DRW50

When he hosted SNL in 1982, they had a running gag of him trying to impersonate Burt Reynolds and how he wasn't famous in his own right. I thought, "Well, he's famous enough for you to ask him to host..."

It must have been right around that period when he died, maybe a little after. So many people came and went. I am trying to remember if she was the one in the episode where Courtney was subject to a car bomb or whatever went on. That was later in 1993.

Didn't they say Craig drove her off the road deliberately? And doesn't she end up in a farmer's market later on or something? I don't know...

I wonder how much is down to her not being a Kobe creation, although she was written out when Long was still there. Trish not being a character who was prone to punching, slapping, and whoring around probably hurt her the most. Rebecca Hollen was very well suited to GL so the show lost something by not giving her more of a spotlight. P&G moved her onto AW for about a year, but that part never went anywhere.

Thanks @SoapDope78 I had no idea it lasted THAT long. Some ask why Jay Z doesn't do this or that in a similar long-running suit he's had. I guess can see why.

Ursula returns repeatedly. I think she only stops appearing because Jill was hired on AMC. Her last may be a Rogue's Gallery jailbreak, but I can't remember. Here she is in one of her return scenes. Christine Cromwell, Viki's fake daughter, was told that homeless people exist even in Paul Rauch's Llanview, and decides to go to the local homeless encampment to take photos. I find it very patronizing, to be honest, and I guess Ursula did too, as she goes on about her "first amendment rights" and gives Christine a beatdown! Ursula was before her time. Today she'd be in Congress. The woman who played headcase Marsha Talbot on ATWT a few years earlier has a turn as one of the "good" homeless people, whose only request is to fix her hair before Christine exploits...er...photographs her. OLTL-Pt1 Ursula Decides To Stay In Llanview & Injures Christine Cromwell 1988

Why did Chase look so overzealously happy when he told Alexis he has proof about the false alibi? Creepy as hell. If Willow ever decided to revive the cult, I really think he'd kill somebody for her.

The Best of Libby Jeffries | Libby Becomes Bridezilla

I remember him for a moving performance in a strong Cold Case episode about gay cops who were lovers in the late '60s. That's the first time I ever heard "My Back Pages," as it was used for the last scene, which really got me at the time. The last place I saw him was in one of Cinemax's very last softcore shows, Chemistry, where he was the father of the male lead and all his scenes were on a houseboat. Sally Kellerman was also there. I'm not entirely sure what went on with him after MC to help his career decline. When I used to read some of the old TV gossip magazines some from the early '70s had messy articles about him dealing with a paternity claim or something along those lines (IIRC he was vindicated).

Thanks! I long ago lost what I used to gif or take a lot of screencaps.

It's perfect. If I knew how to do gifs now I might have tried myself. It reminds me of after the Angela/Deveny plotline on B&B, Susan Flannery saying for years "rolled all the way down [some avenue]" if she wanted to describe a bad storyline. You can just say "rolled all the way out of a lighthouse."

I will laugh if the letter is magically near intact. That's Andrea's Tina in a nutshell (although Andrea had started toning down her work in that last year) - constant drama and insanity, but somehow you always want to see more and always care. Sorry, you have probably already seen this a few times, but this is one of the moments I tend to think of first with Andrea's Tina and her constant misadventures. (the part at about 2 minutes and 40 seconds usually gives me a guilty laugh) One Life To Live- Tina & Ursula Go Out The Window 1988 - YouTube

Thanks again @Maxim . The drama in her kissing the envelope before she throws it into the fire. Hopefully we won't get any scenes of Clint fishing it out of the fireplace. My memory is terrible so maybe I knew and forgot again but I did not remember a coda of Clint apologizing to Billy for his behavior. Thank you so much for telling me. By this point the impact was somewhat lost with Billy barely appearing, but I'm still glad they had that moment of forgiveness and healing, as they didn't need to - many soaps wouldn't have bothered.

Thanks so much @slick jones Not sure if he fully counts or not but Carl Ciarfalio did have roles on at least two soaps (DAYS and Falcon Crest). Carl Ciarfalio Dead: Stuntman & Actor With Hundred Of Film & TV Credits Was 72 IMDbCarl Ciarfalio | Stunts, Actor, Second Unit Director or A...Known for: Casino, The Fantastic Four, Out for Justice

Not to give too much away but Tina will not have an easy reaction to the news.

A panel from a Dallas comic strip. I never knew there was a Dallas comic strip. Bobby looks very stretched...and like Bill Bixby. Post by @forgottencomics.bsky.social — Bluesky

Another of the Cord stories in his return that feels curtailed, although it has its moments. I never knew what the last mention of Joe was on the show. Thanks. Certainly a high point for that wretched storyline.

Thanks. I'd never heard that story about BK Perlman. I actually enjoyed RH more during the brief strike period than I did the rest of that year. I find 1988 strike-period ATWT fascinating as you can see the outlines (for instance, the building up of the Langes, the arrival of Hank Elliot) yet there are a slew of moments which go extremely off the rails; the whole Laura mystery turning into very woozy '50s noir; in such a short space of time Lien and Pam being held hostage, especially since Robert Tyler was wasted when in another universe he would have been the ideal Marland angsty cornfed hero. The show becomes much pulpier alongside the more traditional elements (the episode where Betsy learns the truth about Josh/Meg having some lovely moments with Mac's daughter accepting Nancy). Those little moments like the one with Kim and Seth always stand out for me because Marland just had such a specific style and focus on relationships (I don't remember Betsy and Kim ever being as close under his pen, although they were still a part of each other's life). It's interesting seeing the show briefly broken free of those constraints, although when they were permanently broken free...you see the end results in 1993 and 1994. I do wonder if he still would have had the same plans for Meg/Josh if not for the strike. I suppose Jennifer Ashe wanting to leave also made that easier (not sure if it was Bill Fichtner's choice to leave or not). I still wonder if the strike affected any of his plans for Beau and Pam too as they didn't exactly have great material from then on and then Marland dumped them both less than a year later.

At least this isn't one of those stories like a few other soaps had where he artificially inseminates her...

I struggled with getting through the show in Clenshaw's last few years (I had a particular disdain for all the forced camp, what they did with Sonia, what they did with Linda, anything Panesar-related, and the whole Cindy and Knight setup), so I'm not in the same boat as many are in feeling a big decline in quality, but that doesn't mean the show's complete lack of momentum or direction is any less confounding. Clenshaw was better at making the show seem competent whereas Wadey just seems to have no real ability at present to put together episodes. The pacing is along the lines of radio soaps from the '30s or '40s. I am not even sure what the changes would be if they did panic - my guess is something like Ben returning to reunite with Callum (which is likely happening anyway), Kat sleeping around, and Phil returning to being a cardboard gangster - but I do hope they find some ability to steer the show again. If Wadey can't, and the incompetent people above him like Kate Oates can't, then the BBC should make changes while they still can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW-XT__Xjl0 August 1988. So it is a strike episode. Now I'm curious if one of the other scenes from 1988 I thought was un-Marland (Kim telling Seth that Betsy is like a daughter to her, and she hasn't forgotten how much he hurt her other daughters) was also during the strike - maybe not if Seth and Betsy were already a couple by then.

Don Hastings briefly wrote for ATWT while also appearing as Bob.

I think the last she did was directing again at ATWT after GL was canceled.

They should have done more with her but considering that I'm not sure how popular she ever was compared to Meg Ryan, I suppose being more of a B-heroine was inevitable. What I've seen of the pairing with Josh has some compelling moments but is more about showing us he's a good person rather than being about Betsy. The relationship does get one of her best scenes (one I'm not ever sure was from Marland or a strike writer because it feels much more out of control than most of his ATWT run), where she digs at him for sleeping with "cousin Meg" and when he can't take it anymore, nearly asks if he's going to rape her before she stops herself.

Thanks for the clips and mini-reviews @Maxim . I appreciate that you also recap the moments you don't show. I didn't realize the hot therapist stayed around this long. I suppose it makes sense to keep bringing him back to unwittingly cause chaos. About a year before this Another World had an evil female psychiatrist, plotting to get a man. There was something in the water in those years as the big screen and softcore movies loved that theme too. The scene with Viki and Bo is moving, but I wish they'd brought up Viki's late husband, Joe. Like Sarah, he also "died," returned from the dead, and died for real. I guess they may have thought connecting to recently deceased Megan was more organic, especially as Sarah was her sister. The Dorian on display here is who we'll be getting for a while to come, just in a much more outwardly neurotic and histrionic form once Elaine Princi is gone. I don't love when the show uses Dorian this way, but I know they need her to move the plot along. The moment where Viki nearly snaps is great. Your mention of the "circus" with characters like Alex reminds me of how some fans talk about novelas, and the cores of them. They too are critical of some that have a "circus" atmosphere. Alex would probably fit into that type of show. Actually, much of OLTL at this time does remind me of them - Blair's schemes with Asa, Addie and the scissors, Clint/Viki/Sloan, Dorian, Luna and Death, Marty, Suede, etc. That high octane, operatic feel.