Kenny & Ginger Ward- the OG young couple of ‘Knots Landing’

David Jacobs had a few ideas for the young couple Kenny and Ginger but the network would not let him do any of it at the time. The Kenny we knew was a young guy who was new to the music industry and working his way up, but he had his foot in the door and had a job. David Jacobs didn’t want that. He wanted Kenny to be desperate to get his foot in but was going nowhere so he would essentially force his new wife, Ginger, to do things with the the guys in the music industry to try and help him get in, ultimately forcing her to have an affair with someone important so he could get a job. Basically, exchanging his wife for favor. That was what Jacobs wanted in the first season but the network stepped in and shut that down and said that would never fly with viewers (of the time).

In season 2 Abby was originally supposed to have an affair with Kenny. You actually see signs of this happening within the first few episodes of season 2, where Abby is briefly flirty with Kenny outside and you can tell he caught her eye, but this was ultimately abandoned. No one knows why Jacobs decided to nip Kenny and Abby from having an affair and instead had her and Richard have an affair instead in season 2, but James Houghton himself said he feels they felt Kenny was not mature enough a character for Abby and he himself wasn’t mature enough in look or acting experience to play well opposite Donna.

So those are two storylines right there that could have been for the Wards but ditched.

Kenny should have been a male prostitute to earn furniture money.

Or perhaps posed in a men's magazine.

Kenny and Ginger were incorporated more in season 4 because the show had now become more serialized and Jacobs was forced to hire some new people for the writing team and one of those people was James Houghton himself. He is who created the storyline of Kenny getting Gary into the music industry because Gary just inherited $10 million dollars so Kenny saw that as a way to make money for himself and wrote numerous storylines and parts of episodes for season 4 and he wrote some for season 3 also, including a whole episode, with his sister.

The characters were the most interesting in their final season, with the Ciji storyline. Stupid of James Houghton to leave then. He didn’t have a great acting career after that although he eventually had many years of successful writing for daytime soaps

He wrote while on Knots and his sister was a soap writer. He brought her over from the daytime soaps to Knots. He could have went back to acting on daytime soaps if he wanted but he preferred writing.

He is one of the original Young and Restless actors.

Well Kim claims he quit and told her about it after the fact. He claims otherwise, saying they were let go. He admitted it was hurtful but he tried not taking the fact that Kenny and Ginger were “extendable” on the show personal and understood from a writers standpoint that some characters needed to go to make room for new characters to take over.

He said the Fairgaite’s and Ewing’s were the primary characters on the show, followed by the Averey’s and the Ward’s were at the bottom. They got rid of Kenny, Ginger and Richard to make room for new characters and create new storylines. They kept Laura around though because there was so much history between Laura and Richard breaking up and getting back together that her ending up alone was believable and made sense while that wouldn’t have worked with Kenny and Ginger. Plus Laura was a loved character.

[quote]Plus Laura was a loved character.

You bet your hairy balls I was!

Kim Lankford did fine, I’m sure, as one of Robert Durst’s girlfriends after she left Knots.

[quote]David Jacobs had a few ideas for the young couple Kenny and Ginger but the network would not let him do any of it at the time.

True. Gary talked them out of it.

Went/gone

Oh, dear.

R8, I knew Lankford was good friends with Susan Berman. I had no idea she had dated Durst.

Toward the end of the run, a divorced Ginger was supposed to come back as a possible love interest for Greg Sumner. Kenny and Ginger felt dull initially but on rewatch, I grew fond of them. Their usual lack of a storyline felt very true to life, like people you know who just live their lives in a holding pattern.

James Houghton seemed rather handsome back in the day.

I was pretty sure they were fired. I'd never before heard Lankford say Houghton quit. Surely he would've seen what happened to Don Murray and he was no Don Murray.

Ginger's long-ago abortion story is probably my favorite Ward episode. I think it's called "Constant Companion".

R13 - Of course people age and change, but damn I can't even recognize Houghton anymore. It's like an entirely different face yet I don't think he had work done. Strange.

R15 because that’s a different person

They deserved better on the show

He’s dead to us.

They probably kept Laura on as she went through a lot of growth in the early seasons - from unhappy housewife frequenting bars in the afternoon to getting the realtor job and the Scooter story which enabled them to make Laura sarcastic and eye-rolling. Kenny and Ginger just kinda sat there. But it was good to have Kim Lankford make a cameo on the follow-up miniseries. And it was no surprise Ginger would have divorced him.

He was a beautiful man on Knots. My adolescent self was in love with him.

But I’ll admit that my primary lust was for hot daddy Don Murray, whose Sid lasted even less time than Houghton’s Kenny.

Sad to see Houghton died last summer, but glad he had a successful career as a writer after leaving the show.

Don Murray quit because of pay disputes.

James was let go at the end of season 4.

Funny how my tastes evolved. In my teens watching Knots, I lusted after Kenny. Then in my 20s-30s, I though Gary was the hot one. Now in my 50s, I'm only interested in Sid.

R22 that’s definitely you, because at a young age I found both Kenny and Gary hot as mother watched reruns on Soap Net. The Sid part is true, but in my 30s (which I am now). I find all three hot

Definitely you r22.

Sid? No

(I’m 51)

Sid was handsome

R1, wasn’t Kenny still coming off that affair with Sylvie from Cosmic Steeple at the beginning of Season 2? Maybe they nixed Kenny having another affair so quickly.

Kenny using Ginger to get ahead would have been an interesting plot line later down the road.

We see Kenny is a cheat in the pilot episode, so we know what type of man we are dealing with from the start. A hot young married man who can’t keep it in his pants with other women.

There is a lot the writers could have done with these two and they didn’t. Kenny worked in the music industry. So many stories could have been told and they didn’t.

The episode where Ciji dies Ginger gets a chance to sing in front of the music exec who was there to watch Ciji. Had they been kept around one more season, they could have made Ginger a rising star, leading to jealousy issues in her marriage due to her success and a different producer being paired with her over Kenny, and eventually them leaving because they’re moving now with all HER new success.

Farrah Fawcett lite

R27 - I would assume that Kenny was already quite successful as a music industry producer. They lived in nice house on a cul-de-sac by the ocean in L.A. We met Ginger's family and they were not the Ewings. Plus she was a kindergarten teacher in public schools so clearly Ginger was not carrying that mortgage.

Also, wife becoming more successful than neurotic husband was already done to death with the Averys, with shades of the same story with Gary and Val (who could barely speak English yet became a world-famous novelist overnight).

Val spoke English perfectly fine. What series did you watch?

Kenny wasn’t successful. They were renting the house. Not owners. Kenny started finally finding success in season 4.

Tell me you didn’t watch the show without telling me… read r29s post

I heard from a source who's tight with Joan Van Ark, that probably the biggest problem with Kenny and Ginger is that even though they were the "young" couple on the show, Val and Gary looked even younger, especially Val which is why Val wound up getting most of the storylines that people think might have worked for Ginger. Producers on the show had to ask Joan for her birth certificate to prove that she was over 18 and they weren't breaking labor laws by making a minor work the long hours they had JVA working.

R2- FULL FRONTAL

R31 I continue to have the same issue on my show.

R31- Wrong.

When the show went on the air in 1979- Gary and Val looked early to mid 30's and Kenny and Ginger looked mid to late 20's.

Gary and Val NEVER looked younger than Kenny and Ginger.

What was whoever made that claim smoking? Joan was hired to play the mother of Charlene Tilton's teenager character on Dallas years before the spinoff started!

I don't remember Kenny & Ginger, but then those episodes would have aired before I could properly appreciate Kenny's assets.

True dat, Dee!

My God. I had no idea that James Houghton had died until I read this thread. I thought I’d been doing so well in keeping up with who was still around from that original cast. I am one of the rare few who preferred the show in its early down-to-earth years, before it became a soap. I liked the self-contained episodes.

I agree with whatever poster said that the Wards were both very attractive.

Karen was a Pollyanna.

Abby was a WHORE

[quote] [R22] that’s definitely you, because at a young age I found both Kenny and Gary hot as mother watched reruns on Soap Net. The Sid part is true, but in my 30s (which I am now). I find all three hot

Why on earth would you make up so many lies just in order to make the point that you find someone attractive?