chrisml

Frankie was before Luna Moody on OLTL. If anyone copied a character, it was Michael Malone on OLTL--who would yrs later be an AW headwriter.

3 hours ago, j swift said:

Well, certainly by the time of Brandon's kidnapping, it was public knowledge that he wasn't Gina's biological son.  But, I still think his paternity was not common knowledge outside the family.  In fact, I'm willing to bet that Ted never knew that Channing was Brandon's father.  But, then again, Ted didn't know a lot of things about his family.

This made me laugh because the writers never knew what to do with Ted. Todd McKee was so attractive and charismatic, but pretty much an afterthought in terms of storylines. 

Re: social issues. I don't remember SB doing social issue stories. Perhaps, they did a few and I'm just not remembering them. My first thought was Eden's rape with the PSAs, but that was muddied by the identity of the rapist as that scared some female viewers. 

TPTB on soaps had such icky views on women and sexual assault. In the eighties and nineties, it seemed like rape was happening on all the soaps. I wonder if the writing of Laura's rape on GH was the catalyst for all these rape stories/glorification of the rapist idiocy. I would like to think attitudes have changed, but I'm not sure they have on the soaps, but I don't watch any of the current ones so I'm not sure.

 Vincent Irizarry was good looking so I can see why we were meant to see him as irresistible. The writing just wasn't there. I watched during his time on the show, and I can't remember anything significant he did on the show. SB had a lot of male characters like that: "attractive" men who just existed on the show but never did much of interest. 

It always amuses me when networks say they're firing an actor for budgetary reasons, but then hire actors (Robert Kelker-Kelly and Lisa Peluso) who don't come cheap. It's like Warner Brothers saying they need to cut debt so they gut the profitable TCM, but then they have enough money to spend massive amounts of money to promote BARBIE.

Did the producers and writers have much say with the show the last few years? It just seemed to be that that decisions were constantly made that would hurt the show. If a bad decision could be made, TPTB would make an even worse one. It feels the way P&G destroyed GL the last few years. 

I think Todd ruined OLTL. They had to write themselves into pretzels to try to redeem Todd, and then he overtook the show for the rest of the series as @soapfave06 pointed out. It's one of the reasons I bailed on the show for periods because I grew tired of it. I don't think Todd was worth all the trouble except that we wouldn't have Starr, but that's a sacrifice I'd be willing to make.

My family watched AW for the most part continuously up until the JFP era. Santa Barbara was watched from just after Eden's rape to around the time the Dobsons came back and then no one really watched after that (the family's allegiance turned to live viewings of GL rather than recordings). DOOL was another one that my family dipped in and out of. I remember my grandparents upset about Carly being buried, but I think they stopped watching after that. My mother never really watched DOOL and my relationship with the show was iffy too. I don't remember a significant time where 2 or three of the shows were watched at any given time. 

Sad about Nancy Frangione. She was such an amazing and underrated talent. There are some MatchGame/Hollywood Squares on youtube with Nancy Frangione and her then husband Chris Rich on them. Worth watching. She was fun on the show. 

Why don't I remember anything about the character of Laura? Hmmm. Must have been around the time I stopped watching for a bit.

I think FD's Frank could have been used more, but the writers never seemed to know what to do with him. I'd much rather have seen him than Deas's Buzz who I wish had been killed off or not even come on the show.

Beverlee McKinsey definitely deserved a lifetime achieve award during her lifetime since the Emmy voters  did not reward her talent on AW or GL. However, it's my understanding that lifetime Emmys are not given posthumously to performers who have died before the list of honourees is announced. I could be wrong and I'm not sure who would know the answer to that question. 

PG wanted out of the soap opera business. Nothing would have changed if Zimmer had taken a pay cut. I don't think Ellen Wheeler intentionally killed the show, but I think she had to work within certain mandates (which is not to say I was a huge fan of her work on the show). No producer could have made Peapack work or GL during some of the dumb decisions. We all know Peapack was idiotic and a waste of time because I'm sure the decision had been made to kill the show before they did it. Wheeler did know how to give actors good Emmy material, and I still think Nicole Forester should have won the Emmy the year Jeanne Cooper did. I'm glad Cooper got her competitive Emmy, but I found her winning reels mediocre at best.

1 minute ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Could you mean Mae the cigarette girl? 

She's the one! What a mess of a character. 

As much as I disliked Ellen Wheeler's tenure (and I stopped watching full time before the Peapack nonsense so my memory of that time is spotty), she didn't kill the show. The execs did by their inattention and idiotic decisions even before she took over. I'd like to blame her, but P&G wanted out of GL.

I agree that Weston's material could be a mess, but the episodes themselves would be watchable, but there was no story that kept me glued to the set. I was a fan of the Conboy opening in theory if it didn't look like something you'd make with imovie. It should have been so much more attractive, and it's a surprise that Conboy allowed it.

I actually don't remember what Michael Laibson did on the show. It was only a year so perhaps that's why. I don't know if I returned to the show at the time. Once Maureen was killed off, I stopped watching for a few years so only saw the show occasionally (usually when Tangie was on and I was so confused by what was happening with her). Don't think I even saw the Reva/amish stuff.

Was it during Labine's reign there was some gum-chewing waitress? Ugh. 

I think the whole Peapack thing was cruel because it was obvious the decision had been made to cancel it beforehand. Why not let the show go in a graceful way?Ugh.

5 hours ago, Xanthe said:

Was it in the Valentine for Singles that Stacy talked about wanting to have a baby again? I don't know if that would have been part of the plan for Stacey and Derek. More likely it was simply shorthand for Stacey wanting a romantic relationship. But it's always hard to know whether plans exist and then get derailed because of audience response or other backstage reasons.

My guess is that Swajeski just did not have any plans at all. Her tenure was full of unfulfilled storyline potential: Evan/Amanda/Sam, Derek/Stacey, Jake's shooting, Olivia, the Red Swan, Iris post-chief Reveal, etc. 

I think Derek and Stacy could have worked if there had been a game plan, but as with most of Swajeski's writing, the endgame was never thought out. Even if Stacy and Derek hadn't worked out, he could have moved into someone else's orbit. The show just seemed interested in aping the Beauty and the Beast t.v. show without having a purpose for Derek's character. I enjoyed it while it was going on, but it's a bit infuriating in retrospect that it ended up being a waste  of time.

Peacock would have a nightmare PR situation on their hands if they canceled the show rather than fire Alarr or take action. Doesn't mean they wouldn't since TPTB don't seem to have any sense, but the blowback would be so intense and I don't think they want that.

I always assumed Jacqueline Courteney was let go because of Paul Rauch and their previous professional relationship. I know when he went onto SB he immediately fired Louise Sorel who he had had an off-set relationship with when she was on OLTL. 

20 minutes ago, antmunoz said:

I remember MM one day, GG the next. But I don’t recall GG being off for a month after her first appearance. I recall her appearing a lot to cement the recast. 
 

I was a HUGE MM fan and I really wanted her to work on SB and later on DALLAS, where she should’ve permanently replaced Victoria Principal as Pam. 
 

GG’s weaker, more desperate, later addict Santana was not my favorite. Hated Wanda DeJesus also. 
 

However, firing the incredible Linda Gibboney as Gina for “name” Robin Mattson (even though Robin was superb) was my least favorite recast. 

Linda Gibboney quit because of the working conditions. She was not happy on the show. She gave an interview around the time she was in Generations talking about this. It's probably on some SB site somewhere. 

2 hours ago, j swift said:

from People Magazine, January 2006:

"[Kari] was told by a producer of the show that the writers had refused to accommodate her pregnancy and that she was dismissed because of it. " And Kari is not the only one who believes this to be true – another GH actress, Lesli Kay, says that she was fired for the same reason, and will be testifying against ABC. They believe that there is an "anti-pregnancy attitude on ABC soap operas and that actresses on the daytime programs are left with the choice to either terminate their pregnancies or lose their jobs….Even one whiff that an actress on an ABC daytime soap has conceived a child is enough to have her character killed off the show,"

Thank you for this! I remember now that there was a big controversy about JFP firing pregnant actresses. Laura Bonarrigo Koffman was also hired fired during her pregnancy. It's insane to me the amount of horrifying behavior that goes on, and it never ends. Arianne Zucker had to put up with the former president and her workplace? Just despicable and that press release is an insult. They need to clean house at DAYS and get rid of everyone who allowed this harassment to go on for years.

This is not a new story and it's not one that will go away because it's never taken seriously. It's always hidden away and TPTB will ignore what's happening until it goes public. The problem is so many media outlets also protect the offenders. Is Soap Opera Digest really going to post an in-depth story about "misconduct" on a set? They want access to the show, so they let it slide. 

I don't think it was just men who did these things. Wasn't JFP accused of similar things? Didn't Kari Wuhrer sue her and the network?

Carmen Duncan's Iris being revealed as the chief is something I won't ever forget. Duncan was extraordinary. She never got the acclaim she deserved. So many AW actors should have won Emmys: Wyndham, Duncan, Anna Stuart, David Forsyth, Alice Barrett, McKinsey (based on YT clips I've seen), Schnetzer, etc. come immediately to mind. 

I don't know if I buy into the split vote theory where two costars split the votes. A lot of times a performer will win over their castmate. I've noticed a pattern where the person who wins usually has the weaker tapes. 

I'm curious. What would people say are some of the best storylines the show did? I know the show isn't known for it's long-term plotting, but are there storylines you think deserve praise?