DRW50

That's a shame.

Congratulations to Marcy Rylan, she's had a baby boy:

http://daytimeconfidential.com/2009/10/22/marcy-rylan-gives-birth-to-a-boy

Really? Wow. That's fascinating. I can see why she regretted it, as her career was starting to taper off by then.

I love your Youtube videos, BTW.

I did read her Twitter earlier this year. It was quite entertaining, especially when she talked about how she asked Marah if she was upset Jeffrey and Reva had married, and when Mindy talked about Kurt Corday.

I will have to check the more recent stuff out. I'm glad they've kept it going.

That was 1998, I believe.

I don't know why they did it either, but it may have been so they would tie up a storyline, and also because they could get away with it, as that was seen as a low point for the show (twins by 2 fathers).

Funny how Jerry ver Dorn has been on 2 soaps where he plays father to twins who may or may not have different bio dads.

Apparently the BBC Channel 4 on Demand is launching a HO channel on Youtube in the coming months. So if there are any old clips on Youtube you may want to enjoy them for now because they may be gone soon.

I wanted Michelle to continue, but not in that way. She was so cold, especially during the custody fight for Robbie, that I was rooting for Danny 100%. I was rooting for a mobster over a legacy character, the daughter of the show's core family. It was very sad. I loathed her at that time and could not watch her with anyone, including Bill. There were also scenes that made me hate her, even if her actions were justified, where she told Holly not to be around Robbie, and this helped break Ed/Holly up and send Holly back to the freezer. Then I tried to tolerate her again, which I did for a while, but that amnesia story was horrible. Worst amnesia story ever, ever! I could not watch most of that.

Block was very good at playing the smarmy, sleazy Ben Warren. I also thought he managed to add layers of vulnerability to Ben which I never saw him do at ATWT. I actually thought Ben had dimension, whereas Craig was just a smug jerk. I really liked Ben with Blake (even if Bloss came first), and he was OK with Carmen, but the best relationship he had was with Beth. That was one of the only relationships I ever bought BC in.

I don't remember why Annie changed the rest results. That was a bad rewrite which they used to cut off the custody battle between Rick and the Marlers, which would have given such great drama. Out of nowhere, Annie just told Ben she'd changed the results.

They did build some foundation for Abby/Rick for about a year or so. Abby was very sheltered. Rick protected her when she moved to Springfield. She was in love with him but he was too busy pining for Annie Dutton. Then she got a makeover, and Rick fell for her and they became a couple. Not long after that was when Rick told everyone he was the father of one of Blake's children. They broke up and got back together and then the Roy story happened. Then after that they sort of stopped. Still, it was more than any of his other relationships afterwards.

I had a lot of issues with the NSA Nancy. I thought she was very cold and played Michelle as older than her years, and I never felt any chemistry between her and the leading men she had. I always wanted Danny to have a better love interest. They tried Bill/Michelle briefly in late 2002 and early 2003. That was dropped when Conboy and Weston arrived. They decided to stay friends. I didn't really buy that relationship (I did buy Danny/Cassie, which also never happened).

I'm still bitter about what they did to Ben Reade. I assume that whoever wrote that line in the finale (Bill: I miss Ben Fletcher: So do I.) was too.

Speaking of Rick, are there any clips online of Rick and Ed pulling the plug on Eve, and then Rick confessing the truth to Mindy, who leaves town so she can't be called to testify? I remember these scenes really getting to me at the time, it was the first time I was affected by GL after a very down period with me with the show during 1993-1994. At the time I thought O'Leary played it like Rick was falling for Eve.

The late ClassicGL had some clips of Eve sick, but I don't remember the rest being on there.

I never liked Jesse/Michelle. That was yet another instance of Rebecca Budig not having chemistry with her leading man, and the story was too contrived for me.

I did like Jesse with Drew. I liked Drew a lot. Tammy Blanchard was such an emotional, instinctual actress. Guttural. When she started out on the show she was awful but she really improved after a while, apparently thanks to the coaching from Lisa Brown. She could play the vulnerability and the tears so well. I liked seeing the "bad girl" slowly become good, but never saccharine, and I liked seeing her get the good guy, and find a family.

Jesse Soffer was great as Max. I remember a scene in the graveyard with the gravestone of his mother. I was really disappointed when he left for school and they recast him with that bland guy who went on to be on Wolf Lake. He looked too old for the role of Max.

I also loved the relationship between Drew and Selena. I wish we'd gotten to see more between Drew and her father Ben (the only role I've really liked Hunt Block in), and Drew and Ross.

I know a lot of people didn't like Selena but I thought she was a breath of fresh air. I hated her exit. For a long time GL really screwed up so many exits.

Rick and Abby were a great love story. They were built up for several years. Abby was probably one of the few real successes of Laibson/McTavish. There was a haunting episode early in her run where she first arrived in town, deaf and in the hospital, wandering the hospital, and she was terrified because she saw all this commotion and had no idea what was going on. Jugglers (for a hospital carnival), patients being rushed through the ER, Hawk Shayne screaming at her.

She had no real storyline after the one where she was in prison for killing her attempted rapist. There was a brief story where she got a cochlear implant, but otherwise that was it. I believe there was some tension because Rick wanted children but she wasn't sure.

I do have to defend the exit story, as I thought that was very strongly written. Rick didn't cheat with Claire. They had had an affair in the past and she blackmailed him by lying to him that she'd taken his medical exams for him while he was hooked on pills. There was a lot of tension because Abby resented her interfering in Michelle's life. To pay Abby back, Claire climbed into bed with a drunk Rick and Abby saw them.

What I liked about the exit scenes was that Abby told Rick she KNEW Rick had not been with Claire. She told him she was leaving him for reasons that had nothing to do with Claire. There was too much else for her to take being with him anymore.

The moment where she left, and Rick crumpled up onto the floor, was superb. That was the last real story Michael O'Leary ever had.

I don't know why they did that with Rick and Harley. It seemed to me like they originally wanted her to have Phillip's child again then changed plans at the last minute.

I never liked the Rick/Beth story.

You might as well give it a try.

There's some stuff on Youtube, a lot of 2009, bits and pieces of earlier stuff.

You should try Emmerdale too. Really good show, full of various story threads and great actors and soapy plots. Lots of hotties too.

I kept waiting and waiting for some romance and buildup between Rick and Mel. They were in love so quickly, they got together so fast, then he became sick, and suddenly she was pregnant (since they wrote in Yvonna's pregnancy), and they married. I felt like, as often happened in GL's last decade, the show had no real interest in Rick and burned through story for him at a rapid pace. I really wanted to like Mel and Rick. Instead, I ended up agreeing more with her father as to why this wasn't a great idea. And in the end I think Mel agreed with him too -- when I tuned back into GL regularly and they interacted, there seemed to be no warmth at all. I know he cheated on her with Beth (I'm glad I missed that story, it sounds awful), but still, I was surprised at how bitter Mel seemed when she would talk about being near him.

I didn't mind Cyrus and Mel together, mostly because if I were here I'd want to be all over him too, but it was rushed and I don't believe they would ever go beyond sex.

I wish they'd built up more with Rick and Mindy but I took what I could get. It always upset me that Mindy was essentially MIA for 15 years, so many newer fans probably barely knew who she was. Mindy was one of the people who got me hooked on GL. It was Kim Simms, but still, I like Krista too. Just don't get that boring Barbara Crampton anywhere near me. She was so dull that I rooted for Eve to destroy her.

I think they were laying some groundwork, the tension with Alan, as he paid for her med school (didn't he?), but then the show was canned. I think she could have been revealed as a Spaulding.

I actually liked that she was a B character. I know it sucks that they didn't do more for black characters but for me she fit in well with the background players and added some sparkle and humor. Soaps used to do that all the time.

I still don't get what they did with Leah. She wasn't even in the last 2 months of the show was she? She might have aged and died, like Dolly the clone, for all we know.

I hope you will keep Maggie Jones in your thoughts or your prayers. She plays Blanche, one of the funniest characters around. She's 75. They aren't releasing details, but she had to have emergency surgery and she's in critical condition.

This has not been a very happy year for Corrie.

At the time I was in disbelief that the only real airtime Shari Headley got was as a slave in Civil War Springfield.

I do think Lucky Gold genuinely wanted to integrate the cast, and I appreciated his efforts with Remy and Christina in the last year.

I'm not watching LMAD. I'm not really boycotting, I just don't care about seeing it. If I hear good buzz I might give it a try.

I never understood the point of Boudreau family. Both seasoned daytime vets Richard Biggs and Yvonna Kopacz Wright were completely wasted for the most part and then everyone except Mel was recasted. Remy was not used at all the until the "prestigious acting school graduate" took the role and Felicia when used had to have been the worst psychiatrist ever. Leah was idiotically SOARSed but rarely appeared after that, probably because TIIC realized their mistake. It would have been easier to have revitalized the Grant family when they had the chance instead introducing a whole new family with no purpose and no use.

I think the show brought them in as a sop. There were no actual plans to give black characters major story, but they were brought in to some fanfare to help stave off criticisms of racism. Then when the actors got sick of it and left, Rauch could just say that this was their choice.

I don't even remember that much about Kevin Mambo. I did like his friendship with Dinah, back before WM ate the show.

The last time I remember seeing Hamp was in late 1995. I think we saw him when Marcus was working at Towers and got into a fight with someone, which set up the story where he was framed for Cutter's murder.

At the time I didn't quite realize just how easily you could interpret the black stories during McTavish/Laibson as racist. Not only did you have the trash with Gilly's exit, but you also had Dahlia's drug-addicted prostitute mother (the actress was FABULOUS, I wish they'd kept her around), and Griffin arranging to be shot to help his cause. Even Geoffrey Ewing was angry about that. It's just ugly propaganda and really destroyed Griffin.

The sad thing is that was one of the last times they wrote for black characters on GL, with a few blips here and there excluded. I guess that's one of the reasons I liked Remy and Christina. I was happy that they were just a regular part of the community.

Thanks, I'd forgotten about Griffin, and the comfort with Vivian. I thought it was odd that Rauch did almost nothing with Petronia Paley, given that he brought her into AW, but then, that was the exception, not the rule, for how he treated blacks on his soaps.

The exit story for Gilly is one of the most despicable of all time in soaps, if you ask me. I was so offended. It was so sleazy. Seeing a similar story on Y&R this year only brought that back.

I really thought Vicky had so much potential. Ruth did too.

Does anyone remember the exits Dahlia and Marcus had?

Ruth, Vicky Spaulding, and David Grant never had exits, right?

LOLFanme has put up more episodes. They're all very interesting. They include the 1983 Christmas show, which is a mixture of family, friendship, some spiritual talk (they even mention Hanukkah, which tends to be ignored on soaps more often than not), and singing. Some of the songs are that cheesy stuff where someone's voice suddenly starts booming in their living room (like what used to happen with Karen on Knots Landing when she sang at Christmas), but others are more stripped down and fun to listen to.

Thank you for keeping us updated. I always appreciate how hard you fight for GL and ATWT and AW.

That's interesting, that the devil story was one of her favorites. I'd heard some didn't care for it.

Is this one of the ads?

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

Why was there such a long gap between the time Ceara died and the time Laura returned to GH? And when did Genie leave AMC? Did she just sit on the ABC payroll for a year waiting to work again?

I often felt like her heart wasn't quite in her GH work when she returned. Was she better as Ceara?

Thanks. I thought I knew most of the characters, but obviously not!

So are Ollian ever going to get a story on VL?

Who is Mike? I don't know that character.

I do wish we'd seen more Roman/Axel.