Broderick

19 hours ago, applcin said:

I guess the present-day Collins' descendants came from Millicent and/or Daniel, since Naomi & Joshua's kids are both dead.

 

 

With everyone in his immediate family now dead -- Naomi, Jeremiah, Abigale, Barnabas, and Sarah -- the old patriarch, Joshua Collins, becomes a bit kinder, more compassionate, and more introspective.  He adopts young Daniel and makes the boy his official son & heir.  The present-day Collins family (Elizabeth, Roger, Carolyn, & David) are direct descendants of Daniel Collins.  

Thanks so much!!   These "look into the past" posts are some of my favorites!   (I see Kay is heading toward her fixation on JoAnne Curtis on Y&R, and those "now-you-see-them-now-you-don't" characters Nadine, Ansel and Raven are back in full force on Edge of Night.)   

On 7/9/2021 at 4:41 PM, applcin said:

Jeremiah Collins; in the latter case, they actually used 2 actors, one to be the zombie and one to speak for him. Why didn't they just continue to use Anthony George? Did he become unavailable or was it cheaper the other way?

I think Anthony George had probably moved on to a new job by the time Jeremiah Collins popped out of the ground. 

It's hard to say fifty years after the fact what the schedules/availability of the actors might've been; all we can do is try to piece it together. 

As you know, Anthony George's Burke Devlin character was last seen leaving for a business trip to Brazil in mid-October of 1967.  That appeared to be Anthony George's final episode.   Five or six weeks passed with no sign that Anthony George was still employed by Dark Shadows.  Then in late November of 1967, Victoria Winters went back in time to 1795, and lo and behold, there was Anthony George, dressed like a lounge lizard, calling himself Jeremiah Collins, and building a new house for the Collins family.  Three weeks later, Jeremiah Collins was dead, and Anthony George was gone forever.  

My GUESS is that Anthony George left the show "for good" in October of 1967, and the Burke Devlin character was killed off.  But Anthony George had previously played Jeremiah at the famous "claret cup costume party" hosted by Barnabas Collins in in the Old House.  I expect Dan Curtis placed a frantic phone call to Anthony George and said, "Hey, sport, can you come back in late November and early December to play Jeremiah Collins for two or three weeks, since the audience already identifies you with the Jeremiah character?"  Anthony George must've said, "Yeah, I'll do it, but I want to get in and out of there pretty fast, because I've got another job.  Can't stick around too long this time, Dan!"  (You'll notice that the Jeremiah Collins storyline is VERY RUSHED, to say the least.  It goes at 90 miles per hour.  He's like, "Hi, Josette.  I'm Jeremiah.  I think I'm in love with you!  Wow, look, we've both got the mark of the Devil on our wrists!  A duel?  Sure, Barnabas, I'll fight you in a duel!  Oh, gosh, I'm dying.  Good-bye, everyone!"  It appears that particular section of the 1795 storyline was handled extremely quickly to work around Anthony George's schedule and get him on out the door as quickly as possible, since he evidently already had another job.    

You'll see this a LOT on Dark Shadows.  I'm sure you probably thought Thayer David was gone for good after Matthew Morgan fell over dead in 1966.  But a solid year later, Thayer David reappeared out of nowhere as Ben Stokes.   Was the actor suddenly available again, or was he somehow kept on contract for a solid YEAR with no appearances?  Who knows. 

At one point, it appears that John Karlen had left the show forever, and Willie Loomis is shipped off to the looney bin.  But six months later, after the 1795 sequence is completed, John Karlen returns to his role (Willie Loomis), just completely out of the blue.  Barnabas Collins suddenly announces one day, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if Willie Loomis came back.  Let's go see if he's ready to return.  In fact, let's go right this very second.  Hi, Willie.  Welcome back1"  After all these years, it's hard to know what was going on behind the scenes that led to these strange comings/goings, but you'll see PLENTY of it throughout the series.  

6 hours ago, Max said:

 

I feel the same way in regards to SFT; if SFT was not the lowest-rated soap on CBS, it would've coexisted with B&B on the CBS schedule.

Maybe.  I'm not sure.  I believe a certain portion of the public saw Search for Tomorrow as a "write-off" as early as 1980.   That's based on my own personal experience, not a scientific survey, lol.  

I remember being a kid in study hall in the spring of 1980 and overhearing some much older high school kids discussing the impending demise of Search for Tomorrow.   They were all sitting around a table whispering (while they were SUPPOSED to be studying), and I was in a desk nearby.   One of the older kids asked, "What's been happening on Love of Life?  I haven't been watching lately because of basketball practice and softball practice."   (Love of Life came on late in the afternoon -- after school -- and some of the older kids watched it in sort of a half-assed manner.)  The response, of course, was that Love of Life had fatally bitten the dust back in February.   NOOOOOO, WHYYYY?  One of the more "television savvy" kids explained that Y&R had expanded to an hour in early February, forcing Love of Life off the air.  This was met with much remorse by the sporadic Love of Life viewers who weren't aware the show had been cancelled during basketball season.

This led to a long conversation at the table about Search for Tomorrow's odds of survival.  The older kids who were following the entire CBS line-up seemed to be aware that the new "trend" was either (a) expand to an hour or (b) get cancelled.  Much discussion followed about Y&R, ATWT, and GL all being a full hour now, and Search for Tomorrow still being a half-hour show.  Someone pointed out that SFT and LOL were "old shows" that had been around since the early 1950s, both were trapped in the half-hour format, and one of the two (Love of Life) had recently been given the axe.   The gist of it was that everyone at the table was in agreement that Search for Tomorrow was living on borrowed time in 1980.

I certainly wouldn't presume to suggest that all CBS viewers had that attitude toward SFT in 1980, but it was fairly sobering to hear eight or ten teenagers predict that the show would be gone from the CBS line-up in the next year or so.  And sure enough, about two years later, it was GONE.   I do think it would be safe to say that many CBS viewers probably DID see the cancellation of Love of Life as a harbinger of SFT's upcoming demise, especially with the schedule shuffling that soon followed, putting SFT in a strange, awkward slot several hours past its customary broadcast time.   The message to the viewers seemed to be, "We're not too vested in this one anymore."     

On 7/7/2021 at 12:23 AM, Paul Raven said:

Michael Brockman, said there has been no decision on whether the new soap will replace one in the network's afternoon serial block, or whether that block will be expanded by a half -hour. That decision will be made early in the fall, he said. The most vulnerable show in CBS's four -program serial block is Capitol (2:30 -3 p.m.

 Interesting that Brockman was stringing along John Conboy with the idea that "Capitol" might be spared from the chopping block.   I was thinking it was always a fait accompli that the Bell soap would be replacing the Conboy soap.  

26 minutes ago, YRfan23 said:

The ironic thing is that I thought Y&R was also criticized around this time for not doing enough love scenes?? They said GH had the more “raunchy” sex scenes compared to “conservative” Y&R? Or something like that. 

You're exactly right.  Y&R didn't exactly have "couples" and "love scenes" like some of the shows did.  What they were doing instead was flaunting everyone's "assets".  They had Nikki stripping at the Bayou, Jerry Cashman working as a male prostitute (including a scene where Cash interviewed other potential male prostitutes by having them all strip down to their bikini briefs and stand in a line), many of the women doing dramatic scenes without bras, Snapper and Lucas prancing around with their shirts unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up over their biceps, Nikki and Paul butt-naked in the showers at the YMCA with a whole team of basketball players walking in.   The show had always been known for having a "sensual, languid appearance", but in the early 1980s, as John Kelly Genovese noted, it was beginning to look more like t!ts and azz titillation than sensuality.  By about 1983, they got back more "centered" I guess.  

(I'd guess it was the exit of John Conboy as executive producer and the arrival of Wes Kenney which halted so much of the sexual titillation that seemed geared toward adolescent boys and girls, and it was probably the arrival of Sally Sussman as story consultant/script editor that halted the cringe-worthy dialogue such as "you're playing mind games on me, you're doing a number on me, you're laying something real heavy on me, God I feel so out of it today.")  

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

 

You forgot to mention the fresh flowers (supplied by Lee Bell's brother) that featured throughout.

Ha!  I expect Patty had a big handful of Russell Phillip's flowers that she was arranging in a vase, while announcing that they were "fresh-cut flowers from Mamie's garden.  What a beautiful spring day it is!"   The camera was likely alternating between the flowers and Lilibet's breasts.  

The breast & booty swiveling and flexing had gotten so flagrant in the early 1980s that one of the soap magazines finally commented on it.  I can't quote the article exactly, but it said something to the effect of, "It's time for Mr. Bell and Mr. Conboy to scale back on the T&A titillation, which is causing daytime's most elegant soap to look downright cheap and tawdry."   I believe the quote was from John Kelly Genovese, who during the early 1980s, wrote some fairly thought-provoking reviews of the soaps.  

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

 What surprises me is that Aaron appeared as he could just as easily been a voice on the other end of the line or no voice at all with Lorie having a one way chat.

Maybe there was more to the scene.  

But remember how big the BUDGET was back then.  Aaron probably was literally an Under Five in that episode.  

No doubt Lorie is sauntering around (braless) in a $10,000 low-cut blouse from Giorgio's of Beverly Hills.   She's posing and preening and sighing heavily, displaying the expensive blouse in each long shot, and she takes the opportunity to jiggle her breasts 60 miles per hour whenever Frank Pacelli lets her know he's pulling away for a longshot to showcase the blouse as a courtesy to Giorgio's.  

Lilibet Stern (Patty) is smiling and pouting in another high-priced Giorgio's blouse, and Wes Kenney is making sure to get plenty of shots of her supple, perky breasts, as well.  Not to be outdone, Terry Lester (Jack) probably bends over to pick up his briefcase and gives us a long, slow butt shot.  

Tom Ligon (Lucas) probably has on a $100 Giorgio's shirt, which he's strategically unbuttoned all the way down to his belly button.  He's probably wearing a pair of tight white slacks.  Frank Pacelli is likely taping Lucas from the back in several shots, so that Tom Ligon can flex his butt cheeks for us. 

Chris Brooks is probably having a super-expensive photoshoot at Jabot with Joe Blair, featuring about ten different outfits from Giorgio's.  Joe is bending around and showing us his blue-jean clad bottom, while Chris is wiggling her perky little breasts at warp speed in each different Giorgio's ensemble. 

Then we're at the hospital with Chuckie and Sally.  David Hasselhoff probably has on scrubs, but his shirt is open all the way down his goozle to show us his chest.  

Evidently, at the Chancellor house, Kay Thurston is presiding over a sparkling, shimmering dinner party for Nikki, Kevin, and Kevin's parents, including real food that's being served by Esther.  Jeanne Cooper is likely decked-out in an evening gown from Giorgio's of Beverly Hills, with mores sparkling jewelry than you can shake a stick at.  Melody Thomas is probably wearing a low-cut Giorgio's gown that's slightly less "showy" than Jeanne Cooper's gown, but she's making it up for it by leaning onto the table with her breasts heaving right into the champagne.  Chris Holder (Kevin) is probably standing up to make a toast and flexing his butt for us during the long shot.  

That's just the way they all rolled back then.  lol.  

On 6/25/2021 at 3:55 AM, will81 said:

Could Aaron be connected to Prentiss? This was around the time Victor took control and Lucas and Lorie were trying to figure out how he did it. Aaron may be a stockholder or someone else at the company that they talk to? Not sure he would have been more than a day player. 

 

 

The cast is listed in "order of appearance".   Lorie Brooks lived in a penthouse.  Aaron was her doorman.  (Except Jaime Lyn Bauer, who played Lorie Brooks, always pronounced Aaron's name as Erin, so I thought for months that "Erin" was a girl doorman, lol.)

The episode undoubtedly opened with Lorie Brooks moping around in her penthouse.  Close shot of her jiggling breasts.  The house phone rings.  Lorie sighs and saunters over to the phone, picks up.  

Lorie Brooks:  Yes, Erin?

Aaron:  Good morning, Miss Brooks.  Lucas Prentiss is here to see you.

Lorie Brooks:  My God.  Are you sure, Erin?

Aaron:  Yes, Miss Brooks.  He's standing right here.  

Lorie Brooks:  Well.  Send him up.  

Lorie hangs up the phone.  She walks over to the balcony, swivels her hips, jiggles her breasts, and breathes, "My God.  What could Luke possibly be doing here?  He must have something really heavy to lay on me this morning."  More breast jiggling.  Music swells.  So do breasts.  

The next scene will be Jack and Patty, discussing Patty's moving into the Abbott house.   Lots of smiling and pouting from Lilibet Stern.  

Opening credits.

Back to Jack and Patty.  Now Jerry Douglas's John Abbott comes in to throw some water on Patty's good mood.

Back to the penthouse.  Lucas comes in through the elevator doors.  

Lorie Brooks:  Luke.  This is a surprise.  What brings you by?

Lucas:  I've got something heavy to lay on you, Lorie.  Something really heavy.

Fade out.  

(Haven't seen this episode in 39 years, but Bill Bell's writing followed a certain "formula", that rarely surprised regular viewers.)  

She said her mandate at Y&R was to "bring the show into the 21st century".  Then she started babbling about how she was never a fan of "wall-to-wall background music".   For many of us, that was the uniqueness and beauty of Y&R -- the wall to wall background music, and the stylized acting that accompanied it.  She definitely managed to rid Y&R of everything that separated it from the other shows.  

3 hours ago, FrenchBug82 said:

 

It is not product placement. It is characters straight-up delivering a commercial in the middle of the show - with the enthusiasm one can imagine.

 

 

Showing a character having breakfast with a box of Cheerios nearby seems life-like and completely "normal".   Having a character suddenly deliver a soliloquy about "whole grain goodness with no sugar added!" is just utterly cringeworthy.   

I watched the premiere.  (I was a young teenager.)  The title "Number 96" seemed to be a play on "Number 69", indicating there would be some fairly explicit sex, but there wasn't.  It followed the basic format of "Soap", indicating that it would be funny, but it wasn't.  At the very least, you'd think it might feature some well-written and well-acted serialized storylines, but it didn't.  It featured some downright ludicrous scenes, such as a woman carrying on a long conversation with a liquor bottle as a cliffhanger.  It was just really bad, really poorly written, and awfully stupid.  

While the Adam storyline was fairly wretched, Dr. Lang was definitely one of the "highlights" of the show.  Even when he wasn't sabotaging his own tape recorder, he managed to bluster through the entire ordeal with the most awkward, unintentionally comic presence of any actor who ever appeared on the show.   There were times when he even appeared to be attempting to out-vamp Grayson Hall.  

On 5/6/2021 at 2:14 PM, DramatistDreamer said:

That's such a great picture of Finn! 

 

I sometimes forget how beautiful Finn Carter really was.  

5 minutes ago, YRfan23 said:

I just think that if Lester stayed, it would have been a more equal rivalry with Victor and Jack. 

Yep.  Even when Victor TROUNCED Terry Lester's Jack, it was always a hollow victory, because Terry Lester shrugged and said, "Aw shucks", went back to chasing women, badgering Jill, giving John Abbott and Ashley fits, and didn't seem to give Victor much thought at all until their next confrontation.  Peter Bergman's Jack always appears to be stewing and pouting about Victor.  

It's a lot of fun reading these summaries!  It's interesting how sporadic Ansel Scott, Mrs. Nadine Alexander, and Raven Alexander are on "The Edge of Night".   They pretty much dominated the October recap, were missing entirely in November, and they're dominating again in December.  Were these actors on contract, or did they just appear whenever Henry Slesar wanted to give the Karrs and the Drakes a break?  

I always felt that the most defining characteristic of Terry Lester's Jack was his "devil-may-care" attitude.   Never made any difference to me how handsome he was or how charming he was.  

That all went out the window with Peter Bergman, who always seemed too methodical, poised, practiced & meticulous to be Jack Abbott.  

3 hours ago, FrenchBug82 said:

So yeah his talent mattered.

His talent was definitely behind Y&R's success, and so was his vision.   As long as he was around, the show was a unique product -- from the stylized acting, to the moody lighting and music, to the sometimes repetitious and awkward dialogue.   That was all part of the appeal of the show.  Some of us loved his show; other viewers found it stilted and unnatural, preferring the more "real world"-based look and sound of the P&G shows or the ABC shows.  But Bill Bell didn't waver.  Y&R was exactly what Bell wanted it to be, and once he was gone, so was the unique identity of his show.  

1 hour ago, YRfan23 said:

Maybe this is me getting worried we are making him out not to be as great of a writer as he really was, but can someone confirm if Agnes Nixon or even Irna Phillips had annoying quirks in their writing too that would make the fans crazy?.did Agnes ever retcon older stories for her newer audience?

I'm no authority on Agnes Nixon or Irna Phillips, but Bill Bell had a habit of dropping characters without much explanation and then, out of necessity later on, "back-pedaling" to explain where they'd been.   He ALWAYS did that.  Sometimes his "back-pedaling" was logical, and other times it wasn't, but normally you could visualize his thought process.   In the mid-1980's, he dropped Julianna McCarthy (Liz Brooks) to recurring, as Liz wasn't receiving much storyline material and was interacting solely with her daughter Jill.   Eventually she just vanished without a trace.  About a year later, he needed Liz to reappear for Jill's shooting, and you could see that he was mentally thinking, "Ok, where has Liz been?  I can say she's still in Genoa City, or I can say that she reconciled with Stuart Brooks, or I can say that she's living with Snapper and Chris in London.  That's it!  I'll pretend she's in London, so that she can pick-up Phillip III from boarding school and escort him back to Genoa City!"  That made pretty good sense.  The situation with Carl Williams disappearing made far less sense, and Carl's absence was pretty glaring, since Mary was still appearing on the show.   I'd been wondering how it would ultimately be explained.  What we eventually got (the Norfolk storyline) was disappointing and didn't make much sense to longtime viewers, but some folks seemed to enjoy it.  With Patty Williams, Bill Bell seemed VERY FOND of Lilibet Stern and very UNIMPRESSED with Andrea Evans.  Bell seemed to take the position later that Andrea Evans had never played the role.  (All of Cricket's interaction with Patty involved Andrea Evans, rather than Lilibet Stern, so that was just swept under the rug, as Andrea Evans had made such an unfortunate and forgettable Patty.)  

Yep, it's nice to know that Fenmore's is THRIVING around the world, while Macy's struggles.   Guess Macy's should turn to Lauren for advice, assuming they can find her in an appropriate coffee shop or restaurant in order to have a board meeting with her.   And what's so bad is that Fenmore's actually had some financial problems for about 5 minutes a couple of years ago, but since that storyline seemed rooted in reality, they dropped it pretty fast.  

14 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

 

Also a 1974 TV Guide profiles the actors of the NBC series 'Chase'. One of them, Craig Gardener talks about having a semi regular role on Y&R. I suspect this might be Jill's boyfriend who was mentioned in a 1973 synopsis posted way back. I can't recall the character's name offhand.

I think his name was "Brent".  

Whether "Dallas" was too male-oriented is probably debatable, but I don't think there's ANY question that David Jacobs's original idea for the show was a rivalry between J.R. Ewing & Pamela.  In the original story projection, didn't Bobby Ewing DIE, and Pam took over his place as JR's chief adversary?   And the show nailed this aspect on so many different occasions (such as the reading of Bobby's will, when Pam is named as the trustee of Christopher's shares of Ewing Oil).   Without Victoria Principal's Pam character, there was just no show left anymore, because from Day One, she was the character who got under JR's skin.   I really like Soap Dope's idea that the series shoulda ended with Bobby & Pam remarrying, and JR realizing that he's gotta deal with her yet again.  

2 hours ago, j swift said:

 I think everyone would feel more confident at work in high heels and a suit with a matching hat and veil.  It might be slightly inconvenient while working in front of a computer.  But, maybe the veil blocked the screen's bluelight?

 

 

Brenda Dickson's Jill always seemed a bit GRANDIOSE for the workplace.  And her favorite line was always, "What do YOU want?  Can't you sheee that I'm bisshy?"  (while polishing her nails)  

The man in Mississippi who had a stroke from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine also had a stressful job and SEVEN kids.   I was inclined to think his stroke might be more attributable to the 7 kids than to the vaccine.   But that ended the J&J shots in Mississippi.  

On 4/17/2021 at 12:59 AM, RavenWhitney said:

Amazing cast.  But with many Marland episodes I felt like I needed a tranquilizer after watching.  This show was on speed. Too many characters and chaos in many of these scenes.  

It was difficult for Marland to pen a one-on-one scene, because so many of his characters tromped around in big herds like buffalo.