Broderick

9 minutes ago, Taoboi said:

I was hoping that I was off and that was the room that off of the living room set during the Billy/Chloe wedding. And then that weird hallway showed up and I just knew someone was going to be livid. 

Yeah, when Chance & Abby were sitting in that little "anteroom" discussing Devon's having porked her, there was a hallway visible outside the little room, and you could see some french doors in the hallway.  There was no evidence of a front door, a living room, or a dining room anywhere near the little "anteroom".  It gave the impression they'd constructed this makeshift little anteroom in order to ditch what was left of the foyer and the living room.  

I don't understand the cost savings in deconstructing existing sets.  Nor do I understand why they can't create bedrooms or hospital rooms with one wall, and tight camera angles.  Their biggest problem seems to be lack of imagination, rather than the tight budget itself.   

1 hour ago, will81 said:

Oh right, I've never read his book. So few actors on the show have ever said anything bad about him for whatever reason. I will have to look that up. Do you know if Jeanne made much mention of Conboy in her book? Did Brenda in hers?

In her little interview with the television archives, Jeanne Cooper says that John Conboy hired her (along with Patricia what's-her-name who was the associate producer back then), and Jeanne says he was suave and debonair and handsome, while Patricia looked like a pastry chef.   Jeanne had nothing but positive things to say about Conboy as the interview continued.  (Bill Bell pretty much hated him, I think, by the time they parted ways.)   

4 minutes ago, DaytimeFan said:

 

Did they do something else to the Chancellor mansion set aside from the horrible rotation, painted midnight blue, then back to yellow, with hideous mediocre furniture? 

Griffith by himself will be a disaster.

When Chance and Abby were sitting around discussing him walking in on her "sofa sex" with Devon, they had their conversation in this odd, random little room in the Chancellor house that seemed to be designed to take the place of the living room.  

38 minutes ago, YRfan23 said:

Yet this show always can find something to do with Morrow it seems 

You'd imagine that he and Case are paid about the same, since they've been on the show relatively the same length of time and in the same positions.  But it wouldn't surprise me if she makes a little more, since she arrived (in 1994?) a bit more experienced/seasoned and she's a little bit older than he is.  

Plus, he's a Newman on the show, and she's an ex-Newman.  If one of the two gets curtailed faster than the other for budgetary reasons, you can guess which one it'll be.   

Pay attention to Sharon Case, too.

Sharon's lack of airtime and lack of storyline has been so evident in 2022 that Soap Opera Digest named her "Biggest Waste of Talent".  All she does is appear sporadically, pour coffee, and offer advice like a glorified extra.

It seems possible she's become too expensive to use as frequently as before, resulting in a declining number of appearance and an unwillingness to showcase her in a story of her own.    

Sharon Case and Joshua Morrow, having been on the show 25+ years, are now "senior cast members", in a tier somewhere below Eric Braeden, Melody Thomas Scott, Peter Bergman, Kate Linder, and Christian LeBlanc.   

The next group, seniority-wise, are Bryton and Amelia Heinle, both of whom were hired in the early 2000s, when the "big budget days" were over.   

Doug Davidson, Kristoff St. John , Christian LeBlanc, and Kate Linder were all still listed as contract players in September 2018.  In September 2018, Doug Davidson publicly revealed in several interviews (and on Twitter) that he'd been working without a contract since January 2018, although he was listed as a contract actor.   He implied (but didn't state outright) that he wasn't alone in the "fake contract group".

Our poster, French Fan, was doing the episode counts during that time.  French Fan was consistently listing Doug as a contract actor.  Other posters would alert French Fan, 'You should remove Doug from the contract list, as he's recurring. He's admitted that he's recurring."  French Fan said, "Nope, can't do it.  He's still listed as contract."  (And he was still listed that way.)  Finally, in November 2018, two months after his public announcement that he'd been recurring since January 2018, Doug Davidson was removed from the credits as a contract actor.  It appeared that Doug was only removed because he'd publicly spilled the beans about having no contract. 

Kristoff St. John died in February 2019.  He was immediately removed from the contract players list at the point of his death.  Bryton gave a "post-death interview" and revealed that Kristoff (in addition to agonizing over his son Julian's death, was "very depressed" about his "status with the show" and whether he still truly "had a job".  Bryton said he'd been trying to cheer Kristoff up about his job situation.  (The implication was that Kristoff had ALSO been bumped to recurring but was still quietly masquerading as a contract performer, as Kristoff, unlike Doug Davidson, hadn't opened up publicly about his contract status.) 

[The last time that Bryton James saw St. John was a day he’ll never forget as he and another close friend, Daniel Goddard (Cane), spent an entire day with their distraught pal in a show of moral support. “He had been drinking pretty heavily for days straight and was talking about the possibility of hurting himself,” James explained. “He was convinced he had lost his job, just so many things. It was all wrapped into grief about Julian… I’d never seen somebody suffer, in person, like that. It was the hardest thing to watch, it was the hardest thing to see because you can’t do anything.”]

During all this, not a peep from Kate Linder or Christian LeBlanc, who'd seen their own appearances drastically reduced in a corresponding time period with Doug Davidson & Kristoff St. John's noticeable absence.  

Kate and Christian kept on posting positive things about the show on social media and attending show events and acting as though they were happy as clams with appearing five or six times a year (in Kate's case) or once or twice a month (in Christian's case).  

If I had to guess, I'd say that all 4 of them (Doug, Kristoff, Christian and Kate) were bumped during Mal Young's 2018 tenure but were allowed to continue being credited as contract players because of their seniority.  Don't know it for a fact, just guessing it.  But if they really DO still have contracts, Kate's contract must guarantee her about 6 shows annually, and Christian's contract must guarantee him about 2 shows per month.    

8 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

And it seems that newbies are on a 1 or 2 day guarantee.

I randomly checked Sean Dominic's first 13 weeks and it averaged out to 2 per week.

Yes, in the case of newbies, I suspect they have a lower rate per episode PLUS a lower guaranteed number of appearances, so there's a certain financial flexibility in using them more often as the budget allows.  You can sometimes afford to work them in excess of their "required minimum".  But in order to free-up the revenue to expand their appearances, you need to reduce the number of required appearances of say a Hans Gudegast or a Melody Thomas or a Peter Bergman, who have the higher dollar amount per appearance.  

These monthly recaps are a great tool for looking at the trends that are developing.  

We've talked a lot about the senior cast members and their required minimums.  It appears to me that Kate Linder and Christian LeBlanc have been downgraded to shockingly low required minimum appearances, or they're possibly even "glorified recurring", though they're still listed as contract cast members.  

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

Boy, a once a week guarantee at reduced salary is quite a comedown.

Maybe Braeden has accepted that he has reduced bargaining power these days and that a once a week average is all he is physically up to so he accepted.

It certainly takes the pressure off the writers to come up with stories for Victor.

I've always suspected that in the first big round of pay-cuts, certain senior actors (Hans, Melody Thomas, Peter Bergman) probably kept their existing guarantee of episodes (2.5 per week, 3 per week, whatever they had in place) but were given a reduced salary per episode.  Other senior actors (Doug Davidson) probably kept the higher salary per episode, but had the guaranteed number of episodes chopped down substantially or even eliminated entirely.

Now, with viewership still eroding and even more cutbacks necessary, we'll see both components come into play for the senior cast members -- those who were given a smaller per-episode-salary in 2009 or 2010 will now see their guaranteed number of appearances reduced as well.   

(Just my suspicion.)   

It's the ever-tightening budget, I expect.  

In 2009, we famously learned Hans has a contract cycle that begins in October & ends in September. 

"In October 2009, Braeden and The Young and the Restless came to an impasse regarding contract negotiations, and press reports indicated he might leave the show. However, CBS later announced that Braeden had inked a new three-year deal and would remain with the show, agreeing to a reduction in salary, which was the original issue."

Look at a recent 36-week period: 

December 2021                                                    13 shows

January 2022                                                         9 shows

March 2022                                                           16 shows

April 2022                                                              14 shows

May 2022                                                                9 shows

June 2022                                                             15 shows

July 2022                                                               10 shows

August 2022                                                          13 shows

September 2022                                                     9 shows

TOTALS                                                                   108 SHOWS IN A 36-WEEK PERIOD, EXACTLY 3 SHOWS PER WEEK AVERAGE

Now, look at his latest contract cycle, beginning in October of 2022

October 2022                                                            4 shows

November 2022                                                        4 shows

TOTALS                                                                      8 SHOWS IN AN 8-WEEK PERIOD, EXACTLY 1 SHOW PER WEEK AVERAGE

 I'm guessing that Hans signed a new contract in October 2022 that dropped him from a 3-show per week guarantee to a 1-show per week guarantee.  I could be dead wrong, of course.  

And of course it was pretty strange when Brenda Epperson was playing the older sister and Beth Maitland was playing the younger sister, with Epperson being about 7 years younger than Maitland. 

On 12/3/2022 at 11:57 AM, kalbir said:

That's also probably why Bill Bell kept ED Ashley and Traci in separate orbits when it came to their romances and romantic rivals. There was no way that 1985 Don Diamont could have kept up acting-wise w/ 1985 ED.

Those "separate orbits" were REALLY noticeable back in early 1980s to mid 1980s.  Although Beth Maitland is actually a year or so older than Eileen Davidson, Bill Bell really made an effort to keep Eileen's Ashley segregated from those "youth storylines" involving Traci, Lauren, Danny, Amy, Cricket, Brad, etal.  We would frequently see Ashley counseling Traci at home, or we'd see Ashley applauding Cricket's incredibly superb modeling skills as Miss Junior Jabot, or we'd see Ashley telling Jack to be nicer to Brad at work, but socially -- just no.  Ashley and Jack were in the "grown folks" storylines, and Traci existed in a whole different little world.  

Here's a home for sale in the Lake Geneva/Lyons/Genoa City area. 

If you look closely, the Emmy Awards behind the desk in the office, the Rocking Horse in the living room, the Merry-Go-Round horse next to the pub table, the Pool Table, and much of the artwork were featured about 10 years ago in the sale pictures of 247 East Chestnut #2500 in Chicago, where a certain former Y&R writer resided.  Looks like she's had enough of both Chicago AND Lake Geneva.    

 https://www.jamesedition.com/real_estate/lake-geneva-wi-usa/2842-moelter-dr-11835818

[I dug around until I found an article in which Eric Freiwald admits publicly that there's no such person as "Eric L. Roberts".  I'd never seen any of the "Eric L. Roberts" writers admit this in print.  Here's a portion of the article, from an Arizona newspaper.  Freiwald was living in Arizona in the late 1980s.]  

Plot Thickens in Prescott

Arizona Daily Star

May 28, 1989

Eric Freiwald had never watched a soap opera in his life.  

But that drastically changed nine years ago when he joined the writing team of "The Young and the Restless".  

Now he tunes in daily.  Or tapes shows for later viewing. 

Working from his Prescott home, Freiwald is one of several writers for the top-rated CBS daytime drama, which was created in 1973 by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell.

Unlike many daytime serials whose creators are concentrated on the East or West Coasts, the "Restless" writers are scattered across the country, linked by conference calls and Federal Express.

"This is probably one of the neatest jobs I've ever had because I was able to leave California, which I wanted to do, and get away to a small town," Freiwald, 61, says by phone from Prescott, where he has lived for almost three years.  

Freiwald was semiretired when he joined "Restless" in 1980.  

The screenwriter started his career in 1951, when he and Robert Schaefer sold their first script to Columbia Pictures for the "Durango Kid" series. From there, they wrote for such television westerns as "The Lone Ranger", "Annie Oakley", "Buffalo Bill Jr", "Wild Bill Hickok" and "Hopalong Cassidy".  

He and his partner were head writers for "Lassie" for ten years.  They also wrote for "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Maverick", "77 Sunset Strip", and "Whirlybirds".  

After Lassie ended in the mid-1970s, they decided to try other pursuits. 

When Freiwald learned through a friend that "Restless" was expanding to an hour format and was looking for new writers, he decided to give daytime a try.

He began watching the show and getting background from his daughter, Linda Schreiber, who had religiously watched "Restless" since its premiere in 1973.  

In the beginning, Freiwald, Schaefer, and Schreiber teamed up, choosing the pen name "Eric L. Roberts".  That's "Eric" for Freiwald, "L." for Linda Schreiber, and "Roberts" for Robert Schaefer.  

Within two or three shows, Schaefer bowed out.  Schreiber continued working as an apprentice to her father.  She later joined the Writers Guild and started writing scripts on her own, about 12 to 20 a year.  

Freiwald writes two shows a week on his electric typewriter, transforming prodigiously detailed 30- to 40-page outlines into finished scripts. Each one-hour show has a prologue and seven acts, separated by commercials.  

Freiwald has written more scripts, about 800 to 900, during the past nine years for "Restless" than he wrote during the first 25 years of his career.  

"When I was writing all these other shows, we would start completely from the very beginning with a blank piece of paper and no plot, and know that we would have to do something for Lassie or the Lone Ranger or whatever it happened to be.  As corny as some of those early shows might have been, the thrill was creating the thing from zero," he says. "In soap opera writing, the plotting and long-term progression of the story is done by the head writers.  I put the scenes into script form, working from an outline.  In some cases it's very strictly outlined and you follow a certain way that they want it done.  In other cases, it's just a suggestion of a scene and you are allowed to go with it."

"I get caught up in the story lines, and I get very excited to see what's coming next myself.  Most of my contact is with Kay Alden. After we get the outlines, I talk to her if I have questions. I will sometimes tell her not to tell me what's coming because I would rather not know. I'm always amazed at some of the directions the stories take that I never in my wildest dreams would have thought of. I really admire Bill Bell and Kay Alden, who create these stories and characters."  

[From here, he goes on to discuss that he especially likes writing sarcastic dialogue for Terry Lester's Jack Abbott character, for Jeanne Cooper's Kay Chancellor, and for Jess Walton's Jill Abbott.]  

6 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Apparently, Y&R went on location in 79 for the sequences where Kay escaped the burning asylum, wandered through the streets Genoa City finding her way back to the Chancellor mansion. Those scenes were tapds in parks, side streets of LA and a Beverly Hills Mansion.

Was that Y&R's first location shooting? can anyone recall other early location scenes?

There was the 1st episode with the truck.  I believe some of Leslie's nervous breakdown was done remotely.  

I vividly remember the one you described here, with Kay stumbling back from Fairview Sanitarium in the summer of 1979.  Later that year, there was one where Rose Deville and Vince Holliday dumped Walter Addison's corpse in an alley.  In the summer of 1980, there was the duel where Derek was shot in the butt by Douglas Austin.  (Seems like that one was done at the "fake Chancellor house" where we later saw, about 2003, Jill running through the grass to the house to stop Billy & Mac's wedding.)  There was another one circa 1980 or 1981 with Paul & Nikki nekkid in a gym, when a nekkid basketball team came in during their showers.  I'm sure there were a bunch more.  

5 hours ago, sheilaforever said:

Didn't the pilot/episode #1  have location scenes with Brad Elliott in the truck?

Do you happen to know more of this?

Wasn't Linda Schreiber the daughter of Eric Freiwald? But who was Robert Schaefer and why did they go for this fake credit?

Here's Robert Schaefer's obituary:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-television-writer-lived-his-life-as-wholesome-as-2006dec31-story.html

Robert Schaefer attended creative writing class with Eric Freiwald, and they became best friends and writing buddies.  They had an office together in Hollywood.  Linda Schreiber was Eric Freiwald's daughter. 

During the 1980s, the most prolific dialogue writer for Y&R was "Eric L. Roberts" -- an individual who never existed and who vanished into thin air.   After "Eric L. Roberts" "retired from Y&R", Eric Freiwald and Linda Schreiber began individually submitting scripts.  It became pretty clear the "Eric" was Eric Freiwald, the "L." was Linda Schreiber, and the "Roberts" was Robert Schaefer. 

Most of the 1980s episodes were attributed to William J. Bell, Kay Alden, John F. Smith, occasionally Elizabeth Harrower, occasionally Randy Holland, often Sally Sussman, and invariably "Eric L. Roberts".   

54 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Question- When Chance and Abby were having their convo re Dabby sex, where were they supposed to be?

I assume the Chancellor estate-is this the new living room? Have they done a Newman Ranch revamp and introduced a new room?

 

I couldn't figure out exactly where that small, cramped room was supposed to be.  There appeared to be a set of open french doors in the hallway just outside it.  And no evidence of an exterior exit.  

Chance was WAY too nice to Abby.  Can't say the same for Amanda, lol.  She really let Devon have it with both barrels.  That was a good "swan song" for Amanda, if she's planning to bow out for good.  

Closing credits today indicated Rory Gibson and Miss Wang have bitten the dust.  

10 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Found 2 more writers  for Y&R  whose names I don't recall seeing before.

 Mark Waxman From his bio

After graduating UCLA with a BA and MFA in Cinema (and being captain of the varsity fencing team), I  joined CBS, becoming the youngest network programming executive in the history of broadcasting. After several years of developing prime time comedy and drama series for CBS, I rose to the rank of Vice President of Children’s Programming. During that time, I also wrote scripts for the daytime drama, The Young and the Restless.

Jim Inman From his obit

In Hollywood, Jim had a featured role in Frank Sinatra's "The Detective" (1968) before becoming a playwright and screenwriter. He wrote for "Dark Shadows", "The Young and the Restless", "Dallas", "Romance Theatre" and several "After School Specials", two of which were nominated for Daytime Emmy awards.

A newspaper article mentions them as  writers in July 1980 along with Bell, Alden and Smith.

Seems like Waxman & Inman were (extremely) short-term dialogue writers when the show first expanded to an hour, and it was too much for Kay Alden & Jack Smith.

If I remember right, Waxman and Inman were replaced in the early 1980s by that trio of writers who masqueraded as "Eric L. Roberts".  (Eric Freiwald, Linda Schreiber, and Robert Schaefer) 

10 hours ago, slick jones said:

They dropped both Kristoff and Davidson to the recurring credits at about the same time, Neither was listed with the contract players when Mal decided they didn't matter.

According to the "Episode Count Archives" posted on SON, Doug Davidson was finally removed from the contract cast list in November 2018, after he revealed on Twitter in September 2018 that he'd been working "without a contract since January".   Until he complained publicly, he was treated by the show as being a contract performer, although he had no contract.  

According to the "Episode Count Archives" posted on SON, Kristoff St. John was removed from the contract cast in February 2019 (the week of his death). 

[That's what makes me wonder if Kate Linder and Christian LeBlanc actually have contracts, or if perhaps they're merely being treated as though they do because of their seniority with the show.  I don't understand how having a contract with an extremely low guarantee is beneficial to a performer, unless it's for health insurance purposes.  It seems such a contract merely prevents the actor from taking another, more lucrative, job.]      

Although Christian LeBlanc is listed in the credits with the contract actors, I believe he's recurring.  Ditto for Kate Linder.  (When Doug Davidson admitted to being recurring, he was also listed as a contract cast member.)  My own belief -- just mine -- is that LeBlanc, St. John, Doug Davidson, and Kate Linder were all four dropped to recurring, but out of respect for the longevity of the actors, they were given the "courtesy" of a contract credit, even though they're merely recurring.  Linder and LeBlanc haven't publicly complained, Kristoff is unfortunately gone now, and Doug Davidson won't hush about being "fired".  That's why I don't think they use him any longer.  He's probably not seen as a "team player".      

8 hours ago, DeliaIrisFan said:

If the mandate from ABC/P&G was to end the story ASAP, I can't help but wonder why they would go to the trouble of changing who the cult leader was?  And, in any event, why keep Eliot around as a reminder?  It is telling that the "abrupt" ending in the wake of a real PR mess sounds more thoughtful than the way modern soaps have been dropping characters and stories left and right for decades, presumably just based on of focus groups or whatever.

It was strictly my own speculation that Eliot Dorn had been salvaged from Children of the Earth, in order to get more mileage out of the character prior to killing him off (since the cult storyline was truncated).  Slesar indicated that "changes were made to the storyline", and we'll never know exactly what those changes were.  All of us who love Slesar know that his trademark was an ironic twist at the conclusion of a story, stunning the viewer with "nothing here is the way it originally appeared".  Very possibly, he had always intended the "twist" to be that Cody was the brains behind the cult, and Eliot was merely the front man.

On 11/4/2022 at 11:16 PM, danfling said:

 Kelly McGrath had been intended to be a more grown-up Timmy Ferriday.   However, because the character was supposed to have a romance with Jody Travis and because Timmy and Jody were cousins, the decision was made to make the character the son of Geri McGrath Pollock and Lee Pollock (Nancy's brother).

 Doesn't sound likely.  For the storyline to work, Timmy Faraday would've needed to spend his adolescence in Europe with an upper-middle-class family, where he encountered the deceptive girl that led to the knife attack in Rome.  (Kelly's whole backstory was predicated on that event, which led him to become a suspect in the Eliot Dorn and Cliff Nelson knife attacks.)  It would've taken a lot of fancy footwork to explain how Serena Faraday's kid wandered into that environment.  With Kelly, it worked fine. 

On 11/4/2022 at 3:20 PM, j swift said:

I don't know if it was Sleasar's influence, or the times, but I appreciate the sophistication of Raven having sexual relationships with both Elliott Dorn and Derek Mallory without any negative consequences.  

 Slesar seemed to have a laissez-faire approach to the sex lives of his characters; he didn't offer much judgement, or make them pay a price for a "sexual sin".   That was probably because his stories were principally about mystery and crime, rather than sex.  When April learned that Eliot Dorn was sleeping with Margo's maid, Eliot's (sheepish) response was, "Margo and I have an open marriage."  He was exaggerating, of course, but that's a subject most soaps wouldn't have touched in the late 1970s (or even today!) with a 10-foot pole.  April was a bit horrified and asked Miles if she should mention Eliot's tryst to her mother.  Miles seemed to offer Henry Slesar's own advice, "It's none of your business, so just forget about it.  They're both adults."  Miles was able to test his own advice at the tennis club vacation a short time later, when he accidentally discovered that Eliot was sleeping with Raven Swift, as well as with Sarah the maid.  

Yep, there's Diana/Diane Selkirk/Solaris/Celery!  I always got a kick out of the boy who played Cody.  Looking at the picture, I really get the feeling that if the story had been allowed to play to its fruition, Eliot Dorn would've been the "Jim Jones", rather than Cody.  I'm glad we got a couple more years of Eliot Dorn as the sleazy Unicorn owner.  Star Wilson was beautiful.  

12 hours ago, robbwolff said:

The young woman's name was Diana Selkirk and the role was played by Susan Yusen. 

Thank you, Robbwolff!  Diana Selkirk!  I was coming up with "Diane Solaris", "Dina Celery", and so many other things that weren't even close, I didn't even try guessing.  lol.  

I remember Miss Selkirk's "parting gift" for Mike -- the acid for his eyes.  Seems like Deborah Saxon ran across her at the bus stop or in a café and wondered why she was leaving town with a suitcase and a bottle of acid, then intercepted her before she could do any damage.  

In this episode, we get a new RECORD STORE set, for Gavin & Kelly to have a brief conversation in.   Looks like the set designer used a wall of windows, 10 posters, a dozen record albums, two record bins, and a cash register.  Total cost $3.  

Too bad today's soaps aren't this clever with their sets.  

41 minutes ago, bboy875 said:

I vaguely remember the 1 on Y&R? I was 8 and might misremember but did it end with money falling out of a briefcase in front of members and that's how they found out the leader was a fraud? I have a whole lot of reading to do and hope it jogs my memory 

Seems like on Y&R, the Asian lady (Sumiko?) who ran the New World commune was escaping with suitcases full of money, while Paul Williams was running around trying to save Peggy Brooks (who'd taken the "Deborah Saxon role" as the "fake member") from the rat-infested storage shed.  Peggy was representing the Y&R newspaper, while Deborah Saxon on Edge was working for the Monticello Police Department.    

37 minutes ago, Vee said:

I was a far too intrigued student of the Jonestown case for a few years. There were definitely press stories in the mix about Jones and the Peoples [sic] Temple for a large portion of the '70s - mostly in local press in San Francisco, CA, etc. and at one point they even had Rosalynn Carter's ear. It was a cause célèbre, Jim Jones was a flamboyant public figure so I would not be shocked by Slesar knowing of him. The Peoples Temple had a sophisticated PR apparatus and propaganda machine, and had garnered positive coverage and very public relationships with major California politicians for most of their existence despite IIRC clashing with other government agencies over their tax status and the growing suspicions re: ex-members, families, etc. In the later years the repeated rumors, whispers, and so on from concerned families, outcasts and various agencies finally began to drag them down with some more incisive press coverage, and that's when Jones moved the bulk of the Temple to Guyana in '77 (the settlement existed years before then, but the mass migration came late). A little over a year later, the massacre followed.

This came close to happening at OLTL, where they had to very hastily scrap and reshoot what I presume was already-filmed material with Todd and Blair's plane crashing in Mexico the week of 9/11. They did it again in 2007 because of Dena Higley's planned school shooter storyline with Jonathan Groff following the Virginia Tech shootings. Sadly, in '07 those kind of shooters still seemed like a relative novelty.

Could be right, Vee.  Slesar could've certainly heard of him!  There were several situations developing during that time frame -- movie and TV stars were revealing they were Scientologists (which was a "suspect organization" among some people), there was an outfit called "Heaven's Gate" in San Diego that was getting some attention, and multiple others.   I recall that after the events of November 1978, there were a number of novels published about cults, and Y&R even tried its hand at a fairly "benign" cult in the summer of 1980.  Slesar's timing, though -- yikes!

I don't want to turn this into a "cult thread", but I hope you've seen the video footage of Leo Ryan's visit to Jonestown.  It's chilling to realize all of the people in this NBC News clip would literally die within 24 hours of the filming: