SoapDope

1 hour ago, Khan said:

I agree.  In the past, Abby had done malicious things, but her motivations were always clear and reasonable.  But planting drugs on Harold so he would stay away from Olivia?  Threatening Ted Melcher with proof that he was responsible for the Murakame murders?  That was too much.  It got to a point where you, as a viewer, had to ask, just how much money and power does one person NEED anyway?

Once Val had freed herself and the twins from Danny, and she and Gary had finally reunited, the two should have married right away and left town to start over somewhere else.  When the Lechowicks came up with the "brain virus" as one more obstacle to Val and Gary remarrying, it was clear that the Ewings had run their course.

Yes, you can tell the Lechowicks had no respect for Joan Van Ark by coming up with that story to make her even more ditzy. I'm surprised they didn't have her burn down the ranch or the house in the cul-de-sac. They also had Karen taking off like a vigilante in her car running down the kids with the paintball gun in a high speed chase. 

On 5/20/2023 at 7:38 PM, Khan said:

It would certainly tie in with that scene of Greg visiting Laura's gravesite in the season 13 finale.  But I think any plans to bring back Laura would have been doomed to fail.  Constance McCashin was irreplaceable, IMO, and given her feelings about being let go from the show, I doubt the producers could have convinced her to return, too.  In a perfect world, though, they could have lured her back - either as Laura, or as her twin or lookalike.

I agree. CM was given the shaft and would probably never return. They would have had to do some serious courting/butt kissing to make her even consider it. 

Speaking of those last seasons, why was Stacy Galina (Kate) considered such a find ?  Even when they did the 1997 reunion she was brought back with Gary's child in tow and given major airtime. 

If your a good writer/ producer/show runner that is hired to do a revival of a iconic series,  why would you not make sure to brush up on the history ? Cidre sounds like a arrogant hack. I think I read that David Jacobs said he offered to be a consultant and she said no thanks. 

Ran across this old pic of WGE circa 1975 online.

19 hours ago, Khan said:

I think Ann Marcus was planning to have Val unearth some big secret about Greg in the course of writing his biography.  (My money was on a long-lost son.)

I think I remember reading it was Val finding Laura still alive. 

I wonder if someone showed the Dallas novel to David Jacobs today if he would recall any of his original ideas for Dallas or say it was all fabricated by Raintree.

I remember reading an interview with Meg Bennett where she said Bell and Conboy hired her for Julia after knowing her work from SFT. She had recently moved back to California where she was originally from and they called her up. The Newmans were going to make their debut in 1979 for the expected 1 hour expansion, but all the problems and delays pushed it back till February 1980. 

Devane was a like a long lost Kennedy. 

3 hours ago, te. said:

When Dallas first started I believe Larry Hagman talked about how everyone was really rotten in that family and that's certainly the outline that the novel seemingly follows - of course, being 1970s network television they probably couldn't go as far with that concept, but I actually imagine that they're closer to Jacob's original vision for the show.

I agee. Jacobs did say that some of what Katzman did with the show turned out better than what he wrote or envisioned. He said he was alway more suited to write middle class and that's why Knots was more his baby and let Katzman and Capice run things. They would all have meeting every so often. Jacobs always firmly told them " No matter where the show leads, it all goes back to those 8 characters I created". 

Katzman eventually got shed of Capice. Capice wanted to give the women of the show equal storyline, but Katzman wanted it to be a mans show and they fought constantly. Hagman and Duffy made it their playground. I have seen countless takes/bloopers where they will be in a intense scenes with another actor and Duffy or Hagman will screw it all up to "Make a funny". I have a great sense of humor, but when you work those long hours and have to do constant re-takes because of co-stars antics, I bet that got old quick. 

I feel Duffy screwed things up for good by leaving the show by insisting Bobby be killed off. Then Hagman got pissed he didn't have his old playmate and started in by insisting he be brought back. Katzman also used this to his advantage to get "carte blanche" and run the show without any outside interference. With Katzman, Duffy and Hagman back in place, the women went back to playing second fiddle. When Katzman told Jacobs his choice to make it all a dream, Jacobs told him it was stupid and it will insult the audince. Katzman scoffed " Well we are doing it" Jacobs refused to undo Bobby's death on Knots. It killed the crossovers. 

David Jacobs said he wanted Bobby to be a playboy/jetsetter type. He was more interested in traveling, sailing yachts etc than working. Pamela was supposed to reel him in and make him more stable and settle down much to his chagrin. CBS insisted that Bobby be more good guy and down to earth and David Jacobs said " Bobby became bland and boring"......Jacobs also said that Pamela Barnes Ewing should have been the most fascinating character he ever created, but as much as he loved Victoria Principal......the character never became what he had envisioned. 

Jacobs also said he saw Lucy in the vein of someone like Stefanie Kramer, but CBS or Leonard Katzman thought she should be a nifty little blonde. He said Charlene was adorable, but couldn't act.....LOL 

This has probably been posted before, but this has got to be one of my favorite photos from the show....LOL

I recently went back re-watched Peyton Place and the 1985 reunion film. I would have loved to see Barbara Parkins on Dallas. Imagine her going toe to toe in scenes with Larry Hagman. 

5 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Speaking of Vanessa, I still believe they waited way too long to introduce an illegitimate son for JR. It was a believable twist that JR would have a child out there.

Looking back at the early self contained eps, they burned through a lot of story, most of which was done and dusted in an episode and forgotten.

Imagine if Ray's country singer girlfriend Garnet had returned or Pam's first hubby etc

What happened to Aunt Maggie? Was she Digger's sister?

I think they should have introduced the illegitimate child via Barbara Eden's character. Wink Wink !

Bringing back some of those characters from the late 70/early 80's in the later years of the show sounds fun.

Willie (Greg Evigan) shows back up and torments Lucy in a game of cat and mouse after spending time in the pen. 

Garnett shows up and tells Ray she gave birth to his child after leaving Dallas.

During Lucy's second marriage to Mitch, she returns home suspecting he has been having an affair and pulling away from her. Mitch starts seeing Dr. Elby to work things out in therapy to deal with his demons  from the past and the side of himself he is hiding. He has also re-connected with an old college flame that has opened up this can of worms. Lucy follows him to the racquet club and see's the old flame is Kit Mainwaring.

Katherine continues to want to get even with the Ewings and decides to enlist the help of Alan Beam.

Liz Craig marries Jeremy Wendell and she helps him with his fight against the Ewings. 

Rita the unwed mother that J.R. sent packing returns with a rich husband who wants to crush the Ewings. She meets with Sue Ellen and threatens to tell everyone in the Dallas press how she tried to buy her baby on the black market back in 1978.  

7 minutes ago, Khan said:

Overall, I loved Val, and I get why she would be so protective of Betsy and Bobby, but if I had to listen to her go on and on about having to think of them before anything else one more time...!

LOL......I felt the same way too about when Karen would freak out over Meg. Val's book might effect Meg, Meg is kidnapped, Greg wants Meg back when he married Abby etc.....then when they did the 1997 reunion....Surprise.....Karen drones on Mac about Meg wanting to know who her real parents are and how it will effect her if they are not honest with her.

42 minutes ago, Khan said:

Val had that redone, because "I HAVE GOT TO THINK ABOUT MY CHILDREN!".

When I look at that clip of J.R. visiting Val....I always cringe that the series set designer had the stairs too close to the front door and had that weird step down into the living room and kitchen. In 1997 when they did the reunion movie "Back To The Cul-De-Sac...the set designers finally corrected the mistakes that should have been done in the series by moving the stairs back about 3 to 4 extra feet enlarging the foyer ( including having enough space for a grandfather clock) and took out the step down having everything on a even level. It made the Ewing home much more spacious and inviting especially during the anniversary party for Karen & Mac.

6 hours ago, Broderick said:

@SoapDope -- Thanks for the Tattletales!!  

Bill Bell said that out at Lake Geneva, there was a snotty kid who was called "Snapper" because he snapped at everyone.  That's where he got the basic idea for Espy's character. 

I always secretly suspected WGE was like that in real life!  Glad to see he's not.    

I remember Bell saying that too in an interview. Espy shocked me at how funny he is. He always seemed so serious in the roles he played. The same for Gary Frank from Family.....he was so serious as Willie Lawrence then he would pop up on The Love Boat, Family Feud, variety shows etc... being totally unlike the character he played. 

23 minutes ago, yrfan1983 said:

Thanks! Fun to see WGE relaxed and enjoying himself. I always wondered if he was similar to his stern cranky character Snapper.

I agree. He seems more happy go lucky than I thought he would be.The entire week is uploaded on that youtube channel and he is laughing, joking and cutting up. 

Here is the entire week:

William Gray Espy & Janice Lynde on Tattletales circa 1975: 

53 minutes ago, Soapsuds said:

The vault of episodes were provided by Rick Nelson's son, Sam Nelson.  

 

  ‎ Mpi Home Video got the rights to distribute them on DVD and digital. I bought several episodes on digital. I hear the digital versions are in HD and look even better than the standard newly remastered DVDs.

Here's a link to more of the discussion. I post there too.

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/ozzie-harriet-release-from-sam-nelson.361854/

Thanks for the discussion link. I'm blown away how good those episodes look after years of looking at blurry beat up copies. I remember reading that article about 10 years ago that Sam was left the masters by his late uncle David to put back in circulation. Years went by and it seemed the project died. Now they are be released in quick succession. 

I see Ricky in that pic of Sam. I think his other 3 children look more like their mother Kris Harmon Nelson's side of the family. At one point Kris brother Mark Harmon and wife Pam Dawber were raising him. 

I'm not sure if this is the right board to post this topic. I recently saw Amazon prime has been uploading remastered/restored episodes of the classic 1952-1966 TV series Ozzie & Harriet. For years all that was available were a certain amount of blurry public domain episodes that were scratched and beat up. The last time the show was syndiacted was back in the 1980's when Harriet Nelson hosted the show on the Disney channel. Even those episodes were edited and kind of rough/ not in the best of shape.

The Amazon episodes look incredible remastered from the original 35mm negatives. Currently the first 10 seasons are uploaded and they plan to release seasons 11 & 12 in May. I hope seasons 13 & 14 will follow shortly after. Season 14 is the only season that was filmed in color. I can't wait to see those restored.  Ricky Nelson became a one of the first teen idols with his music performances on the show.

Several actors made appearances on the show before they went on to series of their own. Linda Evans (before she was blonde) appeared in several episodes. 

7 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

I like these story possibilities.

I wonder if Bill considered all these angles or just went with his gut feelings?

Greg being a possible father was a good angle and would have kept the Fosters around longer. Then Greg , having split from Nikki could have hung on as the town lawyer and slipped into the John Silva role as confidant to Jill -his sister and 3rd wheel for other ladies like Julia and Nina.

I agree. Greg should have been the town lawyer. It seems like Bell just had the frame of mind " I'm just going to scrap this mess and start over again" It's kind of sad. Most soaps kept their main families on for the duration (Hughes, Hortons, Bauers, Frames, Matthews etc...), but Y&R scrapped theirs and its was like the first 10 years of the show never existed. 

If you find long term fans of Y&R this day and time....most have only been watching since the 80's or 90's, but there are very few you will find that were watching the show in the 70's. My Mom watched from day 1 in 1973. 

I always wondered what Krista Teserau would have been like as recast Patty ? I liked her as Mindy on GL. 

Christopher Holder came on Y&R as Kevin in January 82. I wonder why they did not try him as a recast Greg ? Maybe if they had done that, they could have written Nikki claiming her ex husband Greg was her baby's father while pregnant by Victor. Nikki tried her best to hold onto him when their marriage hit the rocks and this would keep him tied to her in some way. Liz and the other Fosters/Brooks could have been involved as well. Maybe have Greg in love with Peggy and Nikki was screwing all that up. Lorie and Peggy would have confrontations galore with Nikki.

The Bancrofts were short lived anyway. 

Bell first did the Chris & Snapper furniture story in 1974 ?  Why did he think that was worth repeating ?  It reminds me how Bewitched recycled stories they had done with Darrin # 1 in the 60's and repeated with Darrin # 2 in the early 70's......LOL