robbwolff

Nope. She was head writer for at least a year. And her stint at GL didn’t even last 13 weeks.

I believe Peggy O’Shea was head writer that summer.

The latest ratings Jason posted reflect Lee Sheldon's first four weeks as head writer of The Edge of Night. Three weeks into his run, he killed off Nicole Cavanaugh. And I also think these ratings reflect the beginning of Richard Culliton and Pamela Long Hammer's work on Guiding Light. Pam's name first popped up in the credits in mid-May. And we immediately saw the introduction of new characters like Mindy Lewis, Billy Lewis, Beth Raines, Lillian Raines, and Bradley Raines.

I had watched the movie back in 1983 and remember Dorothy's preview. Here's a video of the segment with Dorothy followed by most of the first episode of the serial.

If I remember correctly, after the movie ended at 10:50 p.m., the last 10 minutes featured Dorothy Lyman from All My Children giving a preview of Loving.

She claimed so in an email to Eddie Drueding on the Another World Home Page, and Eddie shared the email on the site back in January 2006. I always doubted her claim. In the same email, she also claimed that Guiding Light continued to use her bible for nine months after she was fired and credited her as head writer during that period. She was defintely removed from the credits by late February/early March 1983.

We'll also see if there's any truth to L. Virginia Browne's claim that she brought Guiding Light up 2 full ratings points -- from 8th place to 3rd place -- during her short stint.

I'm not sure what Edge's taping schedule was like, but Raven vanished around Halloween 1984, right around the time that Edge's cancellation was announced. Sharon returned early from maternity leave to wrap up the show was back on screen by early December. Edge continued to update its opening throughout most of 84. Beth did make it into the opening, along with Del and Jeremy sometime in 84. Liz wouldn't have been included in the opening. The opening credits only featured contract actors and Marcia Cross was recurring. Preacher and Jody were the closing shot until around August/September 84 when Raven and Sky were moved into that slot with footage from the recent Mexico remote. By the time Sharon went on maternity leave, the emphasis on Jody had begun to fade. Whatever magic there was between Jody and Preacher was lost when Lori Loughlin left the show. Preacher was featured a lot with the new bad girl Liz while Sharon was on leave while the now boring Jody was beginning to be paired with the equally dull Jeremy. As for Jody, I'm not sure how old she was supposed to be, but she was a first-year student in college when the show ended. She started at Wellington College at the start of 84 and then transferred to a college in Monticello by mid-year (when the Wellington College murders storyline ended).

If I remember correctly, it was both L. Virginia Browne and Gene Palumbo who were head writers, not just Browne. And there were interim head writers between Browne/Palumbo and Culliton/Long: Carolyn Culliton, Richard Culliton, and Gary Tomlin. Pamela Long's name first appeared in the credits sometime around mid-May 1983.

I've watched every episode of Dark Shadows and never saw star billing in the opening credits. I believe it was in the closing credits where Joan Bennett and later Jonathan Frid got star billing.

Who were the doctors who were brothers? I don't remember them. I remember Dr. Jack Garner and Dr. John Bennett were introduced in 1979 along with John's wife Ashley, who was portrayed by the wonderful Valerie Mahaffey.

It's on page 18 of this board. According to producer Linda Wendell: "We had secured Inge Swensen, a wonderful actress, to play a nurse and we were going to follow a 'Children's Hour' type theme, eventually working in a conspiracy against Betsy."

I'm glad you were able to find the book. I must have lost my copy in one of my moves.

There's no doubt the expansion affected the ratings. However, the 1970s ratings that Jason47 clearly show that AW's ratings drop happened well before the expansion -- around June 1978. AW went from an 11.1 in mid-January 1978 to a 6.7 in late August 1978. That's a massive drop. AW spent the second half of 1978 with ratings in the 7s and then had a boost to the 8s in early 1979 but then dropped back to the 7s before the expansion in March 1979.

I don't think this is true. What I recall is that Port Charles aired a special one-hour episode on one day only -- toward the end of December 2002. The episode kicked off the next arc. And it was only months before ABC announced the cancellation. I recall Frons talking about it to the press, but don't remember what he said. It was sandwiched between episodes of All My Children and General Hospital. One Life to Live was preempted that day. My employer was closed that week for the holiday break and I remember watching a bit of the one-hour episode.

My husband told me a few weeks ago that there was a reference by Whitley to watching Body and Soul on the network until it moved to streaming. Or something like that.

I’ll have to let my husband know. We live in Michael’s childhood home. Michael used to drive his late mother by the house on holidays. My husband has been in contact with him and said he seems like a nice guy and nothing like the villains he played on soaps.

Do you recall the other new characters that Whitesell previewed? I do recall the owner of Liberty House from around April 1986. If I'm not mistaken, he was even seen though they never showed his face. For some reason, I got the impression that he may have been someone from Jo's past.

Damn. That was disturbing to read. The similarities between Tyler and my brother's struggles with alcohol and that way it has affected them gave me chills.

The post about the proposed NBC line-up can be found on page 3 of the NBC Daytime thread, which is stored under the Cancelled Soap Operas section of this forum.

Unfortunately, I can't recall where I saw it as I've got COVID brain fog going on. But it was definitely somewhere on SON. I think it was a May 1979 Variety article. It showed the proposed line-up, including The Doctors airing from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., a new soap going in at 12:30, DOOL airing from 1:00 to 2:30, and AW from 2:30 to 4:00. I definitely recall reading about it in a book back around 1979-1980 as well. Unfortunately, I no longer have the book, but it may have been this one. I recall there was a section in the book about daytime TV, including shots of the Ryan family from Ryan's Hope. The book stated that even though the AW expansion was deemed unsuccessful that NBC was still toying with expanding DOOL.

Yes, you will see the opening with the green lettering. It debuted in August 1980 when the show moved to 12:30 p.m. I watched one of the August 1980 episodes the other day and saw that opening. What you won't hear is the final theme song, which debuted, I think, in 1981. What is interesting is that some of the August 1980 episodes feature the old Doctors logo at the beginning of the opening scene. I agree wholeheartedly. What's shocking is that NBC had been making plans to expand DOOL to 90 minutes and The Doctors to one hour, with The Doctors shifting to 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Baldwin actually shows up in August 1980. I watched his introductory scene a few hours ago. I can't wait to dive into these episodes.

The video can be found on page 610 of this board. Someone posted it when Nicolas Coster passed away.

I sincerely hope Tess/Christine is OK. I recall she had health problems and was waiting for a kidney transplant. As for Todd Strasser (aka Sean-Paul), that was some messed up nonsense. The person claiming to be Todd was supposedly great friends with Pam Long and arranged for her to participate in an online chat via WoST. However, folks were able to determine that Pam and Sean-Paul were using the same IP address. Sean-Paul had a lot of claims about the plans for SFT had it continued, including Carla Borelli assuming the role of Liza Sentell. After he was banned from WoST, I stayed in contact with him for a while via email. He claimed to be head writing OLTL during the 2007-08 writers strike and to be dating Jeff Branson. All communications from him stopped when I told him I was going into NYC to see a staged reading of a play called "The Short Bus" featuring Branson. By the by, let me say how much I love your posts on here! I really appreciate all the information you share!!