I died of boredom in Genoa City, part III

Previous thread

dang it, I should have used this one

Doesn't Jabottom need an assistant at Jabot?

......

Carmine's been at the TOP of my list for who should return for quite some time.

And now that we know FenMo is gay, I'm sure Carmine could manipulate the lad into doing ANYTHING.

Marco for Rufskin.

Wow... He's incredibly sexy. Gorgeous. I don't who is but he's perfect.

I can't stand the creative decisions Steve Kent has signed off on, but I'll say one thing about the man -- he's loyal to his friends.

He and JG are a Y&R super couple extraordinaire!

Hubba hubba zing zing, baby, he's got everything.

.......

Didn’t Chrissy LeBlanc become besties with Mr. Dapper? Lucky Chrissy.

Yes please to Marco. Anytime .

Loved him in Eating Out 2.

I miss seeing Brendad every time these threads pop up.

Scoche Marin attended Y&R’s 50th anniversary party in style. We are so lucky to have her on the show as the definitive Katherine Chancellor!

Brendad has the nice fake choppers that make her sound drunk on Gelson’s potato salad.

Marco Dapper says he's not gay. Was he just saying so at the time? Who Marco Dapper is fucking is really about the only interesting thing left about Y&R, unless Brendad goes postal or runs for office.

When is Kay Heberle's return airdate? The show needs more lezzies.

R13 I figured we had to switch it out a bit - but Brendad is always with us LOL

When does DD return for Nikki's big bicentennial? Is all forgiven?

Fat pig twitter queen CaseySHutch is writing Y&R’s 50th anniversary episodes. Said no one ever. lololololololol

I thought Lucy was hanging around for a while... guess not

Why did we need the Heather and Lucy scenes?

Regarding this whole breakdown writers being fired controversy, here's my two unasked for cents. For ages the headwriter wrote the long story and the outlines - and this includes even after the shows went to an hour . Writing staffs didn't balloon out to 14/15 people until much later.

People are acting like this is something new in daytime. I am sorry that those people lost their jobs. The entire situation was unfortunate. I understand the nature of soap writing has changed quite a bit in the last 25 years, but Josh Griffith doing it all is not new and may bring the show a new kind of cohesiveness when it's just one voice for the story. Just give it a chance. If it doesn't work then they can hire breakdown writers again or let the script writers do the breakdowns and the scripts.

I think the bigger story here is just how broke is Y&R? You can see it in the sets, but now you have to wonder what other cost-cutting measures are taking place over there. Losing breakdown writers may be the least of the show's problems.

Writing staffs haven't been 14/15 people for years.

Yes, one person could write five 36 minute episodes a week. But it will burn them out. And by having JG do that, long term planning is all but out the window.

R23 Former Y&R writer Sally Sussman (Tony Morina's wife) did a podcast recently where she mentioned the situation with the sets and apparently said the show is so broke that they have no money for new sets, no money to even change or move sets, indicating how difficult this has become for the writers to juggle and write scenes for characters in the same sets all the time. I did not actually listen to this podcast myself (one has to sign up for an account) so this is a paraphrase.

So she basically has confirmed what we've all noticed for a long long time now.

Y'all laughed at Peapack but that should have been the way to go long ago. A few permanent sets and then the rest shifting outdoor locales.

[quote] Yes, one person could write five 36 minute episodes a week. But it will burn them out.

Bell once said that when the show was a half-hour and he and Alden were writing five, 23-minute episodes a week, he thought she was going to have a nervous breakdown when they were forced to take the show to an hour.

R27 And those days were much longer episodes. 23 for half hour and 47 or 48 for hour shows. Now I think most network soaps are around 35 to 36 minutes.

Sad to know Y&R is so broke. All the shows have an expiration date on them, sadly, and I'm not very sad about it any more. They're all just limping to the finish line.

[quote]Yes, one person could write five 36 minute episodes a week. But it will burn them out.

There are many types of breakdowns. One type is very detailed with scene by scene descriptions and some dialogue. Others, can be as barebones as possible and it's up to the script writer to fill it all in.

Quite frankly, I think Josh Griffith is already burned out. But, my guess is, he's taken this on to save money here, so that a cut doesn't have to be made somewhere else.

[quote]Y'all laughed at Peapack but that should have been the way to go long ago. A few permanent sets and then the rest shifting outdoor locales.

Peapack was probably 10 years too early.

[quote] Peapack was probably 10 years too early.

Yes, very much so.

It also wasn't perfect/executed that well, but the core idea was a wise one. However, the industry was reluctant to change. It also refused taking the shows back to 30 minutes, which would have possibly lengthened their lifespans eons ago.

I miss the days when they had tons of money for their floral arrangements…I knew they were in trouble when the bar at Society was stocking obviously plastic lime slices for the drink garnishes.

R26 I didn't laugh at Peapack, mainly because I watch British soaps and see how that kind of model can work.

The problems with Peapack, though, were that:

1) These people obviously had a big learning curve to go through when it came to the shooting outdoors, and they took viewers along with them on this learning experience. Yes, the outdoor scenes did improve over time, but some of the scenes in the beginning were downright laughable.

2) For the most part, the permanent sets used in the Peapack experiment sucked.

The British soaps have a dedicated backlot to shoot their outdoor scenes in. These backlots are taken care of and allow for changes just like any other set.

Unless they were to move Genoa City, this model would probably be impossible for Y&R, because Los Angeles doesn't look anything like Wisconsin. Although, I suppose Sony could move the show to Vancouver..lol.

The biggest issue for me with Peapack was that they didn't even try to recreate or match what we had been used to seeing when it was shot in studio. Did anyone buy that Peapack Spaulding "mansion" as THE Spaulding mansion? All they had to do was say that the Spaulding mansion burned in a fire and they moved to 4 bedroom Tudor in a gated community. But they tried to sell it as the same house.

R32 The killer beyond your two valid points was

3) The transition to Peapack happened at the same time as the 2008 writers' strike, so just when they had a bunch of eyes on the show checking out the new model, they had....absofuckinglutely nothing happening storywise.

It’ll be all Sally and Chelsea five days a week now.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were massive cuts from the cast.

All of these “big” returns will be interesting to see with only three sets.

They probably just want to make it to 50 years and then bow out.

When was the last time the show was consistently good or had a storyline you were invested in? I’m interested in hearing.

When is Kim Zimmer joining as nuCasey Reed?

When Gina Tognoni was Phyllis.

But really the last time the show was watchable was the first six months of the MAB era.

MAB was great until about 2011, even though there had been misfires like Sarah Smythe and back from the dead Phillip. JFP was alright in fall 2013 with Delia’s death and fall 2014 with the gothic undertones of Adam’s return and Phyllis waking up from her coma. Sally Sussman restored the feel of the major characters, but it was boring and the budget + network interference didn’t allow her to do what she wanted.

Sussman has never had a successful stint as a soap headwriter. She’s way over rated. Bill Bell carried her and when she was left on her own at generations, days and Y&r, she failed everytime.

If Y&R is so broke, maybe it's time for Hans and Mel to take another pay cut.

Cull the cast, cut the show to 30 minutes, sell it as a one hour block with B&B and move on. This show shouldn't be broke.

That's a good point. Y&R has a lot of pricey veterans on the payroll. I wonder if they'll take a hit. My strong guess is that when CBS renewed the show for 3 years, that the licensing fee was cut and then they had to meet certain ratings marks for it not to be cut in each successive year of the contract.

Y&R and B&B should just merge

I think it would be funny if they invited some of the old recasts to take part in the bicentennial. Eileen Davidson's Ashley walks up to Brenda Epperson and Shari Shattuck who are in the crowd and the three interact in a short comedy bit. They could do something similar with Deborah Adair and Brendad with Jess Walton. It would be great, so it probably won't happen.

Those are the kind of wink wink antics that Ron Carlivati writes, which are always fun.

[quote]I think it would be funny if they invited some of the old recasts to take part in the bicentennial.

A fifty-year anniversary is called a semicentennial. A bicentennial (as many will remember) is 200 years.

Why the hell won’t Hans just retire? He’s what - 82 or so? It’s way past time. And Mel can collect social security and be on Medicare. And Mel’s husband is no spring chicken. Isn’t he pushing 80? What the fuck is it with these attention whores refusing to step aside when its time?

Seeing as though they're looking for spare change in the couches to keep the show going I doubt they'll bring anyone else back.

Some of the "big" returns were probably favors to someone at the network or to the Bells. Again I draw the parallels to end stage Guiding Light, where I'm sure some of those returns (Lisa Brown, Mo Garrett) were done for free or for scale out of love for the show.

No one wants to watch Hans sitting in a chair reading his lines (badly) from his phone or a teleprompter. Even fewer people are interested in watching Mel waddle around doing nothing. They could easily trim half the cast and no one would notice, or care. For some reason the writers have decided that it's business-centered stories that people want, but they are all just dull dull dull.

At least bigwigs like Victor/Nikki, Jack et al are on screen and their children are as well involved in major storylines... compare that with a show like DOOL... How long did Kim/Shane, Jack/Jennifer, Bo/Hope drive story yet their children are nowhere to be found .. they should be driving story. We do have John and Marlena yet their children are barely on

Don't they still put Hans front and center of whatever soap rags are left, meaning their focus groups probably love him? What I don't understand is how these shows can survive with a .3 or .4 demo rating. 90%+ of their viewers are over 65, How low do they have to hit before they call it a day and die with just a tad of dignity left?

More Fen!

Audience research continues to show that Y&R viewers want more JaBottom on their screen.

I thought maybe Y&R would cross Sheila over from B&B for a couple episodes for the 50th. That one would be easy, probably wouldn't cost a lot since KB is on contract with B&B, but it doesn't appear to be happening.

Most Y&R viewers are pudding dribblers and the caregivers that steal their valuables. They want peace.

[quote] A fifty-year anniversary is called a semicentennial. A bicentennial (as many will remember) is 200 years.

R48 The "bicentennial" talk relates to the fictional Genoa City party that Miss Piggy is planning, not Y&R's real-life 50th Anniversary.

And as mentioned in the last thread, Griffith can't even get that right, since we previously heard that Genoa City was founded AFTER the Civil War -- not in 1823 -- when Phillip2's grandfather, Garfield Dandridge Chancellor, settled in area and founded the city, built the mill, and several buildings, including the architecturally-significant Rainbow Gardens, the heart of Genoa City's premiere gayborhood.

Ohhhhh...thanks, r58. I must have missed that episode.

- r48

[quote] Bo/Hope drive story yet their children are nowhere to be found

AARP members Bo and Hope are set to return any day now. DAYS has been promoting that return since the second "Beyond Salem" mini-series last year. And up until recently, their daughter, Ciara, drove storyline for something like five years (2017-2022). She was part of the so-called CIN supercouple (Ciara and Ben). That only ended, because the actress playing Ciara wanted to 'move on,' and they apparently didn't feel they could recast, so they gave the couple a sunset ending. Believe me, if it was up to them, they would have kept Ciara going. .. Bope's son, "Shawn Douglas," has been on contract for awhile now as well. In 2022, he averaged about five episodes a month.

[quote] We do have John and Marlena yet their children are barely on

The actors playing Eric Brady, Brady Black, and Belle Black, are all on contract. In fact, Marlena's son, Eric Brady, has occasionally been the top-played character during some months (e.g. in January 2023, he garnered 12 episodes). .. MAGA Sami isn't played, because the actress has better things to do (like fund government insurrection), and again, they feel they can't recast her. .. They opted to feature John's gay son, Paul, in every episode of last year's Beyond Salem 2 mini-series where his new boyfriend was Shane and Kim's son, Andrew Donovan.

I miss the days when Bill Bell would spend the first five minutes of an episode showing things like Ma Foster dusting her living room.

Then, someone would ring the doorbell -- or maybe knock, if the doorbell was broken, because the Fosters were so poor they couldn't get the doorbell repaired.

And because there were no spoilers, there would be great anticipation to find out who was on the other side of the door.

Gee, I hope it's not a bill collector! After all, Ma spent quite a bit of time yesterday telling Greg about the unpaid gas and electric bills.

Greg promised they'd get paid somehow.

Not sure how poor law student, Greg, is planning to accomplish that, though, unless he's going to ask Gwen Sherman if she knows any johns who are into guys and willing to pay $20 for a blow job.

I think Sheila is dead in Genoa City, isn't she?

R62 Yes, she is.

And when Bradley Bell brought Sheila back to B&B, he said in his interview that he's not covering ANY of the bull crap that various Y&R regimes did with the character (from about 2005 forward), implying that it would be up to Y&R to undo, redo, or explain how and why Sheila might still be be alive in the Y&R universe. IOW, Bell isn't touching anything related to SheJenBrenDarthVader, ShePhyllis, or Sister Sarah Smythe and the Carter-Fisher twins.

During the special Lauren episode last month, Griffith DID have Lauren cover Sheila's death, and then she added:

[quote] She showed up again and again, and she tried to destroy me. And, you know, even now, when I’ve been assured that she’s dead, I don’t really believe it. But if that bitch decides to resurrect, and she comes near me or anyone that I love, she will wish she had stayed dead.

So I suppose one could interpret this that a crack in the door has been opened, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Griffith has never done Sheila, and he doesn't seem very interested in Baldwin-Fishers. It could have simply been an acknowledgment to viewers who still watch both shows that Sheila's alive 'over there.'

Can someone please post the link to the Sally Sussman Morina podcast mentioned upthread. Thanks!

Even if the show asked her back (they won't), can you imagine the demands Brendad would make even for a bit part?

The show could save money by getting rid of unnecessary characters, like Mariah, Tessa, Elena, Nick, and Victor. It seems like it would make sense to make the show 30 minutes, reset it, and try to sell to international markets. I wonder if the plan is to hire new breakdown writers at a much lower pay rate. Perhaps hire two instead of five. It would be easier to sympathize with the breakdown writers who lost their jobs if they were writing good stories. The show is so redundant. Sally and Adam should be a young, fun modern couple who causes trouble for everyone. The "who's the daddy" has been done so many times before. Maybe they should get college writing interns to write for the show. It couldn't be any worse than what we're seeing now.

Imagine Brenda, who hasn't been in the Y&R studio since 1987, trying to adapt to a modern-day, cheaply-produced, no rehearsals necessary Y&R. I imagine that would be jarring to any actor.

R64 Here ya go:

The last time I really enjoyed a Y&R story was the Ashland Locke storyline (before they recast Robert Newman into the Ashland role). The Amanda/Sutton Ames story had potential but turned out to be a real dud. I did like the two actresses that played Naya and Imani.

Thanks r68.

While there have been storylines that I have enjoyed here and there, I think the last two times I thoroughly enjoyed the entire show:

1. For the first six months when JFP came aboard in 2012 and reinvigorated the show with fresh energy and fresh ideas. I especially liked the teen storyline with Summer bullying Jamie (a daring story).

2. For the first year of Maria Arena Bell's reign as HW in 2007-2008. Show felt back on track after 6-7 years of being off course. Felt like the show that Bill Bell created and wrote for all those years. And more importantly, Maria cleaned up the mess that Lynn Marie Latham had created in her two years as HW.

What happened with Maria Arena Bell? I forget. Why was she ousted?

The last time I enjoyed the show was when Michael Muhney was playing Adam - his take on the role, the blindness, his tryst with Rafe…. Good stuff.

R71 I agree about the Jamie, Summer, Fen arc. And that was a Josh Griffith story! But while I liked that, not much else registered for me, especially JFP shoehorning her boy Steve Burton into the canvas. I remember how funny it was that they were paying Burton and arm and a leg (and travel expenses), but the majority of viewers were hoping for a story involving his recurring, talk-to buddy, Stitch (Sean Carrigan).

Similarly, I also liked early MAB. As you imply it was actually entertaining seeing her undo Latham's messes, one after another. .. But something changed. Perhaps they shouldn't have subsequently installed her as total showrunner by appointing her sole EP (when Rauch exited). .. I will say, though, that around the time she got the boot, I was looking forward to her story that Noah would come out gay. It just seemed 'right' for the character.

The Chat has the most annoying hosts in all of podcasting. I had to turn it off. They all suck and you cannot understand a word Alan says.

Go ahead and flame me, but I think Steve Burton got a raw deal on Y&R. Even though his character was sort of a retcon, the character had viability and could have been interesting. The role could not overcome Steve Burton and it's a shame. Not that Steve Burton is a spring chicken, but the show can't keep revolving around the trials and tribulations of 70 year olds forever. Days sort of falls into that trap as well, but at least Days is interesting.

The problem with Y&R is that CBS thought it was old fashioned and tried to make it not old fashioned and the fans complained. Now they're trying to put Victoria with Nate and those racist Y&R fans have started their mess again.

MAB started well but then went way off the rails

R73. someone really savvy in soaps said that it's easy for anyone to come in and clean up the messes left by a previous regime.

You come in with an objective eye, you've read what the fans say, and you clean up the mess.

But what about in six months when you can't throw the past regime under the bus anymore?

Eventually, people have to stand on their own. Bell's stories on paper were solid but she either rushed through them or made mistakes in casting; I hear Goddard wasn't right for the show and other shit but how the hell did he last for a decade?

Bell brought Thom Bierdz back and here's why I faked my death and went to live the gay life in Australia didn't play. We saw Phillip flatline onscreen. Cricket, Jill, Kay, were all there by his bedside and he died.

The show could have done a thing where he was in bandages and later revealed his sort a look alike AA sponsor Tony (can't think of the actor's name) died in the crash but Bell had a plan -- Jill v. Nina for custody of little Phillip just as Kay had tried to take Phillip from Jill and just as Jill tried to take Phillip II from Kay.

Bierdz came back with that perpetual nasal tone (this isn't an insult, it's just a fact) and he was never a great actor; it's why Bill cut his losses and killed him off.

Plus, on-screen, Phillip walked away from Cricket b/c neither of them had fathers and they weren't going to let that happen to little Phillip; PLUS, when Nina went to jail for shooting David Kimball, you'd think Phillip would have come back to protect his son.

Maria rushed through storylines and maybe this was CBS but Maura was Diane was a disaster; West was on the show less than a year and I think Diane slept with Nick, Tucker, AND Victor; maybe Jack too?

West isn't working; fine. Don't kill the character in case you get Susan Walters back; the more reality based Y&R had to jump through hoops to make us believe Diane faked her death. Cripes, that stunt woman with hose huge thunder thighs and the blond wig? Maura should have sued.

Bill Bell had a team in place after he stepped down and 'Hello, Barbara' came on board and insisted on getting rid of all of them and bringing on Latham WHO NEVER STAYS ANYWHERE VERY LONG. She burned through story, make it plot driven; recast past faves with actresses she'd worked with before to play Hope and April.

I could go on. But...this genre is dead; GH and occasionally B&B deliver; I am looking forward to Bo and Hope on DAYS.

R72 Basically Steve Kent and Maria were at loggerheads over her other "job" at MOCA, which was causing friction. As I recall, he took the opportunity to can her after she didn't respond to a phone call. Something like that.

Wilma Jeanne talked about the situation in a 2012 interview with Michael Fairman a couple months after it happened. Jeannie got phone calls from both Maria and Steve after it happened,

That part of the Q&A starts around the 18:08 mark of the video:

R78, I heard it was Maria had to turn around notes or something by 5 pm on a Friday; she didn't allegedly and they canned her on a contractual technicality.

The PROBLEM was that Kent sold a bill of goods -- Jill/Josh -- to CBS presenting them as the saviors of the show. Angie didn't know enough to know how horrible they are and signed off them.

Since then, it's been one disastrous regime after the other.

Sally Sussman wasn't a bad idea per se, but she needed to be a consulting writer or in some way add color to the show....not be the one driving story.

It isn't the 80s any more and she wasn't that great as HW of her own show....but they could have set up specific episodes once a month or something.

R79 Thank's for expanding on the technicality. I remembered it was something like that.

I thought Sharon is Bipolar and the Lauren/Carmine stories were at least fun if not classic drama - those two are the most recent stories I can remember that were watchable and entertaining. Dina's dementia and the JT murder were okay.

MAB's best story was one of her first when she brought back Marge and had her switch with Katherine again. Great story that showed an appreciation for the show's history rather than dump all over it. But she killed off too many important characters and started doing stunts that she had criticized LML for doing. The Sarah Smythe having platic surgery to look just like Lauren was an embarrassing copy of LML's own embarrasing story from some years earlier when Sheila got plastic surgery to look just like Phyllis.

LML when she was still paired with an old Y&R hand like Alden and/or Jerry Smith wasn't awful. Her version was like a cheap, basic cable drama but it was certainly more watchable than the Y&R of the past 8 years, which just seems to be stories that go nowhere and everything just seems like filler. Most hated it when they killled off John Abott but I thought it played out well and there was actual follow through unlike all the deaths during the MAB period which never led to anything. Plus, I loved Judi Chapman's Gloria and the introduction of her (starting with Joan Van Ark) and earlier Kevin was truly one of the last great Y&R stories - but I know that is a very controversial opinion.

I liked LML. She had the characters talk like actual human beings. A sense of humor made an appearance in each episode, something that had been verboten since 1973. I'm glad they never went back to Bellspeak. I could not watch that show.

Plus the Jewish characters: Brad and Cowbell. It was delightful. And Gloria and Kevin, two of my favorite soap characters of all time.

Dumb to kill off John Abbott though.

MAB was running two doppelganger stories at the same time. Sarah Smythe/Lauren and Patti and her therapist. Those stories were stupid. In addition to plastic surgery, they must have had vocal cord transplants, because by God, they always had the same voice.

MAB did like to feature a shirtless Billy Miller regularly. She deserves props for that.

Which regime did the Hans/Mel open marriage? That was one of the stupidest storylines in the history of the show.

MAB had autonomy. She was the last Y&R writer to have that.

R86 Mal Young did that.

Even Josh Morrow couldn't keep it together.

The JT murder story was dumb.

First of all, it was out of character for JT to start beating up the women in his life.

Second, the four guilty women -- Phyllis, Sharon, Nikki, Victoria -- all kept talking and talking about what they'd done IN PUBLIC AT CRIMSON LIGHTS.

In fairness, the women on BIG LITTLE LIES (I think Mal ripped off that story for Y&R) did something similar.

Mal had Nick become head of Dark Horse; they build a new set and get him clean shaven and then boom, it's dropped and Nick's not in the business world anymore.

More recently, we had the debacles known as Ashland Locke I have cancer no wait I don't why did I come to Genoa City who knows who cares I'm dead....and Theo Vanderway. Let's make tie him to the Brooks and the Abbotts (actually, Dina...what was her maiden name?) and then once that's established, let's not bring on Lorie or Leslie to have them fill him in on their family but rather let's just get rid of him.

Maybe the kid couldn't memorize lines on time or there was some other reason but maybe figure out they didn't want him before they do backflips to tie him to core clans.

That stupid music or jewelry box that Jill had to honor Kay...Cane going to off to find his dad...but Devon has his money back so why is he away? Aging Charlie and Mattie and NOT using them. DID Cane sleep with Juliet? Who has custody of little Sam?

That Dina and Stuart were high school lovers who produced a son was the WORST retcon ever on the show. Stuart was in his late 40's when the show began in 1973. He was a decade older than poor Dina. Just stupid and lazy. Tarnishing the original patriarch years after firing the actor, and killing him off-screen with some aside from Liz, was bad enough.

I thought this is all happened in high school and that the Dina/Stuart Brooks son happened well before Stuart met Jennifer and Dina met John.

Stuart should have been 10 yrs older than Dina.

I heard Dina did the lez lez with Old Lady Chancellor.

how old was Jack when he came to town?

Kay loved snatch just as much as she loved dick.

I assume Jack was either 15 or 16 when Dina left. Not sure how that timeline squares up with the Vietnam storyline. Jack and Jill are the same age, so my guess is Jack was 26-28 when he showed up in town.

Can as many shirtless Marco Dapper photos as possible please be posted ?

It's impossible to create a precise timeline of backstory. For starters, character history before the show began, often hazy to begin with, is altered on the regular to fit a current storyline. Plus, the constant SORASing of characters makes it damn near impossible.

They should bring back Latina Leslie Brooks to add some spice to this boring show.

I don't mind a retcon or stretching what has already been shown IF the story is good and expands what was done before in some way.

The gold standard for this would be One Life to Live, when the incident that triggered Viki's alters changed from "seeing daddy in bed with another woman" to sexual abuse. There were things about that story over the years that were ignored or changed, but it was very compelling.

The Theo thing made no sense. One of the poorest stories to be told on any soap in ages, and a waste of so much time getting to the Theo reveal.

Dina's leaving and filling in some of those blanks, explained a lot. Why Jack was a womanizer and Tracey ate her feelings. I'm not sure what it explained about Ashley, but I remember Ashley hating her mother more than the rest of them. And she was even on Jill's side when Dina came back in the 80s.

The worst retcon in the history of Y&R is of course the Jill and Katherine mother/daughter story. That was horrible rewrite that fucked up one of these things about the show. Then they retconned the retcon and still made it even more horrible.

R77 - you reference “Hello, Barbara” — wasn’t that Douglas Marland?

R101 - If I remember correctly Ashley’s hatred of Dina was exacerbated by the fact that they were in competition for Eric, etc. I always thought back then that Dina was jealous of Ashley’s youth, beauty, intelligence, and intense love for John.

R103 I think R77 was talking about Barbara Bloom but making a joke, and yes, Hello Barbara was ATWT and Marland.

R102 I know I'm in the minority, but I thought the Jill/Katherine mother-daughter story was one of the most compelling storylines in the show's history. The buildup, the drama, the big reveal, Kay's stroke... it was great soap opera!

R103 here, thanks R104 — that makes a lot is sense, duh!

R104 is correct; I'm stealing it from an old post; whereas James Stenbeck's 'Hello, Barbara' brought lots of great stories and twists to ATWT, the arrival of the other Babs...well, that didn't work out so much. Bill's team was gutted; folks who didn't know the show came on and infected it.

ATWT turned into Port Charles given the number of actors that came over to that show either in long term or short term roles -- Herring, Lindstrom, Shriner, Pinson, Wilson, Damon -- I'm sure I'm forgetting someone else. Then, Gaskill became Dylan on GL.

ATWT becomes unrecognizable. GL turns into a mess; they kill Phillip off, which was dumb. I would have made Grant a producer from the smart things I hear him say on the Locher room and in interviews.

William Grey Espy was sex on a stick. When he was on AW, it was beyond realistic that Vicky Wyndham's Rachel would choose femme prissy, homely, unathletic closet case Mac over Mitch.

In hindsight, Bill Bell really never developed a promising, reliable backup beyond Kay Alden, and she was not much younger than him, and did not have the appetite to fight the networks.

And CBS soaps have been a mess for some time - the P&G soaps fell apart in 2004 when Mickey Dwyer Dobbin left. As hideous as she was, she was a retaining wall between those shows and the network, and after she was gone, the two very compliant former actors turned producers (Ellen Wheeler and Chris Goutman) had few defenses against the network.

Y&R was a turbulent mess from 2006 forward and has been a boring, tedious mess since Mal Young left. And Brad Bell has almost never strayed from the same three stories his pops outlined for him 30 years ago.

Grant Aleksander would have made a great producer or leader, but he was anything but compliant. Which is probably why he was never elevated to that role despite his directing experience.

Grant a producer??? lolololololol He would have been worse than Wheeler. What are you people smoking?

....

Grant said he was working with Rauch at the time of his death on trying to revive GL. I'm sure Grant would've been a pivotal behind the scenes player (EP?) if that had come to fruition. How many successful actor turned producers/writers have there been? Goutman, Wheeler, Gary Tomlin, Francesca James, Pam Long?

In terms of Bell's chosen successors, everything seemed to be going along fine until EP Ed Scott and HW Kay Alden had their ridiculous (public) dust-up in 2001 over the "Sean Brdiges" character (Christopher Douglas vs. David Lee Russek).

Of course, "seemed" may be the operative word, and there could have been other differences brewing under the surface. But this one came off like they were having some kind of pissing contest over who had final say in casting. Also, the affair comes off rather eye-rolling in retrospect, since the "Sean" character is like a forgotten blip within the entirety of the show.

Ed ended up leaving, replaced by David Shaunghnessy (more of a director than a producer), and Alden soon lost her autonomy and was sharing HW duties with Trent Jones and John F. Smith.

Ed Scott is the reason why Melody became such a raging bitch on that set. Every soap has one, yes.... but Melody was a special kind of over the top. Jeanne Cooper only scratched the surface in her book.

R114 I'm the raging bitch on the Y&R set.

Kay Alden was young enough to be Bill Bell's daughter. He hired her straight out of college.

Dod sume1 said bilch?

[quote]Ed Scott is the reason why Melody became such a raging bitch on that set. Every soap has one, yes....

The behind the scenes nepotism was out of control on Y&R.No other show could have gotten away with so much behind the scenes incestuousness:

Show star married to show EP.

Ingenue star daughter of show HW.

Recurring supporting character daughter of a show script writer.

Teenage child of show breakdown writer used as background player several summers.

What else should be on this list?

Rumor has it Joshua Morrow and Mark Grossman were caught barebacking in the latter's dressing room.

Kay Alden met Bell when she was researching her disseration on soap oepras. She was a true fan and scholar of the genre which made her a good Soap writer.

That she remained in Chicago while HW of Y&R did not aid her when she was battling Ed Scott. Plus, Bell would never have let her get pushed out or around but by that time he was mentally gone.

r199

if only

You know who we haven't heard from in a while? That troll who tells us about Jeanne Cooper clogging up the toilets with her massive turds.

The only toilet issue at Y&R is after Mel consumes her daily jar of Best Mayonnaise.

R123 And that time Crissy tried to flush his butt plug.

At ATWT, Eileen always had the runs after lunch. At 1pm everyday, you knew that she would evacuate her insides. Colleen had the liquor shits all morning.

I’ve done my time! Can I have my Y&R role back? Can someone pick me up for work?

Traci can evacuate a room after she spends time at the craft services table.

I heard the mics pick up Traci's system as she digests.

It is untrue Traci can distend her jaw.

Jeanne Cooper didn’t plug up the toilets. That was Fulton over at World Turns. Cooper‘s claim to fame was taking her choppers out and blowing Beau Kayser - her ‘son’.

[quote] Kay Alden was young enough to be Bill Bell's daughter. He hired her straight out of college.

That may be so, but she was in her sixties by the time Bill died and when the musical chairs happened a few years later she was pushed out (as outlined in another post above.)

[quote] You know who we haven't heard from in a while? That troll who tells us about Jeanne Cooper clogging up the toilets with her massive turds.

Oh, he (or one of his many sock puppets) has posted several times on this thread. His obsessions change from time to time. For a long time it was toilet behavior of various actresses. Then it was how show names and character names were "fat."

One breathlessly awaits the next variant.

[quote]One breathlessly awaits the next variant.

Don't have to worry about it if you block him. All of his posts magically vanish and you don't even have to read them.

Quote simple to block him. Just hit the ignore button on the far right on one of his posts. Every post he's authored will disappear from the site.

Remember too that Spicen (our psycho troll) has at least four different accounts here at DL, so you need to block all four of them for total relief.

R133 Oh, I do have him blocked. All four of him. He still manages to seep through if someone quotes him.

When Peter Porte was playing Paul's adult son Ricky and went psycho crazy and Paul shot him, who wrote that? Who was EP while that played out?

Doug Davidson was excellent in that. Won his Emmy for that storyline.

R135 MAB was EP/HW at that point.

Do the actors wear mics? I’ve seen Sharon Case and Gina Tognonio both post about their mics. Sharon had one around her leg during Shick’s last non-wedding.

R118 Other instances I can think of right off are:

We also had Maria Arena Bell's sister playing a recurring role. This was years before Maria ever became HW. Her sister played Dianejenkins personal assistant, and viewers used to jokingly refer to her character as "Marissa Bell Barton."

And besides Kay Alden's daughter, Conci, playing young "Heather Stevens," we also had Alden's young son, John Nelson-Alden playing "Nicholas Newman" when he was a kid.

There's also homophobe writer, Jerry Birn, with his daughter, Laura Bryan Birn, hired to play Paul's lovestruck assistant "Lynne Bassett Hound." Birn also married Patty Weaver, "Gina Roma."

They hired Jeanne Cooper's son, Corbin Bernen to play Father Todd - totally miscast, because Todd was supposed to be younger than both Patty and Paul, but now he was old enough to be Paul's fraternal twin (minus the toupee).

Once Lathag was installed by Bloom, it wasn't long before Lynn gave her husband, Bernie, the plum job of "Executive Story Consultant." He'd also write some breakdowns now and again. Latham also let her son, VIncent Latham Lechowick, do a handful of scripts.

Kay Alden let some guy named Marc Hertz write for the show. Word was he was this college kid involved with her daughter back in Chicago. Something like that.

Tony and Sally Sussman Morina's son, Adam, also got to work as some kind of writer's assistant. Whatever he did, allowed him to join the WGA. I think he also wrote at least one episode. I believe he used the name "Adam Samuel" when that happened.

Big Ed and Mel got their daughter, Jennifer Scott, in there as some kind of assistant director.

He looks a little how I imagine Chris Pine would look if he wasn't an alchie.

Who does, r139?

Thinking R139 meant Peter Porte? There is a bit of a resemblance. But only a bit....?

I thought Todd was the oldest Williams, never seen because he was in the Seminary, then reporter Steve, Paul and Patty was clearly the youngest.

It’s the 50th anniversary and what we should be celebrating is that THE Young and THE Restless never dropped THE from its name. When THE Guiding Light dropped THE from its name 50 years ago, my life spiraled and it was never the same. Then Gail Kobe and Pam Long came in and dropped my favorite characters like Fat Ed Bauer, Fat Bert Bauer, and all of my other fat faves. Fat Reva and Fat Beth ate the show.

TYATR for life!

I don’t watch Y&R but I’m going to insert myself into the conversation because that’s what I do. Go where I’m not wanted.

So then why not sign your post as Greg?

Ahhhh! Very funny, R145. The difference is, I am very much wanted here.

Greg watches Y&R?

No. Greg does not watch Y&R.

Greg, then what brings you and your big swinging, spicy sausage to the Y&R thread?

[quote] Greg, then what brings you and your big swinging, spicy sausage to the Y&R thread?

Hellok R149. My swinging, spicy sausage and I sometimes like to mix it up and pay visits to threads that might need some spicing-up.

So here I am!

Oh, for fucks sake.

What's troubling you, R151?

Hans and Mel from a hundred years ago.

Marco is aging like the finest of wines.. Baby if you ever get tired of painting in Hancock Park, just call.

He can paint my face!

As sick as I am of them and Looking Through the Eyes of Love, Victor and Nikki's original wedding was soaps at their best, maybe at their peak. Big show, big budget, past stars... the whole thing was top of game.

Long ago but I really enjoyed Terry Lester and old Jill. Such a dynamic. A bit Frauish but my fav character now and then was Traci.

I would have sucked the socks off Terry Lester back in the day! So hot.

He kinda reminded me a bit of Jack Wrangler.

Terry Lester was a straight pussyhound! Yes he was.

In Jeanne Cooper's book, she talks about how Terry Lester rented a party bus for members of the cast who wanted to go watch Marla Adams' performance in a play she was in. Not sure who all went, but Jeanne was one of them. The thought of Mrs. Chancellor on a party bus cracks my shit up!

Brenda Dickson would not be caught dead on a party bus. That's for peasants.

R142 No. Todd was the YOUNGEST Williams' kid. When Paul's family was added in 1980, his brother Steve was the oldest. Steve was already out of college and now working as an investigative reporter at The Chronicle for Stuart Brooks.

Then, came Paul, who'd been out of high school for a couple of years already and working at a gas station. We now learned that Paul had all these angsty "second son" issues, thinking he'd never measure up to what "first son" Steve had accomplished, so he had this, "Why bother?" attitude. He was destined to be a big disappointment. Steve and Paul's brother v. brother relationship was framed within the old soap opera staple of success v. failure. It didn't help that Paul had already knocked up April Stevens and was on the road to being the poster boy for deadbeat dads.

Then, came Patty who absolutely adored Paul. She and Paul had the closest sibling relationship, but she was rather disillusioned in her brother for not stepping up where April and Heather were concerned. Patty was still in high school, about 16. We'd soon meet her high school boyfriend, Danny Romalotti, a good Catholic boy. who would be like the complete opposite of bad boy, Jack Abbott, Patty's future love interest.

We learned that the youngest Williams kid, Todd, had already expressed a desire to become a priest, so he'd been enrolled in one of those seminary prep (boarding) schools for boys of high school age. I believe Todd was supposed to be 14. Back then, there were still quite a few of those schools in existence, and Catholic Bill Bell would have been familiar with them. In later years, there was mention that Todd had become a priest and was working in Europe.

what happened after Bill stepped down would make a great TV series; all the producers, writers, known to soap fans or not, jockeyed for power positions; instead of banding together (they would have been stronger as a unit), they all thought they were the one who was irreplaceable.

Jack Smith never get the credit he deserves for turning in a great show.

sadly, this show is limping along like all the others to the grave.

Bill, I'm guessing, is both disappointed and also, chuckling that they couldn't do it without him.

I had no idea that Danny was introduced as part of Patty's storyline. So that means in in was in three sets of teen storylines. Patty's story, Tracey's story, then Cricket's.

I just finished listening to the podcast with Sally Sussman Morina. It's 90 minutes long but fascinating. She talks about the entire soap industry. Obviously, she talks a lot about Y&R since that's where she started. But she also talked about her time creating Generations and HWing Days in the late 1990s. She even talks briefly about Spyder Games, the short arc soap she created for MTV in 2002.

It's well worth a listen. Anybody wanting to understand more about the business of soaps should appreciate it.

I had no problems listening to it. Just hit the play button and it started playing. It kept asking me for my Apple ID, but I never gave it. And my failure to submit the Apple ID didn't prevent it from playing. I do already have an Apple account, so it may have picked up on some cookies in my computer.

What podcast, doll?

[quote]What podcast, doll?

Read the thread.

The podcast is linked at r68 and discussed in several posts prior to that one.

r166

see r68

Thanks!

[quote] I had no idea that Danny was introduced as part of Patty's storyline.

Yes, in early days, Patty's beau was gay .. errrr good boy Danny Romalotti. But she was like a moth to a flame when it came to older man, Jack, and she lied about her age to keep seeing him. (They would subsequently play animosity between Jack and Danny, owing to why Jack referred to him as "Danny Ravioli.")

As I recall, Danny was like this older teenager living on his own. I can't recall if he was "emancipated" or what, but we later heard that his mom was dead, and his father and sister were both in prison for their con jobs. Danny worked as a waiter at Jonas' Place (the one Leslie had fashioned out of The Allegro in order to lure Jonas to Genoa City). Jonas would sometimes let Danny get up on the small restaurant stage and sing a tune.

And before Patty exited in 1984, her story with Danny would come full circle. By this time, Patty had divorced Jack and and decided to try to get back together with Danny. But then, Danny entered into a platonic marriage to pregnant Traci, so that Traci wouldn't be looked at as an unwed mother. The horror!

Patty thought Traci was simply using Danny, believing that Traci had no intention of giving him up after the baby was born. Patty confronted her former sister-in-law, and they got into it. .. In one of those typical soap opera scenes Patty grabbed Traci's arm, and Traci ending up falling into the stairway railing. This caused Traci to lose the baby.

And that's the incident that caused Patty to leave town. She thought Danny would never forgive her, so she concluded that trying to get back with him was a lost cause, and there was nothing left for her in Genoa City.

So having Patty return in 2009 still obsessing over Jack was kind of a retcon. When Patty left in 1984, she was completely DONE with Jack, having declared her independence. If they had Patty still obsessing over anyone, it should have been Danny with some kind of lingering animosity toward Traci. - jmho

I can't really picture Hans or Mel on a party bus either

I bet if DL had a party bus, Greg would bring us amazing snacks!

[quote] In Jeanne Cooper's book, she talks about how Terry Lester rented a party bus.

Sounds like Terry. He also once talked about how, when the core Abbott family moved front and center, the actors would get together at Jerry Douglas' place to do some 'family' bonding. And yes, Brenda was part of this. (Of course, she was moderately sane back then.) As I recall, the only one who wasn't in his photos was Beth Maitland, but then Traci was kind of off in her own teen story. She had pizzas to bond with.

R170, yeah, I think Maria picked up Patty from when Lilibet played the part -- not Andrea Evans.

[quote] I bet if DL had a party bus, Greg would bring us amazing snacks!

I certainly would! What would you like?

As long as Jeanne and Terry could smoke cigs on the bus, they'd be just fine!

R173 Jerry Douglas hosted Brenda at his place? I thought he hated her, although I could see him inviting Deborah Adair or Jess.

R177 I don't think Jerry had a problem with Brenda during her first couple years back. He even invited her to his wedding to Kym Douglas, and that was in April 1985. Like I said, I think she was still relatively sane at that point.

r176

Terry was a smoker(besides pole)?

Ugh

Terry was a swirl girl.

R179 Yes, it would appear Terry liked his ciggies from the pic in the link.

Terry was one fine piece of stud meat. If he looked the way he did in his heyday and I ran into him somewhere, I'd drop to my knees so fast it'd make your head swim.

r181

It's interesting to me to see famous people smoke in old pics because you know they all hide it now... who are some current soap actors who smoke?

R183 I wonder if Jess Walton ever kicked the habit. Smoking killed Jeanne, and Jess' husband died of cancer.

Back around 2001, Mel told Soap Opera Weekly that she was quitting chain smoking. (Note: she didn't say she was quitting ALL smoking.) I don't know whether she still does, but a report from the set in the mid-00s indicated that she once got so PISSED at Hans for going off script and ad-libbing that she walked off set informing the director, "Get back with me, when he's learned his lines." She then reportedly went outside to have a cigarette. .. From the meltdown she posted on FB several years ago about prescriptions, it sounds like she may have switched to pills?

R185 Mel doesn't look or sound like a smoker at all, let alone a chain smoker

r185

what a cool pic and I agree with r186

r187 On the flip side, I could believe Granny Cooper rolled her own. She looked and sounded like a white trash bar hag since 1978.

I have no doubt Wilma Jean smoked every second she had and was upset that she couldn't smoke while she slept

I would imagine a lot of the cig smokers have switched to vaping just to rid the stench

It would be another reason why Mel and John Enos lurved each other so much.

They're not in the current cast, but David Lago and David Tom both smoked I believe.

Michael Graziadei too.

R192 Yes to David Tom back in the day. I remember seeing him smoking with his bestie Shane West. Probably smoking something else as well, lol.

As I mentioned in another thread, I graduated from high school in the late 80s and there was a smoking lounge in my high school for juniors and seniors. While not everyone smoked, it sure seemed like it, especially people in the creative fields. Cigarettes and black coffee and for actors, I'm sure it kept the weight off.

I met Wilma Jeane once. She was cool.

Do BFF's Mealor and Swickard smoke together?

Wilma Jean loved taking her false choppers out.

Scoche Marin plays a superior Katherine Chancellor.

Does Scoche Marin smoke?

Miss Michael Learned was the definitive Katherine Chancellor.

Brendad wants to return to Y&R as Katherine Chancellor.

I listened to that Sally Susan Marina podcast. It was good, except for that guy who wanted to use it to bitch about Bold & Beautiful and Brad Bell the entire time. I was like please shut up. But she was good and confirmed just how broke Y&R is. Something else I don't understand is why CBS seems to be actively trying to tank the show.

If the Sucksman interview was on The Chat - this is the silliest of all soap podcasts. The hosts are terrible. Bad interviewers. And Sally Sucksman needs to shut the fuck up. She sucked at every single headwriting job she ever had. Shut the fuck up Sally and concentrate on your pervy husband.

They probably wouldn't be broke if they gave Hans, Mel and Aunt Jack the heave-ho

Of course, if they got rid of Hans, they'd lose the few old ladies still watching.

Nikki is a familiar face, but I don't think anybody would lose any sleep if Mel got fired. I have NEVER found the character likeable. Not even for a single day.

R200 Her ex- confirmed her 2-pack a day habit in a SODOA interview and said she even gets up in the middle of the night to take a drag.

I thought Scoche dipped

Scoche died. Her corpse is rotting in Spicen's trailer.

That's something you never hear about... stars who dip.

Serial Scholar now MonticelloEdge got mad when Spicen dissed him. MonticelloEdge has no friends. His family HATES him. Sounds like a plot on Y&R.

During their respective contract brouhahas in 2009, Sony missed big opportunities to replace both Hans and Mel with actors who would be more than willing to do less episodes than "Mr. Fuck You" or less dollars-per-episode than "Miss Recurring-Recurring." .. Or, they could have just killed both characters off in a plane crash and be done with them.

Y&R may need to do what Days did. Fire everybody and then re-negotiate everyone's contracts.

Days certainly has a lower budget that Y&R, yet seems to have more actors and use more sets than Y&R.

As I've said here before, Y&R has one of the more visible cases of inertia with their cast. I can't imagine that there is a single bit of story to tell for Victor, Nikki or Jack. The Dina story did coalesce something new and fresh within the Abbott stories (before veering off into that Theo fuckery).

The shame of it is that Y&R really had so many interesting connections they could have done. The whole younger generation. The kids of the 90s Y&R kids would be great. But either they have to pay too much for those characters, or someone doesn't know how to write them.

According to the Sally Sussman interview, network interference is off the charts at Y&R. Every time someone comes up with anything resembling a compelling story, the network kills it. Therefore, nothing happens.

The Mel/Hans/PeterB chain dictates that few of the children/grandchildren characters ever get enough airtime to become popular, or redeemed when they start out like shit. The NuNoah and Jack's boring granddaughter are played by charisma challenged actors. They need to find the right people. The kid who played Reed seemed to have some spark at the beginning, but he was deep sixed. Lily and Cane's wonder twins got the same. Do something edgy. A gay grandson for Victor?

They could easily make Nikki a Laura/GH type character who just pops in from time to time. Mel would pitch a fit, but who would care?

The kid playing Connor seems gay as a goose

R216, that's interesting.

It's kind of like watching Hallmark movies; the only conflict seems to be missed phone calls, not opening up about feelings for fear of rejection....soaps used to do all kinds of fantastic storytelling; now, everything is just MEH.

The days of a Bill Bell or a Harding Lemay or Doug Marland just telling folks to stuff it are gone.

If I were hired to be mediocre and rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year....I can't say I'd say no. I'd try to fight it but why bother if you'd just get fired anyway?

R220 I think long term story planning went out the window in the low budget era, as did a lot of long term contracts for everyone but a handful of actors.

So yeah, most scenes are pedaling water until the next bomb in the bassinet / confrontation.

[quote] Do something edgy. A gay grandson for Victor?

That would have been edgy back in the 90s.

And listening to Sussman talk about the network's reaction Mariah & Tessa, I wouldn't hold my breath on the gay front. And if they did something, it would probably be dull as dirt.

It happened when Fen came home for one episode a few weeks ago and presented his boyfriend. Dull as dirt.

It's no surprise that CBS would be dull as dirt. Their nighttime shows are all so bland and blah.

R223 Thanks for the reminder. It was so dull as dirt that it seems like a tiny particle swept into the dustpan.

The name 'Dapper' doesn't belong with the name "Marco".

The name 'Dapper'needs to be replaced with the name "Nude".

Marco Erect.

Just call him "STUD."

I heard Scoche has been going through a particularly horny phase lately on the Y&R set. Just in the last week, she's had her way with Mel, the Weisswurst, Joshua Morrow, Staff, and JaBottom. And when she's not getting laid by her coworkers, she's often found spread eagle on the Chancellor couch with her hand frantically working her snatch for all to see. It's been an HR nightmare.

I'll say this. In the 100+ years that Wilma Jeanne starred on Y&R, she was never part of a Who's the Daddy storyline,

Does Schoche’s pussy stink? Well does it???

Y&R is the Digest cover this week, with the usual suspects (including La Bergman).

Has Dumb Dylan sucked Griffith’s cock yet?

I'm still dead bitches!

SOD COVERS:

Who knew Barbara Crampton and Susan Walters are the same age as Mishael Morgan!?

Brendad would fit right in!

Scoche Marin (Katherine Chancellor) is a HUGE chainsmoker. The Y&R cast is constantly bumming cigs from her! Her dressing room smells like an ashtray! It has a sign that says “all are welcome.”

Reddit claims Helen Lawson wasn't really crushed in that NHL orgy but survived, and after rounds of plastic surgery is actually masquerading as Scoche Marin.

It's going to be a real life Tootsie. If it's true. But there is something about Scoche's double entendres that seems familiar.

Speaking of Marco, it appears he's out with the gays this evening. I wonder what bar they're going to? (The other two boys are a couple.)

Is Dapper actually gay or not?

Dapper's Instagram highlights his artwork, he likes spending time with his Mom, going to Greece, and there is zero mention of any woman in his life.

HE'S STRAIGHT, r240!!! Move it along.

LOL Jack and Diane's "sexy times" at the Abbot cabin were hilariously cringe.

R239 I don't think he's said, but he seems to be leaning gay especially in the last few years. Last October, he vacationed in Hawaii with a group of guys. Three of the ones in this photo are openly gay. There was another photo of them poolside at what looked like a a private rental, and a gay-married couple joined them. No females in sight.

No wonder Crissy is so fond of him.

How does someone like Marco Dapper afford a trip to Hawaii and just a general life of leisure?

And on a trip to NYC, he seemed super-excited to see his gay buddy, Broadway chorus boy, Adam Perry.

How hot would this be?

There is no way he is straight. He'd have any broad he wanted. He doesn't want one.

I began following gay pron star "Paul Wagner" on InstaGram under his real name-identity after he "retired" from pron. He's now returned to the business, and took that personal IG page of his private. Anyway, Marco is one of his followers.

So that means Lauren has a "type".

I've heard the budget situation is so grim at Y&R that Scoche has resorted to turning tricks at night.

My son PAUL is not a homosexual!

Although he did get quite a few lucrative offers after that centerfold fiasco!

R245 Besides his artwork, which he does $ell, he still does modeling gigs. He was one of the models featured in a Fidelity Denim campaign last year. (Several shots, one below.)

I believe he's indicated that he's done actively pursuing acting, but if someone approaches him for a role, then he might do it.

On that note, in 2021, he told SOD that Y&R actually called him wanting him to come in to audition for something. I'm assuming it was for something post-pandemic, so figure 2020-21. He called them back and reminded them that he'd already had a role on the show, so it would be a waste of time for him to come in, and it went no further.

FUCK! He should know that a lot of actors have played more than one role on the show. He didn't say what role it was; maybe he didn't know, since if he declined the audition, then he probably never saw any script

I wonder if they were thinking about him for NuChance? .. I can see where that wouldn't fly, since Old Abby was involved with Carmine.

Marco lets guys suck his dick.

I missed Wednesday's episode. Anything interesting happen?

Ha. Ha ha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha....

You boys can be disgusting. Can we please stop with objectifying Marco Dapper and linking to filthy porn sites? He is barely a blip in Y&R's 50-year history. Let's try and confine this thread to discussing the storylines and characters.

Marathon bar Nate just told Snortoria "gurl, bye" while Abby is clearly the one being played by Scoche Marin. Her new face not matching her neck had me shook.

Audra was on a cunting trip today, and bagged an Elena.

Marco Dapper will forever and always be an object of lust and discussion on Y&R threads.

Unclench, R255.

Scoche Marin is the highest paid performer on the show. She gets $12,000 per episode and has a 4-episode/week guarantee. Everyone loves her as Kay Chancellor.

SOD blasts Y&R for too being too heavy with boring business stories involving a multitude of companies that no one give a shit about and the silliness of who's in charge or working for whom today. .. This is not what grandma wants to see!

Grandma wants to see Marco Dapper. Right R255 ?

r259 The current dicking around about Tucker's debt and his company is especially incomprehensible. More Dapper indeed, r260.

SOD has praised Scoche Marin for saving the show with her portrayal of Katherine Shepherd Reynolds Chancellor Thurston Sterling Murphy.

[quote]boring business stories involving a multitude of companies that no one give a shit about and the silliness of who's in charge or working for whom today. .. This is not what grandma wants to see!

I was just thinking that yesterday. They are killing the show with all these business storylines.

Somewhere down the line, Nate's BBC should sue Boretoria for sexual harassment.

"Your honor, Ms. Newman once referred to me as 'the elephant in the room' while looking directly at my package."

Succession makes business interesting.

Y&R is not Succession.

Young and beautiful. Free with your body. Using your youth and sensuality. Oh, you're gonna pay, Jill. You will pay!

You will pay three dollars and fifty cents more than the share price closed at in Geneva the day of the bought deal closing. And don't even talk to me about your EBITDA. We all know you were a leveraged buyout! You corporate raider!

Bore me 'til you snore me, r266.

We need more of 3:27!

What are ya gonna do? Water the tree with it?

And this

R258 All that money and she still turns tricks?

Thanks, r268 and r269. I was only aware of Brendad's inability to spel and her love of Gelson's potato salad prior to this. She was a wonderful Jill. I can tell I'd've liked her, just watching those two scenes.

Brenda is the only Jill. Jess Walton kissed Bell's ass. The industry loved Jess, but what a lousy, screechy actress. She'd have made a good Lorie Brooks replacement when JLB left, but as Jill, no.

I guess if Jill is meant to bark her lines and sound like Froggy from "Our Gang,", then Jess Walton's your girl !!

And I still have no idea why she thinks Jill Foster Abbott would ever call someone "Darlin'" and say it like the character's from the Ozarks.

I have a friend who calls everyone "darlin'", r273. Maybe he's a Y&R fan, a Jill fan, so to speak.

R274 If a guy does that it probably means he's gay and wears a kaftan.

There's a mention of Lauren and Carmine in this week's Digest, in the "this week in soap history" column. And a photo of him that sorta looks like he's mounting her.....

I guess CBS wouldn't pony up the cash for a special prime time episode to celebrate the show's 50th Anniversary (like they did for the 25th), but apparently there was a pitch to do a version of Big Brother called "Y&R All Stars."

In this rendition of the popular reality series, the idea is to put 16 former Y&R actors/actresses in the Big Brother House to compete.

The house guests for the proposed summer series are:

BRENDA DICKSON - Totally bonkers, but she's the big draw, and the promos will have her announcing, "Welcome to My Big Brother House!"

DOUG DAVIDSON - Even though he's bitter with anger management issues, Dougie should be a good competitor and a frau fan favorite. While confined to the house, look for him to always be wondering when Happy Hour is.

VICTORIA ROWELL - She'll undoubtedly call the other house guests out on their racism at every turn, thereby sparking necessary conflict in the house. Also, Mz. Rowell will insist on having her own bedroom. Will the other girls stand for this?

DAVID HASSELHOFF - Congenial enough, but desperate. He'll attempt to sing in every episode. He'll seek makeup tips from his onetime, on-screen sister, Brenda, who will instruct him on concealer.

ROBERTA LEIGHTON - Plastic surgery victim. The shock element makes for entertaining TV. Her ex-boyfriend, Hasselhoff, won't recognize her at first. Could they reconnect?

JOHN CASTELLANOS - FAT, but the network wants at least one Latin in the house.

SIGNY COLEMAN - Bonds with Roberta Leighton over their similar issue. Rumored to be a weak competitor, so don't expect her to last long.

PETER BARTON - Trumptard and conspiracy theorist. Look for him to hit on Brenda, who tells him to go cut his hair.

LYNN HARBAUGH - Lives in her own La La Land and will walk around the compound in Medieval costume reciting poetry. None of the other house guests will understand what the hell she's talking about.

THOM BIERDZ - Koo koo for cocoa puffs. He'll try to tell the story about his insane brother in every episode. The other men in the house will catch him jacking off in their dorm room.

NICK SCOTTI - See Roberta Leighton. At some point, these two will have a head-to-head fish-lips competition to determine who gets voted out. But expect viewers to like his "New York Nick" persona, so consider him a dark horse.

VELEKA GRAY - See John Castellanos (minus the Latin part). Nice enough, but watch for her to become strangely attracted to Thom Bierdz and push for a showmance with him.

AMY GIBSON - Don't miss the episode where she talks about alopecia and insists on fitting Doug Davidson with a new wig.

DANIEL GODDARD - He'll only agree to do the series, because he thinks it will get him back on Y&R. He knows his stans will not only VOTE VOTE VOTE (more than once), but they'll hire a plane to fly over the Big Brother House.

JULIAN LARACH - He only did one episode of Y&R, but the network wants an openly gay actor who isn't Thom Bierdz and looks good walking around with his clothes off. Midway through the series, his pron work will be leaked to the mainstream media.

KATE LINDER - Okay, she's not a former Y&R actor, but she manages to get herself into anything and everything Y&R related. Viewers might finally learn her secret.

R277 Brenda Dickson vs. Victoria Rowell. Wonder who will out-crazy the other?

Kate Linder will reveal her shenis on air!

Can they fire Michelle Stafford in time for her to be on the show. She and Victoria Rowell would be a lot of fun together. And we wouldn't have to watch Phyllis anymore.

Kate Linder is so strange. She attends EVERY charity benefit, cake party, and photo op imaginable. Does she not realize how insignificant her role is?

Wow...

Will Nick Scotti be outed by Thom or Veleka?

Or maybe it will be Julian Larach who does the Nick outing.

Hans Gudegast ... Wilma Jeanne ... KATE LINDER !!

Kate Linder would attend the opening of an envelope. Or a container of potato salad at Gelson's.

B&B's -- probably daytime's -- most successful business story was Brooke, being rejected by Ridge, taking over control of Forrester and getting sweet revenge with Stephanie.

Every beat was perfect.

Y&R's best business storyline was Jack taking Jabot public; Victor buying up controlling interest and Jack moving heaven and earth to get his father's company back for him.

Business stories have to be grounded in emotion and family.

None of the Y&R current business tales do that. "Neil wanted this... Neil wanted that...Katherine always felt...."

No. He didn't. And no, she didn't.

[quote] Y&R's best business storyline was Jack taking Jabot public; Victor buying up controlling interest and Jack moving heaven and earth to get his father's company back for him.

Which took something like 10 years, and then still there were still loans to pay off, which caused other control issues as to whose fingers were in the Jabot pie.

R286 It's crazy how often CEO's and presidencies change on Y&R. When Brooke became CEO of Forrester, she held that job for ten years. When leadership changes on Y&R, nobody has time to get invested in the story before it all gets changed again.

Mmm Jabot pie...

Jabot Pie. On the outside it looks like any other pie... apple or cherry. But when you bite into it, it's filled with Gelson's potato salad!

I can't find my Jabot pie anymore

The Saga of Tucker's debt will save the show!

Business stories had their day but now they are as old and tired as someone pouring coffee at a table.

In fact, the rarity of sitting still and pouring coffee at a table would probably appeal to viewers.

I truly believe a good story doesn't depend on nice sets and clothes, however those Y&R business stories come out of the glamour, glitzy 80s. So it's tough to do believable business stories, IMO, without the glamour and glitz. Ultimately the business stories were the conduit for the emotional stories that played out over years. In today's world where your soap budget is two nickels and a piece of string and the fans start yelling if a story goes longer than 6 weeks, it's hard to tell those types of stories properly. So you end up with musical CEOs and a bunch of business meetings in coffee houses and it doesn't play the same.

If someone was willing to take a chance, the business stories would go bye bye and they would just go back to doing the types of stories they did before the business stories became their thing.

Jabot might as well switch to selling pies, as well as cookies, and their famous JaBottom Cake.

Fans seem most stoked about that return of Leanna Love for the 50th Anniversary, and the hilarious thing is that it was actually Crampton's idea, and she's the one who called TPTB to suggest it.

So keep those cards and letters coming! Josh Do-it-All Griffith could use an idea.

[quote]In fact, the rarity of sitting still and pouring coffee at a table would probably appeal to viewers.

We still have that. It's just evolved into Sharon Newman, Coffeeshop Psychologist.

Forever the gushing romantic, Aunt Jack will be going shopping for his bridal trousseau ..... AGAIN.

It's too bad Jeremy didn't let a truck run Syphyllis over when she was supposedly passed out in the middle of the street. .. If Y&R had even a little bit of cash, they should have gone outside the studio, strapped a small camera on The Stafford, and had her stumble across Beverly Blvd.

And JaBottom tells Uncle Billy that he had a meeting with two vendors at the hotel, at that time of the night? .. Did the trio enjoy the spit-roast on the room service menu?

R296, how do you know that? (It's not that I don't believe you.)

I know Graz's return came about after Bryton visited his twins.

Isn't this alarming?

Josh isn't coming up with ideas; he's waiting for actors to call him with them.

Cripes.

R299 In Crampton's podcast with SOD last week, she said that when she read that it was Y&R's 50th Anniversary coming up, she told her agent to call the show and tell them that she'd love to participate and they took her up on her offer to appear.

She did mention that Y&R had contacted her previously about doing something -- she did not say which writing regime -- but that she had always declined, because she lived in the San Francisco area and it didn't fit with her. But she's now back in the L.A. area.

Oh great they listen to the whogivesafuck Barb Crampton, but ignore the original actors. Bring back Dorothy Green, Robert Clary, Donnelly Rhodes, Beau Kayzer if you want ratings!!

r301 sure, the ratings would indeed spike if any of those actors appeared being that each and every one of them is dead. Of course, sitting their rotting corpses in chairs and putting the camera on them would be more interesting than anything currently happening.

R300, thanks.

Yeah, I don't think shows pay to fly people in and put them up like they used to.

Why fly down and get a hotel room? You'd barely break even.

It's sad. Some shows treat cutting the budget like a game. I'm sure at Y&R they say, "Well, CAN this scene take place at Crimson Lights?" I swear if they did medical stories, they'd do surgery there.

Whereas GH has a roof top poll, multiple eateries, foreign locales, kitchens, bedrooms, hospital offices, ERs, nurses station (duh), and so much more.

[quote] Oh great they listen to the whogivesafuck Barb Crampton

Leanna is a fun, campy character, and due to the fact that she's "anti-Newman" is always a welcome addition (albeit in small doses).

If they'd ask me for five characters to show up at this big shindig, she actually would have been on my list, because Leanna's typical, TMZ, tabloid-style of reporting fits right in to covering a Genoa City gala. I hope that's what they have planned, because things like this can always use a dose of snark..

I just wish that someone would do a story on why the #1 soap is broke. They sure as hell did those stories about Days budget issues, especially when the show fired Dee and Drake. I'm not sure why Y&R is getting a pass on this. I would have a hard time believing that GH, the lowest rated linear soap, has a bigger budget than the #1 show. Even B&B isn't as pretty as it once was, but it's not at Y&R level.

R305 Because Digest has their tongue up the remaining soap's crusty assholes. Digest is probably going to shut down or go monthly if DAYS ends.

And no mainstream paper or magazine (save maybe a few staffers at TVLine) have any idea about any of the context of daytime.

Y&R hasn't initiated drastic cuts to the actor salaries, not on the scale that Days did.

Days has money for sets and actors because they fired everyone a few years ago and renegotiated everyone's salary downward.

Y&R needs to do the same thing.

The fact GH has money for plenty of sets and actors speaks volumes.

I wish they'd just pull the plug on the remaining shows rather than let them become shadows of the shows they once were.

oh

R306, you're right about TV Line; they had a bunch of people from Digest move over there.

They missed the boat tho when they had that Missy Reeves AXED Over Chickfilet (sp?) (she wasn't btw) ready to go and someone hit "PUBLISH" oops.

But I don't think the trades even care about soaps.

In fairness, if you print what they don't like then you're cut off. Shows can always find a press-friendly outlet to get some ink.

ABC/Disney owns GH. There are no financial negotiations with licensing from other entities like the other three. That's why they seemingly have more budget. Nice sets don't make up for shit writing, however.

Pluto is airing the post-Neil death episodes todays. Cane, Maddie, Charlie, Ana. The show was so different just a few years ago.

So how will Sally miscarry, and will Adam get blamed?

And B&B still finds the cash to do the occasional location shoot in foreign destinations, because it's worth it for them to go to one of the countries where they're very popular and kill two birds with one stone by doing a public relations-promotional junket, then working some scenes into the storyline with the actors who are participating in that. .. I can't even remember the last time Y&R went to a foreign country? Victor & Ashley in Paris 2008 ??? .. I remember MAB also did a shoot down in New Orleans (w/ Shadam) with Chrissy being quite verklpempt and giving everyone the grand tour.

Funny to see non-stop beer, fast food, and tractor commercials during Y&R's hour today.

But who doesn't like to see hot mens running around in soccer shorts showing occasional VPL? Y&R should take a hint.

Chelsea's goalie Kepa Arrizabalaga is a tall drink of water. For a tall thin guy, he has a nice ass.

A bit of a meta moment on Y&R today when Adam kept talking about Crimson Lights being the only place in town to get coffee.

I kept waiting for Adam to add, "And you know, there's only one restaurant in this whole town -- Society!."

I'd love to see Ashley be some how inadvertently responsible for Sally losing her baby.

THAT would give the show an organic way of addressing what Adam did to Ash all those years ago; scaring the shit out of her and her losing her baby after falling down the stairs.

Why did he do that anyway? what the fuck did he think was going to happen?

How did she lose it? (Lifelong learner here!)

Didn't Adam burn the fetus in the fireplace while dressed like Julia Sugarbaker?

R318 Adam didn't think she'd trip and fall on the stairs. The lightning-thunder that occurred right then didn't help. Anyway, he probably thought she'd just run out of the house, because she was seeing "Sabrina's ghost." It was part of his plan to make Ashley think she was being haunted by Sabrina, so that she'd move out. Adam wanted Victor alone at The Ranch.

Back when Adam was actually hot

r322 = Chris Engen

No, not that homophobe.

I meant Muhney. Not a big stan/fan of his but I did think he captured a certain danger in Adam that wasn't there before or since.

I think Mark Grossman is the definitive Adam. Sexy and dangerous, especially if you like bad boys. He was electric when he started on the show. Made me go Michael Muhney who?

That said, the show has neutered Adam in the past year or so. He's no longer scheming. He's just shackled to various woman. First Chelsea, now Sally. And if we have to endure a sibling rivalry with Adam and Nick over Sally, hopefully he'll get back to his scheming ways to win her.

R 325 Same here. I liked Muhney, but love Mark as Adam He stepped right in and won me over. Plus, he's going to age far better than Muhney.

Grossman is too rat faced for me, and his MAGA beliefs are a total dick wilter.

Chris Engen appears to have left the acting business after Y&R.

Only has two acting credits since 2009 when he parted ways with Genoa City. And one of those credits is a film short.

When some of the cast were asked about the Engen affair, Eileen Davidson called Chris "a delicate flower."

And of course, Chrissy LeBlanc said he'd kill to have something as complex as Adam's storyline. Obviously, he'd dive right in to kissing Rafe Torres!

^ They couldn't have got him out of bed.

With The Price Is Right announcing its moving out of Television City due to the new owner commencing its renovation and construction project of the landmark facility and studios, both Y&R and B&B could soon follow. As I recall, way back in the 00s it was reported that Sony was seriously considering moving Y&R to its own studio facility in Culver City. I think they only ending up staying, because then-owner, CBS, did some tech upgrades.

[quote]As I recall, way back in the 00s it was reported that Sony was seriously considering moving Y&R to its own studio facility in Culver City. I think they only ending up staying, because then-owner, CBS, did some tech upgrades.

That sounds about right from what I recall.

Seems like the Sony lot in Culver City (the old MGM lot) is the most logical place for Y&R to move since Sony owns the show.

But its also a very weird 50th anniversary present. Show has been at CBS Television City since it debuted in 1973. Weird that it will have to move just after its big anniversary.

No idea where B&B will go. Perhaps it will negotiate a deal to use the Sony lot too.

I wouldn't be surprised if both the Bell shows are cancelled in the next year or so, at least for CBS. B&B might continue for a foreign audience and then be shown on something like Hulu.

Sony tried to get Days to move to Sony Studios, but Burbank gave Days a bunch incentives to stay. I wonder if Television City will do something similar for Y&R.

If they have to move Y&R because of the major construction-renovation project being undertaken at TC by the new owners, I doubt Sony would spend the cash to move them back Regardless of tenancy incentives, relocation costs money on the current year's balance sheet, and we keep hearing that the show is broke. From what I've heard, these new owners are pretty savvy and know how to attract "new media tenants" for the studios that they've bought. They're doing this all over town.

Both Days and GH have moved before and then moved back to their previous locations.

Both moved to Sunset Gower Studios (formerly Columbia Pictures) in the 80s, although at separate times, when their studios were bring renovated.

As I recall, Days was at Sunset Gower in the early 80s, but soon moved back to the NBC studios in Burbank when renovation/construction was finished.

GH was at Sunset Gower in the mid to late 80s, but eventually moved back to ABC Prospect Studios in Los Feliz.

The GH move back and forth would probably have been seen as a cost-effective measure, because ABC owns the show and were taking steps to move it back to their OWN studio. That's like, "Why rent a house, when we already own one that's vacant?" This was Sony's question when they very seriously considered moving Y&R to their own Culver City studios back in the 00s.

Plus, back in the Big 80s, the owners would still have seen their soaps as cash cows having a future. The atmosphere is far different now. Why would a producer spend money to relocate a show out of its own studio, when the show might only be around for another few years?

Nikki was at her snottiest today, and LeBlanc and Bregman playing toadies to her, was just stupid.

I wondered if today was the first of Griffith's writing sans staff. The dialogue was terrible.

Stupid too that Nikki would have good memories about the 1991 Masquerade Ball. The bitch was in drug and alcohol rehab and escaped, showing up at the ball totally incognito as "The Phantom." Victor and Ashley were happily married. Aunt Jack got all verklepmt, and Nikki went back to rehab.

Adam may not have meant for Ashley to fall and lose her baby but, oh, I don't know, maybe don't scare the shit out of her when she's at the TOP OF THE STAIRCASE.

R339 I saw Natalie Minardi Slater's name on the opening credits today. Isn't she said to be one of the axed writers?

If Griffith's slash and burn move happened just a few weeks ago, this could take awhile before it hits are screens. The show is already filmed about 4-5 weeks out, but writing is out even further than that. I remember one of the Y&R breakdown writers telling people that when we're watching Thanksgiving, he's writing Valentines Day.

R341 Looking back, Adam may have done us a favor. .. I mean, do we really need more spawn of Victor Newman around? .. Purloined Sperm Baby, Blabby, is bad enough.

[quote] No idea where B&B will go. Perhaps it will negotiate a deal to use the Sony lot too.

Some may not be aware of this, but Bell-Phillip co-owner, Lauralee (and her husband) Scott) own a 30,000 sq ft facility that they lease out for parties, photo shoots, special events, and exhibitions, etc. and the facility's website states that it's also available for TV and film production (though, I don't know if anything for TV or film has ever been done there before). The current B&B studio space is 13,000 sq feet, so Lauralee's facility could easily do. They'd probably have to do some big renovations inside to accommodate the soap, but still, I could see them at least considering going that route.

[quote]the facility's website states that it's also available for TV and film production

Link to that website?

I loved the Rafe Torres character (and actor) — another wasted opportunity.

Just search for "Cricket's Cavernous Cunt" and I'm sure you'll find it!

{quote]Stupid too that Nikki would have good memories about the 1991 Masquerade Ball.

Who is the continuity/history person over at Y&R?

Ryan is the person at Days.

Elizabeth Korte is at GH

I guess, Brad is the person at BB.

R345 Here ya' go.

And Lauralee and Scott named it "3Labs" after their three Labrador Retrievers.

Here's another website link that shows the outside of the facility. From Scott's Linkedin page, I think managing this place is basically his "job," as he refers to himself as 3Labs' "president," and has the title of "vice-president" of Bell-Martin Productions.

R348, I can see NIna and Cricket not fondly recalling the 1991 masquerade ball but why wouldn't Nikki?

R352 See R340.

Nikki was a TOTAL MESS right then: an alcohol-pill addict whom Jack had just got into rehab. I don't even think she'd been there a week, yet she somehow got herself out and headed to the Masquerade Ball incognito to skulk around in secret. IOW, it wasn't like she was there to have fun. .. And she wasn't cured by any means. Some of her more notorious drunk times were to come (like stripping in a restaurant, passing out in public somewhere and having to be brought home, etc.) .. It's surprising she has brain cells from that period of time at all.

Thirty years ago Liz rips Kay a new one (video).

PREACH!

Korte does quite a shitty job of it too R348.

[quote]Who is the continuity/history person over at Y&R?

I'm not sure of anyone else, but Janice Ferri has been a scriptwriter as long as I've been watching, since sometime in the early '90s.

I always thought the editor/continuity person was Sara A. Bibel, since -- unlike the breakdown and scriptwriters for each individual episodes -- her name appears in the credits of every episode. But now it sounds like she got the boot as one of the breakdown writers.

R354 That's a great clip. Liz wasn't having any of Katherine's bs.

That WAS a great clip. What happened to sexy Rexy? I forget.

R354.... that was some good shit. I can't believe it's that hard to recapture the strengths of then.

That was a good scene. I always loved it when there was someone there to remind Katherine of the truth. Jill was what Katherine made her.

As soon as Liz starts, you know Kay's gonna get it, because those bass piano notes begin playing.

Every show needs a character like Liz... do any of them have that type of character anymore?

R357 Yes, sadly Sara got the boot. She was good.

That was brilliant; that scene was in 1993? and Kay and Jill and Phillip was what? 1977/78?

But today, Devon and Lily just squabble over business and "Neil's dream" -- the fact that she inadvertently killed Hilary and his unborn child is hardly mentioned.

R365 Yes. That scene with Liz was 1993 when Liz came to Genoa City to see Jill after she gave birth to "Billy" -- named "William Foster Abbott" in honor of Jill's father and Liz's husband.

For the most part, the Kay-Phillip-Jill material was played in 1974 and 1975. Kay drove Phillip2 over the cliff to his death in 1975. Phillip3 was born in 1976, and that was the year when most of the legal stuff that Liz mentions in the video played out.

By 1977-78 Derek Thurston had already entered the picture, with Kay sticking her nose in Jill's relationship with him now as well.

R366, you know your stuff.

I wish I were a big Y&R expert!

Thanks1

Phillip, Jill's son. was born Christmas 1975. I remember it was the first time I saw Hasselhoff as Snapper. They had also changed the opening sketches to reflect that.

I had watched Y&R for a long time (not anymore, but it's fun to pick the bones... I think I really left when the Fishers ate the show and drifted back from time to time, for awhile.) But I never really thought about how Katherine changed Jill because I missed the Philip Chancellor origins. (I came in sometime when Chancellor was in the nuthouse during a marriage to Derek. I think he and Suzanne were poisoning her chocolates or something.) In any event, it was actually great writing and it made sense of everything Jill became. But it also shows the bad writing because Jill seldom, if ever, struggled to find the person she had been. They just turned her into Dollarstore Alexis with Dickson and then screaming a horndog under Walton, until she entered her darlin' years.

under MAB, Jill went and worked as a nail tech again to connect to her roots(or something like that)

R369, watch the Memorial Day Episode from either 1985 or 86. It's on YouTube. Brenda is still Jill and it's an excellent exploration of Jill connecting to her past.

Bottom line, Jill and Phillip fell in love and even after Katherine took Jill's money, her baby's name, and just about everything else, Katherine continued to stalk Jill for years. It was one of the best stories in daytime. Bill Bell knew how to do a feud, Julie versus Susan, Jill versus Katherine, and Brooke versus Stephanie.

Whatever Jill did to Katherine, Katherine deserved it.

I never understood why there were so many Katherine supporters in the Jill/Katherine feud. Kay was a boozehound and had lots of flings during their marriage. Who could blame Phillip for looking elsewhere?

Other than Jill... Did Phillip fool around like Kay did?

When did people start calling her Katherine instead of Kay by the way?

I don't think Phillip fooled around on Kay (aside from Jill). He'd been exasperated for years with Kay's infidelity, drinking, and smoking.

Katherine could sleep with every stable boy that gave her the time of day, but when Phillip slept with Jill, it was earth shattering in Kay's mind.

Phillip had a very brief flirtation with Lorie Brooks in early 75. They never slept together, but they did cozy up at The Allegro a few times. Jill/Kay was the best remembered feud, but Lorie/Vanessa was just as good, as clinically, Vanessa was more calculating than Kay. And KT Stevens didn't overact, unlike JC.

Who the hell could look at Katherine Chancellor and think, "I want to have sex with that."?

R377 Me.

I wish we had even a few remotely interesting characters on Y&R.

Where is Brooks Prentiss?

Characters aren't interesting. When characters are deemed interesting you get Victor Newman. Stories are interesting.

You don't think Esther is interesting?

Adam is a pretty interesting character. But I'm not sure I could add anyone to that list.

Characters can be interesting too.....make the characters fascinating and give them actual perspectives and opinions and the stories will all but write themselves.

Y&R jumped the shark when they moved Jess Walton to recurring, yet kept Melody Thomas Snott on contract.

Stafford's acting is garbage. She must have a lifetime contract with her buddy Griffith.

Kind of difficult for Granny Jess to be on contract when she opted to move to Oregon back in 2012.

[quote]Lorie/Vanessa was just as good

I have to be honest, I never really understood what started that feud.

I think Vanessa just decided Lori wasn't good enough for her precious Lance.

[quote] Where is Brooks Prentiss?

Recall, when Leslie showed up to play the piano at Victoria & Ashland's wedding in Italy, she encountered JaBottom and made a comment that she recognized him from some of her son Brooks' InstaGram photos taken at Circuit Festival Barcelona 2017. .. JaBottom acted like he didn't know who or what Leslie was talking about. .. Leslie then thought Kyle might know Brooks by his social media name "Sir Prentiss," proudly adding that he's a very popular muscle daddy at HustlaBall events and would be going to the U.S. in a few months to perform on stage in Vegas.

In my dream, James Scott would come out of retirement to play Brooks Prentiss.

He and Kyle would fight over the same woman....but could you imagine the meltingly hot eye fucking that would go down?

James Scott isn't just retired, he's in his own personal, hallucinogenic La La Land.

I know r391.

There used to be another delicious scene on YouTube with Liz and Katherine shortly after the big Kay/Jill mother/daughter reveal. Katherine had just had a stroke and couldn't speak or really do anything. Liz told Kay, "You're my friend and I do love you. But if I thought for a minute you could feel it, I'd slap the bejesus out of you. I would! You caused this!". Katherine and Liz were great friends, but Liz could verbally lay the smackdown on Katherine when it was needed.

MAMIE!

I know everybody poo poos the Jill and Kay mother/daughter storyline. But, some of the acting during that story was some of the most amazing I've ever seen. There's one heartbreaking scene with Jill and Liz after Jill learns Katherine is her mother. Jill is crying telling Liz "I just want to be your little girl again," as Liz holds her. Such a powerful, emotional scene.

That old snatch

The Lorie/Vanessa stuff had a typical Bell incest vibe to it. Vanessa lusted after her son, as well as her lost youth, so she doubly hated Lorie. Vanessa had a mirror where she could spy on Lance and Lorie making love. That crazy veil made her look like something from The Arabian Nights. To ruin Lorie in Lance's eyes, she made Lorie's book about Leslie's breakdown a best seller, which led to another Leslie breakdown that resulted in Lance comforting her, sleeping with her and becoming Brooks' father.

Bell did have a particularly creepy fixation on almost marrying a sibling and weird mother and son vibes.

Wonder where that came from? Cynicism... he flat out knew it was creepy enough to make people watch or something weirder?

Did they fire the Hair Stylist too? Stafford's hair was an unruly mess yesterday.

I would have been worked up about Lance if we'd known that John McCook had all that sizemeat.

R395 Now imagine Brenda playing that scene.

STAFF!

Thing was, before they turned her into Dollar Store Alexis, Brenda could have played that scene really well. She did some good work before everything got bizzaroland.

R403 I agree. Even in 1986, we saw that Brenda was able to go right back to her original Jill persona with someone like Liz, when Liz came to say goodbye to Jill in the hospital after Jill had been shot. Julianna and Brenda still had that Mama-Daughter relationship. It was the same with how her Jill interacted with Brock. When he returned to Genoa City during Brenda's second run, Brenda interacted with him like it was still the 70s. These are scenes that wouldn't have registered nearly as well if someone else were in the role (e.g. Walton).

I still laugh when they give us one of these "billionaire-to-billionaire" scenes between Victor and Little DuhVon.

Victoria's porn fantasy involving Nate was just weird. .. I'm surprised she didn't reach into her purse and pull out a big black dildo.

And Jordi's returning? Whatever for? Some made-up flashback? .. Perhaps Chance can't get Hot Papi Rey, out of his system and has a porn fantasy of his own. That would work.

How does one (Brenda) go from a decent actress to a craptastic one? I suspect in Brenda's case, her ego got in the way and she wouldn't take direction because she thought she knew best.

[quote]Now imagine Brenda playing that scene.

I will never not believe that Brenda wasn't sabotaged. Which was pretty much Jeanne Cooper's theory. I believe that Brenda was always "eccentric" and she may have been complicated at times, but she pissed the wrong one off and there was no coming back from it. I read one account that the script would be one way and Brenda was being directed another way. It's been 40 years, so it doesn't really matter anymore. But Brenda, as she currently is, has sort of colored people's opinion of her.

And seriously, people criticize Brenda, but Wilma Jeanne was just as "melodramatic" back then. These two played off each other so well.

When she starts with that line, "Go home, old lady ...." it wouldn't have been nearly the same with anyone else in the role.

R407 I'm not so sure. In Jeanne's book, she talks about how she was ready to walk if Peter Bergman would have gotten fired after the big fight with Hans. Jeanne stuck up for her fellow actors when they were being treated badly. Wouldn't Jeanne have called up Bill Bell and told him somebody was out to get Brenda?

There has to be something to all the problems Brenda caused. Look at all the other actors who've caused problems in Hollywood, yet eventually find new roles. I don't believe for a second Brenda was blacklisted. I suspect her mental illness kicked in about1985 and word got around. So, nobody would hire her.

I'm not entirely convinced her True Hollywood Story is 100% delusion. If I had a theory, she got entangled with Bell and the fallout was as good as any plotline. I heard a story once that she and Jerry Douglas came to blows. I find it hard to believe it came to blows, but not that she was hard to work around toward the end. In the end, in his day, Bill Bell made a lot of money for a number of company and in entertainment that equals power.

r411 Are you talking about the time Jerry Douglas had to pick Brenda up and carry her to her mark because she was being a real pain? Apparently, Jerry told that story to one of the soap magazines. It was recently a topic on one of the many Brendad threads.

The funny thing is, with today's social media, can you imagine the shitstorm Y&R would have faced ,if they fired an actress who said she had to leave work, because she had a bladder infection? Female fans would be outraged, and it would take over the twitter-verse. The men in charge would be skewered alive all over the Internets.

r413 Yes, unless the actor had previously concocted many other stories to avoid coming to work. I think we've all worked with people like that. Even if they occasionally have a real excuse, nobody believes them because of their history.

Goodness they were obviously reading from cards in r408's clip

Not sure about Brenda, but Wilma Jeanne used cue cards religiously.

Jill had 2 assistants named David??

R417, the actor in that scene is the original David Kimble. Drew Pillsbury is his name. He was an actor for many years before becoming a psychotherapist in 2013.

R412, nope. I heard it from a soap columnist. I thought it sounded untrue or exaggerated. But maybe it was a variation of what you wrote. Seems possible.

r418

ah... I didn't know the more famous David wasn't the 1st one.. thanks

I found Pillsbury pretty stiff. The day they recast with Corbett, "David" became an entertaining sidekick. He and Brenda worked well together.

R407 it's possible that a director (or rather producer) could have told Brenda to play against what was in the script or the opposite of what Bill Bell wanted but think about it....why?

That producer or director would be playing with fire and could have been out of a job. Soaps have had plenty of problem actors and sometimes it's the producer who goes; others, it's the actor.

Brenda was given chance after chance. She blew it, alas.

I believe that sometimes these shows circle the wagon to free themselves of those they deem difficult. Y&R has a history of this. Regardless of what Brenda became in later years, I will never believe that there isn't some truth in her version of events. What happened to Brenda and what happened to Victoria Rowell are kinda how we ended up where we are today in terms of treatment of women on movie sets. Both women were deemed troublemakers who wouldn't play the game and lost their careers for it. While Eric Braeden punches a man and survives to this day.

[quote]That producer or director would be playing with fire and could have been out of a job. Soaps have had plenty of problem actors and sometimes it's the producer who goes; others, it's the actor.

Nope, Y&R is owned by Sony, not the Bells. They own a small piece of it, along with Corday. An EP and a director, hired by Sony and paid by Sony, could very easily direct Brenda in a way that was different from the scripts. Remember, Bill Bell didn't move to LA until 1986. He was still writing the show from Chicago. He wasn't in the booth while the show was being taped Wes Kenney was until he was fired in (guess when) 1986.

Again, I am not saying that Brenda was perfect. What I am saying is that Brenda got caught up in the middle something, beyond her control. Maybe she was sleeping with Wes Kenney. I don't know. And no one is going to believe Brenda now, because she really is a little nutty. I also know that Brenda had a difficult time when they aged Phillip and that is probably when she became really difficult.

Maybe I'm naïve, I just don't believe that everyone on that set was perfect, except Brenda. We've all heard way too many stories about how fucking dysfunctional Y&R is to believe that. But I'm happy to remain on an island alone.

Y&R is hands down the worst soap set and has been for a long time.

Drew Pillsbury used to date Courtney Thorne Smith. He was hotter than Michael Corbett, but that was before they changed the character to a Cricket obsessed psycho.

Actors become either realtors or therapists, it seems.

[quote] He was hotter than Michael Corbett,

Each to his own.

I would note that Playgirl thought Corbett was hot enough to sell magazines and put him on their cover.

R423, I believe that there are two sides to every story. But Bill kept an eye on the air show and would call up every day after it aired.

Irna did this too. These calls were feared by producers. One time, Irna called ATWt and the poor receptionist answers; "As the World Turns" and Irna cracked, "Not today, it didn't!"

There were lots of big caps in the scripts back in Bill's day, stage directions. It was clear what Bill wanted but you make two good points -- I never put together Kenney leaving Y&R in 86. But then, Brenda didn't leave till 87.

And you're right about Braeden; he attacked Peter, nearly killed him.

And kept his job. Unbelievable. I heard a rumor Michael Tylo was brought up as a potential recast for Victor but...in the end, they kept Braeden of course.

Rowell made the mistake of quitting, asking to leave to go do her book tour; she may have thought she could just come back but there's a big difference between being fired and not being rehired.

I didn't know Brenda slept with John Conboy.

How’s it going, stud?

Jeanne described the transition in acting styles from Brenda to Jess as going from a Vegas showgirl to a classical ballerina.

[quote]I never put together Kenney leaving Y&R in 86

I think that's the missing piece of the puzzle, to be honest. Jason, the big Days historian guy, used to post letters that Bill wrote Betty Corday when he was doing days. He would complain about some of the Wes' directing and you could tell there was some tension there. Bell was the Y&R headwriter and EP, but he didn't own the show outright. Remember CBS forced him to take the show to an hour against his wishes. My guess is Kenney was the Columbia guy and the money guy and probably did stuff with Columbia and CBS' approval.

Bell comes to LA and Kenney gets the axe and Brenda's "champion" on the set is now gone and so she becomes even more of a problem so they get rid of her and then circle the wagons to make sure she's done done.

I don't want to belabor the point because I really don't think we're all that far apart.

One more story. We were a Days house, but Y&R came on at 12:30. They would structure the show so that Jill would knock on Kay's door in the teaser, walk into the house, call Katherine an old bat, then commercial. They wouldn't pick up the scene again until Act 3 or 4. So what my Mom or Aunt would do is flip back and forth between Days and Y&R waiting for the Jill/Katherine stuff - because that was the money shot. When Jess replaced Brenda, it just didn't work anymore for them. Jess wasn't a bad actor, but the scenes lost their fire. IMO, Jess finally became Jill when they fought over that house.

By that time Jill was just a man eating charicature and Walton shouted so much of the time. But yet she could do some awesome stuff too.... here she is (and it also shoes why I loved Gina so much... they fucked her so badly booting her. She was a talented performer who could make bricks without straw.)

I never heard that Hans almost KILLED Bergman. I know they came to blows, fist fighting, but never heard it was that severe.

I think Bergman would have been happy with a sloppy kiss from Hans.

I've heard many rumors about a host of Manhattan adult bookstores that La Bergman loved to visit during his AMC years.

God knows what Bell relayed to Lee, the boys and little Lauralee about Brenda. He probably told them she was a psycho pursuing him to keep a plum role. I know Lauralee said to Jess Walton "You're already Jill to me," after her first episode. The ass kissing (Cooper, LeBlanc, Davidson especially) to the Bell Clan must have been nauseating. Didn't Brenda allude to Bill not being able to get it up?

R434 Nobody was almost killed. Crew had to pull them apart, though. Police reported injuries for both men, but no medical aid was needed.

Here's the detailed report of the incident that appeared in Soap Opera Weekly.

That article almost makes me cry. Oh, for a day when we had actual journalism done well in soapland. Back when Weekly was fabulous, and not Mimi's Spoiler Sheet.

[quote] The ass kissing (Cooper, LeBlanc, Davidson especially) to the Bell Clan must have been nauseating.

It's kind of ironic that 30 years later Dougie would start having his own "issues" with the current PTB.

I remember when he put this pic up in 2020, Lauralee "liked" it.

Wonder if Dougie and Winsor Harmon gulp from the same bottle of Raspberry Ripple these days?

What the fuck was Agnes Nixon doing sticking her nose into that fight??

Seriously, you've seen Hans box right? Back in the day?

Had Peter not fought back Eric would have killed him. He wasn't going to stop.

To this day, he'll call it the incident or that time we didn't get along.

No. He went there to beat the man to death. Peter fought back and lived. And then co-stars said oh, you two don't get along.

[quote] What the fuck was Agnes Nixon doing sticking her nose into that fight??

The Nixon being quoted in the artilce was Lt. Fred Nixon of the LAPD.

Is R442 Spicen? Or just drunk?

I'm howling over the clip Mel chose as her favorite moment for the 50th Anniversary.

Well, if she wanted to showcase just how BAD she was back in the early days, she certainly succeeded. Truly awful "acting."

And of course, Hans chose something from the stunt where Oscar-winner, George Kennedy, played his father in a few episodes.

Oh! Look it me and who I get to scream at!

If only SOMEONE had left Victor at that damned orphanage.

The anniversary week will end with Wilma Jeanne looking at the camera and rasping....

"I'M STILL DEAD BITCHES!"

We'll never get it, but I'd kill for the definitive, true "What happened to Brenda on Y&R?" story. Surely somebody who knows is still alive! The story needs to be told!

Hell, I'd imagine the whole Y&R cast and crew past and present have heard the stories. Even JaBottom could find out the skinny from Jess or Mel on their lunch break. I'm sure Jeanne filled Jess in all about the backstage drama.

DEAD!

R443, I mean to type jk after my Nixon remark.

Just kidding.

I think there was an E! Hollywood True Story where Kenney and Dickson give their sides of the story.

I think the person who could probably tell the story with at least a modicum of objectivity might be Kate Linder.

But she probably wouldn't do it until after she left the show.

Which will be never.

Y&R is so different now

So many regime changes

[quote]Y&R is so different now

Y&R stayed classic soap opera longer than all the others. For the longest time Bell kept the show in pockets, where stories rarely intersected. For years certain long running characters never even knew one another. The thing about Bell is he would go into his crazy and over the top stories too. Vanessa and the Veil, Lauren being buried alive, turning Jackie Chiles white (a story, along with teasing Tracey about her weight couldn't be told today) and all the fucking incest.

or maybe it's in here...

R454 So true 😆 I found it more interesting when characters didn't exactly know each other or barely interacted with one another, for it gave it more of a realistic vibe, instead of having characters visibly seeming forced to interact with each other for the sake of sharing scenes, when in real life, ppl tend to engage more with ppl they have things in common with and/or are related to, and we all know that certain relatives can easily be excluded from that narrative. The last time I remember characters being isolated and rarely communicating with the rest of the cast was GH, during the Guza era. I know he had his issues with writing at times and viewers did complain about how certain characters had never even met others, however it pretty much made sense for not everyone is going to meet practically everyone in their town, regardless of how small it is.

R454, it was so dumb when Nikki went to Los Angeles on B&B and thought she saw Sheila.

The two women never shared a scene together on Y&R.

[quote]I found it more interesting when characters didn't exactly know each other or barely interacted with one another, for it gave it more of a realistic vibe

After the stilted dialog, the story islands were the thing I hated most about Bill Bell's Y&R. One of the joys of watching ATWT was the way everyone in Oakdale, and their stories, were interrelated. That took real talent, keeping all of that together. Y&R's majordomo seemed at least lazy for not bothering to do that with his characters.

I think the whole characters interacting with each other depends on the show and writer and town and reasons people would see each other.

Doug knew how to blend many different types of people. Didn't Bea Reardon sit on Roger Thorpe's jury?

Colleen Middleton, Lesley's prison roommate, was Bobbie Spencer's old neighbor on Elm Street so when Colleen visited Lesley at GH and later ran into Bobbie, it was natural for them to interact.

But, no, there was no need for John Abbott to know who Miguel was -- unless he ever went over to the Newman ranch.

the big Masquerade Gala on Y&R in late 1991 was a rare time when the whole cast gathered; Migue met Esther that night but nothing ever came of it.

[quote] Miguel met Esther that night but nothing ever came of it.

Thank god. .. They're both subpar actors. .. Linder's okay in small bits, but when Peña was finally given his BIG chance to do something in the Veronica Landers-Sarah the Maid Story, he was TOTAL CRINGE. .. You could hear the laughter across the fledgling Internets when Miguel had to 'emote' in the scene where Veronica died by hay baling hook out in the Newman Barn.

Did Katherine Chancellor ever meet Mary WIlliams?

R462 I have this vague memory of some kind of Mother's Day? brunch episode when Corbin Bernsen, started playing Father Todd, and Kay and Mary were both at this GCAC event. Drunk Kay was making a fool of herself. I think we got something with Wilma-Jeanne's real life son and Mary's reel-life son.

R463 Didn't Mary's tenure on the show predate the GCAC?

When they were undoing the Kay/Jill mother-daughter story and Kay went looking for her real child, I was really hoping it ended up being Sheila.

R459 I remember the Reardons had Roger at their boarding house. They were new but even if it was implied they were there all those years, they wouldn't have known Roger's alter ego/disguise.

None of these shows really know how to do hungry characters any more. Everyone is too comfortable.

R464 No. The GCAC debuted not long after Pervin burned down Gina's Place. It was like a replacement set for people to go to. John let Gina move into the Abbott house, and she soon went on to manage the GCAC. All of that was 2003.

Mary was still appearing in 2004. In fact, I think that's when the scene I'm referring to in R463 occurred.

R458 Well to your point, I can see how it would take talent to try making connections between everyone and subsequently keeping them. If it comes off as natural, then it's worth it and makes more sense. However, if they're just interacting for the sake of interacting, then it never really seemed realistic. In the case of ATWT, which I used to watch as well, I will agree with you that it was more organic.

R329 I know it's further up in this thread however in regards to the Chris Engen affair, are you referring to him quitting over not wanting Adam to be bisexual, or was there an actual affair between him and Eileen Davidson, or someone else, on set?

R469 By "affair," I mean the circumstances surrounding the actor walking off the set, quitting the show, and breaking his contract. As I recall, ED was alluding to all of the crazy stuff that soap opera actors are asked to play, suggesting that it may not be a genre for the naive or faint of heart (i.e. where the "delicate flower" comment came into play). Veteran Chrissy kind of echoed this sentiment in his comments about how he'd love to play a story like Adam's expressly because it was controversial.

. ftr - Regarding your "bisexual" comment -- Personally, I don't think that's where they were headed with the character. It was simply a straight guy manipulating a gay guy the only way he could think of given his immediate circumstances, i.e. Adam was "imprisoned" on The Ranch with a tracker on his ankle and couldn't go anywhere. He had to somehow stop Rafe from searching his room, so he came on to him. - jmho

So I'm looking at some of the red carpet photos on Getty Images from the 50th Anniversary party the show held Friday night at Vibiana in Los Angeles.

I see Tom Hallick, Janice Lynde, and Jaime Lyn Bauer from the early cast were there. What? No Brenda? .. lol! Also, John McCook was there, and let's not talk about Roberta Leighton. Gee, whatever she did to her face is even worse now. Just sad.

The five returning for the show itself (Tricia Cast, Barbara Crampton, Michael Damian, Patty Weaver and Veronica Redd Forrest) were all there.

Some of the men I noticed were Phil Morris, J. Eddie Peck, Scott Reeves, Michael Corbett, Robert Parucha, and MAGA Peter Barton. I wonder if he caught up with Trumpster Kimberlin Brown, who of course, was there.

I wonder if more photos will be forthcoming, since it seemed like far more vets showed up at the Days of Our Lives 50th Party back in 2015.

^^^ P.S. Forget to mention that Victoria Rowell was there.

Here's the missing link to R471 's post.

R473 Thank you for your detailed reply lol I thought maybe there was more to it or something else going on which led to his exit, now I see what you meant. As far as Chris LeBlanc goes lol I'm sure he would've enjoyed playing in such a story.

You're right, I misspoke because I never really thought they intended to make Adam completely bisexual, more like gay for pay lol or of the whatever it takes mode to get what he wants. Well back then I believe that's where they were headed with him, for he seems slightly watered down now.

No Thom Bierdz at the 50th party?

No Brendad?

Love those pics.

I hate to say it because she ate the show thanks to Daddy's decree, but Lauralee Bell looks undeniably, platinum class, weapons grade fantastic.

Tracy Bregman looks enamelled. It's this bizarre blend of way over worked yet not quite distorted. If something hit that face it would bounce off, like when a bird hits an office tower.

There's nothing to say.

holy shit... who is that with Melody?

Robert Parucha still looks decent - he was looking great a few years back.

McCook really looks like an old man there....but he is 85 or close to it now.

TSJ looks handsome.

Sean Carrigan - a shame they ruined that character. He was the middle of the road guys Y&R was sorely lacking. And he was hot.

McCook is 79 this year.

Well whatever his age, he's finally getting that "old man" look about him.

Which he didn't have a few years back.

R480, the actress who used to play her sister, Casey.

Poor Roberta Leighton.

Assuming she's not nuts, she's got courage going out like that. Honestly, if I'd done that to my face, I wouldn't. And weirdly, her face isn't easing up. Linda Evans (see other thread) looks great again... like herself.

Interesting how Brendad and Weirdz weren't at the big event. It didn't look hard to get an invitation.

Are we sure it's plastic surgery and not some kind of condition?

Peter Barton’s long hair looks awful.

What’s going on with Jaime Lyn Bauer’s knockers?

I'm surprised that Dee wasn't there. She was in the very first episode.

R489, gravity, babe.

Whatever her faults, Melody Thomas Scott was best in show for her category.

No Dougie D. I guess he's still pissed off.

If only Nellie Branco were alive not to be invited.

The meltdown would be sensational.

R494 I lol'ed. Because it's true.

She was an evil cuntzilla but I sort of miss her.

Googling Nelson’s cause of death, I came across these lengthy comments from his friend Michael Muhney.

This "Maximo TV" channel has some videos from the red carpet. This one of Roberta Leighton is just sad. You can find more on their channel feed by going there and hitting "Videos."

Some of those photos look awful.

What the absolute and entire fuck happened to Peter Barton? Once a gorgeous man, now looks like someone picking up spare cans for change.

Camyrn looks terrible.

Eileen looks good. For all the jokes about her weight? Beth Maitland looks very nice. Age appropriate and well dressed, appropriate for a larger woman.

Wow, Katherine Kelly Lang wins. She looks fucking fabulous.

R487 If walking lawsuit Vicky Rowell got an invite, you'd think BrendaD would have gotten one as well .. lol.

I'm thinking Bierdz might be trapped in the snow up in his log cabin. A friend of mine posted some photos a few days ago, and it still looked pretty treacherous.

[quote] What the absolute and entire fuck happened to Peter Barton? Once a gorgeous man, now looks like someone picking up spare cans for change.

Peter Barton is a MAGA head case. That's what happened.

Where was Kate Linder? Did she skip this to accept another star on the Walk of Fame?

Kate Linder attended.

Kate Linder is probably still there.

Victoria Rowell looks fantastic.

It’s beyond time to bring back Dru and Olivia.

Veronica Redd

I think HoLivia has given up acting and is too busy with her film project job up in Canada where she runs a foundation and festival.

Bregman in her metallic hot pants and bustier, complete with spray-on tan is so porn star.

Chrissy must get a hard-on whenever he's around her.

Now I know what happened to Paige Michalchuk.

Fun shot via Michael Corbett from the event.

Wow. If this photo is it, then not a very big assemblage for a show that's been on 50 YEARS.

Not even everyone in the current cast is there. Boretoria? Summer? The Stafford? And no JaBottom? You'd think he'd want to show off his new fiancee..lol

The show has now invited Victoria Rowell to the Kristoff St. John remembrance and the 50th anniversary. Guess the ice is thawing toward Rowell a little bit. The same cannot be said for Ms. Brenda apparently.

I like the way Hans is front and center but the Abbotts are interspersed. I tire of Hans.

Gotta say it again, the Bug looks amazing.

Stafford probably wanted to avoid Victoria Rowell.

I'm kind of shocked that ever-thirsty Goddard wasn't there.

Sweeet fuucking JESUS!!! Who the FUCK does Roberta Leighton's fillers- The botox in her forehead migrated to her nose making her look like Jake Lamotta.

Utterly embarrassing. Who the fuck could go out in public like that?

She was such a beautiful woman.. Fuck

Where was La Muhney?

Where was poor dead Dina?

[quote] Stafford probably wanted to avoid Victoria Rowell.

According to them, they made up IRL when they happened to run into each other at a gas station in L.A.

Susan Walters was by the far the best aging chick at this event, along with Lauralee Bell, Eileen, and the chick who played Drew.

Tracey Bregman looks amazing- but so fucking altered its pure surgery and fillers. Great work though.

And that african american gentleman who was on in that 83-85 era looks SO handsome. Looks far better as a mature man.

I cannot get over Roberta Leighton- its the worst that I have EVER seen..

Zack Tinker makes me weak and lusty enough to basically fuck anybody.

I'm also surprised Rikaart (with hubby) wasn't there. They could have come with Peter Porte and his husband.

And since he doesn't do social media, I'd also liked to have seen Stephen Gregory.

Showrunner Absolute.

I suspect that Roberta Leighton came to the party directly from the set of a Star Trek series where she's guest starring as alien. Clearly, she didn't have time to take off her alien makeup.

Video clip from the par-tay. .. I think Conner is my favorite actor the show now. He always seems like he's having a good time.

And where the hell is Chance? I think it's been almost a month since we've seen him.

I think Rowell back would be a great thing.

But even if her feud with The Staff was minimized and/or is over (supposedly they have to some degree made up) the three biggest things standing in her way are:

(1) Dru was assumed to be dead, and unless they were bringing her back long term, it would be a lot of fuss for nothing.

(2) Christel still dislikes her and probably has a vote on whether she can come back

and more than anything.....

(3) Sadly, Kristoff is gone, and that more than anything probably means Dru is never coming back.

R525 I sense a maturity about CK at this point in her life where she'd probably just do the job and work with VR, as required. After all, VR is the one who started all the tension with her stupid "bedtime stories," and as I recall CK just kept quiet and rose above it. More than CK, I might guess that old guard vets like PB and MTS might be more against VR returning. Recall, she had something to say about both of them as well. .. I hope all her talking out of school was worth it just to sell a few more books. Really stupid thing to do if you ever expect to go back to a television set where you've dissed many of your co-workers. - jmho

R459 - Bea was on a jury, but I can’t remember if it was Roger’s or Jennifer’s. I do remember Nola trying so hard to get Bea to spill the details, but Bea took her duties as a juror very seriously and didn’t divulge anything.

At a point, Roger (in disguise) lived at the Reardon boarding house. Marland was sooooo good at interconnecting and overlapping characters and stories without it feeling forced (Sabrina painting a mural at Memorial on ATWT, etc.). He was also really good at the opposite — did anyone notice that Alan Spaulding had never seen Jennifer Richards until she was in the witness stand?

That E! True Hollywood story posted upthread has Jamie Lyn Bauer playing her character’s mother.

IMO, the whole CK/VR thing was so stupid on VR's part - and some of the fans too. It seemed, at least to me, that she didn't like the way CK played Lily. Lily was raised in Paris and attended French boarding schools. The character was never meant to be some streetwise urban chick. I know some fans preferred the second Lily, but that wasn't who the character was. Even if they played Lily in the black storylines, she would still have been one of those preppy Jack & Jill types. I think VR and the fans wanted neck rolling and snappy comebacks. Neck rolling and finger waving is not hereditary.

Bea was on Carrie Todd's jury.

R529 Totally agree. Instead of being a Mini-Me Dru, Lily would more likely be the Contra-Dru .. lol. .. Another thing is that Lily #2 may have appeared 'okay' onscreen (after numerous takes), but she really wasn't. Ask Graz. Wait don't. Because he refused to talk about all the shit that went down. This came out in a radio interview he did. I think it was right after he left the show. .. Rumors were she'd come in ill-prepared. Not a good fit for the soap opera production model. VR coddled her, but MG couldn't take much more of it, and it was a very frustrating experience for him. (Recall, VR had words to say about him as well.) Meanwhile, he loves working with CK. He feels they're totally in synch.

Graz and Christel probably braid each other's weaves.

Graz won’t talk about it because he was an asshole to Davetta Sherwood aka Lily #2 and berated her in front of crew.

VR’s bigger issue with CK is that she doesn’t acknowledge being Black and allegedly doesn’t want Black love interests for Lily. CK is a snob and made posts about DS on her MySpace page when she came crawling back to Y&R after her career went nowhere. She was visibly cold towards VR during the Kristoff tribute. Bryton is still close to VR though.

[quote]VR’s bigger issue with CK is that she doesn’t acknowledge being Black and allegedly doesn’t want Black love interests for Lily.

How is any of that VR's business?

I'd heard Sherwood had pals over in her dressing room, near the set (she wouldn't have had a regular room); the guests were loud to the point where production was being interrupted; LML called her up to her office and she denied all.

I recall her Lily snarking at Daniel; shut up! Get me a soda!

She wasn't a good fit for the show. CK does great work.

R527 yes, I recall; this is one story that made it to the soaps DVD collection that came out a while ago. I was smart enough to grab a set; you can't find them anymore.

I don't think Bea was on Jennifer's first trial; Nola was already befriending Morgan so Bea would have stated a conflict of interest if she were on Jennifer's trial.

Doug created towns that viewers wanted to live in; you could see characters bumping into each other all the time, some who weren't in the same story but Doug tied it all together.

When Sierra left town after finding out that Craig and Lucy had been together, Kim told Craig that Bob had seen Sierra at an airport in San Francisco; same with Penny telling Lisa that she'd seen Margo (split from Tom) at a London airport.

God, I miss these shows. Thank god for YouTube.

I don't think Bell's use of story pockets where certain characters didn't know one another was bad. And in some cases, it kind of made sense. There was no reason for John Abbott to know Mary Williams or for Nina to know Victoria until the story brought them together.

I like the other way too and have no issue with soap towns where everyone is connected in some way, but if you think about it why would Bob and Kim know Sierra?

[quote] ... and berated her in front of crew.

As if that's never happened before. Maybe DS deserved some berating. If she was holding up production, the crew probably agreed with him .. Moreover, the crew usually finds out everything anyway - regardless of whether it happens in front of them or not. The Hair Department will take care of that.

Hans is looking very hippy. Broad in the beam. Old man spread.

Hans' knee surgery looks like it was successful, and he's ready for another 50 years.

[quote]why would Bob and Kim know Sierra?

At the very least because Kim's ex-husband John was then married to Sierra's mother, Lucinda.

R526 Bedtime Stories? Lol what exactly were they, or are you referring to the book that she wrote?

R533 What did Christel have to say about Davetta on her MySpace page?

From the sad/interesting/Google department...here is Deborah Adair last year, who played Jill in the early 80s (and did a bunch of Aaron Spelling stuff after.) She spoke at a public event about fentanyl. Her daughter died from it. At first I wasn't sure it was her in the video (back half after the panel) but the voice is unmistakably hers.

If VR and Stafford have mended fences ( a lot of stuff goes down at gas stations in LA) that's good, because quite frankly that was stupid too. Stafford was clearly doing a spit take, which isn't unheard of in scenes, but if she didn't clear it with VR first, I can see why VR got mad - but I truly don't think it was some racist thing on Stafford's part. Melody and the afro wig making fun of VR is different, but the whole spit take drama that may have been blown out of proportion a bit.

R543 She looks decent for 70 and no makeup. Sad about her daughter.

Wow R543- I just looked up Deborah's IMDB.

It turns out that she was born in Lynchburg Va and apparently moved back to her hometown..

Both her son and daughter were adopted as well.. (mid 90's)

Very sad..

It's kind of amazing to me she's 70.

Barbara Crampton looks like of amazing.

R544, fair to say two volatile personalities who were looking for a reason to fall out.

R537 - Sierra also worked at Memorial, so Bob would’ve known her from there.

R543 - I think Deborah Adair looks basically the same. I always liked her. Sad to hear about her daughter.

R537 - Also, Betsy was Kim’s stepdaughter and they remained close. I’m sure Betsy and Kim would’ve discussed Craig and Sierra.

The Stafford's veneers look like Chiclets chewing gum and are actually quite distracting.

At some point during the Nikki-Traci scene, I was reminded that they both fucked Bradley Carlton. Also, they were both pill addicts.

James Hyde, Hot Daddy. To make his character more interesting, though, they should have him banging a cute bell boy on the side. After all, Jeremy was in prison for quite some time.

[quote]James Hyde, Hot Daddy.

James Hyde, Not Hot. Greasy, slimy.

I heard there's a very special storyline coming up for the 50th anniversary. Scoche Marin gives a powerhouse performance as Katherine Chancellor rediscovers her lesbianism. Mariah, Tessa, and Kay become a hot new throuple, turning heads and raising eyebrows all over Genoa City.

I have a question. Y&R has been #1 since the late 1980's. Yet for as long as I can remember, it was never considered the "hot" show on daytime, the way Days and GH were in the 90's. Those two shows would scoop up all the Soap Opera Digest awards, voted on by the public. I guess Y&R had more viewers, which is more important, but maybe the intensity of support for Days and GH was higher. Or maybe there was a Y&R's "hot" period in the 70's or 80's and I missed it? Help me out, eldergay soap viewers.

R554 I remember reading stories about how both Days and GH fans would stuff the ballot box for the SOD awards. And as I recall, GH fans would also fill the rafters of the auditorium and make noise every time something GH was uttered.

I remember reading that Bill Bell never gave a shit about awards. He cared about getting people to tune in. He never produced Emmy bait shows, either. Awards are nice, but at the end of day, mean very little when you're riding high in the ratings.

I wonder if another reason Y&R never was considered hot is because it aired on CBS along with ATWT and GL, which were considered the granny soaps.

In the early days, Y&R was considered the YOUNG, sexual, sensual soap. TV rooms at colleges and universities would be filled with students watching it.

Young, sexual, and sensual, like me.

Her Emmy winning orgasm still stands without rival.

Well, Wilma Jeanne was banging studly stable boys on the dining room table, so there was that.

And I had to clean up the table afterwards.

The maid back then was Theresa.

Y&R shot to the top in magazine polls in early 74. Chris and Snapper were the 1st supercouple, then Leslie and Brad. Its ratings were hampered because so many affiliates wouldn't show it at its 12pm timeslot, because they aired their own local news. People who read about it in Daytime TV or Afternoon TV (there was no Soap Opera Digest yet), asked why it wasn't shown in their cities, and stations started airing it. It was addictive, and everything from the music to directing to the opening were totally different from anything seen before. That's John Conboy, not Bill Bell. Bell's story was brilliant, but if he's had the production team World Turns or Guiding Light had, we might have had a slow moving, bland show. William Gray Espy could have probably been another Brando(!) if he hadn't po'd Bell by leaving. Bell blackballed him, the same way he later, and more cruelly treated Dickson. Paul Rauch wanted to get Bell's goat, and that's why he poached Espy four years later to get him on AW.

Yes, Y&R sort of started out of the gate as the "hot" show. It was actually, young and restless with moody lighting and pretty actors.

Also, I think what a lot of people forget is that while Y&R was number 1 in Households, during the late 80s and 90s it wasn't the number one show demographically. You can always tell who is watching a show, based on the type of commercials.

After it's early years of being the it show, Y&R was just a steady work horse, eventually hitting #1 in the late 80s. The Shelia story was pretty buzzy, but that was about it.

I was never a deep DAYS, GH or Y&R fan.

But it's no mistake that those three shows were known for their focus on young couples and characters. And any remaining fans any of the shows have now are primarily fans that watched in the heydays of those shows.

Mini-spoiler: On Tuesday, we learn that Jeffrey Todd was released from prison.

Who R567?

I had to check the interwebs, because I thought JT was dead. I must have blocked out the ending of the brain tumor/JT's an abusive asshole storyline.

Oh got it JT. The character they tried to destroy, ruining his legacy with Colleen, to prop up the Newmans and Victoriavampira.

At the end of the story, they restored JT to his more heroic nature somewhat, and being the noble guy he is, he plead guilty to the charges, thereby avoiding a protracted trial, took his punishment without trying to use the brain tumor as some kind of excuse, apologized, and simply accepted his prison sentence.

...

R564 I don't suppose the fact that Brenda is crazy AF had anything to do with her never working. William Gray Espy must not have been too upset about being "blackballed." He returned to Y&R for the Jill-is-adopted storyline in 2003.

Wishing they would remember characters like JT, Raul, Brittany existed. Bring a few back and their now college age kids and let the games begin.

[quote] Wishing they would remember characters like JT, Raul, Brittany existed.

Mal Young had all of them back on. I don't really care enough about Brittany, though.

MAGA Woodland showed up at the Anniversary party with her girl group, Case, Clatterbuck, and Gareis. .. I thought Lago and his bestie, Luckinbill, might both be there, but didn't, and the latter's wife, Heinle, didn't even show up. Neither did Josh Morrow nor The Stafford. No JaBottom as well. What's up with that? And you'd a thunk Mealor would have been included with the other Abbotts on "The Talk" yesterday as well.

I bet Muscle Mary Mealor is technically on recurring.

Graz took the opportunity to propose to his longtime-partner-baby-mama on The Talk today.

I caught the show R577 . Did you hear the fiancee tell Bryton and Christel over the applause that because they got him back on the show he could finally afford the ring? Pretty funny.

[quote]William Gray Espy could have probably been another Brando(!) if he hadn't po'd Bell by leaving.

And if he wasn't such a terrible, terrible actor.

Espy was better than David Hasselhoffenburger.

R578 Yes. Graz and future wife look like they have a fun humorous streak. I remember laughing out loud (for real) when they did their two-photo baby announcement.

Espy came from a wealthy Dothan AL family. I think they owned sportsplexes. He had a couple chances to make it big, but each time he did himself in. He was supposed to be in The Goodbye Girl instead of Dreyfuss, as the temperamental (Brando-esque) actor, but he was dropped. He was rumored to be the father of the baby Kate Mulgrew gave up. He took his savings, and traveled the world for over a year, then his agent told him of Paul Rauch's offer to earn over $100,000 playing Mitch Blake for one year.

Man, Devon really is an ASSHOLE. Isn't this the SECOND time he's sent his sister to court?

Back when Beastmaster and those creepy children were on the show, didn’t he make it his mission to send his sister to jail? He also fucked up Nate’s--btw, that actor is GORGEOUS--medical career, cheated on everybody etc. He really is a piece of shit. Is this the direction they're going with the character or is he just misunderstood?

Also? Abby’s wardrobe is fucking AWFUL. All that sparkly shit that she wears.

And why are they writing Amanda like a sad puppy who just CAN'T be professional ?

Not only is Devon an asshole, but the actor playing him is boring AF.

Devon is a nitwit. Any bad thing the writers can come up with for this loser is justified. I don't know how the actor won 2 Emmys!

Devon being an asshole could be kind of fun, except Bryton (or whatever his name is) is awful, the dialogue is terrible, and the character of Devon is supposed to be a SAINT.

We need a new thread soon. If you have any requests/suggestions let me know?

R587 Well, the new thread should probably reference the BIG FIVE-0h.

Okay - next thread when this is filled up

Filled like Kay's liquor cabinet

Badly filled like the role of Jill....darlin'

You can tell from the preview that the GCAC set is back for the GOLLA. .. I wonder if they'll keep it around afterward.

They really need another place for people to go nosh .. so bored with Society and Crimson Lights. And The Glam Club is pretty dull. At least the GCAC has an element of class.

Fucking darlin'. Jesus.

*takes long drag of cigarette*

*drinks grain alcohol*

*reports to stage to play Jill*

I'm still dead bitches!

Bajour!

YOU!

GOT

THAT?

buh bye now

[quote] Devon being an asshole could be kind of fun, except Bryton (or whatever his name is) is awful,

Now, would be a good time to write both DuhVon and Blabby out. Two dull birds with one stone.

He'd want to leave because of the great divide between himself and Lily, remaining pissy and not wanting to work with her. And since Abby wrecked her marriage to Chance, she'd go with him. They can take their baby and live abroad.