robbwolff

I don't think Gary Tomlin ever played the role of Ted Bancroft unless it was a temporary situation. The role was played by Eric Roberts, Richard Backus, and Luke Reilly. When Backus was playing Ted in 1979, Tomlin was playing the role of Eileen Simpson's brother Morgan on AW.

Whatever source that reported December 1, 1975 for GH's expansion to one hour is wrong. As you state, GH and OLTL expanded to 45 minutes on July 26, 1976. According to this source, the GH expansion to one hour occurred in December 1975 -- before it expanded to 45 minutes in July 1976. That doesn't make sense at all. December 1, 1975 was the date that TEON moved to ABC and ATWT expanded to an hour. Both GH and OLTL expanded to one hour in January 1978.

According to Danny Hill, who posts a lot of classic soap episodes, The Doctors did two one-hour tests -- one in 1975 and the other in 1977. He said it also aired a 90-minute test in 1976. That's when Althea fell through a window and Nick Bellini returned to save her life. This is the book that discussed the expansion of Another World and stated that NBC was still considering expanding Days. The soaps section of the book included photos. I distinctly recall a photo or two of the Ryan's from Ryan's Hope.

A New York Times article back in 1974 said NBC was planning one-hour trial episodes of The Doctors and Days of our Lives. I could be wrong, but I thought that The Doctors did two one-hour trial episodes. I think one was around March 1976 when Nick came back to save Althea's life after an injury. And the other was from spring of 1977 when Carolee finally made her way back to Madison. Even after the 90-minute Another World failed, NBC was still toying with expanding Days of our Lives to 90 minutes. Many, many years ago, I had a book that specifically looked at television in 1979 and the AW expansion and the proposed DOOL expansion were discussed in the chapter on soaps. NBC was making a bunch of questionable decisions in 1979 in addition to the AW expansion, including the disastrous Supertrain.

Schmigadoon was awesome! And Ann’s song about her husband Mayor Manlove was brilliant. Starting tomorrow and for the next few weeks, my office is watching Schmigadoon during lunch.

I'm a bit confused by the date. Did you mean to say March 1972?

Wasn't it Patricia Estrin who played Jamie?

The only character I can think of is Mavis Cobb on Texas. She was Lurlene's aunt and played by Dody Goodman. During this period, SOD had a lot of scoops about casting for new roles that never came to fruition. I recall talk of casting a model named Bliss. Speculation was that Bliss was going to turn out to be Felicia's daughter.

The news about Michael Malone's passing really hit me hard. Frankly, I owe the man so much because his storytelling honestly changed my life. At that time, I was deeply immersed in a religious cult -- a non-denominational church that preached that gay people would burn in the fires of hell. I was at the end of my Bachelor's program and the last class I took was on human sexuality. I remember the professor talking about how homosexuality was biological, which made me grapple with and question the cult's teachings. As I did, I became extremely ill, my mouth covered with over 40 canker sores. I was in constant pain, unable to talk, and out of work for a few weeks. It was during this time that I started watching One Life to Live and became engrossed in Billy's story and how homophobia was affecting the town of Llanview. The story moved me in so many ways and helped me to see how the intolerance in the cult was wrong...how my intolerance of others was wrong. I still remember the scene where a man attacked Reverend Andrew Carpenter, pummeling him while the Bible lay on the grass, its pages turning in the wind. That image, Andrew's impassioned sermon to the congregation about love conquering hate, and the scenes of the AIDS quilt moved my heart and truly changed my life. I made the decision to leave the cult. And three years later, like Billy Douglas, I came to terms with my sexuality and came out. I'm not sure where I would be in life had it not been for my illness and the opportunity to watch this beautiful story unfold. So, thank you, Michael Malone. I will forever be grateful for your vision, your story, your words.

I believe the guy in the check shirt and vest is Joe Ponazecki, who later played Larry Wyatt on Guiding Light. According to IMDB (which isn't entirely accurate), Ponazecki played Reilly on The Secret Storm from 1973 to 1974.

And if I remember correctly, the church used here was the same one that One Life to Live used for the climax of its homophobia storyline in 1992.

Melody Libonati was the original Samantha Vernon. Look back through this thread to around 2011 as there was a discussion about her portrayal. She only lasted about 6 weeks and was a brunette as I recollect. Someone has posted a photo back in 2011 of the Vernon family and Melody was featured in that image.

Oh, she definitely sang during the Nurses' Ball. She and the others singing with her were billed as "Kiki and Friends."

I can't recall if I ever asked this before, but does anyone know the story behind Linda Elstad's writing for AW? Around January 1984, Soap Opera Digest ran an article about Elstad being appointed the new head writer of AW. The article even featured Elstad previewing one of her stories. It was about Donna Love trying to join a men-only club in what seemed to be a story about equality. When the writing team changed that spring, it wasn't Linda Elstad who was head writer but Richard Culliton. And Elstad was part of his writing team. Has anyone ever heard of an explanation for the change?

Marcia was on SFT from 1978 to 1986. Since Daytimers was in publication in the late 70s and early 80s, the article Paul referenced above was clearly referencing another appearance she had on AW prior to joining SFT, not her stint as Bunny in the mid-90s.

No. Michael Park played Jack Snyder on As the World Turns. Michael Parks (with an s) was on Then Came Bronson. And John's correct. Michael Park was in the pilot.

13 Bourbon Street was slated for late night airing on FOX. It was originally slated to air at 11:00 p.m. five nights a week. Later, before FOX bailed on the show, it had decided to air 13 Bourbon Street once a week in prime time. Actor/writer Richard Backus described all of this in an article recently posted on SON. The USA soap was titled The Avenue. It was slated to air five nights a week in the early evening. A Variety article in April 1999 stated it was set for an early 2000 debut. A novelist named Todd Komarnicki was credited as being the creator, not Sharon DeBord. The show was to be set in Queens, New York and was described as being similar to EastEnders.

Gloria was Lucinda's mother. Mary Ellen Walters.

Bay City was at one time set in Michigan. I recall a scene around 1980 when Mitch was presumed dead where it was clear that Bay City was in Michigan. Later, the setting was established as Illinois.

I'm grateful for sites like the Another World Home Page because they shed clarity on the actual history of soaps and disprove much of this misinformation. I have seen that line about Agnes Nixon killing off all the Gregorys for years. I think it even made its way into books about soaps. Didn't she supposedly kill the whole family off in a car or plane crash? As you pointed out, Bert and Cora Gregory were minor supporting characters. From what I read, Bert lasted all of three months and Cora lasted for about four months. They were both dropped while James Lipton was writing. I didn't know that House Jameson and Florence Williams portrayed Bert and Cora. A few years later, they were both cast on The Doctors in the roles of journalist Nathan Bunker and Edna Hamilton (Althea's mother).

The Another World Homepage shows a lot of this is urban legend. Irna was the one who got rid of Granny Matthews and the one who created Ernest Gregory. Lipton later introduced other members of the Gregory family. Alex Gregory stopped appearing while Lipton was head writer. A month later, Agnes killed off the character. She killed off one Gregory, not the whole family as has been claimed for decades. She dropped Karen Gregory days into her run and a month later wrote out Ernest.

I believe Stephen started in 1980, not 1981. A newspaper article I saw online announced his casting in early September 1980.

Yes. Mary Jo Keenan played Kat.

What an amazing find! Thanks for sharing this. I had a few thoughts and observations about the opening. One was that, unless I missed it, I didn't see any sign of Louise Shaffer's Stephanie Wyatt in the opening. Also, the opening really illustrates Mary Stuart's comments about how the show shifted the role of the matriarch to Kate McCleary. Kate is definitely featured more prominently that Jo. Also, based upon the date on the video, this was produced while Erwin Nicholson was executive producer. I wonder if he may have used whoever had created the final opening sequence for The Edge of Night. There are definite similarities between Edge's final opening and this one for Search.

Unfortunately, I've never seen "Delirious." When I was at Rosemont, I had encouraged the powers that be to reach out to Agnes to see if she would do a campus talk. Unfortunately, they didn't express any interest. It was such a shame. You have this Emmy award-winning writer living In the same town and you make no effort to reach out to her. I made the suggestion right around the time of the "unabortion". It would have been fascinating to hear Agnes' thoughts on that story. I know that the sequence where Angie sees an alive Jesse at a train station was filmed in New Hope, PA, about an hour north of Philadelphia. Across the Delaware River from New Hope is Lambertville, NJ, which was used to depict the town of Somerset in that soap opera's final opening credits.