will81

I vaguely remember Dorothy Green being outspoken about it, especially the isolation of the older female characters and how they were written. Apparently Dorothy had no idea she was being killed off until Jen started feeling ill and people backstage at Y&R were acting a bit odd. I get the feeling after Bell had wanted to kill off Addie on Days and was basically forced through fan outrage to keep her at least temporarily, that he basically kept Dorothy in the dark. Not the best way to treat an actor.

In press prior to the shows debut, The Hendersons are mentioned along with the Brooks and Foster Families. It made it sound like they were supposed to be the third family in town.

That's awesome thanks so much for sharing That's hilarious. I remember vaguely SOD complaining that the 1998 primetime episode was too dark and they felt the show was trying to imitate film with darker contrast and it didn't work. I seriously can't remember if it was darkly lit or not.

Fair call. I do like that not everyone knows everyone else, that worked in the 80's and 90's as well. I forget how small the main cast was in the 70's. Haha what a riot. I have to find these immediately, thanks for letting me know. I love 70's tv movies

How interesting, never knew that. I had no idea Jess was on a contract with Universal in the 70's. Do you know if Jess and Sharon ever acted in anything together?

No worries. Yeah I read about Derek long before I saw any pics of Joe and when I did I thought, oh okay, not what I was expecting. Bell had a habit of putting Brenda with older actors for most of her run. I guess David Mallory was probably the youngest and Michael Crawford. I know Jill dated some guy named Brent in the first year, I assume he was a young guy too. But mostly Jill was always with older men.

Agreed, it would have been great to see Kay and Jennifer as friends. As far as I know Kay was pretty isolated to Jill and the Foster family in 1975, I have never heard of her interacting with the Brooks at all during this period. Wow I went back and looked and it definitely looks like a young Dana Plato. Speaking of 70's Y&R this tumblr has a bunch of 70's soap mags on it. I have linked to one of the Y&R pages. It has an article on Donnelly Rhodes being bumped off the show, stating he was killed off in late June. Also somewhere in there another article mentions Bill Espy's last day was Sep 17, 1975. I assume this was his last tape date as he appears in the episode after the Sep 23, 1975 one just posted. This must have been his final week or there abouts. I know David came on as Snapper Dec 8, 1975, though I can't remember where I found that info. https://vintagesoaparchives.tumblr.com/tagged/Young+and+the+Restless/page/2

Hot damn the 1975 episode was great. In particular the final few minutes. High melodrama but so effective and well done. Considering they were still doing live to tape, it all came together so beautifully. Peggy turning up at the last minute and the Brooks girls watching their mother as the elevator doors close. Also the small moments, the way Leslie and Chris look at Bruce, even the way Trish as Chris folds her arms when Bruce is talking to her and the way Janice's Leslie gives that bit of bite to Bruce, it is those small moments that are so effective. Interesting that there was no B story, but I guess this was a big episode and there was no time for it. We have the episode that aired after this, when Jennifer is in surgery and comes out of it, I assume it aired the same week and it also has no B story, so I wonder if Jennifer's mastectomy and the Brooks family drama took up most of that week with few other stories progressing. Also I now want to see Search for Tomorrow, haha. Such a tease Also great to see Jane Curtin in one of the commercials barely a month prior to SNL starting. Thanks so much for this, will definitely give these a watch, I admit to my interest in Y&R starting to fade somewhat during this period, but still love the show and I appreciate it more now than I did then.

Cool. I wonder who else popped up on the show over the years in minor roles.

Sorry it was the Dec 30 1992, my mistake

Just watching the Dec 29, 1992 episode. Nicholas Brendan who would go on to play Xander Harris on Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a small role as one of a group of kids trying to get Christine to get them tickets to Danny's concert. Always interesting to see actors you know from other shows pop up in small roles on soaps

Speaking of Y&R 1979. I just went through the ratings for that year in the ratings thread. Y&R was #1 for a big chunk of that year if you look at it as the calendar year, it seems 1979 to early 1980 Y&R had the chance of being the #1 soap all up, it really was big competition for GH and AMC. I thought Y&R only hit #1 in late 79 and early 80, but it was #1 multiple times throughout 1979. I wonder what would have happened if they hadn't had the cast exodus and expansion to an hour. Does anyone feel it may have hit the top 3 or was ABC Daytime too tough to beat.

Y&R was doing pretty well in the ratings during that time, and in 1979/80 managed to get to #1 for a few weeks. So I would suggest people were taping it. Whether or not those people can be bothered to transfer them to digital or even sell them is another story, also Sony is so quick to pull stuff offline that maybe many just don't want the hassle.

I also feel like they don't seem to care about character anymore. Soaps should always be character driven and story comes out of that. I think this is why I don't recognise many of the vet characters anymore (outside of the actors trying to maintain continuity for them) and I don't care about the new ones.

Oh yeah definitely, they ruined her and just as bad made her nothing more than an obstacle for Brooke/Thorne

I've noticed though that Bell didn't always stick to convention with such things. He often used those on recurring as almost contract players and vice versa. I believe Roberta Leighton was on recurring in 1986, but seemed to be right in the thick of it almost like a contract player as a result of the Nikki/Victor/Ashley triangle. Joy may have been on contract in 1983 and just not used. I think this happened to Beth Maitland as well. She was brought back on contract at certain points, but was almost recurring in terms of her appearances and story. Pretty sure he had run ins with Betty Corday (I think) over this same issue on Days in the 60's. Maybe I am wrong, but that's what it seemed like anyway.

Yeah I always wondered if Bell was planning to keep Leslie on canvas, but maybe her story with Robert Laurence fizzeled and Bell cut her loose. She left town within a week or so of the Laurence family leaving, but was on canvas for 4 months after Laurie left town. Jill had been successfully intergrated into the Abbott family by this point so makes sense he kept her on.

For me Brooke was such a pivotal part of the show and she was basically decimated as a character post 1998. I know a lot of people liked her with Thorne, but I hated it, having her act the exact same with Thorne as she did with Ridge was ridiculous, they were meant to be apparently, even though she had never shown the slightest bit of interest in him before, Eric made sense. He was still reeling from losing Beth and she from losing Ridge, they found each other in a desperately lonely time and she got pregnant, which turned what would have been a brief affair into a marriage that was doomed from the start. I also hated how violent Stephanie started becoming, then of course Brooke getting pregnant by Deacon was just the end. This was when "The Slut from the Valley" was born. Around the time Shiela took off I started cooling off. 1999 was okay (except the Brooke/Thorne pairing) but was not that invested in many of the stories and new characters. I was on and off the show and gave up around the time Taylor died again.

Just watching episode 416. Lilyan Chauvin playing a police officer. Had no idea she appeared on B&B

Brandon Denson is on the FB group The Young and the Restless - The Classic Years. He is posting some clips there. I recommend everyone here join. Janice Lynde is a member, so is Tracy Bregman and Brenda Epperson. Not sure who else. I know Brenda Dickson was on there a few years ago, but got banned. Janice actually posts on the group here and there and they even got Jess Walton to send a video for the Fake Jill day (where they celebrate all the Jill's, lol) The group can be busy sometimes and quiet others.

The 1986 episodes are great thanks @BoldRestless for sharing. What a blast to see Sandra Nelson as the flight attendant. I guess we could add that to the double duty thread.

Ryan always seemed like a little weasal. I do find it interesting that Victoria and Tricia both lost their virginity to him and both were more than underwhelmed by the sex, lol Yeah Ashley was really thrown under the bus for Victor's sperm, imagine playing a supporting role to sperm. That's what it felt like. The women weren't even really fighting over a man anymore, they were fighting over his body fluid. This has to be as close as Y&R got to the JER/Melrose style that so many soaps were trying to imitate in the mid to late 90's. One of the things that really ruined soaps for me.

It may have been Katherine was the richer one intially, around 1980. Older money and all, but Newman Enterprises had a habit of swallowing up companies and either selling them on for profit or holding on to them as lucrative subsidies. So I would say by the 90's Newman was worth much more. ETA: George Packard ran Chancellor when Victor got to town, Victor wasn't there to take over, George was tasked by Katherine to show Derek the ropes. Derek was a lousy worker (He only wanted Kay's wealth, thanks to Jill), he began an affair with Judy Wilson, who I think was George's second in command or something, they began to conspire to takeover the company, George found out but had a heart attack and went into a coma (not sure if he died). Derek got more and more greedy and Kay suspected, when he asked her to go on a cruise, that he intended to do away with her. She went reluctantly and asked Victor to take care of Chancellor while she was gone (she thought for good).

These must be a few months behind as I have several newspaper articles citing Y&R as the #1 soap in January 1980. So the April issue must have been January's ratings.

I still can't accept that these ladies were fighting over sperm and Diane saying sperm twice and the fact it was Victor's that they were fighting over. Lol, I will never be okay with this storyline, haha