BetterForgotten

Brian Park fired and chased out quite a few longterm writers during his tenure as EP. Many may have left anyway and whilst the show needed a jolt back then, I wonder if this did more longterm damage than good in the end. Classic Corrie had such vivid characters, each with a unique voice. You didn’t get much of that after Park’s tenure.

What I don’t understand is why the hell anyone thought Steve fuckin’ Burton was such a huge draw that they catered to his demands. I didn’t like it, but I could at least understand somewhat the way they catered to Tony Geary, but Steve Burton or Maurice Benard? Based on what exactly?

The truth of the matter is, so many actresses in that age range would literally kill to play a role like Lucinda - not only these days, but back then too.

I didn’t realize that one of classic Corrie’s best writers, Adele Rose, died at the end of 2020. She’s the one that wrote Bet and Rita’s ‘PALS?! PALS?!’ tiff (amongst many other classic episodes/scenes). RIP to Mark Eden as well. Alan Bradley was unforgettable and that was a great era for the show.

Marland may have loved actors, but I know Liz was probably the type of actor who could drive him nuts, lol. She openly admitted to only loosely following her scripts on both TD and ATWT and altering dialogue to fit her preferences. While men like Tony Geary have gotten away with that for years, that type of behavior is always looked down on when done by women. Knowing how much control Marland liked to have over the writing, this surely annoyed him at times.

Ultimately, Liz has been very vague about her concerns about Marland’s writing for Lucinda. She complained he preferred writing for younger characters, and I know she wasn’t very fond of how Lucinda’s origin story unfolded in the early 90’s.

It’s not amazing, but I think Corrie has had a much better 2020 than the other soaps. Fairly low-key, but that’s what they needed after the Kate Oates era.

Sally Dynevor is being awarded an MBE.

Oddly, the best parts of the Christmas episode were from characters this regime has little interest in beyond the surface. Like Denise (even though the story is ridiculous), and Kat was in her element behind the bar again. The stuff with Jean also wasn’t bad. Ian has been a lost cause for years, and I don’t know what this character is, but it’s not the Sharon I once knew.

30 years ago today ‘Justify My Love’ hit #1 on the Hot 100, becoming Madonna’s 9th chart topper. Yes, there was the controversy over MTV banning the video, but the power of Madonna at this time cannot be underestimated. She took a very unfriendly to radio song where she’s talking for most of it and made it #1 hit.

And sadly, Madonna, Whitney, Janet, and the first half of Mariah’s career was from an era where it really meant something and it was extremely difficult to consistently hit #1 like that. Interestingly, between the gap from The Supremes in the 60’s and Madonna and Whitney’s emergence in the mid/late 80’s, it was VERY RARE for female acts to score multiple #1’s - Streisand, Donna Summer, and Diana Ross as a solo act had a handful that was considered good before Madonna, Whitney, Janet and then Mariah started having success on the Hot 100.

A fairly forgotten ballad in her discography (probably because she's never done it live), but it was a huge hit for her in 1994 peaking at #2 for 4 weeks.

@DaytimeFan - Never realized Joan and Barbara met and that Joan sent her condolences too. https://www.instagram.com/p/CIpt5B0FXfh/?igshid=9uripstevz2o

Christmas movies (especially of the TV movie variety) give me toothaches. No one can make crap like that ‘great.’

I've never heard any EE castmate ever shade or talk negatively about her. Even the folks she had issues with (Jessie Wallace and Patsy Palmer, both of whom has a tendency to be late to set at one point) ended up becoming friendly and close to her. She was really beloved there.

I saw enough of it, and I still would never call her a subtle performer. That's OK, you can be great and not be subtle sometimes.

I don't know that I've ever seen Dano as the most subtle actress, but anything has to be more subtle than what Strasser has dished out over the past 15 years or so. Dano always did well with camp and high dramatics, but it's been a while...

RIP. She left her mark, and I'll always remember her for her charisma and tenacity, rather than the illness that took much of that away.

Sometimes I can’t believe it’s been that long.

Nancy Curlee herself said she wasn't sure she would have gone down the romantic path with them, but would have liked a deeper friendship between them. Roger's reaction to Maureen's death when Holly told him always sticks out to me. Zaslow was so good at portraying Roger's shock and despair in that scene, and then snapping back into being jealous when Holly rushed to go see Ed. Roger could be such a little boy, which I think strangely endeared him to many people (particularly women, lol).

It's a tricky situation no matter what Billboard does - people will always find loopholes and ways to game to the system. Whether that's Sony/Tommy Mottola discounting quite a few of Mariah Carey's singles in the 90's at $0.49 in order to push her singles to #1, or record companies and managers paying radio station programmers huge sums to play songs/artists in heavy rotation (back when radio airplay alone meant a high charting position in the early 00's), and now this.

This guy does great videos on important moments/artists/songs in rock history. He highlighted 'Like To Tell' a few weeks back, and interviewed Madonna's frequent collaborator in the 80's/90's, Patrick Leonard. Lots of nice history and detail behind the song (and some on the fan-favorite 'Oh Father').