alwaysAMC

Not full on drag, but I totally forgot that Edmund, Adrian, Ryan and Jack all did wedding gown drag during Mateo's bachelor party on AMC. Here is the clip:

Oh you're right! Gosh, I forgot about Wave. That was tied to WRCW and they even threw a surprise bridal shower for Hayley on air one episode. That's what ultimately took Hayley/Mateo out of Pine Valley when they left. The show went syndicate and they moved to LA. You have such a great memory. I don't know how you remember all these details across all the soaps you watched over the decades. I'm impressed

Even more excited! Thanks for posting.

That's how I'm feeling now too, after seeing that flashback. How do you just let something weird like that go without pushing for more information...

Well this is great - I'm excited! I love Budig. I'm glad it'll discuss more than just what's currently on-air.

Thanks for sharing, @DRW50 I wish they had too! My memory is fuzzy, I can't quite remember much after Laurel was shot and killed on live TV. I can't remember if Hayley took over or if they took Tad/Liza out of WRCW and it just went away. Or if Erica's talk show sort of stole the thunder and it got phased out. I'll have to go back and look. Haha I saw this! I love to see it. She usually promotes his stuff on instagram, so I'm happy that they're still close to this day.

Instead of trying to convince y'all that Susan Lucci deserved all those noms (I know, I'm biased ), I'll just leave you with more chapter summaries from Kim's book: Chapter 17 - mentions that her mom’s health took a turn for the worse a week after GL’s cancellation notice. Kim’s sister said they were moving her to hospice care and likely won’t live by tomorrow. Kim rushed to Michigan to be with her, but her connecting flight got cancelled and there were no other options that night. Thankfully she got the first flight out the next morning and made it to her mom before she passed away that night. Her mom was GL’s and Reva’s biggest fan and would always give Kim her opinion on storylines, hairstyles, etc. She never wanted to know from Kim what was happening - no spoilers for her - because she wanted to watch it unfold daily and be surprised. They recorded episodes on VHS, which Kim now has and at the time of her book, thought about getting them transferred to DVD so she could cherish them. Kim said one of her biggest regrets is not spending a lot of time with her parents later in life, because she was working daily and any little free time she had, she spent it with her husband and kids. But, she feels good knowing that her parents got to watch her every day on TV as a consolation. She then spends way too much time on her menopause journey haha. From periods, to hot flashes, to gaining uncontrollable weight. She said Nutrisystem reached out to do a deal, but they wanted to tie it into Reva’s character losing weight, and Kim said absolutely not. There will never be a ‘Reva is fat’ storyline, so she declined it. But looking back, she said she should have taken the deal. By the time her last Daytime Emmys show came, she was 40 pounds overweight and a few months away from being without a job, so she realized potential future employers would be looking at her, so she wanted to wearing something slimming. She chose a black dress with white fluffy flowers around the bosom, but looking back, she ended up looking like Shamu. She was upset that they only gave GL a 3-minute tribute at the awards show. “After 72 years and countless Emmys won, all they could give was 3 minutes?” Then, the show was running long so they had to cut the segment even shorter, and Betty White, who presented them, took up the first 2.5 minutes on her own. Then a shortened video clip aired and then the entire cast got to wave for 30 seconds before they cut to commercial. The original plan was a longer video and then each cast member would bow as they panned slowly through the cast. She said the entire experience was weird. She said Sesame Street was also honored that night, for being on-air for 30 years, and they got a full 11 minutes. The whole night was bittersweet. She then talks about the last day filming GL and how every single cast and crew member got called out by name, they hired a bus to take everyone around so they all could watch each final scene be filmed. Every producer, director and cast member got to produce, direct and act one final scene. And she’ll always be grateful the last word uttered on GL was “Always”, with Reva/Josh together in scene. Chapter 18 - she said she assumed she could easily get work after GL, with regional stage, primetime movies or pilots, but found it much harder than she thought. The younger actors on the show got quick and easy offers at other soaps (Cosgrove, Rylan, Tognoni). She then goes into her DUI - she paid a large fee in lieu of community service, required 38 hours of DUI class, required 32 AA meetings, and 6 months driving suspension with probation for 3 years after that. She learned she’s not an alcoholic, but she used alcohol to self-medicate and numb her anger during her last few years on GL, and it helped her learn a valuable lesson that actions have consequences. She said growing up, her parents rarely drank, only socially, and she never remembers them being over-served. Kim said her parents let her have a sip of wine/beer when she was 11 and she first got drunk in high school at a kegger. She was more of a party girl than an alcoholic as an adult. But her heaviest drinking was during her last 5 years on GL. The night before the 2009 Emmys, Soap Opera Digest held a party for all East and West coast soaps, and Kim got so drunk, she fell on the floor and couldn’t get up and Crystal Chappell (GL) and Hillary B. Smith (OLTL) had to pick her up and protect her so no one would take photos. Another night, Crystal Chappell’s baby shower, she got so drunk again but had an early 7am call time, so she only got 4 hours of sleep and insisted she drive herself to work because she knew that drive like that back of her hand. She thought she saw someone getting into her lane and she overcorrected and swerved across 4 lanes of rush hour traffic and smashed into a median. She said she saw her life flash before her eyes in that moment. Ultimately she learned from these mistakes that she will never drink and drive again, and no one ever should either. She feels lucky she didn’t hurt herself or others. She still enjoys her wine though with dinner.

I agree - I really enjoyed Nicole doing that and it was emotional seeing Eva's response to her honesty.

LOL - she's a little more calm (and sober) today, so it's not as wild, but it's there Hahaha - agreed!

Pamela looks good. I like her high pony and bangs. Good to see Cady today.

Damn, Kenneth threatening Martin's kids and talking about how cute Samantha is getting - yikes! This guy is a villain.

Ohh they stopped the news just in time! Glad we're not missing anything today. And Leslie is back, whoop!

FOMO = Fear of Missing Out What is their new address? I'll look it up.

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.