JarrodMFiresofLove

I have created a file of all the newspaper synopses for Marland's era, which I am defining as the first week of September 1985 (when Kim's stalker story begins) to the end of March 1993, since I am not sure at what point Marland's material ends in April and I think he was still credited while Backus was working from what Marland hadn't finished before he died. That's 7 years and 7 months of material. I have synopses for every week except these: December 28, 1985 (which would have been episodes from December 23-27). September 19, 1987 (which would've been episodes from September 14-18). September 26, 1987 (which would've been episodes from September 21-25). September 28, 1991 (which would've been episodes from September 23-27). This is because for some reason they are not available on the Chicago Tribune website. A Google search indicates synopses for the four missing weeks are available online in the archives for the St. Louis Dispatch in St. Louis, Missouri and in the archives for the Salina Journal from Salina, Kansas. However to access the archives for those two papers, I would have to sign up for some free trial from newspapers.com and I don't want to sign up for something where I will start getting charged later. The info on the Chicago Tribune site is free. So if anyone has a way to access the synopses for the four missing weeks please jump in! I've attached the Word file I created. - Jarrod As the World Turns Word.docx

Both Iva and Meg were long-lost daughters of Emma in those early days of Marland's tenure. Iva shows up on Emma's doorstep in early November, shortly after Emma's been introduced. Iva had been working in Los Angeles for Tad Channing when she returns to Oakdale. Then in January Meg shows up. January 11, 1986 Doug was shocked to receive a phone call from a woman who sounded like his deceased wife, Caroline. Emma was surprised when her long-lost daughter Meg arrived back at the family farm. Marsha learned that Kevin is spying on her at Margo`s request. Margo phoned the Houston police, who agreed to investigate Caroline`s death. Craig told Sierra there is hope that his sterility can be reversed and that they can have children after they marry. Steve and Betsy decided that they want to have another baby. Lily saw Craig kiss Lucinda, who had admitted to Craig that Marie tried to blackmail her. Marsha overheard Frannie admit that she`s in love with Doug.

I've been going through weekly synopses from 1985 to 1993, studying Marland's era. These are found archived on the Chicago Tribune website. They were published every Saturday so I guess the Trib waited till after Friday so as not to spoil any plots. Kim's stalker storyline begins the first week of September '85. Marie arrives in Oakdale the second week of September, which suggests she was a short-term character created by Marland for this plot. Marie is only on the show for two months-- she disappears the second week of November and her strangled body is found the following week. Doug Cummings' nightclub is first mentioned the last week of September when Marie gets a job there. Lisa meets Doug the first week of October, and she is charmed by him though they are business rivals. Holden is first mentioned in the synopses the third week of October. He's the first Snyder on screen. He's been hired as the new stable boy, because the previous one, a temporary character named Hank, tried to rape Lily. Emma appears the first week of November in the synopsis I posted above. Meaning she was the second Snyder viewers met. It is possible the syndicated columnist for the Trib was mistaken, that Iva was supposed to be described as the Emma's oldest daughter. Maybe Marland originally called the youngest daughter Ruth, before calling her Meg? Or else it was the columnist's error. Meg does not appear on screen until the second week of January '86. So again, it's possible Marland called her Ruth in the early episodes but between November and January he renamed her Meg. As we know, there was no other sister named Ruth, just Ellie.

Who was Ruth Snyder? November 2, 1985 Everyone was shocked to hear Kevin publicly threaten Marie`s life. Lucinda and Craig met Holden`s mother, Emma Snyder. Margo left town to complete a police training program. Dusty and Lily shared a first kiss. Cal romped in the sack with Marie. Ken insisted that he`s not the person harassing Kim even though the evidence suggests that he is. Marsha doesn`t like the fact that Doug and Frannie are growing close. Brian flipped to learn that bag-lady Harriet moved into Shannon`s pad. Marie wrote in her diary that she`s afraid of Ken. Emma reminisced about her youngest daughter, Iva, and her eldest daughter Ruth, who`s estranged from the family. Marie warned Doug that Marsha`s jealous of anyone that comes near him.

I remember when the story started in late 85 I was not too invested in it. The show had previously done a story where Barbara had a stalker/secret admirer. Now it was Kim's turn. Also Frannie went through boyfriends like water. So Doug Cummings seemed like the new flavor of the month. But Marland did weave a suspenseful yarn. And the actress who played Marsha Talbot was the best thing about this storyline (in my opinion).

Yes. You can tell by the synopsis I posted from the second week of November 85 that Doug Cummings and Marsha Talbot are already established. Though Doug may have been killed in February, he still made sporadic appearances for weeks afterward, haunting Frannie in her dreams. So I'd say John Wesley Shipp was on the show for about six months, give or take.

This is the newspaper synopsis for the week of November 9, 1985. I am assuming that Iva showed up at the end of the Friday episode, November 6th. And that Emma and Holden were probably established/featured during the week of November 2nd. November 9, 1985 Emma was shocked when her daughter Iva arrived on her doorstep. Kevin saw a woman`s body in a closet at the Corbman mansion. Police officer Roy Franklin investigated Marie`s sudden disappearance. Frannie gave Roy a page torn from Marie`s diary. Kevin told Frannie their romance is over. Ken lurked outside Kim`s house. Doug made a date with Frannie. Marsha told a shocked Kevin that Marie is pregnant. Barbara told Tom she`s concentrating all her energies on business.

I updated my post on Marland creations on page 495. There were about ten more I had come across on various websites. For example Corinne Lawrence and her daughter Monica. I'd forgotten about them. Also I removed Shannon and Hal, since they were introduced by Susan Horgan.

Speaking of Darryl and the reuse of names...his wife was named Carolyn. Marland had previously used the name Caroline as someone in Doug Cummings' past (a dead mother or dead wife, can't remember which, but there was a Caroline Cummings); and then Marland used the name Caroline when he named Iva's biological mother since Jared Carpenter's wife was Caroline Carpenter, and she had given birth to Iva. On GL, my favorite producer was Gail Kobe followed by Paul Rauch. On ATWT my favorite producer was Felicia Minei Behr then Chris Goutman. I think Calhoun and Caso were lucky that Marland was headwriter during their tenures. Not sure if their years would have seemed as good with lesser writers. Of course producing a show is more than budget and cost containment. I mentioned budget in my earlier comment to explain why Goutman may have used the vets less than he or fans may have liked. I think it's interesting how he used his wife for a role in 2008. Loved watching her on Search for Tomorrow in the 80s. She was on OLTL too.

That's right. It was P&G's way of bringing NBC's viewers over instead of them watching the show that had replaced AW.

Why not put him on GL? I do think Goutman was instrumental in bringing him over to AW because of their work together on AW. Also they could have renewed Eplin's contract and kept him on ATWT. He had a lot of fans. I still think it was a mistake killing that character. I never watched AW and didn't see any of his early stuff in Bay City, but I thought the character was a tremendous asset to the Oakdale scene. Molly kind of floundered after Jake's death.

I don't think it's fair to downplay Goutman's contributions. Procter & Gamble liked his work on 'Another World,' a soap he also quote put to bed. That's why he was brought over to ATWT. I actually think it was smart of him to bring Tom Eplin along from AW as Jake McKinnon. Though he shouldn't have let Hogan Sheffer kill Jake off in '02. The story threads and recurring characters that followed over from AW were ingenious-- they gave ATWT a richer tapestry and brought fans from NBC to CBS, because I am sure Eplin's following was quite large or else they wouldn't have bothered crossing him over. Compared to Ellen Wheeler (at GL) Goutman exercised great restraint in not altering the production model too much. He did some cheaper outdoor filming but mixed it in with the studio filming so it wasn't so noticeable. I do think the reason we saw less of the over-50 vets was Goutman's doing, primarily because those people were not going to take pay cuts and so to make the budget stretch he had to decrease their appearances. Any executive producer would have been forced to do that to keep the show profitable for P&G.

They had already put Barbara with Hal twice and now she was in need of a new man again. John had recently gone through Lucinda and Iva plus there was his whole mess with Lisa. So the writers threw these two together I guess to give them something to do. It didn't make sense. I think Zenk and Bryggman liked acting together but Barbara and John did not really go together well as characters. There was a baby which died. She broke up with him and moved on.

Thanks John for that helpful writer/producer chart. I watched from 1982 to 2008. I'd say the worst year in my opinion was 1996. The plane crash with Margo's PTSD; Barbara and John; Mike's siblings, with Lisa taking his sister Sarah under her wing; the whole Kasnof clan except for Mike were dreadful. The writing was terrible that year. I loved Lorraine Broderick's stuff. Leah Laiman was terrible in my view. And they hired her back again later. Passanante was headwriter for 9 years at the end. She was in charge too long. Kreizman and Gold had both been headwriters earlier in the decade on Guiding Light. Interestingly Goutman had the longest run as executive producer.

Just to be clear I did not say Ellie was an odd name. I rather like it. And yes it was short for Eleanor but they never called her that. And as I stated, Ellie just sounded too close to Ellen. If Marland had introduced a character named Liza or Alisa I would be saying it's too close to Lisa. And yes I know people have similar sounding names in real life. But on a soap it can get a bit confusing. Fortunately Ellen and Ellie never had scenes together, to my knowledge. I think Holden was Marland's tribute to William Holden. So when was Marland's first episode credited as headwriter? I was thinking it was March 85. Or was it later? We know Taggart/King are still credited in early August 84. When did they leave and Horgan step in?

Thanks. I am guessing Horgan didn't last long, squeezed in between Taggart/King and Marland. Going back to the similar sounding names thing, I always thought Marland should have named Ellie Snyder something else. Though she never had scenes with Ellen Stewart it just sounded too similar, one letter difference. She could have been Kelly Snyder or Millie Snyder. There was no reason to nearly duplicate the first name of a long-time established character. Also Cal and Caleb were practically the same name, and earlier in Marland's tenure he had written Cal Randolph. Plus Cal sounded like Hal.

I remember one episode when Lien had just come to town and Lisa was trying to bond with her, and noted their names both started with a "lee" sound. In 1988 Marland had Lyla, Lily and Lilith all in frontburner stories.

I wanted to come up with a list of Marland creations. Please add ones I don't have, including recurring characters. Since I don't know what month Marland's material started in 85 and ended in 93 there may be errors on those years. 1985 Doug Cummings Iva Snyder Emma Snyder Holden Snyder Marsha Talbot 1986 Tonio Reyes Beatrice McColl Roy Franklin Nella Franklin Tad Channing Dan McCloskey Seth Snyder Sabrina Hughes Casey Peretti Duncan McKechnie Meg Snyder Hensley Taggart Corinne Lawrence 1987 Monica Lawrence Jessica Griffin Christopher Hughes II Bryant Montgomery Josh Snyder (Rod Landry) Pamela Wagner Taylor Baldwin Thornton Converse 1988 Angel Lange Snyder Henry Lange Laura Simmons Herb Petrie Spence Davies Adam Munson Lilith McKechnie Kirk Anderson Adelaide Fitzgibbons Lien Hughes Derek Mason Caleb Snyder Ellie Snyder Cal Stricklyn 1989 Julie Wendell Snyder Katie Peretti Duke Kramer Brock Lombard 1990 Linc Lafferty Sean Baxter Courtney Baxter Dixon Connor Walsh Evan Walsh III Darryl Crawford Carolyn Crawford Jennifer Munson Gavin Kruger Larry McDermott 1991 Aaron Snyder Carolyn Dana Crawford Tess Shelby L.J. McDermott Casey Hughes Hutch Hutchinson Woody Hutchinson Kira Johnson Denise Jones 1992 Debbie Simon Ned Simon Marcy Breen Neal Keller Alcott Edwina Walsh Cabot Alexander Cabot Rosanna Cabot Scott Eldridge Royce Keller Elroy Nevins 1993 Bonnie McKechnie Mary Hopkins Campbell (Aunt Mary) Matthew John "M.J." Dixon Damian Grimaldi Eduardo Grimaldi (Marland or Backus?) Janice Maxwell (Marland or Backus?) Will Munson (Marland or Backus?) Dawn Wheeler (Marland or Backus?)

I agree. Since James Stenbeck was still appearing the writers should have differentiated it better. As for Lily's last name. I bet the original idea was that Lucinda's maiden name was Walsh, which she kept during her marriage to Martin Guest. And when she adopted Lily and Guest died, she just gave Lily her name. That's what I think. But then Marland came in and built this whole story with Lucinda and the Walsh relatives (Connor and Evan) fighting her for control of her company.

Never to be mentioned again? Basically Dawn was used as a plot device to expand Tom and Margo's family. But later writers didn't really follow through with it. So Jeremy was a wasted character.

I really disliked the Dawn Wheeler arc. It seemed like a cheap stunt to use the HIV story, which Marland had done so well, to create some triangle. Plus it wasn't believable to me that Tom and Nevins would have been involved with two of the same women when they were from different levels of society. I think Backus could have come up with something else. Glynnis O'Connor never really gelled in the role of Margo. Thank goodness Dolan resumed the role a short time later. I don't even remember what happened to Dawn's son Jeremy. I think 1996 was an abysmal year for ATWT and indicated, at least to me, how far off track the show had gone since Marland. The plane crash stuff with the PTSD felt like a gimmick to quickly gain ratings but the whole aftermath was rather dull. In my opinion the show didn't pick up steam again until Lorraine Broderick took over.

What helped me accept the Snyders was that they brought new stories into the established core families. Seth and Frannie's relationship kind of injected the Hughes with something different. Iva was involved with Craig and became friends with Lisa. Ellie worked with Barbara. Holden married Emily for awhile. So Marland expertly wove the Snyders throughout, and they were not just this big new family taking over. They were blended in and though we hadn't ever heard of them before 1985 it felt like they'd always been there. I read somewhere once, can't remember where, but supposedly someone higher up did not like Lisa Brown. I am going to say it was the network, since she'd already been a hit on GL and I think P&G liked her. Anyway, I read that Marland was being pressured to write Iva out in 1990 or 1991. He did not want to do that since he and Lisa Brown were very good friends and he had used her to launch the Snyders. The only way he was able to keep her on the show was to quickly devise a pregnancy and have the baby's father be John Dixon. That factored into the sudden end of John and Lucinda's marriage. Marland felt that the network would stop pushing to get rid of Iva if she was going to have a baby by one of the show's main characters, John. So I think that whole pregnancy was quickly cooked up to ensure Lisa Brown's continuation on the series. But if you'll notice that Brown was one of the first ones fired after Marland died. And her exit story was very rushed. It was like she no longer had Marland to go to bat for her and whoever wanted her gone had finally succeeded. They did not bring her back for recurring appearances until much later, during the Lily/Rose saga and those were fairly limited returns. Also John's son with Iva, M.J., was never aged, never brought on to the show as a teen, never really mentioned after Iva left and after John left in 2004 there was certainly no mention of M.J. He's a character that could have easily showed up at the farm for a summer teen storyline, visiting Grandma Emma and his cousins. Plus he was Lily's brother. For sure, Marland would have developed that character. But none of the later headwriters, including Sheffer, used him and I think it's because that meant they'd have to use Iva more which they didn't want to do.

Thanks. I guess that explains it all. Of course Tonio turned out to be a villain, and John ended up marrying Lucinda and changing some of his earlier attitudes.

Thanks. If I remember correctly they did not mention Tonio yet. He did not come to Oakdale until after Sierra and Craig were a couple. So apparently he was in Montega during the revolution but obviously survived.

Thanks...and I assume we never saw Jacobo Esteban (Sierra's father) unless he was in some Montega flashback. Speaking of Montega, does anyone know the first time Montega was mentioned/shown on screen? And the last time anyone mentioned Montega at the end of the program's run? Did Taggart/King create Montega or was that a brainchild of Marland's?