Xanthe

The May 4th anniversary passed unremarked this year. It would have been the 59th. Next year will be the 60th so maybe we're saving up for a big diamond jubilee.

I don't think I remember knowing the fact [the broadcast itself was before my time] that Sarah Cunningham was the first Liz Matthews on day 1 who was then replaced by Audra Lindley on May 7. And apparently Audra Lindley's last day in the role happened to be June 25, 1969, exactly 30 years before the series finale. 

Gordon Lightfoot has died.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/gordon-lightfoot-dead-1.6828991

3 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

Personally, I thought the Red Swan storyline was a total disaster from beginning to end.  And I don't think even having Mac alive could have saved it.  

I vaguely associate the Red Swan with Ken Jordan and Paulina so I was shocked to scan through the AWHP synopses from 1989 and 1990 and discover that for months and months before Ken arrives, people [Lucas, Derek, Mitch, Caroline, Griffen Sanders?] talk about and try to acquire the Red Swan by fair means or foul [and fail to notice it depicted in the background of a painting] but there seems to be no ultimate reveal about its significance. Was it intrinsically valuable? Did the papers it contained prove that Mac had had an affair with Paulina's mother? Was the painting evidence of anything at all? Did its function as a MacGuffin drive story in any meaningful way? If Mac had been alive would they have cast Paulina's mother to create a love triangle?   

On 2/2/2023 at 9:24 PM, Xanthe said:

When Dee first arrived in early 1985 Wallingford talked about his parents wanting to protect him and telling him to stick to his own kind, but he didn't want to limit himself so he left home. (Not clear whether there were other little people in his family.) He also mentioned that people felt free to be rude and unkind to his face because he looked different. 

Since we were talking about Wallingford's personal life a while ago, just wanted to note for posterity that around the time Felicia met Zane, Wallingford confided in her that he had been engaged before but his fiancée's  family had interfered and prevented the marriage. 

2 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

Regarding the Frames, I didn't count them, but I'm sure there were fewer than eight.  Janice, Vince, Willis, and Jamie.  Any other Frames?  I do not think Willis and Gwen were married at the time of the photo. 

According to the AWHP Willis and Gwen were married in August 1978. And Angie Perrini had married Vince in May 1978. But maybe they are no longer together since Vince apparently marries  Mimi Haines in June 1979.

13 minutes ago, robbwolff said:

The Matthews family is on the left side of the photo: Pat, John, Marianne, Liz, Michael, Jim, Alice, and Susan. As Neil said, Dan Shearer doesn't seem to be in the photo. Sally wasn't around at this point. She returned in April 1979.

Thanks! If it's that early in the year I guess I should have been looking for Tim Holcomb and not Richard Bekins and he must be the young man between Ada and Louise and not the partial figure in the back.

7 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

1979 was the final year there were more Matthews on AW than any other family. In this cast photo, there are eight members of the Matthews family plus Dan Shearer, who I don't see in the photo. So that makes nine Matthews (counting in-laws) There are eight member of the Cory family in the photo (counting in-laws, but not counting servants). By March 1979, the Matthews family began to diminish rapidly -- starting with John, Dan, Susan, and a few months later Alice and Michael were written off.

I don't recognize everyone and/or can't make out all of the faces in the back. How many Frames were there at this point?  I can see Gwen and Janice and maybe the top of Jamie's head. But I suppose Jamie is also being counted as a Cory? Are the 8 Mac, Iris, Rachel, Brian, Ada, Charlie, Jamie, and Blaine? What about Clarice (Charlie's daughter) and Larry (Blaine's brother)?  As I write that out it seems as if none of the Cory set have any close connection with the Matthews set. When did Pat and Liz start working for Cory Publishing?

Matthews: John, Dan, Susan, Alice, Michael, Liz, Pat, and ... Sally?

On 3/28/2023 at 7:58 PM, janea4old said:

 

 

Yeah I was watching AMC when that aired. Def. 1971.  I remember Erica went to New York for it.

Thanks everyone for the clarifications and corrections.  So Pat's was the first, Erica's in 1971 (in NY, having travelled from PA where it would not have been legal), would be the first legal, and Maude's in 1972, also in NY where she lived, was also legal but both hers and Erica's were pre-Roe. 

2 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

Just wanted to correct something I saw on a soap opera special this evening on CBS.  Another World's Pat Matthews had the first abortion on daytime (and maybe the first on TV) in 1964.  It was not Ashley Abbot or Erica Kane.  Jeeze-Louise!!  

As I understand it Pat had the first abortion on US TV. Erica had the first legal abortion on Daytime. (I think Maude had the first legal abortion on US TV period.)

52 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Lemay seemingly agreed as he had Rachel viciously spurn Liz and cast her out of the family (briefly) in his return to the show. I'm glad those episodes will be up on Youtube before too long.

Was that when Liz told Matthew about Mitch's past? 

3 hours ago, victoria foxton said:

I remember liking Kevin and Lorna at the time. For the life of me i can't remember why he went to prison. And i was watching back then. 

The Character Guide entry uses the term "assault, wrongful use of office, and conspiracy to commit murder" and gives his final words as:

[The courtroom, to Victor Rodriguez, before being taken to prison,] "Carl would have done some serious time. But no. You know better."

ETA: I don't remember whether I liked Kevin with Lorna but I do remember liking her with Victor.

13 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

He spent a lot of his time trying to prosecute Carl, but failed lol

His exit was more like Iris’. He went off to prison and was never seen or heard from again. 

It's funny -- the AWHP character guide mentions he went to jail, but the weekly synopses don't actually mention it as far as I can tell. Based on the dates he left at the end of September 1993. Morgan Winthrop arrived in October. I liked Morgan but reading through his character page all of his storylines sound depressing. Too much rape, for one thing, and too many non-core girlfriends. That was something I always worried about with Nancy, that after Perry her boyfriends had no other connection to anyone. Maybe they should have used Nancy instead of creating the character of Courtney.

12 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

Look at the McKinnons. The entire family (except for Jake) was introduced and completely written out in just five years.

How soon we forget about Jake's half-brother Kevin Anderson (1991-1993) and nephew Sean (1999). 

I can't remember what purpose Kevin served. Did he do anything interesting or worthwhile? Was he Nicole Loved off to jail or was it more Iris-ish? What character filled the Kevin Anderson void?

On 2/19/2023 at 2:35 PM, Melroser said:

Not a fan of Tucci. Amanda was too "mature" then. It didn't help that they paired her with Grant and had recast Evan also. She never clicked with me.

To each their own. I had never been able to warm up to Sandra Ferguson and didn't feel like her Amanda was a fully fleshed-out character. Her flaws seemed plot-contrived rather than character-based.

I didn't buy the theoretical class conflict when the rich debutante fell in love with the struggling artist and I thought Robert Kelker Kelly did the heavy emotional lifting in their scenes. 

Christine Tucci was a stronger actress and I felt like I could understand her motivations day to day.

36 minutes ago, Neil Johnson said:

I wasn't crazy about Frankie being a psychic either.  

I don't remember any of Frankie's psychic episodes, just that she was some kind of new age flake with crystals. Did she sense or predict anything? Or how did her psychicness manifest? 

7 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Did Lisa have her psychic visions from the start?

The synopsis on the AWHP refers to her as psychic from her arrival. Jamie had dreamt her as his soul mate in advance and kissed her uninvited the second he ran into her. And then later when Felicia formally introduced them she described Lisa as having psychic abilities.

http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/aw1987.html

2 hours ago, victoria foxton said:

Eddie has reuploaded more episodes. Sam finally found out about Mandy being Amanda. And the conclusion to the Rex Allingham story. As Rex and Cass battled it out in a nightclub packed with people. I love them playing Michael McDonald's 'Love Lies'. As Sam was left reeling about Amanda. 

 

I think Joanna Going tries her best to sell Lisa's psychic ability but it's rather thankless. And personally in order for supernatural abilities to work for me in fiction they have to be built into the premise from the start. They annoy me when they are dropped into an otherwise basically naturalistic story. 

 I kind of slightly maybe understood why Sam accused Amanda of toying with him but I was flabbergasted when she admitted "at first it was a game" because I did not see it playing out that way at all at the time. I guess maybe she thought it was funny that he didn't know who she was when they first met but that is different from looking down on him because he was beneath her. 

14 hours ago, j swift said:

sorry, I didn't mean that Cheryl was unsympathetic toward Dawn, she just lost some of her innocent demeanor prior to her departure through her scenes with Chad and John

I think we were always supposed to be titillated by sweet virginal Cheryl and her pursuit of the opposite sex. Practically the first thing she did was accidentally and unknowingly get into Scott's bed. She was always pestering Scott not to think of her as a kid. And then she hung around ex-pimp Chad in order to ratchet up MJ's guilt and anxiety. 

I don't know if the character of Cheryl would have worked better for me if they had paired her with a badder yet age-appropriate boy. The only thing that made Scott bad was his link to Reginald which he rejected and in any case was offset by devotion to his and Cheryl's mother. He just seemed nice and too mature for her. 

15 hours ago, Franko said:

did it feel like Vicky was the only woman in that group who got to cut loose and consistently be a vixen? (Or am I misinterpreting Vicky's later characterization?)

There were a lot of extremely good girls around. We got some vixen from Paulina, Lorna, Maggie maybe? 

15 hours ago, Tonksadora said:

Amanda when she was Mandy did cut loose & rebel big time.

She refused to go to college and ... rebelliously took an entry-level job in her father's company. Most of her mild disobedience was because she was chasing Sam. I think her aunt Nancy went further (although still fairly mildly) off the rails -- she befriended Marley chiefly to get closer to Perry and because they were rich, after Perry's death became dependent on drugs, and got into trouble with Ada for going into debt and sleeping with Chris Chapin out of wedlock. 

25 minutes ago, j swift said:

In the process they made Cheryl into an unsympathetic character, and they wrote off Scott who had a lot of story potential as a male Love heir.

Did they make Cheryl unsympathetic? I thought she nobly and virtuously did not stand in Scott's way and then when Dawn had died quietly took Scott back. 

2 hours ago, chrisml said:

I also enjoyed AW during the 1987 year. The Rex/Cass stuff, the Mary/Reginald story, (although it fizzled out), Cheryl/Scott, etc. I also liked Tracy Kolis and I still remember her departure scene. I wish that the show had been able to follow through with the 1987 stories rather than wrapping a lot of them up and starting again with new characters and stories. 

As a fan of Scott and Cheryl, what did you think of the introduction of Dawn? 

On 2/16/2023 at 9:52 AM, Darn said:

I've always liked that he never found out. I don't know, I guess I just thought it was neat that a soap secret wasn't revealed to everyone.

Can we get a tally of the number of women on soaps who gave birth to twins without realizing it? 

OLTL

Viki (Jessica/Natalie)

Y&R

Sharon (Cassie/Mariah)

GH

Nina (Nelle/Willow)

Susan (Jason/Drew)

ATWT 

Iva (Lily/Rose)

GL

Alexandra (Lujack/Nick...this one I'm unsure of, did she know she'd given birth to twins?)

BTW I really need this plot device to die.

All of these seem to have revealed the twin in 1990 or later even if the character was born onscreen earlier than that. The reveal that Marley had a twin Victoria was in 1985 and I believe the explanation was that Donna had been drugged and out of it when she gave birth in a secret room so it was halfway reasonable all things considered. It seems harder to retcon a twin when the birth was otherwise normal.

Is Donna/Vicky on AW really the earliest example of the secret twin even the mother didn't know about? (I would not count scenarios where the mother knew and thought the baby had died or kept the secret.) 

22 hours ago, Melroser said:

Great: AW's Lorna being Felicia's daughter. It helped to fill in some of Felicia's past and conflicted with Felicia's glamorous romance writer persona. Plus, Alicia Coppola and Linda Dano worked amazingly together.

Bad: AW's Ryan being Carl's son. First of all, it was so shortly after the Felicia/Lorna reveal. It also led to the over-the-top creation of Justine (Rachel's doppelganger). 

Agree with these. Lorna was very nicely handled. 

AW:

Good: Donna is Marley's mother

Great: Marley has a twin Victoria 

Terrible: Maybe Marley and Victoria's uncle John is really their father (worse would have been the speculation that their adopted uncle Scott was their triplet).

Also fairly ham-handed: Iris is not Mac's biological daughter! Except now she is back and recast and yes she is for some reason!

4 hours ago, victoria foxton said:

@Xanthe You are correct. As wonky as 1987 was. I'll take it over 95-99.

Hm. One obvious advantage 1995 has over 1987 is Anna Stuart vs Philece Sampler. 

1 hour ago, victoria foxton said:

Eddie Drueding has reuploaded more episodes. This time from late 1987.  

 

At this point in time Cass must be the imposter Rex Allingham, correct? It's hard to tell because he seems so Cass-like.

I don't think I liked anything that was going on at this point, with the possible exception of the glimpse of poor sad Adam.

13 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

I may be mistaken, but I don't believe AW ever got higher than number 9 after 1979.  It may have risen to number 8 briefly at one point, but I can't verify that.  Still, number 9 or number 8 in the ratings for 20 years, is not going to be considered a success by anybody.   So all the things they tried - hijinks and comedy, crime drama, over the top foolishness, dozens of new characters in and out, etc. - even though some fans enjoyed it, the ratings did not go up.  So none of it worked.   

Popularity does not necessarily correlate with quality. There are a lot of other factors that get people tuning in and sticking with a serial. Writing is only part of the equation. Sometimes the hook is as shallow as finding an actor attractive. And fortunately or unfortunately, being popular already is one of the things that attracts viewers, which increases word of mouth, which sustains or improves ratings. 

How many times did AW try a prime time special to attract attention? Stunts drive publicity, but how do you convert that to daytime viewing?