Mona Kane Croft

I completely agree with you regarding Rachel and her unexplainable return to lusting after Steve. Since 1975, Rachel's endgame was always Mac, and the audience knew it. The triangle was long over, but I think there was still energy in the Alice/Steve romance. Had the recasts been successful, AW could have moved forward with two popular super-couples, Rachel/Mac and Alice/Steve. I could see Steve and Alice growing into a relationship similar to Victor and Nikki on Y&R. I also agree that Steve's motivation for staying in Australia for so long was botched. The real Steve would never have stayed away intentionally, with Jamie and Alice grieving and waiting back in Bay City. They should have gone with severe physical injuries and amnesia, and Willis (the perpetual loser) could have played a role, since he and Gwen had moved to Australia just a year or so before Steve's return.

He's really doing a great job. I'm so glad he's been doing this. He knows what he's talking about and he respects the genre.

You're right. I too wish he would ask more serious questions, but he wants these to be reunions, so things need to be kept rather light. It can be frustrating, but I completely understand why he gives them soft-ball questions. The responses to some serious queries might embarrass others in the reunion, or make them feel uncomfortable. The last thing Alan wants in a reunion is for someone to regret their decision to participate. If we want more serious questions that might get into criticizing others, trouble in the studio, or conflicts with co-workers, he probably needs to do that in one-on-one interviews. And I don't know if he has any interest in doing that. So before we criticize his interviewing skill too much, we need to think about his fundamental reason for holding them. And I don't think it's to dig up dirt.

Where are the updates? I just checked, and the last update I see on the list is March 25, 2020.

Yes, it's Paul Tulley. It's strange Tulley is in this photo, because Scott Bradley was a minor character, and all the other actors were in major roles. Janice being the least, but she was important during this short time. Plus, all the other actors are closely connected to Mac and Rachel. Again, Scott was not really. He was an attorney for Cory Publishing, but he was more personally connected to Alice Frame, than to Rachel and Mac.

Who cares if he's making money? He works hard putting the reunions together, and he does a great job. At least we don't have to pay to watch them.

I still find it hard to believe that both Mike and Hope Bauer were written off the show around 1984, and none of the subsequent writers thought it might be a good idea to bring either of them back to town. The Bauers were such an interesting flawed core-family, surely they would have been wonderful to write for. They weren't perfect like the Hughes or the Matthews.

Thank you for the information. Do you know if Sara was written out, or did she just stop appearing? Was Sara still important in the storylines up until she left? Or had she been minimized?

Looks like Mike Bauer has been removed from this one. Does anyone know approximately when Sara and Jennifer left the show?

A year or so ago, I read an interview with Rauch. He said that in 1981, he asked George Reinholt to lunch to discuss the possibility of returning to AW. He said the meeting was pleasant, and that George was a great talent. But he could tell George still wanted to "be the writer" (which caused most of the trouble in 1975), and he couldn't take chances on bringing that type of toxic behavior back into the studio. So he hired David Canary instead. I think Jacquie Courtney would have been great with David Canary. Although I didn't like Canary's interpretation of Steve Frame, it really wasn't his fault. He obviously knew nothing of Steve's history or Steve's personality. He played Steve as loud and happy, while the character had always been rather quiet and brooding. Canary just needed some direction, and I'm sure he would have been very good as Steve.

Funny, but I don't remember ever seeing Sara or Jennifer in the disco-opening before.

Is it possible this is the wrong opening credits for this episode? Maybe someone just edited it into the video? Is there a GL expert here, who can verify all those characters were still on the show in 1982?

Yes, Vera Moore (Linda Metcalf) made appearances at the same time Quinn Harding was on the show, sadly the two never had scenes together. But this is VERY late in Vera's run. She's out the door soon. What puzzles me is, why is Vera listed with the contract actors? Surely she wasn't still on-contact at that time, since she appeared only when they needed a nurse, and hadn't had even a hint of a storyline since 1975. But in this episode, she is listed several names before Linda Borgeson, and I know Borgeson was on-contract. During this era, the cast was listed in order of seniority, except VW and DW (who had billing at the top of the credits) and the non-contact players were always listed at the end. The mob stories seemed to go on and on forever. At least 2 or 3 years. I'm confident they contributed to the show's staying low in the ratings throughout the early-80s. AW viewers didn't want a crime-drama. We wanted family drama and class-conflict. Every soap can do a crime/mob story once in a while, but not one after another after another. AW wasn't Edge of Night.

Ahh, I see all that mob nonsense was still running. Tom King started that about a month after he replaced Lemay. It was badly written, unconvincing, and didn't belong on Another World anyway. And I see Browne and Jacker continued it. Neither of them wrote the mob storylines any better than King. Another big problem during this era: the cast was in a constant state of turn-over from King's arrival, all the way until Felicia Gallant and Donna Love were introduced, when some of the new characters finally began to stick around longer than a year.

Was Sara MacIntyre still there in 1982? I thought Marland wrote her off. And I'm surprised Jennifer is still there too. Wow.

Interesting you feel that way, because I have the opposite opinion. Vana Tribbey (the first 1981 recast) was wrong for the role. She was too harsh and too sexual. The second 1981 recast, Linda Borgeson, was much closer to Jackie Courtney's interpretation of the role, so I liked her much better. But you can't revive a love triangle with two of the three characters recast. It probably would have worked, if either George Reinholt or Jackie Courtney would have returned to work with Vicky Wyndham. And it would have blown-off the roof, if they'd both returned.

What was going on during Brown's time at the show? Just in general, I mean. I was watching then, but there were so many head writers in the 80s, I couldn't tell you who wrote what.

I agree that Hunt Block was great as Craig, and he was playing the role as written. My problem with "that" Craig is that Craig had almost completely reformed under Marland's pen. He was still a bit of an anti-hero, but he had reformed. When the character returned with Block in the role, there seemed to be absolutely no motivation for Craig's return to the dark-side. Why not show us that motivation, so Block's Craig would be more easily accepted? Or perhaps Sheffer could have just created a new character for Block to play. Or former character not so reformed, Scott Eldgrige for example.

After the show was cancelled, the final Cory Publishing set showed up on ATWT as Lucinda Walsh's office. And Cass's law office was used as Tom Hughes' law office for a short period.

There were scenes at Cory Publishing near the end of the show, when Sandra Ferguson returned as Amanda. She went to work again at Brava magazine, and there was a new set for the Cory Complex. I remember, because it was much smaller than any of the other sets they had used for the same purpose.

-- "Didn't Doug write ATWT (and Lucinda ) for like 8 years? For sure in that time there would be instances when she wasn't happy about the writing or particular plot points. Maybe she is focusing on those times and forgetting the good stuff...human nature to do that." -- It's all about perspective, I guess. And I think Liz's idea of writing for Lucinda would be storylines specifically for Lucinda, meaning Lucinda was the "star" of the storyline. So even though Marland used Lucinda constantly, and she got lots of air-time, Liz doesn't see that as really writing for Lucinda. It's funny, because I watched the entire Marland run on ATWT, and I thought he over-emphasized Lucinda, giving too much attention to a character who was really peripheral to the show. Good Lord, it seemed like she was on every day! So every time she says Marland didn't write for Lucinda, I just shake my head. But as I said, it's all about perspective.

Alan does a great job and is a very good interviewer, but I don't think he knows enough about Another World to ask the right questions. So the conversation tended to stray away from the show. Unlike his GL and ATWT interviews, which, to a larger degree, stay on the topic of the shows.

Luke didn't have the perm when he first appeared? Did Travis have the perm when Travis first appeared?

I think SFT gave Rod Arrants the Luke Spencer hair intentionally. Because he didn't have it earlier, when he was on For Richer, For Poorer. Or later, when he was on Y&R. Another World also gave a perm to one of their hot new studs. It finally disappeared about a year and a half later (the perm, not the stud). But was Luke Spencer already all that popular, when Travis first appeared on SFT? That was 1978, I think.

I saw it, and I thought she did a good job. But it was completely unexpected. I'm a little surprised the episode isn't on Youtube. It was probably in 1979, and P&G started preserving episodes that year. Maybe it will pop up sometime. Does anyone know the dates of the earliest available groups of episode on YouTube?