Broderick
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Posts posted by Broderick
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On 4/24/2022 at 11:05 AM, Khan said:
And even though I'd be VERY reluctant not to recast Phillip, if bringing back TB were part of the bargain that I'd have to strike with CBS or Sony, then fine, I'll work with what (little) I've got. But my point is, if they went to the trouble of bringing Phillip back from the dead (and as a gay man), then they need to use him.
It really does seem stupid not to show him occasionally after they jumped through so many illogical hoops to resurrect him from the dead. In my opinion, Bierdz's acting has declined to the point where he's more of a liability than an asset, but I believe he should be given a few lines of dialogue a year to remind us, "Here's this once-popular legacy character who's Jill's son and Billy's brother and Chance's father, whom you believed to be dead for 20 years, but now he's alive and well and running a bar in Australia!" It's absurd to resurrect him and then HIDE him from the viewers completely. If he were needed in an actual storyline on an ongoing basis, they should probably recast the part with an actor who has more refined skills and less personal baggage. But either way -- original actor or recast -- he shouldn't be completely invisible to the audience 100% of the time.
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Of all the Post-Bell Back From the Great Beyond Storylines, the one that struck me as the most egregious was Phillip. That was horrible. The whole time it was playing out on-screen, I noticed that neither Jill nor Kay never hugged him, stroked his face lovingly, nor had a moving conversation with him. They lectured him a LOT for tricking them (understandably), but they never showed him any affection whatsoever, and they never seemed genuinely relieved that he was alive. After all the years they spent fighting over him, and all the years they spent hovering over him and catering to him, he got a couple of stern lectures from them about playing dead, and then he moved on to another continent. No emotion.
SURELY there was a way for Maria Arena to expose Cane Ashby as a hoax and imposter, without going the extra mile of resurrecting Phillip for -- nothing! -- except a short-term stupid storyline with no emotional impact at all.
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I don't find Abby any worse than anyone else on the show. She makes me yawn about half the time, but so do Chance, Devon, and Amanda. I think it's just a case of four (fairly) appealing performers being stuck in a dud of a storyline, and none of the four can figure out how to rise out of the quagmire. As the daughter of Ashley & Victor, Abby ought to be sparkling and shining through it, but she ain't. As the grandson of Kay Chancellor, Devon should be sparkling and shining though it, but he ain't. As someone who was re-hired because of her popularity and talent, Amanda should be sparkling and shining through it, but she ain't. That's what a lousy storyline does to the cast, though; it can turn anyone into a yawner.
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I guess Bradley Bell knows what he's doing. It's a 30-minute show that always looks hastily slapped together without much forethought, planning, or depth. Watching it is a mindless exercise, but it remains popular both here and abroad. My feeling is that Bradley Bell has the attention span of a gnat, and his target audience likely does too. So I guess it works for him.
The networks have sought for decades to "dumb down" the other soaps to the B&B level, as that's what evidently appeals to the masses these days.
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4 hours ago, ironlion said:
Other soaps have been able to sustain regime changes. Not this one.
This show was a unique product, the vision of one person who generally knew exactly what he was doing. Once that vision is gone (and heaven knows it's BEEN gone!), you're really just left with a mess. Kay Alden could copy Bill Bell's style, but not his quality. Jack Smith is a bumbling fool. Lynn Marie Latham didn't know what Y&R was even supposed to be. Maria Arena isn't a writer, and the writers she employed to do her job were frivolous and ill-informed. Sally Sussman could copy Bell's style, but was likely crippled by lack of planning and SONY's interference. Josh Griffith is scared to take a chance and do anything unpredictable. Charles Pratt is -- well, he shouldn't have been there. Neither should Mal Young. There's just evidently no one who can straighten out this mess.
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On 3/8/2022 at 9:56 PM, Khan said:
DYNASTY could have left DALLAS in the dust, if they had had better writing.
And Dynasty's writing was actually pretty good in the first season or two. Despite the characters being sorta "other-worldly" (probably wouldn't know to change a tire or crank a lawn mower), there was a certain accessibility to them in the beginning. They initially seemed like "real people", much like the Ewings were on Dallas. That was completely lost, though, once they ventured into the high camp arena, where practically every scene involved a confrontation, a slap, and someone turning and flouncing out angrily in a sea of boas and plumes.
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On 4/8/2022 at 9:17 PM, slick jones said:
@Broderick @will81 I did a profile for the SOAP HOPPERS thread on Robert Gibson. Is this the same actor that played David Mallory, the man that received Bill Foster's eyes? I haven't found a Y&R related picture (so far).
A good friend thinks it was him, but he's admitted he could be wrong. Thanks.
I declare. There don't seem to be many pics of David Mallory floating around!
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One of the most believable actresses in any medium. Whether you watched daily, or only once in a blue moon, you knew Kathryn Hays, and you knew Kim. She'll certainly be missed.
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On 4/3/2022 at 9:11 AM, ltm1997 said:
Jumping into the conversation of Nikki and Jill, do you all think there ever could’ve been a way of writing the show back during MTS’s first year that Nikki and Jill could’ve become chums?? I know you all said they’re both way different, but I’ve always wondered what it would’ve been like if they were both at the Allegro one night, Jill down about her marriage to Stu and not knowing where she stands with Derek, and Nikki down about killing her father or they could’ve written something else she was bummed about, and then they bring the two together through some dialogue to form some kind of bond and they maybe have a short-lived friendship? I wonder how Brenda and Melody’s chemistry would’ve been and how the characters would’ve played it out with each other, especially during 1979.
Maybe Bill Bell could’ve written that Jill helps Nikki where Greg is concerned and Jill coaches Nikki on how to win him over and get in his good graces. Then, to repay Jill, Nikki coaches Jill on how to win Derek over in more of a slutty, seductive way that Jill hasn’t considered yet and to try and beat Suzanne at her own game.
Sorry if this sounds stupid, I just wondered about it haha.
Aside from Paul, Nikki's "friends" were always mainly people she felt could propel her into the spotlight, and Jill's "friends" were mainly people who could provide her with financial security. A friendship with Jill wouldn't have benefited Nikki's goals for stardom, and a friendship with Nikki wouldn't have furthered Jill's goals for a big house and a maid. So they'd have just been wasting time with each other, lol.
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The reliquary Victoria Newman made from construction paper and glitter. (Just kidding.)
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2 hours ago, Khan said:
IMO, Kay and Nikki's relationship worked, because of the little-girl naivete that made Nikki outwardly different from Jill, who could seem almost TOO greedy and grasping at times.
Yeah, Nikki and Jill were distinctly different from each other, though they were both "wrong-side-of-the-tracks" types who rose above their circumstances.
Jill was constantly plotting with more of a concrete game plan -- get herself a rich husband & a plush life where she isn't required to be a manicurist or a pedicurist.
Nikki was in more of a celebrity-seeking dream world, where she wanted public acclamation and applause, whether it came from modeling lingerie, being the star attraction in a seedy strip club, or appearing in perfume ads. She wanted to be a celebrity. That was her little goal.
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9 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:
At what point did Nikki mature somewhat?
Under Bell's pen, she seemed to take a few steps forward, and then a few steps back. We watched her stumble stupidly through the "Hot Hips" porno tape escapade, the marriage to gangster Tony DiSalvo, the Rick Daros fiasco, and then she finally married Victor and seemed to gain a small modicum of credibility as a smart young housewife. Then she runs off half-cocked, looking for Cora Miller -- the LAST person Victor ever wanted to see again in his life -- because it never occurred to her that was a bad idea. Another step backwards. It ultimately worked out okay, though, because it united Victor with his mother, the two of them reached a painful understanding, and Nikki finally appeared to have walking-about sense after all. But six months later, she's attempting to strip to raise money at the charity gala, and then she's shacked-up with Terry Lester's Jack in an apartment while she's still married to Victor, then she's "dying" and dragging a casket into the living room of the ranch, telling horror stories about the Wicked Witch to her young daughter --- there was just such an innate DUMBNESS about her, and it was hard to dislike her even when she was at her worst.
I guess it was Peter Bergman and the alcoholic pill-popping that matured her the most. (Even then, though, the crux of her problem was supposedly "back pain", but it never crossed her mind to take off those eight-inch tall, high-heeled stilettos to relieve her back pain instead of gulping vodka and popping pain pills, lol.)
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5 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:
And that kind of character can be a writer's dream.
If the audience is on her side a Nikki like character can stumble from one (self induced ) disaster to the next without wearing out her welcome.
Yes, during Erica's tenure -- now I'm speaking as a viewer who was a sweaty-palmed teenage boy -- there was a certain EXCITEMENT in seeing who Nikki would sleep with next, or what disease she might give him. But you could easily tell there was no sustainability in a character like that.
With Melody, we watched her hatch a scheme to model PANTIES for Rose Deville and Vince Holliday, because she genuinely thought that was the ideal stepping-stone to become a renowned model. And it was CUTE, because she just seemed so DUMB and so misguided, but so genuine. And poor Greg had no real knowledge that she was signing-up specifically to model lingerie and panties. So she took the cash advance from LaPleu Belle Rose, couldn't repay it, and now she's supposed to start hooking, and she was like, "Uh-oh!" And it was CUTE.
Then we watched her wander into a cult that she thought was a "sweet commune", because that's how dumb she and Paul were. Again, it was CUTE. No, it wasn't a good storyline, but it was a natural and realistic progression for those two dead-beat, naïve, not-so-industrious characters.
A year or so later, we had her STRIPPING, because that got her some applause. Perfectly fitting for her character. She hadn't learned a damn thing from the "modeling".
Then we had Nikki pregnant and lying to Kevin and lying to Victor, and Kay Chancellor was rolling her eyes, waving her jeweled talons in the air, and saying, "Dear Sweet God, Nikki, of all the impulsive, foolish schemes that you have hatched -- and my dear girl, you have hatched your share and THEN some -- but this is one of your dumbest yet," and it all just really CLICKED for the Nikki character. She was a dimwit, and it worked for her.
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9 minutes ago, will81 said:
I am pretty sure, without naming her, Kay Alden mentioned that Erica was too much like her character and often wouldn't even turn up and they had no other choice but to replace her. Probably why they went a slightly different direction with MTS being cast. Once bitten, twice shy and all that
No offense to Miss Hope, but LORD, I can easily imagine that happened. Erica Hope came across as awfully "low-rent". And there wasn't any warmth or humor in the portrayal. It was just -- well, it was something, lol.
Melody was completely different. The character was still a slut, but there was a DIM-WITTED INNOCENCE in Melody's portrayal that we hadn't seen in Erica's. And it worked wonders for making the character's motivations seem less abrasive and grotesque.
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I think Nikki just slowly evolved into someone worth keeping. As mentioned earlier, the emphasis (at first) seemed to be on Casey, and Nikki was almost an afterthought -- Patty Minter's lazy sidekick at the Allegro.
Erica Hope played Nikki as trashy and slutty, without much depth (which is the way the part was written). When it became evident that Erica Hope wasn't working out -- and I was never sure what happened backstage, but I sorta suspected she was coming to the studio unprepared and hungover, lol -- the recast started things moving in a more long-term direction.
Melody Thomas brought a certain "scatter-brained stupidity" to the character that made her sluttiness FUNNY and sort of ENDEARING, instead of just provocative. She still wasn't anything to write home about, until she crossed paths with Victor and Kay. The depth and maturity of Eric Braeden and Jeanne Cooper really HIGHLIGHTED the immaturity, impulsiveness, and air-headed characteristics of Nikki, and that's when I believe she broke-out of the "sidekick" role and truly became an ingenue in her own right.
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46 minutes ago, ltm1997 said:
Oh wow, thank you for mentioning that! I never knew that was how it all played out as far as what aired when. Also, it’s interesting how it was known as a C-level storyline. So for 1979, who would’ve been the A and B-level storylines while this was all going on? I myself have never been interested in the Brooks or Prentiss families during any time they were on the show. They just didn’t have the excitement for me nearly as much as the Foster and Chancellor families. If I think of memorable scenes or storylines, I never think of the Brooks or Prentiss families. Ever. LOL.
lol, I guess it's a matter of opinion what's the "A-story", the "B-story", and the "C-story", but in Bill Bell's case, the dialogue and the music cues typically showed you what he felt most invested in. And he clearly LOVED anything involving Lorie and Lance, which is why I consider that his "A-story". The "B-stories" at that time were probably the doomed marriage of Jill and Stuart, the gaslighting of Kay Thurston by Suzanne Lynch, and Chris Brooks getting caught up with Sharon & Julie (or whatever their names were) -- that evolved into the "White Slavery" storyline where Brock and Snapper had to save Chris from Rose Deville's backroom at Second Hand Rose's Antiques & Pretty Things. The whole storyline with Nick and Nikki played-out on random, non-consecutive days almost as an afterthought (which is why I called it a "C-story").
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42 minutes ago, will81 said:
In the first or second episode Stuart makes a point of saying his family isn't rich, just well-to-do. I think this was abandonded at some point or whenever Bell needed them to have a lot of money for story purposes.
Will, in the scene you're speaking of, I believe that Stuart Brooks was deliberately downplaying his wealth and social prominence (as was his nature pretty consistently throughout his run from 1973-1983.) A few pages back, someone posted an outline from late March 1973 that Bill Bell had typed for Kay Lenard (one of his early script writers) to utilize in crafting dialogue. One of Bell's reminders in the outline to Kay Lenard was, "Forget about the Brooks' money and affluence; they should emerge in this episode as pretty identifiable people." We see the same thing in an earlier episode written entirely by Bill Bell (I believe it's Episode 2) where Jennifer Brooks, in her pearls, is tearing lettuce for the salad while her roast is in the oven; they all sit down and eat in the kitchen, and the younger two daughters tease each other about dessert. (Chris is on a diet.) While they eat, they speak matter-of-factly about Lorie studying in Paris, as though they believe every family in America sends their kids to Europe to college. (This is juxtaposed with Jill and Snapper in the dowdy Foster living room, where Snapper is sort of lecturing Jill about skipping work with menstrual cramps, because they need the money.) What Bell seemed to be striving for here with the Brooks is a family that NEVER has to worry about money, never even THINKS about money, but have no social pretensions whatsoever. And I believe Bell was doing that deliberately to set the stage for Lorie to breeze in a few months later with a snotty, entitled attitude that wasn't present in any of the other girls. He was also setting-up Jennifer as a somewhat bored, vain housewife who had no qualms about sleeping around.
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42 minutes ago, will81 said:
In Dec 74 Greg goes to Leslie and asks her to rehire Gwen at Allegro, so I guess she was hands on when it was needed, but I am pretty sure she really didn't run the place and by 1975 Brock was running it.
Right, Leslie owned the Allegro, but I don't recall her ever consistently being a hands-on manager.
Janice Lynde's Leslie was such an *introverted* person that it wouldn't have made much sense for her to pass out menus, serve drinks, and chit-chat with customers. But it did make sense for her to sing a Broadway showtune in the Allegro, receive a round of applause, and then duck away behind the potted plants.
Brock was the type of person who needed to be in the Allegro on a daily basis, and Bill Bell seemed to realize that fairly quickly. That's really where your 1970s "unity" arose. Brock could stand at the bar and counsel Chris about the Beckers in the prologue, then give Jack or Joanne Curtis a pep-talk in Act II, and then encourage Kay to forgive Jill for some wrongdoing in Act III -- all in the same set. The central characters in each separate storyline could stay in their own individual orbits, never crossing paths or even seeing one another, but Brock could speak with any or all of them at the bar or at a table, and it seemed completely natural and organic.
Those interactions didn't happen as often once Jonas was running the place, because Jonas lacked the history with the other characters (and the knowledge of their predicaments) that Brock had possessed, by virtue of Brock being Kay's son, friends with all of the Foster kids, and friends with all of the Brooks girls.
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11 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:
Y&R created a set for Jonas' club located in Wherever USA.
Up until then the meeting spot in GC was The Allegro (formerly Pierre's) When Pierre died in 74, did Leslie buy the restaurant from Sally or Pierre's sister?
Les was an up and coming concert pianist, how could she afford to buy it?
Was Leslie's plan to be hands on, or was it merely an investment?
Anyhoo, Brock started working there at some point.
Back to Jonas' club. Leslie decided to revamp The Allegro by magically redecorating it identically to his wherever venue.
So the set for Jonas' lived on in GC. Did he sell the other club?
Jonas' got renamed Gina's and lived on until it was burned down.
Gina then shifted to GCAC. Why didn't she rebuild her old club?
So many questions but I'm sure we can piece together some answers.
Seems like it was SALLY who sold Pierre's to Leslie Brooks, but it might've been Marianne Roulland. The reason I'm thinking it was Sally was that Sally and Brad Eliot were friends. (Brad and Sally both had rooms above Pierre's for a while.)
It was Brad who talked Leslie into buying it. The rationale was that Leslie could perform in Pierre's without having to travel to Chicago or Detroit and book a venue. Leslie named it the Allegro.
Brock was sort of the "pivotal character" who knew everyone on the show. Got a problem? -- Go talk to Brock. Bill Bell seemed to like the idea of having Brock in the Allegro where he could routinely consult with Snapper, Greg, Jill, all four of the Brooks girls, Kay, and random runaway teenagers without ever having to leave the counter. He could also belt-out a song when the show was running short.
Then of course it went to Jonas after Brock left the show, but Jonas couldn't exactly offer spiritual advice and pepper everyone with 20 questions the way Brock did. After Jonas left, Gina bought the club, of course, with some financing from Jack Abbott, and she continued Brock's tradition of nosing into everyone's business while seating them.
My recollection is that Gina said, after the burn-down, "Too many memories here. Time to start over. Time to move on."
The REAL behind-the-scenes motivation behind the switch from Gina's to the Athletic Club seemed to be the SALAD BAR. At some point circa 2002, the set decorators decided to place a gigantic, oversized SALAD BAR in the middle of the floor in Gina's. They made a big production of having all the characters discuss how WONDERFUL the salad bar was. But of course the problem was inevitable -- the salad bar was in the middle of the room, and there was no way in the world to move the cameras around the damn salad bar. I've never been able to understand how such a critical set-design mistake could be made by seasoned professionals. But the salad bar made all the camera angles impossible to achieve. It would've been absurd to ditch the salad bar immediately, after writing pages of dialogue about how wonderful the salad bar was. Instead, the directors and camera guys had to work around the salad bar, which you could tell was a nightmare for everyone involved. About that time, the place went up in smoke -- salad bar and all. If it hadn't been for the salad bar, we'd have likely never laid eyes on the Genoa City Athletic Club.
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I'm not sure that he was even there for the handing over of the restaurant. Memory's bad, but it sorta seems that most of the changeover was assigned to Stuart Brooks and Leslie. "Now that Jonas is gone, I'm not sure what I'll do with the club." "Why don't you sell it, honey?" "Would you handle it for me, Dad?" Maybe Jonas had a big tearful good-bye, but it wasn't very memorable if he did. Some of the Wes Kenney rejects got GRAND GOOD-BYES, like Cash with the champagne glass in the hospital bed. Others got the bum's rush out the door, like the Stevens family. "Mom, Dad, I'm a zillionaire, and I'm moving to New York in five minutes. Why don't you guys come too? Oh, and let's invite April. Be sure to tell her we're leaving four minutes from now."
(Looking back at the late 1981/early 1982 synopses for clarity, it looks as though Jonas's primary role was "life coach" for that wretched Karen Richards, during his final few weeks on the show. This was occurring during the equally-wretched Lorie Overacts All Her Scenes About Vanessa's Death storyline. Sometime during all that dragged-out mess, Jonas left town with Sebastian Crowne, and as y'all pointed-out above, Leslie told Lucas to run the club for a while, which put Lucas (sadly) in the sights of Karen Richards, as most of her scenes were set in the Allegro. Then of course Jill inherited Karen for a spell.)
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19 minutes ago, YRfan23 said:
Didn't Jonas help Paul and Andy rescue Nikki from Crazy Edward?
Seems like it. He was all up in the middle of that story. (And that's about ALL they could find for him to do at the time.) I believe the WGA writers strike might've hastened his exit. Most of that stalker mess occurred during the strike, which caused everything to be dragged-out pretty agonizingly.
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27 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:
Did Jonas even get a last name?
Jerry Lacey had been popular on Love of Life I guess, but Jonas was a complete washout. There was no chemistry with Leslie/Pris and he was never fleshed out. He hung around for a few years and I think disappeared w/o trace.
Never got a last name, and I honestly don't know where he went. He was around for PART of that "stalker storyline". In one episode, there was a split-screen showing Jonas, Andy Richards, Cash, and someone else (Greg Foster, maybe?) and we were supposed to sit there wondering, "Which one of them is Nikki's stalker??" Of course it turned out to be NONE of em, and Jonas vanished into thin air soon afterwards, like Bogey & Bacall sailing away to Key Largo.
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Ha! It definitely seemed like 3-5 years, after all that foolishness with Sebastian Crowne and the Orphans of San Leandro! And then to make matters worse, Jonas fell through a time doorway and landed in the Allegro. None of it made much sense, and it ended with a complete fizzle. I didn't even realize Jonas was gone till Gina was buying his (latest) club. Gotta hand it to Gina -- at least she was a character who sort of made sense, unlike Jonas. Guess Jonas went on back to Casablanca, or wherever he'd come from.
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1 minute ago, will81 said:
Jonas' Club was both two towns over from GC and at the same time somewhere in New York, haha.
It really seemed that way. A Chronicle arrived with a headline about Leslie's disappearance, but Jonas's concubine (Gloria, or whatever her name was) threw it out without reading it. And Leslie managed to get there with no identification or money. Those two things seemed to indicate it was "two towns over". But when Lorie, Lucas, and Stuart "discovered" Leslie and started making trips to visit her to check on her condition, they acted like she was WAY off somewhere in never, neverland.
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Y&R: Old Articles
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Can't say that I recall her "very first scene", but I do remember that she basically debuted as the "New Angela Laurence", a girl who could commiserate with Traci. But while Angela Laurence had always been a sincere and genuine friend to Traci, Lauren seemed more shallow, superficial, and caustic, even without necessarily intending to be that way. She definitely turned into a spoiled, entitled little shrew in a big hurry, and the actress was just right for that part.