Broderick

1 hour ago, amybrickwallace said:

Thanks! It looks like a creepy Christmas show, which may have partly been what they were going for.

Yes, it does look sort of like a ghoulish holiday 

Eliot Dorn, Paige Madison and Nola Patterson were all major characters on "Edge", in addition to playing characters in the "Mansion of the Damned" movie.  So Kim Hunter was given the job of playing Nola on "Edge", Hester Atherton in "Mansion of the Damned", the old witch in "Mansion of the Damned", and Mrs. Corey (Deborah Saxon's neighbor), who was a mash-up of a lady who ran a news stand and the witch role she'd played in the film.  It was an interesting and fairly complex storyline.   

22 minutes ago, amybrickwallace said:

Can anyone explain this photo to me?

That appears to be a "cast photo" of Mansion of the Damned, the horror movie that was shot in Monticello circa 1979.  Seated are Paige Madison (the ingenue in the film) and Eliot Dorn (the devil in the film).  Standing are the old flamboyant creepy guy in the film, the young leading man in the film, and Nola Patterson (the witch in the film).  

18 hours ago, kalbir said:

@Broderick Another Y&R/B&B character comparison for your insights, Stuart Brooks vs. Bill Spencer.

Stuart Brooks didn't carry a cane, lol.

I guess the main difference is that Stuart had four daughters to focus on, while Bill Spencer only had one.  In the first episode of Y&R, we saw Stuart Brooks making an unexpectedly kind gesture toward a stranger (buying the mysterious, destitute young man's lunch at Pierre's) while also badgering and grilling another young man (Snapper).   So while we immediately thought of Stuart as overprotective toward Chris (and suspicious of Snapper), we also saw him as open and trusting of Brad, who would ultimately become the beau of Leslie.  We were seeing multiple sides of Stuart Brooks from Day One, unlike Bill Spencer, who seemed fixated only on one object (Caroline) in the first episode of B&B.  That situation never changed much.    

18 hours ago, Manny said:

Yup! Me too!

I was cringing as Ridge and Stephanie were trying to justify and defend Ridge's actions while trying to make Bill the bad guy there, when all he did was reveal Ridge's true self... a sleazy cheater. 

Bill's only real "offense" was that he inadvertently hurt his own daughter.  And I guess that's what makes him somewhat villainous -- he damaged his own child's confidence and future plans in order to hurt Ridge.  But in Bill's mind, he was just saving Caroline from future heartache.  

3 hours ago, YRfan23 said:

The thing is Bill Sr would be considered the good guy nowadays because Ridge was and always has been an ass!  

Strangely, I'm finding that to be the case as I re-watch some of the old episodes.  I find myself thinking, "Get him, Mr. Spencer!  Kill him!"  

I'd say he was more of a "Ridge Antagonist", to make the (fairly shallow) Ridge character seem somewhat more sympathetic to the audience.  In the early episodes, Ridge is no one we'd be tempted to sympathize with -- proposes to Caroline to spite her father, cheats on her, gets photographed cheating, gets exposed, gets miffed because she dumps him, criticizes his father's designs, basically just acts like a whining brat.   He's not very easy to like.  But since Bill Spencer sits around plotting against him, it makes him slightly more sympathetic.  I'd say that was the initial purpose of Bill.    

Regardless of what he'd been told by the producers, it was pretty clear that KSJ was being phased-out at the time of his death (along with Christian LeBlanc, Doug Davidson & Kate Linder).  He could clearly see the writing on the wall.  

I wish Alan Locher could see the two interviews above and learn how people can converse without saying, "Wow, that's crazy", and have a beneficial conversation.  

I'm always amazed that Rey has lasted as long as he has.  

Seems like Katherine Kelly Lang would've made a pretty good Patty recast.  I know she'd been Gretchen, but we didn't see that much of Gretchen, and it would've been easy to accept her as Patty.  Probably would've extended the character's shelf life as well.  Andrea Evans may have been a *wonderful* actress -- I couldn't tell, because she just wasn't anything like the Patty we'd gotten accustomed to seeing.  Badly miscast.  

15 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Those Summer teen stories were a pain. Maybe if they introduced a new long term character then they would hold some interest, but those troubled teens were always gone for good Summer's end.

It wasn't until Nina came along that Bill decided to follow through.

 

Sometimes they panned-out, I guess.  But only rarely.  

Weren't Nikki Reed & Patty Minter our Troubled Teens of 1978?  Patty Minter took the predicted Labor Day nosedive into obscurity, but Nikki Reed hung around for a few more years, lol. 

I guess April Stevens was sort of our Troubled Teen for 1980 (though I believe she was introduced in a small capacity in late 1979 or early 1980), and she stuck around for a pretty good while, until she took Wes Kenney's fateful spur-of-the-moment plane trip into obscurity.  (But she did have to share the summer of 1980 with our cultist friends Nikki, Paul, Rebekkah, and Matthew.) 

Seems like Danny Romalotti was our 1981 Summer Project, pining away for Patty Williams, waiting tables at Jonas's, crooning Eric Carmen songs, and pretending that he was from a happy family instead of sired by a jailbird daddy.  He lasted a few more years.

And then I guess Traci Abbott and Angela Laurence were our Tortured Teens of 1982, one wolfing down brownies and the other whining about her comatose mommy.  

Seems like 1983 was Traci Abbott Part Two, and by 1984 we had the wicked vixen Lauren who loved to throw a pool party and parade around in a bikini to remind the fat girls what truly matters in life -- a perky booty and jostling hooters. 

1985 gave us the 22-year-old virgin Alana Anthony who didn't notice her beau was whitewashed with talcum powder, and I guess for 1986 we got Pregnant Nina and Wise Cricket.      

I always got the impression that he LIKED Lynne Topping and would've written for her, had the opportunity been there to write for her and Snapper as a couple.  In the summer of 1979 (I think it was, anyway), Lynne got the "big story", which was that business with Rose DeVille, Vince Holliday, Sharon the Runaway, Second Hand Rose's Antiques and Pretty Things, and the "South American slavery ring".  That (silly) storyline was an everyday deal for most of that summer.  

15 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

A natural story would have been for Chris to want a career ,which Snapper supported but in practice created difficulties.

Have Chris work at Jabot (not as a model) and be successful, encounter new people etc and have Snapper be put out that she is no longer as available to him as before.

I always thought that was a missed opportunity during the transition period.

In about 1979, before the expansion to an hour -- but when the "mandate" for expansion had already been handed down by CBS -- there was a "Foster & Reynolds Law Office" set built, so that Greg & Brock could be law partners.  Several scenes were taped there.  At the same time, Lynne Topping Richter (Chris) was evidently wanting to work regularly, and David Hasselhoff was beginning his now-you-see-him; now-you-don't phase.  Bill Bell probably SHOULD have had Chris go to work as a secretary for Greg and Brock, as she'd worked for Greg previously in about 1974, which led to a falling-out because Stuart Brooks was actually paying her salary, and she found out about it.  To make it up to Chris, Greg should've re-hired her in 1979.   This would've given Lynne Topping the opportunity to appear in more scenes (without Hasselhoff), wouldn't have endangered the Sacred Marriage of Snapper & Chris, and would've provided a sensible "meeting ground" where different storylines and characters could collide effortlessly.  

For instance, April could've wandered into the office with a complaint about her living conditions, and Chris could've taken the "big sister role" with her that was ultimately forced heavy-handed by having Snapper and Chris live in that little hovel of an apartment next to her.  Victor Newman and Julia were also introduced in 1980 through Brock's law office, and Chris could've taken the role that Casey Reed was awkwardly given as "Julia's only friend".   This situation could've also brought Lorie and Peggy into the office occasionally, and made the introduction of Michael Scott, Steve Williams, and Robert Laurence seem less isolated and remote.    

When Beau Kayzer left as Brock, they could've transitioned Chris to Jabot in a similar role, renewed a little hostility with Jill, created a friendship with Patty, and made the introduction of Jack Abbott and John Abbott less ponderous. 

It always seemed to me this would've been a win-win, both for Lynne Topping and for the overall cohesiveness of the show during the difficult transition period.  

Maybe Bell thought Snapper's hard-headedness was admirable.  I dunno.  Snapper historically spent a great deal of time toiling at the "free clinic", and Bill Bell seemed to believe that we don't get paid when work at a free clinic.  But Snapper was also an employee of the hospital, which supposedly DID pay him, lol.  I was never sure why Snapper and Chris would live in the same apartment building as April Stevens, a teenage girl on welfare, who had a child and no job.   April supposedly didn't have a nickel to her name (until her zillionaire twin sister whisked her away to Manhattan, along with their pauper parents, on a spur of the moment cross-country flight with all of their dowdy possessions), but April was somehow on equal social footing with a young physician and his heiress wife.   Again, these were just the strange facts of Y&R's bizarre transition period. 

I believe Bill Bell was intuitive enough to see that most shows did indeed falter when they went to the hour format.  For the 1974-1975 television season, Y&R was in NINTH PLACE with an 8.4 rating, behind As the World Turns, Another World, Days, Search for Tomorrow, All My Children, Doctors, Guiding Light & General Hospital.  A year later, Y&R had skyrocketed from ninth place to THIRD place, with no real ratings gain at all, simply moving up from an 8.4 to an 8.6.  All of Y&R's competitors (except As the World Turns and Another World) had simply collapsed in a heap and fallen flat on their faces.  The press was gushing about the "wildfire ratings success of Y&R", but really it was just that everything else was faltering badly.  And by 1980, when Y&R was pressed by the network to expand to the hour format, As the World Turns and Another World were ALSO suffering from dismal ratings.  Bell knew from what he'd seen happen to World Turns, Guiding Light, Days, Another World, and the ABC shows that expansion was usually followed by a period of adjustment and sinking ratings -- which of course turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophesy for Y&R.          

I really can't much remember who played Jane.  The whole thing was absurd.

It seems like Stuart and Liz Brooks were considering "downgrading" into a smaller dwelling and giving the old Brooks house to Chris and Snapper.  Snapper said, "Chris, I've got something really heavy to lay on you.  We can't accept your dad's house.  It's more than we can afford."  Snapper preferred to stay in that rinky-dink little apartment across the hall from April Stevens, who was on welfare.  As a "consolation prize", Stuart Brooks offered to buy Chris some new furniture.  Snapper told her they afford to buy a few articles of furniture, provided it was from a thrift store and provided none of the money came from Stuart Brooks.  Meanwhile, that Jane Lewis had decided to snatch Snapper away from Chris, and she was real transparent and aggressive about it. 

Chris went out and bought all this "heirloom" furniture, and Snapper had a dinner for some other doctor whose wife happened to be an interior decorator.  The interior decorator immediately realized all of Chris's "Goodwill furniture" was actually from some upscale store, so Chris had to send it all back.  And everyone lived happily ever after for about five minutes, until Sally McGuire resurfaced with the Kidney Kid.      

30 minutes ago, yrfan1983 said:

Love all these details! Do you recall if Greg was played by Wings H or had Howard M taken over by this point?

I'm almost thinking it started out with Wings and ended-up with Howard.  Wings was still around during Nikki's "please-help-I'm-being-terrorized-by-the-stalker-with-mommy-issues" storyline, because Greg (Wings) was having mysterious headaches to make us THINK (for about five minutes) that perhaps HE was the stalker, but then the headaches disappeared and so did Wings.  Howard popped-up in time for Jill's storyline where she sued Jack Abbott for sexual harassment at Jabot (or something), and this business with Peggy and the slum lords was kinda randomly sandwiched in between. 

I remember Snapper, Chris, the credit card furniture, and Dr. Jane Lewis, lol.  Snapper couldn't tell that all that mess hadn't come from Salvation Army supposedly. 

This was a time period where an entire family could disappear in a single episode.  ("Barbara, do you have something to tell us, honey?"  "Sure, Mom.  Dad.  I've been meaning to mention to you that I'm actually a zillionaire with a 30-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, and I'm moving back there permanently, and I'd like both of you to go with me.  And April too.  And we're leaving in five minutes!")    

3 hours ago, SoapDope said:

Bell also never knew what to do with Peggy. He gave her blips of storyline, then she just hung around. 

Peggy's weirdest storyline during that period (unless you count her engagement to Steve Williams, while proving to herself that she was more sexually compatible with Jack Abbott, lol) was probably the Slum Lord Storyline that lasted about two episodes and then fizzled out completely.  Seems like Greg Foster was representing a client (Mr. Dixon?) who owned some low-income housing and wanted Greg to set-up a dummy corporation to disguise the ownership.  Greg seemed to think this transaction would make him wealthy.  Go figure.  Stuart Brooks asked Peggy to investigate the "animals" in the community who were providing sub-standard housing to low-income people.  This seemed to be setting up an adversarial relationship between Greg and Peggy, and then it just ended completely with no resolution or follow-up at all.  Peggy just kinda vanished into thin air with no explanation after a few scenes about the substandard housing. 

And in hindsight, we were probably LUCKY, because Bell revisited this issue again in 1993 with Cricket Blair and the Rainbow Gardens apartment complex, and it was dull as hell that time too.

The 1980-early 1982 time frame was definitely Y&R's strangest.  I believe those of us who continued watching daily during this period were mostly doing so out of loyalty.   

37 minutes ago, will81 said:

Which is a shame as I don't feel Mary was like that at first. She had a different moral code to her son and clashed with him on it. It seems early on it was warranted and she was more pulling him into line for his bad behaviour and the way he treated women. Then she became one note and just annoying and acted as if only she should know who was best for Paul and how he should live his life. 

Yep, her character was pretty much trashed when she became the one-note "comical" mother (who wasn't very comical).  

17 minutes ago, kalbir said:

Let's look at the 1980s messy wealthy matriarchs: Allison, Dina, JoAnna. Allison attempted to control her son Kevin's love life. Dina and JoAnna both abandoned their families and re-entered their lives years later.

Allison Bancroft was pretty much a wretch from start to finish.  Like Vanessa Prentiss, she was more of an insufferable plot device than a character.  She was snooty to Nikki, jealous of Kay, mean to Earle, overbearing to poor dimwitted little Kevin, manipulative to Kevin's former fiancée.  She exposed the video of "Hot Hips" to humiliate Nikki.  She kidnapped Nikki's baby.  About the only thing she DIDN'T do was take a swan dive off a balcony and send someone to trial for murder.  Not much positive to say about her.  

Dina Mergeron and JoAnna Manning were clearly more complex.  We could see good in Dina almost from the get-go.  She wanted John Abbott back, and it wasn't necessarily simply to spite Jill; she had actual regrets about giving up her family when she moved to France.  Her love for Jack was deep and real, her desire to protect Ashley from Brent Davis was partially self-serving to maintain her own reputation and partially a genuine mother's love for her daughter.  Her regrets about never being around for Traci were much discussed.  But she did everything she could to keep Marc and Danielle from cashing in on Marcel's will, although as Marcel's children, they were more than likely victimized by Dina's greed to get Mergeron Enterprises for herself.  (And I'll add that the current writer, Josh Griffith, did a decent job of KEEPING her relationships complex, right up until the end. Almost as soon as Dina was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she forgot who Traci was, as Traci was the child she'd spent the least amount of time with.  Jack, who'd always been her little sweetie-pie, insisted that Dina didn't need to be in a nursing home, while Ashley, who'd been the most wounded by Dina, had the attitude of, "Put her ass in the nursing home, Jack.  It's not as though she was ever around for US."  I believe all of that was handled pretty well.)  

JoAnna came in with an awfully sour note.  ("I wish I'd had an abortion when I was pregnant with Lauren!")  She tried to befriend Jill at Jabot, when Jill was being played at her most shrewish by Miss Dickson.  She plotted and schemed with Lauren to break-up Neil Fenmore and Gina Roma, while acting as though she'd never wanted Neil in the first place.  But her friendship with John Abbott was warm and genuine.  She was happy to provide a home for Lauren while Lauren and Paul were broken-up and acted like a real mother, but she'd turn into a shrieking vixen whenever anyone pointed out that Marc Mergeron was too young for her or simply wanted her money.  Not as complex as Dina Mergeron, I'd say, but far more complex than Allison Bancroft.    

Really kinda difficult to understand Dorothy Green's complaints.  Her character obviously wasn't a successful business tycoon or anything, but she did embody something we hadn't seen portrayed very often.  We've all seen the clips from Episode #2 where Jennifer is happily fixing salad for dinner, asking Stuart, Peggy, Chris and Leslie about their day, and appears to be establishing herself to the audience as a chipper, upscale, socialite housewife from an upper-middle class family who places everyone else's needs above her own.  We've also seen her happily abandon the whole tribe for Bruce Henderson.  Then we saw her vainly wondering how her breast cancer scare would affect her attractiveness and her worthiness in snaring a man.  We've seen her daughters blasting her to smithereens for beings so "selfish".  Then we saw her crawl back to Stuart, who gladly took her back in.  She was an interesting and complex character, who got to play a host of different facets of a woman's life.  (And yes, I think she was axed because she became critical of Bell's somewhat chauvinistic writing.)   But in hindsight, she probably should've been proud of what she was doing from an acting standpoint.   

22 hours ago, kalbir said:

@Broderick How would you rank Y&R's original messy wealthy matriarchs Jennifer, Katherine, Vanessa?

Gosh, I enjoyed all of them.  Vanessa Prentiss was more of a "plot devise" than a full-fledged character, created simply to add drama to Lorie's storyline with Lance.  Vanessa was always steely and grim, never smiled much, and was perpetually plotting and scheming against Lorie.  Vanessa didn't even seem to get much pleasure from her first grandson; Brooks was just another tool in her arsenal of weapons to make Lorie miserable.  Maestro flirted with Vanessa one time, and she sort of halfway smiled.  She smiled at Stuart Brooks once or twice, but she looked sorta like a cobra with a stomach ache.  She was just not very well-defined, way more bad than good.  Since Bill Bell wasn't interested in writing tender, touching moments for her to offset the vindictive scheming, he was wise to cast KT Stevens, an ingenue from the 1940s who still knew how to entertain her audience.  Whatever charisma Vanessa Prentiss possessed was all thanks to the actress, rather than to multi-dimensional writing. 

Jennifer Brooks and Kay Chancellor were obviously well-drawn characters.  Jennifer was sort of a surprise -- in one scene she could be the loving wife and mother preparing dinner for her family like Mrs. Brady, and then she'd start pining away for Bruce Henderson, vainly focusing on her appearance and her attractiveness to men, and didn't seem to give her family a second thought.  I don't think we'd seen a character like her before on daytime.  We were more accustomed to "good wives" or "bad women"; she was a combination of both.  Kay Chancellor was just that same concept taken even farther, with the smoking, the boozing, and the wanton sex with younger men. 

I'd say each of them was a unique character, but followed the same basic prototype of the "vain socialite-matriarch", with the differences being that Vanessa Prentiss had zero remorse and very little conscience, Jennifer lacked a few of the vices of the other two women but disappointed a greater number of characters (four daughters and a husband), and Kay had about every vice Bill Bell could create but still managed to be sympathetic to the audience because Jeanne Cooper knew how to look pitiful, lol.  

I'm pretty sure Chris was present when Kay Chancellor kicked the Fosters out of her house, after Jill, thinking she'd inherited the house from Phillip, moved the whole whip-stitch tribe to Foothill Road.  Wasn't there a big scene where Kay waltzed in and tossed all of them out.   

Kay Chancellor and Lorie Brooks had a couple of scenes in 1979.  It was a complicated storyline.  Kay was "dead", having been "killed" in a fire at the sanitarium.  In reality, Kay had survived of course and was staying in the Foster home with Liz.  For several weeks, Liz was the only person who knew Kay was still alive; they had Kay's funeral and everything.  Jill was married to Stuart Brooks and was trying to bilk a divorce settlement from him.  Stuart was anxious to get rid of Jill and was willing to pay a premium to get her butt out of his house.  Brock had revealed to Lorie that, in his opinion, Jill was planning to extort a settlement from Stuart and then run away with Derek Thurston, profiting financially first from Stuart and then secondly from Derek.  Not knowing Derek Thurston, Lorie wasn't sure if this account was valid or not, but she HATED Jill and wanted to be sure Jill got $0 settlement from Mr. Brooks.  Liz babbled to Kay that Stuart was in the process of writing Jill a check for $150,000 to get rid of her .  Kay Chancellor, knowing how Lorie felt about Jill, called Lorie on the phone and said, "Lorie, this is Kay Chancellor.  No, I'm not dead.  Everyone just THINKS I am.  Now, lissssen to me, Lorie. Take the check that your father has written to Jill and rip it to shreds.  Tell Jill to just GO.  She's already made plans to swindle a fortune from my husband.  But I'll stop that as well, and she will get nothing.  Ab-so-lute-ly nothing."  Lorie snatched the check away from Jill and ripped it up.  Jill left Stuart's house with nothing at all, and then Kay herself interrupted Jill's next foray -- a wedding to Derek.  Kay and Lorie were pleased that they'd stymied both of Jill's get-rich-quick schemes. 

I don't recall Jennifer Brooks ever interacting with Kay.  It would've been superfluous, as they were the same prototype character -- the vain, wealthy, society matron who depended upon male companionship for validation of their fading beauty.  I expect Bill Bell thought it would be wise to keep them separated, as Kay was simply a more flamboyant version of Jennifer.    

Those are some pretty strange choices for the front row -- but I guess maybe in 1975 the actors weren't so cognizant of who was "important" and who wasn't.  You'd have thought they would've shoved Mark Henderson in the back somewhere, lol.   

14 hours ago, kalbir said:

@Broderick What are your thoughts on the quadrangles? 

Well, I believe the B&B quadrangle is less "confining" than the Y&R quad was.  The old Y&R quad was just a strict retelling of Le Morte d'Arthur, with John McCook as Sir Lancelot, Victoria Mallory as Lady Elaine, Jaime Lyn Bauer as Guinevere, and Tom Ligon as King Arthur, with the constant theme of Sir Lancelot (Lance) betraying the bumbling King Arthur (Lucas) with his great love for Guinevere (Lorie), and his one night of love with the vulnerable Lady Elaine (Leslie).  And as in Le Morte d'Arthur, the "one night of love" between Sir Lancelot and Lady Elaine produces a son -- Galahad (Brooks Prentiss).   To Bill Bell's credit, he didn't just blindly steal the King Arthur story and pass it off as his own work; he actually paid tribute to it in the dialogue by peppering the conversation with frequent references to "Camelot".  I specifically recall during one of the emotional separation scenes between Lance and Lorie, Lance was given the job of saying, "But Lorie, we've already had our Camelot.  Let's move forward now."  Bell didn't want to stray very far from his Camelot-themed storyline, and that limited where the characters could move on the canvas, and it also made the decisions of the characters fairly predictable and cumbersome.  

Lance Prentiss -- the character Lorie and Leslie both wanted -- was sort of a vapid, shallow playboy without much genuine development.  I suppose female viewers found him attractive, despite the fact that it appeared someone had driven a roofing nail into his chin, and John McCook's ability to play the piano and sing added a dimension that made him slightly more tolerable than Ridge Forrester.  But by and large, the sentiment I got from myself and other male viewers was, "Why are these girls pulling their hair out over this little puss of a man?" 

Lucas Prentiss was a much more interesting, likeable character, who actually seemed "nice" rather than just "poised", and his experience as a sailor made him seem relatable in a variety of different situations.  (With Lance, you expected him to call his mommy if he got a hangnail -- that's how inept he seemed -- while Lucas looked like someone who could remove your wisdom teeth with a bottle of whiskey and a pair of pliers.)  With the recasting of Leslie Brook (Janice Lynde to Victoria Mallory), the character became such a vulnerable, needy little waif, and she always looked as though she might fall apart if Lance didn't pay her adequate attention.  She basically became a mouse.  And Jaime Lyn Bauer's Lorie came with so much baggage (having tormented Leslie for years over Brad Eliot), that her previous shrieking, scheming, and breast-bouncing always made her seem far less than sincere.

Ridge is as dull as Lance, and while Ronn Moss has musical talent in the 1970s rock group Player, that isn't shown on B&B, so he just comes across as a vapid, empty-headed fool, even more than Lance Prentiss.  (Ridge works for an exclusive fashion designing company -- but does he even know how to draw, to sew, or to measure fabric for cutting? He basically just reclines around the place and doesn't appear to have a clue what's going on, much like Lance Prentiss didn't appear to understand what products Prentiss Industries manufactured.  In the early 1980s, Victor Newman snatched Prentiss Industries away from Lance Prentiss, and there was no drama, because Lance didn't appear to have any business acumen whatsoever.  Lorie Brooks made this "grand sacrifice" of becoming engaged to Victor Newman so she could recoup her proxies and return the company to Lance on a silver platter, but what was the point?  Lance would probably lose the company again in six months, because he seemed so inept and foolish.  Ridge seems equally as hopeless.  If he had to draw an evening gown, choose the fabric, measure it, cut it out, sew the gown and fit it on the model, he'd have to call Theresa, the Forrester maid, to help him, lol. ) 

Thorne Forrester, like Lucas Prentiss, is kinder and more relatable than his brother, but Thorne lacks the real-world experience that Lucas had as a sailor.  Thorne just drifts along in his swimming trunks and tennis whites as a Ridge-wanna-be, rather than having his own rugged, individualistic, unique personae the way Lucas Prentiss was shown.  Maybe Lucas could've extracted your wisdom teeth with some whiskey and some pliers in a barber's chair, but Thorne's outside-the-office skills seem limited to swan diving into the Forrester pool and slipping a clever backhand past his opponent on the tennis court.  I'd have to say that just as Ridge is duller and less defined than Lance, Thorne is likewise duller and less defined than Lucas. 

The two girls, though, are superior.  Like Leslie, Caroline Spencer is a bit sheltered and pampered and is slightly neurotic.  Unlike Leslie, she doesn't have any great talent that makes her appealing to viewers.  (Leslie played the piano.)  Caroline strictly relies on poise, her Princess Grace good looks, her ability to dress well, and her terrific posture to coast through life.  She's far more shallow than Leslie Brooks, but she's so beautiful and so poised and so easy to love, that her character flaws are easy to overlook.  I find Brooke Logan to be an "improved" version of Lorie Brooks.  Like Lorie, she's got the "daddy issues".  Lorie found out that Stuart Brooks wasn't her biological father; Brooke was abandoned by Steven Logan.  Brooke lacks Lorie Brooks' wealthy, upper-middle-class background, so in that regard she's more of a social-climbing scrabbler like Jill Foster.  But like Lorie, she's a schemer, a manipulator, and a breast-heaver.  She just comes with less "baggage" than Lorie did, because we haven't already experienced a couple of years of her trying to steal Caroline's beaus, the way Lorie tried to manipulate Brad Eliot away from Leslie even before the "Four L Quadrangle".  

I'd say the B&B quad is better overall, and would really be effective if the two men were better defined as characters.  Also, I find it a little bit surprising how easily lower-class Brooke is able to "fit in" with the group.  Caroline's politeness to her (and Caroline's lack of other friends) makes that transition possible. but it still comes across as a bit false and sort of punches a noticeable hole in the entire storyline.  You'd expect Ridge, Thorne and Caroline to attend parties where Brooke would feel completely out-of-place, or to share stories that Brooke doesn't even understand.  But Brooke just soldiers on in their world as though she's always inhabited it, and it's only Stephanie Forrester who occasionally slaps her back into reality.  The Y&R quad didn't have that obstacle in their storyline -- the Prentiss boys were wealthy and pampered, but Lucas, as a sailor, could relate to anyone.  Lorie and Leslie were both upper-middle-class girls, and the Prentiss boys were just "one step up" for them, unlike the vast difference in Brooke's background as compared with the other three players in her quad.    

That sounds great!  

So he tried medical AND religious exemptions, not just one or the other.  In other words, he's simply petrified to get a shot, and he tried anything he could think of to weasel out of it.  

Probably easier to just say, "I'm a weenie who cries when I get a shot."