DRW50

For "worst," I have to include the VO guy for early '80s CBS, who went through a number of promos clearly not giving a [!@#$%^&*], to the point of unintentional hilarity. And when he did try it would just get weird. The intonations in the ad about Wendy "becoming a woman...to everyone but her mother" literally made me laugh until my sides hurt.

They were well-produced but I was never really into a lot of the CBS Daytime promos of the '90s - they often just seemed a bit too artificial. I tended to prefer the trashier Clarence ones. I have had one of the GL ones in my head - or part of the GL one, anyway - since it first aired. It's the "Mindy's a fast chick...better catch her if he can!" or something like that. One I haven't seen mentioned here that I have a soft spot for is ABC's "Can You Feel It?" campaign. The vocals are so ridiculously frenzied, yet this pretty much matches the somewhat unwieldy vibe of their lineup by this point.

I think it may have been the last year of the show as I think I remember guys like Mark Mortimer or the guy who played Sergei in it, but I'm not sure now.

I do think some parts worked - I just meant by this point where Richard had come to Pine Valley and nearly raped Bianca, and so on.

I know this story was mostly trash but the lengthy scene near the end of this where Mona [!@#$%^&*] talks a dying Richard Fields at length (with the pretext given that she didn't realize he wasn't faking - in McTavish's later stints they wouldn't have even bothered with the pretext) is classic. You can see where Erica is her daughter. It must have been difficult and strange for Frances Heflin to play such ugly, melodramatic material in her final months of life, but at least viewers got one last showcase of her talent.

Walter Jones, NC GOP Congressman, has passed away. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/10/walter-jones-dead-1162668

Watching the above episodes I'm reminded of how well-crafted this period of the show was before Linda Gottlieb left. Everything is so smooth and feels connected. While I generally prefer what I've seen of '80s Dorian, I think this time period was Robin Strasser's best work in the role (especially once she got over some of her overacting early in her return). You can see so many different emotions flashing through Dorian - fear, pride, rage. I also like getting to see more of Beth and Jason. I don't know if Beth was always just there to die (I assume she was) but she's a very sympathetic and grounded character. It's great to finally see Jason getting more of a role. Mark Brettschneider had such a natural connection with his co-stars, it's a shame nothing was ever done with it.

Thanks for telling us about that. I keep hoping he will find some soap episodes or even clips, but this is good too. (who is the woman Joel Crothers is kissing? That isn't Tina Sloan is it? I can't remember if she was his love interest at this time) It's interesting to see Rachel and Steve being showcased in a "love in the afternoon" feature. I wonder if Lemay preferred them to Alice/Steve deep down.

I never even knew he was hugely identified as having a swastika. Well anti-Semitism and Nazi support seems to be "in" more than ever these days, so I guess Harry was just being down with the kids. * *I am not actually saying Harry supports any of those things. But that is what this type of T-shirt represents.

The way I remember it being worded in the soap magazines at the time, she did choose to leave for good, and this was also when her marriage to Michael Tylo first broke up. Then she returned to the show and I think that whole period of time was written off by her as some kind of bad trip (wasn't there something about her being bitten by a snake and being possessed...?).

I'm sure you have already all seen these but I hadn't ever seen them up on Youtube aside from some clips maybe. This is when Dorian is arrested for Victor's murder and when Cassie loses River. I would have loved to have seen that prison scene with Dorian in the second clip set to the '95 theme, not the soft porn one. (not posting every video as I know it clogs up the thread) @SFK @Vee

I still don't understand what they were trying to do with Carly - did they see her as an anti-heroine...did they see her as a bitch we should root against compared to the wonderful, wonderful Julia? By the end they seemed to want to sell that Brad was the man she should be with while Jack was the main she convinced herself she should be with, but they really chose the wrong actor for Brad there, as John Loprieno just wasn't believable in the role. It's a credit to Maura West that Carly remained as popular as she did because so much of her second stint in the role was so poorly written. Back to the 1997 episode, it was a pleasant surprise to see so much of Emma and talk of Emma's family and past, but I also couldn't shake that they were just kind of using the character to move the plot along and had little interest in Emma as her own person. Which was pretty much the case for all of ATWT's last 15 years. I still can't believe they didn't even have Emma on the last months of the show.

Unless Sean Penn is much more beloved in Hollywood than I assume, I'm not sure why he is leading the rally.

Mary Ellen was my first Frannie, so I will always identify her most with the role. I do think Julianne Moore was very good - you can see everything that made her a star in her work, just without the assurance she got later on - but she never really had the chance to have that defining moment as Frannie. I tend to prefer Marland's last few years at ATWT because I think the writing had more depth and grit to it, but I can see why people enjoyed the first few years. I think my biggest problem with that period, beyond Lily, is that it sometimes feels forced and also the placid atmosphere contrasts oddly with some really terrible stuff (like Iva being in porn while underage, being raped, giving her baby up, having to face her rapist; Steve becoming a drug trafficker and being put in prison for decades, etc.), although the actresses of that era help make the material feel much more real. Anyway, since we were talking about 1997, someone put up an episode they said they didn't see on Youtube. It's one of the early Molly episodes and early Jack episodes. Hearing her backstory makes the whole bit about her being cousins with Carly seem even more contrived. This is when Molly was still written as sort of sympathetic rather than a bitch. (the scene where Molly got Emma to tell her about Holden and Lily not being related made me laugh - I'm really not sure why that scene was necessary as obviously Molly was going to know they weren't blood-related). Ew, Susan Batten Conner is in this episode.

Sean Penn has the sads for Bradley Cooper. https://deadline.com/2019/02/sean-penn-bradley-cooper-problem-a-star-is-born-guest-column-1202552550/

That's so embarrassing (Lisa Rinna). Stuff like that is why I struggle with RHOBH. It's just the same stuff every year and it never stops being cringeworthy.

They may have, but it didn't really work, partly because the Susan and Bob story was about a genuine bond which went too far, while the Emily/Tom relationship was about Emily scheming and scheming. She stabbed Margo in the back after Margo had supported her over being raped. Most disgusting of all was when Margo miscarried Tom's child and Emily made him think the child was from Eddie and also that she'd had an abortion. It was just gruesome, nasty storytelling. That time period was full of this type of stuff, which felt like they were uninterested in or contemptuous towards ATWT and what was left of its longtime viewers. And it was needlessly coarse just for the sake of coarseness. I remember when Denise was introduced, they would have her go around shouting things like "high yellow!!" at Camille. While colorism is a very prominent issue in the black community, who decided it was a good idea to have a new character debut this way? Most viewers loathed the character due to the way she acted and due to her selling her baby, and I'm not sure she ever really recovered, even though I thought she had a lot of promise.

That was before Broderick by about a year. FMB made that decision almost immediately upon her arrival, and I think various scriptwriters were headwriting at that time and up to spring 1997. Then Jessica Klein was headwriter for summer and early fall. And then I think interim writers took over until Lorraine Broderick's material began in early 1998. I remember some talk at the time about how much the quality had improved when the interim writers were in charge (this was when Kim was visited by Jennifer's ghost, Barbara and John lost their baby, etc.). My main memory of Broderick's tenure was how incredibly out of control everything seemed. I never got the impression the show had any real idea what it wanted to do with characters like Molly and Carly. And there were so many new characters. I also thought the Emily and Tom story was grotesque and destroyed her character. It just didn't feel like ATWT to me. You could tell that FMB and Broderick were mainly from ABC soaps. ATWT was not an ABC soap, no matter how much P&G spent the last 10-15 years of its existence wanting it to be.

The media loves Republicans and wants them to win at any cost. Democrats, not so much.

I looked in the playlists but missed it.

RIP John Dingell. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/07/john-dingell-the-longest-serving-member-of-congress-dies-at-93-1154038

He's a Republican so no one will care.

I have no real sympathy for him but I don't know why some are upset he admitted to being disappointed he didn't get a nomination. People always say they don't like Hollywood fakery - for once, somebody was not being fake.

That photo is heartbreaking. She shouldn't have to pay the price for the stupidity of those who should have known better. The media are vultures.

That's what we've both been wary of from the start of this. I hope that this has some taught some lessons, but the main people who play these games never really learn.