Vee

I've been slowly poring over this very early stuff but I'd never seen this, thank you so much.

To me the scene I posted a little earlier with her confronting Luke, while very dark, is some of her (and Tony's) best work and why I've always said that in those years you could've put the show on at night without it doing any brand damage to the primetime line-up. For me, anyway, it was often that good.

I think it was just meant to be the show showing solidarity with Jackie, who they probably knew was fighting cancer. But the show itself seems shocked by her passing. I have seen the 1994 saga with Bobbie's family so many times so I have definitely dug back into some '96 and '98 episodes with her and Sarah Brown, Brad Maule, etc. in addition to my late '70s/early '80s binge - I haven't seen most of the Bobbie/Tony/Carly story in decades. I may have to find the great episode in that flashback, where Bobbie counsels Liz after her rape.

I don't think we can quite reduce L&L to that, they were gigantic at the time. I think a more accurate summation would be that the media now (and perhaps then) considers the rest of the show a footnote, whereas in reality L&L was the crown jewel amongst a host of very strong stories and characters. There is a reason the silly General Hospital pop song features all those storylines too.

I didn't see this one:

Me too. That's been on my radar for a long time and I don't think it's incidental that Leslie (who was supposed to be back on her feet and onscreen this time last year) only contributed her voice to Sonya Eddy's tribute. Denise Alexander, Leslie, the Heathers (Mary O'Brien) and Chris Robinson, later Stuart Damon, etc. don't get enough credit either IMO. Or giving the show a stronger elder support system by zeroing in on Scott's family with Lee and the recently-added Gail, though that began before Monty and Marland (they ramped up that whole end of the canvas). Tony (allegedly) saved her job in that period, because Jill supposedly wanted to ship Bobbie off to Ferncliff after going psycho over Melissa Bedford, as Jensen Buchanan was supposed to be the new star. We know how that went. I'd been expecting him to appear this year anyway but I will be shocked if he doesn't for this.

I remember we unpacked this some time ago, trying to determine based on the available dates and her own anecdotal evidence if Jackie had been hired (in late '77) before Gloria and/or Marland or not. I think the conclusion we came to is that no, she came with them both though perhaps before their names were officially on the show, which does happen. I don't think she was ever part of the attempted Elman revamp.

This is the one:

Still a great picture:

Oh, man.

Since the news about Jackie Zeman these episodes are obviously one of the first places I went. It seems like a petty aesthetic thing to admire at a time like this, but I had never noticed before that they used a slower, more subdued version of the FOTH theme for this crucial episode and (I think) sped up the opening considerably to try to dispense with it and not break the tone or action.

I'm thinking of them too. It's been hard watching them grieve many times in recent years, but this one will be especially hard.

Probably unlikely, but I'd like to see them find a way to use Sarah Brown in whatever tribute they end up doing. The scenes with her and Jackie (including those linked above) in their original storyline together are a high water mark for the show. They also better get Ryan Carnes back as Lucas for it. I wouldn't be shocked if Tony comes out for this, either. He stopped JFP from canning her over 20 years ago.

From the main thread:

I've watched a lot of the Marland-era and onward stuff during the pandemic. In that early stuff especially from '78-'79, Bobbie is not fuckin' around while terrorizing Laura. She gave Sarah Brown's Carly a run for her money, she was merciless. It was a world of difference from the strong, loyal and sympathetic streetwise heroine Jackie built over the consecutive decades after. As other megastars came and went from the show (or came back again when they needed to pay the rent), Jackie and Bobbie remained, and grew and evolved onscreen into someone the show depended on and the audience couldn't do without. And she had chemistry with virtually everyone. I especially loved her work with Stephen Nichols as Stefan, in a pairing that was cut too quickly short by Richard Culliton after Guza left for Sunset Beach. Speaking of SuBe, I was fascinated by what little I've seen and read about Bobbie's story with Jake Meyer and always kind of hoped they'd bring back Sam Behrens for her someday. Bobbie gave us so much, got so much story yet I never tired of her, even given JZ's IRL ups and downs.

If there's one performer who was part of the firmament it was Jackie. She saw it all and kept on plugging.

For now I'll just crosspost: I think I'll watch an ep or two tonight with her featured. God, what a time.

I'm sure I'll end up putting this in some dedicated thread along with more to say, but Jackie is one of my very first memories of the show. I just adored Bobbie from the start, she was a favorite from the jump. I was always invested in her and even when I teased her about her face work in recent years I never stopped rooting for her to keep it together and was always happy to see her. I have to call my ex on this one, he was a lifer too.

Oh my God.

Go public or shut up:

I'm aware these pieces exist, yes. We all are. There are many like them in the last near-decade. These pieces are always sourced to FOX execs, producers or on-air talent who approach sympathetic access journalists and try to whitewash the network's reputation in the wake of Carlson's firing - it's always '[Tucker/whoever] was the problem, FOX is great and is changing its tone, we swear.' FOX has been ready to 'turn on Trump' no less than 5-10 times in the last 5-6 years. You can either understand the game we all already know, or you can act shocked when it continues. You and Brian Stelter will be the last two holdouts.

I doubt it. think the only silver lining of this shitshow is that it doesn't move the needle with anyone other than the faithful, and it drives the squishy middle further into our corner. It functions as a free attack ad for Democrats. That said, it's disgusting and should still never have aired. What's really funny are the longtime CNN apologists/ex-employees like the professionally clueless Brian Stelter claiming Jeff Zucker would never have let this happen.

Yep. It's a budget shell game Frank and Ron perfected earlier at GH and then at OLTL, then began to abuse (trying to force Genie to go recurring, which made her walk twice). I can understand doing that balancing act to a point but when half the cast is recurring, c'mon. What's really weird is the cheap-ass current PowerPoint opening constantly features the recurring players including the little kids, lol.