Broderick

Poppy was Eddie Lorimar's secretary (seems like). Eddie was a film noir gangster-type, and she was his film noir ditsy secretary. When that section of the story concluded, it became evident Poppy was merely putting on a "ditz act" and was really a lot smarter than we'd previously believed. But suddenly she was buying Sid's Tavern with Mitzi (who really WAS a ditz, and it was just kind of a ditz overload.) Eliot Dorn wasn't the "bad guy", in the re-written version of the storyline that aired on TV. Eliot was merely the charismatic "front man" for the group. The villain was a character named "Cody", who'd been instructing the mentally-challenged big guy (Albert) to drown the kids who defected from the group. Ultimately, Albert (who was as dumb as a rock) realized Cody had been tricking him into killing people without Eliot's permission, and Albert drowned Cody in revenge. That was the end of both Albert and Cody, and it was the abrupt ending of the story. The only characters salvaged from the hastily rewritten scripts were Eliot Dorn himself and Star Wilson, who ultimately married Calvin Stoner. I thought the story was interesting from Day One. If I remember right, it initially surrounded April and Draper (which was the case with most of the stories between 1978 and 1981). April was about to go to trial for killing her sister-in-law, Denise Cavanaugh (whom April hadn't killed, of course). April was worried half to death about the upcoming trial. Meanwhile, Raven Jamison got pregnant, and her husband Kevin couldn't possibly be the father, as Kevin was sterile. The real father was Logan Swift. But as she always did, Raven decided to lie about the paternity of the baby. She told April that Draper was the father of her baby. Since April was aware that Draper and Raven had previously been in a relationship, April believed Raven's lies. April was worried sick about the upcoming trial and about Draper's "impending fatherhood", so she just ran away. Vanished. A body was pulled from the Monticello River. The body had been in the water for several days and was decomposing. It was the body of a young blonde girl, who was about April's size. For several days, it appeared the dead body might be April. Calvin Stoner and Steve Guthrie thought it was. Miles Cavanaugh went to the morgue to identify the body, as he didn't want Draper to know that April might be dead. Turned out the body wasn't April's -- it had a weird tattoo on the shoulder, a cross with a circle around it. The police were familiar with the tattoo, because some other young people had been fished from bodies of water with the same tattoo on their shoulders. The police suspected everyone with the tattoo had something in common, which of course ultimately turned out to be that they were members of Children of the Earth, and they'd defected, leading to their drowning.

The abrupt ending of Edge's "Children of the Earth" storyline: The Coincidence of "Edge's" Cult by John-Michael Reed Memphis Commercial Appeal December 1978 If the tragedy of the People's Temple in Guyana hadn't occurred, a storyline on ABC's "The Edge of Night" involving a group of people called the Children of the Earth would undoubtedly have been ignored by the non-serial public. Instead, "Edge" finds itself in the center of a sensitive controversy. The fictional Children of the Earth is a pseudo-religious cult devoted to the greening of the land. The sect is led by the messianic Rev. Eliot Dorn. In the "Edge of Night" storyline, there have been intimations of fraudulent activities within the cult, scenes of initiation rites, and a half dozen drowned bodies surfaced and have been assumed to be suicidal former Children members. There have been clues hinting at a process termed "a killing prayer ritual" when avowed Children leave the fold. And naturally there have been outraged accusations to ABC that Edge is capitalizing on the headlines about the late Rev. Jim Jones and his cult. Edge's headwriter Henry Slesar explains: "We conceived our serialized story more than eight months ago. I'm naturally curious about contemporary phenomena. Admittedly, I have a vague uneasiness about cults that influence people. But my reasons for writing a story involving a group called Children of the Earth weren't derived from any specific organization. Like most people, I'd never heard of Jim Jones. Since Edge is a crime-based serial, I was interested in exploring what would happen if there was a crime involved in such a group. We were all shocked by the events in Guyana, but in fact we began airing our story six or seven weeks before the tragedy transpired there. We're not trying to expose anybody or anything, but unfortunately it may appear to some that we're treading on toes because of current real-life revelations. Because of the suddenly sensitive nature of the subject, it's no secret we've had to expedite the story, and yes, there are ramifications that I originally intended to tell which we won't be able to explore now." There was a press conference at the Edge set to introduce David Prowse (who appeared as Darth Vader in the film "Star Wars) as a special guest who will portray a mentally-deficient giant who comes in contact with the Children. While revealing that he auditioned for the lead role in the film "Superman", but ended up as star Chris Reeve's bodybuilder trainer, Prowse acknowledged that the serial is "toning down" the similarities to Guyana. "There are bound to be certain resemblances among groups like the Children," says Slesar, "but we're not trading in on anything except telling a story that originated many months ago." Edge won't be able to unravel its original story given the current events, and that's unfortunate. It's an example that soaps don't always imitate life; the reverse is sometimes true.

Very well articulated. And I believe that's why Henry Slesar created that scene in which Raven whined and complained ("No one would've even missed me, if that Molly Sherwood had shot me dead!") as the motivation for Geraldine to invite Raven to become her roommate. Raven could have EASILY run into Schuyler/Jeff somewhere else in town, but Slesar wanted Raven to be Geraldine's "daughter", so that was an essential roommate situation. And it was very clever of Slesar to create that little gathering in Geraldine's hotel suite, where Raven thought it would just be herself, Geraldine, and Schuyler -- but instead Deborah Saxon, whom she hated, was also invited. lol.

No question -- Eliot Dorn ended-up in exactly the role he was best-suited for. (But again, it was Henry Slesar who realized it and made it happen. He could've easily dumped Eliot Dorn at the abrupt conclusion of Children of the Earth.)

Yes, and there was a certain redundancy in Mitzie and Poppy (one was enough), and too much inane foolishness in Cliff Nelson's dialogue with Mitzie. There were too many loose ends with the Maskers, and the whole Sid's Tavern meeting ground wasn't the best idea. Smiley was kind of a bust, and the "reinvented" Gunther, who'd become a playful buffoon instead of a henchman, didn't work (especially with the Cliff/Mitzie antics). About the only extremely positive thing to emerge from that period was Nora Fulton's Reign of Terror. (And yes, Larkin Malloy was an appealing leading man, but was far better suited to play Jeff Brown, the evil guy, than Schuyler Whitney, the lovesick fool.)

I think the "flashback episodes" were a literary necessity. Without them, a good bit of suspense in earlier episodes would've been lost. Ever since Gavin Wylie arrived in Monticello, we'd been wondering why he didn't dance, and why his relationship with Martine Duval was so strained and awkward. Revealing via flashback that Gavin's leg had been broken in NYC by guys dressed in Halloween costumes solved that mystery, which had been running throughout the entire Gavin/Jody/Kelly storyline. As for the "Nancy Flashbacks", I don't believe the information contained in those flashbacks had been relayed to us until the flashback sequences aired in March of 1981. All we knew is that Nancy had vanished in San Francisco (presumably), but was now somehow languishing in the Rexford Clinic near Monticello. I don't believe any of that information had been fed to us sequentially. We didn't understand the chain of events until the flashbacks of Ira Gideon and the month-versus-10-day-building-of-the-electric-fence aired in March. (And I never DID know it, because I missed the flashbacks in 1981 when I watched!) If we'd known earlier on (sequentially) how Nancy ended up in the Rexford Clinic, there wouldn't have been any suspense when Mike Karr and Calvin Stoner were visiting those morgues in San Francisco and when the San Francisco Bay was being dredged for a dead body. I do agree that the show went off the rails during the writers strike of 1981 and never fully recovered. I believe Henry Slesar lost a LOT of his motivation when Draper and April left the show. He'd pretty carefully cultivated them as the Young Mike and the Young Nancy, with their own unique personalities. It was through Draper and April that most of the other characters on the show were connected. Once those two left, Slesar was really left with a rather disjointed canvas, and his central hero and heroine were gone. He was required to quickly re-tool the show into a format that I don't believe he honestly cared for as much. I've always thought the "mistake" in the Schuyler and Raven storyline was its continuation with the Real Schuyler. Henry Slesar admitted that he'd always planned for that character to be dead. In his original projection, it would be revealed during the Switzerland sequences that Jefferson Brown had murdered Schuyler Whitney years ago, then stole his wallet and hauled ass to the Rexford Clinic. The popularity of Larkin Malloy necessitated deleting the murder of Schuyler Whitney, so that Larkin could reappear later as the Real Schuyler. I've always felt Slesar was wise in his original plan to have the character gone after Jefferson Brown's death, despite the actor's popularity. Right now in the storyline, THREE big pieces of Henry Slesar's heart are missing --- Deborah, Logan, and Nicole. Calvin Stoner doesn't have a Steve Guthrie to play opposite, and he doesn't have a Deborah Saxon. Slesar works his way through this time period excellently, but when Draper and April vamoose, you can tell he's pretty heartbroken with what's left. (Hence, the overreliance on Raven Swift and Schuyler Whitney, which is a storyline he clearly wanted to tell, but not necessarily in the context in which it occurred on-screen). Also, we're about to enter that bizarre period where everyone has an alias. Nora Fulton is also Roxanne Walker. Collier Welles is also Carlo Crowne. Jim Dedrickson is really Jim Dedrickson, but Valerie Bryson thinks he's Jefferson Brown, because Jefferson Brown masqueraded as Jim Dedrickson in the Rexford Clinic. It gets to be WAY too many aliases all at one time. Sorry for long post. I didn't think the cult story was "bad". It was actually fairly interesting (from the tattoo aspect), and the uncertainty of who was taking orders from whom. But we obviously never saw Henry Slesar's "master plan" for the storyline realized, as unfortunate real-life events involving Americans in Guyana brought the entire storyline to a grinding halt, and Eliot Dorn was pulled-out and moved into an entirely different sphere.

Gosh it's hard to remember. Brittany, Rhianna, and JT were all such MINOR characters at first, and they really didn't come into their own until that party when Billy got locked outside in the snow and nearly croaked. I just remember John and Jill Abbott were fretting about whether to tell JT's parents (Tom & Martha Hellstrom, who were friends of the Abbotts) and Brittany's parents (Fred & June Hodges, who were also acquaintances).

I've gotten a big kick out of these "lost episodes" from 1981. Back in 1981, I watched several episodes per week after school, but somehow I'd never seen the episodes in which Nancy Karr inadvertently barges in on Dr. Bryson's consultation with Ira Gideon (which leads to Nancy's incarceration at Rexford Clinic) or the scenes in which Beth Bryson masquerades as Nancy Karr in San Francisco. I'd also never seen the breaking of Gavin Wylie's leg by Gunther & Company in the Halloween costumes. Also, I didn't remember Raven Swift immediately running to Gavin and telling him that Schuyler Whitney was responsible for the leg-breaking. And I damn sure never saw April Scott and Bobbie Gerard in the "Roller Disco".

When Brittany Hodges first appeared on Y&R (played by Greg Evigan's daughter), John Abbott and Jill agreed she'd be a good match for Billy -- after all, "she's the daughter of our friends Fred and June Hodges of Hodges Savings & Loan!" Lauren Woodland took over the role of Brittany, and a casting call went out for her parents -- Leland & Paige Hodges, a prominent attorney & his wife. By the time the roles had been cast, they'd been transformed into Frederick & Anita Hodges. I used to call Mitzi Kapture's character "June Paige Anita".

Many thanks!

The book was also (supposedly) a "hatchet job" on the greedy Ewings. In literature, much has been written about the separation of the "sheep" (the good) from the "goats" (the bad). In astrology, the Capricorn symbol is the Goat. By changing the name of Ewing Oil to Capricorn Crude, the company was effectively changed from something "good" (a sheep, a ewe) to something "bad" (a goat, a Capricorn).

He wasn't remotely invested in typical soap opera stories. He was a mystery writer, and a VERY talented one at that. (I have several of his short stories.) In his world, a marriage, a divorce, a custody suit -- those events were merely the "mechanics" of establishing various motives for a crime. And he presented his motives in the most subtle ways. I'm sure all of us who watched in 1980 will never forget the scene in which Cliff Nelson took a sandwich off a tray at a luncheon gathering and boasted "I know who killed Eliot Dorn, and I'm going to prove it" while standing next to the wrong person. A few episodes later, Cliff Nelson was stabbed, and we all had our ideas of who stabbed him, but probably no one suspected the person standing next to him at the sandwich tray, as she barely knew him. He really perfected the "niche genre" of serialized crime. But I can't imagine that he truly cared about writing a traditional daytime soap.

There's never anything unplanned in a Slesar script. Chris Goutman's gum-smacking and Mady Kaplan's sarcasm and cigarettes made those two characters (even though their roles were fairly small) an instant part of the show's film noir fabric. And their dialogue is crisp & clever. Sharkey: "Maybe one of these days, I'll DROP BY and make you REAL HAPPY." Bobbie: "The only way you could make me REAL HAPPY is by DROPPING dead." Even the segue into the next scene provides a clue about an upcoming plot point. Bobbie tells Sharkey, "No, there have been no REPORTERS around, okay?", and immediately Mike Karr opens the front door of his house and says, "April! Come in!" .... It wasn't a REPORTER who'd been coming to the diner, asking about Sharkey -- it was April. And Slesar is clever enough here to remind us of April's interest, while at the same time previewing to us that April, masquerading as "June", and Draper, masquerading as "Richie", will soon be infiltrating the Rexford Clinic. Slesar always seemed to know exactly where he was going with his stories, and how he planned to arrive there. Henry Slesar mastered the format of serialized mystery-drama in a way no one else has ever duplicated.

Thank you! Not sure what Bill Bell was thinking with Lorie, Leslie, Lance, Lucas, Larkin, and Linda. lol.

I'm always amazed at what EDGE accomplished on so little. If they needed a one-off diner set, they set up a counter, two stools, a cash register, and a coffee pot. Instant diner. The next scene might be set in some exclusive French restaurant that we'd never see again, and it was just a booth against a wall with a blue light shining on it. A dead body might pop up in an alley that was nothing more than a garbage can and a brick wall. As mentioned above, the dialogue was tight, the camera angles were tight, and there was generally a quick cut-to-black, so it didn't matter much about the surroundings.

What I learned from this episode: Today's soaps have no imaginations. They claim their budget cuts prevent them from having multiple sets, so everyone now congregates in empty restaurants. At the 8:30 mark, we see an apartment for Mady Kaplan's (recurring) character. The "set" is created with a table, a lamp, a telephone, a chair, and a backdrop of a window. Total cost -- about $2. At 8:40, we see Chris Goutman's (recurring) character calling from a supply room at the Rexford Clinic. That set consists of a bulletin board and a white medical coat hanging from a metal locker. Total cost -- about $2. I find it difficult to believe today's shows can't slap together a workable set like this for a quick interaction or a phone call. "The Edge of Night" had probably the lowest budget in daytime, but they created sets that worked, using minimal materials.

Oh, yeah. Peggy showed up for Liz & Stuart's wedding and stayed around. That fiasco with Leslie was still at full throttle during the wedding.

Crazy how close together Edge of Night & Days of Our Lives were in 1981 in the ratings. A few years later, Edge was cancelled, and by the late 1990s (?) Days was hovering around right behind Y&R and B&B near the top.

There was a TON of suspense in the Leslie/Jonas storyline! (1) The Fish in the Newspaper -- Stuart Brooks ran a story in The Chronicle about the missing Leslie, complete with a photograph of Leslie. A copy of the newspaper arrived at Jonas's club, but Jonas never saw it because his concubine (Gloria?) wrapped-up some fish in the newspaper. I was dying to know if she planned to freeze the fish or to refrigerate the fish, and whether the fish would be cooked at home or in the club. Also, I was curious what TYPE of fish she wrapped in the paper. (2) The Club Itself -- You'd think Jonas's club was in or near Genoa City, because Leslie managed to arrive there with no purse, no money, and no form of identity. But no one working there or any of the customers recognized Leslie or appeared to have ever heard of her. Gradually it became evident the club was somewhere faraway. But then the newspaper (see above) arrived, indicating Jonas subscribed to the Genoa City Chronicle, so maybe the club was in GC after all. But then Lucas and Jonas reconnected through Sebastian Crowne, involving a scheme to free refugees on an island in San Leandro (or somewhere), and there was a lot of flying around in the Prentiss jet, with stops to pick up Jonas, which made it seem he was in some distant land. Then Stuart, Lorie, Lucas, and Lance started popping into the club regularly, as though it was in Genoa City. But then Jonas moved his business to the Allegro, which didn't make much sense if he already had a club in town. I never figured out where Jonas and Leslie were supposed to be. (3) Chris and Peggy -- Whenever a story involved Lorie or Leslie (Bill Bell favorites), you always wondered if he would permit the Two Lesser Sisters (Chris and Peggy) to stray into the storyline and deliver a few lines of dialogue to the More Important Sisters. Once again, in this case, they were deprived of the opportunity.

I blame Gloria Monty for 90% of what's wrong with the soaps today (and John Conboy for the other 10%). Long, introspective scenes were one of the few things soaps tended to do especially well, as opposed to film or primetime TV. When I was a kid in the 1970s, it wasn't unusual for a soap to have a scene that lasted six or seven minutes, examining every aspect of a situation. And then along came Gloria Monty with her short, choppy scenes that featured someone making a quick phone call or delivering two lines of dialogue before an elevator door slammed shut in their face, and all of that went out the window. She (and her inevitable copycats) thought if a scene lasted more than a minute, the audience would die of boredom. Now we're stuck with "vignettes" -- choppy, disjointed scenes that serve no purpose whatsoever. It all goes back to her. (John Conboy's 10% is attributable to his emphasis on physical appearance. When he was casting Y&R, he deliberately chose extremely attractive performers, but he also made sure they could act. His copycats said, "Oh, look! Y&R has a bunch of hotties on it! Let's run hire some of them too! Who cares if they can act!") Now we get nonsensical short Gloria Monty scenes that serve no real purpose, with three choppy lines of dialogue delivered by someone from the John Conboy model line-up.

His only "evil deed" that I remembered vividly was taking Chancellor Industries away from Kay Chancellor, and threatening to sell it piece-by-piece, but it seems like he returned it to her about 3 days later, lol.

I could always buy the concept that Cliff didn't know Rebecca Wentworth. He was only 4 or 5 when she flew the coop, so he likely wouldn't have recognized her, had he crossed paths with her twenty or thirty years later. Any business dealings Cliff might've had with the Wentworth family (as an adult) would've likely been with Herbert Wentworth, who'd only been dead a little while when Pam found Rebecca in Houston.

Her mother, Elizabeth Harrower, not only wrote for the show, but played the old lady (Charlotte Ramsey) who pretended to be Jill's mother.

I believe Miss Dickson's problem was that she began "living her role" in the outside world, which made her more of a headache than she was worth. (I flipped through a Soap Opera Digest in the 1984-era, where they mentioned she had recently purchased a new Mercedes with "Jill" as her personalized license plate. That probably says a lot about where her mind was.) Even when her performances were at their strangest and most bizarre, she was -- something to behold.

Everything Danny did in that episode was fairly dumb. Traci tells him, "I'm going to visit Serial Cheater Tim and see if there's a 2% chance he still wants me!", and Danny immediately goes running to Faux Patty and gets her hopes up that she can become Mrs. Rock On, without even waiting to see how it went with Tim, while Lauren serves as Head Cheerleader with another "sizzling" cover from her Sergio Mendes repertoire.