A celebration in our Marvelous Midwestern town!

Prior thread.

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

Joe Lando in the Locher Room next week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fuck you, R9

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

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

I'm sober today..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I went and shit on that AW bench.

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

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

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

Connie sings! Beginning at 5:29.

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

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

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

[quote] The Cuntkicking Finals have just begun!

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

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

BNSD!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two additional things to consider about Sally and Catlin:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

R29 But GL never suffered like the others did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

R34 That was AMAZING. *SOBS*

R45 Agree.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It also had Brand New Sexy Philip.

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

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

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

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

Then Maureen

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

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

Sigh

^red hot show

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Even less surprising, Spicen is the Drew Dixon Troll.

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

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

And yet none of those personalities are tolerable.

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

R76, there's a book in all that.

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

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

Celebrating Rachel?

For what? Being the town bicycle?

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

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

CREDIT CARDS ARE NOT FREE MONEY

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

YOU LOST YOUR VIRGINITY!

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

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

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

Nancy McGowan is a human roach nest!

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

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

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

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

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

>>>>>>>>

Cheryl McKinnon is a human roach nest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sounds a bit like Margo.....

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

Anyway.....

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

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

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

R110 Um, hello? I'm right here!

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

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

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

I have a weird memory- so here it goes-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway back to these P&G shows!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

R130 = Lucinda Walsh

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

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

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

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

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

R135 It did. Shockingly enough, it survived.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tell us more r148-who else was there?

Was Marland gay?

Am pissing myself at the bowling comment.

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

//////

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

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

Cue card please!

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

Anyway.

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

Lord, give me strength.

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

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

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

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

The least Latino man ever, lol.

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

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

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

Peter Boynton at least kept his accent throughout.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Subjective, I guess. But made sense.

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

Why is March 1 "Another World" day?

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

*its

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

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

Is it true that the AW bench was dismantled?

Is Charita's leg in the Smithsonian?

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

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

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

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

R62 that's so cool!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[quote]How do we separate into paragraphs?

Hit the Return/Enter key twice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well said R202.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Original Rachel was the blueprint for Meghan Markle.

Happy Rachel Day!

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

Rachel? I don't know her.

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

Rachel Davis?

She's a cock juggling thunder cunt!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ME!

I often wonder who Mary hated more:

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

2) Ann Marcus

3) The McCleary Brothers

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

Mary was the predecessor to Kim Zimmer in the press.

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

No matter what, those bitches were unhappy.

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

Qui etait cette cunt?

Mary Stuart, that's who!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They should have tried harder.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

what a waste;

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

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

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

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

r241

ATWT got Julianne Moore though

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think that came out in the Locher room.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That set up is designed to fail.

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

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

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

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

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

People in the soap world had disdain for the fans.

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

MADD hiring Susan Batten to play Connor.

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

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

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

She went back to DAYS where she belonged.

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

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

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

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

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

R256

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kreizman killed three shows in a row

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

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

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

showrunners have always been under pressure

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

GL brought back a slew of people.

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

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

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

And they were just thrown away after being ruined.

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

Said no one in the entertainment industry ever.

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

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

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

Who knew you could get arrested for fucking Wessonality?

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

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

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

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

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

DO SOMETHING; instead, they killed all these shows.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We probably more agree than disagree.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

End of rant. (For now.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

r281

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

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

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

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

We all knew the shows were going down in flames.

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

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

Yup!!!

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

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

Doug did that particular beat well.

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

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

He did Emma wrong!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Loved her as Karen; she was NOT Meg.

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

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

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

Dearest Bea, I'm sending Rita your way.

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

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

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

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

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

Mo vs Mo

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

My dears,

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

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

What should we do? Suggestion?

I'll be happy to parachute into the celebration.

Shirtless.

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

I'll sing Proud Mary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

R307 Reva....Shayne?

That low born gutter slut!

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

Vying with Cecile to become Queen of Tanquir?

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

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

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

Why does no one ever want to fix me up?