saynotoursoap

I keep meaning to watch those while they're still up (I think he or she has some 83-85 as well). The last few Soapnet years kind of burnt me out, especially 1981, and some of the stories like the Max Dbujack stuff make me wary, but i really should watch.

I have watched all of the videos on that channel, and as I recall, there is actually very little Max Dudbujak. Perry has a good chunk of 1983 which is mostly about Charlotte Greer, Leigh Kirkland, and the introduction of Maggie. Most of the material from 1984 and 1985 centers on the Jill/Frank/Maggie dynamic and later Maggie and Dave, with 1985 showing a good deal of Jill's amnesia and falling in love with Dakota. There are probably only fifty or so episodes from 1984 and 1985, if even that much. Perry seems to have more episodes (many consecutive or nearly consecutive) beginning with 1986/87, and that is when Claire returns. Claire pulls all the meandering stories and relationships together fairly quickly. I regret SoapNet not running those, and 1982/83.

RYAN'S HOPE was one of the great daytime serials of all time. It may have gone through a revolving door of writers in its last few years, but the quality of the show never wavered too much. It's a shame SoapNet never went beyond 1981; 1982-89 had some very memorable characters and storylines that were as good as they were in its first few years. SoapNet viewers who got used to RH in its first five or six years never got an opportunity to know characters like Leigh Kirkland (Felicity LaFortune), Bess Shelby (Gloria DeHaven), Maggie Shelby (Cali Timmins), Max Dubujak (Daniel Pilon), Jacqueline Dubujak (Gerit Quealy), Chaz Saybrook (Brian McGovern) and many others. It's unfortunate that ABC decided to treat the show like a redheaded stepchild by moving it to 12 pm in late 1984 and putting LOVING in its original time slot (a move to solely appease LOVING's creator, Agnes Nixon, who already had her AMC and OLTL in a back-to-back block in most markets). That move alone hurt RH badly in terms of ratings. Thankfully, almost 25 years after its last show, it is remembered fondly by many people.

I agree. The Pat Falken Smith and early Tom King regimes were somewhat unbearable to me, but from 1986 on, RH was as good again. Claire Labine's final stint was even better than her first, as she avoided some of the clunky melodramatic plotlines that dragged down the early years. I particularly loved how she integrated the younger Ryans with the veteran cast and created so many colorful new characters such as Zena and Nancy Don Lewis. Her nods to history were good as well. I remember when Frank and Jill decided to have a mid-life baby after they imagined what great friends a deceased Edmund would have been with John Reid had Edmund lived. And when Lizzie exposed John Reid's affair on the wedding day to everyone in Ryan's Bar, Frank leapt to his son's defense, prompting a furious Delia to point out that Frank would naturally defend Johnno's infidelity since Frank had been an adulterer, too. Great stuff. I miss Claire Labine.

Thanks, CarlD. I had never seen those photos of Eileen, and they are really beautiful.

Pat Morrow was fantastic. I absolutely loved Rita and Ada. Rita's relationship with Norman was so poignant. I only wish more had been written for them. The scripters struggled to keep the couple in the narrative, and often they were reduced to providing exposition.

Thats Wayne Tippet as Jerry.judging by the mention of Nancy and Kate Lodge appearing,it would seem to be 61/62

I have this episode in my collection. The original broadcast date was Thursday, April 20, 1961. Polly Childs, who played Kate Lodge, had only been with the program about a month. Of course, Kate eventually married Jerry.

That's interesting. I'm surprised he went straight to EON after High Hopes if he felt that way, unless he just needed to pay the bills. He did a good job in the role, but I hated everything about Owen. I felt like they had more plans for the character and Deborah that were dropped (no big loss there).

He did do it for the pay. He has stated in interviews that he was well paid for his work. I certainly have no problem with taking a job for money. We have all done it. I also respect his right to not hold the genre in high esteem. I do not agree with him, but it is his right to feel that way, though unfounded. He was lucky to have been on Edge, which was always well-written and the best working environment on daytime in the 70s. What does bother me is being so vocal about it. If one is an actor treated nicely by the production, for God's sake, take the money and keep your damn mouth shut. I have no problem with his acting, but he does come across as condescending and arrogant.

Kim was wonderful as Nola. I hated Owen. He was the only character on the show I disliked at this point.

Agreed. It is not surprising, however. Kim was one of those celebrity soap fans who appreciated the live theater quality of television serials, while Bruce Gray regarded them with complete disdain. Apparently he was quite vocal around the set in his bewilderment that a fine actress such as Kim would waste her time and talent doing Edge of Night. He seemed as arsey in real life as the character he portrayed onscreen.

Thank you for the articles. The photo of Dorothy Malone is not very flattering, and I always hated her bouffant to one-side anodyne hair, but when photographed correctly, she was so beautiful. I love the shot of Pat Morrow and Chris Connelly on the railroad. It's a cute pose.

Thank you, Paul Raven. I love your contributions, little things we would never know otherwise.

I would love for the company that owns this to just start releasing it on DVD. Somebody needs to start releasing these old soaps in big blocks, either six month or full year sets. Do it cheaply and price it reasonably and I could see them selling a decent amount.

Either that or stream them as AOL did the P&G soaps about seven years ago. I seriously doubt any station will purchase them for broadct television, and even if they did, it would be a very short run. I would give anything to see the1967-72 era again. So many wonderful stories and fine acting.

He may have played the judge at Jim Abbott's trial over the death of Terry Andrews, which sent Jim packing until 1973. I cannot be sure as I was not watching at the time, but the dates would be about right.

Variety Oct 24th 1962 "Young Dr. Malone" is going to Australia on wings of vidtape. This dally NBC-TV program thus becomes the first American soap opera to be taken, as is, by foreign television.

Australians seemed fascinated with American soaps in that era. In addition to carrying Days since 1968, other U.S. soaps telecast in Oz during the late 60s/early 70s included: Love of Life, Where the Heart Is, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, The Doctors, and Dark Shadows. World Turns had a short six-month run in 1975, but was too languid for Down Under audiences. The daytime version of Return to Peyton Place was shown in primetime at one point and ran in its entirety in Australia. Of course, Y&R and Search for Tomorrow were popular there, too, with longer runs.

Another gem of a find, CarlD. We always enjoy the articles you share. Thank you!

Variety April 1st 1959 During six-week European holiday of writer Carl Bixby, P & G video serial, "Edge of Night" has been written by Charles S. Monroe for the Irving Vendig packaging house.

Interesting. I have a couple of episodes from that era, and Monroe is not listed in the crawl as writer. Perhaps he ghost-wrote and never received screen credit?

August 1960 TV Radio Mirror William Redfield, who in his role on As the World Turns is dying of leukemia, put the producers in a dilemma. Letters poured in asking that his life be saved. But the producers just couldn't get around the plot complication by then. Redfield had to "die." The actor admits that he doesn't mind being "dead," because he can now accept TV offers from Alfred Hitchcock and others. Redfield played Tim Cole.

Coincidentally, Redfield also died from leukemia, at age 49 in 1976. And how times have changed. In those days a character had to die and stay dead. Today, he could die on camera, be buried, and show up again a few weeks later with the explanation that it was all faked, his body switched with a double by the CIA while he was secretly held hostage or languished in a coma elsewhere...

The show always sounds a little too complicated at this point, with no real idea of what to do with characters like John, Dan, Kim, or Susan.

It was, and this is the year it was to finally be displaced, after twenty straight years, as the number one soap. The events of the article actually occurred in December 1977, as SOD ran approximately three months behind the publication date. Because of regular soap cycles of plotting, many of these stories had moved into their next phase in March 1978. For instance, the murder of Pete Larsen, for which Jay is accused in the article, ended in March with his acquittal. March was also the month young Mark Lewis died, nearly sending Susan back to the bottle in an alcoholic spiral. In December, Jane is throwing Beau and Annie a lavish party, but in March she's plotting to break them up after Beau fails the bar exam, leading to his affair with Melinda. Kim and Dan's worry about Mary and John was peanuts compared to their troubles in March when Betsy discovered the truth about her parentage and nearly died from exposure after running away.

That fall, CBS had a new medical drama Kay O'Brien starring Patricia Kalember. The net gave Kay O'Brien the Knots timeslot believing that women would choose KL over Cheers/Night Court on NBC and The Colbys on ABC. They did not trust a new series going up against that competition. KL and The Colbys basically split the female audience who watched soaps, while the remaining women, men, and kids all stayed with sitcoms on NBC. I recall many women complaining that the time period conflicted with them getting kids ready for bed and preparing things for the next morning. Kay O'Brien was an epic bomb. New viewers were not interested, and KL fans did not watch either as they blamed it for their soap's ratings decline.

Did Knots lose a lot of viewers in a timeslot move?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpN0Lnodrdg

And how, CarlD. Knots' season finale the previous year was the number 1 rated episode of the week, and overall, finished the season at #17. In the autumn of 1986, up against Cheers and Night Court on NBC, Knots had fallen to 43rd place within six weeks of the time change. Why CBS ever thought that move would work is imcomprehensible. At least they conceded defeat and quickly moved Knots back to 10pm, effectively reversing the ratings decline.

Meg fell down the stairs in October, and Betsy was injured on the lake in November. There was some crossover with them in the hospital.

Personally, I did not care for Margo McKenna's Betsy. I liked Liz Kemp much better. Her Betsy was not as fragile and shrill.

Veleka Gray was miscast, but the role was unnecessary. Labine and Mayer left LOL in wonderful shape back in 1975. The Betsy/Ben/Arlene triangle could have run for years and years along with Meg vying with daughter Cal for Rick's attention. Subsequent writers dropped both storylines and added characters whose function in the narrative was never as good as the concepts left by Labine and Mayer. CBS mismanaged and botched LOL to nth degree. Watch the 1975 episode posted on Youtube and then the ones uploaded by CHH. They are like two completely different soaps, and in my humble opinion the latter is vastly inferior to the former.

In 1979, the cast was good, and the production were fine, but the characters and stories needed so much improvement. Ann Marcus dipping back into the old marital rape and subsequent pregnancy plot was inexplicable. If CBS truly wanted to contemporise the serial, why pull out those hoary story twists? Think of how much better it could have been had LOL gone the way of GL and written a story in which Betsy pressed charges against Eliott rather than covering up the crime. Ben was even worse, pressuring Betsy to have sex after she had been raped and impregnated by Elliot, and then cheating on her with Mia because she would not put out. Add to that Ray Slater's Neanderthal treatment of Arlene, and you can see why viewers were turning over to Edge of Night in droves.

I gave up on World Turns circa 1998/99. Does anyone know the last time the Hughes living room and the Hughes den appeared on camera. Were either ever utilized under Goutman?

Thank you CarlD for the articles. Gloria DeHaven looks so different in the photos than she did on Ryan's Hope. Granted it was nearly 20 years later, but it is hard for me to reconcile the woman in the photo with Jill's trailer park mother. Your articles are always so fascinating and so welcomed.

Thanks. So then was Ethel Crawford a real character from back then too? During Dorian's 1994 trial, they brought back Lee and Ethel Crawford. Soaps have been known to bring people "from the past" back to town who were never in the past to begin with.

Yes, she was real. It was the rest of what various writers penned that sprung soley from their imagination, such as Viki entering Victor's hospital room and smothering him to death. Viki and Joe were admiring the flowers from Llanfair in the hospital garden, and Jim Craig was with Victor when he died, so he could not have been murdered, nor could he have faked his death. I appreciate writers utilizing history to perpetuate story; I just wish Malone et al had attempted to create something that less bastardised established history.

I think that the late Michael Zaslow and Susan Herford Zaslow were both writers. However, Mrs. Zaslow did not act.

Actually, Susan was an actress, just not in soaps. She and Michael met when they costarred in Fiddler on the Roof.

So Lee Chapin really was a character back in the day. I wonder if Herron and later Lois were considered an "under five... U/5"

Are you asking a legitimate question, or are you being facetious? If the former instead of the latter, yes, Chapin was an actual character. He was played by the late Richard Nicholls, a fine English actor.

Thank you for the article, CarlD. I loved Sasha von Scherler. She was such a wonderful actress and so against soap type. I miss the days when soaps hired excellent theatre actors based on talent rather than looks. I did not know until now that Sasha and Paul's daughter Daisy, a film director, selected her own name. Interesting.

Those were my least favorite Mark and Laura, but the photos are just glorious. Thanks for posting.