Titus Andronicus

2 hours ago, kalbir said:

I posted this promo in the 1980s Ratings thread. I spotted Doug Davidson (1:17), Jeanne Cooper (1:19), Nina Arvesen (1:20). Y&R was #1 in daytime but CBS was 3rd in primetime. Maybe CBS was hoping to get the Y&R fans to their primetime lineup.

 

Occasionally, the music/lyrics from this promo would stick in my head and I've been off and on trying to find it for a few years. Thank you for posting this for that reason alone.

I'll also throw in the bomb explosion as being an actual 1992 highlight. The fallout mostly wasn't but the scenes around the explosion were quite good. Also a hilarious one in that Alice pops right up in the rubble, with only her hair out of place. Everybody else is seriously injured but Alice is fine.

36 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

That was great! So much of that was new to me. I'm always fascinated by seeing early split screen tech from those years. And all those lovely Horton family scenes. You are reminded of what good, natural, yet emotionally intuitive acting those times had.

I loved getting to see some of her reactions to stories, especially her deadpan at them choosing to have Doug stabbed in the throat.

The oven fire scene. I knew they'd had a double for Julie, but didn't know that Suzanne Rogers actually had to roll the double into the rug/blanket. 

The pagoda stuff depends on your tolerance for, you know, pagoda stuff. More specifically, Roman can't even look at a picture of a pagoda without going into a trance. Thankfully, it doesn't play a much of a part of the storyline after the summer and it gets back to more traditional heroes and villains.

All of it drags its feet for about a month after the writers' strike ends. Word is that even with an outline, the scab writers blew through everything much faster than they should have. So it seems the regular staff had to dance around while they were figuring out something.

I've wondered how long it was planned for Stefano's return, whether it was originally the end goal or if he bailed them out post-strike. 

And yes, this is the same story they hint Marlena is alive. 

16 hours ago, carolineg said:

It's sorta funny that you think Stefano made him practice to have sex with Marlena.  If I am going to go even further into all this-why did Stefano even make John faux Ro?  What was his point?  Especially after he kidnapped Marlena as well?  Was there an end goal he was looking for like John to turn on all the Brady's at some point?  Or was it just for like shits and giggles?  Have they ever even tried to explain it?  

Retcons - at least one of them was - but they toyed with John self-destructing.

The 1988 storyline with that pagoda mess put Roman as a Manchurian candidate of sorts. The pagoda hypnotized him to do Stefano's bidding. The storyline was actually meant for Shane, apparently, but the writer's strike and NBC interference changed it to Roman.

In 1991, the ISA speculated that upon discovery that John would implode and commit suicide. That freaked out Marlena, who insisted that John be found. On that rainy night, John did go as far as to hold a gun against his head. I can't remember if he had talked himself out of it or if Marlena talked him out of it when she got there. Really good scenes, though. Perhaps the only well done thing about Two Romans.

While I'm thinking about it, 1988 also had Days recreate the cliff scene. Instead of going cheap and recycling the 1984 footage, they actually filmed some new stuff with Stefano and RoJohn. Stefano's Island was not a fantastic storyline by any stretch, but they tried hard to make it make sense. I remember they even brought back up a Pawn moment with Steve that was logical.

Hogestyn works in 1986. He's inexperienced as an actor and John Black is nervous, pretending to be something he's not, so it totally fits. And Hall played Marlena as a strong, confident individual at the surface, good at masking her fears. She's a believable therapist at this point.

I thought Hogestyn continued to do pretty good work through 1988ish. After Genie Francis leaves, Roman doesn't really have a direction, nor anybody really experienced enough to carry him.

There's a couple of good scenes in Two Romans - the rainy night where Roman and Marlena are warned that John could self destruct. And Hogestyn pulls it off in a solo scene. Two Romans might could have worked, if they'd just left John's past as an Alamain. Instead of their wont for the past 30 years, tieing him to every half-assed idea they want to push as the new truth.

I thought both Hall and Hogestyn did wonderfully well for the first two weeks in 2008(?) when John was back from the dead. Hogestyn toned down a bunch of his annoying trademarks and for the first time in a while, Marlena was back as a cool, strong leader. But of course, their story was nothing more than a prop for that ridiculous Santino and Colleen crap and John had no direction for months after. Until they finally decided to just drop the RoboJohn thing.

David Seidler was on Nina Laemmle's Days writing crew in 1980 (and apparently was later a staff writer for Another World).

He kinda won a ton of awards for writing the screenplay for The King's Speech

1 hour ago, will81 said:

Also confirmation that Wes Kenney was with the show at least from Feb 01, 1982. I get the feeling the end credits began listing everyone when he started rather than just the people in the episode. I wonder when he officially took over

That may have been one of his first dates. A few newspapers in March 1982 announced his arrival.

Kenney seems to have been trying to get away from soap directing after leaving Days in January 1980 and had projects in both 1980 and 1981.

21 hours ago, carolineg said:

Yes, Renee may be memorable to some who watched her in real time, but is not memorable in the scheme of things on the show.  She had no children, Stefano/Tony never really mentioned her, and her run was short.  It seems like this was just a Jamey Giddens fave character and the pitch to Ron worked.  And like I said this is work for the viewers because you would have to google Renee and look up clips to even get a feel for her because this is being so shoddily told. 

The scene didn't even make a lasting impact on the show, beyond that storyline. A little more than three years later in 1987, Emma made practically the same speech as Renee did (and with Alex!) to start off her murder mystery.

5 hours ago, carolineg said:

I have never heard that.  It's totally possible, but I have to admit I am not that great with knowledge on post-Roman/pre-John Marlena stuff outside watching the Richard Cates story.  That does seem like something Marlena would do though.  His name is Eric Roman right?  It would be an easy switch to call him Roman Jr. or something.

I seem to remember that Kim called baby Eric "Rick" as an alternative. That may have been before she revealed the molestation to her family.

5 hours ago, te. said:

Sultry Alice with her hair down.

But, alas, separate twin beds.

Added another date to the timeline, which indicates that NBC - more than anybody else - had decided to completely overturn the cast. It is from February 7, the gray area between Harrower's firing and someone else actually taking over.

Poteet-Lisanti and Tomlin deserve gold medals and possibly canonization for what they did over 1980-81 for Days. It should have been dead, dead, dead. 

Days was struggling and NBC, inspired by changes on other soaps, decided to do the same. In the Oakland article, Allan pointed to General Hospital doing it right, so NBC probably was trying to copy them. Except that they hired Laemmle to be in charge of these changes, which had only a minuscule chance of working. Surprise! It was a disaster.

Laemmle had never written for soaps. Her writing staff was largely inexperienced and also new to soaps, with Tomlin being an exception. Since NBC was all up in Days' decisions, I wonder how much influence she had on picking the writers. 

On top of that, it sounds like Laemmle like personal issues going on, on top of not knowing how soaps really worked. 

The Days of Our Lives 1980 scorecard, with a few 1981 notes

I decided to put together what I could of the backstage happenings at Days that year as every new bit puts a bit more into context, but also makes it sound even wilder.

Apparently there was a TV Guide article in c. September 1980 that talked about Days' woes (it's referenced in the Rabin article). It doesn't seem to have been digitized anywhere, but it could be interesting. 

< January 18
Wes Kenney's departure as executive producer. Al Rabin, who has been directing for Days the last five years, is promoted.

A January 18 article in the Dayton Daily News features this quote from Kenney:
"When they dropped Ann Marcus*, I quit. It was a pretty sticky situation and I was very unhappy."

* Though Kenney is quoted as saying Marcus, the dates line up for it to be Elizabeth Harrower. Marcus had been gone since February 1979.

Kenney is credited on Days through January 18, per Jason's fantastic site. Rabin's name begins appearing January 21.

Late January
Pike's Peeks column mentions rumors are out there that Harrower is leaving.

January 31
Seemingly the first media mention that Nina Laemmle is to take over as head writer. The story is published often over the next few weeks in various papers.

But there's something weird going on. Harrower isn't gone.

Per Jason, Harrower continues to be credited as head writer through MARCH 14. 

February 7
The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that Days is about to clean house. 

Up to a dozen actors are gone, according to an unnamed NBC source. "Leaving, dying, disappearing, going to college."

[The source] declined to say which performers would get the ax since "They  haven't notified them yet."

The same article mentions Harrower has been replaced by Laemmle and that Kenney is gone.

< March 5
Nancy Reichardt's syndicated soap column said Laemmle's storylines "are slated to begin appearing this month."

March 17
First date of Ruth Brooks Flippen to air, per Jason. No newspaper articles in 1980 make mention of Flippen. 

Flippen seemingly only had recently returned to writing. A March 29, 1980 episode of The Love Boat was her first credit since a 1975 TV movie, per what's available on IMDB.

April 18
Last credited date of Flippen, per Jason. She does not appear to have been credited with Days in any capacity again.

Mid-April
Columnists Jon-Michael Reed and Lynda Hirsch both highlight all the changes going on at Days, specifically crediting them to Laemmle.

Who has yet to be credited as head writer.

April 21
First credited day of Laemmle.

July 29
Jed Allan is quoted in the Oakland Tribune and he is quite upset.

"I've just about had it," said Allan. "They've taken my character and decimated it."

Allan isn't quoted, but says the changes were initiated by Laemmle.

Other Allan quotes from the story:
- "The way it is now, they've got me playing a flunky to a bunch of characters called the Chandlers, but Don was never a flunky!"
- "I am very unhappy about the situation and I just gave them somewhat of an ultimatum. I told themif they don't change the script, I'm leaving the show. That's just how strong I feel about the situation."

Mark Tapscott was let go as Bob, he said, because they wanted to do more with Josh Taylor.

As for Ed Mallory, he "quit the show because he couldn't direct." With Robert Clary, Allan said he "should never have been fired. He was very definitive. It was a dumb thing to do."

Allan wasn't against bringing in new people, but felt it has been done very poorly.

BONUS INSIGHT INTO WRITING AT DAYS IN 1980
"I really can't say anything good or bad about her. But for a while she was giving outlines to be done by the other writers, which should only be done by head writers."

So Laemmle wasn't really even communicating her vision, but dumping it on the staff. I'm wondering if this is what was going on with Ruth Brooks Flippen, that she was doing these outlines.

August 11
Laemmle's daughter dies in California, per the California Death Index.

September 21
Article appears in New Orleans' Times-Picayune with quotes from Rabin. Laemmle is out as head writer, with Michelle Poteet-Lisanti and Gary Tomlin taking over

Rabin said Laemmle will still be involved in longterm story plans. He cites the death of Laemmle's daughter to be the reason she is stepping down from the post.

October 9
Last credited day of Laemmle as head writer, per Jason.

October 10
Michelle Poteet-Lisanti first credited as head writer. Gary Tomlin's name joins her days later.

Poteet-Lisanti looks to have joined the staff in late 1979. Tomlin earlier in 1980, possibly in connection with Laemmle's hiring.

Of note from Laemmle's writing staff is David Seidler, who's better known for witing The King's Speech. Days might have been his first Hollywood job. Yep, he was born in England. Laemmle was his only head writer during his short span.

Late October
Jon-Michael Reed column mentioning Laemmle is out because of "personal conflicts."

February 7, 1981
Flippen is credited with another Love Boat episode, which was probably her last gig.

July 9, 1981
Flippen dies in Marina del Rey of heart illness at the age of 55. Her obituary in the Los Angeles Times is the only contemporary mention of her work with Days. Surprisingly, though, it does not mention the Love Boat episodes.

This may be common knowledge already, but I found an interview with Al Rabin from 1980 and there's a few good tidibts, including a bit more on Laemmle.

New Orleans Times-Picayune
September 21, 1980

Excerpted.

About the number of characters dropped

Quote

 

"It was 14, actually," said Rabin in a recent phone interview. "We felt we had told all the stories we could wit those existing characters. Somebody had to go, and the remaining, core characters had to interact with new people."

"Then we had to decide whether to make the changes in 6 months or 9 months. We chose to bite the bullet and get it over with."

 

Rabin admitted ratings dropped in April and May but were rising again. He also said they were trying to cater to a younger audience and move stories away from the Hortons.

The Times-Picayune said there were no plans to bring back Laura, Bill or Phyllis.

Quote

"But I wouldn't say Richard Guthrie is gone for good as David Banning. We think Brenda Benet, who plays Lee, is terrific. She's gonna stay. We don't have many villains."

Rabin liked Joshua, Jessica and Liz as well.

Here's a fresh claim, quoted from the Times-Picayune.

Quote

"New head writers for the show, succeeding Nina Laemmle, are Gary Tomlin and Michelle Poteet-Lisanti. However, Rabin said Ms. Laemmle will continue to write the long-term storyline and is, in fact, delivering a new one Monday. (While Ms. Laemmle will still be "influential with what happens on the show," she bowed out as head writer following her daughter's recent death.)

Also, Macdonald Carey had hip surgery in June 1980. Wesley Eure was taking a break to do theater. Rabin was really eager for Eure to return.

edit: It looks like Laemmle's daughter died in August 1980, per records I've found.

22 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

LOL. Here's what the write-up says:

WHY WE HATED IT: 

...It ended when Andre drowned in quicksand on one of the DiMeras' many hideaway islands. Adding insult to injury, Roman "died" there from a gunshot wound as well. 

This was six months later and a different storyline, the Prisms. That storyline was ridiculous as all hell, making serial killer Roman to be quite grounded in comparison.

(Additionally, Slasher had one of my favorite scenes ever, when Roman convinces Abe that he's not the murderer.)

5 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

I love how they got Casey Kasem to be the narrator

And yet all the changes they made went nowhere either. I wonder what would have happened had Harrower stayed a little longer, had the massacre never happened, etc.

Wes Kenney would have stayed at least a bit longer.

Harrower was publicly replaced, but yet had to write at few more weeks, too.

The climax of Maison Blanche - the mansion catching fire during the hurricane - and everything that came out of that is some of Days' best stuff, not just Reilly's.

Belle's birth, kidnapping and return were good, too, especially as it had not been revealed yet that Roman wasn't her father. The end of 1993 was really, really good. (Except for maybe the Pacifier storyline. It could have been written much better.)

You also had the Andrew's paternity and one of the Bradys is Victor's child storylines at the same time. Really, Days had been humming along pretty briskly since the close of the (underrated) Richard Cates storyline a year earlier, which zipped immediately into Miami.

That said, I love just about everything from late 1983 to mid-1986.

John Stamos has performed a lot with the (much latter day) Beach Boys and released a horrid cover of Forever in the mid-1990s.

A little late here, but the blowoff to Maison Blanche was incredible and probably my favorite episodes overall. The hurricane, the fire, Roman saving John and Marlena, Tony going blind. Stefano escaping with Hope, but their boat tipping over. John, who had run after Stefano, finding Hope and carrying her to the first light he saw ... which happened to be Bo's and Billie's hotel room where they're about to do it for the first time.

John barges in with the unconscious Hope and Billie's the first to see her. The look on her face was amazing. Everything she had fought for, a decent life, Bo, just blew up right there because this person looks a whole lot like Hope.

I enjoyed the Susan storyline when it aired, but it was pretty much the end. John had been so dumbed down he was braindead. I couldn't watch the Jonesy stuff when it aired. So demeaning to such a great character as Vivian.

Reilly always had a fascination with John the Priest, so I think it's supposed to be the Devil's manipulation. They did briefly really lean into that background after Kristen figured out the password to Stefano's computer (than Tony went blind retrieving). John the Priest was supposed to make him sexier for Kristen since she was guilt-trapped into being with Tony, which was actually pretty good thinking to have it reestablished for Possession.

I don't mind they brought Wayne back. John's missing past had so much potential, but it unfortunately became a prop for every head writer to use in another story.

I started watching Days in the summer of 1993. Every story from then until Possession was absolutely on fire. 

23 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

No As The World Turns on any of these stations? Or is that a misprint?

Looks like a misprint. 

Here's a September 1970 listing of a few of the channels from another area newspaper. Not much of the area could actually pick up the lone ABC station over the air. The first southwest Georgia dedicated ABC station was another decade from springing up.

WRBL (Columbus GA)
9 a.m. The Gourmet
9:30 Gomer Pyle USMC
10 Lucy 
10:30 Beverly Hillbillies
11 Family Affair
11:30 Love of Life
Noon Where the Heart Is
12:30 Search for Tomorrow
1 p.m. Midday
1:30 As the World Turns
2 Love is a Many Splendored Thing
2:30 Guiding Light
3 Secret Storm
3:30 Edge of Night
4 The Flintstones
4:30 Wild Wild West

WTVY (Dothan AL)
9 Captain Kangaroo
10 Lucy
10:30 Beverly Hillbillies
11 Family Affair
11:30 Love of Life
Noon Where the Heart Is
12:30 Search for Tomorrow
1 News
1:30 As the World Turns
2 Love is a Many Splendored Thing
2:30 Guiding Light
3 Secret Storm
3:30 Edge of Night
4 Gomer Pyle USMC
4:30 General Hospital

WJXT (Jacksonville FL)
9 David Frost
10: [something illegible that isn't a soap]
10:30 Beverly Hillbillies
11 Family Affair
11:30 Love of Life
Noon Where the Heart Is
12:30 Search for Tomorrow
1 Midday
1:30 As the World Turns
2 Love is a Many Splendored Thing
2:30 Guiding Light
3 Secret Storm
3:30 Edge of Night
4 Don't Eat the Daisies
4:30 Mike Douglas

WCTV (Thomasville GA/Tallahassee FL)
9 Romper Room
9:30 Jack LaLanne
10 Lucy
10:30 Beverly Hillbillies
11 Family Affair
11:30 Love of Life
Noon Where the Heart Is
12:30 Search for Tomorrow
1 Midday
1:30 As the World Turns
2 Love is a Many Splendored Thing
2:30 Guiding Light
3: Secret Storm
3:30 Edge of Night
4 Gomer Pyle USMC
4:30 Mike Douglas

WTVM (Columbus GA)
9 Playhouse
10 Virginia Graham
11 A World Apart
11:30 That Girl
Noon Bewitched
12:30 Panorama
1 All My Children
1:30 Let's Make a Deal
2 Newlywed Game
2:30 Let's Make a Deal
3 General Hospital
3:30 One Life to Live
4 Dark Shadows
4:30 Timmie and Lassie

WALB (Albany GA)
9 Little Theater
9:30 Jack LaLanne
10 Dinah's Place
10:30 Concentration
11 Sale of the Century
11:30 Hollywood Squares
Noon Jeopardy
12:30 Town and Country (local news)
1:30 Words and Music
2 Days of Our Lives
2:30 The Doctors
3 Another World
3:30 Bright Promises
4 Somerset
4:30 Flintstones

WMAZ (Macon GA)
9 General Hospital
9:30 Bewitched
10 Lucy
10:30 Beverly Hillbillies
11 Family Affair
11:30 Love of Life
Noon Where the Heart Is
12:30 Search for Tomorrow
1 Almanac
1:30 As the World Turns
2 Love is a Many Splendored Thing
2:30 Guiding Light
3 Secret Storm
3:30 Edge of Night
4 Dark Shadows
4:30 Gilligan's Island

20 hours ago, j swift said:

Of that list Doug and Julie were some of the hardest hit.  One day Doug is a suave ex-con, cabaret singer, chased after by women and their mothers.  The next day Hope is SORASed, he's suddenly a curmudgeon who disapproves of Bo, and then next thing you know they're off on a world tour and too busy to attend Hope's wedding.

I think you can go earlier than that: David. He wasn't Doug's child, but having him as an adult by the late 1970s aged Julie horribly before you even got to Hope being grown up.

Marcus hadn't been headwriter for months when Pat Falken Smith filed the suit.

Days sounds like insane mess in the late 1970s.

This lawsuit. The messiness at the end of Harrower that saw a) Wes Kenney quit because of it and b) Harrower still writing for a least a week or two after her replacement was publicly named. Then Laemmle didn't start for a couple of months after she was named in the press and whatever role Ruth Brooks Flippen played. Or even if Flippen did any actual headwriting.

Laemmle being an absolute disaster is the icing on the cake.

On top of that, you have NBC almost going into desperation mode with a 90-minute show and it's a wonder that it survived even long enough for Tomlin and Poteet-Lisanti to have anything to salvage at all.

6 hours ago, te. said:

I mean, considering the main complaint with Ann Marcus was that she burned through story quickly, maybe expanding it to 90 mins would've worked under her?

Harrower was head writer at this time. She was fired in January 1980, though she continued to write a few weeks longer. 

I'm trying to imagine 90 minutes under Laemmle in 1980 and my first thought is how many more characters could she have killed off with 2 1/2 more hours a week.