BetterForgotten

IMO, had Dolan stayed in the role, Maureen would not have been as missed as she was when Parker was fired. Parker's interpretation made Maureen the heart, soul, and conscience of GL in ways that I don't think Dolan could have achieved. Parker said that years after she was gone from the show, people still came up to her and told her how much they missed her as Maureen. I think a large part of that was down to her and what she brought to the character.

The poor quality of the video just masked Paul Rauch's shitty/abrasive bright lighting.

It boggles my mind that Marland would struggle with charters like Rita and Holly. Perhaps he was just more fixated on creating and writing for his own characters at GL. At last we would later get to see Holly return to some great writing later on (even if they eventually lost the plot on her character by the mid/late 90's).

To me it seemed that Alan and Rita made for a more interesting match. Would have loved to see Rita later return and interact with Bev’s Alexandra as well.

I’m curious, outside of their relationships/history with Roger and Ed, what did Holly and Rita really think of one another? Rita obviously later got involved with Alan, so was her marriage to Ed always supposed to be short-term and make way to Holly/Ed again?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODYMBFKYpFI

Stevie would perform at anyone's funeral...

Aretha Franklin Left No Will for Her Estate: Report

I'm sick of Jennifer Hudson being the tribute act for everyone, but isn't she actually slated to play Aretha in a movie? She could have made some sense, but her music career isn't exactly that hot anymore, and she's only rolled out to do tributes and such...

The thing is, Madonna was there to present Video of the Year, not to do a tribute. Somewhere along the line, she or someone at MTV thought they should acknowledge Aretha somewhere in there and that was the net result - something slapped together with no purpose. MTV promoted Madonna's appearance as the presenter of the final award, not as an Aretha tribute.

Even BET ended up mostly walking away from music (which comprised a huge part of its schedule until the mid-00's). It used to be an alternative option for black artists, but it no longer serves that purpose. Was it Viacom ownership, or was it that music programming was no longer financially beneficial? The rise and fall of music television is interesting. No one can deny the impact it had in the 80's through early 00's, but since then....? I guess we can blame it on the internet, but still...

A this point though, you're lucky if MTV even acknowledges it was once a music network...

Aretha did few music videos, ultimately, her impact wasn't in that genre, and she wasn't a big presence on the network. Donna Summer and Tina Turner did receive significant MTV airplay during the infancy of the network. However, it wasn't until Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson did MTV start playing black female artists in heavy rotation - and both were marketed to appeal to pop audiences. Also, unless you were Prince or your last name was Jackson, the record labels were infamous for not producing or funding much videos for black artists.

Madonna wasn't even there to give a tribute, she was there to present Video of the Year, she and MTV just tacked on a long ass speech that referenced Aretha and an in memoriam graphic/tag. It was oddly produced and slapped together and I wonder why they even tried - they shouldn't have bothered. MTV is also not the proper venue to pay tribute to Aretha, not like she was ever much of a video artist nor does MTV even care about music to begin with.

Madonna is presenting Video of the Year at the VMAs tonight. Fitting that she was once the queen of this award show, and once put the 'M' in MTV when it used to matter.

Gladys was one of many black women Aretha has unnecessarily shaded in the past, so glad to see her being classy and remembering good times. This article recounts Aretha's issues with other female artists: http://gawker.com/aretha-franklin-is-the-queen-of-soul-and-shade-1658013219

Teen Motherhood, Losing Her Dad and Her Quiet Health Battle: Aretha Franklin's Personal Struggles

And we know she took that Queen thing literally. That whole Beyonce/Tina Turner situation was not her best hour.

Or Zoe Saldana...

Aretha's ego was enormous, that much was true. She had a very interesting personal life, would make a good movie one day.

Occasional guest appearances from Bebe Neuwirth are also a requirement.

RIP - she was trailblazer and influenced many. However, as I noted before, I wish she hadn't been as miserable of a person in her latter years, and was confident in her legacy rather than trying to bring other black female artists down.

I always thought Pam Long needed a strong producer to reign in some of her tendencies. Her and Gail Kobe were probably too similar or wanted to really put their stamp on GL, even if that meant disregarding it's history. I vastly prefer her second stint on GL, mostly because I think Robert Calhoun was really able to reign her in, and having Curlee has a Co-HW during that stint really helped to ground her work in ways her first stint wasn't able to achieve. I also think the return of Roger and Holly is what the show really needed at that time - and it was Curlee and Calhoun who were responsible for that, as Curlee said Long didn't even know who those characters were...