Titus Andronicus

6 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

This was also around the time that Wes Kenney left and Al Rabin came in as co-EP. It does seem like NBC was trying to expand their control over DAYS and give less control to Betty Corday. I can't help but wonder if she supported all of these changes or was against them. 

Kenney left in January 1980.

An interview I read from a couple of weeks afterward said it was because of Ann Marcus' firing. That absolutely can't be and so I'm wondering if Harrower was already on the way out and he misspoke. Jason has Kenney with Days through the show that aired January 18.

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Wes Kenney, the ex-Daytonian who has been executive producer of "Days of Our Lives" for the past couple of years, has bolted the show in a dispute over the writing staff. "When they dropped Ann Marcus (the head writer), I quit," Kenney says. "It was a pretty sticky situation and I was very unhappy." Meanwhile, ratings for the NBC soap have dropped so low it's in danger of cancellation.

-Dayton Daily News, January 18, 1980

The weird thing about Laemmle is that she didn't seem to give any comments at all to the media during her run. Marcus loved to interview, Harrower gave comments here and there. Laemmle? Nothing. 

A couple of Jon-Michael Reed columns from later that year said Laemmle left because of conflict, but that's as close to any insight at all. The newspaper archive site I subscribe has no mentions of Laemmle after, beyond a question from someone watching a rerun of Marcus Welby asking if she was related to Carl Laemmle.

I was curious about her writing staff and there are a couple of interesting entries. David Seidler went on to write the screenplay for The King's Speech.

4 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

After Harrower left, Ruth Brooks Flippen took over as head writer. She did not last long before being replaced by Laemmle. Who knows how much (if any) power Flippen might have had. RBF was known for low-brow sitcoms and Scooby Doo; how she got hired always baffled me. The writer passed away soon after her stint at DAYS.

Flippen's name does not appear in any contemporary newspaper articles. Laemmle was announced as taking over in late January 1980. Harrower seems to have written at least a couple more weeks after that.

My theory is that Laemmle/Betty Corday/Days planned on using Flippen as a staff writer, but her illness prevented that beyond her short stint. Days had other staff writers, so I don't see why one of them couldn't have done a bit if Laemmle was delayed if Flippen wasn't intended to be part of the staff. I'd imagine that Flippen had absolutely zero power.

The contemporary newspaper coverage of Laemmle's reign are angry letters that appear in soap columns. As much as Harrower's run is a bit of a mess, no newspaper soap columns were running angry letters.

7 hours ago, Franko said:

Phyllis, Phyllis, Phyllis ... there are much better men than the town pogo stick.

I'm dying of laughter here.

Phyllis seems to be attracted to town pogo sticks. 

I'd like to know who was really calling the shots between Laemmle being announced in January and her actually taking over in April.

What is Sam's real purpose here? Is she doing more than being a problem for Marlena and Don?

3 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

 

Marie was a nun during one of Maree Cheatham's brief returns in the early 1970s.  There is a Horton family photo that includes Tom, Alice, and all five kids -- including Addie and Marie, and Marie is dressed as a nun.   

Thanks. My early Horton history is obviously quite shaky. I need to go back and read early summaries.

16 hours ago, beebs said:

Do you know if they ever explain when the events Harrower has inserted into Marie's backstory are pre-or -post 1965? Because it's not really clear, and it seems like a major shift in personality for Marie from what she was when the show went on the air. I absolutely love Lanna Saunders, myself, but this story already seems a little bit "WTF?" to me.

 

The Amanda story seems cut short. I wondered if Mary Frann had a project on the go that she needed to leave the show for, but she didn't land another big job until the next year, so I wonder what caused the story to end so abruptly, especially since it was obviously set up to be a substantial Chris/Amanda/Greg triangle story there. Lord knows, Amanda's newfound confidence and agency quickly went out the window as soon as she became The Incomplete Woman. What a disappointing end to another major character.

 

NBC exec Fred Silverman is the one who suggested Marie be a nun. He looked at the Horton family tree in early 1979 and said You know what this family needs? A nun!

I just looked up what was going on with Frann.

Frann was taken off contract by Ann Marcus. The end of Amanda's story was supposed to be her living happily ever after with Greg.

Meanwhile, Days was trying to build a relationship between Chris and Mary. However, Josh Taylor and Barbara Stanger didn't exactly get along. Harrower brought back Amanda for that reason and to also make some relationship conflict for Chris, but Frann wasn't put back on contract.

Harrower did want to continue the story, but Frann didn't want to stay.

The blurb didn't indicate whether Frann just wanted to move on, was tired of not having a contract or if she, too, did not want to work with Josh Taylor. I suppose it could be one or more of those situations.

9 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

After everything that Vivian had done to Carly was exposed, she was committed to the same hospital that Laura was at. Vivian noticed that Kate would often visit Laura and eventually she found out about their past

Vivian snuck into Laura's room several times and noticed she got a non-verbal reaction if she brought up Kate. Pretty sure she had noticed a change in Laura's ease after Kate's visits. Vivian tried to get that a step further by bringing in a picture of Kate to see if she get Laura to talk. It didn't work ... so Vivian thought. After Vivian left the room, Laura said Kate's name. 

13 minutes ago, Franko said:

The stunt looked better than I expected. I wasn't expecting they'd show so much of it.

Yeah. I'm impressed.

I agree that it feels like Emmy bait. The Laura part is so unnecessary for it. Julie didn't need Laura's weird meddling to be insecure and depressed. At least everybody wised up pretty quickly that something is off about Laura.

We'll see if Julie begins to eat up every storyline or if Harrower had any restraint. 

Amanda's beginning to grow on me a bit for all the relationships she's juggling. Linda remains Queen, subject to a potential challenge by Phyllis.

8 hours ago, victoria foxton said:

@beebs  Some random thoughts and observations. From reading your awesome assessments. Linda is giving me proto Kate vibes. How i wish i could see Linda in action. At least theirs an episode featuring Stephanie. Even through Margo was a dud character. Giving her cancer right away handicapped her. Having poor Mike stuck with her for 2 yrs. As she slowly died . Also handicapped his character. It such a shame that Stephen Schnetzer was wasted.  I see no point of making Laura insane. It was only yrs later that JER cool retcon ( I'm not even a fan of JER).  Involving demented Auntie Viv of all people. Would save Laura from her catatonic fate.  It's so strange that Ann didn't work out. She came in more than half way through Knots worst season. And successfully salvaged it.  This late 70's era is so fascinating to me. But it's 1980 were everything became topsy turvy. 

I want to see Linda in this era and cad Neil as well. The episodes I've seen of him are more merry rogue than total slimeball.

Marcus was also well received on Love Is a Many Splendored Thing and Search for Tomorrow. She even had a gender-reversed missing child in Vietnam story on the former (an American nurse, instead of a soldier). Betty Corday had reason to believe she'd work out. Marcus just somehow ended up completely wrong for the show.

Edit: So what's going on with Hope at this time? Doug's worried about Little Dougie. Timmy/Scotty is occasionally mentioned. Hope gets a handful of appearances with a couple of child actresses in this era, but her care would have been such a better storyline for Doug and Julie instead of this fake antique stuff.

18 hours ago, prefab1 said:

Thanks so much for these detailed and hilarious recaps of the late 1970s plotlines, beebs! It's interesting reading these summaries, although my main response is "Who ARE all these people?" I'm fascinated by the way that current Days frequently references its 1980s supercouple era and its 1990s super-campy era, but almost never references the late 1970s, not even in conjunction with things that happened to Marlena or Maggie back then. 

Wait until we hit Laemmle.

I gotta admit, @beebs, this month was a little boring because the motivations made sense. There was nothing really out there, except Linda, and even that has some logic to it.

On 11/6/2020 at 8:57 AM, te. said:

 

I liked her on both Peyton Place and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, but I was wondering more about her daytime stints since her time on DAYS seem mostly like a train wreck.

There are some old threads on this board that talk about her time on Love of Life. Her stint seems to be liked. Love of Life was not going to make it at that point, no matter who had the reins, though.

I think this is one its (and her) last episodes.

.

Could it possibly be that Laemmle was intending to bring in Flippen as a staff writer, but her health made that very short-lived?

Digging through the old Love of Life thread, yes indeed, Marcus got her Vietnam story in on Love of Life after taking over as headwriter in May 1979.

Quote

Marcus continued the Bambi/Tony/Paul triangle that Jean Holloway had created. Marcus put her spin on it by introducing Kim Soo Ling, Tony's lover from Vietnam. Kim had been a nurse who tended to Tony during the war and had his baby. Kim arrived in Rosehill to convince Tony to help her locate their son, Tran. Tony even blew off his nuptials to Bambi in order to do so. Bambi and Tony's story continued to play out into the final week when Kim departed Rosehill.

Love, of course, went off the air in February 1980.

While looking into the connections of Days' headwriters of that time, I've been uncovering some new tidbits>

Part of an interview with Ann Marcus in the March 15, 1981 Boston Globe:

Quote

As a writer, Marcus has had her share of battles over censorship and autonomy. For example, she was actually fired several years ago from "Days of Our Lives," after a "knockdown dragout fight" with Betty Corday, the co-executive producer and owner of the show. Marcus had wanted to do a story about Vietnamese boat people. The plot called for Chris Kositchek to have had a baby by a Vietnamese woman who, years later, shows up in Salem. Instead, Chris wound up getting involved with Mary Anderson, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Undaunted, Marcus simply moved herself and her storyline to "Love of Life."

Comment from ex-EP Wes Kenney in the Dayton Daily News, January 18, 1980:

Quote

Wes Kenney, the ex-Daytonian who has been executive producer of "Days of Our Lives" for the past couple of years, has bolted the show in a dispute over the writing staff.

"When they dropped Ann Marcus (the head writer), I quit," Kenney says. "It was a pretty sticky situation and I was very unhappy." Meanwhile, ratings for the NBC soap have dropped so low it's in danger of cancellation...

(Jason has Kenney as EP through January 18, 1980, late in Harrower's run. The article actually ran the last day Jason has him listed, which leads to a big question that's going to apply twice here.)

How far ahead was Days taping at this point?

While seeing how Kenney's departure was handled in the media, I found a few news items on Nina Laemmle.

Laemmle was mentioned as the next head writer in the Sacramento Bee on January 31, 1980, before the story was picked up by the Associated Press (a brief) and in syndicated TV/soap columns.

Harrower's last date is listed as February 27. Would she have been writing after being fired? Laemmle is specifically mentioned to be replacing Harrower, not Ruth Brooks Flippen.

Was there some of delay in bringing in Laemmle? I can't find mention of one. Actually, I can't find any references in 1980 to Ruth Brooks Flippen at all.

So, how does Flippen play into any of this?

Huh. So it is Chris.That means Ann Marcus essentially wanted to do the same storyline as Don/Donna, only switching up the country of origin.

It looks like Harrower was trying to move on from the icky storylines as quickly as possible, both Donna and Linda. At least everyone's acting pretty logically at this point. Even the stupid Steven storyline is doing something.

We'll see.

That Marx Brothers segment gets me every time.

January's summary reminds me so much of Reilly's later writing. It's funny how many problems could have been solved if everyone just talked to one another. Bob and Linda were the only ones who did. The amnesia storyline just seems so pointless. Linda was the best character going at that point and it just completely kills that.

I don't think any woman on Days has her own agency at this point. Mary does slightly, but the rest are caught up in relationship drama and Linda, the only one pushing any story, is now going to be in stupid medical drama.

Excited to see Kate pop back up. Even more excited that Marcus won't have that many chances to ruin it. I don't know Harrower's writing well enough, but Marcus has taken the strength out of every single character.

Independent Julie's now trusting her recently-appeared ne'er-do-well brother over Doug. 

The Donna pregnancy story ends as tastelessly as it started. At least it ended. I haven't seen any complaints in old newspaper articles, but it has the feeling of someone above Marcus telling them to just end the story now. All of it.

The Margo story is going to drag on forever, isn't it? Does she have any personality besides being sick?

And, if you couldn't tell, Chris Kositchek was one of Ann Marcus' favorites. She said she saw so much in Josh Taylor, a.k.a. the Daniel Jonas of his generation.

On 4/29/2020 at 12:32 PM, jam6242 said:

Re Brenda, I believe SSH said the issue went way back to when they were young; something regarding a man, if I'm recalling correctly.  Re Charlotte Ross, she didn't mention her by name, but she indicated that a blonde ingenue had a vicious tongue in real life too.  Re Kaye Stevens:

 

Went back and found the post with the info about the fight.

Despite the line that Stevens wanted to stay with Days, she was gone by the time this article appeared in April 1979. Not surprising. I don't think you're going to get many scenes under the headwriter whose daughter you belted. Stevens was still there after the fight (in c. January), but her last episode seems to be in early March.

After doing a bit of research, I don't think the Donna story got Marcus fired. I think she got fired, but I'm now leaning towards another incident that might have made Days' brass finally decide to clean house.

Jon-Michael Reed, the best soap insider there was at the time, had this in February 1979:

Quote

"Meanwhile, backstage rumbles among cast members vying for power have broken out into open warfare. For months, there have been rumors that there are animosities among the cast. The lid blew off recently when one actress slugged a co-worker in the chops, resulting in a split lip and threatened lawsuits. Another actress anonymously comments that 'it's dangerous to go to the ladies room because you can never be sure you won't be stabbed in the back while washing your hands.'

I think that might have been the tipping point. Days claimed Marcus moved on to other projects. Days also claimed that Pat Falken Smith was fired over ratings, when it was likely that and all the controversial stories under her watch.

The re-worked Donna storyline from the interracial love child proposal might not have gotten Marcus fired.  But something was going on. Not only did Marcus go in February 1979, so did two of her hires, writers Ray Goldstone and Joyce Perry.

Marcus was a bad fit. Days must have offered her a huge chunk of money. It was said in September 1977 that Betty Corday had wanted Marcus for a long time. Money and Corday had to play a huge part in it. Marcus had been working with Norman Lear. After her season of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, she had worked with him on another show, All That Glitters. Marcus wrote two episodes. It was a stinkbomb and she knew it. The show began airing in April 1977. It was a daily and made it 65 episodes before being canned.

(A year after Days, Marcus was involved in yet another soap satire, The Life and Times of Eddie Roberts.)

The style clash was highlighted even more in an interview just after her hiring when Marcus said she didn't know if it was possible with Days, but she wanted to do a humorous soap opera.

So, it was Corday who specifically wanted Marcus. I'm not sure if Marcus truly wanted daytime again, or to be saddled with something for a long time. In that retrospective interview (with the interracial love child claim), she didn't think she had more than three years of ideas for any project.

Bill Bell's contributions ran out April 1978. Days had been declining steadily in the ratings - enough that in August 1977 it was reported that NBC was considering changing back to 30 minutes if ratings didn't improve - and then the bottom fell out.

Marcus looks to have been trying to get out soon after Bell's run truly ended.  In mid-1978, she had pitched a soap to ABC, which they were considering. It was tentatively titled, The Best Years. Goldstone and Perry were going to write for it. While at Days, she wrote Women at West Point, a made-for-TV movie that aired just after she left the show.

So, I think we have a combo here:

- Bad storylines

- A style clash

- Plummeting ratings

- Not totally focusing on Days

- The backstage fight

And, because she's so good at this, Susan Seaforth Hayes had a little dig at Marcus. Marcus' departure was announced in the same article that Elizabeth Harrower's promotion was announced. Naturally, Susan was asked what she thought:

"Whenever we received a script written by mother, everyone in the cast agreed it was a pleasure to act her words."

Mike was in college years earlier, just after he was SORASed. If he's still in college, it makes me wonder if they realized even then that adding 10 years to his age was a huge mistake. Can't take that big of a leap back, though. Unless it's Nikki Manning.

Little Janice is going to need some kind of counseling. Kidnapped twice (though one was fun), a car accident, the trial, potential brain damage. 

Ann Marcus is gone as headwriter at the end of February. Marcus said she was fired because she want to do a story that "one of the popular characters" had sired an interracial baby in Vietnam. The character was supposed to be getting married, but the mother showed up. Don or maybe Chris are the only two that it seems to fit.

If it's Don, she deserved firing just because it would have been an awful decision to saddle him with a second potential child that he knew nothing about within a few months. Or maybe Marcus was totally off on her timeline, wasn't fired, but caved to pressure and retooled it to be Donna instead.

A contemporary article said Marcus left to work on other projects (not that this means anything). She had a made-for-TV movie air within a few weeks of leaving.

Edit: Re-reading summaries, it absolutely had to be Don. Marcus wasn't fired for it, like she claimed, but she either caved or NBC either forced her to rework it and the interracial love child became Donna.

So there's now another question. Did Marcus intentionally make a hash of it in protest and get fired for that or was it completely unintentional that she wrote it that badly?

3 hours ago, beebs said:

 Marlena grins and bears it. But the night he plans to tell Donna that he's her father, Skeezy Pete leaves town to avoid having to take responsibility for Donna's baby, and so Donna spikes Don's drink with a sleeping pill. Once he's passed out, she strips him naked and leaves, then acts despondent when Marlena calls to ask how the talk went. ICK. ICK. ICK. Don, for his part, doesn't remember a thing that happened, and Donna is being vague about "an encounter with an older man". Donna momentarily has second thoughts about her vile plan, until Pete calls to apologize for being a big baby, and promises to help her out...by paying for an abortion. Donna refuses, and plans to leave town.

WT absolute F?

Everyone in the Joanne vs. Maggie/Mickey story sounds awful, except Janice. Still no Bill and Laura.

Steve was on barely a month in 1972, it seems. The actor playing him, James Carroll Jordan, was 22, so that seems perfect for a young adult. 

Steve seems like such an under-utilized character. Seems that most of his role over the years has been to pop up on occasion to cause trouble for Julie, then disappear again.

For whatever reason, it seems Bill Bell had no interest at all in the character.

Steve briefly appeared in 1965, then not again for several more years. That's a shame as he would have been interesting to have around before Julie and Doug became a stable couple. Except for that brief run in 1972 - wonder what that was about - he just doesn't exist any key moments, including Addie's death. It doesn't look like he was even around for Ben's death.

They had a few options for a young adult male in 1973. I can understand wanting a slightly older actor for when Mickey's and Laura's marriage fell apart. But for whatever reason, Bell seems to have made a kind of a snap decision to go much older. SORAS no doubt would have happened to other characters, but arguably the decision to age Mike by a decade was the first thread in the unraveling of the Horton family as the show's core.

Combined with the effort to age David Banning dramatically, you now have Hortons who are older than they need to be, caught in family storylines rather than independent ones. Ten years later, most of the Hortons are gone and Susan Seaforth Hayes leaving because of that, and because Julie's been aged out of the action set.

e: Steve was aged normally in his 1972 return, actually a little under-aged (Flip Mark had been 17 when portraying Steve in 1965 to Jordan's 22 in 1972), which makes it even weirder that Mike was aged so dramatically.

When was Mike sorased? The Daytime Serial recaps say Uncle Bill's helping him with chemistry experiments in early 1973 . September 1973 describes him as a teen. November 1973 says he's in college.

MIKE WAS BORN IN NOVEMBER 1968.

I knew the sorasing was really bad, but this is even more insane than I thought, especially since it's under Bill Bell.

12 hours ago, victoria foxton said:

@beebs @Franko  A rare clip of Mike & Margo.

  

That's absolutely fascinating to see even if doesn't work at all for me. The inner dialogue and Eure's playing of it just doesn't feel right, except the bit of sarcasm about his job.

My sister is missing and might be dead? Ah, life.

(Jennifer is missing because Laura put her on the bus alone. Laura had asked Donna to babysit, then took off with Jennifer and told Donna not to answer the phone until she returned. Laura stayed out all day.)

Looks like this is from June 19, 1979 (per Jason's daily summaries)

"3443...6/19/79: (summary via Mitch)
Cast: Tom, Alice, Mickey, Maggie, Mike, Don, Marlena, Margo, Jordan, Donna, Laura (FBO).
Sets: Mickey’s Office, Marlena’s Office, Horton Living Room & Front Door, Mickey & Maggie’s Kitchen, Mike’s Kitchen.
 
Donna confides in Alice that it was not her fault that Jennifer ran away, but feels to blame.  Don tries to convince Mickey that Laura is out of control.  Marlena remembers Samantha locking her up.  Mike wonders to Mickey if Laura’s problem is hereditary.  Maggie and Alice worry about Jennifer. Jordan tells Marlena he is in charge.  Mike apologizes to Margo on marrying into the Hortons."

Yeah, the melodrama seems extremely thick at this point.

I didn't see a mention of Laura. I've been looking forward to how the Kate infatuation played out, but nothing. I would have liked Laura's name to pop up, maybe to have to her concerned about how he's been pulled into the Joanne situation. 

On 10/14/2020 at 2:25 PM, beebs said:

I just logged back in and realized how long that post was. I should never post at 3am with insomnia. I am SO sorry, Y'all.

Keep going. I loved every minute of it. You're fleshing out an era I know very little about. I have the Zenka anniversary book, but all it really says about Atwood is that he was a scumbag sculptor and that Mike fell for Margo and she died.

Makes Mike's static age hilarious. Yeah, Carrie, I had a wife who died when you were an infant. Except Mike should have only been in elementary school himself.

I'm looking through European news archives to check if Y&R was airing anywhere else.

Some news of American soap actors is appearing in an Icelandic publication in the 1980s and several American soaps were being broadcast by 1990, including Y&R. I can't tell if the publication just has a weird interest in the world of American soaps in the mid-1980s or if the names are familiar to their residents.