DRW50

I love that Y&RWT. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H7OTa6ss1E

Were all the departures because of a new producer or did some of the actors leave? Are there any you think should have stayed? I wonder why they didn't at least keep Carly around. Then again I know little about her. I hadn't heard anything about Matt until I saw him in some old magazines from then. That story about his father sounds like way too much -- how was it onscreen? Apparently Matt was also on drugs. So aside from Tony, all the men Ally was involved with were drug addicts or drug dealers. Wow.

I can't get over Eileen's outfit in that photo with Corbin and Jeanne...she looks like the Pirate of Avonlea or something. I think these were usually published a month or more after the events happened. I get confused when I read some of the Digests from summer 87 as they still reference Brenda being there.

This is all so fascinating. I don't know why they would have dropped the story. Did they want to try to get people interested in the new Liza? And then Hogan ended up with Patty didn't he? I wonder if fans accepted the last Patty or if by then they just didn't care. Who was Sarah? Lloyd was the one played by Robert Reed?

I didn't know that's what caused Munker to leave. I had wondered if she was fired. I wish they had just let her leave town, because a sister to Barbara and niece to Kim, talk about years of story material! I would guess Ryan and Bloom probably still don't want to be known for their soap work. As you mentioned, Moore has always been gracious. I saw an interview with her in a late 91 Digest, when her career was just starting to find steam, and she talked fondly about ATWT, mentioned that she was still very close to Finn Carter and Steven Weber and stayed with them when she had to go to LA (I wonder if they're still close), and said she had worked with Mary Ellen Stuart in a play and thought she was warm and wonderfully talented and had called to congratulate her on getting the role of Frannie. I do wonder about Parker Posey and Kevin Gibson, as I never hear them talk about their soap runs, but maybe I wasn't looking. Thanks for reading. I have some other ATWT stuff too if you are interested in any of it, let me know and I'll put more up. The ATWT tribute thread I put a lot in but it's still a bit tough adjusting to ATWT being officially gone. Was that without Ellie?

Yeah when Caso was replaced that was pretty much the last of bringing back people, sadly ,with a few exceptions here and there. You're right that they did make the effort to bring back people even when they didn't have to. It was important for the Stewarts to be there, even if they had been phased out of the show. Maybe the supposed tension between CZP and Schultz still kept them from asking her back. Either that or they just went with the last actress who had played her. I had forgotten Kavitovit and KMH were onscreen together. I can't see that at all. I grew to accept KMH over time but never really saw her as the Emily I knew. It is interesting though that the Betsy who came back for David's funeral seemed to be entirely forgotten.

From the October 15, 1991 Digest. K-III Magazine Co

From the July 28, 1987 Digest (S. O. D. Publishing Inc.), photos from the show's 14th anniversary party.

That's true, although I think some of that started with the Steve/Phil/Dan stuff and Phil as king thug.

Sadly I don't think a show could tell a slow-burning story now. I'm glad Berridge has found some peace from her time on the show. I feel like she was blamed for way too much...I wonder if the same is already happening to Kirkwood. Berridge's era was awful sometimes but had some great stuff too. Her care in Arthur's exit shows her love of history.

Interview with Barbara Emilie, who had a major role in the show's storytelling and casting from 1992-1995. Louise Berridge also has some wonderful comments about building up Arthur's exit. http://www.walfordweb.co.uk/item.php?id=2723

A few months ago some of us, like Paul Raven and Mitch (I hope he's still posting here) talked about David Stewart's funeral and who did or didn't show up. This Digest from early August 1991 can finally answer the question for sure. It also reveals a Betsy I had never known about. I wonder why they didn't bring her back in 1994. Does anyone remember her? I also wonder why they didn't think about asking Suzanne Davison back.

I don't think Marquess cared at all about Steph, and her exit shows that to me. If Cheryl had died he'd have everyone she ever knew throwing themselves on her coffin. Guy Burnet is in America making a film, and Jodi is in a band, but Jake could have returned. So could Johnno. Not to mention some of the people Steph was once close to, like Abby Davies, who was also Lee's longtime girlfriend. Just no interest in the show's history. Toups, for whatever reason, they chose to chop a ton of material out of the fire episodes. Taylor Sharpe was heavily promoted as being a part of fire week, even on the posters, and then he was barely shown. Kevin the alien was supposed to have his exit in that week, which also built up to Eliot's exit, and all of that was junked, and Eliot left very abruptly. Amy also seems to have a poor exit. I really wonder about this Ste/Brendan stuff. Are they saying gay relationships are only about self-loathing, abuse, and misery? I get that over and over when I see this story. Notice that Ste is happy with Rae, and is only drawn back to men based on his own demons, not on anything good or happy.

They're going to explain how Warren returned. Mandy is, like her last return, just a plot device. They have really trashed a character who was for years the heart of the show. I guess SJD's career must not be going well if she returned for this. They were supposed to have scenes where Steph changed her mind but was trapped, but the show edited that, and a ton of other stuff, out. I still can't believe they will not bring anyone back for her exit.

There were some very funny scenes where Libby and Denise and Chelsea went after Heather when they found out (they found out because she passed Darren a note at a pre-wedding thing for Syed and Amira). Denise kept on for a while. I loved it. It was a terrible and pointless story but didn't have bad followup compared to some other shock value stories, as Darren, after initially not wanting anything to do with the baby, agreed to start paying support, and spends time with him occasionally, and Heather tells George that Darren is his father. It is, compared to a lot of stuff on soaps, fairly realistic. I actually like both Vanessa and Jodie...sometimes I feel like Jodie is on the wrong show, but I think Vanessa/Max and Darren/Jodie both work well together. I'm not quite sure what isn't right. I do think that it was odd to shove the paternity reveal in so quickly and Harry is a mess of a character.

That was more Santer shock value. He wanted to rip off the story about viewers not knowing the father of Michelle's baby and they would each get a phone call and then the father would show up. The choices were, I think, Minty, Phil, I can't remember the other, and Darren. Darren had gotten drunk at his 18th birthday party and went home with Heather. Heather came across like a headcase because she talked to Shirley about how special this time had been and how they'd had special cuddles...and then it was a drunk Darren.

June Brown will be on the Christmas Strictly special. http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/s104/strictly-come-dancing/news/a288327/brown-terrified-about-xmas-strictly.html

The book mentions this ending of a Ma Perkins episode as an example of soaps not getting the credit they deserved for quality writing. They talk about the radio soaps being belittled in the early 40s for not trying to discuss topical issues, and barely even mentioning the war. This leads to pointing out such things that male characters were wounded, sometimes even killed, in action, that characters talked about patriotism, and saving fat and tinfoil, buying war bonds. Bachelor's Children was broadcast in Spanish to Latin America to try to increase solidarity. Sometimes war heroes or Army officers were introduced in soap episodes, for patriotism or to sell war bonds. Eleanor Roosevelt suggested a bond purchase during an episode of The Story of Bess Johnson. Here's the start of an episode of Rosemary, after ten seconds of theme music, which Rosemary interrupts. During the war the government suggested that soaps tell stories about improving race relations (to help soldiers learn this) and learning what to do in a medical emergency (in case there was ever fighting on American soil). After the war ended, the government was less involved in advising soaps or suggesting stories, but some soaps still went on with ideas. A Rosemary episode had Rosemary and her mother visiting a young couple who had just had their first child.

The Mary Noble to Mary Hartman book talks about how radio soaps were looked down on and only a few, such as Sandra Michael's shows Lone Journey and Against the Storm, were spared. The MNtMH authors said the scripts they had seen didn't make them get the hype. This is from Lone Journey. This is from Against the Storm, which was so acclaimed they even had Edgar Lee Masters reading from The Spoon River Anthology. John Masefield was shortwaved in from England for one episode, where he was supposed to be lecturing and reading from his own work for a main character, Professor Allen. No commercials were used that day. FDR was even supposed to be on the show, but it was canceled because of WWII. This is about Kathy, a refugee, and she has a dream that the soldiers killed in the war are now able to be brothers. A friend named Phil appears in her dream. They talk some about One Man's Family, which was also seen as being above the typical soap, as it had chapters and books, instead of just episodes. It was a weekly show for many years but in 1950 was knocked down to 15 minutes. The show ran until 1959. When the show ended, Morse wrote in the LA Times. "My own sorrow is not so much in the cessation of the show as such as in the thought that one more happy, sober beacon to light the way has been put out...The signposts for sound family are now few, and I feel the loss of One Man's Family is just another abandoned lighthouse." Here's a line on the show from 1938, Father Barbour. "It's my opinion that the family is the source from whence comes the moral strength of a nation. And disintegration of any nation begins with the disintegration of the family. The family is the smallest unit in society. Millions and millions of these little units make a nation. And the standards of living set up by these family units indicate the high or low standards of a nation. A well-disciplined, morally upright family is bound to turn out good citizens! Good citizens make a good nation." One of his grown sons says, "No doubt about that! There's a rising tide of sentiment growing throughout the world, fostered by people who are sick over the way things are going...Perhaps it's the answer we've all been looking for...an answer in the hearts of men."

I was watching some episode of the Doctors and there was a man on there who dated a librarian and didn't want to tell her he was sometimes a male stripper (she ended up walking into the club where he was stripping). I thought I recognized him, and it turns out he was on a few episodes of Hollyoaks as Summer's soldier boyfriend, the one she broke up with before she started dating Kris.

Reading in the Mary Noble to Mary Hartman book, it's interesting to read some of the initial critical bashing of the show. The New York Times, Time Magazine. One writer claimed they had done an unscientific poll which pointed out that Mary Hartman had a high rate of viewers leaving the show. They said the two faults were the scripting is "not funny" and Louise Lasser is "not funny." Another poll said that the most common complaint was "boring." Soap Opera Digest did a reader poll to see whether they wanted MH2 in the magazine, and a lot of people wrote in saying "a two year old could come up with a nursery rhyme much better," "How in the world can anyone put such a filthy, vulgar show on the air at 3:30 PM for grown people to be exposed to all the filthy talk Mary Hartman stands for, to say nothing about the children coming home from school. What is our country coming to? This is the reason so many teens are dope addicts, VD carries, and drunks. My goodness, let's clean this filth up. I'm a grandma and this show makes me sick." Byrna Laub, in Daytime Serial Newsletter, didn't include MH2. Laub said she forced herself to watch the show one night a week, with "total incredulity and not a little repulsion." She said compared to soaps, Mary Hartman is "like stick figures in a first grader's drawing." She felt soap operas had finally gained legitimacy and was afraid MH2 would take them backwards in the public eye, and cause new viewers to be disgusted by soaps. She also felt that Normal Lear had something against women. "First, there was Edith, of All in the Family, who was a thing." Maude was "an insufferable loudmouth who turned out to be crazy and needed help." Then, "the ultimate cheap shot - Mary Hartman, the vacuous nonperson who cares more about the yellow waxy building on her kitchen floor than she does about the mass murder of a neighbor family." That is "the epitome of the Lear myth about women." They also said that one daytime executive refused to put MH2 on because he worried it was a spoof of housewives and that "[his] women" viewers would be offended. In spite of all this the majority who wrote into Digest about the show were positive. One said the show was their 11 PM lift and fit their sense of humor. Another said she watched with her husband and they loved the show and Louise Lasser. A teenager wrote in to ask about Sgt. Foley, saying she and her girl friend love him and see him as breathtaking when he smiles. After all this the NYT critic praised the show, especially the episode of the Coach's funeral (I wish I could see this -- Loretta sings "That Old Black Magic" as the Coach's not all that grief-stricken wife said it was his favorite song). Ann Marcus and Norman Lear both said that the show was part comedy and part soap. Bryna Laub disagreed, saying that "If you dress 22 NFL players in tutus and tights, place them in the Rose Bowl and have them perform arabesques from goalpost to goalpost while tossing footballs from hand to hand, it might indeed be a ballet, depending on the choreography of the footwork, but it's not a football game!" She also said that people who watched were doing so because it was a fad and that they are "the pseudointellectuals who are really the sheep among us." She said those people avoid real soaps because they've been told soaps are cheap and they are afraid of the emotions soaps will bring out in them. (I actually kind of think she has a point there -- a lot of people over the years have avoided traditional soaps yet got into a more "hip" show with a soap format). Laub said nothing about the show was believable. Some did feel, writing into Digest, that the show was real. One said it was "one of the most true to life and believable stories on television. Most of the time I can identify with a lot of the scenes in the show, because they reflect a true day to day life of a normal middle class family of today." They said those who don't think it's real are those who don't like to believe life isn't a bowl of ice cream, and those people should watch it to learn about real life. A male teacher wrote in to praise the show as a "real and accurate commentary on American life." One reader wrote in saying their only complaint was that Heather didn't carry herself well, and that Mary and Heather need to stop wearing braids, they make Louise Lasser look "ridiculous." Another reader also didn't like the pigtails. The book says that the show also, mostly through comments from director Joan Darling, intended to talk about how the media shows life in America, that she wanted people to listen to scenes where the radio talks about famine and many casualties, then watch the news later and be uncomfortable. It was also supposed to be about commercialization and how this takes over a life, products and brands. And Mary was supposed to be a victim of her life. Lasser said Mary was "not aware of space and time" and is "a survivor who misses being a tragic heroine because she is not aware of her plight." Marcus said she was "trapped in her environment" and knows something is missing in her life. But this also began to get some backlash, the idea of Mary being too much of a victim. When a writer for the show was trying to tell a reporter on the set that Mary "like millions of others," is, "a casualty floating in an almost Kafkaesque sea of consumer indirection," Marcus cut him off, saying, "That's pure bullshit. That's not Mary at all." After that she began to say in interviews that Mary was a strong woman, a survivor. The book also mentions that a minister saw MH2 as a "theological model of the Judeo-Christian system - doing good, beginning to hope for and work for solutions<" and says that Mary herself is a good Christian role model who believes good will win out over evil.

I think the only one on now is the one with Melinda Fee and John Gabriel from 1970. That and some from the 50s or early 60s. You've seen those at archive.org? You probably already saw this but a few pages ago I posted a story outline that would have run through a year and a half of the early 60s. Some of that didn't ever happen, but still, some of the stories that did seem daring for the time.

Congratulations on the book! I'm sorry to hear about your health problems. I'm glad to hear that you reading these makes you feel better. I will keep on posting what I can find -- knowing it helps you with what you're going through just gives me more incentive.

There's a very real, rough quality to Delia in the first year or so of the show, she isn't really the scheming villainess, or the annoying family burden, she's a real menace, yet she's also a vulnerable victim. You can see her weaving her spell on everyone around her. The scenes where she worked overtime to put Mary on the defensive after Mary yelled at her were just brilliant, and her scenes running Jill through the emotional woodchipper are everything soap should be.