Broderick

Oh yeah, Nina Arvesen was aloof & elusive enough to be Ashley Abbott, no doubt about it. Always thought Lauren Koslow would make a good Jill.

In 1988 (?), Y&R hired Brenda Epperson to play Ashley Abbott immediately following the departure of Eileen Davidson. At almost the same time, Jabot's books were being audited by George Rawlins's bossy, assertive, sarcastic niece Brittany Norman, played by Melissa Morgan. Although Brenda Epperson LOOKED like Ashley, Melissa Morgan was imbued with more of Ashley's personality. At the time, I felt that those two actresses should've swapped roles.

You know, the original setup was a complete knock-off of Tennessee Williams's play from the 1950s, "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof". Jock & Miss Ellie were mirror images of Big Daddy and Big Mama; JR and Sue Ellen were Gooper & Mae; Bobby and Pam represented Brick & Maggie of course; and Lucy was the no-neck monster. I remember seeing the first episode of "Dallas" when I was a little kid, and thinking that Tennessee Williams should have litigated. But I reckon he was just glad to see someone so anxious to copy him. There's a novel by Lee Raintree that was published in conjunction with the airing of the 5-episode miniseries that gives a long, detailed history of the Jock, Digger, and Miss Ellie triangle, as well as the boyhoods of JR, Gary, and Bobby. The novel was based off the original script outlines for the miniseries, not necessarily what aired on television. It's really a pretty decent read, if you're interested in Southworth and Ewing history. The novel captures what David Jacobs originally conceived for the series, some of which was subsequently altered for television.

Good! I've been afraid it would be someone completely predictable and yawnish. Sharon, for instance. lol.

Yeah, Terry Lester was given a "mellow storyline" with the Ellen Winters character and the "shelter" to "redeem him" after he boinked Jill & caused his father to have a heart attack. But it was a brief interlude, and Terry Lester shrugged it off. With the Saigon Shack storyline, Peter Bergman was expected to simply wallow in "mellowness" for months & months. He clearly resented it. I don't think he ever indicated a racial component was factored in, just felt it was an out-of-character sappy mess that, at the time, seemed unending. His subsequent comments about disliking the story evidently led the writers to avoid revisiting it. Probably time to re-address it now, but hopefully without all the sappiness that plagued it the first time.

Same here. I can understand why Peter Bergman disliked the original storyline (it was sappy as hell, and the actor who played Keemo was practically as old as Peter Bergman). But there's certainly still an opportunity to revisit the mess and pull out some grandchildren or in-laws or someone who could shake things up a lil bit.

Y&R was "first", although the stories were vastly different. By 1975, Phillip Chancellor was dead, and Kay Chancellor and Jill Foster each blamed the other for his death. Raven appeared in 1976. Geraldine never hated her, though. Geraldine was often OUTDONE with Raven, due to Raven's immature antics.

They never knew what to do with Casey. She never had much of anything to do, going all the way back to her debut in 1978. She had great chemistry with David Hasselhoff as Snapper, but Bill Bell didn't wanna break-up Snapper & Chris, so that just left her as Nikki's Older Sister.

Yeah, and the 10-year-old was pleased -- till he realized he forgot WINTERS, and then the back-pedaling started. "Oh, phooey. Now I gotta change it!!"

Edge of Night typically ran the vocal version of the theme song one day a week, which was the day the cast list was shown. For the crew cast, they usually used the instrumental version. Y&R did pretty much the same thing, although there was a period in 1974-1975 when they used the vocal version far more often.

It's awfully brave of Y&R to address INSOMNIA. You know what everyone in the audience is thinking whenever the word is mentioned. lol.

Same here. I never disliked Burgi (though I found the character awfully dull), but this new guy has injected way more "spark" into the scenes. It was obvious from the second he looked up at Adam in his very first scene.

Guess Bradley Bell's about done with the Spencers?

Yep, I suspect that Doug Davidson, Kristoff St. John, Christian LeBlanc, and Kate Linder were ALL dropped to recurring about the same time, but because of their longevity, the show extended them the "courtesy" of not making the status of their "demotions" public. Doug Davidson made his own status public on Twitter -- said it had been that way for several months -- and soon after he made his public revelation, the credits were revised to reflect what he'd already revealed. Kristoff (according to Bryton James) was 'terribly worried' about his job security at the time of his death, which seems to indicate the exact same had happened to him. Christian and Kate seem to be just rolling with the flow, but obviously they're not being treated like contract performers either, regardless of what the credits show.

Ok, thanks, I didn't remember that. I was thinking she'd been recurring ever since she reappeared. (My suspicion is that CLB is recurring also, but they're continuing to list him with the contract cast out of "kindness". Doug Davidson revealed -- in one of his little rants -- that he'd been dropped to recurring long before they removed him from the contract cast list.)

I believe Tracey E Bregman has been "recurring" for the past 20 or so years. Christian LeBlanc is "under contract" (according to the show's credit list), but his guaranteed number of episodes seems to be minimal.

Christian LeBlanc was theoretically gonna *vanish* for a couple of months, as he was supposed to be in New York in an off-Broadway production of "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof". But my understanding is that the show was recently postponed until summer of 2022, due to the recent Covid surge. Looks as though his "adios scenes" were penned prior to the postponement of the play. It's amazing that the writers can't find ANYTHING resembling a decent storyline for Noah Newman.

Seems like Suzanne Zenor played Claire, and Peter Brown was Robert. (Bell had worked with them both on "Days", I think.)

And she misspelled the names of her co-stars. In the first edition, Jeanne Cooper became "Jean". Then Miss Dickson would get on Amazon and give herself a 5-star review with the comment, "I've always wondered what happened to the beautiful and talented Brenda Dickson. Loved her stories about Jean Cooper!" And you could tell it was poor Brenda writing the review, lol.

I always liked the Nikki scene above, where she flicks her Jabot business card on Victor's desk as she struts out the door, and he barks out, "Take your damn card with you!" lol

Yes, and Lorie Brooks was another re-write. When she reappeared as Mrs. Max Hollister circa 2001, she was creaming her panties for Victor -- would take him under any circumstances -- although as someone pointed out above, she'd beaten him at his own game in 1982. Kay Alden felt that needed to be rectified by having her grovel for Victor. It was ridiculous. Just like the absurdity of "Career Gal Nikki" and "Madame CEO Kay Chancellor".

I wouldn't call Julia Newman "needy". More like "sheltered". In her first stint (1980-1981), the Little Woman couldn't have a job. The Little Woman had to stay home. The Little Woman had to stand by her man. She'd married Victor when she was a teenager, and he tended to dominate her, which led to her wanting a job at Jabot and eventually sleeping with Michael Scott. She left town for a year or two. Once she returned, she was even more confident and assertive. She often rolled her eyes when Victor patronized women. She was friendly and open with Victor, but she wasn't the sheltered little sheep he wanted her to be.

You'd think any story pitch would've been preferable to the Reliquary Nonsense. I could appreciate wanting to recharacterize Brad as Jewish (since Don Diamont himself had a similar experience), but it should've been done in a more introspective way, omitting the Evil Nazi Art Thieves, the mother who vanished into thin air, Brad walking around snacking on treats during Yom Kippur, and Victoria constructing faux reliquaries with supplies from Hobby Lobby.

Oh, I agree. If Miss Alden was just DETERMINED to drench the entire cast with Victor's semen, it would've made more sense (from a dramatic standpoint) to have Ashley, as a single woman, decide on the IVF and accidentally end up with Victor's dribble, instead of choosing his purposefully, and then have Brad -- as Ashley's husband -- SUSPECT that she'd done it intentionally because of some unresolved desire to have Victor's baby. But it seemed Alden put very little thought into the storyline from the onset, and then Jack Smith came along and exacerbated something that was already terrible by dragging Olivia into the squalor.

The Brad/Ashley pairing was bungled-up in about every possible way, beginning with the Sperm Theft and ending with the Reliquary, lol. And it's a shame, because Diamont and Davidson had chemistry, both as characters who'd known each for a long time and as actors who'd worked together for many years. The writers went to great lengths to show the relationship deepening between Brad & Ashley, and then flushed it away in no time flat.