DRW50

Was Irna still involved in any writing decisions by 1968? I know that from some Margie Impert interview you deduced that they had to kill Bill off quickly because Ed Bryce bought out his contract.

What was the oil rig material with Amanda? I was also going to ask, what did you think of the show between the time Marland left and Long arrived? I know Schemering said L. Virignia Browne brought the ratings up during her tenure. Did you think anything interesting was going on? All I know of this time was the endless saga with Mark and Rebecca and so on.

Pam Long/Richard Culliton killed off Bill, I think. What always confuses me about fan reaction to Bill's return is that from the 50's and 60's stuff I've seen, especially the 60's stuff, Bill seems like a very weak man. I think leaving his family was perfectly in character. You're right about the changes in Vanessa which made her less of a bitch. What I meant more in terms of demotion was that last year or so when she mostly just seemed to say "Oh Billy", which I think caused Maeve to leave for a while.

Bill Shanks would have been so much better.

I think announcers held a special place on P&G soaps, as P&G soaps represented family and home. I guess P&G was ashamed of that.

I think the reason there is more animosity towards the Lewises is they're flashier, they represent more of an era. The Reardons, aside from Nola, seemed more low-key, and I guess filled some gaps in the canvas (Rita leaving and Maureen becoming Ed's leading lady, Kelly being the only junior leading man on the show until Tony). I have to admit from what I've seen of them I don't love them either - Bea just seems kind of silly and it's tough to believe she was supposed to have worked her fingers to the bone, and at times it's tough to believe Maureen/Nola/Tony are related (or Jim, later on). But GL was losing so many prominent characters around 1980 that Nola did fill a gap. Long probably gets credit for the Lewises because Josh was so different under Marland. I do think a lot of people loved the Lewises - HB was always a popular character, Josh had many fans. Billy was written in and out but certainly I loved Billy and I doubt I was alone in that. I think some people have a lot of animosity towards Reva and blame Reva for taking up too much airtime, being burnt out in terms of story, and being front and center at a time when so much about GL was changing. I think it's also because a lot of the Lewis stories seemed to become a big mess around the mid-80's, like the Infinity saga, Reva being with every Lewis, Vanessa being so demoted, etc. One thing which bothers me about that era of GL is how they phased out some of the more thoughtful and subtle leading ladies, like Amanda, Hope, Trish. I think GL worked best when there was a balance between this mix of peace and neuroses, and some of the larger-than-life histrionics with Reva or the Spauldings. I guess all this happening within the space of a year, two years, puts more of the blame on Long and Kobe, even if P&G deserves the blame. I just have never understood the Hillary death, especially at that particular time. I think that is what gets the most notice. When I think back to GL of the early 80's I try to remember that what some of us may see as a golden age was far from it to some viewers. I know in SOD some would write in complaining during Marland's run about all the disco scenes, about older actors being phased out, about being sick of youth, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VikALBTUzBM&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiiZnKGlnko&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Was she there when Reva had her baby in 2009? IMDB credits her up to 2007. I never knew she was with Will Jeffries.

When she was fired in early 1990 she said it was good because she had more time to plan her wedding.

June 1956 TVRM The large sum of money which Carolyn holds in trust has attracted many new acquaintances. But in spite of her watchfulness, Carolyn is confronted by one who understands that the way into her confidence is through her son, Skip. What will happen to Skip if Carolyn continues to misplace her confidence?

Fletcher was a good supporting character, and a good fallback for Alexandra. I liked his relationship with Ben, and seeing the day to day life of someone raising a young son on their own. I always enjoyed his friendships with people like Ed or Ross. I do think that he wasn't overly suited for dramatic stories but he helped make Springfield a community. I don't think his staying up to 1990 involved Pam Long - they'd split up several years prior.

That's true. I think the changes in Maureen as a person also helped - she was a little gawky in her first GL run and RH run and was quite stunning by the time she returned to GL.

I think the claim is that Garrett felt like Holly wasn't doing anything and hadn't become a stronger person. I've only seen clip sets of Holly in the Dobson years, and one or two Marland episodes, but there doesn't seem to be any humor or wit - sometimes there's a certain jaded quality which was still there later on. I think they reinvented certain things about the character when MG returned in 1989.

GL was a hybrid show - other than the Bauers, who were a mainstay until Kobe/Long, nothing ever stayed the same. When the Dobsons came in to save the show, the mainstays were the Bauers, long-suffering Sara McIntire, good/bad Roger Thorpe, and the show's main young female leads who'd taken up a lot of story over the early 70's/late 60's - Peggy Thorpe, Leslie Jackson Bauer, Holly Norris. They fired Leslie, Peggy gradually faded away, Sara moved into a supporting role, and they brought in sisters Rita and young ingenue Eve, Ross, Jackie and Justin Marler, Ben (the show's first young stud), the Spauldings, Hillary Bauer, Amanda and her "mother" Lucille, and Elvera Roussell as Hope. GL was in many ways a new show by the time they left. By the time Marland came, Michael Zaslow had quit, Maureen Garrett was quitting, Peggy was gone, Lenore Kasdorf was quitting. Eve was a tired character, Jackie wasn't popular after her recast, so they had less and less of a role. Ben left. Roger's father and Holly's mother were fired by P&G because of their age. Marland brought in Jennifer and daughter Morgan, young stud Kelly, kept writing for Amanda, for Alan/Hope, brought in the Reardons, Vanessa and Henry, Quint and his troupe of crazies. Mart Hulswit was fired and Ed was recast. By the time he left, GL was in many ways a new show. Long and Kobe brought in their own characters, a brand new teen scene, and dumped Eve, Hope, Amanda, Jennifer, Sara, Kelly and Morgan left, they changed Vanessa, etc. And this worked well for a while. The main problem was they burnt a lot of these new characters out so quickly, and they or P&G thought that it was time to diminish the one constant, the Bauer family. I've read that they were so shocked about Charita dying and they may not have fired so many Bauers if not for this. How shocked can you be when someone who just had a major health crisis dies? The biggest problem with the changes in GL around 1985 is that most of the stories and new characters sucked. I don't think it was about a loss of tradition as much as viewers just being fed crap and not wanting to hang around, and no longer having a reason to hang around.

Luna was a Mary Sue character - she was never wrong, she was stronger and braver than everyone. I do think Susan Batten gave a wonderful performance, and I like that Luna never became one of Todd's defenders even after Todd had become "good" once Howarth became a fan favorite. I think Max/Luna worked for a few years but by 1994 held both characters back. The gambling story was rushed and made them both seem one-note. I would have paired Luna and Cord. I also would have had Luna leave town with the twins. Killing her was just fanfic, nothing more, and there was no real reason for the twins - Max already had a child, and that should have provided good drama, since Al was about 10 and the boy who played him was a decent actor. Instead, Al was packed off, then the twins, all so Max could be a disgusting pig. I'm not sure what O'Shea would have done with Gabrielle but I think moving her out of the triangle with Steve and Max was a good idea. Schnessel wasn't as good at building stories as O'Shea, and certainly some of his stories were just outright duds (anything with Melinda or Cassie, any attempt at actually making someone believe Viki and Roger had chemistry, most of Mari Lyn's stories although the stalker story has some great soap moments like Lolly's murder). I think his greatest strength was strong, yet fragile, complex female characters, like Tina, Gabrielle, Megan. Yet he also had some very good young heroines, something OLTL seemed to struggle with (remember Joy O'Neill?). There were dullards like Debra and insipid Mari Lyn (although I have to admit I have a soft spot for Mari Lyn), but Sarah and Brenda were great, they were both genuinely kind women who were not pushovers or saps. A lot of the stuff for Megan seems to be forgotten because most people remember Megan/Jake, but I liked her a lot with Max, and her adventures with Marco were silly fun - yes, it was tacky to do a spoof of Viki's DID story, but it was nowhere near as heinous as what was done later on. I think you can judge his era more by what came after - making Michael Grande a total cartoon, the drugging story with Brenda, recycling bad stories with Tina, et al. The show fell apart. Just compare Charlotte, who was essentially a husk, to the women on OLTL in 1988 and 1989.

It's amazing they didn't write him out too - I guess, as people have said before, they needed a lawyer. At least he eventually got a few stories to shine in until hitting it big with Blake.

Was that still Jonathan Bennett? I liked him, although that was mostly down to his scenes with Kendall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1CsRB9hY4w

They're from 1989.

I hope fans who haven't seen the show will get into it now, especially since one-note Burton and Johnny Depp and Helena Botham Carter will likely do their best to trash anything good about the original DS to prop up their latest freak show.

More of the Beltway media pining for Mitch Daniels, a charisma-free zone who would have fared the same way Huntsman did. Chris Cizzila is the guy who spent years telling readers about the glories of "T-Paw" and how "T-Paw" would be so formidable, so what do you expect. http://www.washingto...mffLQ_blog.html Also strange that media darling Daniels was chosen since his policies while working in the Bush White House helped create the financial disasters of the last decade. I guess that just makes him even more of a hero.