Yeah, in the 90s/2000s, it was extremely rare for a character to stick around longer than 3 or 4 years. It was usually only the older cast members that stayed on board to create the "backbone" of the show. This applied to all soaps, not just GZSZ. In the early days, most youngers "actors" didn't have any experience before being cast on a soap, and it showed. Because the soap genre had a bad reputation, many younger actors were eager to leave their shows to get "better" roles. Only some of them were lucky, though, and a lot of these actors quit acting altogether to find success in other professions. Some former GZSZ actors of the 90s became successful directors, for example. In other instances, people were fired because their characters had become stale or because they were unpopular.   Storytelling was also very different back then because there wasn't that much emphasis on character development. There were a lot of cheesy, over-the-top storylines that wouldn't work today.   However, there are lot of storylines that are popular on American soaps that German soaps have never or rarely done, such as "Who's the daddy?", baby switchs, return from the dead, long-lost twins, rape, plastic surgery/people wearing masks to pose as a different person, brainwashing, multiple marriages to the same partner, science fiction or supernatural stuff, and the likes.   Over time, some characters managed to become essential to the show's storylines (or their actors are very friendly with TPTB), and this is why they have sticked around for so long. I mean, back in 2004, I could have never imagined that Emily would still be on the show in the year 2020. She was a very unpopular character at that time and wasn't even well integrated into the cast for years. Same goes for Katrin. Philip has been a bore ever since, but apparently he's popular enough. Maren and Lilly, who have both been on the show for 10 years, also started out as rather peripherical characters.   If you look at these episode counts from January 1995, you will probably not recognize any familiar name except Jo:   January 1995 Total Episodes: 22   01. Sandra Keller (Tina Ullrich-Zimmermann #1) : 17 *** Alexander Kiersch (Patrick Graf) : 17 03. Wolfgang Bahro (Dr. Jo Gerner) : 15 *** Sali Landricina (Peter Becker #2) : 15 *** Lisa Riecken (Elisabeth Meinhart) : 15 *** Victoria Sturm (Milla Engel) : 15 *** Saskia Valencia (Saskia Rother) : 15 *** Claudia Weiske (Elke Opitz) : 15 09. Hannelore Minkus (Beatrice Zimmermann) : 13 *** Jan Sosniok (Tom Lehmann) : 13   11. Hans Christiani (A.R. Daniel) : 12 12. Andreas Elsholz (Heiko Richter) : 10 *** Frank-Thomas Mende (Clemens Richter) : 10 *** Julian Scheunemann (Charlie Fierek) : 10 15. Matthias Matz (André Holm) : 9 *** Angela Neumann (Vera Richter) : 9 *** Julia Gerke (Jenny Gruber) : 9 * 18. Judith Gerke (Jessi Gruber) : 8 * *** Irene Neuner (Dr. Rebecca Scheele) : 8 * *** Bastienne Voss (Mona Dorngräber, owner of "Modern Times") : 8 22. Ernst Dollwetzel (Jens Liebermann, owner of "Modern Times") : 6 *** Volker Lüdecke (Uwe Kraus, Tina's kidnapper) : 6 *** Simone Storch-Bicking (Ariane Lehnert, owner of "City Lights") : 6 25. Frank Halatsch (Willi Gerner) : 5 *** Werner Schuster (Manni Fürst, reporter at "Morgenecho") : 5 27. Elke Lanzendörfer (Officer Borg) : 4 *** Dagmar Sitte (Rita Sahmel) : 4 *** Sabine Svoboda (Officer Schwenke) : 4 30. Raphael Schneider (Andy Lehmann) : 2 * 31. Tanja Wenzel (Mascha Marcks) : 1   * became contract cast members at a later point.

We’re starting to get 1984 clips coming up as we speak. But watching the last of the 1983 ones, I’m surprised by how Paul & Lauren actually started - by Paul wanting to break up Lauren and Danny’s engagement so that Danny could go back to Patty (this was all before Traci’s pregnancy of course).   And now it makes sense why Patty hated Lauren so much during 1984. I wonder if that’s something the writers could bring back with Patty next time she comes on. Incidentally, I’m shocked by just how visceral Lauren’s hatred of Traci was back then. Everything Lauren did back then arose out of her dislike for Traci.   And you have most of these characters on screen even today - Lauren, Traci, Paul. Bring back Patty *and* Danny, and you would have dynamite for years. Michael Damian has stated on Twitter that he would love to come back to Y&R at some point, and this would be the perfect way to bring him back in.

Jeannine Pirro: "Something's going to happen before the election, and [Joe Biden's] not even going to be on the ticket."   That's funny, many have been saying the same thing about Donald Trump. #NaturalCauses2020