alwaysAMC

Definitely Zimmer - she mentions at least twice in her book that she was against a Cassie/Josh pairing and even got into a fight with Robert Newman about it because he was ok with it.

Oh haha - nevermind That sounds like quite the story, finally giving Holly something to do again!

Oh Vanessa and Ross have had to deal with Dinah for years, it seems haha. They certainly have strong patience. Blake didn't back in the day with Dinah so I'm curious how Dinah/Blake get along in the late 90s. I can't believe Holly (Blake's mom) tries to kill Ben!!! That seems out of character unless Ben turns evil for some reason. Is Fletcher in the picture/on the show still at this time? Holly/Fletcher got married in 1995, had a Down Syndrome baby (Meg), and Ben (who was an early teen at the time) moved in early 96 to go to boarding school to allow Holly and Fletcher the space to raise Meg. Fletcher is Ben's dad.

How wrong they were! I've learned that soap fans and Star Trek fans don't miss a beat.

So happy to hear it! This is my first audio soap and I've been so surprised and pleased by it. I can't wait to listen to day's episode. It's also great hearing Rick Hearst's narrator voice every episode

I'm actually really happy for Chelsea and really enjoyed the Madison scenes today (inappropriateness aside haha). I think it's fresh to watch people dating with different occupations like this, one being old-school demanding and the other being more modern-day demanding. The conversation about her influencing was current and I see that a lot in the dating world right now. It was cute watching her get giddy telling her mom about it too. The Vanessa/Doug scenes were good too.

Great insight and I agree with this!

Phew ok good, I'm glad there wasn't beef between Zimmer and Maeve. But still irks me that she couldn't even spell her last name correctly in her book - I mean c'mon! 😂

I’m up to November 22, 1996. So much has happened so far this month! Roger rescued Dinah from the silo and came out looking like a hero, typical Roger haha. Dinah and Hart actually believe he’s changed and things are good for now. Roger still knows about Vanessa being alive and he’s having Leo look into it. Thankfully Rick and Ross found Blake and she’s having the babies at the cabin with the two of them. She delivered one but the other can’t come out yet and needs to be surgically removed or delivered at the hospital. It’s coming down to possibly Blake or the smaller baby dying and Ross wants Blake to survive and Rick is torn because it could be his son. Thankfully she ended up having the second baby with no issues and Rick looks on as the family of 4 are happy and holding each other. I’m so sad for Rick here. And they name them Kevin Ross and Jason Fredrick haha. Such 90s names, but the fact she threw in both fathers’ names while Ross still doesn’t know is so bad haha. A few days later, Ross notices the twins don’t look alike and questions why to Blake, but she and Rick come up with a good excuse. Vanessa is back Nov 8, with a nun in the church - yay! She’s also back Nov 12-13, talking to Zachary about Matt (who is continuing to build a house on that island he bought for the two of them). How does Zachary just show up like this, I guess he’s really supernatural ugh. Even she’s starting to figure out he’s something beyond human, but he denies it. I really love seeing Vanessa randomly each month, that would have made me really happy viewing in real time back in the day. Now Matt found a letter Vanessa started writing to him at Zachary’s lighthouse, and he’s becoming very suspicious of him and his connection to her. Josh seems totally over Annie now and is forcing some kind of relationship. He hasn’t been that supportive nor a good husband, which I understand has to be a hard position to be in, but this is when you really support your spouse. Reva of course is in the way because he clearly loves her instead but won’t admit it. I also still really dislike the carousel house, it’s weird and creepy. That is not a house, not a living room nor a good foyer for a home. Now Annie seems to be doing good and coping with Reva without a problem, however now she wants a baby with Josh to connect them forever. She’s cutting holes in her diaphragm, wearing sexy pushup bras and asking for sex all the time haha! Unfortunately, Reva’s mother Sarah is now ill in Italy and everyone is scrambling to get there to help her… Alan randomly became paralyzed from effects of his accident (not really sure which one, must be long ago?). This came out of nowhere and Alan is so unlikable to me that I don’t care if he gets better (I really wish I liked him, because I like the idea of his character). Bill/Michelle/Dahlia have a joint birthday party at the Towers and Rick/Abby share their first kiss (yay!). Dahlia continues to sing all over Springfield. She’s good, but not sure the point/where they plan to go with this. It was nice to see her mom Tina surprise her by showing up to the party. Griffin was able to get her out of prison because she was an exemplary inmate, but she’s now going to live at a halfway house. Btw, the Towers set is sorely underused in 1996. It’s my favorite set and I loved seeing it throughout 1995. Rick was a proper gentleman and took Abby back to Goshen to visit her parents, who of course were upset and disowning of her. Rick really stood up for her and forced them to listen to how much she’s grown and excelled. I really loved Rick here, he’s such a sweet man most of the time. As Abby’s parents continue to reject her as their daughter, this makes Rick realize he can’t reject his own son and just told Blake he needs to be a father now… Speaking of sets, there are a bunch of new sets popping up this month! They have a bowling alley, Buzz has a new bedroom, the Spaulding Mansion has a new bedroom, the hospital room set is redesigned for Blake, the Hart farm has new sets, a new hotel room set, and Abby now has an apartment/home.

I was also going to add that understanding Kim's personality through her book, and watching few interviews of Maeve, I have a feeling those two were total opposites or maybe didn't get along, hence why one liked Rauch and the other didn't. I'm now reading a new chapter in Kim's book and she finally mentions Maeve briefly, but completely spells her last name wrong: Kincaid! LOL - that just tells me they probably weren't that close. Or she has a bad editor, but c'mon. LOL - I did that myself a couple months ago and thought wow, times got tough. I'm reading Kim Zimmer's book right now and she talks about how awful the conditions were. Ditto on thank god we have access to the earlier good stuff.

Ahh interesting - so then when Rauch came to GL in 96, I wonder how they got along after all those years later... assuming at least professional, but to be a fly on the wall.

Hahaha... Dinah tried hard to sleep with Matt when she joined in 95, but thankfully it never happened because Matt wouldn't give in. It was very close though. What happened between Rauch and Maeve? That's interesting that Rauch was Zimmer's all-time favorite EP and then Maeve didn't get along with him at all.

Yeah they were a good fit at AMC. The Erica/Travis/Jackson/Barbara stuff was pretty good and popular. I know this is the GL thread, but while we're talking Pratt, this is one of my all-time favorite slaps where Erica slugs Barbara much later in the 00s:

Not that I've read yet. I'm at the midway point of the book, so if she does eventually talk about her Emmy noms/losses, I'll jot it down and post. Haha yep, he went over to AMC as did Susan Pratt! They were married (Travis and Barbara Montgomery). It's so funny to me because I've been reading y'alls posts and found it amazing both of them were on GL together just before they came over to AMC. Haha

More chapter summaries from Kim's book: Chapter 8 - talks about leaving GL in 1990 after a 7-year run. It was her decision because she wanted to spend more time with family, after just having her son, and her husband got a good gig back in LA. GL execs were understanding and told her she could come back whenever she wanted. She was surprised the fans accepted her decision, but made it clear they didn’t want a recast because Kim was Reva. She admits she hoped trying to recast Reva would turn out to be a terrible failure and was happy to never have to find out. Once settled in LA, she got offered a role on Santa Barbara by Pam Long and Paul Rauch (“my all-time favorite EP”). Paul was old-school soap opera and loved to travel the globe and do location shoots, have beautiful sets, lighting, etc. Kim says she was brought into SB to help with declining ratings, was paired with A, who Marcy Walker had previously been with in a super couple role. At the same time Marcy Walker went to GL to be Josh’s new love interest, and she admits the fans didn’t accept either in their new roles and the “switcheroo” didn’t work. She was at SB for 8 months and it got cancelled, which didn’t impact her as much but it clearly was devastating for others who now had to look for new jobs. Their 5 years in CA (90-95) were hell - they dealt with mudslides, brush fires, OJ Simpson trial, Rodney King riots, Northridge earthquake… she was ready to get back to NYC and GL. She proactively called GL and asked if they could find a way to resurrect Reva, and they were very happy and said yes. She then mentions Reva comes back as an Amish woman named Rebecca. She never mentions her actual return of being a ghost for months and how they switched that part time role to full-time, ugh! Chapter 9 - talks about how important and fun the hair and makeup rooms were. This is where you got the daily gossip, and she makes a job about blowjobs (previous chapter she talks about playing butt darts with quarters coming out of your butt, so you know what kind of fun Kim likes to have haha). Kim would get bored with her hair, so every 6 months they would change up the cut and color. Her hairstylist would get calls from around the country asking for the ‘Reva cut’ (ok, Kim). She said soap actors had to get permission to change up their looks/hairstyles, and Paul Rauch was infamously known to hate actors changing up their looks because fans expect to see them a certain way. He didn’t like ponytails on women because they should always be feminine, beautiful and done-up. The wardrobe budget in the 80s was endless and they wore very expensive jewelry and clothing. When she returned in the 90s, the budget was slashed in half. She said Peapack was so awful in the beginning and barely got better when they finally brought in a production house. She said it was worse than a high school film project. They had to use public restrooms to do wardrobe changes, and after she ran into a fan butt-naked in the restroom who told her it was a pleasure to see her, she said she was finished and demanded change. Even after the production house was brought in, the men/women still had to share restrooms and the boys were always stinky. She said one actor would always stop at the local gas station on his way in to make a ‘deposit’ so he wouldn’t have to go during the day at the production house. She then talks about how the last studio around 2004 was share with BET and she met many famous people in the elevators, one being Stevie Wonder. His wife pointed out it was Reva Shayne and Stevie said his wife was her biggest fan. Chapter 10 - about how Reva died three times on GL and came back from the dead each time. She recaps each one in detail, and since I haven’t seen all of these play out yet on GL, I can’t comment on how factual they are haha. EXCEPT - she definitely gets her 1995 return completely wrong. She says Reva’s body was found by Cuban fisherman who took her to San Cristobel where they left her. The ruler of the island, Prince Richard, found Reva who had amnesia. She then married the prince and became Princess Catherine of San Cristobel. Now I haven’t seen the San Cristobel storyline, so maybe they retconned it? But her return in 1995 was having amnesia and being an Amish farmer in Goshen, totally different story and explanation as to how she got to Goshen and survived the Florida Keys bridge accident. The second death where Annie kills the pilot and parachutes out the plane, leaving Reva on the plane alone which crashes… I can’t believe this story LOL - oh Annie, you go off the deep end! Kim does say that Watros is ‘wonderful’. She said fans hated the human cloning storyline, but she didn’t hate it because it creatively intrigued her and stimulated her as an actress. She also got a bump in salary during that time for playing two characters (interesting!).She explains the whole story in detail (which wow, I need to go watch that crazy mess), but she said the network and P&G execs actually came to Rauch and told them they needed to do that story. Usually, GL isn’t known for outlandish stories like that (which Rauch was used to at OLTL - Vicki goes to heaven/Clint goes back in time and Eterna). However, the network got tired of the story and told the writers to give her an aging drink so the clone will die and they can get out of this. Kim said she always believed a story like that should have been on DAYS or OLTL, but not GL because GL was a show about family and social interaction. That story was exhausting and required her to memorize 70 pages of dialogue a day, film every scene twice; the other actors who had scenes with both Reva and Dolly hated it because they had to film everything twice and then wait around for Kim to change clothes and makeup. She said she fights hard to keep the integrity of Reva’s character, so if the writers do things she doesn’t like, she speaks up. She said she really didn’t think Reva would ever try to commit suicide because she’s too selfish, but ironically she won the Emmy for the aftermath of her suicide attempt, so she learned to concede sometimes (although later in the chapter she said she was nominated - so did she win or only get nominated? haha). Her third death in 2006, when Reva had breast cancer, was written while Kim was having contract negotiations behind the scenes. They weren’t sure they would come to an agreement, so they wrote Reva dying in a hospital bed, just in case. Suddenly they came to an agreement and Reva woke up in bed the next week and walked out the hospital alive.

That's exactly what it was - her suicide attempt (per her book and the chapter I just read today ) - I'll post those summaries here soon.

Oh I think Matt is really handsome, or at least was back in 95-96. I'm glad to hear he and Vanessa are still around at the time (although Matt isn't popular with everyone here ). That's what I enjoyed too, meeting new characters and all the storylines that advance with a great pace that never makes you bored. That's one of the big problems I have with current soaps, they're just basic/boring storylines that get dragged out for months.

Hmm - do you remember more about it? It vaguely sounds familiar, but I can't pinpoint it. I skimmed through the 2011 episodes I could find on YT and nothing popped up. The closest I found was Erica/Jack having a drink, and Erica is in a red dress, and Brooke comes back to town and interrupts and Erica/Brooke have one final sparring session before I think the finale.

You're the best - thank you!

Ohh I'm just noticing that you add this information - how useful - thank you!!! Is there an easy way to navigate to 1995/1996/1997 for GL? Is there a central list or page numbers for each year?

Wow a sex scene with two ladies! Good to see it. Joey/Vanessa were really strong today. The actress playing Vanessa is much better when she's harder/serious/flirty/threatening.

Good point on the HIPAA stuff, I didn't think about that. Maybe wait until after they're no longer a patient then, at least haha.

I do think Chelsea was super inappropriate to gawk at her in the hospital vs. actually care about her dad. But, I'm not mad about Madison being interested in Chelsea afterwards. I think it's fine to be interested in a patient's family member if everyone is an adult and it's consensual. It helps that the actress is really strong and likable (Madison). I'm here for more!

So Ashley/Derek couldn't live together successfully, and now he's proposing? I'm confused.

I guess this is the casino/cop week. I like to see Vanessa with a backbone and digging into Joey.