Broderick

Really, we were speaking of the show's popularity in the mid to late 1970s, when they first hit #1, and the critics were gushing about how the show's "wildfire ratings success" was attributable to "boundary-pushing, innovative storylines". The Joann Curtis/Kay Chancellor storyline was a reminder that some "boundaries" couldn't be pushed, even by an enormously popular show. I would say the show's sustained trip to #1 in the late 1980s was more attributable to the collapse of the ABC shows, while one might argue that the show's peak of popularity in the 1970s was likewise attributable to the ratings collapse of the P&G shows. Deferring to the person who's actually spoken with Miss Alden, but I'd say yes, she was. Obviously Bell's ideas and vision were taking precedence, but Alden seemed to be a major contributor along the lines of what you'd now call a "co-head writer". But remember that Bell's job titles sometimes existed in their own universe (like his show). For instance, when she was first hired, I believe Alden's official title was "girl friday", lol.

That's a great character summary -- very introspective and clever from Bill Bell. If you remember Brock's first week on the show, that's exactly the angle that was played. Kay Chancellor didn't believe one word coming out of Brock's mouth. The actor sounded VERY convincing, but Kay wasn't convinced at all. I can't remember the dialogue exactly, but Kay's response to his "evangelization experience" was basically, "Oh dear God, Brock, you always believed the wrong parent died. You wanted Gary to live, and you wanted me to die. You made that very clear. Now you stand here telling me that you've found God. Very strange bedfellows, you and God. You and money? Yes. You and women? Yes. But you and God? I find that very hard to believe, Brock." The sincerity of Beau Kayser convinced ME immediately that he was for real. Kay Chancellor had her doubts, though. His was a character like none I'd ever seen before. (Thanks for the page of "Brockisms", too. I recognize the one about, "Let us offer our brother our hand, and accept our brother's hand when in need." And "for every problem there is a solution, even if it's only learning to live with it." I'm pretty sure he said both of those on the show. )

I believe Daddy gave Lauralee a 3-month contract for the summer of 1985. The Kay/Chancellor/Joann Curtis was probably a "rude awakening" for Alden & Bell about their actual demos. MUCH was written in the mid to late 1970s about Y&R being the most "progressive, innovative" soap on the air, and it supposedly had the youngest demographics in daytime TV. But if you look at the detailed performance of the show during those peak years, you'll see that Y&R was performing strongest in the South and the Midwest, often losing its time slot in more urban markets such as NYC, Boston and Philadelphia. The audience maybe wasn't as "progressive" as Bell and Alden had been led to believe. Yes, everyone was titillated by Snapper taking off his shirt and by Nikki getting gonorrhea and by Kay Chancellor rolling around in the hay with the stable boy -- but let two women look each other in the eyes or touch other's hands tenderly, and that was just too much for the "progressive" audience who actually turned out not to be so "progressive" after all. I've always felt that's when Bill Bell "retreated" just a bit and began telling more restrained storylines. For a while it had appeared that Y&R could dictate a whole new set of ground rules for nudity, candid dialogue, and sexual situations on television -- but that illusion kind of crashed back to reality the day Kay touched Joann too earnestly.

I really believe William Bell, back in the 1970s, had a genuine interest in telling a story about "fluid sexuality", but wanted to be thoughtful with it. (Surely, Lee Phillip had run across something similar on her talk show and shared it with him.) Wesley Eure's character on "Days of Our Lives" questioned his sexuality at one point. And someone on this board has mentioned that one of the Peters brothers on "Days" suddenly acquired a male roommate who appeared to be sharing his bed, which raised an eyebrow (or two), although the situation wasn't delved into on the show. I've always thought the Kay Chancellor/Joann Curtis story was fully character-based for both women, and as Jeanne Cooper noted here, the implications were more or less "in the eye of the beholder". Kay Chancellor could certainly be controlling and possessive -- we'd already seen that trait fully manifested in her -- and she'd been hurt terribly by Phillip and Jill's betrayal. Joann was reinventing her body (and her entire life) after a terrible hurt. It made perfect sense for them to seek solace in each other. If Bell had decided to take it a step farther, it would've made sense. If he'd decided to bail-out, he'd created plenty of "escape hatches" -- Derek Thurston's availability, Brock's caution, Peggy's rape, Jack Curtis's indecision. For Bell, everything was there; all he had to do was choose his course. I believe the loss of a ratings point made the decision for William Bell. But if the ratings hadn't dropped, I would've been interested to see where he intended to go. Nevertheless, it was a thoughtful and provocative story.

"Odd Relationship Highlights Soap" Jon-Michael Reed Memphis Commercial Appeal -- April 20, 1977 A day without a smidgen of sexual strife and sin in the soap world is like a day without sunshine. But Anita Bryant, who's waging a war against homosexuals in Florida, would choke on her orange rinds if she knew what was going on in Genoa City on "The Young and the Restless". There's this alcoholic rich widow, Kay Chancellor, who hired chubby waitress Joann Curtzynski to be her live-in companion. Joann was going through a lot of grief after being dumped and divorced by her husband Jack, who married a slimmer young lady. The two lonely ladies overcame their sorrows together. Joann helped Kay lay off the booze. Kay encouraged Joann to lay off the calories. She also financed a beautifying program for the former fatty. During this process of living and sharing together, Kay developed what they used to call an "unhealthy" interest in her live-in companion. Kay's eagle-eyed son Brock was the first to become aware and wary of the relationship. He warned Joann about becoming too dependent on Kay. "I'd never take advantage of your mother or her wealth," said Joann, who missed the point. "We have something together that money can't buy. She's given me love and companionship." Kay was not as oblivious as Joann when Brock accused her of "trying to be Jack's replacement for Joann." "She cares for me in a way that she could never care for that man," answered Kay. "That man? Or any man?" retorted Brock. "Hasn't it gone beyond friendship?" It certainly had, with references to sharing sleeping quarters for loneliness' sake, comforting embraces, longingly wistful stares, and restrained holding-back-of-hands-upon-hair. Should Y&R audiences be prepared for explicit scenes that would make maidens blush? After all, this type of story has been done in graphic detail on "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman." But it's not the stuff that daytime soap operas are made of. Although it's implicit what's going on in Kay Chancellor's mansion, the Y&R folks insist they're not telling "that" kind of story. Jeanne Cooper, who plays Kay, explains, "It's a story of two people who are very lonely. They just happen to be women sharing the experience of healing their hurts. When people have been hurt, they tend to look for anything to fill the void. These are two vulnerable women who have a psychological attraction and dependency on each other. Kay is desperate to hold onto Joann as the only friend she's ever had. And Jack is a threat to the end of that relationship." "Everyone connected with the show has worked their fannies off not to hit the audience with a heavy trip by implying sexual motives for the woman's actions. We're telling a tale of two people who need each other psychologically, not physically. Both of them would jump at a chance with a man, because they are not lesbians. The response from the audience has been encouraging. I receive letters from ministers and women who say it's an inspirational story. They understand the situation, the needs, and the loneliness. Any other suggestive implications are strictly in the eye of the beholder," Jeanne Cooper concludes. Y&R is indeed unraveling an unprecedented-for-daytime situation with tender, cautious care. It's so poignantly told and subtle that Anita Bryant would undoubtedly approve. Still, as Brock asked Kay, "Do you realize where this relationship could lead?" Tune in tomorrow to see if it leads to the bedroom.

My recollection is what you just said --- that Nikki was under the impression Victor had cheated with Ashley (while he really hadn't), so she hopped in bed with Jack. It's hard to remember because it became so convoluted with Ashley's abortion, Nikki's "impending death", Nikki taking the apartment where she and Jack were meeting, Ashley and Victor's "cabin in the woods". But yeah, I think Nikki/Jack were the first to cheat.

Gosh, I'd completely forgotten Tim Sullivan had MARRIED Andrea Wiley. I was thinking she was just his girlfriend. CRICKET: "Traci, it's not a new life that you need, but a whole new attitude toward the one that you have. When you feel differently about yourself, it changes you. And it changes the way other people look at you." TRACI: "But Cricket, you're so thin and so pretty!" (I about vomited during that exchange. Such pearls of wisdom from a 15-year-old! And she's repaid with a deluge of compliments for her own beauty, of course.)

It's one of those "syndicated" articles they provided for the entertainment section of the local papers, that appeared on the page with the TV listings. The writer's name was "Jay Allen" and I meant to give him the credit for it!

He's something -- the way he patronizingly baby talks to Winter ("Come on, come on in the bedroom, come on"), the way he lackadaisically waves his hands around when he lies there will be "no funny business" in the bedroom, his sly eyebrow-raising references to jerking off to the videotape on all those "long, lonely nights when he needed comforting", his impromptu giggling, his smarmy, sleazy remark about how there could still be even MORE copies of the tape, his terror when she pulls out the gun after she's finally had enough of him. I remember the storyline, and I knew he was about to bite the dust -- but I've not laid eyes on that boy since I was a little kid, and I'd forgotten how he absolutely stole the show.

Genoa City's Young and Restless -- July 1973 Brad Eliot is a rather cool dude. Every day, his presence affects the lives and loves of those around him in the mythical mid-American community of Genoa City. He is a stranger in town, having arrived via an unorthodox set of circumstances. Brad Eliot was this Chicago physician, who had operated on his daughter. She died. He then took all his savings, hopped in his car, and skipped town. But, alas, along the way he was mugged and robbed. The culprit -- complete with the young doctor's money, car, and identification -- crashed the car off a cliff in his escape and is killed. The doctor thought, "Aha! I'm dead now ... why tell anyone?" So, he winds up in Genoa City, becomes the mysterious 'Brad Eliot' and is now working as an $85-per-week newspaper reporter. This is the setting of "The Young and the Restless", CBS's relatively new (now in its fifth month) mid-day soap opera. Its stars, along with the show's head writer, like to think of the program as something a bit more advanced than a typical "soap opera", however. They candidly assert that the show may be a prototype for a future evening prime time serial. TOM HALLICK, who portrays Brad Eliot, somewhat jokingly refers to "The Young and the Restless" as a "cross between 'Run for Your Life', 'The Fugitive', and 'Sermonette'." The program's biggest asset, says Hallick, "is the great writing. Because of it, we can do this show and feel that it really works. No doubt, this show is good enough for nighttime TV. " The head writer is William J. Bell, a twenty-year veteran of daytime television writing, considered among the best in the business. Bell, who also serves as chief scribe for NBC's popular "Days of Our Lives" series, says he's been "blessed with a great cast" for "The Young and the Restless". And the story? Well, Bell thinks it's great. "Our plot allows for a broad base of characters. The emphasis is on the young, and restless is an ageless word that evokes an almost ageless state of mind. The show attains a great deal of involvement for our viewers." Interestingly, there really is a Genoa City, not too far from Chicago. Genoa City, Wisconsin (population 1,084) is on the Illinois-Wisconsin state line, just minutes away from writer Bell's home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Bell admits that the program's mythical community is named after the real Genoa City, but in name only. "I picture our Genoa City as a community of 300,000 to 400,000 people," Bell told me. "In our story, you'd never want a town where all the people know each other." The real Genoa City is a quiet little town whose inhabitants haven't really reacted dramatically to having their community's name used for a network, nationwide TV program. The village clerk, Mrs. Lucile Berger, says "The Young and the Restless" does have a fair share of the audience in town. "From what I hear," Mrs. Berger says, "the show is pretty good. I don't get a chance to see it, though. I have to work when it's on." As for the sex, sin, and seduction so evident in many daytime dramas, Mrs. Berger dismisses all that, as far as the real Genoa City is concerned. "We have a peaceful little town here," she relates, "and about the only real excitement we have is sometimes on weekends the tourists who come up to the lakes around here will get a little rowdy. And occasionally the young kids get a bit out of hand on the weekend. You know, they can drink beer and liquor up here when they're eighteen." I wonder what newspaperman Brad Eliot would say about that ...

I'm going to give an A+ to that boy who played Wade Meecham. He turned in about the sleaziest, slimiest, most charming, most humorous, most animated, and most vulnerable performance I've ever seen on a soap. That boy could've played anything -- the president of the United States, a car salesman, an oily lawyer, a pornography studio owner -- anything. I realize he had to die to make the story work, but I expect Henry Slesar hated to pull the plug on him so quickly, because that actor obviously had the potential to play most anything you wrote for him, lol.

Oh yeah, I'm sure the writers strike was a component of the weirdness. But just imagine something like this happening now -- a major character becoming completely isolated, then vanishing off the canvas entirely for six weeks (according to the journalist above, or twelve weeks according to my own memory), with no explanation at all of his/her whereabouts, and no mention of the character by any of the remaining players on the canvas -- as though that character had simply never existed at all. That's what happened here! For most of the spring and early summer of 1981, it was as though Kay Chancellor had vanished and been forgotten, inspiring the article above. That's the type of climate Y&R was operating in, though. Occasionally, an episode from this period surfaces in the vault, and I'm always impressed -- "wow, that's not as bad as I remembered!" -- but it's not the episodes themselves that are so strange, but rather the big disjointed picture of missing characters, dropped storylines, false starts and abrupt stops. If you hadn't started watching yet during this period, you missed a treat 😉

That's definitely the strange period of time (1980 - 1982) when it was hard to tell what was happening on-screen, let alone OFF screen! Don't like the Stevens family? Have no fear, they'll move to New York in a single episode and never be heard from again! Think Steve Williams is fairly dull? That's ok, he'll move to DC in a few days & never be mentioned again! Worried about Stuart Brooks and his "chest pains"? Don't be scared; that'll be forgotten entirely after tomorrow's episode! My recollection (and my memory could be faulty, of course) is that Kay was actually missing off the canvas for about 12 weeks instead of "five or six". I remember seeing her sometime around March 15, 1981, returning from "Felipe's Island", and she appeared in a small handful of episodes -- checking with Victor who'd been managing Chancellor Industries during her island "vacation", dumping Colonel Austin, and dumping Derek Thurston. She said she'd learned to be "strong and independent" while she was with Filipe. Then, I swear, I don't believe we laid eyes on Kay Thurston again until JUNE when she hired Cash as a prostitute. I'm pretty sure she was gone from mid-March to mid-June, about 12 weeks. I don't know why -- could've been rehab, behind the scenes chaos, or just Bill Bell completely recalibrating her storyline, as this article suggests.

July 18, 1981 -- Memphis Press-Scimitar VETERAN PERFORMER ISN'T BEING WRITTEN OUT There probably have been more rumors about Jeanne Cooper leaving her role as Kay Chancellor Thurston on "The Young and the Restless" than about any other of daytime's femme fatales. Look what's been happening, though -- Kay is still around -- but, in the last year, all the characters involved with Mrs. Thurston were written out of the show, one after another. First it was Filipe, her wonderful Hispanic, sometimes comical accomplice, whose arguments with Mrs. Thurston in two languages delighted fans; then went her devoted son Brock; followed by her young husband Derek; and her English lover Douglas Austin. "Suddenly, there was Kay sitting in the middle of Genoa City with no one to talk to," said Jeanne Cooper with a laugh. So for about five or six weeks, she didn't appear on the show until the writers developed a new storyline for her character. That's when the rumors peaked. But the producers were not about to let this meticulous veteran performer fade away. Jeanne's been known to spend as much as six additional hours on scripts, developing new mannerisms and inflections to make her often chaotic character believable in many a bizarre situation. She's also been one of the show's staples since the days when "The Young and the Restless" first sprang on the scene and made its way to the top with innovative storylines and a magic mixture of castmates. Jeanne remembers that the show was one of the first to make so many recognizable names or stars out of unknowns: William Gray Espy (the original Snapper Foster), Jaime Lyn Bauer (Lorie Prentiss), John McCook (Lance Prentiss) and later David Hasselhoff (Snapper Foster). The show has obviously faltered from those days. However, having survived the changes, Jeanne thinks that number one may not be the best slot anyway. According to her, it is not so bad to be third, where you're still quite successful but there's room for improvement. "The Bronze Medal never hurt anybody," Jeanne said. And who should know better than this delightfully warm, funny lady who has a legion of fans. So let's squash those rumors here and now. Jeanne Cooper recently signed a new contract with the show and is not leaving. But she is quick to add with a glint in her eye --"I'm committed to die at least once a year to keep the fans hanging."

Gotta love how Draper Scott in the episode above is still introducing new evidence during his closing arguments, lol. I always found the "Edge" trials interesting, but they definitely ignored all the rules about discovery.

What made Jackie Marler interesting (to me) were the acting quirks of Cindy Pickett. Once Cindy left (in 1980?) there really wasn't much point in keeping the character around.

I was never sure how much "writing" Maria Bell actually did. I believe she came into the job with some definite ideas. "First we're going to void this Jill/Kay mother/daughter nonsense. Then we're going to undo the Cane Is Jill's Son nonsense." But after her initial ideas were executed, she probably turned things over (to a great extent) to Hogan Sheffer. Maria Bell was, first and foremost, a socialite -- not a writer. She was always appearing at first one "gala" and then another, prancing up and down red carpets in ugly shoes, giving press conferences about the LA Museum of Modern Art. She never struck me as someone who spent a lot of time in deep thought hunched over a keyboard. In fact, when she was fired, she was flitting around in Europe. Hogan Sheffer was a "writer", albeit not a very good one. I expect that he produced about 10,000 ideas a week -- a few of them good, most of them lousy -- and he typed them up for Mrs. Bell. While she was lounging by the swimming pool or jetting off to an event, she probably flipped through Sheffer's portfolio, picked out a few ideas that didn't strike her as especially bad, and the next time she thought about it, she called his cell phone and said, "Use this idea, and throw the rest of this garbage in the trash. I'll see you next month." That seems to be about the extent of her "writing" discipline. (According to her bio, she's also a novelist. If anyone's ever seen a novel this woman has written, I'd love to know about it, because I believe that's just another exaggeration of a somewhat lazy person's resume.) And I don't think there was any sexism at play -- a LOT of women are good writers -- but Maria Bell never struck me as a woman who'd done very much serious writing. I think she was more of a Bell family "figurehead" than anything else during her tenure on the show.

I believe the hesitation from Charlene Tilton and Audrey Landers stems from the way the question to them is worded. The interviewer basically says, "We've all heard the stories about Victoria Principal being difficult to work with, and the others not getting along with her." This makes it sound as though he's interviewed other actors who've admitted these allegations. (Instead, he's merely regurgitating rumors.) Tilton and Landers look around with some uncertainty, then they hesitate, and then they both say they got along fine with her. I believe they think it's a "test" of some sort. They're afraid to shrug and say, "Oh, she was fine to work with", because it might make them seem naïve, out-of-the loop, and unaware of their own workplace. That's basically what Charlene Tilton says. "No! To this day, I'm just clueless, I guess. If there was any friction, I wasn't brought into it. I don't know that there was, and I don't believe that there was." That seems like a pretty nice way of saying, "You don't know what you're talking about, buddy." Tilton obviously doesn't want to seem like a complete dimwit who didn't know what was happening on the set, but she seems pretty adamant that she never observed any "issues" with Victoria Principal. My suspicion is that Victoria Principal was a fairly "driven" performer, who wanted the part of Pam pretty badly -- even showed up for her audition dressed the way she visualized Pam -- tried to improve her craft while she was working on the show, and then simply moved on when she was finished with the part.

I'd forgotten how good the little fellow playing Young Timmy was.

I re-watched all the available episodes from 1979 to 1980 a couple of years ago, and I observed the four most featured actors were April, Draper, Logan, and Deborah Saxon. All four actors left in 1981. I was crazy about Sharon Gabet and Larkin Malloy, but I agree with you completely. It caused a certain "fragmentation" in the storylines. (Also, a lot of Sharon's best work was opposite Terry Davis, Tony Craig, Joe Lambie and Frances Fisher, who left.)

Oh, there are some DEFINITE highlights. I thoroughly enjoyed everything involving Catherine Bruno who played Nora Fulton. She was AWFUL in the most entertaining way imaginable. I also enjoyed every aspect of the (initial) Jefferson Brown storyline. When he first appeared and we thought he was Schuyler Whitney, he was charming, but he was also snotty and cold. It was fun watching him deteriorate into an outright killer. I'll always remember the chilling scene in the dance studio when "Gunther" (or the person we assumed was Gunther) pretended to be shot and mortally wounded by Gavin Wylie. Gavin jumped and ran, leaving the bloodied "Gunther" on the studio floor. "Gunther" and "Schuyler" were laughing about how successfully they'd frightened Gavin Wylie, but meanwhile "Schuyler" was putting on black gloves, wiping the fingerprints off the pistol, and it became crystal clear that he intended to murder "Gunther" in cold blood, to make Gavin appear guilty of Gunther's death. I could barely believe what I was seeing. Neither could "Gunther", lol. My understanding is that Jefferson Brown/Schuyler Whitney's reign of terror was intended to be a one-shot deal. While "Schuyler" was attempting to murder Raven during the Switzerland remote, "Schuyler" was going to fall to his death, and during his final sequence, we were supposed to see how he'd killed the REAL Schuyler with a fatal fall in order to assume Schuyler's identity. There was to be no more Larkin Malloy on the show after that scene. But because Larkin Malloy had become so popular, the death scene understandably had to be rewritten to exclude the real Schuyler's death so that he could reappear later as the character who, in Slesar's original projection, was long-since dead. Then the idea of the "real Gunther" joining the "real Schuyler" took shape, and in my opinion that was just too much. I've never known what happened to Tony Craig (Draper). Guess he just opted out. But it seemed so sudden, considering that he and Terry Davis had become the most frequently seen characters on the canvas. They'd driven the Margo Huntington story, the amnesia story, the Clown Puppet story, and then the Bryson story. Then -- poof! -- Draper suddenly took a "crime commission position" in Europe and left the show in the middle of a random episode, never to be seen again. With April following a few months later. I found their exit a little hard to take, especially with Frances Fisher, Joe Lambie, and Jayne Bentzen leaving all in the same general time period, along with Forrest Compton and Ann Flood getting somewhat diminished roles. It suddenly seemed that we had a plethora of vague, MEANDERING scenes involving the Maskers acting troupe and various waitresses at Sid's Tavern and "hijinks" involving minor characters -- none of which ever really congealed into the type of carefully plotted "Big Umbrella Storylines" that we'd gotten accustomed to during Slesar's best years. But yes, anything was better than Lee Sheldon.

I wouldn't call Bill Bell's decision to ditch the Brooks and Foster families "suicidal". He was just ready to reinvent his show with some families who hadn't been recast a zillion times and married to each other a zillion times. Once the dust settled, he found himself in a much better position than he'd been in previously. (In fact, it's a shame the same thing hasn't been done again.)

The 1981 episodes will be fun to watch again after all these years. But yeah, they're kinda sad -- no more real stories for Nancy after that, and NONE for Draper and April. Draper leaves in an abrupt hurry as soon as the Bryson story is finished. And things get sort of weird. The person we believe is Schuyler is really Jefferson Brown (a good story), and the person we believe is Gunther is really Bruno (utterly stupid), and then Valerie Bryson pops up and says she knew Jeff Brown when he was transforming into Schuyler Whitney but he told her his name is Jim Dedrickson, and there's a guy in the cast named Jim Diedrickson, but he's neither Jeff Brown NOR Schuyler Whitney but someone else entirely. And there's a guy running around who says he's Carlo Crown, but he's really Collier Wells. It all sorta became too many false names & identities. I'd like to see Henry Slesar's ORIGINAL plan for this time period, before Tony Craig left and before Larkin Malloy's popularity necessitated creating a "real" Schuyler Whitney. (I believe in the original story projection Schuyler was dead as a hammer.)

In most instances, the goal is to make the televised product more manageable, containable, and streamlined. In daytime, the goal in the 1970s seemed to be making the product completely bloated and unwieldy.

Thanks for all the info, everyone! (I'd just always assumed P&G had instituted the 1-hour format -- and then the 90 minutes -- as a method of increasing their daytime programming hours without the additional overhead of creating several new shows. I see that ain't the case.)