zanereed

Correct. Natalie's return in 1981 was horrid. As Mitch states, she had zero interaction with Tom. I remember watching and thinking, "What's the point?" The same was true when the Dobsons brought in Gary Hudson as a recast of Rick Ryan. It was a nice idea, but never really went anywhere - plus, Hudson was also miscast as Rick (in my opinion).

Correct. I believe Judith's tenure as Natalie Bannon was from 1975 to 1978/9.

This would have been a much better option. In fact, Ellen could have had *two* brothers - "Dan" being one brother and another brother to assume the "Paul Stewart" role. So basically a "Dan Lowell" and a "Paul Lowell" who would have played out the original storylines. It would not have screwed up the canvas as much, plus it would have allowed the Lowell family to survive longer than they originally did on the show.

She was…her marriage to Steve was the second highest rated wedding only behind Luke and Laura. Yeah but many of you longterm ATWT are debunking that on this thread. I thought the whole Stewart family was beloved as they were second to the Hughes but again this thread and recent posts say otherwise. There's no doubting that Meg Ryan was very popular as Betsy. Not immediately (she said that at a fan event the guy who played Steve asked everyone to raise their hands if she was their favorite Betsy, and pretty much no one did, as Suzanne Davidson's Betsy had been very popular with fans), but in time. Even now I've seen people talking about how they loved her. I wasn't watching at the time so my experience is mostly just clips and episodes. As for the Stewarts, I think they were important to viewers, but were marred by poor writing, lack of depth, and many, many recasts. The only Stewart kids who seemed to have something of a following were the Dans (mainly John Reilly), Ryan's Betsy (I preferred Lindsay Frost but I get the feeling many viewers always preferred Ryan) and Jacqueline Schultz's Dee (who was, IMO, very poorly written - Schultz eventually quit for that reason). And then I guess Emily, to a point. I thought John Colenback (the first adult Dan Stewart) had a pretty strong following, especially during the late 1960's/early 1970's when the Dan/Liz/Paul/Susan saga was in play. I still think it was a mistake to kill off Dan in 1979. Didn't they kill him off b/c they said they had nowhere else to go with the character? They got all they could out of him? But what do you think they should've/could've done with the character had he stayed? Good question, and it ties in to what Paul stated above. Paul is right - Colenback's Dan didn't really have the same chemistry with Hayes that Reilly did. With that said, I would have started a Bob/Kim/Dan triangle immediately after Betsy found out that Dan was her dad instead of her uncle. Bob could have been her doctor during that deafness Betsy had (I think it was deafness), and Betsy could have bonded with Bob in a fatherly way (since she would have trust issues with Dan). Bob and Kim are drawn to each other again, creating conflict between Bob and Dan. Heck, I would have brought back Susan and Emily to make things even worse for Dan's situation. If they needed to get rid of Dan, they could always have Dan leave town healthy, and perhaps bring him back later if necessary. They always kept Kim and Bob apart during this time, and I hated Dana and Nick. But, the SORAS-ing of Dan was always an issue back when Irna first did it in 1966. Its shifted the structure of the canvas quite a bit. Dan was supposed to be more of a peer to Tom Hughes, but instead was now a peer to Bob (instead of David being Bob's peer), Ellen was now a peer to Nancy, etc.

She was…her marriage to Steve was the second highest rated wedding only behind Luke and Laura. Yeah but many of you longterm ATWT are debunking that on this thread. I thought the whole Stewart family was beloved as they were second to the Hughes but again this thread and recent posts say otherwise. There's no doubting that Meg Ryan was very popular as Betsy. Not immediately (she said that at a fan event the guy who played Steve asked everyone to raise their hands if she was their favorite Betsy, and pretty much no one did, as Suzanne Davidson's Betsy had been very popular with fans), but in time. Even now I've seen people talking about how they loved her. I wasn't watching at the time so my experience is mostly just clips and episodes. As for the Stewarts, I think they were important to viewers, but were marred by poor writing, lack of depth, and many, many recasts. The only Stewart kids who seemed to have something of a following were the Dans (mainly John Reilly), Ryan's Betsy (I preferred Lindsay Frost but I get the feeling many viewers always preferred Ryan) and Jacqueline Schultz's Dee (who was, IMO, very poorly written - Schultz eventually quit for that reason). And then I guess Emily, to a point. I thought John Colenback (the first adult Dan Stewart) had a pretty strong following, especially during the late 1960's/early 1970's when the Dan/Liz/Paul/Susan saga was in play. I still think it was a mistake to kill off Dan in 1979.

Agreed. It made it that much worse for me when they paired him with Alexandra.

Unless someone can point out the specific DVD that its on, I don't believe he does.

Good point, Carl. Now I am embarrassed. Denise was the longest running member at that time, having debuted in 1977. I, too, wondered why she didn't do the on-air dedication to Charita in 1985 (Jerry did it). She was still a cast member at that time, wasn't she?

I completely agree. By October of 1984, the longest running cast member on GL was Jerry verDorn, who debuted on GL in 1979. To be fair, GL had cast overhauls previously over its rich history (primarily during the radio years), but nothing like that. I was someone who liked Pam Long's writing in a lot of cases, just not the decision to overhaul so much of the cast in a relatively short time period.

I agree, Mitch. As stated earlier in this thread, some episodes from those years are in the UCLA Film and Television Archive, but are wasting away as "Non-circulating SRLF archival copies". Most all of the gems they have there from ATWT, GL, EON, and AW are classified as such. I wonder if anything will ever be done with those? Probably nothing, at least not in my lifetime...

Technically, Jennifer Kirschner was the first Hope Bauer (1963 to 1965, I think). Elissa Leeds was the second Hope, but actually debuted as Hope on "Another World" in 1966. She would reprise the role again in 1968.

Claudia was Marty Dillman's mother. Marty married Peggy Fletcher and they had one son named Billy. Marty was only on GL for less than a year (1968 to 1969), then was killed off. Claudia was around for as long as Marty, I believe, and then stopped appearing. I think she returned a couple of times in the 1970's (still played by Grace Matthews) trying to gain custody of Billy when Johnny Fletcher abandoned Peggy. I assume that would have been in either 1972 or 1973?

Paul's right. I think it's even been discussed previously on this thread. The most popular reason discussed is that Lynne Adams wanted to leave GL as there wasn't much going on with the character of Leslie. I think the last storyline for Leslie was her desire to go back to college, and Mike disagreeing with her (a rather male chauvinistic attitude by Mike)? I think it was also brought up that the Dobsons weren't really sure what to do with Leslie, either, so they killed her off (they did the same with the character of Joe Werner in the same year). I have also heard that there was no "love loss" between Don Stewart and Lynne Adams, so that may have also factored in to Adams leaving.

Good question. I don't think so. Wasn't Tracy Delmar already dead when Charlotte was revealed as an impostor by Flip Malone?

Did Charita propose it? I thought I read somewhere (perhaps earlier in this very thread) that the story was suggested to Charita by Pam and Gail?

I am almost afraid to post this for fear it will jinx the channel all over again, but "SoapsNthings" are posting more GL episodes from around November 1981 up on YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGd-CMhNwvTZ_b7flg44FdA/search?query=guiding+light+1981 The quality varies, but there is more from the Mike/Alan/Tenerife storyline, as well as plenty from Quint and Nola, etc.

There may not have been a specific benefit to keep them, but I can absolutely believe that some of them still exist out there. It makes me wonder how much P & G have (or had) in their archive...

I wonder how much "Another World" was actually kept. I can see kinescopes of key episodes being saved, of course.

That is a great point. JC and GR should have shared a sequence together during the Anniversary Week, without a doubt.

Did NBC/P & G even have much classic footage (from the late 1960's/early 1970's) available to use?

I think Lemay tolerated the Matthews clan, but was much more interested in writing for the Corys and Frames. It seemed from his book that he loved Bev Penberthy and Hugh Marlowe, however. As for Jacker, I wonder if she was under pressure from P & G to get rid of the Matthews family? I think they were trying to get Marland to do something similar with the Bauers during his time on GL.

Do know approximately when T.J. stopped appearing (i.e. - stopped appearing and went to "boarding school")? I was so young then and I can't remember this period as much. Thank you.

Correct. Joe Ponazecki played Larry Wyatt at various times between the late 1970's (I think) and early 1990's.

I never heard that before. Thinking about it now, Reinholt would been the right age range for the character of Alan. Although Christopher Bernau will always be "Alan" to me, I actually think Reinholt could have been a good recast of Alan when Bernau was finally too sick to play him in 1988.

Was Tim/T.J. still on GL at that point (I barely remember him, but I assume that's who is behind Millette Alexander)?