1 hour ago, Brolden said:

 

That was The Intruder. Paul Korver's Chris worked there for a while (while he was dating Emily), and I believe even Henry was brough on board for a bit after his WOAK career tanked. 

Thanks. I remember she had this big career change under Sheffer. At first I felt he didn't really know what to do with her or how to write her. But I ended up enjoying the Emily-Hal pairing.

4 hours ago, Mitch said:

Why Stamford...cheaper...non union? I think that would have been a whole lot better then Peapack and..using closets and offices in CBS for sets..remember the 7-11 set that was built in a storage closet and they made poor Alex go in and say she "LOVED the hotdogs!"  Or Josh's church altar which was really Wheeler's desk?

 

They needed more imagination for the whole thing,...there are no exec offices they could use for Spaulding..no large rooms for the Spaulding Board Room..I remember Alan and Alex having a discussion in a closet and then walking into Phillips office which.was a bigger closet.

 

Things that did work included cemetery scenes and some good work outside what could have been a hospital. Other then that..crap.

The remotes in Peapack were dreadful. It was like the cast just showed up with their clothes from home. Nobody was really dressing the way their characters had dressed prior to changing the production model. The hand-held stuff has already been mentioned, but the lighting was even worse. Because people were wearing clothes from home, they might choose something bright which clashed with the outdoor lighting. And there was no real cinematographer trying to balance these bright color schemes or overabundance of light in the shots. It was just a director and some young camera operators, probably just out of college, running around chasing the actors trying to record it all. And the sound quality was abysmal. Zimmer talks about the sound problems in her book. She says one of her most dramatic scenes with Bradley Cole was destroyed because of background noise. But instead of reshooting it Wheeler just added in a track of background music to drown out the background noise which also drowned out all of the dialogue. It really was a mess, very amateurish. Wheeler was in over her head by that point and the whole ship was going down.

3 hours ago, Brolden said:

 

I think the store (located in, or at least adjacent to, the 'Oldtown' set) was supposed to be Fashions. I only started watching around 2000, but I always understood that Lisa was simultaneously running Fashions, The Argus, the Mona Lisa and the Lakeview (let's not forget the Lakeview!).

 

I seem to recall the pre-Oldtown Fashions set lasting until around 2005. I think I remember Casey and Celia shopping there and I am positive that was the same set that was seen in the late 90s, around Holden & Lily's wedding. 

 

The Argus wasn't a major presence after the late 90s (when Tom worked there for a while). I remember at some point in the early 00's a press conference being held (about what I do not know) where representatives for the Argus, the City Times, the Intruder and WOAK were all present, but other than that, I have zero recollection of the Argus between 2000-2010.

 

I believe in the 2000 Chrismas episode when Penny returns, the Hugheses are supposed to be at the Mona Lisa (although the set is definitely different from the 80s Mona Lisa set). Actually, come to think of it, I remember a late 90s episode where Lisa hires Carly to clean the toilets... I could swear that was the same set. And wasn't that also the place where Brad revealed the truth to John about Parker being his child (during Hal & Barbara's engagement party, I think?). So it seems the set was aroudn quite a bit in the late 90s, although I don't remember seeing it after the 2000 Christmas episode.

 

As for the Lakeview, it was around until the show's finale of course (although down to just 1 small set, instead of different sets for different areas). I was never sure when the Lakeview was brought onto the show... was it a 90s addition?

I remember the Lakeview being featured when Marland was head writer.

Didn't Susan Stewart stay there when she came back to Oakdale? Probably a million other characters too.

As for the newspapers, Sheffer had a plot where Emily was running a paper before she married Hal. Was it the City Times? I don't remember the Argus being mentioned too much, if at all, in the 2000s.

It was a bit unrealistic that Lisa had all those businesses at the same time. It probably started because Fulton had so many guaranteed episodes per week and the writers could meet those guarantees but putting her in scenes showing someone to their table, or helping someone pick out a dress. Lisa usually had scenes with all the other characters, up through the late 90s.

On 8/1/2018 at 5:28 PM, j swift said:

Remember this?

'Sex and the City' Costume Designer Patricia Field Joins CBS Daytime Drama 'Guiding Light' as Consulting Costume Designer

Posted, 2002-08-09

NEW YORK, Aug. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Emmy award-winning costume designer Patricia Field, best known for her work on HBO's Sex and the City, has been named Consulting Designer to Guiding Light, the CBS daytime drama, effective Monday, August 12, announced the show's Executive Producer Paul Rauch.

 

I don't recall how she dressed Reva

This happened because they had just hired Joan Collins to play Alexandra and promised Collins a delicious wardrobe. But they did give everyone else in the cast an updated look, even Lillian who was usually dressed in frumpy middle class duds when she wasn't at the hospital. But Collins was dropped in December and Rauch also left at the end of 2002. So I don't think this fashion designer stuck around very long. Under the next exec producer, John Conboy, things seemed to have been toned down. Conboy usually preferred to dress up the sets instead of the actors. Meaning Reva was back to looking like a soccer mom in 2003.

8 hours ago, Darn said:

 

Thanks @Khan!

 

I'm sure I've told this story before but I didn't even know other soaps than the ones on ABC existed until 1999 and GL was the first. I think my first episode was the one where Phillip and Beth were trapped on the mountain after the plane crash. Was that in San Cristobel?

 

Actually where WAS San Cristobel? The caribbean? I remember Reva drowning for an entire episode. It was weird as hell.

 

Anyway, my first impressions of the show was that everyone was blonde and it looked cheap. That never really changed.

San Christobel was said to be a small island nation somewhere in the Caribbean. One of the plots involved the Santos family having business on the island. And the Santoses were established as being Cuban not Mexican. So we can probably assume San Christobel was not far from Cuba.

I remember Lisa having a book store, didn't she? I was very young at the time, late 70s, but I seem to recall she sold books and magazines before she started selling clothes. I guess they wanted things to be more glamorous for her, so they changed the nature of her business.

In the mid-80s Lisa seemed to move away from the fashion stuff (leaving Barbara to do that) when she began running the Argus newspaper with stepson Brian McColl. Then when Doug Marland took over as head writer, she was running a restaurant called the Mona Lisa.

Did Lisa continue running the Mona Lisa after Marland died and other head writers took over in the 90s? In the episode someone posted about Nancy's death in 2010, they show Lisa running some business but it looked more like a coffee shop by that point, not a restaurant.

As for Barbara's fashion line, I think that happened around 1988 when Hank was introduced. The Bold and the Beautiful had premiered a short time earlier and probably had an influence on Marland doing this. It was suddenly in vogue for each soap to have a woman heading up a clothing line or fashionable business empire. Though was it very realistic that a woman who became as successful as Barbara did would continue to be headquartered out of a sleepy berg like Oakdale? Why would designers from New York come to a somewhat rural community in Illinois? Wouldn't it be the opposite, where someone with Barbara's talent would go to New York?

It was like Lucinda having this huge business that had contracts with international firms but yet she was still located in Oakdale U.S.A. and not a major industrial city.

12 hours ago, robbwolff said:

No. It means they showed only around 4 1/2 months of episodes since each hour-long episode was split into two half-hour episodes. If I remember correctly, TBS started with the Alex Marshall shooting, which took place sometime in November 1980. So TBS' run took the show probably through around sometime in March 1981.

Interesting. I suppose these same episodes were the ones that were available on AOL ten years ago.

12 hours ago, dc11786 said:

"Texas" aired on WTBS from October 4, 1983 until June 29, 1984. The episodes were split in half. The dropping of the "Texas" reruns coincided with the end of the 11:00pm airing of "The Catlins." Starting July 2, "The Catlins" only aired in its morning spot. The announcement about the single airing of "The Catlins" was made no later than March 20, 1984, before the anniversary and about the time that Proctor and Gamble became the credited production company for the show replacing Empire Media (which I believe was C.T. McIntyre's company). 

So this means TBS only showed nine months worth of Texas (the show ran for almost two and a half years)...? Were people upset that Texas was not allowed to run to its final episode?

8 hours ago, Khan said:

I really lay the blame for Long's failure at OLTL on JFP, who (IMO) was never enthused about collaborating with her.

I agree. She was replaced by Phelps after six months so Phelps could install one of her favorite writers, Megan McTavish.

I was mentioning to a friend recently that Doug Marland created a character (a villain no less) with the same first name-- Doug Cummings. Have there been cases with other headwriters who created characters named after themselves? I don't think this happens/happened very often. I don't remember Claire Labine ever creating a character named Claire on any of her shows. Or Pam Long creating  a character named Pam or Pamela. I mean they could come on to a show and inherit a character created by a previous writer, with the character having their same first name. But besides the Marland/Cummings example has there ever been another headwriter who created a new character named after himself or herself?

4 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

I always thought Pam Long needed a strong producer to reign in some of her tendencies. Her and Gail Kobe were probably too similar or wanted to really put their stamp on GL, even if that meant disregarding it's history.

 

I vastly prefer her second stint on GL, mostly because I think Robert Calhoun was really able to reign her in, and having Curlee has a Co-HW during that stint really helped to ground her work in ways her first stint wasn't able to achieve. I also think the return of Roger and Holly is what the show really needed at that time - and it was Curlee and Calhoun who were responsible for that, as Curlee said Long didn't even know who those characters were...

Probably they had ideas they planned to use on Texas if it had not been cancelled. So when P&G moved them both to GL, they just transferred some of that material and grafted it on to GL. This meant having to reduce screen time for some of the Bauers and other character Marland created that did not fit into this vision. Plus they wanted to bring over some of the cast from Texas.

But by 87 it was more a matter of canceling out the damage Munisteri and Manetta had done, refocusing the stories Pam had started in her first tenure, plus the creation of a new family, the Coopers.

In 1989 she reconceived Roger and Holly, giving Holly a new backstory (a Swiss husband named Lindsey we never met and a career Holly really didn't have under the Dobsons and Marland). Plus they revised Chrissie, to where she was now Blake. And Roger had become some spy, or whatever kind of intrigue it was to explain his absence for much of the decade after his presumed death nine years earlier.

Roger was then put into Spaulding corporate stories, while Holly ran WSPR.

Roger and Holly's parents were not mentioned during Long's reintroduction of these characters, though McTavish brought Holly's mother back later, and Estensten & Brown brought Holly's brother on for a story arc in the late 90s.

5 minutes ago, All My Shadows said:

I believe Texas and The Catlins aired together in an hourlong block. Texas was either split into 30-minute episodes or edited.

Thanks. It makes sense they would air together.

In another thread someone posted a late 1983 interview with GL headwriter Pam Long. In the article it says her former show Texas was being rerun on superstation WTBS. Did this coincide with broadcasts of The Catlins?

Texas ended its run in late December 1982 on NBC, and The Catlins debuted in April 1983. I am wondering if Texas re-aired in its entirety on TBS and if it was used as a companion soap with The Catlins. Anyone know?

27 minutes ago, MichaelGL said:

Interesting perspective. Some points I can agree with, some not so much.

 

It's rare to find others such as myself who viewed Lloyd Gold's tenure as good. I loved how he began to focus on Holly/Billy/Buzz, had Claire pulling her usual manipulations around Springfield and interacting with Alan, and the earthquake was a guilty pleasure of mines. I think his tenure injected new energy into the show, and it showed with the ratings. It was until the time travel story that Gold lost me and telling from the ratings around that time, he lost a few other viewers too. 

Even though I think Gold was on the writing team, it was Ellen Weston who wrote the reveal that Gus was the product of Alan and a nun. I would have made Gus the love child between Rita and Alan IMO. Millee Taggart brought back Annie during the Reva stalker storyline in which she was in a mental institution. 

I will never forgive McTavish for killing off my favorite character Nadine, and in such a disgusting way. Her tenure was a hit or miss for me.

Someone else noticed that there was a subtle shift in the feel of the show from when Pam Long and Nancy Curlee co-wrote to when Curlee wrote with Demorest and co. I agree there does seem to be a change. 1989 IMO was the show's best year.

I should have guessed Taggart did the episodes with Annie in the institution. Very good stuff.

And I'd forgotten about Claire's second stint in the early 2000s. There was more they could have done with her. She should have been there when Michelle and Danny were having their daughter.

One story I remember was with the mobster Salerno. Was that done by Gold or by Weston? I know it was one of those rare times Danny and Reva interacted since Reva was helping him nail Salerno, I think as part of her news show.

15 hours ago, victoria foxton said:

 

You can see the way that montage is edited that Estelle and T.R. are basically Tomlin's replacement for Stephanie and Wendy. So one set is being written out to make way for the other set to take center stage. Of course Tomlin used Bela in the new storyline with Estelle, but probably because T.R. was so young and the censors wouldn't allow a triangle with her, the other person in the triangle becomes Sunny who ultimately gets pregnant by Bela. Meaning Estelle ends up alone, until T.R. returns home to see her for Christmas 1986.

As for Wendy I don't think she was ever mentioned again after this, certainly not after the flood; and Stephanie was murdered in late January.

The scene with Stephanie and Suzi is a bit haunting because neither one of them will make it through 1986-- both are killed off.

1 hour ago, robbwolff said:

 

Nowhere did I say I was a fan of Curlee. In fact, I wasn't watching regularly at that time. I'm not trying to argue; just genuinely curious about how one can determine what was her material and what was the material of her co-head writers. 

In the same way you can tell what another writer (like Lucky Gold) contributes by finding similarities across stories that he cowrote with others. Gold had worked under Labine, then took over; and later he came back and worked under Kreizman. Since he introduced the Boudreaus when he was in charge, you can really see what his contributions are under Kreizman when someone like Remy Boudreau is recast and added back into the show. The writers tend to have their "pet" characters/actors and the issue-driven stories they prefer telling get revisited when they are working behind the scenes again.

Gold would work on ATWT after GL folded. So you look at those episodes and you start to find things that signify the Lucky Gold touch. You can do this for any writer.

Claire Labine's material is easy to spot because her characters have more normal speech patterns.

Sometimes you have to factor in the writer-producer relationship. I think Paul Rauch was very strong willed so he kept a tighter reign on the material headwriters created under him. Basically he gave them an idea and they built the plot. I think Goutman was like that too over on ATWT. Only some of Goutman's headwriters struggled to translate his vision.

Going back to the early 90s material on GL, you can see where the Curlee influences come in. But Stephen Demorest had a longer run so he was probably a bit more influential than she was during those years. Then you have to factor in Jill Farren Phelps who tended to build shows around hunky male actors (which why Vincent Irizarry returned as Nick McHenry and Mark Derwin got loads of screen time as A.J. Mallett, not to mention all Rick Hearst's frontburner stories as Alan-Michael Spaulding).

I just found Nancy Curlee to be a journeyman type writer. She was not this great iconic soap scribe like Pam Long, Doug Marland and Claire Labine.

2 hours ago, robbwolff said:

 

I'm curious. How can you determine what was Curlee's material and what was the material of her co-head writers (Reilly and Demorest)?

 

Sorry, not going into that argument. I'm not a fan of Curlee's. I get that some people are.

5 hours ago, Faulkner said:

Oh ok. I was very unhappy with San Cristobal, Beth/Phillip/Harley, clone Reva,  Teri/Annie (in spite of Signy Coleman’s best efforts) and the mob on GL, which why I didn’t enjoy a lot of B&E. It just felt like they thought the show needed this huge reset (maybe it did), but they took some of the worst elements of ‘80s sci-fi/action-adventure soap and Reilly-era DAYS to do it. And Labine loved her some mob, so it didn’t surprise me that she carried on the Santos stuff. 

 

What really made GL at all watchable in those last 15 years were the actors and their chemistry with each other. They elevated a whole lot of really iffy and desperate writing. GL took a lot of risks to save itself, but maybe it needed a DNR order at some point.

I didn't like Annie coming back as Terry DeMarco in the form of Signy Coleman. It was one of Esensten & Brown's misfires. Fortunately that story didn't last and Coleman was written out after a year. I did love the later guest appearance by Coleman as Annie, which I think was done by a different headwriter, where we learned the institution Alan put her in was designed to look like Josh and Reva's home. Very clever. They could have done more with that.

I agree that Estensten & Brown were trying to reset the show. And I think that was in tandem with Rauch's overall design to reconfigure things and make GL more watchable. The Reva/Dolly clone story was a bit too sci-fi/horror for my tastes but I think they wrapped it up pretty fast, and at least they were willing to take risks. They were running out of new ground to explore with Reva and I think they wanted to keep Kim Zimmer challenged.

I guess I should have explained my favorite GL headwriter choices, so here goes:

1. Pam Long...created iconic characters, more than just Reva. She reconceived Josh and Vanessa, as well as Alan, Phillip and Rick; Her core families were fantastic-- the revised Spauldings (with the introduction of Alex and Lujack); the Lewises, the Shaynes, the Coopers, just all so wonderful. She phased out several of the Bauers which I didn't care for and Alex took over as the main older female after Bert's death, but the Bauers still continued under Ed and Maureen; and the Reardons still continued with Chelsea.

2. Millee Taggart...the Alan, Olivia, Phillip triangle was excellent; she also new how to write the sisterly relationship between Reva and Cassie quite well; the heart transplant story for Rick which involved Richard's mercy killing by Reva was brilliant. She also kept Harley as a central character without putting Harley on screen four or five days a week like previous writers had done. That was a strong year under her guidance and Paul Rauch's producing.

3. Doug Marland...he was good with young characters like Kelly, Nola, Morgan, Floyd, Katie, etc. He also gave Roger an exciting exit in the spring of 1980. I thought the Carrie Todd storyline was intriguing if not ill-fated. The Reardons were fun if not a little too overexposed. I loved the Jennifer Richards storyline.

4. Jeff Ryder...he did a good job carrying Pam Long's creations forward. I loved Mindy's marriage to Kurt, which got her away from being a ping pong ball between Rick and Phillip. He knew how to write strong female characters: Sally Gleason, Maeve Stoddard, Vanessa, Reva, Claire Ramsey, Calla Matthews, Alex, India...they all had interesting things to do.

5. Barbara Esensten & James Harmon Brown...Cassie was their best new creation; also Richard and Edmond, which mirrored the old Roger-Ed stuff. I was a big fan of the San Christobel storyline even though it took some of the focus away from Springfield. Cassie and Richard's wedding was a highlight. I loved the storyline where Vanessa told nasty Ben Warren she wasn't going to help him and then shot him. But of course she lapsed into a coma, and Carmen Santos' daughter finished him off. The Santoses were exciting and I loved how they were connected with the Bauers through Michelle. To me this was a renaissance period for the show.

6. Jerome & Bridget Dobson...I started watching the show under them and was hooked. I loved characters like Hilary Bauer, Jackie Marler, Ross Marler, Rita Stapleton, Evie Stapleton; Justin Marler; Ben McFarland; and of course Alan Spaulding. A lot of great characters under them.

7. Claire Labine...some of her storylines felt forced but her dialogue was always so natural. I liked how she wrote for Mary Stuart as Meta; plus she continued the whole Santos-Bauer thing which I really enjoyed. I think she made a mistake killing Beth's husband Jim Lemay. But her use of Edmond as a villain was great; plus she brought Alan back after Ron Raines had gone off contract and Alan had become a recurring character for awhile.

8. Megan McTavish...she was inventive. I liked the story with Blake's twins having different fathers, it was unique. I liked the Brent/Marian drama. She brought Nola back. She gave Henry an excellent sendoff when Bill Roerick died. She also wrote interesting material for Gilly and Gilly's family. And I have to admit I liked the whole Goshen story with the Amish characters, especially the introduction of Abigail

9. Lloyd Gold...his main contribution was the Boudreau family, with Mel marrying Rick. It worked for me. He also did the story with the earthquake in San Christobel which upped the drama. He carried some of Labine's creations forward, most notably Gus Aitoro, who was a great character. I liked how he connected Gus to the Spauldings because Gus was the product of a relationship Alan had with a nun. I bet Claire Labine came up with that idea, but Gold is the one who fleshed it out.

10. David Kreizman...his first year was really solid; he ended the horrible Sandy story Weston started and made J.B. the long lost son from Christobel that Reva had with Richard. He refocused core characters and the business plots with the Spauldings started to make sense again. He brought Dinah back in the form of Gina Tognoni.

4 hours ago, Faulkner said:

Forgive me if you’ve already posted this, but what did you think of Nancy Curlee?

I didn't care for her writing. She often co-headwrote with others and I found her writing partners' material more interesting. I felt Curlee was overrated.

This is how I'd rank my favorite headwriters on GL:

1. Pam Long

2. Millee Taggart

3. Doug Marland

4. Jeff Ryder

5. Barbara Esensten & James Harmon Brown

6. Jerome & Bridget Dobson

7. Claire Labine

8. Megan McTavish

9. Lloyd Gold

10. David Kreizman

Worst

1. Sherry Anderson & Joseph Manetta (what a dreadful period right before Long's return; the show fell apart overnight; they did not get the characters or understand the show; it was the worst nine months ever in the history of Guiding Light)

2. Mary Ryan Munisteri (another one who was temporarily in charge between Ryder and Long's second tenure...the Andora plot with India and the little girl Dory was just awful...she was fired after three months).

3. Jill Lorie Hurst (the last headwriter..killing Coop off was a stunt to boost ratings at the last minute but was a mistake...the final episode was a dud...it felt like a college production those last six months)

4. Douglas Anderson (I think he was right before McTavish...the show was incredibly dull with him, Lucy and Alan-Michael were the main couple, the show felt lifeless; he only lasted six months.)

5. Ellen Weston (She retconned things with the Maryanne Carruthers story, made a mess of the core family histories; turning Edmond into a good guy when he was better as a villain; turning Reva into a psychic, really bad stuff).

On 7/22/2018 at 12:34 AM, Paul Raven said:

IT'S TRULY A CHALLENGE BEING THE TOP WRITER ON A LONG-TERM SOAP

By Tom Jory
Associated Press
December 22, 1983

GUIDING LIGHT has been a daytime companion for millions since 1937, starting on radio and switching to TV after 15 years. Can anything new, really new, ever happen to the Bauers or the Reardons or any of the other folks in Springfield?

"I get really upset," says Pamela Long Hammer, principal writer for the CBS soap opera since March, "because I'll come up with this neat scenario and someone will say, 'That's like Strangers on a Train.'

"I think, 'They keep stealing my material.'

"The way I figure it," she says, "there are only so many stories in the world. It's the characters who keep the show new and exciting. All of our stories come from them: I don't come up with a plot, and then work a character into it."

Continuity is important. Someone out there surely knows all that's happened, to everyone on the show, in 46 years.

"Nope. I care about what our core families have been doing," Hammer says. "I'm always interested in what happened to Bert Bauer (played since 1950 by Charita Bauer) 20 years ago, but as far as going back and reading scripts, no.

"Others on the show keep track," she says. "I'll suggest something, and be told, 'You don't remember, but five years ago, they had this terrible fight. They would never speak to one another now."'

Hammer, a former Miss Alabama who came to New York as an aspiring actress in 1980, began writing for daytime television while playing Ashley on NBC's TEXAS. She eventually wrote herself out of the story.

Her staff for GUIDING LIGHT includes nine writers, among them her husband, Charles Jay Hammer, whom she met while both worked on TEXAS.

NBC dropped TEXAS after two seasons, and episodes from the serial currently are being rerun on the Turner Broadcasting System's cable-TV superstation, WTBS.

Gail Kobe, who was executive producer of TEXAS, now has the same job on GUIDING LIGHT. And Beverlee McKinsey, who played Iris Carrington in ANOTHER WORLD on NBC, and later in TEXAS, will join the LIGHT cast of the CBS soap in February.

Hammer is reponsible for the long-term story, which can mean looking ahead 18 months or more. Staff writers deal with specifics, including the scripts for individual episodes.

She says she draws on "imagination and instinct" for the GUIDING LIGHT story. Often, that involves inventing new characters.

"I look at Vanessa (Maeve Kinkead), one of our leading ladies," Hammer says. "What could make the audience care more about her?

"Then I think, 'Why can't she find a man she can love, who will also love her?' Voila, here comes Billy Lewis (Jordan Clarke).

"Another example," she says, "is Alan Spaulding (Christopher Bernau). All of a sudden, he's got a sister no one ever knew about.

"They come complete," says Hammer of the serial's characters, including the new ones. "We know who they are and where they came from long before the viewer gets all that information. That's one of the most interesting things about daytime, the complexities of the characters."

The writers make a big effort to keep the show contemporary, and four of the leading players are in their late teens or early 20s - Judi Evans, who plays Beth Raines, Kristi Tasreau (Mindy Lewis), Grant Aleksander (Philip Spaulding) and Michael O'Leary (Rick Bauer).

GUIDING LIGHT, longevity notwithstanding, is a moderate success by that ultimate yardstick of the industry: ratings. The show is behind GENERAL HOSPITAL, ALL MY CHILDREN, and ONE LIFE TO LIVE, all on ABC, and CBS's THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS. Hammer says she's convinced writing is the key to greater achievement.

"When I say I love the characters, it's not a light thing," she says. "I think what the audience senses is an enthusiasm and an energy among the people who do the show."

Thanks for this. She's my favorite GL writer of all time. Followed by Millee Taggart and Doug Marland. She really did understand character and the need for characters to find love. Her creations carried the show through the next 25 years. Without the foundation laid by Pam Long during her two headwriting stints, the show would have ended much sooner.

2 hours ago, victoria foxton said:

 

I always liked Anne Sward's portrayal of Lyla. Was her exit something Marland had planned? Or did she get written out in 93 after his death because of budget cuts? I know she came back temporarily in 2000 under Sheffer. But it always felt strange her not being on the show in the late 90s when Katie was re-introduced all grown up.

Brolden,

Were there any pre-emptions around 9.11 (the day of the terrorist attacks)?

5 hours ago, Brolden said:

Thanks JarrodMFiresofLove for that info. I have in fact marked everything between July 13, 1987 and August 7, 1987 as potentially pre-empted because of the Iran-Contra hearings, except for July 21, 22 and 24, which did air, according to my info (23 was definitely pre-empted).

That's interesting about the duplicate numbering. If ATWT did this as well, it may be quite impossible to ever get to a full episode list. I have noticed, though, that I have actually been able to make connections between the sparse separate episode numbers I've found online. It's definitely difficult though, as episodes found on youtube could easily be mis-dated as well. I've also based a lot of my info on hearing Dan Region (or McCullough, for that matter) say "Join us tomorrow..." / "This is Dan Region, inviting you to join us again Monday..." / "Due to special programming, As The World Turns will not be seen tomorrow, but will return...". That obviously helps with scheduled pre-emptions, but it may not cover any unscheduled pre-emptions.

In the end, it's guesswork at best, but I already gotten much closer than I could possibly have imagined (from August 27, 1980, which is the earliest 'checkpoint' I could find, I'm coming up 99 pre-emptions short... which seems like a lot, until you realize that there were 6,761 weekdays between then and September 17, 2010), so I'm hoping we might be able to have a breakthrough together. 

Yes, it really becomes an approximation. But with ongoing diligence you might get your numbering process to be quite accurate. Are you going to keep count of actor/character appearances too?

7 hours ago, Brolden said:

I'm a long-time reader of this board and this thread (ATWT is the only soap I've ever seen), but haven't really posted in here before.

Last year, while I had some spare time on my hands, I started trying to compile a full episode list for the show. A few episode numbers have been well-documented, and I'm trying to connect the dots between them, finding out which episodes aired and which ones were pre-empted. Obviously, it's not going to be possible to go all the way back to 1956, but I'm hoping to get as far as I can towards 1985, possibly even 1979.

I've recently found myself having a bit more spare time again and I have completely re-traced every step I took last year to double check the dates. I'm keeping an excel file, in which I've put everything that I've confirmed in bold and everything that was pre-empted in red. I want to throw some of the question marks out here, to see if any of you can confirm if these episodes aired or were pre-empted.

So, working backwards, the first (rather large) era is 1995-2010. The final episode was #13,858. Episode #10,000 aired May 12, 1995. Both of those episode numbers can be found in a number of places. These are the pre-emptions I'm sure about:

1995 (post-May 12): September 4 & 8; November 23 & 24; December 29

1996: January 1; March 14 & 15; September 2 & 6; November 28 & 29

1997: March 7, 13 & 14; September 1 & 5; November 27 & 28; December 25 & 31

1998: January 1; February 16; March 12 & 13; August 20; September 7 & 11; October 29; November 26 & 27; December 17, 25 & 31

1999: January 1 & 19; March 11 & 12; September 6 & 10; November 25 & 26; December 31

2000: March 16 & 17; May 29; September 4 & 8; November 20, 23 & 24; December 25 & 29

2001: January 1; March 15 & 16; September 3, 7, 11, 12, 13 & 14; November 22 & 23; December 25 & 31

2002: January 1; March 14 & 15; September 2, 6 & 11; November 28 & 29; December 25 & 31

2003: January 1; March 20 & 21; September 1 & 5; November 27 & 28; December 25 & 31

2004: March 18 & 19; May 7; September 6 & 10; November 25 & 26; December 31

2005: January 20; March 17 & 18; September 5 & 9; November 24 & 25; December 30

2006: January 2; March 16 & 17; September 4 & 8; November 23 & 24; December 25 & 29

2007: January 1; March 15 & 16; April 17; September 3 & 7; November 22 & 23; December 25 & 31

2008: January 1; March 20 & 21; September 1 & 5; November 27 & 28; December 25 & 31

2009: January 1 & 20; March 19 & 20; July 7; September 7 & 11; November 26 & 27; December 31

2010: January 1; March 18 & 19; September 6 & 10

Taking into account all of the pre-emptions listed above, I'm coming up with three episodes too many between #10,000 and #13,858. So three more episodes were pre-empted. The problem is, I have four episodes that I suspect were pre-empted. Therefore, one of the below four episodes must have aired. These are the four episodes I suspect may have been pre-empted:

December 31, 1996: New Year's Eve was often, but not always, pre-empted.
January 1, 1997: New Year's Day was often, but not always, pre-empted.
July 4, 1997: I had this marked as pre-empted when I worked on this project last year, but wasn't able to verify it when I re-traced my steps this year.
May 25, 1998: I had this marked as pre-empted when I worked on this proejct last year, but wasn't able to verify it when I re-traces my steps this year.    

Any info on these four air-dates is would be much appreciated, especially if it can be backed up with some evidence. I'll post the next era (July 12, 1993 - May 12, 1995) later...

Hi Brolden. I know when you get to the summer of 1987 there will be a few pre-emptions for the Iran Contra Affair hearings. You might find documentation about that in old issues of Soap Opera Digest. There were at least a half dozen pre-emptions during that time, maybe more.

When looking at the episode numbers of The Doctors, on another website, I realized that sometimes the numbers are not always consistent. Like when there was a pre-emption, the episode that didn't air would take a new number. So for example episode 1999 would become 1999/2000 since it ended up airing in the spot designated for 2000. And then 2000 would become 2001 and so on. This happened every time there was a pre-emption. I guess that's how they recorded the fact that something had two scheduled airings (though obviously only aired once). As a result of the duplicate numbering, the overall total is off. So on the wiki page for The Doctors, where it says there are 5155 total episodes, that number is actually incorrect...that number is in reference to scheduled broadcasts not actual episodes. This is because with the occasional duplicate numbering over the years there are probably a hundred less overall episodes and the real total is most likely between 5000 and 5100.  This throws off what people consider the milestone episodes. The episode they celebrated as #5000 was really the 5000th scheduled broadcast, not the 5000th episode.

I don't know if As the World Turns also employed a duplicate numbering process for pre-emptions. It was produced by a different company than The Doctors so it might have had a different policy. I am just mentioning this in the event you come across an old script and the number on that is slightly off from what you were led to believe it should be. The episode numbers may end up being approximations.

43 minutes ago, robbwolff said:

From the blurbs I read about the book, she claims to have learned about his supposed affairs after he contacted her from beyond the grave via her dreams. 

Yes, one blurb I read said these were paranormal conversations. I do believe we can re-invoke people after they're dead. But I don't think dead people make full confessions to us in our dreams. It would be an interesting soap opera plot wouldn't it! I see her book as a combination of psychotherapy and creative writing. She obviously is dealing with things that happened in their marriage or things she has been led to believe happened. Her website is actually very nice. She's done a good job documenting the phases of his career. I particularly love the photos where he's clowning around with Stephen Yates (Ben) and where they are at the beach house of Chris Bernau (Alan). I get the impression they were a close knit cast, all the ones hired under the Dobsons. The mid to late 70s was a great time for GL.

43 minutes ago, slick jones said:

The Franklins:

Amy ___ Phillips Franklin   Karen Evans Kandel   abused wife of Lloyd Phillips, eventually married Roy..

Leonard Franklin, Jr.    Never Seen, deceased.

Leonard Franklin , Sr.      Charles B. Dumas   1989

                                          Mel Winkler   1986

Nella Franklin              Tiffani Caesar    1986

                                        Kasi Lemmons   1987-88

                                       Victoria Rowell   1988-89 (?90)

Roy Franklin                  Count Stovall    1985-89

Sarah __  Franklin        Novella Nelson   1986-89 occasional

Interesting info...thanks. I don't remember Roy's wife at all.