.

Bill and Susan Seaforth Hayes had been the face of Days for over decade. It was their love story that pushed the show to #1 (tied with AW and ATWT) in 1972 and had kept the show near the top of the ratings throughout the 70s

In 1983, Brian Frons came on as head of NBC Daytime and instructed the show to focus on younger characters. Bo and Hope were both starting on the show in 1983 and suddenly, they were carrying much of the show, Meanwhile Doug and Julie were relegated to playing the heavies as r375 said, the obstacle preventing Bo and Hope from getting together.

Bill and Susan didn't like being supporting players and the bad guys on the show they'd carried for over a decade. They went public, went to the press, demanding a storyline. The writers got pissed and said they wouldn't write for Doug and Julie anymore. When their contracts were up, the couple departed. The show didn't even give them a sendoff scene. Doug and Julie just were no longer there. At some point, it was referenced that Doug and Julie were on a cruise.

[quote]What do you all think about Marie Wallace or Judith Barcroft?

I liked Judith Bancroft both as Lenore on AW and as Ann on AMC. She was quite good in both roles. But I can't really picture her playing Alexandra.

Reportedly, Judith didn't like doing an hour-long show. She preferred 30 minutes. That's a large part of the reason why Judith quit AMC and the show ended up killing off Ann Tyler Martin.

I'm not sure who Marie Wallace is. Please tell us.

Marie Wallace played India on Somerset and various characters on Dark Shadows

Marie Wallace was on GL as some old showgirl that pussy loving Henry Chamberlain messed around with, lol.

Speaking of Dark Shadows, I don't know if it's true, but wasn't Lara Parker also one of the ladies who auditioned for Alexandra in '84 and/or '93? Was Louise Shaffer available in '84, or did she still have some time left on Ryan's Hope?

[quote]wasn't Lara Parker also one of the ladies who auditioned for Alexandra in '84 and/or '93?

No one auditioned for the role of Alexandra in 1984.

They offered it to Beverlee McKinsey and she said yes. And that was that.

They CREATED it for Beverlee. Beverlee wanted to go back to work. She had a sick husband (who would die not long after her return) and she reached out to P&G, I believe, and that was that.

"It's time I started mingling!" - Alexandra in her first episode.

Bill Hayes came back to DAYS in 1986. It's too bad he and Susan weren't part of Hope's wedding in 1985 to Bo.

Susan came back in 1990 after Joanna Manning, her Y&R role, simply didn't work out. (Bill loved her but Joanna didn't click the way he wanted.) She belonged back at DAYS anyway. Reilly didn't want to write for her; he had Marlena, Vivian, Kate, he had plans to bring Laura back.

DAYS kindly and smartly brought Bill Hayes back for one show in early 1993; Julie rushed off to Europe after he'd been in an accident; only he wasn't. He sang The Most Beautiful Girl in the World...she caved and they reunited.

They returned for both Macdonad Carey's/Tom's funeral in 1994 and I think they were back in late 93 for Christmas...

They came back for Bo and Hope's near wedding and I think Doug helped Gina realize she was Hope or it was years later Doug helped Princess Gina realize she was Hope; Tom Langan, who worked with Susan on Y&R, brought her and Bill back to Y&R; they were given stuff to play in the Princess Gina tale.

Then, Reilly brought them back in, I believe, early 2004 with Horton the Tiger (!!!) Doug was killed off in the late winter/spring in some dynamite scenes with Marlena; he did most of his own stunts. Julie's fights with Bonnie (Judi Evans) around this time were pretty entertaining; Bonnie would make an age swipe; Julie; "You should look so good when you're my age."

I believe that they didn't really know everyone was coming back. When it all came out that it was some 'DiMera hoax', Julie rolled her eyes and said, WHAT ELSE?

The Hayeses have appeared on the show mostly on more than off ever since. They had a big return circa 2011. It's funny that both Peter and Kristian left over money or story; and Bill and Susan have been on far more. Bill was great in the devil reveal story. Susan is always solid (sure, she turns the drama on, but it's a soap.)

Of the Texas actors who later appeared on GL, the most successful one (aside from Beverlee) would be Jay Hammer as Fletcher.

Jay played the Max Dekker on Texas, the second actor in the part after Chandler Hill Harben didn't work out in the role. Jay played Max for six months and then they killed Max off. But during that time, Max married Reena (Carla Borelli).

But Jay met Pam Long while at Texas and the two became a couple, having two children together. Even though Pam took Hammer as her last name for a time, apparently, they never officially married (at least that's what Pam said once in an interview).

Jay played Fletcher from May 1984, initially paired with Hillary Bauer, in what was to be a short term role. However, the character lasted until 1998 when EP Paul Rauch didn't renew his contract.

And of course, Jay also wrote for GL briefly in the mid 1980s while Pam was HW.

[quote]Susan is always solid (sure, she turns the drama on, but it's a soap.)

I love her but but she goes over the top a bit too often these days. I think that's a legacy of her Reilly experience. He dumped Julie when Hayes played her as a cool, sophisticated businesswoman. When he brought her back, he wrote her largely as comic relief in constant battle against Bonnie. Susan really leaned in to that, playing it increasingly broadly. Reilly preferred that version and I think she figured that's what she had to do to survive in the current soap landscape.

But she was sublime in the '70s.

I found this article about Gail Kobe. Thought you all might like it.

Thanks for uploading that article to the system and then sharing it with us here at DL

Looking forward to reading it, but don't have the time at moment.

What's the publication date for this article? I don't see a date on it.

The Cincinnati Enquirer April 15, 1977

The Y&R 50th anniversary special on CBS last night was terrific. It makes me sad that the GL one was markedly inferior.

I'm comin', Bud!

Thanks for the Gail Kobe article. Fascinating hearing how she got her start. Interesting how she preferred daytime to nighttime and actively pursued P&G.

I don't think I've ever seen a photo of her before.

She's underappreciated in the list of producers and writers. She was great at Texas and GL and also was part of the production team that gave B&B its start.

In the final years of her life she was in the Actors Home in LA. Bummer.

Gail got B&B off the ground along with director/production consultant Bill Glenn who'd worked earlier at Y&R.

One time an actress did a few scenes and said, oh, darn; I don't have my wedding ring on. Kobe called wardrobe on the carpet; Glenn, in his big baritone voice bellowed: "GOOD actresses remember their OWN props!"

I was not a Kobe fan when she EP'd GL. But - her stint as Doris Schuster on PP was brilliant, and Emmy worth. She had great chemistry with her fellow actors, and the way she'd cast shade on Mia Farrow's Allison was fun to watch. Territorial would be a great way to describe Doris Schuster. She's MAGA.

There was a crackling energy to GL on Pam's first go round and I don't know if Gail was the one to supply it or not, but it seemed, as the early days of Marland's ATWT did, to be great theater, characters really playing off one another.

Bob Calhoun, for all his loveliness at ATWT during Marland's early years, seemed to be more of a figurehead when he went over to GL when Pam came back for round 2. Which may have played into how overly focused Pam was in Round 2 on a few characters.

There is some truth to "Reva ate the show" but people forget that also, Phillip was played 4 or 5 days a week too - Pam had many gifts but as with many HW's since she couldn't balance the show very well.

Actually, Judi Evans as Beth, dominated the show more than Reva. Howls of derision arose when she won the Supporting Emmy. She should have been put in the Lead category. Reva became insufferable after Evans left.

I am addicted to old 60s TV shows like Perry Mason, Twilight Zone and the like and Gail Kobe shows up quite regularly on those shows. I thought she was quite pretty and a fine actress for what she was doing. It was nice to read how she got her start in daytime and eventually producing. She is one of those producers who did good work, but wasn't a showboat about it. She wasn't flashy like some of the others.

I'd forgotten that for a time, Texas was on TBS.

(ps, I have a Newspapers dot com subscription and if you're looking for an article that might be in a newspaper issue, I can try to track it down.)

Thanks ORD. I appreciate reading that. I'd forgotten about the Texas airings on TBS. Unfortunatley, they started with episodes from the first year, episodes that were not nearly as compelling as what the should would become. In other words, you had to sit through a lot of boring episodes before the greatness really began to kick in.

By the way ORD, you may recall that Donna Love debuted on AW in January 1983, just a few weeks after Texas ended. But did you know that much of the wardrobe that Donna Love wore in her first several months on AW was actually the wardrobe that Reena Bellman Dekker wore in her final year on Texas.

I was a huge Reena fan and Reena could be a clothes horse, so I immediately recognized that Donna was wearing Reena's clothes!

Moi? Secondhand? Never!

C'est vrai!

Perhaps Donna enjoyed vintage clothing stores. Or more likely consignment stores.

Speaking of TBS and soaps, we're a couple days away from the 40th anniversary of the missing link in the P&Gverse, The Caitlins.

I wonder if Donna would have stuck around if Beverlee McKinsey had returned in 1984. When she first arrived on the canvas, other characters made a point of saying how much Donna reminded them of Iris.

And if Iris returned there would have been 3 rich bitches in Bay City at once-Iris, Cecile and Donna.

[quote]there would have been 3 rich bitches in Bay City at once-Iris, Cecile and Donna.

I get woozy thinking about those scenes. What a treat that would have been.

OMG The Catlins. Loved that awful show. And ANOTHER LIFE, the religious one. Heavy handed, but it did depict one of the most realistic scene of 2 teens getting high and acting high, something the networks would never have done.

Did any of you bitches ever see the New Day in Eden show that had Doug as writer, Susan Flannery (!) producing or directing, and apparently was all about softcore sex?

I remember the Catlins. It was super-low budget. Definitely a one-take-only show, even back in the 80s.

But it was actually fairly well done, storywise. I had a crush on Beau Catlin. And I hated the whining Jennifer Catlin.

R407 they also had stereotypical black maid who came out of the Butterfly McQueen acting school. Hot Michael Forrest was the patriarch whose on screen wife looked like his mother.

I understand people saying Reva ate the show but I don't agree with it.

Phillip. India. Alexandra. Fletcher. Kyle. Maeve (people hated her but I liked her high society contrast to Reva; she had everything growing up Reva didn't). Beth. Mindy. Dear Lord, the day players Betty Rea found; remember Alicia Romer? (Cynthia Dozier?)

Pam wrote great MEN: HB, BIlly; she had a great take on Roger.

And how can anyone forget Sonni/Solita.

I don't think it's online anymore but there was a GL scene in May 1988 after ALan's outsted from the company.

He's still in his tux; he and Alexandra have one last scene in his newer office (with the desk on the left).

They rehash their whole history; Brandon, her running off with Eric; ...his lack of support; Alex offers Alan a place to live at the house and he says no; He's GOT NOTHING and Alex says what are you going to do?

"I haven't decided yet." and you knew in that moment that Alan Spaulding was far from beaten.

Freaking golden age of soaps.

I think that was one of Chris Bernau's final scenes, too, if I remember correctly.

R409 I think part of the "Reva ate the show" thing was that Reva and Kim really did "break out" in Pam's first stint. Probably some of the issue then was that a number of the characters Marland had seasoned the show with (Nola, Vanessa) were pushed aside for the new characters. In Pam's first stint the Four Musketeers, Claire, Tony and Annabelle, Original Recipe Maureen, etc. were also getting a fair amount of story, too.

I think Reva "eating the show" may have really started in the year or so between Pam's two stints, because with the Reva/Kyle story being one of the few things working during that time (remember, this was the era of Sampson Girl, Lujack's video and Infinity) it was played a lot.

As I mentioned at R395 I don't think the balance of stories was as good during Pam's second run. But it wasn't just Reva. Most of that era was Josh/Reva/Sonni/Will, Phillip's romantic escapades, Alan Michael/Harley and a few other stories here and there. Pam wasn't bringing in as many new characters as she did first time around, for sure.

"Reva ate the show" might have been a vast exaggeration. But boy, in the early days of the Curlee/Demorest era it was something to see story for so many different characters. It was fantastic.

Did Reva eat the show anymore than Rita ate the show or Leslie ate the show? Yes, soaps are ensemble family dramas, but there is usually a leading lady that much of the drama swirls around. I hope I'm not sounding like a douche, but when a character breaks out, don't you kind of run with it and play the fuck out of them?

exactly R413 and as I stated above GL had Alexandra, India, Sonni/Solita, and also Holly...plenty of strong women folks tuned in to see.

[quote] Did Reva eat the show anymore than Rita ate the show or Leslie ate the show?

Here and there, yes.

Did Reva eat the show? At times, yes. She was always front burner.

But don't forget, Reva was enormously popular with the audience Kim Zimmer debuted as Reva in November 1983 and less than two years later, she's getting end credit billing, "And Kim Zimmer as Reva Shayne Lewis."

Shows don't give out that credit easily. You've got to have enormous popularity and you've got to be in contract negotiations. Clearly, when GL saw how popular Reva was, they re-negotiated Zimmer's contract, no doubt giving her a big boost in salary and locking her into the show for much longer than the standard two or three years.

As a fan, I never felt like there was too much Reva in her original run. I felt that way a lot with Beth/Phillip and Beth/Lujack. As India said, "Saint Beth of Raines" could be very tiresome.

The Reva/Annie story was fun once it really started to cook, though Reva's way back (Ghost? Amish?) tested one's patience and nerves. But beyond that the character seemed damaged by her absence, and further damaged by the idea she'd given away not one but two of her children (whatever the reasons).

It was the insistence on breaking Reva/Josh up and a lot of what was done storywise in later years that I just felt was such a waste, such bad writing.

I'll never forget when Floyd was holding India captive and he goes off into this monologue about how great she is. India's close to dying but she chooses to say to unstable Floyd: "I don't understand. She's NOT pretty. She's NOT smart...why...why is everyone so attracted to Beth??"

The Blue Orchid powder room scene between Reva and India was classic. At the end, India concedes Reva had a point about love. Smart choice.

Another India gem; she goes to Phillip at Country Club after she's exonerated and Floyd's in custody for killing Andy Ferris: "Phillip. I was abused by Alexandra. I was abused by Warren. Phillip....I was abused by [italic] Floyd. [/italic] "

Happy Somerset Day for all who celebrate!

I've seen this image/meme several times before but never realized the subject is a quite well known figure from our Marvelous Midwestern towns.....

Sharon Acker has died at age 87.

She played Judith Wheeler on Texas in 1982. She was the foil in the Grant Wheeler-Reena Dekker romance. She was wife of Grant Wheeler who wouldn't let him have a divorce to be with Reena.

She also played Genie Francis's mother on Days in 1987 and played a doctor on Y&R in 1992.

And like so many of our P&G gals, she also had a role on the original Star Trek. She played Odona in "The Mark of Gideon," a 1969 episode about an overpopulated planet.

I thought I recognized Sharon from somewhere

Brain and brain! What is brain?

I know little about Star Trek but apparently Marj's episode is one of the most hated eps by "Trekkies."

r425 There are many, many episodes of Star Trek that are better than Marj's episode. And there are a few that are worse.

But Marj did a great job with what she was given.

Joan Collins guest starred in "The City on the Edge of Forever," which many people consider the absolute best of the original Star Trek episodes.

Joan, of course, went on to be a P&G gal too, albeit just for three months.

Michael Zaslow holds the distinction of being the first person ever killed off on Star Trek.

He was on the very first episode of Star Trek ever broadcast on TV. It's title was "The Man Trap" and his character was dead within the first 10 minutes of the episode.

Zas was a pretty twunk.

David Andrew McDonald is on Locher Room Wednesday. I always liked him and thought he was hot.....and more interesting than boring Brad Cole.

I haven't seen the Locher Room from Saturday where they watched a Mindy/Roger/Alexandra scene.

DAM screamed Fairy Princess, so to each his own. That SanCrystalBall period was about as bad as it could get. Wait, I'm forgetting Blind Reva, Going Through Paintings Reva, the list goes on and on....

I never liked David Andrew McDonald's Edmund. Always found him a waste of space. And airtime.

That said, DAM was clearly a good actor and did what he could with the role that was written for him.

My issue was with the whole San Cristobullshit storyline. Didn't like any of the characters connected to it. Didn't like it taking up airtime from characters I cared about.

I enjoyed Locher’s rewatch with writer Nancy Curlee and Kimberly Simms. I also liked his interview with the one who played Courtney on ATWT-she lives in Australia with her hisband and kids and still looks great.

They should have made Edmund Alan's son - Edmund looked the part and it would have been great to see him spar with Philip, Alan, Alex et al.

Instead they somehow decided that of all people, Gus was Alan's son - Gus, who looked nothing like him, acted nothing like him, etc. The only reason that was ever done was because of Gus/Harley. Ugh.

I went down a GL rabbit hole last night. I'm still laughing at that spinning Emmy Award closing credits. What were they thinking? 😆

R435 That was Doug Marland being petty and all HA HA BITCHES WE WON.

I loved it.

Yeah, GL won over GH.

Marland wanted to rub it in to his old boss, Gloria.

When I was down my GL rabbit hole last night, I found this short scene. It is so brilliant. I'm sharing it with you guys.

I believe that scene was in late summer or fall of 1991, a few months after July 1991 - the famous Alexandra reads Roger for filth at the country club scenes.

From the comments of r438's clip:

[quote] Does ANYBODY have the clip where Blake fainted--I think it was when she heard Phillip had died ---(and this is the Sherry Stringfield Blake) and Alex said "Somebody pick up that moose!" OMG I remember that like it was yesterday b/c Sherry was kind of, um, thick and a little androgynous looking. And I remember us dying laughing.

I recall that R440; another great moment was Blake coming back from a trip where she conveniently lost A-M's baby (she was never pregnant) and she walks in and everyone's there in black because Phillip was reported dead and Blake says; "They're all here for ME?"

I loved that GL won writing AND show in 1982 -- that was for the year 1981, GH was riding high on Luke and Laura and the Cassadines and the Ice Princess; Rick and Lesley getting back together. Diana Taylor's murder. But Doug won for his writing and GL won for show.

Suck it, Gloria !

And of course I remember Blake's "Nothing says loving like a Spaulding in the oven" line.

I believe the clip of Alex telling Billy about Roger sleeping with Mindy aired during November sweeps 1991.

[quote]And of course I remember Blake's "Nothing says loving like a Spaulding in the oven" line.

That's what I loved about Sherry's Blake. She was scheming and had fangs about her.

When they recast Blake with Liz Kiefer, Blake lost the fangs and the scheming ways. They presented it as Ross's love turned her into a good girl.

One of the things I loved was that Roger referred to Blake as "Chrissy". That was such a real touch, at least to me. I wonder if it was an actor choice.

Same with Tony Geary; he calls Lulu 'Gum drop' and Lucky 'Cowboy.'

As seen regarding an upcoming theatrical event in Palm Springs. You'll see why I posted it here in our Marvelous Midwestern thread......

[quote] One of the Desert's most popular entertainers, Bonnie Gilgallon, brings her unique brand of style and soul to the music of the legendary Dusty Springfield. Bearing a striking resemblance to the iconic singer, Bonnie brings to life some of Dusty's greatest hits like "The Look Of Love", "Son Of A Preacher Man", "I Only Want To Be With You", "Wishin' And Hopin'", and more. Bonnie will be joined by a special guest, the charismatic Gregg Marx, Emmy Winner for "As The World Turns" and a recent new resident in Palm Springs. Directed by acclaimed Cabaret Director, Clifford Bell, (cabarabia.com). Musical Direction by Tim Bruneau.

I've been to one of Gregg Marx's cabaret shows before. He does a very good job. He's a good singer. That should be a good show. But we need the details of when and where the the show is.

Didn't know Gregg had relocated to Palm Springs.

Event listing here

The other soap tangent is that the guy who wrote "A Strange Loop" on Broadway has a new show coming out which is soap-based and he apparently loved loved LOVED ATWT in the Marland heyday.

Marland's ATWT -- especially his late 1985 return through, oh, I'd say Craig and Sierra getting married (there was tons of great stuff after) was the best of soaps.

Marland was on a pretty good run of stories from his arrival until late 87 - the show got hit hard in 88 and 89 when they lost and/or changed Frannie, Lily and Margo all within a relatively short period of time.

Sad News. Elizabeth Hubbard died over the weekend.

Long live Lucinda Walsh...

Oh, no. Loved her and her work so much.

She was sharp as a tack a year or so ago when she appeared on The Locher Room.

[quote] Elizabeth Hubbard died over the weekend.

DARLING!

PUSSYCAT!

Sad to hear this news.

Hollywood Reporter obituary.

It was cancer. Damn.

Philece Sampler was the definitive Donna Love. She gave the character layers, plus she brought an energy that never existed in the character previously.

R459 Phoebe Dorin was the ultimate Penny Hughes. Her large breasts out dwarfed the pedestrian acting of Rosemary Prinz..

Mark Lewis and Mary Ellen Stuart were from "Midwestern" shows - Mark was on GL as Mindy's husband Kurt and Mary Ellen was on GL, then on ATWT as Sorry But Not Quite Frannie (during that dreadful Darryl story).

Anyway I guess they've been a couple for years. And they made this little reel for the Locher Room.

The DL doesn't show Facebook links so I'll just put it on the signature line for anyone interested.

Mark and Mary Ellen are ADORABLE. So nice.

I'd cast them as parents on any show.

Mary Ellen had a tough act to follow in Moore and they clearly went with a different type. I loved her as Jenny the cop opposite Ross on GL; I actually enjoyed her on ATWT. I just thought of her as a different character even tho she was Frannie.

I think the problem was Frannie. Marland brought Lily played by Heather Rattray back in the fall of 1989, around the time that Mary Ellen started playing Frannie. He decided to make Lily more assertive, edgier and bitchy as a response to her victimization over the years, as he did with Barbara. It didn’t work and he course corrected after a few months.

To me it would have made more sense to do that story with Frannie instead of the stupid Darryl Crawford storyline.

ATWT went through a lot of cast changes in 1988, 1989, 1990....Craig came back and left again; Sierra left, 'died,' turned up alive; Hillary quit; Julianne left. Bill Shanks' Casey died; Shannon left.

If I could have two years on DVD, it'd be 86 and 87

The Casey dying story was one of the first to really help the show get its mojo back after a year, year and a half of being unfocused.

It also very quickly made Ellen Dolan Margo for me.

Then the Bob/Kim/Susan story really kicked things into high gear.

I agree Stuart was fun as Jenny but her Frannie was just such a simp. And Rattray was just so....ratty? She had a case of Pinched Sphincter Syndrome and looked like Heather Tom's twin or something.

Ugh. Moo Moo Hinsey will be on the Locher Room.

I started watching ATWT regularly shortly before Derek and Niles Mason bombed Lily's cottage, so Heather Rattray was my imprint Lily. I liked her fine, as I had only the memory of Martha Byrne watching the cottage burn down to compare Heather to. But yes, r465, she did suffer from PSS. You're right.

R466, the Devil Wears Lane Bryant.

R468 LOL. It still makes me laugh to this day.

it's brilliant because it hits the nail on the head. that jossip thread showed what a nightmare it must have been like working for her.

one some level Miranda actually respected Andie as evidenced by that letter she faxed (!) over at the end when she was interviewing for another job.

But the management there just seemed like a bunch of mean girls/bullies.

R470 true. No one respects a bully, and that's what Carolyn was.

After the insinuations about several male stars and Hinsey I'm surprised she wasn't banned from being anywhere near either magazine.

....then again if they had banned CH they would have had to ban Stephanie Sloane too.

Here's the link to the Jossip thread in case anyone wants a reminder of exactly who Carolyn is.

I was at least a dozen or so responses on that thread. Including *mysterious hand gestures, turns to camera* Solita Carrera.

My favorite response, which made me pee myself a little the first time I read it, is #1710.

Carolyn standing in the elevator seemingly balancing her check book so all her companions could see her account balance is something that pops in my head virtually every time I get in an elevator with someone.

Remember how hard Carolyn used to push Blondies as the place to hold soap fan gatherings? She always made it sound like Blondies was THE place to do anything soap related.

It wasn't until the Jossip thread that we learned that Carolyn was a partial owner of Blondies. Thus she was promoting events at her own venue without disclosing she owned it. She was also profiting from events without disclosing she owned the venue.

New York Times would have fired her for that ethics breach. So would Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, LA Times and every other reputable journalism site. But she stayed on at Soap Digest. That spoke volumes.

She was out at Digest too for a while, if I remember right. Then they had her back but only to do her column

[quote]She was out at Digest too for a while, if I remember right. Then they had her back but only to do her column

As I recall, she was out at Digest for a couple of years because she got a job as an editor at some other magazine (some celebrity gossip type magazine). The other job wouldn't allow her to do freelance assignments, so she had to drop her Soap Digest column.

She only lasted a few years at the other magazine. Once she was gone from there, Soap Digest started running her column again.

she recently wrote in her column that Jack got away with shooting Jill on Y&R.

Didn't Sven the masseur pull the trigger?

'the bible of the industry' has become 'the pamphlet of soaps'

R480 - I noticed that too. I thought that maybe there was a different shooting that I had missed or forgotten about.

Marlena Delacroix has been posting to her blog intermittently. I’ve noticed some errors and typos in her essays also.

if another editor got something like that wrong holy freaking hell would come down on that poor soul.

also, I don't know who wrote it but in a profile on Morgan Fairchild -- when she was on DAYS as Anjelica -- SOD write she played Chandler's transgendered (or transvestite) father on Friends;

She wasn't. She was his mother; Kathleen Turner played the dad.

Just head that " Ryan's Hope: An Oral History of Daytime's Groundbreaking Soap" is going to be published in late October. It's available for pre-order on Amazon right now.

This would be the second oral history of a soap published after the OLTL book that came out in 2013. That one was "Llanview in the Afternoon: An Oral History of One Life to Live"

Gives us hope that other oral histories of soaps might be published sometime. But people need to get busy and interview the actors while they're still alive!

I wonder if the guy who's supposed to be writing a biography of Beverlee McKinsey will ever come out with that book.

I'd love to see a book on Marland but sadly, some of the greatest actors he wrote for -- Lisa Brown, Jerry verDorn, Hubbard, Hayes...they're all gone.

Plus, what would you do about the personal life aspect? Was he partnered? Would he want that out now?

I don’t know why Irna Phillips’ story wasn’t turned into a movie years ago. Meryl and Mamie would have killed it in the role.

[quote]Plus, what would you do about the personal life aspect? Was he partnered? Would he want that out now?

There are people who could talk some about Marland's personal life.

Patrick Mulcahey worked beside him for a year and kept in touch with him after that.

John Wesley Shipp apparently had a strong friendship with him and kept in touch.

Likely some of the crew on ATWT could offer insights into his personal life. He apparently was guarded about revealing too much about his personal life, but surely he revealed some things here and there.

Its been 30 years this year since he died but there are people still around who knew him.

Jon Hensley could talk about being invited to Doug's place for weekends. Marcia Clark could pipe in, too. Maeve Kinkead, Denise Pence are still around.

Well, what I'm getting at is would Doug want personal stuff about him being gay getting out.

It was a different world back then.

I hope Anna “Banana” Stuart’s completed her autobiography.

I was just watching a Loving episode on YouTube and noticed that Doug must have had his name removed from the show altogether. In the first season he is listed, with Agnes Nixon, under the Created By Credit. After he's gone, no more Doug. I still want to know what went down over there.

I could see Doug all over Loving for it also being an Agnes show. Ava and Lorna and Stacey were all classic 'Marland girls'

Shana and Jim got Streisand's Evergreen as their love theme; Rick and Monica had The Way We Were.

The Donovans were like the Reardons and later, the Snyders.

I'd take 1983 - early 85 LOVING any day of the week over what we have now but boy, were their problems. Merrill wasn't the heroine they needed her to be; Roger was recast and then killed. Doug spun his magic though recasting Ann and bringing on Anthony Herrera as Dane Hammond and Christine Tudor as Gwyneth; Cabot and Isabelle were stellar.

Once Doug left the show fell apart. They lost Susan Walters and focus...Trisha and Steve were boring. Ava became all plot and little character; Loving was like leftover AMC.

R483 - Thank you so much for the info and the link!

R491 - I’ve wondered about that for years… did Marland ask to have his name removed? Did he and Nixon have some Supreme falling out? To me it seems crazy that he didn’t receive the created by it co-created by credit for the run of the show.

I know he was very angry about the way the network treated his Lily incest story (later told with Angel on ATWT).

I think this opinion piece makes a good case for why Marland and Nixon had a hard time together. Her point about Ava is true. Doug wanted her to be Nola Reardon and Agnes wanted her to be Erica Kane.

Love Jennifer Kate! Thanks for posting that, R495

You've all forgotten about me.

You’re welcome r496. She has a series on Medium of essays of Doug Marland’s work

[quote]I know he was very angry about the way the network treated his Lily incest story (later told with Angel on ATWT).

Rightfully so. He had a detailed storyline plotted out that would have been part of the show's original Bible which the network approved. Yet, less than six months into the show's run, he has to jettison that storyline all so the network can publicize a primetime movie as the first tackling that subject.

He had every right to be pissed. And let's not forget he quit GL a year and a half earlier after EP Alan Potter fired Jane Elliot without checking with him in advance.

After watching some old Loving episodes on Youtube, I was surprised that Loving had the best production values on ABC daytime in that 83-87 era.

The show had quality sets, good lighting- It looked like a class act.

My grandparents only watched the core AMC-OLTL-GH- No Loving or Ryans Hope, so I never watched those 2 either.

I was excited about Loving (despite the lackluster name) Here was a chance to watch a soap from the very beginning. I watched the debut movie on Sunday night with great anticipation and tuned in the next day. I tuned in regularly for a year or more.

The production values did seem outstanding and the acting good. The storylines had potential. Everything seemed to be in place, but frankly, this show wasn't terribly compelling. Somehow it wasn't gelling. And it never did gel for me.

I gave up on watching Loving regularly after about a year. Would tune in occasionally after that, but nothing about it ever seemed that compelling.

I think Loving might have worked if it had been sandwiched between AMC and OLTL. Thus, it would have been a part of the core ABC line-up rather than an outlier.

The fact that Loving eventually displaced Ryan's Hope in the 12:30 p.m. timeslot didn't help matters. In my view, Loving is largely responsible for the death of Ryan's Hope.

Ironically, 12 years after its debut, when Loving morphed into The City, I became a regular viewer. I loved the City. Great storylines and great production values. The City (another bad name for a soap)_ was able to do what Loving never could -- make me a satisfied regular viewer.

It was 15 years ago today that the great Beverlee McKinsey died.

15 years!!!! WOW!

The 34th anniversary of Douglass Watson's death was yesterday.

He died May 1, 1989 at age 68. He played Mac Cory for the last 15 years of his life.

Fun fact: the working title for Loving was Love Without End. I’m not kidding. Maybe the producers of Endless Love threatened to sue.

Love Without End is a better name for a soap opera than Loving.

I know we don't talk about Search for Tomorrow much on here, but does anyone know or remember why Stephanie hates Jo so much?

Wasn’t Stephanie the mistress of one of Jo’s husbands?

R501, R505 - When Loving was morphing into The City (pretty close to the premiere date, I believe) the show was to be called LOV❤️NYC.

At the time I thought that was quirky, innovative, and timely. In 2023 I have a different opinion.

They named was jettisoned because SOW, SOD, etc had no way of inserting the ❤️

The name*

Edit button, please?

Stephanie showed up as the nurse to a doctor who was advising Jo's daughter, Patti, who was pregnant and not likely to carry the baby to term. Steph was also the ex-gf of Tony Vincente, Jo's husband, and she had a little girl, Wendy, she hinted could be Tony's daughter. Jo had tp reasons to hate her.

Thanks R511. I was watching a clip on YouTube and Stephanie seemed to really despise Jo. I knew there was some issue, but was never really sure what started it. I only knew Stephanie as some kind of business mogul. Didn't know she started as a nurse.

It’s funny to think how some characters make these really drastic career shifts. Stephanie Wyatt, RN, Dr. Dorian Lord.

Stephanie hated Jo....

...but Mary hated Maree. And any other actress not named Mary Stuart on her show.

Is that why Larry Haines and Marcia McCabe were pretty much the only veteran actors left on the show when it ended?

I don’t think SFT was airing its last few years in my market, but it really seems like frittered away Stephanie — what a great character.

Marie Cheatham was replaced by Louise Shaffer late in the run, and I don't remember why. Marie - or Maree as she was later known - was apparently despised by Bill Bell when he took over Days. He wrote a blind item in his autobiography about a Days original cast member that left him 'cold' and he diminished her. It could only have been Marie.

MARY!

Once people die, it feels like they've immediately been gone forever and years and years later, it'll feel like we lost them yesterday.

R509, technology has come a long way

Happy Another World Day for all who celebrate!

-May 4, 1964

Ada Day, May Day AND May 4th! How grand.

Wow! Yesterday was AW's 59th birthday! Hard to believe.

AW celebrated the 10th anniversary back in 1974 with the wedding of Steve and Alice.

FYI: Despite what the eBay poster wrote about the photo below, the wedding was in 1974 NOT 1971. The photo below includes Beverlee McKinsey, Irene Daily and Nicholas Coster, none of whom were on the show in 1971.

Also FYI, the show celebrated its 10th anniversary with Steve and Alice's wedding by expanding from 30 minutes to 60 minutes for that one day.

That hour-long episode got good ratings. More importantly, it showed that the cast and crew could indeed do a longer episode in a single day without any major problems.

That's what started giving Harding Lemay and Paul Rauch the idea that they could do 60 minutes every day. Come January 1975, they started doing just that.

Where is the son she's ever given him?

Steve and Alice's 1st wedding was in 1971.

.....

My undercover sleuthing reveals that someone has started an Edge of Night thread, in case anyone wants to contribute to it.

Just in case you guys haven't seen this... a bunch of Jo-centric clips on this page. Some early/mid 70s stuff for all you Jo/Mary Stuart fans.

Having a lovely Saturday.

Putting on my MARY! album.

Half of elder gay DL has clearly fingered themselves to Mary Stuart's hotness and THOSE SONGS??

This bitch was FOINE. Pure sex.

We all hawnty now.

R531 clearly was on the good shit yesterday.

I remember Jo singing the Bells of Christmas circa 74 on SFT. They did the end credits in Christmas red. It was very sweet.

,,,,,,

Mary Stuart looked me in a closet and beat me with a car aerial when I flubbed a line!

Not a P&G show but very sad to hear GH's Jackie Zeman has died.

Thinking Helen Wagner has Dee Dee Hall's episode count beat?

Or Lucci? Although I guess that was only 40 years.

Oh, my goodness. Darling!

It looks like we have a few other P&G related threads floating around out there.

I'm the OP of most of these Marvelous Midwestern threads. I used to start new ones once the existing threads were "Muriel'd" or "M'd" around 300 or so entries.

BUT that changed when I also found our resident troll apparently doesn't have a DL membership, so the existing thread would get blissfully calm once we got M'd, as the troll was silenced (at least temporarily) and the discussions could happen in peace.

I'm just a bit worried that with other threads started and active that eventually they'll all be shut down. We seem to have escaped Her Watchful Eye for some time, but the more visible we are the more likely it is that a thread will be closed/deleted.

I can start new threads more often if the vast majority of interested posters want it, just wanted to explain why it wasn't happening. I can only take so much of that deeply mentally ill piece of shit and their "in the biz" fuckery.

Spicen, our resident psycho soap troll, has contributed 9 of the last 10 posts in the Monticello 1980 thread. And you know what type of posts he usually contributes.

So, with such a large number of post talking about Vee in the biz and dropping the THE from Edge of Night, and various FAT actors and making negative comments about gay and lesbian actors and more, it turns people off from posting in the thread.

I have no objections to keeping our P&G threads drama free and psycho free.

Thanks also for starting the various Midwest threads as needed.

Thanks, Liz. I guess he illustrated my point(s).

An hour!

Who's the woman between Grant Colman and Lisa?

Joyce Colman Hughes r543

Joyce Coleman played by Barbara Rodell

Joyce was a great bitch; later, she married Donald Hughes and accidentally shot him when she met to shoot and kill her lover Ralph Mitchell; asked by Nancy if she was going out later to a party or somewhere, Joyce sighed, 'No, I have to stay home and take care of Donald.'

Nancy was seething!

In honor of the late Tina Turner. #SAD

Go to 3:35 in the video below.

How many days?? How many threads???

R547 what are you on about?

What do you think I'm "on about," r548. Counting this one, there are either 7 or 8 "Tina Turner died" threads. Enough already.

[quote]Counting this one, there are either 7 or 8 "Tina Turner died" threads. Enough already.

r549 This is not a Tina Turner died thread. It's been in existence for almost three months; long before Tina died.

There is a single post mentioning Tina's death and including a video clip of a character lip syncing a Tina song.

One posting out of almost 550 postings. That hardly makes this a Tina Died thread.

[quote] One posting out of almost 550 postings. That hardly makes this a Tina Died thread.

What R550 said. And PISS THE FUCK OFF MARY

Tina who?

anyway....

Okay, this is deader than dead. New thread.

ATWT’s Joyce was such a great character!