Franko

There was also Vicki Lawrence's show, which premiered in fall 1992 and was gone by 1994 due to production drama. Whether or not it actually happened, I vaguely remember Vicki and Ricki airing back to back on (the NBC station?) when I was a boy.

Four months into 1991-1992, and so far, Santa Barbara doesn't seem to have a clearances issue. We'll have to see if one develops through 1992.

Ended up watching the two 1981 episodes (interrupted by Reagan's inauguration) where Jennifer reveals in court that she and Alan are Amanda's parents. As excellent of work as Geraldine Court did, my favorite moments were (a) Diane finding out (and this being so soon after Alan and Hope's wedding) and (b-c) Nola's interactions with Morgan (including trying to throw Hillary under the bus for closeness with Kelly) and Kelly (including fangirling over A Summer Place).

Why does this remind me of those scenes in Coal Miner's Daughter where Loretta and Doo embark on a tour of various country music stations, getting DJs to play her demo and giving impromptu interviews?

You've kind of hit the nail on the head there, Donna. Until I see more of the show to get a better appraisal, I'm inclined to think the concept was interesting, the execution not so much.

That All That Glitters episode was interesting to watch. I'm assuming/hoping it was relatively early in the run, since they sure seemed to be hitting us hard with the gimmick of the role reversals. That theme song is the pits. Is that Gary Sandy singing? Since he had the most to do, I'd declare Chuck McCann as the episode's MVP. On the other hand, my favorite scene was David Haskell & Greg Evigan's confrontation. You also get a sense of how the play on TV style isn't as compatible with soaps as one would assume. I found myself missing the undercoring that would come with scenes like David and Greg's, or Chuck and Lois Nettleton's. And look, Meg Wylie and Jessica Walter in the ending teaser!

Well, if you insist ... (No, that's not it.)

I'm going to be a nerd and point out that at least one plot element is shared by Wheels and Hollywood Wives. Do you know what it is?

You know what's the thing I love about Deceptions? It was a deception. Wealthy, "bad" Stefanie Powers just needed the love of good man Barry Bostwick to embrace the middle class lifestyle of "good" Stefanie Powers. A lifestyle that good Stefanie was more than happy to give up ... which meant she had to be punished. Talk about encouraging your audience not to dream too high! I was saying this to friends about a week ago, one of the biggest disadvantages to Hollywood Wives the movie is that the mystery sustained throughout the book (that Deke & Buddy are identical twins) obviously has to be solved early on. I am curious how a Hollywood Husbands miniseries circa 1987 (Jackie even had a character unmistakably based on Sister Dearest!), or Hollywood Kids ~1996 (which I remember having an obvious Tori Spelling analogue) would have done.

Ah, that's true. I was being unfair to Monty. She was willing to move on, ABC wasn't. Talk about your what-could-have-beens. Most, if not all, of the longtime women had some golden opportunities with Riche. It would have been nice to see what she'd have done with Finola.

Yeah, I included Katherine (who left with her ward, King) as a prologue for what was coming. We can't lay that one at Monty's feet, even though, as you point out, she would have been cut anyway. I also forgot to mention Mary (Mary Jo Catlett), Katherine's housekeeper, who I believe also departed around this time. And I assume that Olin, Anna's housekeeper, was done, too. It's funny. We talk about Bridget & Jerome Dobson wanting to make it 1987 again when they came back to Santa Barbara, and Monty was doing similar. Although as @Jdee43points out, her time machine was set to 1980. BTW, note that Dawn & Decker on the run ALSO began on the day of a wedding. At least that one actually happened. Unless I missed it, did they ever resolve Frisco's last story? He was apparently freaking out about somebody uncovering his past, which was the reason he gave to Felicia for leaving her. Indeed! Jason and A.J.'s first interaction included A.J. shooting off his mouth and getting punched out. Susan seems like such an afterthought to me, nothing but easy motivation for Paul to do the cartel's bidding. Yeah, once again, I included those as an attempt to put a definitive ending to what was going on. There was overlap, though, like how mourning Robert & Anna was going on at the same time of introducing Karen & Jagger (two characters very much of the early Riche era).

Michael left in December 1990. It looks like AMC's May-June storylines included Erica's cougar relationship with Charlie, Brooke trying to keep secret that Jamie is Tad's son, early Janet and the reveal of Ceara's abuse, among other things.

I'm going to head-canon this as the cast all being attached to Karen Cellini, and resenting her unofficial replacement. No, but seriously, I have no problem believing that certain cast members pulled rank on Terri.

True. It'll get worse. I should have meant that it wasn't narrowing the gap with Y&R.

I will conceed that had Ryan's Hope hung around to the mid '90s, the opportunity was there to really tackle New York's transitional period.

Monty 2.0 is now very much a thing, and the audience ain't feelin' it.

"Yeah ... about that ..." -- The City

Delia and Bob's long-lost kin? Or a fresh off the boat branch of the Ryans? Jumping slightly ahead in the timeline, I'm imagining one of the immigrants giving a soliloquy about how they should have known America wasn't going to be the answer to every prayer when they couldn't even see the Statue of Liberty's face (a tie-in to the 1984-86 renovation before its centennial).

Not only that, but there was also @j swift's favorite, Cousin Joey Eckert, who apparently wasn't even memorable enough to make the summaries. Yeah, it seems clear that the orders to retool the retooling came near-instantly. They wanted to make it 1980 again by science or magic, and couldn't figure out why it wasn't happening.

Gloria's second run lasted from Monday, Dec. 3, 1990-Friday, Jan. 24, 1992. Several years ago, I chronicled what I think is the definitive list of the three casting waves during that time. I'll pull it up again. Okay, here's what I had gathered in 2018 thanks to the curlyqgrl summaries. First Wave: Out: Katherine Delafield (Edie Lehman, 11/26/90) Shep Casey (Bradley Lockerman, 12/21/90) Rita Lloyd (Kim Terry, 1/10/91) Lucy Coe (temporarily, for Lynn Herring's maternity leave, 1/29/91) Broxton (actor name?, 2/1/91 it appears) Simone Hardy (Stephanie Williams, 2/12/91) Carla Greco (Laura Harring, 2/14/91?) Frankie Greco (Robert Fontaine Jr., no clue on date, but presumably around this time) Cheryl Stansbury (Jennifer Anglin, 2/14/91?) Colton Shore (Scott Thompson Baker, 2/26/91) Charlene Simpson (Maree Cheatham, 2/26/91) Dawn Winthrop (Jennifer Guthrie, 2/27/91) Eric Jackson/"Edge Jerome" (Mark St. James, no date given, but presumably late February-early March) Nurse Jessie Brewer (Emily McLaughlin, 3/1/91; not a writing decision, but notable) Decker Moss (Michael Watson, no date given, but presumably early March) Larry Ashton (Hugo Napier, 3/22/91; back for a few days in July) In/Back: Jenny Eckert (Cheryl Richardson, 2/13/91) Mac Scorpio (John J. York, 2/18/91) Bill Eckert (Tony Geary, 2/19/91) Fred Eckert (William Boyett, 2/20/91) Angela Eckert (Carol Lawrence, 2/20/91) Sly Eckert (Glenn Walker Harris Jr., 2/20/91) Finian O'Toole (Arte Johnson, 2/22/91?) Harlan Barrett (Michael Cole, 3/7/91) Lucy Coe (Lynn Herring, 3/12/91) Paul Hornsby (Paul Satterfield, 3/18/91) Second Wave Out: Fred Eckert (William Boyett, 5/31/91) Angela Eckert (Carol Lawrence, 6/5/91; back for Jenny and Ned's wedding in February 1992) Frisco Jones (Jack Wagner, 6/11/91) Ned Ashton (Kurt McKinney, 8/30/91) In/Back Nancy Eckert (Linda Dona, 5/28/91) Dominique Taub (Tawny Fere Ellis, 6/4/91) Leopold Taub (Chip Lucia, 6/6/91) Connor Olivera (Michael Lynch, 6/24/91) Simone Hardy (Stephanie Williams, 6/25/91) Cesar Faison (Anders Hove, 6/26/91) A.J. Quartermaine (Gerald Hopkins, 6/26/91) Nurse Sheila something-or-other (actress name?, 6/26/91 it appears) Julia Barrett (Crystal Carson, 6/27/91) Susan Hornsby (Irina Cashen, 8/21/91) Third Wave: Out: Nancy Eckert (Linda Dona, 10/14/91 -- whodunnit storyline for another month) Felicia Jones (Kristina Wagner, 11/5/91; back in May 1992) Dominique Taub (Tawny Fere Ellis, 11/14/91) Finian O'Toole (Arte Johnson, 11/21/91?) Harlan Barrett (Michael Cole, 11/22/91) Leopold Taub (Chip Lucia, 12/5/91) Cesar Faison (Anders Hove, 12/5/91) Anna Devane (Finola Hughes, 12/17/91) Susan Hornsby (Irina Cashen, 12/27/91) Anna Devane (Camilla Moore, 1/20/92) Cesar Faison (Anders Hove, 2/25/92) Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers, 2/25/92) David Langton (Jeff Pomerantz, 3/23/92) Lucy Coe (Lynn Herring, 3/27/92) In/Back: Ned Ashton (Wally Kurth, 9/9/91) Dr. Eric Simpson (Brandon Hooper, 9/18/91) Edward Quartermaine (David Lewis, 11/26/91) Dominique Taub (Shell Davidson, 12/3/91) Jason Quartermaine (Steve Burton, 12/19/91) Anna Devane (Camilla Moore, 12/20/91) David Langton (Jeff Pomerantz, 1/13/92) Holly Sutton (Emma Samms, 1/16/92) Cesar Faison (Anders Hove, 1/17/92) Nikki Langton (Camille Cooper, 1/30/92)

She was actually already back. Until I saw the Classic Soap Opera Digest News Tumblr, I didn't know this, but Gloria's first day was Monday, Dec. 3, 1990. That being said, we can think of February 1991 as the launch of the "new" era, with the introduction of the Eckerts and some of the largest activity of the first wave of cast departures.

Days again -- Jack (Matthew Ashford) disguised as a woman.

Steve Olson, Days. I'm still wondering just what went wrong in 1972 to abandon him and opt for SORASing Mike Horton and David Banning, which would cause a massive ripple effect and imbalance. Devaluing Steve had the largest effect, but we can't also forget his female contemporary, Sandy Horton.

Oh, I've got one ... Taylor's disguises once she arrived back in L.A. in early '95.

I agree with this. I also don't think that a replacement character has to necessarily come immediately after who they're succeeding. For example, Megan Hathaway and Renee on Days (both surprise DiMera daughters). What's interesting is when the replacement doesn't catch on, and the OG comes back. On GH, Tracy-Alexandra-Tracy.