Dave_01

I came across this DVD listing:

http://networkonair.com/shop/1500-pardon-the-expression-the-complete-series.html

I'm guessing Coronation Street is the only soap to ever have a sitcom spin-off. (In the US, Season 1 of GH: Night Shift, mostly played for laughs, probably comes closest.)

Between DS and RH, I've gotten to see a lot of her work. I think she's one of the few behind-the-scenes people who lasted the entire run of Ryan's Hope, even with all of the regime changes in the 80s. I guess everyone knew how important she was to the show (just as she was to Dark Shadows).

 

David Selby posted some nice comments on his blog.

 

http://www.davidselby.com/blog/2015/08/05/comments-on-the-passing-of-director-lela-swift/

RIP, Lela.

Depboy - Thanks for sharing. It's great to read the show descriptions from this era which I know so little about. Frustrating too, since I know there's no chance to see any of those episodes.

I've never seen the show, but I wanted to give fans a head's-up about a deal I came across. For anyone with an all-region DVD player, Network - a company that puts out many UK TV shows on DVD for Region 2 - is having a 40% off online sale. Among the catalog items on sale are 5 collections of Coronation Street. The collections are by decade, and there are 80 episodes in each.

http://networkonair.com/shop/1439-coronation-street-1960-1969.html

http://networkonair.com/shop/1440-coronation-street-1970-1979.html

http://networkonair.com/shop/1441-coronation-street-1980-1989.html

http://networkonair.com/shop/1442-coronation-street-1990-1999.html

http://networkonair.com/shop/1453-coronation-street-2000-2009.html

Though far from a complete collection, having 400 officially released episodes available spanning all the way back to the 60s sounds like a nice little treasure for a fan of the show.

I have an all-region player and have bought some other Network TV DVDs in the past through Amazon, and they seem to do a good, quality job with their releases.

Recent clip of Kathleen Tolan (Mary #3) talking about her love for theater and writing.

Thanks for posting the Tolan clip. I always enjoyed her Mary and thought that she and Sarah Felder worked so well together as the feuding Ryan sisters.

...I'm a little sad because I suspect that we'll only have a few more months of La Hubbard before we watch Virginia Vestoff take over the role for a year or so.

As much as I'm enjoying Hubbard's work, as a Dark Shadows fan I'm really looking forward to watching Virginia Vestoff's take on Althea.

I was browsing Youtube and came across the opening credits for a late-70s TV series I'd never heard of before - Highcliffe Manor. One of the co-stars - shown in this clip - is Gerald Gordon.

RIP Betsy Palmer

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/31/entertainment/betsy-palmer-dies/

The actress and game show panelist made a cameo appearance on RH in 1980 playing herself as one of the celebrities who showed up to the opening of Delia's Crystal Palace.

safe - Thanks for summarizing the RH-related bits of Kate's book. I know it would be off-topic, but does she say anything about the time she guest starred on an early episode of Dallas, or about her starring role in that unfortunate Mrs. Columbo series?

While I still have a lot of episodes to watch before I'm caught up to what's airing right now, I did notice that today's 2 shows included the Christmas 1968 episode. Even at a rate of 2 episodes per day most days, it's hard to believe we've gotten over a year's worth of late-60s episodes of this classic series so far.

Much credit to Retro TV for continuing to air it each day. I'll admit I was originally a bit skeptical about how long they would actually keep it on their schedule. Hopefully they will continue moving forward with the series for years to come, reaching the end of the run and then circling back to the pre-12/67 shows.

This article is from the time when Gerald Gordon was on GH, but there is discussion of TD as well.

I wasn't an AMC watcher, but I found this newspaper article from March 18, 1984 that I thought some might find interesting. I have a feeling that what Lisa was told about her chances for her own storyline was, sadly, an attitude also shared by the other shows at the time.

Terri's husband , Patrick O'Connor will be played by Cam Mathison, and Alicia Minshew will be back from the dead step-sister BJ, a heartless wench:closedeyes:

And to complete the circle, Eden Riegel can show up as the latest Kristina Corinthos recast.

You're welcome. I have a few more articles I found which I'll post here and in the OLTL thread later on this week.

I was interested in looking at the summaries and related articles from the mid to late-80s era of GH. I remember seeing bits and pieces of the show back then during breaks from school, though I don't remember a lot of specifics. Beyond the mainstay characters (i.e., the Q's, Bobbie, Anna, Duke, etc.), it seems like there were a lot of attempts at new characters that didn't end up catching on or inspiring fondly remembered storylines. But it makes for interesting reading about now.

I hope Sharon's doing okay, too. I haven't read of any update on her condition in the last couple of years.

Here's another from March 2, 1986.

I was browsing some online newspaper archives this weekend looking at old summary listings. In the process, I came across this short article I thought some might be interested in reading from November 23, 1986.

No wonder he went back to GH...

Hey, once you've starred alongside The Fat Boys, there are only so many acting mountains left to climb. His return to GH was inevitable.

jam6242, thanks for compiling all of those summaries and posting them. That's an amazing amount of information. I look forward to setting aside some extra time to just sit and go thru all of it.

Thanks for the welcome.

Reading earlier posts about how Lydia Bruce originally received hate mail for her apparent crime of not being Bethel Leslie is an annoying reminder that online social media may make it easier and more common, but classless behavior among some "fans" has always existed. I will never understand that mentality and don't particularly want to. Hopefully she also received some positive feedback from viewers early on to balance out the bad.

As I'm starting to watch the Lydia-as-Maggie episodes, it is a little bit of an adjustment, as watching most recasts of major roles can be. I really enjoyed Bethel's Maggie and will miss her version, but I also like what I've seen so far of Lydia's Maggie and look forward to seeing more of her take on the character over time.

Herbie J. Pilato

Slick, I was curious about this name on your list since I am familiar with some of his writing but didn't know he had ever appeared on GH.

In this link, he discusses working on GH (playing a waiter at Duke's Restaurant) while also working at a hotel.

http://tvwriter.net/?p=19271

This link specifies the beginning of his time on GH as Spring 1986.

http://classictvps.blogspot.com/2008/09/see-chance-and-take-it.html

I couldn't find a character name, but he may not have had one as it sounds like it was probably a background character/recurring extra.

Hi,

I've been a lurker for a few months and felt this would be the best thread in which to make my first post. I'd heard of The Doctors but had never seen it until it came to Retro. I was only 8 years old when the show originally ended, and even back then my relatives all preferred the ABC daytime lineup. But, since I'm already a fan of the 2 older half-hour series I've gotten to see in recent years (Dark Shadows via VHS and now DVD, and Ryan's Hope via Soapnet), I wanted to try The Doctors when I first read it was going to be rerun. Of course I don't have Retro. Nobody I know has even heard of it. So in searching for ways to watch it, I found this thread and this board.

I may not get to post much about current episodes, since right now I usually only have time to watch a few episodes each weekend, but I did want to at least start posting here and maybe in a few other threads. Though I'm doing my best to avoid posts with current episode talk before I see those shows, I'm enjoying going back through the earlier pages of this thread and reading about some of the storylines that Retro won't get to for a few years. In some ways, it sounds like a different show later on compared to what we're seeing in these late-60s episodes, but it's good to see that characters like Matt, Maggie and - minus a few breaks - Althea are here for the long haul. I see that many of the articles in the thread have been contributed by poster DRW50, so thank you for sharing so much. As much as I've read so far, there's still so much you've posted that I look forward to reading in the future. You must have an amazing collection of old magazines.

I'll admit to being surprised Retro has continued airing the show even this many months so far. Some "oldies" channels seem to change their lineups in some way every month. I hope that's a good sign that they'll continue through the end of the series and then start over with the earlier episodes. (Assuming Retro will even survive that long, of course.) I'd especially like to see the Rita Lakin-written episodes prior to the December 1967 shows Retro used as its starting point.

Anyway, thanks for the opportunity to join and for this great thread.