Mona Kane Croft

I saw all those episodes, but I had already planned to watch Texas. So having all those characters on AW for weeks didn't influence me one way or the other. Looking back, I don't think it was wise to include all those scenes in Houston on AW. I did enjoy the Bellman family (Reena, Stryker, Victoria, and Kevin Cook) while they were on AW and living in Bay City, and they are the reason I had already decided to watch Texas. So those four characters, plus Iris and Dennis would have been enough cross-over to introduce the new show. But TPTB tried to introduce nearly every Texas character on AW, which was over-kill, and frankly, a little boring. Plus, some very important Texas stuff happened on AW (Alex Wheeler finding Iris, Mike Marshall's suicide, etc.), and that action probably should have occurred during the first episode (or week) or Texas, rather than on AW. The premiere of Texas was underwhelming, and that may have been caused by so much Texas action having already occurred on AW.

Yes, Josh and Reva's house had a living room (with the stairs and, I believe, a fireplace) AND a den/study. Definitely two separate rooms. But after one of the big budget cuts, they moved the two sets together, as if they had always been one room. The side of the set with the stairs (from the living room) was used, but was pushed together with the opposite side of the den/study set. Not sure I am explaining it well, but maybe someone else remembers and can explain it more precisely. They used this "combination" set only briefly and then they stopped using the entire set. I guess Josh and Reva must have moved to a different house, or maybe they divorced and they both lived elsewhere.

Wow, that's amazing.

So he had a child younger then Chris? Wow, that kid must still be rather young.

I don't believe the location changes were connected to the location of the broadcasts. I don't know the timeline, but Five Points was first, followed by Selby Flats, and then Springfield. Although I'm not sure, I believe the Bauers never lived in Five Points. They joined the show while it was located in Selby Flats, which was supposedly a suburb of Los Angeles.

Walsh Enterprises didn't produce anything. It was a management consulting company. They engaged in contracts with other companies all over the world, to solve problems or deal with business decisions. Kirk Anderson and Conner Walsh were among the consultants who completed the various contracts. Lucinda did occasionally acquire smaller companies, such as Simply Barbara and one of the newspapers. But that was usually just Lucinda"s way using her money to influence something in town, or to get back at someone.

I assume he tried a little harder in the early days. Otherwise, he likely would have been fired. But I started watching regularly in 1971, and he was flubbing his lines then. I've read a quote from Beverly Penberthy somewhere online in which she says, Marlowe had a late-in-life child and took the job at AW only because he needed the income to raise the kid and get him through college. And because of that, he basically phoned-in his performances. I do know the part about the kid is true. His son is Christopher Marlowe who I believe is a sports reporter (or something like that).

I loved Hugh as Jim Matthews, he brought a warmth and genuineness to the role. BUT the poor guy was not cut-out for daytime TV. He stuttered and stammered through his lines -- sometimes as if he hadn't even attempted to memorize them. And then he had the audacity to blame Virginia Dwyer for his difficulty. That's ludicrous. At times the man was embarrassingly bad. But I still loved him.

I am a huge Lemay fan, but I think his treatment of Dwyer was uncalled for and should have been stopped by Rauch. Lemay wanted to change Mary's personality and make her a meddling troublemaker (similar to Liz Matthews). Dwyer, knowing the character's history and position on the show, resisted that. Although she did play it in some situations -- particularly in Mary's growing dislike for Steve Frame. In Lemay's early years, Dwyer got a huge amount of screen time playing the traditional matriarch. But by late-1973 Lemay had begun minimizing Dwyer's appearances, often having other characters explain that Mary was "out of town." This happened dozens of times, and sometimes it was obvious her lines had been given to other characters (such as Aunt Liz, Jim, and even Ada). Dwyer even had a rather minimized role in the show's 10th anniversary episode, and was not included in the cast photo from that episode. As he explains in his book, he brought Liz Matthews back to the show in 1974 (now played by Irene Dailey), and when the actress was successful in the role, he decided to kill-off Mary. Daily was playing Liz exactly the way he had wanted Dwyer to play Mary. So now, he felt Mary was an unnecessary character. Virginia Dwyer was a very good actress, and she was essentially AW's leading-lady. Of course the female romantic lead (in the mid-70s) was Jacquie Courtney. Killing-off Mary allowed the show to completely shift it's focus (even if unintentionally). Had Dwyer not been fired, she could have easily played Mary until the show's cancellation. And I'm sure Mary's presence would have, to some degree, prevented the near complete erosion of the Matthews family from the show. I'm sure AW would have still evolved and changed focus in the 1980s, and the importance of the Matthews family might have somewhat diminished. But they would still have been a larger part of the show until the end. Just as the Hughes on ATWT, the Martins on AMC, and the Hortons on DOOL.

I think she was just more comfortable writing a soap in a fictional midwest town. Maybe she felt the California location was limiting in some way. Or that the average viewer might have trouble identifying with characters living in California. I will admit, I find it hard to imagine Bert Bauer and her family living in California. Bert seemed, to me, the epitome of a midwestern matriarch. Whatever Nixon's reason, she seemed to have wanted the transition completed before the expansion from 15-minutes to 30-minutes. Most GL fans forget just how late in the show's history the location change took place. For instance -- Ed Bauer was already a doctor in Selby Flats. And Hope Bauer was born in Selby Flats.

My understanding is (although I wasn't watching at the time), Nixon took out mention of ANY town location from the scripts for at least a year. She just stopped calling it Selby Flats, California in scripts for a year or so, then characters simply started referring to their home as Springfield. There was no "move" mentioned by any characters. In fact, the Bauer house didn't even change. However, some GL fans swear they remember when the characters packed-up and moved from Selby Flats to Springfield on camera. Bill Bauer had a job transfer and Dr Paul Fletcher was transferred from Cedars Hospital in California to the branch in Springfield. But if this version is true, the Bauer house still didn't change. It was the same set. I'd love to see scripts from that era to see how it really happened.

That storyline was confused about a lot of things. Most importantly, did any of those older male characters even live in Springfield during the period the photo was supposedly taken? Bill Bauer was living in Selby Flats, California during that time. HB Lewis was in Tulsa, and had never even heard of Springfield. The Spauldings were not originally from Springfield, because I remember when Alan moved there in the late-70s (although this history was changed later and misused many many times). I suppose the only character for whom this plot was historically accurate was the the Reardon father (don't recall his name) -- because the Reardon's were Springfield natives. It was a very interesting plot, and well written. But the show's continuity was totally botched. Nutty.

Yes, he was mildly obsessed with Julie. He even had a tunnel constructed between the Dimera house and Doug's Place (the nightclub). At that point, Stefano wasn't such a mustache-twirling super-villain, he was a more realistic Euro-trash gangster. Too bad they dropped all that, and went in such unbelievable directions on the show.

"I always thought it would have been cool if Susan Martin was Anne Milbauer’s mom." Yes, that would have been great. Especially because I believe Susan had a daughter named Anne before she left Salem. I was hoping Susan would pop-up during the show's 50th anniversary episodes, when they were talking about the Martin House and the Martin family. She could have come back to town briefly with a grudge against Julie.

I think it means that Georgia took over Jessie's lines in a few episodes, not that she literally played Jessie. I could be wrong.

Did copying General Hospital lead to success on any of the soaps? It basically killed most of them, in my opinion.

The Egyptian story was screwed up for many reasons, but primarily because it was originally supposed to be a real location shoot in Egypt. Somehow the trip was cancelled at the last minute, and they transferred the action to Arizona. It was embarrassingly ridiculous. And in addition to that, the sci-fi/magic garbage didn't belong on AW in the first place -- AW had always been the most believable soap on television. Over the top plots never worked on AW, but they kept trying them all the way until the end.

Of all the science-fiction type plots used on nearly all the soaps in the 1980s and 90s, I would say the Hitopah storyline on Texas was the best, even though it gets little attention from soap historians and apparently did not cause a rise in the ratings. I am never a fan of science-fiction on soaps (aside from Dark Shadows), but at least Hitopah was connected to the geographic region of Texas, a Native-American legend (a fictional legend), and the oil business. So they didn't just pull it from thin air and force it on an otherwise unconnected show. Although outlandish, it was somewhat organic to the show. I also thought it was well written and well paced. And they attempted to pull it off as believably as possible.

It's she who cannot be named. [S.W.S.N.B.N.]. Now, that should get some attention.

It's she who cannot be named. [S.W.S.N.B.N.]. Now, that should get some attention.

It's Hitopah.

Jensen and the writers turned Vicky into AW's female romantic lead, which was great for Jensen, but not good for the character. Vicky should have remained a bad-girl causing trouble for other characters, as Rachel had done for many years. Jensen's version of Vicky behaved more like Marley, in my opinion. Then when Marley returned full-time, the writers had to make her bonkers, because there was no room for another "good" twin -- Vicky was, by then, the good one.

Good question. It seemed to me at the time, that Reena, Kevin, Striker, and Victoria were created for Another World, and the idea of sending them back to Texas came along later. Especially since they changed the Bellman family so much, when Texas premiered. I really enjoyed Reena on AW as Pat's romantic nemesis, since Pat had never really had a long-term enemy before. That was by far, Pat's best post-Lemay storyline, in my opinion.

They didn't use the Texas logo at all on Another World. I don't remember if the cast credits were separated on AW, but even if they were, the Texas logo wasn't used. The first time the audience saw the Texas logo was in the opening credits of the premiere episode. Iris's friendship with Reena started on AW, when Reena first came to town. If I'm not mistaken, most of the friendship was played when Carole Shelley was substituting for Beverlee McKenzie for several weeks. And then it continued, when McKenzie returned to AW briefly before the Texas premiere. So many things the Corringtons planned for Texas were ultimately never done. I don't know who jettisoned their ideas -- I suppose it was either Paul Rauch or P&G. For example, there was supposed to be a big reveal explaining why the rich Marshalls and the working-class Dekkers were so close. Probably that one of the Dekker kids was an illegitimate Marshall. And Maggie Dekker held some kind of secret regarding her nephew, Rikki. Both situations were just dropped, with no further mention or explanation. And the irony behind the show's failure was -- although critics called Texas a rip-off of Dallas, it really wasn't enough like Dallas. It was hardly a rip-off. The audience had been led to believe they were getting a daytime version of Dallas, but it turned out to be just a normal soap opera set in Texas.

The new logo (the show's second) replaced the original so quickly, I've always wondered if the first logo was meant to be temporary from the beginning. Maybe the "real logo" (the second one) was delayed in production, and TPTB had to use a temporary version in order to get the show on the air on the premiere date.. I have no evidence to support this, other than the first logo was so amateurish (even by 1980 standards), and its was replaced so quickly.