Titus Andronicus

Probably no way to find any of these scenes:

1984: Abe finds Roman's hideaway. The two have a dramatic conversation where Roman gets through to Abe. The radio then broadcasts that there's been another murder. That's when Abe admits that for all the good their talk did them, it wasn't until the broadcast that he realized Roman was telling the truth, that he wasn't the Slasher.

1985: Abe scenes after Richard Cates murders Theo. The whole storyline was pretty good. Arguably James Reynolds' best stuff.

I don't think Reilly could have pulled off everything in the late 1980s.

A publicly-stated reason for letting Anne Howard Bailey go in 1989 is that Days' ratings indicated fans didn't like the more action-y storylines and the show and/or NBC wanted them to go back to supercouples.

Late 1988 did have some proto-Reilly vibes, though. Roman doing things under the influence of pagodas while Stefano teases that him and Diana that Marlena is alive. Plus Shane/Drew and Benjy with Steve and Kayla trying to figure out his mystery parents. Which of course was Stefano. Very Reilly-like to give Stefano yet another kid.

I'm sure Days would have kept Shane around in 1984, but I don't know if they would have gone the path they did had Wayne Northrop not decided to leave.

I have a theory but there's problems with the theory. It has everything to do with the NFL game.

In 1985, the NFL game wasn't a problem. It was the earlier NFL game on NBC and the pregame and game airing took up Days' hours across all markets, from east to west coast.

In 1986, the NFL game between the Seahawks and Cowboys aired at 4 p.m. ET, with pregame beginning at 3 ET. Days pretty much aired between 12-2 everywhere. With the studio in California, no one might have realized until very late that the eastern markets were running their usual TV schedules until 3 ET.

Only about half of Days' usual markets ran that Thanksgiving episode, based on a quick scan of newspaper TV listings. Another World ran an episode that day, too, as did Search for Tomorrow, on whatever networks were still airing SFT.

It's a theory in that the NBC NFL game was at the same time in 1984. Days would have been aware only part of their markets were seeing the Thanksgiving episode. Maybe they did plan on preempting it but weren't allowed. I know nothing of network politics in this regard.

The article ran in various newspapers in August 1985. 

So, about the time the Richard Cates storyline was finishing up. He had been teased as a Marlena love interest and I wonder if how his character turned out depended on audience reaction.

Which makes me also wonder if a) the Pawn was already being planned and b) if they had any thoughts as to whether that could lead to a Marlena love interest. I've always felt that the Pawn was retooled in his early days. There were some lines, plus his relationship with Steve that seemed to change when Drake Hogestyn took over.

Days really didn't have a leading character in mid-1985. Marlena was involved with Cates, but not the biggest part of the police corruption storyline. Bo, Hope, Abe, Theo, the priest, Alice, just about everybody had an equal role that summer. Steve was quickly elevated out of a small role in that story.

It's a shame that it was years before Abe had that much meat in a storyline until decades later. This was some of his James Reynolds' finest work.

My favorite bit of that de Lancie interview:

Quote

THE 1984 PLANE CRASH STORYLINE | “As you might expect in a soap opera, the plane took about two weeks to fall out of the sky. For some inexplicable reason everyone from Salem was on that plane. And everyone was acting at a level of soap opera hysteria rarely seen in the real world. But, in the actor’s defense, two weeks of ‘we’re crashing, we crashing’ is a bit over the top. On one of those days I looked at Arleen — with a big smile on my face — and yelled, ‘We’re crashing, we’re crashing. Put your head between your legs!’ Arleen gave me a wink — dropped out of frame — I threw my head back in the chair and said, ‘Between your own legs, Calliope!’ That got us sent up to the principal — [then-NBC boss] Brandon Tarticoff. Who told us, ‘You guys are very funny but you’re killing me. De Lancie, when you first came on the show, we had one blue haired censor who showed up once a week. Now, with Arleen, we have two censors on all your scenes and you’re still getting stuff out there. You’re not doing daytime, you’re not doing prime time, you’re doing a 2:30 in the morning blue time. It’s got to stop!'”

Probably memorable to no one else, but some that have stuck out to me from Days:

"You don't know, do you?" - After finding out he'd tampered with her computer, Marlena realizes John Black is an amnesiac in 1986.

"Drugs!!!!" - Marlo, Rolf's niece, has gone into labor with the baby Stefano plans to switch.

"Look! Tom! They're breakdancing!" - Alice Horton before the 1984 concert.

Eugene and Calliope, of course, on Days.

Eugene seizing the moment and taking credit for getting Marlena pregnant when Roman was presumed dead was comedy gold, as was the shotgun wedding Tom Horton arranged for them.

8 hours ago, Darn said:

Question: Does anyone recall an Australian blog from the early 2000s that recapped mid-90s episodes of Days because they were 5 years behind? It just popped into my head and I want to make sure it wasn't some sort of fever dream. I used to enjoy reading them quite a bit.

Internet Archive has some record of it. I haven't tried the links to see what what works.

http://web.archive.org/web/20041115161622/http://daysdownunder2001.tripod.com/

If you want to dredge up more memoriess, here a whole bunch of Days-specific links from 2001: http://web.archive.org/web/20010226181350/http://www.bethsdayspage.com/days/links.html

Days: Tanner and Molly.

I have found a handful of editorials mentioning Bell's Variety ad. Director Jerry Paris also had taken one out, Paris vowing to no longer be involved in anything he thought glorified violence.

Paris' and Bell's sentiments were very supported in newspapers. Oakland Tribune TV columist Bob McKenzie said he hoped Bell's wishes would happen. Papers in Fort Worth, Baltimore, Cincinnati and Des Moines all quoted from at least part of Bell's letter. Des Moines ran another editorial on the same day that didn't mention Bell, but were thoughts that there was too much violence on film and TV.

The Alex North story on Days was terrible and a complete waste of Wayne Northrop. However, it did have one fantastic scene at the very start of the story.

Marlena wakes up in the hospital with amnesia and looks around, to John, to Roman and to Alex. All three Romans in one room.

Also, the Days back from the dead stuff was long past ridiculous at the point where Dr. Rolf came back. There was one good line, can't remember if it was Marlena or maybe even Sami who was with Rolf in conversation:

"Dr. Rolf, I thought you were dead?"

"It didn't take."

I'm a bit surprised that Allan stayed with Days as long as he did. He was incredibly frustrated with the character in 1980. Laemmle was goine within three months of that interview, but it wasn't like Don got that much to do after.

By the end of 1982 - if not earlier - the writing was on the wall that while the 1980 great cast shift failed, Days was still going younger and nearly everybody still remaining from the show's early years were background characters at that point.

Maybe it was a financial security thing. An interview from early 1986 with Allan said he had to talk Santa Barbara into casting him as C.C. Funnily, because Santa Barbara was wanting the character to be a little older.

Allan told Jon-Michael Reed that he was planning on leaving when his contract expired in May 1985 in an article that ran in April 1985. He wasn't happy with how little story Don was getting.

"I can't sit around and twiddle my thumbs," said Allan. "I've got to feel useful and I haven't been contributing anything whatsoever."

"They (producers and writers) don't feel that it's necessary to feature the more mature people."

Reed said there was a chance that both John Clarke and Josh Taylor might be fired. 

3 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Would love to read that interview! Would you be able to share it?

Go to Newspapers.com and search for Jed Allan and Days 1980 in the clippings section. Both pages should be available for viewing.

In studying the Laemmle era, I knew Days was in a bad place, but Allan's frustrations make it seem so much worse.

In a 1980 interview in the Oakland Tribune, Jed Allan unloaded on what he thought was wrong with Days. He had strong opinons on Clary.

Allan said Clary "should never have been fired. He was very definitive. It was a dumb thing to do."

Doing a little digging, it appears that Days began airing in Australia in 1968.

The problem is trying to find any recaps to compare. Australia's TV listings of the 1970s are threadbare. Days is advertised as a medical drama starring Macdonald Carey. That's it.

A September 1984 column mentions Jake as the Strangler and that seemed to be what was currently happening. Renee was talking about Tony and Gwen and Don were dating. Days was hugely popular in Australia around 1980.

In January 1987, it seems the shows airing were from early 1984. (Roman fakes his death in the explosion, Andre impersonating Tony, who's down in the basement wearing that helmet.)

Since the time seems to decently line up here, they probably aired all or nearly all of Days from the beginning. Until within the last 20-25 years when they did a special to catch everyone up and began airing current shows.

The more I think about it, though, Australia probably did not keep the tapes. Australia would have had to format them for their PAL format, but the now that I remember, Australia ws still wiping tapes into the 1980s. IIRC, they were one of the worst countries in destroying their old shows.

I guess there would be the question of who did the converting? Tapes were hugely expensive to convert from NTSC to PAL then. If Australia did the converting,I guess there is a slight chance of the NTSC copies being in somebody's warehouse. If America did the work on the tapes,  I'd say the tapes are long gone.

Did Australia start with the beginning of Days when it began airing episodes?

I know at one point the episodes were four years behind, but I can't recall when they began airing there.

It appears that Bo Brady was originally named Marcus Aurelius. Original Kayla referred to him as that before he was an on-air character.

Theresa, of course, was Jeannie when the character was born.

5 hours ago, JAS0N47 said:

Here's John Aniston (Victor), then 16 and listed with his Greek last name Anastassakis, living with his family in Eddystone, Pennsylvania. 

That's a bit wild on the places of birth: Crete, Crete, Wyoming, Crete.

I put together a timeline as best I could a while back with the personnel decisions.

Wes Kenney said in an interview he left because of how Harrower's firing was being handled. Rabin was next man up. I don't think Rabin had total control because newspapers in January 1979 announced Days was about to clean house. This is being announced as Harrower is being fired.

Laemmle was announced as hired that same month. Jason's explanation of the script covers for that year with Flippen and Laemmle is confusing me with how the press handled the transition. Flippen was never mentioned in the papers and only her obituary seems to have any contermporary reference to her work at Days.

Several soap columnists were very insistent that all the decisions were Laemmle from March or so onwards. Harrower was still writing scripts after being fired, making the confusion even worse. NBC would have had to be behind these character decisions, right?

Jason's script listings does confirm that Seidler and Feather were Laemmle's additions. That couldn't have helped, either, that not only did you have two new soap writers, but English ones. They've stayed a team over the decades and have done great work together, but that had to be rought. As far as I can tell, Seidler's only briefly ever mentioned Days. Probably nobody knows to ask him about it.

Laemmle was such a horrible idea. I'd love to know WHY she was hired. Was she a friend of Betty Corday's? Did NBC force her on the series? 1979 articles seem to indicate NBC was interfering with Days.

It feels like they noticed GH's success without understanding a single bit of why it worked. I had never thought about the age of the new characters, but yeah, only Jessica and her barely-seen friends could have found more of an audience than they already had. Then they seemed hellbent on alienating the fans they did have who were attached to the Hortons.

Laemmle didn't even know how soaps were even conducted, based on what Jed Allan said in an interview that summer. She wasn't even writing the outlines, which I assume was being done by Ruth Brooks Flippen. (I don't believe that Flippen was ever really head writer). Flippen was arguably even more out-of-date than Laemmle, not having written for TV for even longer and also having never been credited for soap work.

Actually, I can guess why Laemmle was hired. Soaps brought in good ratings, but NBC probably didn't respect the process. Laemmle was a "name" and she was probably cheap to hire. I wonder how much Laemmle respected the job. I do have sympathy for her, as her daughter died a few months into her run.

Here's Elinor Donahue giggling about being Nurse Honeycutt.

Her memory isn't good (she confuses Maxwell's and Megan's deaths), but I link it because Donahue hadn't worked in soaps before then and still seems a bit amazed by the storylines.

5 hours ago, victoria foxton said:

@carolineg@Khan@vetsoapfan@Franko@Dion@Paul Raven@dc11786@Michael@DRW50@Dr Neil Curtis@will81@Tonksadora@Bright Eyes@OzFrog@jam6242@beebs@Gray Bunny@janea4old@AbcNbc247@slick jones@JAS0N47

I see Donald Briscoe did not last long as Tony Merritt.

Eileen Davidson ate Days between her various characters for a year or two. Most of it was good, but even that began to be too much by the time Thomas was introduced.