BetterForgotten

Perhaps that awful hairdo was an omen for how well that return stint would go…

Either that or retirement. Michele deserves the chance to HW her own show, too bad she was never really given that opportunity.

I was watching this India and Reva scene the other day. I don’t think many were allowed to really drill into Reva and read her for filth in such a direct way as India did here.

And it bears repeating again that Bell did this with a classic soap storyline very much keeping with Irna’s tradition. The classics never go out of style no matter what’s trendy at the time.

I don’t need him back at all. I thought he was a horrible mess on this show and that faux Cajun accent was beyond offensive to actual Cajun people…

Doug created the character and she won the Emmy for Curlee’s material, so it probably wasn’t a slight at all. But, I’m also not sure Vanessa was ever one of Long’s favorites either.

The audience Reilly brought to DAYS wasn’t interested in staying tuned for AW or watching any of the soaps on the other network (the majority at least). That’s why DAYS 90’s momentum is so fundamentally different from that of ABC’s in the early 80’s. And again, much as it did in the 80’s during the ABC era, Y&R is carrying the touch as a counterbalance and outlier to this disruption.

Honestly, I think the popularity of McTavish’s AMC laid a lot of the groundwork for JER’s DAYS. A lot of AMC during that time was outrageous and OTT, but was grounded by some great actors and amazing script and breakdown writers - something Reilly didn’t really have after his time at GL.

ATWT still had a lot of potential post-Marland, but P&G kept hiring hacks. Would it have been the same? Of course not, but P&G gave up long before these shows were cancelled.

She was more interesting to watch than Madison’s Grandma Belle version to me at least…

Gunn’s Superman Legacy is out on 7/11, no? Two weeks before in a crowded summer box season isn’t really a head to head like Barbenheimer was. The Barbenheimer effect was more so about cinema goers making going to the theaters an event again. The two films are different, but many people were going in droves to watch both on the same day and with groups of people. The two films were also released on the same day for this to happen.

There's a lot to post, but Ellen Parker's final performances as Maureen Bauer on GL still stick with me:

Cast has officially been revealed. Time will tell if this IP ever gets a decent live-action adaptation… Marvel’s ‘The Fantastic Four’ Lands Its Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, Ebon Moss-Bachrach

Rena had said back then she thought they turned Lois into an idiot after the Labine’s left - so she was not exactly complimentary about the the writing for Lois during that era.

To me it shows that the basic soap opera format Irna created will always prevail - old-fashioned or not. Despite being lauded for its “innovations” Bell’s Y&R, at its core, was still a very traditional soap with much more in common with say Irna’s ATWT than the “contemporary” soaps and style that emerged with it in the 70’s. The “innovations” from people like Monty and Reilly may have brought people in, but it was ultimately a short-term fluke that went out of style after the monumental highs that were experienced. The above-mentioned storyline with Victor that garnered these ratings was similar to one Irna first told on her radio soap "The Road of Life.” On that radio soap, Dr. Jim Brent was on his way to John Hopkins, suffered amnesia, arrived on a farm with a widow and her crippled sister-in-law, and fell for the widow. Bell, of course, also told a variation of this story with Mickey on DAYS.

Yes, I guess this is roughly when that story ran, but nice to see it wasn’t myth and it really did payoff with viewers.

JFP calls him “Jimmy” too and speaks of him with the same affection. I guess he was a good friend/coworker to those he knew?

Korte was already Co-HW back in 2000 with Michele ValJean, but that tenure was obviously sabotaged by JFP who couldn’t wait to bring over her henchwoman Megan McTavish.

Bridget admitted to hating the experience on GH (namely for personal reasons given her sour relationship with her parents). They were thrilled when P&G offered her the HW job as GL as they felt they could be more of themselves there.

No matter what the show did, nothing was enough to get it out of the ratings basement it was stuck in during those last 2 decades. In actuality, NBC had wanted to cancel the show at least twice before 1999, so I do think it was a miracle the show lasted as long as it did.

It was speculated at the time that most of the male cast hated Gottlieb. So much so, most of them refused to support the show during Daytime Emmy season and OLTL never earned an Outstanding Daytime Drama Series nomination during this era. That was considered glaring particularly in 1994 when OLTL and GL split all the main categories, but OLTL was denied a nomination for Outstanding Daytime Drama Series.

We’ll see when the rest of the 1993 and 1994 ratings are posted if this is a myth or not - but it’s been said Victor’s presumed death/Kansas storyline gave Y&R some of the highest soap ratings in the 90’s. Specifically the week Victor “returned from the dead” and was back in Genoa City.

We were taking about Potter in the GL thread not long ago. He’s really underrated when we speak of the great soap opera EP’s of all time.

For Felicia alone I’d give them the edge. Poor Linda Dano also seemed to single-handedly carry the morale of the whole show in those final years as well.