The Most you ever hated a soap opera character?

Sami was hard to take, I agree.

Eve on Days was tough to take too.

Carly Tenney, star of As the World Turns around Carly Tenney. I even hated her sassy, imitation Janet Leigh voice. I had to stop watching.

MAGA Sami.

I did love Eve and Nick though.

This is going back but Paul's mother Mary was a real piece of work. She could put Sammy to shame.

I loved Carly, hated Molly on As the World Turns. Hated, hated, hated her. The retcon child with Holden, the stupid, whiny voice, the implants halfway through her run, her story with Reid after they fired Daniel Markel, her storyline with Jake that took time away from real Oakdalians. I even hates her for her replacement in stupidity: Juicy Janet. Hated, hated, hated her.

Couldn't stand Lillian Raines on Guiding Light. Weak woman who allowed her crazy broke husband to terrorize her daughter. Then years later she gets breast cancer and uses it as an excuse to sleep with her best friend's husband.

I hated Buzz Cooper too. Fug deadbeat loser who somehow was swimming in pussy. I blame his character for getting Fiona Hutchison's Jenna killed off. She was stuck on an island with him and had nowhere else to go.

When Buzz and Lillian got married, I believed they deserved each other. Had the show not been canceled, I would have enjoyed fastforwarding through their (twice-monthly) scenes.

Assholes.

The most I ever hated a soap opera character was Paul Ryan on ATWT, but that probably is because I detested Roger Howarth's one-note portrayal of him, so I guess that doesn't count.

As for just hating a character, another vote for Carly Tenney. Seducing Jack Snyder while his wife was miscarrying Jack's baby was pretty low.

I fucking DESPISED Kamar De Los Reyes (sp?) as Antonio Vega on OLTL..

Just a dud of a character, a BORING AS FUCK actor- and I hated every storyline he was in.

A recent one, Nelle Benson on GH. She was terrorizing Carly, which normally I would enjoy, but the character was just so evil with no redeeming qualities. I just wanted someone to kill her.

Charlotte Ross Eve from 87-91 was excellent, one of the most complex teen characters on soaps and she would always torture step mommy Kimberly Brady, who always looked traumatized and that she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown the entire time she was on DAYS

It was great!

I didn’t love the Kassie DePaiva version of Eve although I loved Kassie as Blair on OLTL

I hate Sonny and Jason on GH, and the way the women on that show would fawn over them. Sonny personified toxic masculinity.

Sonny Corinthos and Jason Morgan ate Port Charles and everyone else was sacrificed for their low budget Sopranos schtick.

r13, there was a scene after the first Carly miscarried Sonny's child and the Elizabeth character taunts her about it saying, 'Sonny lost the baby, all YOU lost was a meal ticket.' It was absolutely sickening. Sonny was god on this show.

The 90s really were the decade when certain characters ended up dominating their soaps. I'm thinking of the two Carlys on ATWT and GH. Sonny and Jason. Todd and Blair. Reva and Josh. At least the Bell soaps know how to maintain a real ensemble.

R15, you are so right. At certain times on ATWT, the show was just dominated by Lily, Carly, Gwen and Katie.

Katherine from GH.

I fucking hated Sami too. And chub Sweeney was a terrible actress. Especially in the early years.

R17 I never hated her, I just found her boring. The character not the actress.

I spent 3 summers in the early ‘80s with my grandparents. Great hardworking people. Between 2-3pm they watched Another World. So I watched Another World. 1st Summer: this crazy bitch Cecile was sabotaging Pat’s job because she wanted it. Cecile claimed Pat was an incompetent drunk. 2nd Summer: Cecile is at it again! This time she poisoning her own husband because she realized he wasn’t a true heir she wanted Jamie out of the picture. I remember Rachel slapping Cecile and we all cheered! Third Summer: now Cecile has a friend named Alma and they are terrorizing Blaine because she took the real heir, Sandy, from Cecile. Pretty good storylines and a character that really stood out and you just hated her! I still will never forget that character.

R11 You were able just forget Blair was half asian?

Not, R11, but yes. Kassie DePaiva was so wonderful and made that character her own. After no time, any thoughts of the old Blair and her backstory just faded away.

Another vote for Buzz Cooper. He never seemed to have a purpose but was always up front and in the middle of everything. It was clearly about grabbing a name without a plan,

Erica, she was so devious.

Lily Corinthos in the 90s

Emma Donovan, DAYS. I wanted to strangle her (even more than Eve!) for the havoc wreaked on my beloved Shane & Kimberly. Switching the paternity test, kidnapping/selling Andrew, generally tormenting Kimberly. Jane Windsor was fantastic!

There are many I detest (Carly Tenney, Sonny C., Jason M. and a few others), but I hate Sheila Carter. I can't believe B&B brought her back.

Katie Peretti on ATWT. There are probably equally bad or worse ones I could think of, but she's the first one who came to mind. Never was so much airtime wasted on such a completely uninteresting, unlikeable character. Chirpy, peppy, blonde... all the guys wanted to fuck her, and those that didn't, she made pay for it. I just wished she'd gotten stuck on that deserted island forever.

The mention of Katie Peretti reminds me of the awful "Cricket Blair" (Lauralee Bell) on Y&R. .. And it wasn't just Daddy Bell's nepotism, but his myopia. She just couldn't act AT ALL; anyone could see that. .. Yet as Lester pointed out, Daddy was having her eat the show. .. And of course, Bell wanted us to love his cute, little "Cricket" as much as he did. (Well so cute that she needed a nose job .. lol!) .. The phrases "incredible & amazing" and "beautiful & talented" were regularly attached to the character and became Cricket's calling card. I suppose it was one of those things where Bell thought if we heard this enough times, we'd believe it was true.

I hate all the younger soap stars now with their Valley vocal fry. It's not the daytime I once knew where actors had amazing voices. Beverlee McKinsey is turning in her grave.

I agree on Cricket R29 I loved how Phyllis called her Bug.

Cricket was abysmal. And the horrendous Joshua Morrow as Nicholas. That really marked the decline in decent daytime acting from the younger performers. I remember even Jeanne Cooper saying that besides Heather Tom and Sharon Case, none of the other younger actors could cut it compared to Tricia Cast in the 80s.

I liked Cricket, but it was mainly because I was young and I found her attractive. The blond California look has always been my default when it comes to girls or guys.

Brooke Logan and her vapid daughter, Hope the Dope!

Janet who dominated the story, the final year on ATWT. In the 1980's, I hated the Tonio Reyes, character on ATWT.

This won’t mean anything to anyone besides me, but—the Bradley family, who blackmailed, targeted then outed the young posh brother-sister couple Nat & Georgia Simpson off BROOKSIDE in the mid-late 90s. Sounds like a justified attack on paper if you don’t know the context, but the way it unfolded was despicable. The Simpsons were the heroes of the storyline. Also, Nat & George’s father Ollie turned out to be a massive cunt, but that was far more understandable given his proximity to the drama.

The parade of Faux Craigs on ATWT. Scott Bryce, and only Scott Bryce, was Craig.

R36 Brookside always seemed interesting and I wish it was still on, so I could stream it like Corrie and Emmerdale.

Carly Jason and Sonny on GH have to be repeated over and over on this thread. Rex's final girlfriend on OLTL whatever her name was.

R37, truer words were never spoken! Scott Bryce took his character from scheming villain (the Steve/Betsy/Craig days) to romantic hero (Craig/Sierra) and was never one-dimensional throughout. His successor, Hunt Block, was a cardboard character , who could play snide and sarcastic, but nothing else. Worst of all was Jon Lindstrom, who committed the cardinal sin of making Craig boring. Surprisingly, I liked short-term Craig Jeffrey Meek, but he would have been better cast as a Stenbeck.

[quote] Brookside always seemed interesting and I wish it was still on.

As do I.

Murder cults, bodies under patios, trafficking, incest kids and such, all in-between cornershop rivalries and jollies to BlackpEWL. Brookie had it all.

We shall never see its like again.

My mother hated Elizabeth from General Hospital. Because she would record them and never watch them live, she would always fast forward Elizabeth’s parts.

The only time I remember she didn’t was when Elizabeth was contemplating jumping off the hospital building.

R41 Which current British soap would you say it was most like?

Knots’s Paige Matheson when she became the main character. It was too much of a good thing. Even Donna Mills sacrificed screen time for her in her last season!

The original Gunther Wagner on The Edge of Night.

R43 well, the obvious answer is HOLLYOAKS, as technically-speaking it is the child to BROOKSIDE.

After BROOKSIDE came to a close, the creator Phil Redmond spun off HOLLYOAKS as a youth-oriented Gen Z/Millennial way to keep his soap dreams alive. Shockingly, HOLLYOAKS in all its squalid silliness has somehow lived far longer and achieved greater fame than her forebear ever did. Odd, as while HOLLYOAKS is in the same vein as BROOKSIDE, it simply isn’t as good.

Neither are really comparable to any of the other British/English soaps going now. EASTENDERS is probably the closest in terms of stuntiness and out-there characterisation, though the tone and the setting is totally different.

I hated everybody after they dropped “The” from The Guiding Light! Except for all of the fat characters like Fat Ed Bauer, Fat Bert Bauer, Fat Holly, everyone Fat!

Harley on GL. Not always. She was not attractive but they tried to make her this hot heroine who bedded every man in SF. Her voice was screechy and she ate the show until her toxicity left. People say it was the Reva show. For a good while, it was the Saint Harley show.

I wish they would just kill that ugly flabby ass Phil Mitchell off from EastEnders.

R40, both Meek and Lindstrom are good actors, IMO, but some characters just shouldn't be recast, ever. As for Block... Well, he could be effective in a very limited way. I did enjoy the sparring between him and Michael Park (Jack), but I never thought, "I'm watching Craig Montgomery." And don't get me started on his fake crying when Bryant died. Embarrassing!

Buzz on GL was initially fascinating and Justin gave a masterclass in acting in which GL cup runeth over anyway. Then they gave him 40 minute soliloquies just ranting. Your FF button would end up biting you for overuse.

Fat Nikki on Y&R and her Nazi husband

Those fucking Carey skanks, Krystal and Babe on AMC. They came on and just ATE the fucking show. Hated, hated, hated them. Their storylines would have been much better with other characters.

And “whisper scream” Ryan Lavery, ugh! Cameron Mathison was a shitty actor, but I guess he got a lot of fan mail since they had him on every day. Funny, I liked him in his first stint, especially with Gillian, but when he came back and Greenlee and Kendall were fighting over him, and then they started bringing on random Lavery family members…just too much.

If we include nighttime soaps, Alison Parker on Melrose w, such a manipulative drama Queen, “I’m such a victim and take no responsibility “ woman

Stefano on DOOL was such a cartoon villain and when Sonny was introduced on GH and it became 'The Sonny Soprano Show', I stopped watching GH.

All Stefano needed was a top hat and long moustache to twirl!

R46 Hollyoaks is the one British soap I haven’t watched, because it always seems so crazy. I was going to give it a try when they had Linda Grey guest starring but I didn’t. To me just reading about Brookside, it seemed to me kinda a British version of Knots Landing, especially how it was constructed around a suburban neighborhood, with fairly realistic serious plots. And then like Knots it moved in to crazier and more outlandish stories as the years progressed. Am I wrong?

R57 afraid I can’t really expand much on that, as I’ve never seen KNOTS LANDING, but I think you do have the measure of it, yes.

True that initially BROOKSIDE had a firmer grounding in reality than most U.K. soaps. By its final few years, though, it descended into disco madness as do they all. There’s random episodes on YouTube, worth a look if you’re interested in the show. The accents are the only thing that may prove an impediment to an American viewer (as I presume you are), as over half of the characters spoke a very broad Scouse (Liverpudlian).

HOLLYOAKS has much less cachet and is far less watertight as a programme—I’d even call it slapped-together, in nastier moments—but it is probably more universally accessible. I stopped watching several years ago, when the show jumped on unpalatable trendy bandwagon issues like T and BLM.

imo,Hollyoaks male (football) grooming story (ca. 2018) was one of the best stories on Brit soaps in the last decade.

R58 I'll check some out, I doubt the accents will give me much of an issue, I've never encountered a problem understanding British shows.

I hated the Iva Snyder character on ATWT!

Erica with all her " manstealing ways"

Footballers Wives was so over-the-top. Not so much a soap opera, but just as ridiculous as one.

Zoe Lucker, think that was the actress' name, was hysterical. Her character was always screaming, had those horrible long fake nails, smoked like a chimney and was always coked out of her mind. She also looked much older than her husband.

R63 erm ok FOOTBALLER’S WIVES was peak camp and the absolute 🐐 they should reboot it

enjoy being wrong tho

I'll repeat the mentions Katie and Gwen from ATWT - utterly boring characters who sucked up so much time. I enjoyed Carly at times; even when the Carjack story became repetitive, I liked Maura West.

I loved Justin Deas on SB, but as previously mentioned, he was great at first as Buzz on GL, then grew tiresome.

REVA

Another vote for Oltl’s Gigi, Antonio, and John Mcbain when he sucked up the show!

Laura Wright as Carly has made me hate the character.

Ryan Lavery AMC. This boring character came in and took over the show and was on 4-5 days a week. Can't remember one good scene or any good storyline. ZZZZ. Pushed good characters to back-burner status.

Adam Newman on Y&R. I think that the introduction of that character was the beginning of the show's decline. No matter which actor played the role, I've always hated it. The least compelling villain ever written for a soap.

This may get me flames, but fuck it—I really don’t like Calum, Ben Mitchell’s husband/boyfriend off ‘Eastenders’.

Ben’s other previous main love interests in Johnny Carter & Paul Coker (RIP😢) worked better for the character dev. Ben/Calum is so boring and vanilla as well as stagnant. And even having Calum on his own in storylines seperate to Ben is profoundly blah. Calum should really be written out.

Let me just say also that it was a travesty to kill off complex gay/bi villain Steven Beale and keep the Mitchells. Waste of fascinating character potential, that.

I mostly only watched Y&R when one of my friends or cousins wanted to watch it, but I always thought that Cricket person and Michael Damian were the WORST. They were both just awful.

I did watch it enough to have a mad crush on Terry Lester.

McBain on OLTL. I might have been ok if they hadn’t let his character eat the show. And I don’t think the actor was ever demanding more screen time. It was all Frons.

"You raped me, Alan! You raped me! (Beat.) Meet me at the pub later to make Austin jealous."

R72 Personally, I liked McBain but I did feel they very much overused him.

GH's virgin nurse Ann Logan

LOL's Bambi

DOOL: Big Lipped Billie & Sonny

R70 I agree with everything you wrote. Miss Steven A LOT. Not into Ballum AT ALL. And my fondest wish is, if Ben is sticking around, then they recast Johnny with a steady boyfriend and play a triangle with Ben.

R75 All Sonnys? I've only been watching since the Beyond Salem miniseries and I like the current Sonny, but I don't know too much about the character's full history. But, the new one is very cute.

John McBain seemed to be forced into every storyline I cared about. I hated him for it.

Low-energy ass.

Smirky Will Horton on Days. Sucky actor. Smirks all the time. And the actor is so dumb!

R77 only Fat Sonny, who couldn't hold a candle to the beautiful Christopher Shon - or was it Sean- 's Paul.

About three weeks ago Fat Sonny said he's lost 30 lbs. That must mean he's down to 200.

r81 Freddie Smith has lost 30 pounds at least a dozen other times. Thing is he gains back 40 pound in between each of those 30 pounds he's lost.

R82 I know .. lol!. I reckon FCF will (once again) say he's eligible to cheat a bit during the upcoming holiday season, and that will start the yo-yo going up.

Freddie’s hot! And he has a gorgeous wife. Good for him! And remember, HE turned Days down when they wanted him back for that Beyond Salem shit.

Translation: They probably called him wanting to know how much he currently weighed back then, and rather than given them a direct answer, he made up some excuse as to why he wouldn't be able to shave his beard off.

I hated Another World's Michael Hudson. He was a sanctimonious blowhard who was always shaking a finger at my beloved Donna because she wasn't sedate enough to suit him. She liked to live it up. She was spoiled and often got into trouble, but those qualities were part of her charm.

Michael had big dick energy, so I understood Donna's hesitance to walk away from him around 1990. When he ended up with Stacey Winthrop (who did Hilary Edson know to be a complete boring, unmemorable characters on both AW & Guiding Light?) I thought she was exactly what Michael's dull ass deserved.

I did not like the second Kendall (Alicia Minshew) on AMC. I had watched the show all through the '80s with my mom but in the '90s I stopped watching during the time SMG was on as Kendall, I started watching again in the late '90s when they brought Marcy Walker back. Minshew's character was just boring especially compared to Greenlee who I loved, she just wasn't a particularly interesting character. Also never got the Cady McCain Dixie love, though I didn't hate the character, I never bought into her and Tad as a 'supercouple'. I much preferred him with Hilary or Brooke.

R87 I preferred Dixie and Adam to Dixie and Tad, though I still preferred Adam and Brooke to Adam and Dixie. I liked Tad and Liza more than Tad and anyone.

Liza and Tad should have been endgame. He was good with others like Dixie, Brooke, and even for a little while, my girl Simone (my favorite AMC underused character) but they put him with that heinous Krystal, and gave her storylines that should have gone to either Brooke or Liza. Since Marcy Walker left when she “found Jesus” they could have brought in a good recast Liza and mined the history of Liza with Tad, Greg, Opal, Jesse, Angie, Marian, etc. but it all failed when they cast Jamie Luner. They touched on the history a little bit, but she just wasn’t Liza. I wanted them to cast someone like Beth Chamberlin or Eileen Davidson as Liza.

Alison Sweeney is blind in one eye

MAGA Sami.

Komolika from Kasauti Zindagii Kay, she was the worst! Not only did she kill Anurag and Prerna's little boy, but then, even after they realized this, she married Anurag's brother and they had to have her in their household! BTW, Indian soap operas are the best.

Ava from General Hospital. Yeah yeah I know she's popular here. I detest her wanabee cougarness and her try hard Mae West act.Plus she's always sweaty and dresses like a hooker librarian.

Is "A Place To Call Home" considered a soap opera? If so, Regina Standish is my choice.

R92, where can we see them? Any you recommend? Any gay characters?

That Amber creature (Adrienne Frantz), who moved from The Bold and the Beautiful, to The Young and the Restless, and back to B&B.

Sam on GH. Just pointless. And the teen pregnancy story with Alexis knocked up by Julian made zero sense.

R94 I would consider it a primetime soap. Like Downton Abby, it was largely a period version of Dallas or Falcon Crest, with different accents.

Luke Spencer and Toni Home Permed hair.

Is Anthony Geary gay?

I hated the Natalie character on OLTL. She was a horrible actress, ate the fucking show like the fatass she always was and I never liked they gave Viki an extra kid and we had to live with the idea that Jessica belonged to a rapist psycho and only Natalie was actually the only one who was Clint's natural child until they "fixed it" at the end of the show.

Nina on Y&R. Tricia Cast, IMO, looked like trailer trash and I think she did wear a side pony tail. Ugh!

I loved Natalie on OLTL! But I get she could be alienating and her acting wasn't the best but I felt she had tons of charisma.

I hated the second Todd though. He seemed the opposite of Roger Howarth's version and he became so dominant. They also played him off more as sexy which I thought was a bad look. I was so happy when they undid that story.I do think the actor was good though. I also did hate Roger's version actually but it was different in the sense that I respected the stories and direction. With second Todd, I was more annoyed by him than I was afraid, and it felt like we were supposed to root for him.

Another character I hated but this time due to bad acting was the Jen character on OLTL.

I also hated Sonny on GH even though I didn't watch that. But I've always hated "tough macho" gangsters with hearts of gold.

Victor Newman just choked out all the other male characters. It's a head-scratcher how much power Eric Braeden seems to have. Especially sad is losing the Brad Carlton (Don Diamant) character due to too much Victor.

Carly (aka Cujo) from GH is eating the show alive. Her portrayer's untalented boyfriend is too.

I remember visiting my aunt and cousin during the summer when I was a kid. They were big Y&R fans and hung on Victor Newman’s every word. I hated him and thought he was awful. I do seem to remember him having a hunky younger brother who looked like a gay porn star. I’m sure that character is long forgotten.

The original Taylor Roxbury Cannon on AMC was a fun, rich, spoiled bitch. She matured and became more human, a rookie cop…but then they wanted to have Taylor be a spoiler for the Noah/Julia romance and recast the role with a really bad actress and the character became an obsessive psycho who was nothing like the original character. Loathed her, but her mom..and even bigger rich bitch..was a lot of fun. AMC had a lot of great snooty older women over the years.

R106, Robert Parucha played Matt Miller, Victor's brother; he popped up on the show in the winter of 2020 for Braeden's/Victor's 40th anniversary at Y&R/Newman's 40th (50th?) anniversary.

He's a hot sexy daddy. I don't know why he's not on the show more.

Thanks r108. That’s interesting. I just figured he’d been killed off at some point. I’ve never really seriously followed Y&R.

He was hot! In an 80s sleazy sort of way.

I've met him a few times and he's a HOT HOT HOT Daddy type now; I see what you mean in that pic but to me, he just screams hot DADDY

He's 6'2" + 200 + TOTES my type; alas, 100% hetero; didn't get a gay vibe at all.

Believe me, I looked.

R108 Bobby Parucha wasn't all that serious about acting. As I recall, he sort of fell into modeling by accident (was getting his Master's Degree at UC Santa Barbara and some scout spotted him playing volleyball or something). He said when they hired him at Y&R, he didn't even audition. It was done by screen test only. I don't think he ever had ambitions to stick with acting long-term. He runs a his own clothing manufacturing business.

btw - The apple sure didn't fall far from the tree where his hot son is concerned.

R95 - it's been 10 years since I was learning Hindi and was watching them, so I don't know what the current ones are or who the current cute actors are. I really doubt there are any gay characters yet. There have been a few gay-centered Hindi films, but the society still hasn't come to terms with gayness.

R112 I will say when I see them playing behind the counter in convivence stores, they look amazing.

Dorian Strasser. A bitch. The crew hated her. She was beyond nasty to them. They were SO happy when she left. Michael Logan wrote about how unhappy the OLTL crew was when they learned the bitch was coming back. Even old Asa marched his ass up to Linda Gottlieb’s office. Classic story!

^who dat?

Vee, who is in the biz, knows the full story and Dumb Dylan has the January Sweeps scoop! Pervy Amc2008 has been filming his gross chaturbate vids in the library researching Aggie Nixon’s archive. Amc2008 thinks he knows more than Vee, who is in the biz, you know, and is the expert of all things soaps and politics.

They’re all a mess over at SON! Vicky Fuckton and the pervert have ruined that site. Vee, who’s in the biz, has failed to reign them in.

LUKE SPENCER

I realize this is Soap Opera blasphemy but I hated this character!

Nothing rang true about this character. He was one of the most inauthentic soap characters I ever watched.

He was supposed to be a pussy hound but people in space could see the man was gay!

He was supposed to be cool but his acting was an Eminen type (imitation Black man). All I saw was a nerdy White boy over-acting and trying to disco dance! LOL

The character was supposed to be handsome but was literally the UGLIEST younger man on the show!

He was supposed to be so charming and irresistible that good girl Laura Baldwin fell in love with him after he RAPED her?Stupidest storyline EVER!

He also murdered both his parents yet they somehow "redeemed" him? I hated that.

Luke and Laura also never even had chemistry, but Genie Francis was beautiful and an amazing actor. SHE made it work.

Genie Francis had much better chemistry with smart and handsome law student Scotty Baldwin. I loved that pairing. There was not enough character contrast between Scotty and Luke (or maybe it was just Geary's horrible acting). It was never believable to me that she would leave Scotty for Luke. No Fuckin way!

This character could have been so much more with some tweaks to the writing and a better actor.

And don't even get me started on alter-ego Bill Eckert, which was essentially Luke in a bad wig (even worse than Luke's ridiculous wanna-be Afro).

Luke, Bobbie and Ruby were Poor White Trash from the other side of the tracks, but they woulda been a lot more interesting if GH woulda made them Black. It seems that was what they wanted to do but in the 1970s I guess they didn't have the balls!

GH was still a great show during this time because compared to other soaps, they still had very high production value which included lots of great storylines, characters and really good looking and accomplished actors, despite this Luke Spencer mess!

He was such an awful character.

I’m with R20 and Cecile (as played by Nancy F), but I LOVED to hate her. Still my all-time favorite soap villainess.

[quote]the awful "Cricket Blair" (Lauralee Bell) on Y&R

I was scrolling through this thread just waiting for someone to say Cricket! No one liked her, either the actress or character. She was added for the teens and kids watching the show in the summer, but when I would go back to school anyone who watched Y&R said they hated her.

At least they brought in eye candy Michael Damien so her scenes weren't so interminable. He couldn't act either but was fine to look at.

Don't forget Sean from Coronation Street!

Amy Vining (GH)

R118 Didn't Luke also pimp out his sister Bobbie or am I mis-remembering? Was never a huge GH fan to start anyway.

R123 Nah, Aunt Ruby was the whore! She introduced Bobbie to turning tricks!

Closest I’ve come to watching a soap was Dynasty in the 1980s.

Aunt Ruby’s snatch stunk!!

R121 I agree. Sean is horrible, but for me, he's not even at the top (bottom?) of the list on Corrie. Gemma and Fiz compete for that title.

Gemma is annoying, granted. As are Chesney, David and Eileen.

I always hated those ultra villains. Stefano DiMera, Victor Newman and most of the bad guys on GH bored me to tears. I liked Roger Thorpe and, to a point, James Stenbeck, until they brought him back from the dead a hundred times.

I hated Cassie Layne on GL, because the character was so badly conceived, and Reva already had a sister, played by an actress who was not utterly irreplaceable.

I'll set most of the late era ATWT recasts aside, because honestly, none of those were the characters we knew. That was corporate malfeasance, not the actor's fault.

I'd have to say Danny and Michelle on GL, because Danny and his family were such dead weights on the show, and Michelle was a gelatinous glop of nothingness in nearly every story, except for the death of her mother.

[quote] Is Anthony Geary gay?

Is the Pope Catholic?

A good super villain is a Carlo Hesser. You don't dominate the show but you are driving a lot of it. And then you can win Emmy. Christopher was deserved. He was a marvelous villain.

Carly something from GH - as I recall very much a gold digger.

Thom Christopher was really good on One Life To Live.

Carlo Hesser was my idea of a hot opera daddy.

And by all accounts Thom Christopher was a WONDERFUL guy. Great man-

Is he still alive?

The City writers went over to GL and cast Wright as Cassie; she screentested but the role was hers to lose.

I call her the Joan Crawford of soaps; there's appeal to many for sure; but not my cup of tea. No nuance. All technique and arms flailing. I can take her in small doses but she's on every freaking day.

She shows up on time, works hard, team player; the bosses love her and it shows.

Christopher had marvelous chemistry with almost half the town. From Renee to Bo to Megan and Viki and later even with Todd , Patrick and Marty. He was a maestro villain.

Mitch Lawrence from OLTL was one of the best soap villains of all time. I was so bummed about Roscoe Borne and how he passed last year. Truly a great actor.

The show ruined Mitch Lawrence with the Jessica stuff. If thye had left him at Tina and the cult story I would agree with you. All the other stuff was awful. The Natalie and Jessica stuff ended his character for me.

Stupid Matt Hanvey, the ugly idiot, thinks that Hunter Tylo is a great actress. lolololololololol Hunter Tylo!

R139 correct

Krista Allen is the definitive Taylor Hayes. Scoche Marin is the definitive Kay Chancellor.

Maria, or Anna, on DOOL was a pretty awful character, not sure of her exact name, she had brown hair and big anime eyes. At the soap forums, her fans would mention she looked like a 1930s starlet.

I don't watch soaps anymore, I'm not sure if her character is still on DOOL. A few months back, I did see the actress in some sappy Hallmark film. She sure wasn't playing a character anywhere near the crazy conniving awful Maria/Anna.

I hated hypocrite feminist Jillian Coleridge on Ryan's Hope.

[quote]Maria, or Anna, on DOOL was a pretty awful character, not sure of her exact name, she had brown hair and big anime eyes. At the soap forums, her fans would mention she looked like a 1930s starlet.

[quote]I don't watch soaps anymore, I'm not sure if her character is still on DOOL. A few months back, I did see the actress in some sappy Hallmark film. She sure wasn't playing a character anywhere near the crazy conniving awful Maria/Anna.

r143 Are you perhaps talking about the character of Teresa Donovan on Days? Actress Jen Lilly performed the part from 2013-16. Now she's in the Hallmark stable, starring in several Hallmark movies each year.

AS aka Sami used to have a lot of annoying facial tics, she'd move her nose in a weird way, and she also used to talk like she has some sort of nasal drip issue. She improved as she aged.

During the whole "Asian quarter" nonsense on General Hospital, there was some old Asian dame who would always use phrases like "Be cool, dude". Each appearance was enough to get me diving for the remote.

[quote][R143] Are you perhaps talking about the character of Teresa Donovan on Days? Actress Jen Lilly performed the part from 2013-16. Now she's in the Hallmark stable, starring in several Hallmark movies each year.

Yes, that's her. I couldn't remember her name on DOOL. I knew her character's name ended with an 'A'.

Krista Allen is a great recast on B&B. I could never stand Taylor or Hunter Tylo. Major major improvement with Krista.

R149 But that WIG Krista's wearing could be it's own character!

I agree, Krista is doing great. Fantastic replacement. Stepped into the part easily.

Jennifer Horton

I always felt the character was a nasty, fake, snotty little brat and it turns out the actress playing the part (Melissa Reeves) is even nastier than her character.

^Yum yum yum! Chick-Fil-A

Tad fucking Martin (my mother loved him)- evenhis name gets on my nerves, also hated Adam Jr. and the SVU chick who 'returned ' as Dixie.

On the other side of extremes, LOVED Phoebe Tyler Wallingford.

Off topic tangent Billy Clyde Tuggles actor Matthew Cowels has lived in the town I'd grown up in for decades. He was always very kind to the perpetually drunk proprietor of a place he'd take his daughter after riding lessons, where I worked for two years before moving for school.

I agree with so many of these. There are a lot of characters that I used to like that I do not like now. I liked Carly on GH until Laura Wright took over. I just find her insufferable. I don't like her much on GL either.

I've never liked Sammy on Days of Our Lives. She just rubs me the wrong way. I've also got a bit tired of John too. Melissa Horton is isn't a bad character but Melissa Reeves is a sanctimonious bitch.

I like Nikki and Victor on The Young and the Restless up to the 90's, but I can't stand either one now, and Eric Braeden is overexposed and seems to be a prick in real life although I didn't like the fact that he was very supportive of Marla Adams.

I have never liked Heather Tom ever since she debuted as Victoria on Y&R. I don't think I have ever seen her smile, even on One Life to Live where the character was supposed to be outgoing. I am not a Bold and the Beautiful fan but the few times I seen her, she has the same sad woe is me face. It gets old after a while yet she continues to get all the awards.

Frisco Jones

I was 11 when I was addicted to GH and I was totally in love with Colton Shore. Loved his mom, too whom I instantly recognized when she popped up in Beetlejuice.

Anyways Frisco pops up out of nowhere and that stupid bitch Felicia breaks Colton's heart and leaves him for Frisco.

Second choice would be Clark from TB&TB. I adored Sally Spectra (what baby gayling didn't?) and he knocked her up and cheated on her.

[quote]I have never liked Heather Tom ever since she debuted as Victoria on Y&R. I don't think I have ever seen her smile

r155 We call her condition PSS (Pinched Sphincter Syndrome).

Krystal and Babe could have been great characters if they had kept Babe as a bad girl with moments of vulnerability and Krystal as a bad mother with shades of original recipe Opal. Instead they had Babe is Love and Krystal was this Mama Bear Earthy Mother protecting her baby girl. They really tried hard to make Tad and Krystal a super couple and they never had any chemistry. They should have paired him with Simone or Liza. Krystal did have chemistry with Adam and Daviid and those couples could of work if they kept her a schemer, instead they went for the overdone Adam/David victimizing their helpless wife.

Julie Chandler really annoyed me at times. I think the only time Lauren Holly did not bug me was Picket Fences.

This is probably an unpopular one, but would not have minded Stuart getting hit by a bus, especially in the later years when he and Marion kept harassing poor Liza (sadly both Marion and Liza were watered down at that time).

Probably not on long enough to make the list, but who thought it was a good idea to give Kit Fisher a heavy rape storyline right away, especially since she could not act. She was not beloved.

Michael on Melrose Place was terrible when he cheated on Jane.

Lynn Herring when they brought her onto ATWT to play the mother of Henry. Then this nothing of a character is the one to finally kill the best villain in soap history. No way James would lose his life to that nutcase.

Nathan Hastings

I hate when someone's reckless and selfish behavior fucks up someone else's life!

I initially loved this character because even though they went through a few recasts, they always gave us a fine looking actor, which is why I was very disappointed when they turned good guy Nathan into a hoe!

He cheated on his sweet wife (Olivia) with one of Olivia's patients (Keesha). The patient ended up being diagnosed with HIV. When the usual calm and cool Olivia found out about the affair, she went off the deep end. [See clip below.] It was very sad.

Nathan and Olivia ended up testing negative. Keesha quickly died of AIDS.

Lynn Herring would have been a great Connor recast on ATWT. They gave her the wrong character to play.

ATWT did not need a Connor recast.

Lauren Roman as Laura, the red head homeless teen that Brooke English adopts because she reminds her of her own late daughter on All My Children from 95-98

Just terrible , screaming and pointing fingers at people and stomping around with her Joan Osborne hair

Insufferable…

The Laura recast obsessed with Leo and who ended up with Gilian's heart was even worse.

Peter Simon's Ed. So mopey and low energy. They needed someone with more charisma to play the Bauer leading man. He and Ellen Parker were sominex. Why did they drop Mart Hulswit? Because he was fat?

I didn’t like TGL’s fatties. Fat Ed, Fat Bert, even Fat Katie was sent to a fat farm in the storyline. They then trimmed the fat by cutting The from the show’s title and recasting fat Ed. They kept fat Bert until her leg fell off and she got skinny because of that.

That's some laughably bad acting in that Olivia-Keesha clip.

Lily Walsh, such an obnoxious brat who whined about her life every damn episode while having drop dead gorgeous hanks lining up to date her, despite being incredibly unattractive!

[quote]having drop dead gorgeous hanks lining up to date her,

Yes, but Hank was gay.

I know it's supposed to one character, but I am going to say the entire Hughes family on ATWT. All the actors were unattractive and dull. Absolutely no charisma or sexual magnetism. I mean, no one in that family, male or female, was remotely fuckable. Just so annoying. I loved characters like Katie and Carly and Brad because they were sexy. I would watch Austin Peck shirtless read the phone book. I could never say that about any of the Hugheses.

R170, I think R169 meant to say "HUNKS!"

Lily Walsh was a dog. I never thought someone as fine as Holden would give her a second look, especially since there were plenty of other good looking women in town.

[quote] the entire Hughes family on ATWT. All the actors were unattractive and dull. Absolutely no charisma or sexual magnetism. I mean, no one in that family, male or female, was remotely fuckable.

Even Casey???

There as a cuter Casey before that fem one at R173. Also, one Chris Hughes was a dreamboat.

Tie among Barnabas Collins, Sonny Corinthos, and Todd Manning.

Oh yeah, I forgot some of the Chris Hugheses were hot, especially Bailey Chase and the one who came after who looked like he was plucked from a Michael Lucas film. Otherwise the Hugheses were bland and boring and unattractive. I mean, nelly Gregg Marx and Scott Holmes were the best they could come up with?

Is Bailey Chase the blonde hunk they put with some homely blonde girl?

R160, truer words were never spoken. If James Stenbeck was finally to be declared clearly, most sincerely dead, it should have been Barbara to do the deed, or at least Paul or John Dixon. To have this nothing from ABC kill ATWT's greatest villain was emblematic of all the problems the show had at the very end.

Click for the hot Casey, Zach Roerig.

Reva's retarded son DYLAN LEWIS (Morgan Englund) on Guiding Light.

He was this sort of trashy looking ditzy blonde guy who couldn't act his way out of a paper bag.

I have no idea why they even brought him in other than needing a guy for the "young set." He looked older than everyone else in that set and was the worst actor in the bunch.

He always sang these stupid sappy songs and played the guitar. He was incredibly lame.

He looked nothing like Reva except he wore this sort of ratty Reva-looking mullet which was a mess. Every time he spoke his speech was slurred and he never said anything intelligent. I could never tell if he was retarded or just high/inebriated!

Dylan's father Billy Lewis was definitely a drunk (and probably a little retarded too).

Morgan Englund was SO hot. It's amazing that Cloris Leachman popped him out.

He was a terrible actor but he brought my gay little heart back to Springfield after I'd stopped watching it at one point.

He was the hottest piece of meat to arrive on that show after Grant Aleksander.

I loved Dylan Shayne Lewis. I had not been watching soaps for very long, and I had no idea that the secret son storyline was a daytime cliche.

Then one time I was walking in Chelsea and I ran into him. He was even prettier in person and could not have been one bit more charming. I think it was still a kick for him, being recognized on the street. I was hoping he would invite me into his apartment, but it was not to be.

Brian Gaskill was better looking (and had better acting skills) as Dylan Lewis than Morgan Englund.

All those dammed Leviathans on Dark Shadows.

Mo B’s costars are mostly afraid to criticize him. NLG and JFP aren’t. Love them

R160 I'd stopped watching. YOu mean Lucy Coe killed James Stenbeck???

Babs bloom was purposely trying to kill those shows; the writing was for shit; she infested the casts with all her ABC pals.

and now she writes for GH, which is a cushy gig that probably pays low six figures.

Some people...

187 huh? Nlg is constantly kissing Mo's ass.

If anyone had cared about the shows history, they would have revisited the Ruxton Hills storyline for James’ death, since most of the characters involved in that story in the 80s were still around (Lucinda, Emily, Barbara, Paul, Holden, Lily, Meg).

R190, they don't know it. They didn't care. They think their shit didn't stink and the shows died as a result.

Someday, someone should write a book...

Sonny on GH and the actor is a miserable prick

What on earth did Melissa Reeves do? Jennifer was cloyingly good, her angelic muse thing grew old. Women on soaps can only fulfill the angel/whore dichotomy.

"I mean, nelly Gregg Marx..."

Gregg Marx was not the LEAST bit "nelly". Just stop your trolling.

For a gay man, Gregg Marx had the most chemistry of all the Toms with his co-star.

Gregg and Hillary were the best Tom and Margo.

They had the best story with Barbara lying to them both that she'd slept with Tom.

Margo forgave Tom before the truth came out (they had not slept together).

Marx was fantastic in the Doug Cummings murder trial as Tom defended Kim.

Didn't Marx win an Emmy? I forget sometimes Smith played Margo because we all think of Nora. But she was also a decent Margo. She just never got a story liked she walked into at OLTL.

R197 yes Marx won an Emmy, he previously played David Banning, Julie’s son as Eli’s dad, on Days of Our Lives from 1981-1884 before ATWT

R194, I am not the one who said Marx was "Nellie" (he was before my time) but I always thought Scott Holmes was an excellent Tom. Frankly, he was one of the reasons I started watching ATWT. I walked past the TV one day and said: "DAMN, who is that?"

[quote] We call her condition PSS (Pinched Sphincter Syndrome).

I can't remember who here started that but it was such a perfect description of Heather Tom's resting bitchface. LOVED it.

I started it years ago, r200, long before I discovered Datalounge.

Love, r157

I never understood the Scott Holmes casting. He was better with Dolan than with HBS and that probably saved his job for the long run.

But he didn't ever really feel like Tom to me. How midwestern Bob and southernish Lisa came up with this dark haired, NYC accented, almost Jewish sounding Tom (and Holmes *had* played a Jewish character on RH) was beyond me.

I always loved Gregg M's take on Tom. He was the Tom that was onscreen when I first started ATWT. And I remembered him from DAYS.

I hated Mac and Iris. I recently watched a few 1979 scenes on YT, and the acting by Doug Watson and Bevvy McKinsey was just awful. It was highly theatrical and just laughable. I much prefer the more naturalistic acting on today's soaps. I think we tend to look back at the old soaps with a sense of nostalgia through rose colored glasses, but the reality is that the OTT acting was pretty cringeworthy. I'm glad that type of acting is a thing of the past.

Gus and Jeffrey on GL.

Both of them were just so blah and dull, some bad writer's idea of masculinity.

Hard to decide what I hated most about Gus. The fact that history was retconned to make him a Spaulding? (And after the pain of being separated from her sons, Alex would have never, ever, ever separated Gus from Alan. Such a bad bit of writing.) Or the fact that he made Harley a simp and then the two of them ate the show?

I didn't mind Prince Richard and found him handsome-ish, but was hopeful when the plug was pulled that we were seeing the last of Cole. Boy, was I wrong. Another dumb character who was charm free and ate the show.

R202, I can understand why you feel that way. I always hate when a soap recasts an actor that I like and am used to.

But I never saw Marx and HBS together so I can't speak to that pairing.

I only saw Holmes and Dolan and they were perfect together. The contrast of the actors was as visible as the contrast of the characters was visible. He was a laid back lawyer (and way too handsome for her but that was part of what made him so adorable) and she was an intense cop. Their chemistry was magical.

When I started watching soaps I lived in the midwest (where most soaps are set) so it was very obvious to me that most of them were New York actors, but that never bothered me.

R205 I didn't hate Holmes or anything. He just never truly clicked for me as Tom.

Having said that, he did have better chemistry with Dolan, and they had a few great storylines together. I loved Dolan as Margo, even though she was different in many ways than HBS; of the three big recasts that derailed ATWT in 1988, Dolan was the one that worked. And when given good story (Casey and the plug, Margo's rape) they both did great work.

R206 I was specifically thinking of the rape. That was one of the best handled rape storylines on television that I had ever seen at that point. The acting was superb! Kudos to the writers and direction on that as well.

One thing I thought about the rape is that we knew Margo was impetuous enough to run into a dangerous situation. We saw that with the whole James Stenbeck thing when she lost the baby. So they did a great job of calling on history.

One of Marland's last fabulous storylines.

[quote]I much prefer the more naturalistic acting on today's soaps.

Yes, these current-day thespians elevate the material and put the Watsons, McKinseys et al to shame!

Oh god, I hate when soaps did social issue storylines. No one wants to watch that type of stuff while eating lunch. I want romance and fantasy and shirtless hunks from my soaps. Give me the Ice Princess storyline or Marlena being possessed any time over after-school-special storylines.

I'd put Dee Hall and KKL up against Watson and McKinsey any day. When you watch Watson and McKinsey, you can see them "acting." Same thing with overrated hams like Hubbard and Slezak and Wyndham, etc. Hall and KKL are much more naturalistic, as is Laura Wright. One of the best soap performances I've ever seen was Laura Wright a few years back. She was raw and real, a total masterclass in acting.

I can see a limited appeal to Holmes when he was younger but his Tom Hughes could have given lessons to Don Stewart's Mike Bauer on being pompous and stodgy.

Sheila from TYTR. Psycho baby stealing cunt.

Dorian Cramer, as played by Nancy Pinkerton on One Life To Live. I liked Robin Strasser better in the role.

I was never a fan of either character Bradley Cole played on GL.

Prince Richard was a wimp, yawn-inducing character, part of the disastrous San Cristo-bullshit storylines that nearly destroyed the show. Was so glad when the show wisely decided to end San Cristobul and kill off Richard.

Jeffrey O'Neil, was an abrasive, charm-less character who ate the show in his first year. All the women were throwing themselves at him, but he didn't have chemistry with any of them. Nonetheless, the show kept ramming him down our throats turning GL into the Jeffrey O'Neil Hour.

Adore Dolan -- far more as Maureen on GL than as Margo.

Dolan did a great job as Margo in the Casey story but...could you imagine HBS in that tale?

OMG. She'd have blown the roof off.

no fan of Holmes but I admit he did very well in the Margo HIV rape storyline.

Doug teased the story in a soap mag, I recall vividly, and I thought at the time, I have no idea what's coming up for Tom and Margo but it's going to be huge. He delivered.

What a great genre this was. Except for GH today, I can't stomach these shows. Bill Bell must either be rolling over in his grave or chuckling up in heaven watching them try to do what he did so well.

Kimberlin Brown OWNS this thread!

The thing with Bev was that she was LAZY and DEMANDING. All she did was complain about how many hours she worked 3 days a week. It made her co-stars miserable. Bev was only happy when she could take her 8-month vacations. She held GL hostage. JFP runs a tight ship and Bev got in the way. She was probably on the chopping block for her antics anyway. She saved face with the infamous contract clause.

I never got the love for McKinsey. Sure she had a great, distinctive voice and great screen presence, but she had a very mechanical way of delivering her lines, to the point where it sometimes sounded like she was just regurgitating whatever lines she memorized. I think it was particularly more noticeable on GL than it was on AW/Texas. I think people like Sue Flannery, Jeanne Cooper, and Marj Dusay did it better.

McKinsey was kind of sort of average. There’s a reason she never won an Emmy.

Bev was incredibly selfish leaving GL the way she did. Sure, she got one over on the execs, but by leaving so abruptly, she left her fellow actors in the lurch. I mean, seriously, what kind of person does something like that? A good person doesn't. And c'mon, it's not as though she were working some McJob. She had a handsomely paid job for working minimally and having a ton of vacation time. Most people would kill for that lifestyle.

[quote] I think people like Sue Flannery, Jeanne Cooper, and Marj Dusay did it better.

I may be in the minority, but I much preferred Marj Dusay as Alexandra.

Marj was great when she first showed up as Vanessa on AMC. She was like a darker version of Phoebe [or maybe more how Phoebe was in the 70's, that was before I was watching]. She filled the void of blue blood bitch that was left by Warwick no longer being a major player and she was great with David, Leo, Palmer and Erica. Instead, they changed her from an amoral socialite to a psychotic drug lord which really made no sense. Also, while I liked Budig's Greenlee (pre-Ryan) - Vanessa's rivalry with her was less interesting with Erica. They turned her into a mustache twirling villain and made Greenlee, who could normally handle herself, a helpless ingenue in their scenes. Her scheming against Erica was much more subtle and Erica was more of a match against her.

[quote]Instead, they changed her from an amoral socialite to a psychotic drug lord which really made no sense.

It was a retread of a storyline that had flopped 20 years earlier. That 1981 story also made little sense. Brooke discovered that her socialite mother with questionable morals, Peg English, was really a evil drug kingpin who was willing to kill Brooke to protect her drug empire.

I think its was ABC's interference pre-Frons that ruined Vanessa. Leo and Greenlee unexpectedly took off and they needed a heavy. Richard Culliton was HW for that. I'm not as big a fan of his as other AMC fans are, but his era was the last time AMC felt salvageable before Frons got his grubby hands on it.

I loved the first Margo (Margaret Colin)on ATWT. When she left and was replaced with Hillary Smith, I swore I would never watch again. But Smith grew on me, to the extent that she is my favorite Margo. She had great rapport with her co-stars (Marx, Ben Hendrickson, Scott Bryce) and a great archenemy to go up against (Barbara). Dolan was okay, and delivered in good storylines (the rape, Casey's death), but mostly became as boring as the stiff they paired her with (Scott Holmes).

The less said about Margo No. 4 , the better.

As we've discussed many, many, many times in the P&G threads, Marj was a very solid actress. She did a great job initially as Alexandra, especially considering McKinsey had big shoes to fill.

I think she was an actress who needed either a bit of reining in or some direction. Her response to stupid stories or things where the actor had to fill in the blanks was to play the absurdity of it, which her later runs as Alexandra proved. She did the same as Vanessa on AMC. It was a bit too Grand Guignol.

But she did wonderful work as Alex in that first year or so.

[quote] She had great rapport with her co-stars (Marx, Ben Hendrickson, Scott Bryce) and a great archenemy to go up against (Barbara).

Let's just say that the Margo/Babs feud....well, that wasn't very far of a walk from the page to the stage, as it were.

CZ and HBS were/are two drunks.

Alexis on 'Dynasty," because she served brunt champagne to her guests.

I’ve had 2 dui’s. Fact.

I hated Maureen Bauer. She was dull enough when Dolan played her, but Parker took the character to a whole new level of insomnia curing. JFP and her focus groups got that one right. Peter Simon was a pill too, though they weren't going to kill off Ed Bauer.

You have reduced us to a ridiculous suburban joke and I will NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR THIS.

Maureen. It was once. ONCE!!!

Get out. Get out. GET OUT. GET OOOOUT!!!!

R211 = Laura Wright

Laura Wright is a grating substanceless actress who epitomises the soccer mom archetype. Really boorish and overbearing without a hint of charm, wit or charisma.

They should of recast Maureen with a goddess like Shannon Tweed, and then give her a split personality named Chloreen, a total wanton insatiable nympho with a special yen for big black cock.. Oh the possibilities!

Laura Wright is extremely one note. She’s really just playing herself.

I was boring af and got canned by JFP.

Everyone at SON is complaining about Queen Locher’s interview with Tammy Tunie. Start your own shows creeps!

R240 Those old nasty fat perverts are never happy. That idiot Dramatist Dreamer is such a moron.

Miss Locher's interview with TT was dull.

On The Doctors, I couldn't stand the characters of Kim, Greta's friend, and later Moonchild in the whole cult storyline. On the opposite end, I liked older female villains like Ann Larimer and Doreen Aldrich.

As much as I enjoyed seeing Mona Aldrich taken down for her snobbery and scheming, she was fun. I liked the character of Sweeney, played by Peggy Cass, but when she began to get sanctimonious with Missy Dancy, she really started to get on my nerves.

Speaking of villains, if I had known how Nikki on The Young and the Restless would turn out, I would have prayed for her to drink the poisoned champagne that Eve Howard tried to give her at her wedding to Victor.

R243 The Victor-Nokki wedding was in 1984, so I think you would have had to have killed the Nikki character off before Mel began dating Y&R producer, Ed Scott, in 1983. (She married her meal ticket in1985 .. lol).

Nikki could very easily have been blown to smithereens and bit the dust when psycho-stalker Edward's bomb went off in 1981. That story was supposed to be for Nikki's sister, Casey, anyway, but Roberta Leighton up and quit.

Sheila Carter is hated. Partially because of Trumpster Kunterlin.

GH's Snarly Corinthos and joke of a villain Peter August aka Laura Wright and her talentless boyfriend.

r245 Kimberlin is excellent at playing Sheila though.

Is Sheila a liberal democrat?

Sheila's been back in LA since August; i would have thought she'd have gotten Steffy hooked on opioids again and be taking care of little Hayes.

Sheila needs to go the fuck away. I change the channel when she is on.

I watched AMC with my mom for as long as I can remember. I deeply hated Sybill during the Cliff and Nina years. But when they killed her off---I was in the second grade---I was happy, then immediately sad, so much so my mom's friend remarked on it. That was when I realized "love to hate" was a thing.

Sheila hasn't been interesting since she got the better of Stephanie, Amber, and Maggie and drove out of town with Baby Mary in 1998. That should have been the end of it.

I recall hating the Gordon sisters on OLTL because they took precious screen time away from Andrea Evans’s peak era Tina. Megan had spark but Sarah was so vanilla. Together they took up a lot of oxygen… seemingly overnight.

I always wondered why someone never socked Phoebe Tyler in the mouth. It would have been so satisfying to see. Same with Erica Kane. I cannot stand it when the villains get away with their mistreatment of people.

EDEN CAPWELL CRANSTON CASTILLO

When Santa Barbara premiered I HAD TO WATCH IT because I couldn't believe that somebody gave that cunt Liza Colby (from AMC) a show. I ended up loving SB, but always hated Eden with her whispering voice and holier than though attitude.

I always cheered when awful things happened to Eden. She just seemed like such a phony. I kept waiting for her to do something awful. She never did, and that was disappointing.

I loved to hate Marcy Walker as Liza. She was so good as Liza that I could not handle her as Eden. The character of Eden was not realistic after seeing Marcy torment sweet little Jenny Gardner on AMC. Unfortunately Marcy was already typecast for me. She will always be Liza. Trying to make her "good" was a bad call and never worked.

I didn't hate Phoebe Tyler because she was like Little House on the Prairie Harriet Oleson. She always seemed to fall on her behind when she good stupid things so I enjoyed laughing at her. Erica annoyed me a little, and I wouldn't tune in to just see her, but I guess she was all right over all. The one whom I hated even though I liked the actress was Enid Nelson. She would berate young people for bad manners, but she had extremely bad manners herself. Marion Colby indicated that Greg barely kept in contact with his mother after he left Pine Valley which I thought was justifiable punishment.

R255- Marcy was amazing as Liza, but I remember her being hugely popular as Eden. Cruz and Eden were a legit soap phenomenon in the 80s. I feel like Marcy was that rare daytime star who struck lightning twice and had two iconic roles.

I hated Dr Paige on One Life. The character never worked despite several recasts and was the love interest of the charismatic chemistry with everyone Bo Buchanan. They had zero. Yet the pair continued while Nora was reduced to being in a coma and Lindsay recurring.

R255 Too funny. I was a little OLTL fan from the ages of 10 to the end. (I did stop watching during that Dena Higley era) as it was absolutely unwatchable.

I remember being 11-12 years old and watching the daytime Emmys and BITCHING how OLTL was completely ignored by the Emmys and that this fucking Santa Barbara show and this blonde chick were all they cared about. (this was 88 or 89)

My mother said "Well maybe it's a good show!"

RIP Mom. I miss her simple advice and pragmatic way of looking at the world.

[quote] I feel like Marcy was that rare daytime star who struck lightning twice and had two iconic roles.

But not three.

I hated mopey, whiny Devon on AMC. She seemed eternally miserable.

Marcy Walker was only good on All My Children.

[quote]Marcy Walker was only good on All My Children.

I don't have strong feelings for her either way but I think she and A Martinez were great together on Santa Barbara.

AMC's Daisy Courtlandt/Monique Jonvil. What a waste of flesh she was. She was Palmer's ex-wife who left when Nina was just a child after her affair was exposed. She came back may years later and continued to be the town slut. She was even pulling much younger men like Sean Cudahy. Age didn't matter. I loved when she was accused of killing Zach Grayson. Unfortunately she got off because she didn't really kill him. She was just a nasty hoe!

r264=Nazi Lars Bogard

R65 I hated Lars Bogart too. But his son Kent was fucking Erica, he was FINE!

To now be 64 Kent Bogard (Michael Woods) still looks pretty good!

Michael Woods only played Kent Bogart for a few months in 1981. Then he was replaced by Lee Goddart, who played the role for the next two years.

I have a Michael Woods story. He fucked a watermelon because his girlfriend was out of town and he didn’t want to cheat on her.

R268 Michael Woods has always been way hotter than Lee Godart, which is why I didn't name Lee. LOL He is also now 73 and looks every day of it.

GL had a lot of awful characters I hated that were featured prominently in the show's last 5 years: Harley, Buzz, Ava, Jeffrey.

Torsten Kaye's Zach ate AMC in the 2000s. I hated that smug character and Kaye's awful pompous acting. The worst thing about Port Charles being canceled was that Frons then dumped the show's worst actors onto other ABC shows.

I hated Justin Deas as Buzz.

I hated Maureen Bauer. So boring as fuck. That actress put everyone in JFP's focus group to sleep.

I hated Alexandra Spaulding after I learned how lazy and demanding Bev McKinsey was! She made her co-stars miserable with how many special favors she expected!

[quote]I hated Justin Deas as Buzz.

Buzz ate the show!

When Jeffrey O'Neil came to Springfield, he also ate the show.

They had every woman in town (save for Alexandra and Lillian) throwing themselves at Jeffrey O'Neil. All the while, I'm scratching my head, wondering why all this fuss for an actor with such limited range and limited charm.

R272 He was much better as Keith Timmons on Santa Barbara.

Ray Gardner of All My Children. He was the definition of White trash!

[quote]Lee Godart

Elliot Dorn was such a great character. I believe Elliot could have fucked Geraldine if he wanted to. And what a great ending, murdered by a puppet.

Carly on General Hospital

Dr. Julia Hoffman on "Dark Shadows".

You take that back R281.

Esther the maid on Y&R. Did you know that the actress who played her actually paid for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (ha ha ha)

R238 I met her at an event once and she was put out that I had no idea who she was. This was when I was in college and had barely ever watched Y&R. Got real defensive and was really short once she realized I wasn't going to fawn over her. She sucks as an actor (watching her pretend cry is a nightmare) and is damn lucky to have this bit part that she parlayed into a career for 30+ years.

I really hated Jill Larson's version of Opal on AMC. She had none of Dorothy Lyman gritty grotesque physical comedy. She just made the part an inoffensive ditz.

Kate Linder should have a dozen emmys by now! lololololololol Stick to flying in planes, dearie.

R285 Very true!!!! Dorothy Lyman was amazing! I felt sorry for anyone following her in that role. Jill Larson was a miscast.

I think Larson was serviceable. Lyman wouldn't have worked when they brought the character back. They needed Opal to be more of a low-key supporting character in the Tad/Dixie phenomenon, and I think Lyman as Opal would've dominated the storyline and overshadowed MEK/Cady.

Michael Woods is only 64? So he was only 24 when he briefly played Kent Bogard? Interesting.

When I started watching AMC, Lee Godart was already playing Kent. With Silver Kane! That’s the story that got me hooked on AMC. (Of course she turned out to be a fake Silver)

Everybody’s on Facebook. Michael Woods will friend you.

Lily Walsh from ATWT. Hated that she was so entitled even though she was a plain jane but still attracted all the hot men.

Probably Ray in Dallas. His insecurity at only being a ranch foreman and his jealousy of Donna's success became very tiresome. Even more so because Donna was a saint for putting up with him for so long. I mean, she happily stayed in that crappy shack he'd built even though she was a multi millionaire. She even had to hang her washing out to dry.

[quote]I have to go with Sami on Days on Our Lives in the 90s. She wasn't as evil as someone like Stefano, but the way Alison Sweeney played that character was so obnoxious that it drove me up a wall.

That was the point of Sami Brady.

She didn't have the easiest life early on but she was either playing scared little sister, damaged or crazy back and forth for years. She was obnoxious to people who loved and constantly forgave her back and forth for years and you couldn't be completely mad at her because occasionally some of those people needed to be taken down a peg for being so self-righteous.

I was a kid when Carrie punched Sami in the face and knocked her out but I still remember the housewife neighbors in several houses around us screaming WOW/DAMN/WOAH from their living rooms.

Blake Carrington's sanctimony became irritating.

[quote]I hated mopey, whiny Devon on AMC. She seemed eternally miserable.

She was before my AMC time, but fell down a youtube rabbit hole and they seemed to be trying to pair her with Cliff when Nina was with Dack Rambo, and she annoyed me pretty quickly. Then I found a clip with her in a triangle with -- ?Wally? and another lady who seemed worse than Devon. Collectively, the three of them were a black hole with no charisma or any interesting characteristics at all.

Speaking of Cliff, while he is not my most hated character, from those old clips he could be pretty self-righteous. I might have been on Palmer's side if I saw him from the beginning. I started watching when he was "dead" leading to Nina marrying Matt.

Devon craved vag, she couldn't get enough of it. Maybe I'm dreaming this, but I could swear there was a scene where she feverishly ate out Myrtle in the Boutique stock room.

Myrtle had a magic snatch.

Devon went full-on lez when she met "Angie"'s Donna Pescow. She became "clit-notized". She was snatch-crazed for the rest of her run. Attempted to eat out every ripe pussy in town. Remember when she showed up Phoebe's estate during one of her Daughters of Fine Lineage meetings, and demanded to eat out each and every member's pussy. Enid Nelson needed smelling salts.

Enid Nelson’s twat was locked up tighter than Erica Kane’s face.

Enid Nelson at her hysterically OTT snobbery best.

Yes, Devon McFadden was one of the most annoying characters ever on a soap. Whiny and helpless, a lethal combination.

Never understood why the show kept her on as long as they did.

GH’s Carly, Sonny and Jason

Days’ Ben and Lingerie Ciara

GL’s Jonathan and Tammy

Whatever happened to the actor who played Ross on All My Children?

His last soap role was as a doctor from 1994-1995 on Days of Our Lives, the only non NYC taped soap the actor did

Miss Locher, I think maybe in his interview with Judith McConnell, claimed that Robert Gentry who played Ross had died, but I don't see any mention of his death online.

Robert Gentry was on two other West Coast soap, Generations and The Bold and the Beautiful.

Kassie Depaiva is a good actress but she was not good as Southern Eve or Southern Blair. Blair returned to Llanview as s slut and that’s not how the character was originally written. Depaiva would be better served in an original role. Y&R could use her.

I hated Nancy Hughes. What's a judgmental, vinegary little pussface she was!

Peter F. August on GH. The F stands for Fucking!

Helen Wagner hated Colleen ZCP!

R305- as a young gayling, Robert Gentry made me feel things as Ross Chandler. When he banged Natalie in the stable… hoo boy! I had no idea that mustache look was so prevalent in the gay community. Just goes to show primal it was… he was such a hot piece in the day.

Kimberlin Brown. Ugh!

Nancy Hughes used to wave her scolding finger at anyone who didn't live up to her strict moral code. She had a perpetual stick up her ass. I have a feeling one never knew where Helen ended and Nancy began.

Helen always had a stick up her ass!

I have a feeling Helen DID NOT approve of the Jessica/Duncan interracial romance or Nuke and made her feelings known. She seems the type.

I hated Tony Barclay (Brent Barrett) because he killed Jenny (Greg Nelson's wife) while trying to blow-up Greg on the Jet ski.

Brent was always an excellent actor and that storyline had me riveted. Brent became an out and proud Broadway Star after AMC!

Is Brent Barrett out? I think AMC had long-term plans for him, but they decided to use him as Jenny's killer, thereby writing him into a corner. He was really handsome and a very good actor.

Here is part 2 of Jenny getting blown up!

R316 Yes Brent is gay and out. I had a huge crush on him, but I knew once he killed Jenny Gardner, AKA America's Sweetheart, it was over for him.

Van Hansis made a comment in an interview during the Nuke story that Helen said something bitchy about it, and Don Hastings remarked “what do you expect? She’s an old German.”

Chris and Nancy would never have approved of all those homos running around Oakdale. Nancy was so judgmental. She iced out her sister-in-law Edie just because she was fucking a married man.

Larson was a different take; I've met her and she's a sweetheart. I enjoyed her as catty Judith Clayton, a Doug Marland recurring character on ATWT; Judith was a snooty reporter who had a talk show Heart of the City and covered the Kim Hughes/Douglas Cummings murder trial.

Nancy Hughes hated Luke Snyder. There was no place in Oakdale for homosexuals!

Who did they put on recurring at the end? Oh, yes, that was you, Helen. They couldn’t afford your mustache.

Helen did not tolerate little hussies!

R321 OMG! OMFG!

All these years and I never put it together that was also Jill Larson on ATWT. She was great in that role, very Hedda Hopper.

I loved Judith but in quite a few scenes she and Liz H/Lucinda had the same energy. Wondering if that's why she got the 86 eventually.

I remembered the third party in the love-triangle of tedium -- Wally-Devon and Besty Kennicot. It seemed like for a while if they wanted some sort of wallflower character they would bring in a Kennicot. Were any of them ever on at the same time? Usually when they bring on someone from a family, it is to interact with other family members, but it seemed like for this family they would decide to bring in one member. I am assuming Mary was popular and they tried to recreate what they had with her.

Larson was no Lyman, but a good actress, and probably right for the part as she was used at the time. Horrible storyline, but her acting when she was possessed by Gillain's ghost was about the only redeeming thing in the story.

Jill Larson was also very good playing Ursula on OLTL, who tried to kill Tina by putting a bomb in her wedding cake at her 1988 wedding to Cord, but ended up killing Max's brother Steve Holden instead.

It was that wacky psycho that caused ABC to realize she'd be good as Opal.

R326- I remember the addition of Katie Kennecott in the early 90s. You could tell they hoped the character would be a breakout heroine like Jenny Gardner and it didn’t happen. She was Joey Martin’s love interest and the reason Emily Anne Sago broke bad. It all went over like a thud.

R328, casting is so critical in assembling those dream teen scenes; Greg, Jenny, Liza, Jesse, Angie, and Alfred were all gold.

Same on GL with Phillip, Rick, Beth and Mindy; Kirsta Tesreau played Mindy as wickedly spoiled -- you couldn't hate her the way folks hated Liza.

I was watching when Katie K showed up. It was kind of strange how they all of a sudden took Emily Anne, the ingenue they wanted us to cheer on the previous year or two, and have her do a 180 to prop-up this bland character they just introduced. Plus, Joey really seemed to like Emily Anne, so it was hard to believe all of a sudden this new character was this great love. It seemed like a lazy retread of Jeff-Mary-Erica, with little build-up.

I am not sure of Liz Vassey made someone angry, when they ushered her off to the looney bin, they did not show much hope for recovery. It is not like she felt bad and wanted to get better. I remember someone asked Donna how Emily Anne was a few years later, and I expected her to say doing better - and it was - not well. With her father as Billy Clyde and how she found out, it was not out of the realm of possibility that she might have some mental health issues, but the way it happened and over Katie seemed at odds for how they portrayed her most of her run. It seemed like all of a sudden they wanted to get rid of the character and did as quickly as possible, making it so people would not want her to return.

R326 Agnes Nixon RIP was always the headwriter whenever a Kennicott was introduced, so that could explain why the Kennicott family arrived at different times. When she would step down as hw, it seems that almost immediately the Kennicott character would be written out.

R328 Right Katie arrived around the time that Margaret DePriest was exiting as hw then Agnes Nixon took over again.

R330 I used to think that was strange as well, how some characters would do a sudden change until I got older and realized that different hw's or producers were responsible for that. Lorraine Broderick and writers during a writer strike introduced Emily Anne as this sweet ingenue, then after her Margaret DePriest became hw, followed by Agnes Nixon again, which is where Katie Kennicott stemmed from, resulting in poor Emily Anne becoming psychotic. What's also interesting is that Mary Kennicott # 2 married Dr. Jeff Martin # 2 and they're still married irl

I became interested in AMC when I was about 8 years old because of Jenny and Greg. I thought Kim Delaney was the prettiest girl I had ever seen, after watching those clips all these years later, I can't say my 8 year old self was wrong. The definition of 'pretty'. She and Laurance Lau were gorgeous together.

I started watching AMC toward the end of 1986 as a wee 10 year old and was so sad I missed the glorious Jenny and Greg era. I’ve seen enough clips and read enough to know that it was indeed lightning in a bottle with great casting, supporting players and story. They really struck gold with that entire company of actors.

AMC from 1978-1984 was such a superb show. Just amazing. There was nothing else like it at the time. Every episode, hell every scene, was part soap opera, part drawing room drama, part sitcom, part satire, part afterschool special, part docu-drama. It was never a cookie cutter soap and never fit into a neat little box like many other shows, which is why some people never really "got it". And it had such heart and was done with love. Those were its prime years, but it was also a fine show through the mid-90s. It started falling apart once Disney bought ABC, and Frons put the final nail in the coffin, attempting to turn into a daytime version of Sex and the City. Most of the last 5-8 years were unwatchable IMO.

I started watching AMC summer of '87 (summer job had it on during lunch). I think it was having a slow resurgence after a bit of a doldrums following the early 80's golden age. When I see clips from the couple of years before I started watching, the only thing that stands out is the Natalie/Erica rivalry and am guessing Mark's drug addiction was well done. I think the rest of the 80s were pretty decent and then it was pretty strong for a good portion of the 90's, at times really strong.

By 2000 it was pretty spotty, but still seemed salvageable. I think the last chance of it righting the ship was around the time of Bianca's coming out -- new characters Leo, David, early-Greenlee and early Vanessa were pretty strong. Bianca's coming out was well done. It is too bad they did not follow it up with having her help Frankie come to terms that she was gay and start a relationship. It would have been a good follow-up, but they seemed pretty hesitant to actually put Bianca in a relationship that would be on screen much of the time. I think by 2005 it was pretty painful and I largely gave up - Babe - Ryan - Zack who might have been ok if we were supposed to think he was a controlling Adam type and not some hero...

I heard it was a bit stronger at the end, and the Prospect Park show was not bad. I was tempted to check it out, but Prospect Park announced after about one week of shows they were cutting back the episodes, so I assumed it was a lost cause and not going to last.

Zarf on AMC was a disaster.

r336 it's a shame the show looked so cheap at that time.

All of the ABC shows were always awful! ALWAYS. AMC, OLTL, and GH were the most overrated shows on all of television.

Somebody ban Simple John and Pervsudz from SON. Vee is in the biz, you know! The biz!

When is the next season of moonface Casey’s soap podcast? Everyone on soap twitter got hit with the ugly stick!

I always thought they should have brought back Emily Ann, but I guess with Janet popping up from time to time they didn’t need another psycho.

R336 Frons called himself making half-assed attempts to salvage AMC as best as he could, because the show that he grew to despise was the "red-headed stepchild" of ABC, One Life To Live. R&B singer Brandy Norwood was approached to join AMC in or around 2008, however she ended up declining before an agreement was reached during negotiations. When Frons moved AMC to LA in late 2009/early 2010, he was planning to get rid of OLTL in favor or saving AMC, since it was cheaper to produce soaps in LA (ATWT was nearing cancellation, so OLTL was the only remaining soap being produced in NY). However his plan backfired when OLTL's ratings were higher than AMC's (at one point, OLTL even beat GH) so he cancelled both. He moved Frank and Ron to GH even though they both had already agreed to helm OLTL on The Online Network (the deal wasn't signed yet) because he was fans of theirs, just not OLTL. He wanted AMC to stay on the air however it just wasn't bringing in the ratings that ABC wanted. When Susan Lucci was skeptical about traveling back and forth from NY to LA, Deidre Hall (who wasn't on DOOL at the time) was under consideration to join, in hopes of attracting DOOL viewers to AMC.

Was Dee Hall really approached about joining AMC as Tara Martin, or is that an urban myth? I've heard that story told so many times, but no one's ever provided any proof to back up that claim. It would've been a blast to have Dee and MEK playing sister and brother.

R344 I never knew which character she was supposed to play however that would've been interested if it was Tara, given her history with Erica. I just remember that Deidre was allegedly interested in joining given how DOOL had let her and Drake go around that time to cut costs.

R344 I just googled Deidre Hall All My Children and on the first page it has a story on MichaelFairmantv where the rumor is briefly discussed, saying that Susan was furious about the relocation to LA (which I do remember) and that Frons had either Deidre or Genie Francis in mind as lead (I didn't know Genie was a possibility). I think Frons would've been petty enough to hire Deidre had Susan refused to go (the article also mentions how Thorsten Kaye initially wasn't too thrilled about going to LA either, electing to possibly rejoin OLTL. However he didn't like how Frank & Ron handled his wife's return as Marty after awhile, so that probably wouldn't have lasted long either had he joined long-term).

Ugh. That fat fuck Casey Moonface and Alan Sarapa sure got hit with the ooogly sticks! Both live in their momma’s basements. Fucken losers. And they both sound like women on that dumb podcast.

I’ve been binge watching late 1995-1996 episodes of AMC and it’s really good

We have Kelsey pregnant with Bobby Martian’s baby whose dating Anita Santos, whose sister Naria wants to adopt the baby

Scott and Laura Kirk

Pierce/Janet and Brooke

Erica and Dr. Kinder and her drug addiction

Michael Delaney, the gay teacher, his sister Laurel and husband Trevor

Liza/Tad/Dixie and Adam

Hayley and Mateo etc

Also the headwriter at the time Lorraine Broderick has been the breakdown writer in Days of Our Lives since 2012 and was briefly headwriter on DAYS in the late 90s as well

The executive producer of AMC at this time was Gary Tomlin, who of course had various executive producer stints on DAYS as well

About half the AMC cast I’m watching would end up on or were previously on DAYS (Janet, Dixie, Scott, Edmund, Julia, Skye, Dr. Kinder etc) ,even the actor playing Derek Frye on AMC, had a brief stint on DAYS in 2018

Soaps really are incestous

Dee would have been a wonderful, buxom Devon Shepard. The lez story would have tits, er legs with Dee in the role.

Did Corday/Sony include a free Jenny Craig membership in Queen Giddens’s Christmas bonus?

Given her age, Dee would more likely be playing Tara Martin's daughter, Kelsey (Kate) Jefferson.

Adding on to my response at r331, Agnes was still writing when Mary Kennicott #2 as well as her brother Dan Kennicott left, however the actors probably left on their own since Agnes was adamant about making a Kennicott work, judging by her later introductions of Betsy and then Katie (who were both gone when different hw's took over after Agnes). Maybe since Mary was already a recast Agnes didn't want to go for a third try; a character named Dr. Christina Karras portrayed by Robin Strasser arrived not too long after Mary died iirc who fulfilled that archetype. However Robin quit AMC saying that there wasn't really anyway that type of character could survive on a soap long-term, especially on AMC where Erica was the lead.

One Life to Live's Rex Balsom ate the show in its last years, and I never understood why. He was kind of a cute twink in his younger years, but as the years progressed, he never learned how to act. I never believed him in any of his relationships. By the time the show gave him four different storylines surrounding his paternity before finally forcing him on the Buchanan family, I was regularly fast-forwarding his scenes.

[quote]a character named Dr. Christina Karras portrayed by Robin Strasser arrived not too long after Mary died iirc who fulfilled that archetype. However Robin quit AMC saying that there wasn't really anyway that type of character could survive on a soap long-term, especially on AMC where Erica was the lead.

Christina Karras eventually married Jeff Martin, just as Mary Kennicott had. Christina was supposed to be as wholesome as Mary, but with a bit more of an edge.

However, Robin Strasser was wrong for the part. Playing good and wholesome is not Strasser's forte.

In 1979, AMC wrote Jeff and Christina out of the show as Strasser had landed the role of Dorian on OLTL.

R350 I hope Queen Fatso Giddens feels great that he only got the job because a better writer got sick and resigned. And passed. Giddens is an asshole.

All this talk about AMC makes me miss it. That really was a fabulous soap opera which should have lasted.

The 1980s was when soap operas hit their peak. All the networks even had night time soaps during that era.

Soaps hung on for the first part of the 1990s but the market was saturated and by 2000 soaps were very much on the decline. This was also around the time that the internet kind of blew up and cell phones were huge so people were less limited to tv.

It seems like each network only kept their flagship soap. ABC kept GH, NBC kept DOOL and CBS kept Y&R. All of those are older than AMC except Y&R. I sometimes wonder if AMC had been on a channel other than ABC they might have been able to hang on. No way were they ever going to beat GH.

I watched all the soaps at some point but AMC was always my favorite.

Cable TV was also huge in the 2000s. Our poor soaps were screwed. ☹️

Ron Carlivati should’ve been fired a long time. All he writes are psychos and rape stories.

Ron also writes baby swaps and split personalities.

I still like him better than most of his contemporaries though.

R359 Ron is writing demonic possession on Days of Our Lives now

Dee Dee Hall knows how to play the game

When she returned to DAYS in the fall of 2011 after being dumped three years prior and nearly joining the cast of AMC, she did a series of press interviews and she was asked how she felt about the cancellations of AMC and OLTL and what it ultimately meant to the soap genre

She refused to take shots at Brian Frons, and actually talked nicely about him and even referred to him as a friend in some interviews, people forget before destroying ABC daytime, Frons was head of NBC daytime in the 89s and worked with Dee to help make Marlena an extremely popular and iconic character, it was Frons who wanted her to join AMC in 2009 as well

Frons is also responsible for personally hiring Kristian Alfonso after seeing her face on a billboard in NYC, when she modeled, Kristian has always been grateful to him for that

Queen Dee slammed Brian Frons.

R354 Robin Strasser claimed that she quit AMC because she was unhappy with her character, which is why Jeff & Christina were written out, although I can also see Agnes writing Jeff & Christina out due to lack of storyline, so Robin could've claimed she quit to save face. Agnes had created Rachel Davis on AW 12 years prior to Robin joining AMC and in an old interview, Robin claimed that she had turned down five other soap roles before accepting Agnes' offer to portray Dr. Christina. In that same interview, she commented on how she primarily left AW because she didn't like how they were turning Rachel into someone who could be softened by the love of a man, which was a typical theme she saw on soaps. She was anticipating that Christina would be a more "incomplete" character with flaws who wasn't your typical soap heroine. After AMC she was initially offered the role of Cathy Craig on OLTL by Agnes, however during their talks the idea of her playing Dorian (since Claire Malis had just vacated the role) came into fruition.

R356 Frons wanted to keep AMC with GH initially, going so far as to relocate production to Los Angeles. The plan was to drive OLTL into cancellation since they were both underperforming, however OLTL was doing better than AMC ratings wise and with fans, so he thought the move to LA and Charles Pratt writing, Rebecca Budig's return (who had permanently relocated to LA a year prior) would increase ratings, although they didn't so he cancelled both. He wouldn't have been justified in only cancelling OLTL since it was "the better soap" according to Michael Logan and others, and he wasn't going to cancel AMC on its own seeing how he didn't particularly care for OLTL. There were rumors of bringing both of them back in recent years either as two half hour soaps or as one soap together ("All My Life" was what fans were calling it) however the closest that AMC is coming back to TV is the Primetime serial "Pine Valley" that Kelly Ripa and her husband Mark are working on.

R361 Right Frons was the head of NBC daytime in the 80s and had a great relationship with Deidre Hall for years. I didn't know the Kristian Alfonso story that's interesting.

R362 Lol that was years after he cancelled them when she gave that interview. Before he did that they were friends and she would've ended up on AMC most likely had Susan Lucci refused to travel to LA to film. I recall they gave all the actors options to get out of their current contracts if they were against the move to LA, or at least appear on recurring since they were pretty much all for the most part settled in and had roots in New York. Jacob Young and Bobbie Eakes were excited about the move to LA (after both having been on B&B for some time) and Rebecca Budig agreed to return because of the move, since one of the reasons she gave for leaving again in early 09 was due to the commute back and forth from her home in LA to NY. Frons had quite the obsession with Budig, along with Kelly Monaco, and the actresses who portrayed Alison on PC, Babe on AMC, Jennifer on OLTL, and Courtney on GH. Fans commented how he was obsessed with a blonde on every ABC soap lol

Kendall and Greenlee on All My Children. (RIP, AMC, I miss you).

I would love to see AMC return, but you know they’d bring back the heinous Cameron Mathison to lead it. Fuck, I hated Ryan and his siblings. And those damn Carey hoors.

Maybe Finn Wittrock would rejoin? (kidding)

R348 Those were good storylines. Lorraine Broderick is an excellent writer; when Charles Pratt was fired after failing to produce anything worth watching let alone generate buzz after the big move to LA, Frons had her in mind to be hw however she was only interested in an interim position until they found his replacement(s). Those ended up being Donna Swajeski and David Kreizman (who weren't much better than Pratt imo)

RC is a hack. He’s a nasty queen who uses the block button more than poppers. He could be better than his contemporaries but he doesn’t listen. And he just wrote another rape story during the possession. Jan Spears raping Shawn, which will inevitably lead to her pregnancy.

Strasser is a nasty piece of work. She was all set to take the part of Alex on GL and then she called up OLTL and they fired the great Elaine Princi. Fuck you Robin. Your portrayal of Vivian on Days was horrible!

SUSAN MOORE (GH)

i wish OLTL had best the last ABC soap standing, and GH had joined AMC in cancelation. It was such an attractive notion that the soap with the multiple personality lady would finally come out from under the shadow of the other two shows featuring the world's smallest supermodel and the super couple which began with a rape.

Carlivati’s a thin skinned nasty queen.

Ron Carlivati has no depth or substance as a writer. People like him have validated every negative stereotype the cultural elite have about soaps.

Amen R372. I loathed AMC and it gets tiring as to how lauded it is. Agnes Nixon seemed very cunty to me too.

However, AMC was my mom's "soap" and I can get the appeal when I watch the early to late 80's episodes. And I stand by that Julia Barr's scenes when Laura died were some of the best acting I have ever seen. I watched the show for more than a month twice- during that storyline and also Natalie in the Well (Kate Collins WAS awesome) And in that timeframe when AMC was once again kicking ass in the ratings- wasn't it 2nd ranked for a good year or so in 1991/1992 during the Natalie/Janet storyline- my god the show looked absolutely horrible.

However, it was extremely cheap to look at (with the exception of some episodes I have seen in late 80's where apparently the executive producer knew how to make a good looking show) and incredibly hokey. It was almost "smaller than life".. The comedy was also overrated. It was pure sitcom.

However, other than that 1980-88 era, I really do not understand the hype.

I was a massive OLTL fan, and despite its flaws (1990-91 was WORSE than AMC could ever be) it was massively underrated.

GH- Never gave a fuck one way or another. I would rather watched Y&R at any point through 2008 or so.

I haven't watched any soap since 2012 or whenever that Prospect Park debacle occurred. I did not enjoy the Prescott Park OLTL at all.

Am I having a fucking stroke? However! HOWEVER! However!

Sorry, I was writing that post at different times. ^^

OLTL simply had the most captivating cast in daytime. It wasn't like the other soaps as it had a real balance of strong men and women instead of being dominated by either. I also think OLTL was the most diverse soap, maybe less so in the 80s, but it went back to its roots eventually.

OLTL threw me to the curb thanks to Sleestack.

Ellen Holly's claim that Slezak took the producer aside in front of her and the actress playing her mouth and cried out, "Get these two b*ack b*tches out of my face!" confirmed that she was lying through her teeth. People like Ellen Holly who actively make up stories of racism to destroy other people are a danger to society. Luckily the majority of soaps fans didn't believe her bullshit for a second.

Ellen Holly's feeling is basically that Agnes Nixon had primed her to become her star performer only to abandon her and OLTL to nurture AMC and Susan Lucci instead. The fact that Slezak came on as the central character Victoria AFTER Ellen Holly had been on for a few years was also a blow to Holly's ego who felt she should have superior status by virtue of being with the show from the beginning. The fact of the matter is, it was always Viki's show.

I was wondering why Ellen did not take out her venom on Andrea Evans or another major star of OLTL at that time.

I can only surmise that this is because Erika became more of a central character in the early to mid 80's shortly before Ellen was fired..

One thing you can say for sure is that they were never close or remotely friends throughout that 15 year period that they were on the show together.

It appears that Ellen must of always disliked Erika for her to target her like this.

Its actually scary to me what you can do to someone's reputation.

The sad fact is Ellen has some valid points and most of her gripes are warranted in my opinion.

But the Erika thing negates everything she says, and I believe it's a venomous lie.

I'm not the Kathy Glass troll lol, but Ellen did take aim at her. I remember reading an interview with Holly. She claims that one week in which her storyline was front-burner and featured every day, the show shot to #1 in the ratings. Everyone was happy about the ratings spike, and she went on to claim that Glass approached her and said in a derogatory/sarcastic tone, "I bet you think you're the reason the ratings went up" or something to that effect.

Her claims are just so outrageous, and I agree they negate the legitimate gripes she had. I totally agree with her about Agnes using her to gain publicity for the start of the show with the passing for white storyline, and then sort of pushing her to the backburner eternally after she milked it for all the PR she could.

The only truth Ellen told was how Paul Rauch chased Poor Lil to her toyota tercel in the parking garage and fired her.

[quote] wasn't it 2nd ranked for a good year or so in 1991/1992 during the Natalie/Janet storyline-

I think it actually stayed number 2 for a few years into the mid-90's. I believe it fell out of that position post-OJ when Days passed it being the only soap to have a post OJ trial surge with the Marlena possession story.

They then compounded things by overreacting and trying some over the top Days type stories that did not fit the show - voodoo in Jamaica - Matteo having coma visions. They then did the very unpopular Maria sleeps with Dimitri leading to Erica stealing her baby (although Lucci might have done some of her best work realizing about the affair while dealing with her miscarriage and the scene where she gets Maria to confess and later when she returns the baby).

It seems like everything they did late 90's onward just made things worse, although they seemed close to getting back on track in the early 2000 with Bianca, Leo, David etc.

I've hated a few. For nighttime soaps, I hated Deborah Shelton as Mandy Winger on Dallas. She was quite beautiful but such a wooden actress, and she had zero chemistry with Larry Hagman as J.R. Whenever there would be a Mandy and J.R. scene followed by a J.R. and Sue Ellen scene, Hagman's chemistry with Linda Gray as Sue Ellen, not to mention Gray's superior acting, highlighted how much Shelton paled in comparison.

I also hated Dough Sheehan as Ben on Knots Landing. He was so milquetoast. Gary and Val had chemistry in spades. Even Gary and Abby had at least sexual chemistry. Ben was an absolute dud and I was so glad when they wrote him off the show never to return.

Erica Kane may have been amusing at her peak in the early 80s but the character's failure to really evolve and remain this infantile narcissist genuinely made her the most overrated character on television. It didn't help the way Susan Lucci would constantly say Erica was 'the greatest part ever written for a woman'. I am actually embarrassed for her if she truly believes that. Erica was no feminist icon, she had no interest in other women.

Producers and execs know how to hire actors but they don't know how to hire great writers to write for them

Dee to AMC could have been great if there were a character and decent writing.

I'm not opposed to actors soap hopping. I loved Doug Marland's Guiding Light and it was tough watching the show be written by Pat Falken Smith and L. Virginia Browne after he left ... then, I read the creative team from Texas was going to GL. How was THAT going to help I thought?

Pam Long's GL became my favorite soap opera. She kept some of the old (Ed, Maureen, Alan, Vanessa, Josh, and Ross) and added in so much new (Alexandra, India, Reva, Mindy, Beth, Fletcher) and wrote such great stories -- Josh/Reva/HB, Sonni, Phillip taking down Alan, four Muskateers -- that I got hooked. Never thought I'd love McKinsey in a role other than Iris but I did.

But bringing a big name star to a show without story? That never works.

R372 I gotta disagree. I watched all three shows off and on and AMC was by far the far superior show.

I do agree with you about GH though. Terrible show and that Rape/Love Story was awful. The only reason it was able to fly was because they already had a captive audience of faithful viewers. GH also seems to constantly lose its way. It doesn't know whether it wants to be a hospital drama or a show about spies and intrigue or half a dozen other things. Most of the characters are pretty one dimensional which makes the whiplash show focus even more troubling.

Sorry guys, but OLTL was an awful Soap Opera. I watched every major soap opera at some point and OLTL was one of the worst (probably only second to GL in awfulness). I began watching it because family members watched it. I always referred to it as the "boring" show. LOL Had it not been for Robin Strasser, Gerald Anthony and Judith Light, I would have fallen asleep. Those three were awesome by the way.

The casting and couplings were crazy too. I never liked the Buchanan family (which pretty much was the show). They seemed pretty deplorable. Mia Korf (an Asian woman) was Blair and they recast her as a blonde White woman? I was like WTF? Cord was cute but then they matched him up with Tina Lord who was over the top and someone he seemed to not have any chemistry with. And I don't know what Andrea Evans looks like under all that hair and make up but on the show she looked like an "EXAGGERATED" drag queen! She was a hot mess, a complete clown and ugly AF.

OLTL never showed any sustained commitment to diversity. Ellen Holly was the first Black actress to become a recurring character on Daytime TV. She played on OLTL for over 20 years and for her to be unceremoniously fired like that was a travesty. I've read all the articles and seen the videos. I'm not sure who specifically was responsible for this, but OLTL did her dirty.

AMC was the best AMC show because they were the most consistent and socially relevant with their stories about family. You never turned on AMC and had to wonder what show you were watching. They cast some of the most beautiful people too. They had so many iconic storylines: Greg and Jenny; Nina and Cliff, Tad/Marion/Liza; Erica and everybody! LOL They also had the first gay character on an American soap opera (Lynne Carson). On April 22, 2003, the first lesbian kiss on daytime television occurred between Bianca Montgomery and Lena Kundera on AMC. Michael Delaney was a gay teacher who came out to his students and then got fired.

All of these shows dropped the ball on diversity, but AMC had the most interesting ongoing Black couple - Angie and Jessie. They went from Phoebe's maid (Mrs. Valentine) to a Black super couple. They also had many other memorable Black and Latino characters to include the entire Santos family.

Quiet as it's kept, CBS's Y&R, from its inception has always been the best soap. They keep it fresh with the storylines and always have young new actors. They don't dredge up old storylines for ratings and they kick the old people off after they have served their purpose.

Susan Lucci was asked about the rumours about Hall coming to AMC and she said that the way she understood it was that Dee would be playing Mona Kane, as Mona had faked her death, setting up for some great scene with Erica, her daughter.

Best *ABC show.

R390! HAHAHAHHAHA! I almost spit out my dinner! That it is DEFINITELY something "Erica" would say! Personally I don't think there was any question that Lucci would move with the show. She was trying to use her "star power" to halt it if possible. But in the end it did not work.

AMC certainly had its Golden Age but the last several years were all about Greenlee coming and going and going and coming and every time she came back, all that transpired while she was gone was done away with -- forgotten

None of the new young people stood out except maybe Damon, played by Finn Wittrock but he got out before long.

They kept writing Erica as a perpetual 35 year old.

I heard that Cady complained about some storylines; Megan called up Frons, furious, saying she wanted to kill her off; Frons let her. I could never look at pancakes again.

AMC lost its way long before it got canceled.

Those 'the real Greenlee' promos were insulting. The real Greenlee was back to do scenes with the fake Kendall, I guess.

R388- I basically disagree with everything you said.

OLTL- The WORST? lol. Yup. Sorry- It was actually the most underrated.

AMC was the most hideous looking and overrated soap of all time. All of that "comedy". Yeah- it was really sophisticated. No.

And I will agree with the other poster that Y&R is by far the superior soap of all time. And it was the one soap that maintained its quality the longest. (I would say 22 consecutive years- maybe more)

R370 I never thought I'd ever defend Robin Strasser since stories about her being an Asshole are legendary, however there is one instance where she wasn't. When she was first offered the role of Cathy Craig by OLTL in 1975, she turned them down upon learning that they were planning to fire Dorrie Kavanaugh, who was three years into the part when they contacted Robin (they had already scooped up George Reinholdt & Jacqueline Courtney from AW, where Robin was previously in a triangle with them as Rachel, so they were trying to recreate that storyline with the same actors on OLTL). Robin opted to join OLTL instead, while Dorrie was still fired by then producer Doris Quinlan and recast with Jennifer Harmon (Cathy Craig #5). The role was open when Robin joined OLTL in 1979 since Jennifer exited in 1978 ( Cathy left town) however she elected to portray Dorian instead.

R394,

Thanks!

There were rumors that Dee would be playing the long-gone Tara Martin. The character had last appeared in 1996 during the Kelsey/Bobby storyline. The original Tara, Karen Lynn Gorney, reprised the role, but they styled her to look like a senior citizen, probably because they had 60-year-old Chris Lawford (RIP) playing her son Charlie Brent at the time, and it just didn't work. Mary Lynn Blanks was the last actress to play the role continuously in the early '80s, and then Nancy Frangione reprised the role for the Kate Martin funeral episode in 1985.

R395, you mean Robin opted to join AMC (as Christina Karras).

I wish she'd stayed there.

Go and watch those Y&R episodes from 1991 being uploaded.

For such a slow show- there was SO much going on.

The show looked and sounded like a big budget film.

I do not know how a daytime show shot on shitty videotape could create such ambiance.

(I feel its all lighting)

Cassandra Rawlin's home was the most expensive set ever created in daytime until that time (and probably that still stands)

As I get older and watch these videos on Youtube, Y&R was the gold standard. (Even with some shitty acting and VERY stilted dialogue) I would take that any day over AMC and its sitcom corn pone humor.

Strasser said that the AMC role didn't work out because the Martins didn't like Christina, and thus she didn't have the audience's sympathy. There are some clips of her and James O'Sullivan as Jeff Martin on YT in the Erica/Tom wedding episodes. I thought she was very good, but I can see how the character didn't play to Robin's strengths.

R398 yes thank you Ms. Malis that's what I meant.

R388 Zaida Coles was on "The Doctors" from 1968 - 1970 and was in over 100 episodes during that time. Her character, Anna Ford, was introduced as bedridden with a spinal injury and in love with a black doctor at the hospital. Her storylines focused on her love and work life, and her character regularly interacted with the others. I have no idea if she was on contract or recurring, but she beat that other person you mentioned by a few years as the first black actress in a recurring role on a daytime soap.

Thank you Mizz Malis!

I hate all things after TGL dropped THE!

R388 I mean to say a few weeks, not a few years. Mea culpa.

R400 I think what Agnes was going for with Christina was a heroine who was really misunderstood, since she started off as being involved with Dr. David Thornton then being falsely accused of murder. Since Erica was already based off of AW's Rachel, it would have possibly been slightly jarring for Christina to be another version of that type of character, so Christina was probably intended to be Rachel-lite in some aspects however moreso an edgier version of Mary Kennicott (like someone previously stated). Christina was supposed to come off as bad even though she wasn't, so when the Martin's were at the point of accepting her the audience was expected to follow suit, which didn't happen. Robin just always came off as one of those actors who didn't seem quite suited to play a nice character, as if it didn't ring true. She's very talented, however she just didn't have it in her to play good on one show and bad on another as many other actors did. One of the worst things you can be as an actor on a soap is playing a seemingly good character that the audience hates lol. It's usually the ones that everyone loves or loves to hate that last the longest.

And let me give some props to the crew of Y&R. Those cameramen WORKED that shit. Just beautiful camerawork, angles- They deserve some props.

AMC looks like Walmart. Fuck those pigs. I hope the "primetime series" gets fucked (That's you Ripa- what a sow) or tanks.

Overrated SHIT. Pine Valley can eat me.

It was SO funny! Right. Agnes was overrated too.

Definitely dropping THE from TGL was the worst mistake in soap history. By far.

R393 Yes AMC definitely began to lose it's way from 2000's onward; as someone mentioned, it started falling apart slightly in the mid to late 90's around the OJ trial (as alot of soaps did) along with Lorraine Broderick's exit, then slightly redeemed itself with Bianca's coming out story, only to fall apart again. Megan McTavish returning was horrendous; Erica's unabortion was one of the worst cases of revisionist history used on a soap (Megan, who created Kendall, wanted to strike gold again by giving Erica a son, however she could've got a little more creative by him being either of her miscarried babies by Phil Brent and Dimitri Marick, a twin of Bianca's or Kendall's, or even born during Erica's absence in 1979/1980 due to Susan being on maternity leave with Nick Davis or some random character being the father, it didn't have to be a Martin) and death by poisoned peanut butter pancakes was ridiculous. At least Cady McClain had the luxury to resume her role as Rosanna on ATWT in between her AMC stints.

R397 Deidre actually has the same look they went for with Tara by casting Nancy Frangione and Mary Lynn Blanks (along with Kelsey) so I could see that. Karen Lynn Gorney did look quite elderly when she reappeared in the mid 90's, especially in comparison to Erica. With Karen Lynn's features it's interesting they went that route with both Nancy and Mary Lynn being blonde, especially since her first recast, Stephanie Braxton, had features similar to hers (when Stephanie left Karen Lynn returned for about a year before Nancy was hired). I know it's not a big deal to some however I always wonder why they recast characters who look nothing like the original (ATWT's Emily going from shorter brunette Melanie Smith to taller blonde Kelley Menighan pre-Hensley comes to mind) Lol it would have been funny to see Tara as Deidre; they could've paired her with Jack or even had Drake come on as a recast Dimitri.

Fuck AMC. PERIOD

I remember someone suggested Erica could have even been pregnant with Tom's baby when she left for CA (Lucci's maternity leave).

As misguided of an idea that the unabortion was, they did not even mine the potential drama. Instead of creating a bunch of tension between Erica and the Martins and exploring Erica's long up and down history with them, they used Jeff's return as an easy, cheap way to break up Erica and Jack. They did absolutely nothing with Tad killing the person his nephew considered as his father. I think the unabortion (Josh?) realized Tad was responsible for his father's death and they never even had a confrontation or conversation about it. Instead of really digging into Erica and Josh working or not working things out - the tension between them was mainly Josh liked Babe and that is what his focus was. Another sign that Babe (is love) was eating the show. I think Tad burying Madden in a box where he suffered horribly for days before being buried alive and Tad facing no consequences and Dixie's death by pancakes are what caused me to finally stop recording the show.

To give Buding some credit, I remember her speaking out about how wrong those "real" Greenlee promos word and acknowledged the other actress as also being a real Greenlee.

I don't know if the economics/profit didn't make sense, but the thing that ALL of the shows should have been doing circa 2000 was going back to a half hour, or in some way changing the length/frequency. Christopher Goutman mentioned changing to 3x a week and most of us ridiculed him because he was killing ATWT, but that might have made sense.

The problem is that most of the die hard soap fans were older - especially old grandmas - who watch TV in the afternoons. Streaming, Netflix, web soaps.....wouldn't work for them.

I watched a few web soaps but none ever really sparked my interest, and some of them had longer credit rolls than actual performance air time!

R412 that was definitely part of what ruined AMC - sadly by then I think Aggie was probably in the early throes of dementia and wasn't able to intervene.

I liked the online AMC more than the online OLTL. Despite a very dark story for launch, it had promise.

Which reminds me - in the continuing drama of Azealia Banks, she's at it now with her label head.....I saw the name and thought "where do I know that name?" Well, he was one of the guys who did the Prospect Park AMC/OLTL relaunch.

One of the things I was really disappointed about with AMC in the '90s was writing out Kelsey, she was such a fun character and they really should have kept her on and given her some new storylines, she was what Hayley promised to be in the early '90s but never became.

Also as a kid, my mom watched AMC and OLTL and I only watched AMC,, one summer I tried to get into watching OLTL and remember asking my mom about Strasser's Dorian and she said, 'She's like an older Erica'.' So for years I thought Strasser's Dorian was just an off-brand Erica.

Why do we need to pit soaps against each other? Especially ones on the same network? I was an ABC loyalist and think the triple crown of AMC, OLTL and GH were stellar in their own respective ways. Each soap had their own ethos and together they were a formidable lineup… especially from the late 70s to the mid/late 90s. I’m sure CBS and NBC fans feel the same way. It’s all good, people.

I think McTavish wanted to revive the Martins and make them more integral to the plot and better connected to the core of the show at that point, the Kane/Montgomerys, by bringing on Josh. Tad really wasn't very active at that point, so they really needed to infuse the Martins with some new blood. She cared about the show and its history in her own endearingly demented way. It's just that the plot she came up with, the unabortion, was ridiculous and insulting on so many levels. I think she became very cocky after the baby switch storyline proved to be incredibly successful and even a mini-phenomenon, since other shows began doing their own baby switch storylines. I think she felt the need to top herself, thus the unabortion plot. That was the nail in the coffin.

Santa Barbara had great dialogue with not-so great stories and the ratings were not good

Y&R had clumsy dialogue at times and great stories and the ratings were gold.

Y&R catapulted to the top with the Jack/Jill affair. I think it just became a lunchtime habit for many people after that, with really zero strong competition, except for the first half of AMC in major markets. If it had aired in the afternoon, it never would've maintained the top spot all these years. Don't get me wrong, it was a well-produced show in its prime and Bill Bell could milk a story forever, but I think its enviable lunchtime spot kept it atop the ratings.

Anyone watch AMC in the 70's? Since it was pre-VCR there is not much of it on YouTube. It seems like a lot of the main characters of the first five years were gone by the end of the decade. Phoebe and Erica were really the main original characters still driving stories in the 80's. Joe, Ruth and Mona were still important to the show, but seemed to be more of supporting characters by that point.

I caught a youtube clip with the replacement Brooke. She was not featured enough to get a good feel for her, but she seemed very bland and generic from the little I saw of her. Again, not enough to make a sound judgment, but from the little I saw of her she seemed to have not much of a spark with either Tom and more importantly Erica.

As bad as AMC was at the end, I still cannot believe that Bold and the Beautiful is one of the soaps that has managed to stay on the air.

I wish I could find some clips of the Kelsey/Kevin storyline. It was so well done. Kelsey loved Kevin, but Kevin was gay. It spilled out into many other areas of the show and characters. It’s what won AMC the best writing Emmy that year. Then I guess there were new writers or producers, and suddenly Kelsey and Kevin were both gone. Kelsey was really great and fun, and had ties to many Pine Valley families. I loved her friendship with Gillian. Gillian was also a great character, and her romance with Ryan was the only time I liked him.

Strasser did make at least one more appearance on AMC in its later years, this time playing Dorian.

r412 right his name was Josh and yes when Erica went to CA it would've been perfectly logical for her to have been pregnant by Tom and gave the baby up without telling him or getting pregnant in CA, then giving them up. All of your points make sense lol there was absolutely no fallout just plot point after plot point. The way they explained the abortion was even strange, Dr. Greg Madden took Erica's aborted fetus and implanted him in his wife Emily who had miscarried their baby. The show was called out on it not being medically possible in the manner that it supposedly transpired, especially not in 1973 (however they changed his year of birth to 1980 to fit the story, similar to how they changed Kendall's from 1969 to 1976). As for Greenlee, Frons was behind those "Real Greenlee" promos after reluctantly agreeing on Sabine Singh being recast as Greenlee a year prior; Rebecca Budig stated that she was "the original" and seemed to feel bad for the treatment towards Sabine.

R371 = Tracy Anjelica Quartermaine

The last 10 years or so of AMC were dreadful. Even before Frons took over, it was not good. The show was still salvageable around 2000/2001, when Agnes was HW and Jean Dadario Burke was EP. But it was mostly downhill after that. How did Julie Hanan Carruthers keep her job as EP for as long as she did? I guess she had a good rep from her Santa Barbara/Port Charles days, but she went thru one HW after another and had no vision for the show.

Tara Martin would have been a great role for Deidre because it would instantly tie her into the core family of AMC. And she had the soap star icon status to make people forget about Lucci's absence from the show had she refused to do the show in LA.

AW’s Rachel is actually based off of Erica. Agnes created the bible for AMC first but AW made it onto the air first.

Y&R has always been ridiculously slow but it had great production values. AMC in the 90s was always too bright. OLTL in the late 80s had great production values.

Kassie Depaiva was not a good Blair. What I loved about Mia Korf is that Blair was involved in everyone’s story. She had Tina hot and bothered. Dorian was her aunt. Max and Cain lusted after her. An Asian woman turning Llanview on it’s ear.

Were Rauch's OLTL production values considered good? When Linda Gottlieb, who succeeded him as EP, was asked to watch the show for her take on it, she said it was so amateurish and the worst produced thing she had ever seen.

It's hard to imagine Dee Dee Halls fitting into the Walmart look of AMC, unless the lighting on the show improved when they moved to LA? Have you seen the intricate way Marlena is lit on Days?

On Days there are extra crew hired whose sole job is to shine prisms of light on Marlena to give her a "halo effect". It's not the same as the workaday lighting from ABC shows. Even though Days looks far shoddier now than AMC did at its worst, the extra lighting helps. It reflects the mood of the storylines better.

The lighting was great when Viki went back in time and visited Heaven.

Certain characters had their own identifying music too.

[quote] Agnes created the bible for AMC first but AW made it onto the air first.

AMC was originally intended for CBS but at the last minute they turned it down. She actually lost the bible for a few years. In the interim she was hired to headwrite AW, which had already been on the air for a while. So she based Rachel on Erica from the AMC bible, and Ada on Mona. She also created OLTL in 1968 and then, after that, found the AMC bible, gave it to AMC and they picked it up.

(yes, a long ass way to say r427 is correct)

R430 OLTL also had great lighting during Viki's personality split in the 90s.

Dorian was lit phenomenally for the whole two years. Often, they would frame her face with varying degrees of shadows, depending on if she was being helpful, or was hiding something, or was just being out and out evil.

Christine Jones was the definitive Viki. No one wanted Viki Sleestak back after Jones had proved to be a revelation during Sleestak's maternity leave. Finally, a youthful, vivacious Viki, and not someone who looked eternally 80. It was difficult to believe that

DAYS and AMC were always the most comedy and tongue in cheek

Camp Characters like Dorothy Lyman’s Opal and Caliope Jones on DAYS in the 80s would only work on those soaps and for in on them

I remember when Dorothy Lyman had a stint on DAYS as a Countess(!) in the early 2000s and she took a shot at AMC

R393 I am not unaware that AMC had its flaws and I will have to take your word about the last years of the AMC since I had abandoned it long before then. I was specifically talking about the Golden Age of AMC. I was comparing apples to apples. I should have been clearer, I was specifically talking about what I consider the prime years of American soaps (the late 1970s to early 1990s) AMC was the best.

I wasn't watching any soaps consistently (except occasionally Y&R) around the time the soaps were getting cut. I never liked Greenlee so I feel your pain where she is concerned. Don't get me started on fake Kendall (HA, I thought I was the only one calling her that). Sarah Michelle Gellar was the perfect conniving bitchy little daughter Erica deserved. Alicia Minshew didn't really fit in that family. I loved Bianca's character and the actress, Eden Riegel is really good and was the perfect combination of Travis and Erica. She also had great chemistry with Susan Lucci.

Like I said, i wasn't watching at the end but if I had to put my finger on the problem it would be losing both Ruth Warrick and Mary Fickett in pretty close proximity without having a replacement for at least one of those pillars was the death knell. They can give Erica a hundred kids but she never was going to be able to fill the matriarch role. She's too self-centered. The name of the show is "All My Children." And to be fair, none of the other older ladies on the show at the time could have filled that function.

But even with those flaws I would have taken AMC over boring ole OLTL and the outrageous and unrealistic GH which continued to jump the shark.

Did Ellen Holly ever touch on her personal experiences with EP Paul Rauch? What was the story behind him chasing down Lillian Hayman to fire her? I also had no clue that he fired every leading Black performer under his tenure. I also had no clue that he was straight lol or at least appearing to live a straight life.

R402 Zaida only had me beat by a few months sweetie. Besides who was watching The Doctors anyway?

R394, I never said AMC was sophisticated. LOL I simply said it was the best ABC soap and OLTL was the worst and I stand by that.

How can you say OLTL is underrated when it is older than AMC? They had more time to establish themselves. You just don't want to admit that those people were boring. LOL

And I am the poster at 389 as well, so I agree with you that Y&R was the best overall.

Yes r427 r431 you're both correct. I guess since Rachel aired first it appears that Erica derived from her however technically its the other way around. Agnes has referred to Rachel as her "precursor to the public" for what Erica was to become. Ironically, had AMC made it to the air before Agnes was hired at AW, there wouldn't have been a Rachel nor Susan Lucci as Erica (it probably would've been Robin Strasser as Erica on CBS' All My Children)

R433 Not eternally 80 lol was Christine Jones really that well received? That's sort of similar to when OLTL had to temporarily recast Jessica in the late 90's, although in reverse. I remember reading comments about how temp Jessica (Maggie Andersson) was easier to look at and more mature as Jessica then babyfaced Erin Torpey.

R399 I wasn't watching Y&R around that time however you piqued my curiosity; those Cassandra Rawlins storylines played out like classic film noir, among others. Y&R definitely had a big budget feel to it so there's no wonder that film and Primetime actors showed interest in playing Victor Newman when Eric Braedan considered exiting years ago.

[quote]Zaida only had me beat by a few months sweetie. Besides who was watching The Doctors anyway?

You're both wrong.

R402 I do not think that is correct.

None of us was there, so we only know what people who were there at the time are saying and what we read. From everything I was able to find, both women started on their respective soaps in 1968. But the biggest difference is that Zaida Coles was not a central character. This is supported by the fact that she was only on The Doctors for 2 years. Even today, to be considered a "central character" you have to be on the show for several years. Ellen Holly was on OLTL for over 20 years and yes from everything I have seen, Ellen Holley was the first African American to be in a recurring status. I have seen nothing saying that about Zaida Coles.

In the U.S. soap opera world, recurring status is a term used to describe the status of a performer who consistently performs in less than three episodes out of a five-day work week.

BTW, Ellen Holley's character was created within about a month of OLTL's on air premiere. She started with the cast about 6 months later. Ellen said when she started the show she was appearing on it almost every day.

What is funny is that recurring nowadays is a step down because it usually is a demotion from a full time contract with "regular" status. I would assume there is something lower than "recurring" which is probably what Zaida had.

I don't think Zaida Coles was recurring, even though if she was in 100 episodes in 2 years she probably should have had a recurring contract.

In the interview below Ellen Holley describes herself at 08:45 as "The first Black central star in the history of daytime." I will take her word for it. That probably means she got the "best" contract a Black person could get at the time. It also suggests that the White actors who were also "central" characters were on regular (not "recurring") status and got better pay which was shitty as fuck.

Reading between the lines it appears that both these amazing Black actresses were underpaid.

What is fascinating in these clips of Ellen Holly is that not only does she look great for her age, but her mind is still sharp as a tack! She is so lively and makes the interviewer's job easy. She is remembering all this shit from 50 years ago like it was yesterday and she is currently 90 years old! This interview is only from a few years ago when she would have been in her late 80s. I can't remember what I did last week. LOL

Where do the African-American characters on Guiding Light fit into this equation?

R442 It sounds like Micki Grant got a regular contract as opposed to recurring in 1965. She was cast as a "regular" cast member right out of the gate. That is different from the "recurring" contract Ellen Holly got. Although, Ellen Holly too probably should have had that from the beginning also. I don't doubt that at some later date Ellen eventually moved up to regular contract status. She's a smart lady.

^^^^^388 and 443

AMC’s Angie and Jesse are still the only black super couple soaps have ever had.

Even in AMC’s not-great final years, SOMEONE was smart enough to bring them back to anchor the show.

Angie also filled the void of having a strong female character that was not a bitch that had been there since they minimized and then eliminated Brooke. I liked Erica, but the show always worked best with another strong female lead to balance her (when I was watching, usually Brooke). At the end, Kendell and Greenlee took up a lot of air time, and when you add Erica into the mix, it was too much of the same. I think they wanted Krystal to fill in the role of the long-suffering heroine, but she was no Brooke.

When Greenlee first showed up, I remember thinking they should have made her a Kendell recast. She was written as a young Erica-type and had good chemistry with Lucci, and was a stronger actor and had more of a presence then Alicia would have. Most of the time, you really did not need both Kendell and Greenlee on the show. Kendell would have been the character to keep due to her family ties, but Buding would have been the actress to keep. I also found Greenlee more interesting when working off of Roger and Mary and their dysfunctional dynamics then plot-driven father Jack. Plus Mary and Rodger brought some nice blue blood snobbery that had been missing since Phoebe stopped being prominent. AMC lost a lot of character in the later years.

I liked both NuKendall and Greenlee…when they weren’t involved with Ryan. Greenlee and Leo were a great pairing, and so were Kendall and Zach before they ate the show and their story became so tortured. I think that stupid, gross Satin Slayer (I think) storyline, along with the unabortion and the Zarf tranny storylines were what did me in. I kept watching until the end, and it was much better the last few months with Lorraine Broderick at the helm, but it was too late.

And I’ll never forgive them for killing off Simone. She was sexy and fun.

r447 How ignorant you are, Neil and Drucilla were a huge super couple.

[quote] Neil and Drucilla were a huge super couple.

You are hilarious.

R451 I'm not the person you're arguing with and I didn't like YR much but Neil and Drucilla were a supercouple.

Maybe on a B level, certainly not as universally popular as a Bo/Hope, Josh/Reva sort of deal but a supercouple nevertheless.

I think the point is that Jesse/Angie were really the only Black supercouple with name recognition beyond daytime. Dru and Neil were very popular, but within the soap ghetto, They didn't have the same type of recognition beyond soaps.

Probably because Debbi Morgan was talented and did the work, and wasn't perpetually aggrieved or thinking Susan Lucci was behind her calling her names.

Ellen Holly and Vicki Rowell's grievances could sink a freight ship.

Thank you, r453. That’s my point.

Angie and Jessie lasted for decades.

Dru and Neil were popular for what, 4 or 5 years, until Victoria Rowell’s crazy got her fired?

I am asking, genuinely. I could never get into Y&R all that much.

Not to be picky R455 but Angie and Jesse only lasted for 6-7 years initially, then Jesse was "killed" in 1988.

Yes, the character was resurrected near the end of AMC and the couple reunited.

I'm not saying your point is invalid but just FYI on the "decades" point.

Vicky Rowell. A true nutjob nasty old cunt. Crazy beyond words. Cannot and will never stand her. Remind us again how many lawsuits she has filed and LOST??? lolololol Stupid cunt.

The first interracial couple on daytime was Valerie Grant and David Banning on Days of Our Lives in the 70s

Backlash from viewers was so bad that Valerie was written out after two years and David ended up impregnating a white blonde woman, Trish Clayton

Agnes Nixon, creator of AMC and OLTL, had said she was a big DAYS fan and that time and wanted to do something similar on AMC or OLTL

BILL BELL’s DAYS from the 1970s sounds so interesting and different from the campy supernatural show it turned into

R448 Kendall and Greenlee were similar in some ways yet sort of different in other ways, if that makes sense, although they were both mini-Erica's. I think they were trying to establish a rivalry between the two before the whole girl-power, Fusion movement which resulted in their friendship. Rebecca didn't like the direction they were going with Greenlee, saying she was becoming too soft, and along with her wanting to live in LA with her then husband Bachelor Bob, it was a no-brainer for her to leave. When she went off on Kendall for impregnating herself with Ryan's baby (even though Kendall's intentions were good) Rebecca & Bob commented how Greenlee got her balls back. When Sabine was cast, Greenlee started to go back to being bitchy, however the writers felt that they wanted to base Greenlee more off of Sabine's personality, so they made her more of a heroine to play to her strengths. What's funny is that Rebecca didn't like when they would soften Greenlee, while Alicia lamented how she didn't like when they would have Kendall revert to her old ways, for she stated how it didn't show any growth and a lack of maturity.

[quote]Kendall and Greenlee were similar in some ways yet sort of different in other ways, if that makes sense, although they were both mini-Erica's. I think they were trying to establish a rivalry between the two before the whole girl-power, Fusion movement which resulted in their friendship.

I would agree with that, they did have differences. I would say Greenlee was probably more like Erica. I thought the two actresses played well off of each other, and both worked well with Lucci. My biggest complaint was that they needed some separation from time to time instead of constantly being in each other's orbit. It did not help that they would do a 180 within about one episodes whether they were best friends or hated rivals. One story would end and they would decide to change the dynamic for the next story and instantly flip the switch on whether they hated or liked each other in a plot-driven rather than more organic, gradual way.

Alicia was not the greatest actress when she got the part, but she got better, and they did do a gradual softening for her using her relationship with Bianca and then did a good job of her gradually getting closer to Erica. They went through a stage where they were civil but not close, had a back step or two but did not revert to the full animosity they had, before they were genuinely close and Kendell called Erica "mom".

Still, the last scene with SMG was perfect where they had a mature good bye and SMG left on good terms, but they were not sad to part ways and acknowledged they might well never be close. It was well acted by both, especially with what was going on behind the scenes. It would have been a perfect way to end their relationship, but was also set the stage for them possibly working things out if Kendell ever returned.

Nobody cares about AMC and the ABC lineup! Overrated trash!

Thanks SON loon

Vee, who’s in the biz, is the creative genius behind ALL of these shows. Vee knows everything. Read SON. There is no subject that Vee isn’t an expert on. Vee, who’s in the biz, knows EVERYTHING!!!!

Nobody but you finds that remotely funny, you infected cuntscab.

R460 Their multiple writing changes in the 2000's is most likely why the dynamic between Greenlee & Kendall would constantly shift. When Charles Pratt came on board, he asked the actors about the history of their characters, which seemed flattering to them, only to pull the rug from under them by saying from that point on, forget history since he was going to reset their characters in his vision. So the constant back and forth between them depended on who was writing at the time. Although Alicia wasn't exactly the best, I agree that she would try and did improve as time went on. She had big shoes to fill from Sarah Michelle and I see how you're being nice by not mentioning the backstage beef between Susan and Sarah Michelle which resulted in SMG's firing (the "rumor" is that Susan was so furious over Sarah Michelle's win that she demanded they get rid of her that very next day, so those scenes you were referring to aired on July 3rd, 1995, after being filmed shortly after the Emmy ceremony). Susan for along well with Rebecca and Alicia so it isn't that she was difficult to work with, she just clashed with Sarah Michelle. Susan wasn't too fond of Erica having grown children for awhile; she had also informed the higher ups that they were aging Bianca (who Susan named herself when the writers had trouble naming her) too fast (possibly because she wanted Erica to stay as childlike as long as she could)

*Susan got along well with Rebecca and Alicia (who were so close that they had a couple of sleepovers irl with the other main Fusion girls Terri & Amelia).

Angie and Jesse were a ridiculous couple. Jesse was a white writer's idea of what someone from the ghetto was like. It was hugely racist stereotype. And Angie was a goody two shoes so personified another stereotype of the 'Yes masser' black person. Neil and Dru were strong, confident and wealthy blacks, and that makes them way more empowering than Angie and Jesse ever could be.

They actually had a storyline for god's sake where Angie calls the cops on her teenage son because he's being a delinquent, knowing full well the trigger-happy police record when it comes to black youth on the street. Only a white writer could have come up with this. We need to stop this garbage delusion that Angie and Jesse were progressive for soaps. They set back the liberation movement.

Rauch's OLTL was VERY 80's and very brightly lit- however the sets were pretty cool and over the top- After watching 86-89 episodes, the show looks good in a very 80's way. And the background music was EVERYTHING.

By 90-91 the show looked like shit and everyone looked like shit. And the stories were abysmal.

Gottlieb was right. And her show looked dramatically different from Rauch's. It did not look or sound like 80's OLTL at all. I despised her background music. It was utterly boring, other than Todd's theme and Viki's alters (that music was awesome)

OLTL was written and produced to evoke a film, and it was nearly on par with Y&R.

AMC always looked and sounded like some hokey sitcom. (I have to go on YouTube though- there was a a good 3 year period- It think it was the late 80s) where the show really did look great.

AMC looked so cheap compared to the other soaps. I don't how much people in this thread claim it was the cream of the crop; production wise, it was the pits.

AMC looked fine in the 1970s and early 1980s. By the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, the show was lit way too brightly and looked like an off-network syndicated sitcom. Yet the audience didn't care, as the show was ranked in the top thee throughout that whole period.

Whatever you say about McTavish she really revived AMC in 2003. She actually had a plan and a series of storylines that wove together most of the cast (except Brooke who was needlessly dumped) that lasted about 2 years. All the writers that followed arrived with seemingly no plans and just started writing with no idea of what was going to happen next. It was incredibly dark - the lesbian heroine is raped, impregnated, and then has her baby stolen - but it was the last time the show had to be watched every day. The characters were also positioned correctly - for that first year Greenlee and Kendall remained anti-heroines, bitches and rivals. Kendall and Erica didn't get a long. And then everyone became best friends and the awful "We are strong. We are Kane women" BS. Ryan and Zach became super heroes. Babe and Krystal annoyed everyone to death. Brooke disappeared. The Martins disappeared. Everyone became a successfull businessman.

McTavish destroyed AMC when she came back in 2003. She was so disgusted by Bianca's lesbianism, she had her raped and impregnated by her rapist just so she could make Bianca more interested in motherhood and convert her back to a traditional gender role.

McTavish is a lesbian herself.

What AMC wrote for Michael B Jordan while he was there was very White Savior.

Let's be fair, some of what Agnes wrote was a step forward *for its time.* But some of what was written in late 90s/early 2000s was not at all cutting edge.

The P&G shows were nominally better but always seemed to ask any and all black characters to play the same story: choose being a doctor/lawyer/cop/journalist and their secret and unique desire to sing/play jazz.

I know people love to lay full blame on HWs or producers but by the late 90s/early 00s the days of a Marland having free reign over story were long over.

Network heads told them what kind of story to right. I'm sure ABC loved the positive attention re Bianca but I also bet some suit said, "Well, couldn't Bianca be a lesbian that, you know, loved cock?"

Ben and Camille were fully-developed characters on ATWT...from time to time. And they weren't just token Black people living in a white world. They had all sorts of Black relatives, friends, even a minister. But only when writers (like Addie Walsh) saw the value in that.

Although I did not hate them, I was never crazy about OLTL's Viki or AW's Felicia. I thought Felicia Gallant was such on over-the-top character. I much more preferred Cecile and Donna. I also preferred Christine Jones in the role of Viki.

Also, until recently I could not stand the Adam Newman character on Y&R. I used to fast forward through the scenes between Adam and Victor. They bored me to tears. But with the new actor playing Adam (Mark Grossman), I like the character so much more now.

GH currently has a hoarding problem. Finn, Austin, Sam, Sasha, Brando, Gladys, Peter, Maxie are just a few of the characters who should never be seen again.

R107 I loved original Taylor, Ingrid Rogers, and I grew to like her recast, Kelli Taylor, however you're right they turned her completely psycho over Noah. There's usually a thin line between being a villain and a loon that some writers know not to cross, while others tend to go that route (especially if there's a change in story, an actor's exit, or a writer change where they take the character "in a different direction"). Taylor's mom btw, Vivienne Roxbury-Barnes, was refreshing from Livia Frye and Mimi Reed Frye; it would have been nice if they would have kept her long-term. She sort of reminded me of original Vivian Banks from the Fresh Prince, except in a more snobby manner; so when Aunt Viv actress Janet Hubert ended up on AMC & later OLTL I found that to be funny.

Sorry op didn't mean to derail your thread; I've read it from beginning to where we are now and from what I can see we're just happy to discuss soaps without being monitored like on those other sites.

Adam Newman when played by Muhney! Gross ugly terrible actor. His perviness radiated through the screen. I was so thrilled when the idiot did himself in and got fired. He was so skeevy.

All the black characters (although played by excellent actors) were too goody two-shoes, ala Sidney Poitier's early roles. Ben, Heather, Jessica, Camille ... no flaws. When they did try a black villain (Monti something), he was too over-the-top. The only two black characters that were complicated , and that actually drove story, were Marshall Travers and that girl who had Andy Dixon's baby.

I loved Denise on ATWT, because she had chemistry with Andy but also had a rough edge.

And I loved Gilly Grant on GL. She and Alan Michael had 🔥 chemistry to burn together but no, they had to put him with insipid Lucy.

[quote] Monti something

That would be Daytime Emmy Award winner Monti Sharp.

(but he won for GL, not ATWT, where his character was uninspired and not popular.)

R484, thanks, I forgot his name. It always amazes me how an actor can be so good in one role on a soap, but be so terrible in another.

[quote] It always amazes me how an actor can be so good in one role on a soap, but be so terrible in another.

I haven't a clue what you mean!

I got Elaine Princi fired. But I’m nice.

Robin is a loon!

Helen Wagner hated everyone!

In her archives interviews, Ellen Holly seemed to like no one at OLTL, except for Lillian Hayman and EP Jean Arley, and even with them it was about them being her allies than true friends. She even shaded Al Freeman, Jr., which surprised me. She hated the experience so much that she stayed there on and off for 15 years! LOL.

R474 Correct Reggie was written as a ghetto child "in the system" who needed to be "helped" (first by Kendall & Leo's brother Trey, then by Jack). That's why original Reggie actor Chadwick Boseman RIP decided to quit after about a weeks worth of shows; he said that ppl he knew thought that he was crazy to turn down a contract on a soap, however he felt that he didn't want to portray that stereotypical type of role, which is where Michael B. Jordan stepped in (so ironic how their paths ended up meeting later in life).

Michael B. Jordan didn't particularly enjoy his time on AMC. Aside from Michael E. Knight, with few others here & there, he didn't feel too welcomed by his castmates. There was an episode of him on The View, where he participated in a fashion show with Cameron Mathison, Eden Riegel & Kassie DePaiva. Cameron & Eden were all hugged up, giggling while completely ignoring him, as if he were someone they never met before. He looked so sad until Kassie went over and hugged him, which cheered him up. I wonder if they tried to contact him once he got big since he doesn't seem to be close with any cast members from his Kane-Montgomery families (he is/was friends with the guy who played Dre, I think the son of Mario Van Peebles' character, although I think Reggie had been written off long before Dre showed up)

Camille on ATWT had issues, which made her much more interesting than some of the show's other Black characters. She kept screwing up with Ben, with John, with her mother. I loved her.

Virginia on Sunset Beach was a great black character because she got to be a full on crazy over the top villain. They did the same with Lexie on Days when they let her embrace her inner Dimera. And then there is Doreen Jackson and Vivian from Generations, both great three dimensional characters.

AW introduced a bunch of black characters in the early 80s played by some powerhouse actors, including Morgan Freeman, Howard Rollins Jr., Michelle Shay and Robert Christian. (Petronia Paley was already there.) They were given consequential storylines and considerable airtime. Unfortunately, the writing-- by playwright Corinne Jacker, whose theatrical background Paul Rauch hoped would help the show recapture Harding Lemay's magic -- was not very good, and most left within two years or so.

I did not think Michael Jordan was necessarily the best actor on AMC, but he did have something of an it factor. They really did not know what to do with him, and other than being adopted by Jack, he never really had a storyline except being a supportive brother. He had good chemistry with Amanda Seyfried's Joannie and it looked like they were going to do a storyline with them and her religious parents, but they never put her on contract and she disappeared. I always thought that was strange, because of the group of teens she was brought in with (a really bad JR, Joannie's sister - maybe a Jamie) she stood out as having potential.

Jordan seems to be pretty careful about what he says about AMC in interviews. He seems like he might be embarrassed about it, but have not heard him badmouth it. The one thing I have heard him say is that he learned about work ethic watching Lucci. While they did not treat his character great and he had kind of cringe-worthy white man saves black youth story, I do think they might have toned down the stereotype of the Reggie character a bit from the Boseman version.

As much of a success as they had with Angie and Jessie, and some success with the Frye's and a couple of big years with Noah (although I thought Noah and Julia were overrated), AMC was pretty lilywhite in the 2000s.

When DAYS brought back and recast a Valerie Grant in 2016 after being off the show for over 30 years with Vanessa Williams, they originally approached and wanted Debi Morgan (best known as Angie from AMC) to take over

Debi is great friends with James Reynolds (Abe on DAYS and he played her love interest Henry on Genrations in the early 90s)

But talks fell through, one of of Debi’s real life best friend is Jackee Harry who has been playing Paulina Price, love interest of Abe, on DAYS since last spring and Paulina’s daughter Lani is played by Sal Stowers who played Cassandra, Jessie and Angie’s daughter during the later years of AMC

Someone upthread made a good point - fans are sometimes silly about pitting shows against one another but clearly most of them had something to attract viewers.

I was a big GL/ATWT fan (somewhat AW too) but there were times I loved peeking in on the Nixon shows. GH had its moments during the Labine/Riche era. Y&R was the perfect lunchtime retreat on a swelteringly hot summer day. I never cared for the supercouple gangbang that DAYS became but I totally see why people loved it. Santa Barbara changed too many times to survive but it was a special thing when it was firing on all cylinders.

The only successful show that completely mystifies me is B&B. Susan Flannery and Darlene Conley were the only human beings I ever saw on that show and Flannery's humanity and gravitas (even as a monstrous bitch) was the only thing that carried it for years. Otherwise, it's been the same characters playing musical chairs for years. There isn't an interesting thing about any of these people beyond who they pretend to fuck, and I can't believe a word any of them say.

Susan Flannery was the glue that held BB together. While she was still on the air in the later years, but becoming far less active it was obvious that she was really the only classy element the show ever had.

I remember that famous cliffhanger, where she finds out Brooke has slept with both her son and husband. It's tawdry and humiliating and Susan just gave it her all.

At that time the show had struggled to its third year, barely escaping cancellation. Flannery knew that this was a make-or-break storyline for BB, because the show had been so awful viewers were looking for any excuse to bail. The only problem was it worked so well they repeated this "Stephanie discovers ....." scene dozens of times over.

R477 I totally agree, Felicia (AW) and Vickie (OLTL) sucked. I hated those characters to and for the same reasons. I never understood why they got so much airtime when there were better (and more realistic) characters they could have highlighted.

The problem with Adam Newman is the writers did not know what to do with him. They cycled through multiple actors who all had a different presentation of the character. Michael Muhney (racist asshole) was the worst to play Adam and he played him the longest which made his scenes hard to watch. They finally got it right though. Mark Grossman is a great Adam. He has some of the cut throat instinct of his daddy Victor but also you can see the sensitivity of his mother Hope. That is what the character should be. I also think he is the most attractive of the 5 actors who played this still young man.

Muhney was gorgeous and talented. The best looking and most talented of all the Adams. He oozed sex. His firing was a travesty. There must be more to the story.

R483 Amelia Marshall (Gilly Grant) on GL was adorable. Too bad they couldn't keep Black characters. Nia Long (Kat) and Monti Sharp (David) on GL were great too.

I liked Denise from ATWT too but she wasn't on the show long enough. Her and Andy were cute together.

You'll be happy to know that Denise (Cassandra Creech) will be on B&B soon.

It's VIKI, you fat whores! Not Vicky or Vickie or any other pedestrian nonsense!

Slee's six Emmys are now used as hat racks. Is her fat middle-aged son still living in her basement, and is the failed actress daughter still "bartending" to pay her rent?

R500 I hope you're being sarcastic. Do you really think Muhney looks better than Mark Grossman and Justin Hartley? LOL Nah! Get your eyes examined.

And there is A LOT more to the story.

Muhney has been trying to improve his image since the firing, but from what I've seen, he's a narcissist a perv and a racist. A lot of people don't want to work with him.

Here's more on that pig Michael Muhney

No show has been exempt from backstage drama but YR in particular is known as a deeply toxic workplace

I hate that Days got rid of T-Boz’s character Sheila. Would love to see her and Paulina go head to head.

Muhney is gross! Not good looking. Ugly, in fact. Not a good person. He’s an asshole, by his own admission. I’m glad Muhney has has so little success after being such an asshole on Y&R.

Before Y&R, he was an asshole on Veronica Mars.

I really liked Amelia Marshall on AMC as Belinda Keefer. She and Adrian were a good couple. I thought it was awesome that Opal had a long lost black son---then when the actor left (to do Six Feet Under?) they wrote out the character of Adrian and I don't recall them ever mentioning him again.

Falconetti.

Rich man, poor man.

Despite being on the show since 2007, I never cared for the character of Adam until Mark Grossman took over.

Was ho-hom about Chris Engen. Was scratching my head about what all the fuss over Michael Muhney was. Kept hoping for Justin Harley, who I've long adored, to finally excite me about the character.

Finally, Mark Grossman took the part. He was the right actor for the part and I finally started caring about the character.

Now, if they would just give Adam an exciting storyline and get Sally Spectra out of his orbit.

[quote] Finally, Mark Grossman took the part. He was the right actor for the part and I finally started caring about the character.

Agree. And one thing about Mark is, he came right in and owned the role from the start. He'll have been playing the part for three years in May, and all of the former Adams are like a distant memory to me. There were some good moments with the others, but Mark is definitely my favorite.

[quote] AW introduced a bunch of black characters in the early 80s played by some powerhouse actors, including Morgan Freeman, Howard Rollins Jr., Michelle Shay and Robert Christian.

Ahem…

I started watching Y&R again because I accidentally saw Mark Grossman while the TV was on at my doctor’s office. I like Adam now, which I never did before. I never liked Muhney, and Justin wasn’t enough of a draw for me to tune in those days.

But I do watch now for Adam. His little smile in the opening credits is all I need to put a smile on my face.

Those closeted dykes Ada and Liz on AW always got on my nerves. Connie Ford never met a cue card she didn't like, and Irene Dailey's version of Liz was just annoying as fuck.

Hard to like the Daughter of Satan Mardevil... but I do.

R492 Camille was a good character and I liked her with Ben. Were they planning to possibly make John Dixon her father, or was her father ever on? I do remember her mom, Lonette McKee, they looked like they could actually be mother & daughter irl and they mentioned how they had similar habits offscreen too

Camille did not know who her father was and John did mentor Camille which made it look like it might have been John, but John and Sara did cross paths and nothing was made of them knowing each other.

R493 Virginia was great; the turkey baster pregnancy story is legendary lol. I think the problem was that alot of writers/producers, maybe even networks didn't want to go there with "Black villains" so they were always either virtuous doctors, lawyers, etc. I always found it refreshing when they had Black villains since bad comes in all shades.

Typically a villain would only be short-term or quickly redeemed if they happened to be Black, or was just there to play the heavy to cause trouble in a temporary way, such as Vanessa Bell Calloway's Yvonne Caldwell on AMC to Angie/Jesse, or Taye Diggs' Sugar Hill on GL to Dahlia & Kevin Mambo's character (sorry forgot his name; I know he won Emmy's for the character). It's too bad Generations didn't last longer, so that Doreen and Vivian could continue on since they we're leads. I do know that as much flack Frons gets for being an ass, Susan Sussman Morina said that it was idea to make one of the leading families Black, since he felt there wasn't enough of a representation at that time.

Oh, hiss, r516.

Hard to believe that Jan. 13, 2022 will be the TEN year anniversary of OLTL's final network episode!!

Ten years!

R494 That's very interesting considering how Paul Rauch fired all of the Black leads on OLTL, I would've never known he hired so many at AW (That's top tier talent too). Where was Jackee's Lily during this time? Was she already on 227?

Another World is where Jackee got her big break in 1983 playing Lily Mason. She got 227 in 1985 and did both shows until her AW contract ended in summer 1986.

The plural of Emmy is Emmys. If a human named Emmy possessed a rancid cunt, you might say "Emmy's rancid cunt doesn't know how to use apostrophes," but you'd say, "Lots of rancid cunts win Emmys these days," to refer to the plural.

Similarly, we were happy for Kevin Mambo winning an Emmy, and we're happy about discussing 90s stories. The apostrophe in we're indicates "we are" contracted, while the regular "were" indicates a past tense state of being. .

Jackee has forgotten how to do a soap. She’s terrible on Days.

R495 Excellent points. I forgot about Amanda Seyfried's Joanie; she was supposed to be the supporting character/confidant of Alexandra Daddario's character however she stood out, and her burgeoning relationship with Reggie was cute. Daytime still tends to stay away from interracial relationships where the guy is Black & the girl is White (except for a few exceptions, however it usually never gets any further than kiss; other than Alexis/Shawn on GH, I can't recall any other love scenes that featured any) so I don't know why they even teased them. IA MBJ wasn't that great as an actor however he was 16 when he started (even though there have been teen actors who've acted circles around adults) and I saw that "it factor" in him as well too. Anna Stuart gave some insight to her experience on AMC, saying that she had a better time on AW, for at AMC there were "too many egos." I do recall another story about complaints of MBJ having his "music too loud" is his dressing room lol but I chalked that up to him being young.

Jackee wasn't so great on AW either. She was basically doing a black Opal Gardner.

I loved Jackee on AW, she bought some much appreciated levity to what was then a very dull, drab show. It was obvious she had star power.

I remember reading the Anna Stuart quote about too many egos at AMC, which surprised me, since it had been known as one of the most laid-back soaps behind the scenes. Jane Elliot has said that it was her favorite set to work on, because there was a real feeling of camaraderie and family, and that everyone, from the stars top down to the security people all ate lunch together in a communal setting. I guess things changed behind the scenes throughout the years, which is sad to hear because AMC was "my" soap.

R496 Really I never knew she was up for the role; that would've been somewhat of a full circle moment for her and everyone else involved. Also never knew that Jackee is one of her besties. I wonder if they tried to lowball her or maybe she had another project that would've conflicted with their schedule. I could see her as Valerie.

You know you're a soap fan when you can distinguish between the three Victoria roles. OLTL had Viki, AW had Vicky, and Y&R had Victoria (sometimes called Vicki!)

I really wish Anna Stuart and Mark Pinter would have been around more as Greenlee's parents. They really added some old school snobbery that once had been an element of Pine Valley, and their interactions with Greenlee were always good and made her more interesting. Anna's character could have really stirred up some trouble and would have brought on a different variation of bitchiness than say Erica or Greenlee. She might have been good mixing it up with Adam or David as well, and given them a partner as unscrupulous as them instead of doing yet another victim-wife story.

Thank you R519 R524 & R530, I wasn't aware of Jane Elliott's experience at AMC. As for R525, I didn't know this is a classroom. Although I may have been wrong with that Emmy part, I definitely know the difference between were and we're, and if you look further up in that same response, I clearly used were in the right context. I didn't proof read prior to posting for typos since I'm using a phone which autocorrects at times when it shouldn't, and judging by your response you apparently didn't see that we're wasn't used the entire time. So, as you are/WERE.

Didn’t Marcy Walker have a hard time during her first run as Liza on AMC? Or was it just that the audience hated the character and she didn’t like that .

r535, Liza accused Jesse of rape knowing he was innocent and sicced the cops after him, which made her the original 'Karen'. Marcy got a lot of abuse and threats on the streets of Manhattan.

Vee ran the set of AMC with an iron fist! He even had old Aggie shaking in her diapers! Vee is in the biz, you know.

Gwen Rizczech (Jack's Bastard child). Days of Our Lives has had tremendous villains but she is the most boring villain EVER. She is not attractive. I hate her accent. She has had no chemistry with any of the men she has shagged. It is unbelievable that any of them would have given her a second look much less slept with her.

And the actress was decent on YR but Gwen is a one dimensional villainess.

Also, Jack just left the canvas (again) with Missy ChikFilA.

I like Jack with Cady McClain. I hope they come back, but Missy (Karen) ChikFila needs to stay away!

MAGA Missy is so identifiable as Jenny Horton. Cady is supposed to be coming back but she has no chemistry with Matthew.

Gwen was tolerable when she and Claire came out of Bayview. Now she’s just a weepy mess. Doesn’t help that RC is writing her.

The outfit Missy wore on her return was tragic. I LOL'd at the soap queen who called it Pippi Wrongstocking.

I'd prefer Cady, too.

Liza was great on her return and was initially great when paired with Adam. Then they watered her down - I read she wanted to be more like Brooke and not as scheming. While it was great she had more shades and was not the one dimensional villain tormenting Jenny, I don't think people really wanted to see a kinder, gentler Liza who would be all whispery and angsty. They wanted to see someone who went head to head with Adam and could be just as scheming. I remember thinking real Liza was gone when she discovered Brooke had slept with Adam and did not go medieval on her.

The issue with Gwen Rizczech is that she was a retconned fix to a story problem. Chad was the one who was originally poisoning Abigail. It was a forced change, so Ron had to rewrite the story. That's how we got Gwen. It was impressive the way they wove Gwen into the story using history, but the character has been a bust. Probably because Ron's heart wasn't in it.

R542 Her clothing, her hair, everything was off upon what was supposed to be MAGA Missy's Triumphant return to Days. I suspect she was sabotaged by an NBC stylist who is either Black or Gay or both! LOL YAY!

R543 They should have left Liza alone. They kept trying to "improve her. Back then it was the trend for a soap to "redeem" a bad girl if they wanted to keep them on the show (not as strictly adhered to for male villains) and this was a huge mistake. Another mistake was putting Jamie Luner in the role. That was a very odd fit.

Liza was the best role Marcy Walker ever had. [I hated her as Eden on Santa Barbara] I loved her chemistry with her mother (Jennifer Bassey). I suspect the changes she requested to her character and her eventual role of Eden was based on personal and not professional reasons. Marcy is an outspoken Christian and stated that it was part of her reasoning for retiring from acting.

Marcy's Christian bent came well after her time on SB, and I think she left AMC the second time before she fell into the fundie pit.

I loved Marion, but she was so much more fun before she was in love and saddled with Stuart, who, I know is beloved, but I did not like. I don't even think Canary's portrayal of him was that good- it was all mannerisms and shrugging and slouching, although I did like him as Adam.

So I was on a cruise in 1983, and I was 20 years old. Just got on board like 30 minutes earlier (with my parents, this was the SS Rotterdam), got in the elevator with one of the people in our group. Elevator packed FULL.

So I say to the person I'm with, "Hey! did you see that this is a theme cruise? One of those soap opera things!- who watches that STUPID CRAP anyways?"

The 10 other people were all the main cast members of, I think it was, 'The Guiding Light'.

Silver Kane.

The conniving bitch.

Carly as played by Laura Wright. Laura thinks she’s Sarah Jessica Parker.

R546 Jamie Luner got that part because she's really good friends with then hw Charles Pratt (who tried to get her hired at GH as Carly #3 once Tamara Braun quit, however EP Jill Farren Phelps chose Jennifer Bransford, while waiting for Laura Wright's GL contract to end). She almost played Phyllis #3 once Michelle Stafford quit, though, once again, EP Jill Farren Phelps chose someone else over her (Gina Tognoni; Laura Leighton was up for the role as well).

The original Silver was a hoot and a half. I can't find the scene on YT, it used to be there, but there's a hysterical scene between Silver and Opal in the Glamorama that had me howling every time I saw it. AMC really did campy comedy so well. And what was so wonderful about the show is that the next scene would be a starkly realistic scene with whatever social issue storyline they were doing at the moment. Yes, the production values never rivaled, say Y&R, but the show was really amazing in its prime. So many different and original character types and types of stories that you wouldn't see on the other shows.

R549 Did any of them give you strange looks? Doubt they had anything to say to you (some of them might've felt how you did about it)

R550 Which Silver? I'm guessing the one who turned out to be a drifter/con-artist that Tad recognized named Connie Wilkes (Becky #1 from Roseanne sort of resembles her to me lol). It seems they were going for an actress who had features similar to Susan's with the other two.

Vee, who’s in the biz, is a moron!

R553 That's the one where rumor had it Lucci was threatened by the actress's talent and scene stealing and, voila, Silver is then not Silver and the real Silver is someone way duller.

ENID NELSON - Homophobic cunt! She got Mr. Delaney fired as a teacher for being gay. She was also was mercilessly cruel to Jenny and an overall stuck up Bitch!

Enid Nelson is pretty much the patron saint of DL eldergays.

Enid is shocked, and maybe a little fascinated, by the presence of prostitute in the Goal Post.

Like I said, DL patron saint.

And Phoebe is the Nellie Prisspot to end all Nellie Prisspots!

R560 She was there with Donna who incidentally was a whore too.

Who would you consider the female star of ATWT post-1985? Martha Byrne or Maura West? Or someone else?

R557 I believe it. This sounds eerily similar to how Sarah Michelle Gellar was fired after winning the Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actress in 1995, only two years after her debut, while Susan had been there for two years with an umpteen amount of nominations. I like Lucci however I could see her not wanting to be outshined by a sister or a daughter. I guess after finally winning her Emmy after nineteen nominations in 1999 and/or the fleeting popularity of soaps it didn't bother her anymore when it came to Erica's family members. Alicia Minshew never matched SMG's popularity and she seemed more shy offscreen when she first started compared to Sarah Michelle who was known for being funny and sarcastic around set, forming close bonds with practically everyone except La Lucci. Even Lucci's real-life daughter Liza Huber seemed to dislike SMG lol

*Susan was there for twenty-five years without an Emmy in 1995 compared to Sarah Michelle's two years and her first Emmy.

I loved con artist Silver (AKA Connie Wilkes), played by Deborah Goodrich. She was a very good actress. I could see Lucci being jealous. LOL

She is at 5:58 Below.

When I was in high school I used to go to a Bold & the Beautiful message board, and an all out war erupted between people who wanted Ridge to end up with Brooke (Brookies), and people who wanted him to end up with Taylor (Taylorettes). I grew to hate Brooke because her supporters were so obnoxious and they never acknowledged the sleazy things she did in the name of chasing a man.

Unfortunately, I was a teenage boy using the Internet, so I wasn't the most tactful when it came to shittalking. After getting suspended several times, I eventually stopped participating in the discussion (and gave up on the show entirely in 2004).

R563 Probably the two you mentioned, in that order, though in the last few years it was probably between Carly and Katie.

The little I have seen of Fake Siver she reminds me a bit of SMG's Kendell in her first year. Kind of a sneaky, fake sweet, a touch mousey, with a bunch of anger simmering underneath. While SMG's Kendell was always great, I did not think she was as interesting post-Richard Fields where her animosity was out in the open and she became more one-note in just wanting revenge against Erica. Her motives were a bit more mixed or uncertain before

I know Lucci gets slammed for her heavy drama scenes, but somewhere in the late 80's and 90's she realized less can be more and started doing some of her dramatic scenes a little more restrained. The scenes where she recounts her rape in the stabbing Dimitri trial, some of her pill addiction work, returning Maria's baby, Bianca's intervention, Bianca's coming out were all more scaled back than that scene with fake Silver and a lot more effective.

R554 - A number of laser-beam looks.

R569 If you think that scene was bad (and it was bad) go back to some of her early work and it will blow you away that the directors allowed that on the air. In those days Soaps were live. Eventually they were pre-recorded with virtually no editing and you can hear actors stumbling over their lines.

So yes, there has been growth in Lucci's performances (a bunch of Emmy losses tends to make you re-evaluate what you are doing) but to be fair everyone's performances got better as there has been a lot of growth in the industry. Soaps were required to up their game in order to remain competitive. Everyone began putting out a much more professional product.

I think part of the issue with Lucci was who was EP at the time. Jackie Babbin's tenure (1982-1986) was mostly very good, but her production tended to be very theatrical and highly stylized. That worked for Lucci in her comedic scenes, but not so much in her dramatic scenes. Subsequent producers (Jorn Winther, Steven Schenkel, FMB) toned things down a bit, which may explain why Lucci's dramatic performances became less over the top and more restrained. EVERYONE was over the top and highly theatrical during Babbin's reign.

R569 IA there were traces of Silver in Kendall, down to their resentment of Erica, inserting themselves in her life and ruining her relationship. They also were both definitely mousy before their true intentions were known. I suppose from Susan's standpoint, they were bringing someone on, a relative of Erica's in both instances, to "best" her, when she was the lead and used to playing the character who would get the best of others. Since Erica was originally written as the antagonist to Tara, same as Rachel to Alice on AW, they're both from an era where things began to change with the antagonist being the star (ushering in similar leads in the form of male counterparts such as Luke on GH, Victor on Y&R, Sonny on GH, etc.) so she wasn't used to being in that position, especially with women younger than her. However, both Silver and Kendall were welcome additions, for as long as they lasted (to her credit, Susan did inform tptb that either SHE goes, or I go, in regards to Sarah Michelle, so it wasn't just her demanding they fire Sarah Michelle flat out after her Emmy win lol)

Susan's melodramatic performances were panned by critics for years. Those are good examples of her giving toned down, "less is more" scenes. One Emmy voter said that one of the main reasons why he could never vote for her is because of her overacting, citing scenes like Mona's funeral where she threw herself on the casket, compared to the scenes where she actually did win, which were from Bianca's anorexia iirc prompting him to actually vote for her, for he said that was the first time he actually saw her give an understated performance.

It's really hard to believe that things were so bad for Lucci re SMG that she gave the producers an ultimatum. SMG is still BFFs with Kelly Ripa and Eva LaRue. Lucci is also still very friendly with LaRue and Ripa. Too many mutual BFFs were things to have been THAT bad between Lucci and SMG.

Lucci hated her!

R574, I wonder if it is one of those situations where Kelly and Eva remained friends with SMG because they genuinely liked her, yet also remained friends with Susan for political reasons or because they didn't want to hurt her feelings by making it look like they sided with SMG.

Lucci was very one dimensional early on. What you see in the Riunite commercial she did in the 70s was what you got. She had the same sort of weird thing that Brenda Dickson would later have - even though they were not great actresses, they had a certain something about them.

The riunite commercial was all over the place. But I did love her in the Progressive commercial where she played herself. LOL

Dumb Dylan is scooping everyone at SON for March Sweeps! Did Vee, who’s in the biz, sign off on this between scrubbing toilets?!?

No one can spoof herself like Susan Lucci. She was great in Hot in Cleaveland playing "Susan Lucci". Too bad the Progressive commercials went back to over-using Jamie...

R574 SMH that you think I'm lying about the situation with SMG; it's not that serious lol. Since they're both close with Eva La Rue and Kelly Ripa, that doesn't necessarily mean that they would be close with each other. Susan and Sarah Michelle would be practically BFF's as well, or at least cordial, if there wasn't an issue. She's also pretty close with Eden Riegel and Alicia Minshew, so it's not that she can't get along with her former costars, she just won't with Sarah Michelle.

R575 & R576 would be my defense lawyers if I were ever on trial lol thank you for providing evidence and counter arguments. I didn't know that Sarah Michelle actually told that to Kathy Griffin; that's exactly how I remember hearing about it, except I wasn't aware that Susan got her fired before the Emmy Awards were even over. Wow. That was really coldblooded lol however SMG did have quite the career with her films and Buffy; I just wonder what happened for her career was really taking off and then all of a sudden (especially after Buffy) she was barely in anything anymore.

I can definitely see their friendship with her being more political than with Sarah Michelle. I remember how Sarah Michelle would actually have girls nights out with them. Same goes for Rebecca, Alicia, and Eden Riegel; Susan is "close" with all of them too however she wasn't at any of Rebecca and Alicia's sleepovers lol. I can't even see Susan being with them comfortably in either of those scenarios lol

R500 = Sharon Case

r583 Sharon, aren't you having a lot more fun with Mark Grossman?

“St. Maria of Wildwind, tending to the sick in her push-up bra.” LOL!

I am, R584! We love donating to Trump together!

Susan’s daughter Liza Huber was HORRIBLE as Gwen on Passions and looked nothing like Susan

I read that headwriter and creator of Passions the late James Reilly, also DAYS headwriter in the mid 90s, pushed for Liza to be cast because he was a big AMC and Erica fan, I think his first soap job was as a scriptwriter on AMC in the early 80s, and knew it would get media attention

Liza’s two Passions co stars, Galen Gehrig and Eric Martsoff have been regulars s on DAYS for years now, DAYS needs to bring on her Mom from Passions, Andrea Evans (also Tina from OLTL), DAYS like Passions has that cartoonish camp that Andrea can act so well with, it’s her strength, plus with Ron Carlivati (James Reilly 2.0) headwriting DAYS, It’s a match made in heaven

I know Carlivati botched Tina’s return on OLTL in 2008 but we can forgive him

Mark Grossman and Trump, r586? Receipts.

Dumb Dylan at SON thinks Richard Burgi got “Gina Tognoni-ed.” Does the idiot even know what that means? Learn how to spell moron!

R585 There is a lifetime of overacting going in that one 5 minute video alone. And this was during her "less is more" period? The horrified expressions of her co-stars seem to be genuine reactions to me. May God save the Queen.

What happened to Gina Tongoni R589?

Andrea Evans should play a recast Kim Brady on DAYS. She can split into Kim’s multiple personalities as an homage to Viki Lord.

R592 yeah and Charles Shaugnessy (I know he’s playing Victor Cassadine on General Hospital now) should comeback as Shane Donovan and then bring Kassie DePaiva (she was also Blair on OLTL) as Shane’s daughter and Kim’s stepdaughter, Eve

It would be hilarious because Blair from OLTL is now the stepdaughter of Tina from OLTL on DAYS

We don't CARE what Dylan thinks, you fetid mound of shit.

Dumb Dylan is clueless. He’s so fucken dumb. I wish someone would Gina Tognoni-ed him.

R593 Yeah I saw "Shane Donovan" on General Hospital the other day trying to be a creepy guy. I don't like it.

Recast Gwen, Natalie Zea, said Liza was absolutely miserable on the show.

[quote]Recast Gwen, Natalie Zea, said Liza was absolutely miserable on the show.

I wonder why she returned. Passions could have been a good guilty pleasure if they would have had advanced at least one storyline during its run. It also might have been better as a 30 minute show.

Erica's drug-addled speech at R585 was really well written. It was also a very Erica way to overdose. The show was still pretty good then, but in retrospect it would start declining shortly after this. A number of storylines were reaching their climax, Erica's drugs, Tad/Liza/Dixie, Michaels coming out etc. and the next round was either not memorable or unpopular (Dimitri sleeping with Maria). The Kevin - Kelsey relationship was one of the highlights that I remember. Too bad they would be gone soon.

Dimitri sleeping with Maria was lazy storytelling. I remember the uproar at the time, with EP Francesca James defending the storyline by saying they needed conflict with those characters and that was the only thing they could come up with. I was in I think the AOL chat rooms at the time, and people were going insane with their anger over that storyline.

Why don't you guys start a Pine Valley thread when this one ends?

Erica kidnapping Maria and Edmund's baby Maddie was a very unpopular storyline, primarily because viewers didn't think that Erica would be capable of kidnapping a baby, along with Maria cheating on Edmund with Dimitri. I actually liked it, and it was very soapy (Erica and Maria were both pregnant, Erica miscarried her baby with Dimitri, she then learned that Maria had a one night stand with Dimitri, Maria was unsure of Edmund or Dimitri being the father, Skye slept with the lab tech in return for him switching the paternity results because she wanted Edmund, Erica vowed that they'd all pay, somehow Erica and Maria ended up stranded together, Maria gave birth, Erica promised to get Maria's baby to safety, she then told everyone that Maria's baby died while pretending to have adopted the baby from Russia, naming her Sonya Kane). Erica went to jail for her crime, which was shown on-screen. Maybe if the show would've delved into Erica's stress over losing her baby (at her and Dimitri's wedding ceremony) combined with finding out her husband slept with his sister-in-law and fathered a baby with her, those could've helped viewers see that she temporarily snapped.

Erica kidnapping Maria and Edmund's baby Maddie was a very unpopular storyline, primarily because viewers didn't think that Erica would be capable of kidnapping a baby, along with Maria cheating on Edmund with Dimitri. I actually liked it, and it was very soapy (Erica and Maria were both pregnant, Erica miscarried her baby with Dimitri, she then learned that Maria had a one night stand with Dimitri, Maria was unsure of Edmund or Dimitri being the father, Skye slept with the lab tech in return for him switching the paternity results because she wanted Edmund, Erica vowed that they'd all pay, somehow Erica and Maria ended up stranded together, Maria gave birth, Erica promised to get Maria's baby to safety, she then told everyone that Maria's baby died while pretending to have adopted the baby from Russia, naming her Sonya Kane). Erica went to jail for her crime, which was shown on-screen. Maybe if the show would've delved into Erica's stress over losing her baby (at her and Dimitri's wedding ceremony) combined with finding out her husband slept with his sister-in-law and fathered a baby with her, those could've helped viewers see that she temporarily snapped.

Erica kidnapping Maria and Edmund's baby Maddie was a very unpopular storyline, primarily because viewers didn't think that Erica would be capable of kidnapping a baby, along with Maria cheating on Edmund with Dimitri. I actually liked it, and it was very soapy (Erica and Maria were both pregnant, Erica miscarried her baby with Dimitri, she then learned that Maria had a one night stand with Dimitri, Maria was unsure of Edmund or Dimitri being the father, Skye slept with the lab tech in return for him switching the paternity results because she wanted Edmund, Erica vowed that they'd all pay, somehow Erica and Maria ended up stranded together, Maria gave birth, Erica promised to get Maria's baby to safety, she then told everyone that Maria's baby died while pretending to have adopted the baby from Russia, naming her Sonya Kane). Erica went to jail for her crime, which was shown on-screen. Maybe if the show would've delved into Erica's stress over losing her baby (at her and Dimitri's wedding ceremony) combined with finding out her husband slept with his sister-in-law and fathered a baby with her, those could've helped viewers see that she temporarily snapped.

R599 She actually said that was the best they could come up with? Lolololol

R600 That's a good idea.

I did not mean to post that three times lol