alwaysAMC

LOL - I'm glad I'm not alone. The way he stared at her, trying to process what to do. It felt like slow motion that went on far too long haha. Reva hasn't been a favorite character of mine yet either, although December 1996 finally might change my mind. We'll see. I don't mind her, and she has her moments where I laugh, and she is definitely a great actress. I guess it just comes down to writing for me with her. I feel the same way as you about Vanessa in some ways, because she gives out great advice and is a calming presence, but if she has her own personal problems, she's not great to deal with (i.e. letting her whole family think she's dead in 1996. Great soap opera, but Jesus that takes balls haha). Hmm, traditionalists, purists, obsessives... no perfect term comes to me outside of having FOMO. That's great to hear and I assumed the same. I've seen more interviews she's done and she just likes to talk, party and gossip. That's good to know. It almost seems like they were true historians of the shows. I wish they would have done some Locher Room-style shows, if they were that close. Curious if they still are. Doesn't seem like their website is still live.

I came across this interview Kim did to promote her book and LOL, she acknowledges that she misspelled people's last names, but she also got her own son Max's birthday wrong 😂 She's a mess. She also begs the interviewer for a kiss at the beginning, which is odd. She talks about the Slut of Springfield scene here too and why she didn't want to use that for her Emmy reel. She talks about the hair, her dark horse status, etc. She also talks about her drinking "I would have a glass of wine or two at lunch just to stop myself from chewing someone's head off" She's just an open book. 😂 She said she learned she was not an alcoholic when she had to go to AA meetings after her DUI.

Since I've read so much about Ellen Wheeler lately, I decided to look up some interviews on YT. I haven't seen Ellen since I saw her as Cindy on AMC, so that's been a lifetime ago and I never really knew who Ellen was. The first interview series I came across was the Archive of American Television from that Television Academy website. I instantly thought oh yeah, she and Kim are very different people and it's because I know people in my life just like Ellen and Kim. I kid you not (and I hope this doesn't come across badly), but the instant I watched Ellen speak, I thought wow, she reminds me of two people - my aunt, who happens to be Mormon, and Robyn from Sister Wives. I then googled Ellen and her Wiki page says she is Mormon and lives in Utah with her husband and children. LOL - I guess I can just tell But it all is starting to make sense to me (their relationship). I also watched Kim's 2006 Emmy win speech and kudos to Ellen, because she was visibly cheering her on and even Kim thanked her in her speech.

100% agree - Brit just stays being vile. She's not even a fun villain, she's just gross. So sad to hear this about Londie. LOL that's awesome. Tells us the scoop - who got him to do this and what does he know?? Between this and your BTG connections, you know how to find the fun in Atlanta!

Ahh thanks for the rundown, that's interesting. I remember Maria being the first, but I totally don't remember a different actor playing Mateo in the beginning, wow. Makes me want to go back and rewatch. Love to hear it and I agree!

Haha this is how I feel. My grandma would FF her soaps when she wasn't interested. Granted, she was watching 3 shows a day, so I get it. But for me, I hate missing anything even if I'm not thoroughly enjoying some of it. I personally really enjoyed 1995. There will be new characters and storylines that I thought were very entertaining (Dinah's return, Brent/Marion's reign of terror, etc). But once you get to 1996, I have a feeling you wouldn't enjoy it again.

Well that's really cool, what a fun opportunity that was!

Genuinely curious how you know from the inside - do you have connections, worked in the industry, etc? Tell us your secrets! One thing you and Kim agree on! Love the town bike metaphor, agree! On the Katrina thing, not sure at all, but she did call out the website where you could watch the web series (findyourlight.net), but that website is now defunct haha.

Happy Sunday morning! A few more chapter summaries from Kim's book: Chapter 14 - Kim admits that publicists were always on their toes with her because they never knew what would come out of her mouth. She always respected honesty and we’ll always get it back from her. She goes into what she thinks killed GL behind the scenes. She always loved her job, but 2004 is when everything changed. Ratings were down and P&G execs did two things in response - change out leadership and cut budget. So the new EP is Ellen Wheeler and Kim said she first noticed that she was younger than Kim (Kim was now 50 at the time). She said it was like going to a doctor that is younger than you and it just doesn’t feel right. She had always worked for older bosses, and this was a painful reminder that anyone can be replaced with something younger and cheaper. She got along well with Ellen in the beginning, but that soon changed because Ellen didn’t understand the show or the Reva character. Ellen changed many stories, sets and cast members, and started tinkering around with Reva. Kim didn’t like this at all, because she was also at a point in life where all her kids were adults and her job at GL was her main focus in life again. Ellen got rid of many veteran actors on the show because of the budget cuts. She took Jerry, Marj and Maureen off contract so their salaries were not guaranteed, which forced them out. Ellen tried to change the show and focus on younger characters and be hip, edgy and cool, which did not go over well with the fans who have watched for 20/30/40 years. Kim then says she wishes they would have had a male EP instead because they would have been able to keep Kim in line better than Ellen/a woman. Ellen started putting her stamp on everything and when the writer’s strike hit, she was now directing, producing AND writing, even though she wasn’t part of the Writers Guild. Kim could tell when it was Ellen’s scripts because she clearly had favorite characters and Reva wasn’t one of them. Reva was placed on the backburner which upset fans who would write in asking where Reva was, and of course that hurt/pissed off Kim. Ellen didn’t listen to the actors and she enjoyed splitting up well-established supercouples and belittling relationships that fans had invested in for years - she gives the examples of Harley and Gus and then calls out “… and most especially the debacle of Josh and Cassie!”. Kim viewed Ellen as the paid hatchet whose mission orders were to save money and produce the show as cheaply as possible, and Kim said she succeeded. She acknowledges that times were changing and the daytime industry itself was seeing ratings declines, so the writing was on the wall that GL was not going to survive much longer. She said maybe she would have enjoyed working with Ellen in a different period of time, but knowing that everything Ellen was doing was leading to the demise of GL, working for her was the hardest experience of her career. Any time Kim walked up to the the 5th floor where Ellen’s office was, people scattered. If Reva wasn’t on air for a few days, she would go talk to Ellen and bitch. Kim would always sit and listen to Ellen while she justified her decisions, and most of the time Ellen would end up crying. The more Ellen would cry, the more Kim wanted to lay into her. She is the EP of a show that was struggling to stay afloat and all she could do was cry - that was not ok with Kim! Chapter 15 - the year 2007 was GL’s 70th anniversary and Kim admits that Ellen had a creative, innovative idea to do ‘day in the life of’ episodes where it focused on a single character. The actors loved doing these episodes because it gave an intimate peek into their characters’ lives and it was their own one-hour show. She explained Reva and Josh’s episode where they were supposed to go sign divorce papers but then changed their minds and ran off to the lighthouse, which she thought was a powerful episode. Another idea Ellen had for the anniversary was to tape a special episode showing the GL actors travel to Mississippi and help rebuild homes after Hurricane Katrina. Kim was very against this idea, not because she didn’t want to help Katrina victims, but she didn’t think fans wanted to see the actors in the GL timeslot, which would break the 4th wall and cross the line between fantasy and reality. Once they decided to make it a web series instead of airing it as a GL episode, Kim changed her mind and went, which made Ellen cry out of happiness. She says Ellen cried while EP more than Reva Shayne did in all her years on air. Kim says the experience in MS was incredible and they all enjoyed having the opportunity to help. She even said she bonded with Ellen that week, when normally she was always so guarded in New York. She was surprised GL won best show and best writing Emmys in 2007, because she didn’t understand the kudos for their show. When 2008 came, Ellen had the idea of renaming the show “The New Guiding Light” and start the first episode as “Episode 1”, which Kim thought was distasteful and erasing their legacy. Apparently some of the GL execs hated when people mentioned how old GL was, and thankfully P&G said absolutely not to Ellen’s idea and the idea was nixed. But, Ellen still got her idea of a new opening approved and Kim refers to it as “…the one with a bunch of hairy-ass arms reaching and grabbing at other hairy-ass arms! With a series of voice-overs uttering the famous line ‘There is a destiny…’”. From there, they changed to handheld cameras and 4-wall sets, which everyone hated. The sets were so small and with all the crew in each set filming, they were always hot and had no where to move. Then they decided on location shots in Peapack and everything went to hell from there. Lighting, makeup, hair, production - everything looked horrible and she called it cruel and unusual punishment for a 53-year old woman on TV. She’s seen better amateur videos on YouTube. Kim started getting obsessed with the declining quality and would watch the show everyday, watch other soaps to see how much better they were doing than GL and then say GL was the biggest piece of sh!t she’s seen, total dreck. The goal went from producing quality programming to see how fast they could get episodes in the can. She said ultimately things got better after fans complained and they got better with lighting and moved the cameras back so they weren’t so in-your-face. She struggles because on one hand, some people view Ellen as a hero for getting two more years out of GL which meant more stories for fans and steady work/salaries for cast and crew, but on the other hand she was so embarrassed by how awful it truly was. Chapter 16 - mostly an overview of soap contracts and how she negotiated them. The big story: in May 2006, she was nearing the end of the first year of her 3-year contract, and the EP and P&G execs brought her in and told her she was getting a pay cut. She said absolutely not, a contract is a contract and she’ll be happy to talk about a pay cut at the end of her 3-year contract. They told her if she refuses, then they’d be forced to fire 8 actors from the show to make up for it. She thought that was ridiculous because even half her salary wasn’t big enough to make up 8 other salaries. She ultimately said no and told them if they needed money more than her Reva character, then they could fire her after her 52-week cycle was up. Their decision ironically was due on the day of the 2006 Daytime Emmys, so she was dreading that awards show the entire time, but they never came back and fired her that day - she dodged a bullet. As it turns out, she was being used as a decoy because the producers were planning to fire the 8 actors all along (take them off contract and force reduced day fees if they stayed). They wanted to use Kim’s refusal as a scapegoat, and the story ‘leaked’ that certain actors refused a pay cut, so other actors were forced out. The press kept asking if it was Zimmer and soap boards got nasty and tried to make it a scandal. She said most of the affected actors believed her, but to her surprise there were some that didn’t and thought Kim was to blame. She didn’t give names… She said the experience left her feeling violated and angry.

True on the vacation stuff. Also, didn't Dorinda and Carole go to London once together, just the two of them?

I don't know the Susan character yet, but man, everything you're confused about feels very familiar to when I started. It feels like everyone in Springfield has either hooked up with, married or had children with everyone else in Springfield. The family ties are very confusing and you almost have to study it like the Game of Thrones.

Glad you're still enjoying! I wish I could catch up to you so we can compare notes. One day I'll get there! I'm just about to get to Jan 1997. When Dinah came back to town as an adult in February 1995, she was a grifter and planned to get money out of both Vanessa and Ross to keep up her lifestyle she had in Paris. Matt, not knowing who Dinah was, overhead her talk about this at the diner. When he later met Dinah and realized it was Vanessa's daughter, he instantly disliked her/didn't trust her and tried to tell Vanessa about Dinah's plans. He wanted to protect Vanessa. Dinah then tried to seduce Matt to break up Vanessa/Matt, amongst other terrible things she did to Matt, but Matt held strong and didn't let Dinah win. Since then, for most of 1996, they don't interact nearly as much and I think they just tolerated each other.

Yep, just checked and it was McTavish. She was HW from 1992-1995, so that's gotta be correct as I think the Santos family came around in 1993. You know, as much crap as McTavish gets by fans (and some rightly so), her AMC from 92-95 was some of my favorite stuff so I have to give her credit there.

I actually really enjoyed 1995 - Brent/Marion's reign of terror, Alan-Michael/Lucy's relationship, Annie/Josh, Dinah's return to town and her pairing with Roger, Reva in Goshen (that dragged out too long, but it was fun to see a big name back). 1996 for sure wasn't as good. I'd say from March to November, it was borderline terrible as the biggest stories were disgusting (Griffin/Gilly/Vivian), boring (5th Street and A. Spaulding), or cruel in a bad way (Lonatrat). I'm halfway through December 1996 and I can already tell a huge difference, it's back to good soap opera. Yep, I checked the end credits and McTavish's last credited episode was 10/16/96. Immediately after, her 5th Street, A. Spaulding and Lonatrat storylines wrapped very quickly, thankfully. And barely any Griffin/Vivian scenes now.

Thank you - what a great site full of interviews! Ugh, that's a bummer, but I guess I'll just take what I can get.

That's the biggest fail for me too with Reva's 1995 back from the dead return. No Sarah, no Rusty, no Dylan other than a throwaway line a year later where she said she calls him every week. When someone returns from the dead, you need a family reunion to celebrate, or at the very least acknowledge it. This makes me sad... I've seen him in a handful of episodes now and he's actually a pretty good flirt with Nola whereas Tylo before that was more stiff. I haven't had the opportunity yet to watch much of Nola/Quint in the 80s, but I have to imagine their chemistry was really good back then. You're welcome! I have more coming tomorrow, which are interesting chapters haha. Kim is quite a character. I've spent the night watching interviews of her on YT because I want to really know her personality on screen as Kim, while I'm reading her book. I know many women like Kim, so I get her; she's quite the firecracker. I've just come across the Locher Room that many have talked about. I'm curious about it, because I love the opportunity to hear from our favorite soap actors today, but the short clips I've seen so far are right when Covid quarantine started and I just can't watch that. People talking over each other, awkward silence, talking about how they're doing in Covid.. it's just an awful trigger that I don't want to go back to. Does he continue this beyond 2021 where things are less Covid talk and more natural? He's also not that great of a host, he's a bit awkward... I don't know, I love that we have these interviews, but curious if they get better.

I’m up to December 10, 1996. They finally added Phillip to the opening, it was about time! He’s been on for almost a year now, it was weird he didn’t get added with everyone else when they revamped it. He was in the closing credits that entire time as a contract character. There is a temporary actor playing Quint now and it’s Roman Brady from DAYS haha. Meta Bauer just showed up and seems like she’ll be fun. I guess she was brought on as a replacement for Ed as the older Bauer family member? I’ve read about this character and in my head, always pronounced it like Facebook’s parent company Meta and not the way I just heard it May-Ta. Oops haha. Actually I’ve heard various characters call her Meh-ta, May-ta and Me-ta LOL, they can’t get it right. Anyway, she finally meets Michelle and immediately calls her Mary, which goes back to Zachary when he called her Mary a couple months ago! Meta goes to the lighthouse and recognizes him from the past and asks about Mary. She had a Zachary when she was younger that worked on the lighthouse and then left town… Now we’re getting black and white old timey flashbacks of Zachary, Mary (played by Budig/Michelle) and a little Meta. LOL, what is going on… Annie is trying to get artificially inseminated through a sperm donor just so she can trap Josh. Annie swapped her pill addiction with a baby addiction and it’s pretty amusing haha. Almost as equally crazy, we now have Bridget looking into plastic surgery options so Hart will find her more attractive and pick her over Dinah. It’s sad to see Bridget get this desperate. Reva, Buzz, Josh and Hawk are in Italy now to see Sarah, who is sick. Is this the same actress that would have been on years ago? Rusty also has joined. I’m curious how this southern Oklahoma family has ties to Italy, why is Sarah living there? On Sarah’s deathbed, she just told Reva in confidence that she had a secret child with another man when Hawk was out. She never saw the infant when born, didn’t even confirm the gender but thinks it might be a boy, and she gave it away (wow!). Now she wants Reva to find the baby. She also had a 1:1 with Josh and told him she’ll always believe Reva/Josh are meant to me. She then dies, and Josh is consoling Reva when Annie shows up LOL. Rick just told Phillip one of the twins is his and Phillip is pushing Rick to tell Ross given they’re related and he’s concerned. I’m just worried about poor, innocent Abby when she finds out the truth, I think it’ll overwhelm her. Nov 27 and Vanessa is back again in Switzerland with the nuns and Zachary. She’s mostly blind now, sadly, and Zachary is giving her an update on everyone. Oh wow, she writes a letter to Nola that Zachary delivers during Thanksgiving, asking her to take care of Matt and let him move on. How sad, but unfortunately Nola believes the letter was written before Vanessa’s accident, so she still doesn’t know the truth. Nola then shares the letter with Quint and the two of them try and set Matt up on a date, which is way too soon. Dec 5 is the debut of Lizzie! Lillian and Rick surprised Phillip by bringing her to SF. It’s wild seeing a very young Hayden Panettiere! Dec 6 (Friday) is Laibson’s last day as EP and Dec 9 (Monday) is Rauch’s first day as EP, per the ending credits.

Oh good, love to hear it! Noah/Julia were so great. Honestly the Santos family was such a great addition to the show and every sibling had an iconic supercouple attached to the show - Maria/Edmund, Mateo/Hayley, Julia/Noah and then Anita/Bobby (even though I preferred Bobby/Kelsey but what a great trio). I need to go look up what EP and writer combo came up with the Santos family.

I can't either 😕 Glad it's not just me haha.

Here is the October 9, 1996 episode where they debut the new Company (see 1:38 mark where it starts). This has the chandelier falling, and towards the end, Matt gets into a fight. Here is the next episode on October 10, 1996, which continues the fight and opening party. Great Tracy Chapman music playing during the last full scene as a bonus! And then October 11, 1996 where Reva joins the opening night party and spends time with J.

So was this a hit and run? And just two years ago? I hope there is more to this...

I've missed Leslie and Eva this week Anita! Good to see her, wasn't expecting that for a while.

Hayley was so great, and I loved the Hayley/Brian relationship and watching him scale the house to save Haley when Janet was holding her captive. So true, the Dimitri/Wildwind stuff was so good and such a great new storyline. 95 was such a great time too - and I loved Liza's return, with WRCW and all that stuff. If you ever have time, you should go back and watch 1994 with the tornado and the beginning of Noah/Julia.

😲 Wow! This just made my day, because I had no idea... and I'm not disappointed!

Oh the memories - I was actually at that Super Bowl when that happened, front and center. In the moment, no one knew how big that story would become...