JarrodMFiresofLove

Thanks. I just checked it out. It's a lovely blog she's doing.

As we know all soaps have deadwood. When an actor is signed to a one-year contract but he doesn't catch on, they usually just background him till the contract runs out. So they hang on longer than they should. Sometimes a deadwood character will be turned into a killer for their exit story, which gives them something more to do at the end. Yeah I miss that character the most. She was quietly effective. One of those characters you don't realize how valuable they were until they're gone.

I think the phony faith healer story was just a plot device to get Althea to realize her feelings for Tom after he saved her life. That's the only purpose it served, and it coincided with Gerald Gordon's last episodes before leaving in May 75. But I think the real reason they backburnered Tom after that plot was because they realized Cannon and Hubbard really did not have much chemistry together. If they had shown greater chemistry, then Cannon would have been kept front and center, regardless of whether or not Tom was a Nick clone. But they fizzled not sizzled, so he just became a background character at the hospital. The new headwriter was stuck with him, so the next thing that happened was his exit story.

Yes I felt there were a few inaccuracies as well. My understanding is that Jada joined as Carolee in October or November of 1976. Also the text said the writing under the Pollocks became repetitive which is surely someone's opinion. Others felt the Pollocks were doing just fine. All soap scribes repeat tropes. Yeah, what a hunk Glenn Corbett was...better looking in my opinion than Gil Gerard.

Very interesting. I can see why Corbett received star billing. He had been a lead on a hit primetime series (Route 66). I don't think any of the other leads had been regulars on a primetime series, were they? I liked Landrum. I think he was more suitable to playing Mike than Assante. Someone on one of these boards thought Assante would have been perfect as Rico, and I agree...that casting would have made more sense. Landrum was on for seven months, from October 1974 until May 1975. Assante had just finished a role on 'How to Survive a Marriage' which NBC cancelled in April that year. So he moved over to take Landrum's place.

Oh okay, not too many then. I live on the west coast, so I usually check to see what UCLA has in its archives. With them, it's based on what is donated. It might be anything from old videotaped episodes to scripts and production notes. When Bill Bell died, the Bell family donated boxes and boxes of scripts from The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. I think the estate gets a tax write-off when they donate materials like that for research and educational purposes.

Yes, most likely. Have you seen a lot of episodes at the Paley Center? I always wonder why certain ones are available for viewing and others are not. Are they chosen at random, or maybe the Paley Center is trying to present more groundbreaking episodes from the series.

Thanks. Obviously James Pritchett was in the most episodes. And Lydia Bruce probably surpasses LIz Hubbard and comes in second. Unless Dave O'Brien is second and Lydia Bruce is third.

Thanks Amy. That's helpful information. When Gerald Gordon returns for a few months in '76, does he get special billing again? I am guessing he probably does.

One thing I've wanted to ask is how long do these opening credits stay the same? I know there were different openings later on. Does Jeff Young update how the credits look, or does that happen with the next producer? Also, do people like James Pritchett and Dave O'Brien continue to get special billing at the end of each episode or does the show do away with that later?

This happened over a period of MANY years. His tenures at these three networks were not short. Some of the soaps had run their course and he was the one forced to pull the plug. In the case of AMC and OLTL I think he let them go as long as he could, though OLTL was rebounding at the end. He definitely hated SEARCH because he felt it skewed to an older audience and he wanted shows that attracted younger viewers. But even if Frons hadn't been at NBC in the mid-80s, I think SEARCH's cancellation was inevitable and that's why Procter & Gamble called it a day and ceased production. It had become too expensive to produce and the ratings were continuing to drop. They tried everything they could during its last year on the air to save it, but they eventually had to cut their losses. The same thing happened with EDGE OF NIGHT at the end of 1984. Both these soaps had been given a second chance on a different network but they were on their last legs.

Wow. You're right. He just died earlier this year. I wasn't aware of that. He was a great producer. His estate/heirs could still try to re-market Capitol, if they own the rights to it which I am thinking they do. It was an independently produced soap and Conboy syndicated it overseas. It was hugely popular in Italy.

I am so grateful for these. The quality is not great (old VHS copies) but it's better than nothing and at least they are online. I wish Conboy would put them on home video or at least rerun the show on a cable channel.

I don't think Lipton's dialogue was very good on 'The Doctors,' but it was passable. I did like his headwriting on 'Capitol' in the mid-80s...he was the show's final head scribe during its last year. Maybe because they knew it was ending and wanted to go out with a bang...his last three months on 'Capitol' were extraordinary. So maybe he was a guy who excelled at plotting and not exactly with the day to day scripting.

Not making excuses for the Pollocks, but I think sometimes they used extensive flashbacks to keep off-screen characters "alive" when they were between recasts. I noticed this when Toni had memories of Mike before he turned up alive in Singapore. And after Gerald Gordon left, they seemed to give Althea and Ann occasional flashbacks of Nick so we could see him again on screen, probably hoping Gordon would return to the role. Sometimes the excessive flashbacks were a necessary device, like when John died, and we were seeing pieces of how he was killed. I do agree that some of the other flashbacks were overdone, basically functioning as filler because the Pollocks were too lazy to create new scenes that moved the plots forward. I am looking forward to Marland's material, but it seems like were about nine months' worth of episodes away from his episodes on Retro if he didn't start until mid-76.

I guess that means Cenedella was headwriter for about six months. On the Daytime Royalty board someone said Pete's disappears and a more upscale restaurant takes it place, which undergoes a name change and eventually becomes a place called The Medicine Man. So not only do the successive scribes change the families, they change the local hangout. Personally I love the use of flashbacks on American soaps. I watch three British soaps and they never use flashbacks. Whenever they reference a huge event from the past, I have to find classic clips on YouTube so I can see what they're talking about.

I've been reading through some of the pages in the thread. Does the guy who knew Geraldine Court still post here? I have enjoyed his comments.

Michael, I know I am new here so I shouldn't be suggesting things. But every time I see the word "cancelled" it saddens me. It would be nice(r) if these boards could be labeled "Retro Soaps,' 'Classic Soaps of Yesteryear'...I dunno, anything but "Cancelled Soaps."

I've been reading the Soap Opera Digest synopses for the end of 75 and I am looking forward to Tom's exit around Christmas. I think that will be very poignant and give Martha some good stuff to do. I think the Pollocks were probably going to bring Dawn the nurse from Hong Kong to town at some point. Like after Toni and Mike reconciled then she would show up with a baby belonging to Mike, which would put Alan back in the running. There's a reason the Pollocks spent months on Mike & Dawn in Asia. But Cenedella seemed to want to go in another direction and give Toni an unwanted pregnancy. But that was still plot driven, because the point was that Toni would only have a child with Mike not with Alan, because if she hadn't miscarried she would have aborted it. I think Marie Thomas who played Lauri was a casualty of Jeff Young taking over as producer. It seems too coincidental that the other producer leaves and the Pollocks are on their way out, when she suddenly gets axed without any explanation. She should have had a farewell scene with Hank and one with Carolee. It was a shoddy way to break up one of the more solid couples viewers had invested in. Andy would have worked better in my opinion if they had remembered his early friendship with Matt. He should have been invited to the Powers home for dinners, maybe become an older friend of Greta's that she developed a harmless schoolgirl crush on. Like there was more they could have done with him besides just having him sing at Pete's. Someone on the Daytime Royalty board thought Joe's past in Vietnam should have been explored, and having him connect as friends with Alan who was also in Nam could have been a way to do it. But I just don't think Young or Cenedella wanted to be bothered with several of these characters and so they were given rushed, mostly uneventful exits.

Really? So the show obviously started to stumble after the Pollocks left. Maybe Doug Marland's stuff will be better. I wrote this a while back on the Daytime Royalty site, when I was waiting for my account to be verified here. Some of you may have read it over there, but this conveys my feelings about Cenedella as a writer: ***** I just watched the September 19th episode on YouTube. I have to say I felt this was one of Cendella's worst episodes. In fact I lost a lot of respect for him as a writer and am glad he will soon be replaced by DePriest. The stuff with Mike going off to South America is totally RIDICULOUS. He's not a cop, he's a doctor. He has no skills or training in how to guard/protect or ensure the safety of a gangster. I am sure if the Pollocks were still in charge and they needed to send him away from the hospital for awhile, they would have sent him to Singapore and we would have seen nurse Dawn again. There was no need to invent this gibberish about a criminal and Mike following never-before-seen said criminal to Bogota. I also felt Andy's exit seemed rushed. There was no foreshadowing or build up that he was missing his parents or that Penny and Stacy had broken his heart to such an extent he needed to leave. With Mike we've seen how his feelings about Toni would make him leave. But we had no inkling of that with Andy. He was primarily used in scenes as a singer. He had very little romantic drama to play since Cendella and Young took over. Joe's impending exit came out of nowhere. There are too many exits happening all at once, which I blame on the producer (Young) who seems eager to axe people he doesn't want on the show. The departures should be more gradual with proper foreshadowing, so their wanting to leave makes sense. The stuff with Hank & Matt was equally preposterous. I do like the idea of them mentioning preventative medicine. But Hank thinking they can take a paramedic unit into a poor section of town and making sure people repair faulty steps so kids don't fall down stairs is completely unrealistic. Doctors do not have time to go around and look for steps that need fixing. That's what a landlord and a repairman do. Again this was the worst episode I've watched post-Pollocks. Anyone know when Cendella's last episode airs? It won't be soon enough for me.

Thanks Amy. She's my favorite character/actress on the show. I remember watching her on Guiding Light in 1977/78. That time she played a French Canadian woman named Simone. I'm not a fan of Cenedella's writing and can't wait for Margaret DePriest's stuff to start airing. Any idea what month her material begins?

Hi everyone. I just joined. I asked some folks on another site how Karen eventually exits the show. Someone thought she was in another plane crash. Is that true? Or does she go back to Germany? Maybe she just disappears and is never mentioned. I find it strange she would not still be part of Erich's life when Carolee takes off. Why leave her son in the hands of Mona and Ann?