Broderick

Those Stevens people --- they literally made the decision to leave town, bought the plane tickets, packed, and left for good in ONE episode, lol. 

About Brooks Prentiss --- gosh, good question.   I always assumed that he left with Leslie.  But he must've been packed in the suitcase with her sheet music.   Lorie Brooks got a big, grandiose, tear-jerking good-bye scene, complete with "Nadia's Theme" swelling to a climax as the Elevator Doors of Death (her penthouse doors) closed behind her at the conclusion of an episode.  But the other three --- Lance, Lucas, and Leslie --- all had to shout "BYE!" two seconds before the next Tide or Bounty-the-Quicker-Picker-Upper commercial came on.   There just wasn't much discussion about Brooks during the Leslie and Robert Laurence storyline, as the emphasis was always on Robert's daughter Angela, who had perky breasts and could jiggle them in her Giorgio's of Beverly Hills tee-shirt as she fled from lecherous creeps who were trying to pop her cherry.   Some old fat man would try to molest Angela, and she'd cry, "Help! Help!" (jiggle-jiggle), and Paul or Andy or someone would come along in a TransAm and save her.   But that's hilarious that Leslie and Lorie spent their whole adult lives fighting over Brooks, and both of them forgot his ass when they left town lol.   (I'm almost sure he went with Leslie.)  

54 minutes ago, will81 said:

 

I assume (but don't know for sure) that Nick fell on the sword to save Eric's Victor. As I speculated before, much easier to redeem a character like Victor if his victims aren't in town anymore.

Yes sir, I think Meg Bennett (Julia) and Nick Benedict (Michael) had to be "sacrificed" -- in her case, temporarily; in his case, permanently -- in order to make Victor more palatable.  Victor didn't turn "good" by any means; he was still a sinister and formidable character, but he was a WHOLE lot easier to swallow without the Cellar Boy and the Victimized Wife hanging around to remind us of the dungeon. 

But that was the way things went during that period --- a storyline would wrap-up (sometimes logically and strategically, and other times very haphazardly and abruptly), and all of the characters who'd populated that orbit would be swept off the canvas with scarcely a good-bye.   The most glaring and humorous example were those Stevens people (April Stevens, Barbara Ann Harting, Wayne Stevens and Dorothy Stevens.)  April Stevens spent I-don't-know-how-many- MONTHS searching for her long-lost twin sister, Barbara, in one of the dullest storylines in Y&R's history.   Of course Barbara was right in front of our eyes, and Paul was frantically trying to bang her.  It just dragged on & on.  Then suddenly one day out of the clear blue sky Barbara said, "Oh, by the way, I just discovered that I'm a zillionaire, and I've decided to move to New York City tonight.  Plane leaves in an hour!  Who'd like to move there with me?"  Wayne and Dorothy immediately popped-up their hands for a free ticket, and April squealed, "Let me run and get little Heather, and I'll go too.  How exciting!!"  And the next day, every single one of those dull people were gone for good.   If you missed that episode, you probably wondered what the hell had happened to the Stevens family, because the next day it was as though they'd never even existed. 

One day, Robert Laurence, his wife Claire, and their daughter Angela were all central characters.  Then suddenly --- POOF!! --- they all just moved away and were never heard from again.   Mr. & Mrs. Bancroft (Kevin's parents) --- POOF! --- gone.  Leslie Brooks:  "Maestro has arranged a worldwide concert tour for me!  My plane leaves in an hour!  Good-bye, Dad!"  POOF!  gone.  Sally McGuire, Chuckie, and Stan:  "We're leaving for Michigan in 4 and 1/2 minutes!  Good-bye, Snapper!  Bless the beasts and the children!  Sniffle-sniffle, bye!"   Chris Brooks:  "I've just signed an exclusive contract with Jabot.  How exciting!  What's that?  Oh, my plane for London leaves in fifteen minutes.  Looks like I'm leaving forever!  Please tear-up my contract, Mr. Abbott!  Bye!"  Suzanne Lynch announced that she was taking a job in the Chancellor Industries employee cafeteria.  Guess she fell in the deep fat fryer, because we never heard from her again. 

Sometimes things seemed to limp to a logical conclusion, and other times it seemed that Bill Bell just woke-up and told Lee Philip, "Geez, I'm bored with this gaggle of fools.   I'll see if Kay Alden can either kill all of them off today, or else just send them all out of town so that I won't ever have to look at 'em again!"   That just wasn't the Y&R we'd known before February of 1980, and it wasn't the Y&R that we came to know again after the summer of 1982. 

9 hours ago, will81 said:

 

 Judging by the ratings it didn't start pushing its way back into the top 4 until the summer of 1982. That's a long period to be unstable, especially with the way daytime was back then.

The fundamental problem that I detected between February 1980 and the summer of 1982 was the lack of cohesion.  There was just absolutely NO cohesion to be seen.   The show had its good points of course, but by and large, it was just a big, sprawling mess of disjointed, unrelated storylines that didn't seem to share any common threads or purposes.   Sure, it was still populated by pretty people, in pretty sets, in various stages of undress, with suggestive Hollywood lighting, but there seemed to be no underlying theme or reason for Y&R to exist.

With the casting of Jerry Douglas, Eileen Davidson, and Beth Maitland, and the positioning of Terry Lester in a very prominent role, everything started to click almost immediately.  Gone were the messy, disjointed storylines that just started, then faltered, then stopped for no apparent reason.   The show was now built about three major "camps" of activity:  (1)  the interworkings of Jabot Cosmetics, driven by the personal lives of John, Jill, Jack, Patty, Ashley, and Traci; (2) the Victor/Nikki/Kevin saga concerning the paternity of Baby Victoria; and (3) the adventures of the "young detectives" -- Paul and Andy -- and their fight against organized crime.   Each of these "camps" moved in their own separate orbits, just like in the 1973-1979 version of Y&R, but they also interlocked daily, with Kay Chancellor acting as the "mother figure" to Nikki Bancroft in the Tier 2 story and also as the arch-nemesis to Jill Foster Abbott in the Tier I story.  Victor Newman, who was one of the centerpieces of the Tier II story, regularly utilitized Paul, Andy, or Carl from the Tier III storyline to help with Tony DiSalvo or Rick Daros or whoever.   Amy Lewis, who began working with Paul and Andy in the Tier III storyline was best friends with Traci Abbott in the Tier I story.    Patty Williams, who was the beautiful, naive, little stay-at-home wife in the Tier I story was the baby sister of Paul Williams in the Tier III story.

Everything just suddenly made SENSE again, and the identity of the show seemed to be restored.  No, it didn't have the comraderie of "small-town community", like the P&G soaps or "All My Children", but it was back to being Classic Y&R --- a series of cleverly interlocking stories that existed in the same basic "universe" but in separate, distinct daily "orbits".   Also, it made sense from a socio-economic standpoint, just as it had in its early years --- there was the noeveau riche zillionaire (Victor Newman), the jaded old-money millionaire (Kay Chancellor), the comfortably upper-class country club family (the Abbotts), and the working-class group who had to think twice before making a large purchase (Paul, Andy, Mary and Carl, Jazz).   For the first time ever, there were Black people on contract.  A variety of different unique characters bounced across the screen --- prostitutes who inhabited Sleazy's Bar, preppy boys and girls who dropped by the Abbott house to pick-up Ashley for a tennis match, drug dealers who offered to sell Traci Abbott some diet pills.   It became visually APPEALING again, and was infused with more feeling and warmth.   It seemed to be the ABBOTTS who became the designated center of the show, completing the vision and made everything "work" again from a cohesion standpoint.  It was now like the old thirty-minute Y&R --  but much bigger, much broader, much brighter, much more humorous, and with a far more "epic" scope.  In 1982, everything really began to *click* again, and by June of 1983, Y&R was picking up a well-deserved Emmy award for best daytime serial again, against some VERY stiff competition.       

5 minutes ago, will81 said:

 

I think also it was Conboy's phrasing, as he made it seem as if he voided their contracts himself, that he was being "the good guy", at least that's the way I remember him talking about it in an interview.

Believe me, I wouldn't know anything about the structuring of their contracts -- (half-hour format versus the hour-format) --- except it came to my attention when Doug Davidson was complaining on Twitter last year that Mal Young stopped utilizing him entirely after he was bumped to recurring.  There was a scene last year where Lily Winters had to give a statement to the police department about a traffic accident in which Hilary Curtis was injured.   Instead of using Doug Davidson, they used Random Policewoman #1 to take Lily's statement.  Some viewers were asking why Paul Williams wasn't used instead of Random Policewoman #1.  So I looked on the Screen Actors Guild website to see how much Random Policewoman #1 was paid for taking Lily's statement.  There was a wealth of information:  an "under-five" (person who delivers fewer than 5 lines of dialogue) is guaranteed X-amount on a half-hour show, and a different amount on an hour-long show.  A "dayplayer" (person who delivers more than 5 lines but isn't under contract) is guaranteed X-amount on a half-hour show, and a different amount on an hour-long show.  A "contract cast member" is guaranteed X-amount on a half-hour show, and a different amount on an hour-long show.  Everyone in the 1979 Y&R cast had negotiated their contracts using the half-hour Screen Actors Guild payscale, and when the change was made to the hour-format, everyone's contract went out the window.  John Conboy may have taken credit for that (due to his ego), but I believe that's just the way contracts negotiated under union rules work in television and film.    

Bell said in his interview with Archives of American Television that CBS had leaned on Screen Gems to expand Y&R to an hour, and that he fought the decision for a long time.  He basically said, "They eventually told me that the show was expanding to an hour, and it would be expanding with or without me."  That pretty much says that while he might've had creative control of the show, his ownership decision-making was sometimes trumped by Screen Gems/SONY.        

24 minutes ago, will81 said:

In terms of Brenda, I get the feeling she eventually decided she knew how to play Jill better than Bell knew how to write her. I think the producers probably did get sick of her and maybe did sabotage her to get her off the show, hence her recollections.

I assume that's probably the case, Will81.   It really sounds as though most of Brenda's castmates had gotten sick of her, the producers were about sick of her, and ultimately Bell himself was about sick of her.   There's no denying that she brought a certain something to the show, but I expect the consensus was reached that her certain "something" wasn't worth the headache of dealing with her on a daily basis.   I don't wanna dwell on it much, because she's obviously still a fairly divisive figure, with some people thinking she's a victim and others thinking she's the devil incarnate.   I found a copy of her "tell-all book" in a bargain bin and toyed with the idea of purchasing it, but after flipping through it for a few seconds and seeing all the boasting and self-importance, and noticing the lack of facts to substantiate her claims, and noticing that she even changed her year of birth from chapter to chapter, I just threw it back on the heap and said, "Well, that's Brenda for you!"  lol.  Her book came across much like her performances did in those final years --- just a strange, bizarre mish-mash of haughtiness and weirdness.     

29 minutes ago, will81 said:

Second letting the actors out of their contracts when the show went to an hour, if Bell did approve of this, it seems odd. He hated the idea of expanding, so to deal with the stress of that on top of losing key actors seems an odd thing to do and I feel this was Conboy again. Either it was just an arogant decision (the actors don't make the show) that didn't take into account Bell's needs or it was sabotage, as the way Bell talks about Conboy makes it sound like he wasn't above that. 

I think the "opt-out clause" for actors was probably unavoidable, if the show expanded to an hour.   I'm not an entertainment attorney of course, but my understanding is that there's a clear distinction between working on a half-hour show versus working on a one-hour show, and the actors' contracts had been negotiated for a half-hour show. 

As far as writers go, I know that the Writers Guild of America establishes a minimum amount that a headwriter on a half-hour show is paid, which is vastly less than the minimum for a headwriter on a one-hour serial.  The 2018 mimimums are $21,842 per week for a half-hour serial, and $40,406 for a one-hour serial.   So if I'm the headwriter of a half-hour show, I'm going to have a contract which states something like, "Broderick shall be paid $22,000 per week and shall function as the headwriter of 'The Young and the Restless' and shall perform all the duties normally associated with the headwriter of a daytime serial."  Well, if the show suddenly expands to an hour, that voids my contract completely, and I must either negotiate a new contract based on the one-hour Writers Guild of America guidelines, or else walk away.  I'd assume the same situation probably exists for actors, directors, producers, camera guys, costume designers, set builders, and everyone else involved with the show.   Their contracts had been negotiated using certain union pay-scales that no longer applied once the show went to an hour.    

14 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

I wonder what the circumstances were,did they cross paths at Jonas's? If it was a throwaway scene, it did get mentioned in synopses. But some mentions in those newspaper summaries could be random.

 

The 1982 revamp seemed to coincide with Wes Kenney's arrival.  He and Bell had worked together on Days . Did Bill Bell have final word on who would be exec producer? I know there were reports of clashes with John Conboy. Does anyone have specifics?

So did Wes Kenney sit down with Bill and give his two cents worth? It seems so in light of the changes made. 

Interesting that Bell needed someone to whip the show into shape when he has always been presented as having total control of the writing.

The scene with Victor and Peggy --- if it happened --- must've been a "one-off" at the Allegro, and I must've missed that day.  

About John Conboy:   I believe maybe we were misled about how much "control" Bill Bell had over the production of the show in its early years.  There are some long but interesting (separate) interviews with Wes Kenney, Bill Bell, and Jeanne Cooper on the "Archive of American Television" site that shed a little more light on it.   My understanding is that Y&R was owned initially by three parties --- Bell Dramatic Serial Company (William J. Bell's production company), Screen Gems Television Productions (now SONY) and Corday Productions (1% interest, due to Bill Bell having been the headwriter at Days of Our Lives & breaking his contract to create Y&R).   I always assumed that Bill Bell was the "deciding vote" about every aspect of the show.  After listening to the three interviews (Bell, Kenney, and Cooper), I'm guessing that Screen Gems/SONY always called the shots.  

Jeanne Cooper revealed that she was contacted by John Conboy (not Bill Bell) about originating the role of Kay Chancellor.   The people she mentions meeting with were John Conboy and Patricia Wenig.   She talks about her audition process, and discusses how suave and handsome Conboy was, and then she says, "Patricia Wenig looked like someone who'd be running a pastry shop in Carmel, California."  I'd always thought Bill Bell was involved in ALL of the casting, even though he was in Chicago and the auditions were in Hollywood, but Jeanne's interview about her audition makes it sound as though Conboy and Wenig were doing most of the work.  (They might've overnighted a videotape of the audition to Bell for his approval before Jeanne signed the contract, but she specifically states that she auditioned for Conboy and Wenig, and then she began taping the following afternoon.   That doesn't allow much time for Bill Bell in Chicago to offer any input.) 

In Bill Bell's interview, he goes into some detail about his falling-out with John Conboy.   The interviewer asks Bell about some of the specific people he worked with, and to kindly make a few remarks about them.   When it's time to make a few "kind" remarks about John Conboy, Bell says he doesn't have anything "kind" to say, that he'd prefer to say nothing at all.   Then he starts talking.  lol.  In 1981, there was a writer's strike, and John Conboy was supposed to be keeping things running smoothly at the show.   Instead, according to Bill Bell, John Conboy spent money hand-over-fist on new sets, causing the show to go about two million dollar over budget.   Bell's production company was expected to come up with the two million dollar shortfall.   Bell's anger was that the deficit was due to Conboy creating all these elaborate sets that were then transferred over to "Capitol", the new soap that Conboy was developing.   I've tried to visualize which sets were designed for Y&R in 1981 and then transferred to Capitol in 1982 (which I rarely watched), and about the only thing I can come up with is maybe that London ballroom set from Y&R that could've been the basis for the living room set of the Clegg mansion on Capitol.   And maybe there were some random apartments created on Y&R in 1981 that became apartments or houses on Capitol in 1982.  But Bell was pretty furious about the deficit that Conboy incurred. 

Wes Kenney's interview reveals that Y&R was wasting a LOT of time and money in taping & production costs when he came aboard.   He says there was basically NO editing going on.   The show was being taped "in sequence".   They would move from one set to another, then back again to a previous set.   Kenney says he stopped all of that, and taped all the scenes in one set, then moved to another set.   Kenney also claims that the scenes were never spliced before he came along.  He says that Conboy was doing, say, three takes of a scene, and then choosing his favorite of the three takes to put on the master tape.   If Kenney got a more-or-less perfect scene out of the first take, but someone messed-up a line, Kenney would just re-tape the flub, and then splice it into perfect first take, rather than completely re-shoot the scene like Conboy had been doing.   

Also, I don't know how reliable of a source Brenda Dickson is, because she's obviously a raging lunatic and a liar (if you've scanned her "tell-all book" where she even gives her own age incorrectly lol).  BUT, if she's to be trusted at all, there was always some contention and disagreement between Bill Bell in Chicago and the producers in Hollywood.   SHE claims that Bill Bell would call her and fuss at her for not having CRIED in a scene where he'd specifically written "Jill begins to cry" in the script.  She alleges that the Hollywood producers (presumably either Wes Kenney or Ed Scott) were editing-out her tears, and then telling Bill Bell that she never cried during the scene.  Now obviously I don't believe anything she says, but I think her complaint is probably based on a true story.   I expect Bell was "running the show" from Chicago, and Wes Kenney was probably "running the show" from Hollywood, and that's a recipe for conflict.  You'll notice when Wes Kenney took the job at General Hospital and left Y&R in about 1987, Bill Bell made sure that he HIMSELF got a "senior executive producer" title, effectively putting a stop to any conflicts between the writing department and the production department.   And of course shortly after that is when the show hit #1 and started its 30-year reign at the top.  But up until 1987, I believe there was probably an occasional conflict between production and writing that Bell, in Chicago, generally lost-out on, because the production was being done 2,000 miles away from his watchful eye.

9 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

 

Some other tidbits

Eve admitted to sleeping with Derek in the past (possibility that Charles was his child?)

Peggy arrested after leaving Jack's apartment naked under a fur coat! (wonder what set was used as Jack's apt?)

Eve befriending Peggy.

Victor flirting with Peggy.

Greg dating Peggy.

I remember the thing with Derek & Eve.  (I actually assumed the child -- Charles Victor Howard -- was probably Derek's kid, because a blond actor was used to play the boy, and Derek and Eve were both blondes.   The child looked nothing like Victor.)   There was a convoluted mess where Derek hated Victor, because Victor had sorta "replaced" Derek at Chancellor Industries.   Eve also had a vendetta against Victor, because Victor wouldn't acknowledge the kid, whom she claimed was Victor's son.   Derek and Eve somehow broke into a doctor's office, got ahold of Victor's medical files, and mailed them to Julia, who was pregnant.   Julia was horrified to learn Victor had undergone a vasectomy, because she was pregnant with a child she was hoping was Victor's but she feared was probably Michael Scott's.   She lost the kid, and it turned out to be Victor's, I think. 

I remember Peggy teasing Jack by being naked under the fur coat.   (Hard to believe this was the same Peggy who wouldn't sleep with Jack Curtis a few years earlier, but we were led to believe that Jack Abbott had reawakened her sexual urges.  The apartment used for Jack Abbott was just a random apartment set.)

Made sense for Peggy to befriend Eve, because Eve had taken a job at the newspaper working for Stuart Brooks, and Peggy worked there too as a reporter.  The fans all assumed that Eve would be usurping Liz as Stuart's new wife, because Eve was becoming his "social secretary" as well as his business secretary.  

I don't remember Victor EVER flirting with Peggy.   Can't visualize that at all.

Greg and Peggy dated a few times.   It was the set-up for a storyline that never took off about dilapidated housing and slumlords.   (That storyline was utilized later, in the early 1990s, with Cricket Blair and the Rainbow Gardens apartments.  It was a snoozer then, and I'm sure it would've been a snoozer with Greg and Peggy, as well.) 

27 minutes ago, will81 said:

 

What did you think of Bond Gideon as Jill. The one episode that was posted, I feel she was fine, but maybe Bell had Brenda in his mind too much to accept her, kinda like a rebound relationship, haha. I would love to get a clip of Bond and Jeanne so we have scenes of Jeanne with all the long term Jill's.

In 1980, I really didn't have any kind of opinion about Bond Gideon at all.   She was just yet another stranger in a vast sea of unfamiliar faces.  lol.

If you were watching then, it was kinda exciting to see the changes, but it was also sorta overwhelming.  Remember, that cult storyline was starting, and there was a whole gaggle of complete strangers running around --- Matthew, Rebecca, Sumeiko, and several others.   Paul had a whole family of strangers fretting and worrying about him (Carl, Mary, Steve, and Patty).  April Stevens (a stranger) was over there in an apartment next to Snapper and Chris weeping about Heather, and then some more strangers appeared out of nowhere to harrass her (Wayne, Dorothy, Barbara).    Lance popped-up engaged to a stranger (Simone).   Derek Thurston was working at Chancellor Industries with three strangers (George, Bob, and Judy).  Lucas Prentiss was running around with a stranger (Sebastian) trying to get another stranger (Jonas) to help them free some other strangers in a fictional country.  Every time Kay Chancellor opened her front door, a stranger (Douglas) came running in.  Lorie Brooks would go plop down in the Allegro, and a mumbling stranger (Victor) would sit down with her and discuss another stranger (Julia).  Bond Gideon was just another stranger. 

But I did watch the clip that Bond Gideon's husband posted, and I'll just say that in hindsight, I'm very impressed with her.  She's pretty, she's capable, and she had an interesting and sort of "unique" look about her.   If she'd been introduced at any other time other than 1980, I expect she would've lasted longer. 

The main scene that I remember with Bond Gideon in 1980 was that Derek Thurston stopped by the dimly-lit Foster house to have a few words with Jill.  I believe he was telling her that they shouldn't see each other, because he was starting his new job at Chancellor, and he didn't want Kay to be suspicious of his relationship with Jill.  He gave Jill a good-bye kiss in the very dimly lit set.   The kiss was a pretty WET one, because Joe LaDue tended to open his mouth pretty wide, and so did Bond Gideon.  When they broke apart, there was a long strand of saliva connecting Derek's lips to Jill's.   They had a few more lines of dialogue.  Their faces were lit, but the set was dim.  As a result, that long string of saliva was directly in the light, bouncing and jiggling between his lips and hers like a tightrope.   My little brother said, "Look at that spit!"  I said, "I bet it'll break in a minute.  It's gonna be hanging off their chins!"  But it didn't ever break; it just kept bouncing between them until the scene dimmed out.      

Main thing I remember about Jill's initial interview with John Abbott was how strangely the scene was edited.  First, there was a scene with Jill weeping and wailing about how badly she hated "Bob's Beauty Barn" (or whatever the place was called), and then the scene segued directly into her interview at Jabot.   No commercial in-between.  No scene in-between involving other characters.   (That was always kind of a "soap opera no-no" to have a character appear in one scene, and then fade into a scene of that same character in an entirely different location.)  My siblings and I made the comment, "How'd she get to the cosmetics place so FAST?!" lol.  You just didn't see that type of editing very often. 

I expect what happened is that Brett Halsey probably played John Abbott (as a recurring cast member) during the initial job interview.  Then Mr. Abbott left town on a business trip for a few weeks, and when he returned, he was signed to a contract.   That would explain the lag from May to Autumn in Halsey's contract status.  Sean Garrison probably played the role a time or two while Brett Halsey was unavailable due to another commitment.  (The story didn't just launch into full-throttle immediately after Jill's interview.)  Seems that there were even a few weeks where Bond Gideon walked around announcing that, "I'll be starting my job as soon as Mr. Abbott is back from his trip.    

Just now, will81 said:

Yeah it is. There seems to be some contention about that. But Brett Halsey isn't mentioned as joining the show until August 1980. John Abbott first appeared in May 1980. While cast change news was sometimes late, it rarely took several months. I also read somewhere (and I have forgotten where) that Sean Garrison was indeed John Abbott #1. 

I'll be damn.  I remember John Abbott's first scene pretty vividly, and I could've sworn the character was played by Brett Halsey from day one.   Bond Gideon's husband has posted that episode on-line where Sean Garrison is playing John.  I don't remember ever laying eyes on that dude until I saw Bond's clip, though.

On the show, Bond Gideon's Jill was working at this place called "Bob's Beauty Barn", or something like that; she *hated* it there.   Steve Williams gave her a little pep talk:  "You're pretty, you're smart, you know how to present yourself effectively, you don't have to work in a place that you hate."  Next thing we knew, Bond was prancing into the office of John Abbott --- evidently Jabot was so small that John Abbott personally did all the hiring? --- and she was impressing him enough so that he offered her a job.   I could've sworn that it was Brett Halsey who hired her.  But maybe not.  Maybe it was that Sean Garrison.  Pretty sure it was Brett Halsey though.

I'd really like to know what the deal was with Brett Halsey.  I've never heard anyone speculate why he was suddenly OUT as John Abbott, but his exit seemed to basically stunt the entire progression of the Abbott storyline for a solid year or more.  Which in hindsight was probably a blessing.  If the two daughters had been cast in 1981 instead of 1982, they'd have probably lasted six months instead of 38 years.   Nothing in 1981 seemed to stick.  Not the characters, not the actors, not the sets, nothing.  1981 was just a complete mess.  lol. 

20 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

 

I believe that Terry Lester had stretches of time where Jack had little to do and he was barely on, while Bill Bell figured out what to do with him.Is that correct?

 

Did John McCook depart when the show went to an hour in February?  Lance is mentioned later on so did McCook return for short stints?

 

It is stated that Beau Kayzer along with BD and McCook left when the show expanded yet Brock stayed for many months after to play the Brock/Julia story. It seems Bill Bell decided to finally give Brock a chance as leading man. Did Beau have some kind of out in his contract or did Bill decide to dump Brock when he revamped the story?

 

Interesting that Bell dropped his original plan of Victor being killed as he decided EB had staying power yet he wrote the dungeon story that made Victor pretty irredeemable, especially back then when characters didn't usually get away with that level of villiany. what do others think?

 

As always, I'll defer to anyone else who's got a better memory, or who's read the recaps, but here are MY dim recollections.

Yes, I believe Terry Lester was hit-and-miss for a while during his first two years.  I'm not sure if it was because of Bell's uncertainty about Jack's storyline, or if it was because of the Patty Williams recast (Tammy Taylor to Lilibet Stern), or if it was because of the sudden departure of Brett Halsey as John Abbott.   When the Jabot storyline began, it played pretty heavily with Jack and John as the dysfunctional father/son, and Jill Foster as the mediator who tried to make Jack mature and grow up.   There were a lot of scenes with Jill confiding in her roommate (Eve Howard) that "I'm finding myself attracted to them both ---  father AND son," or something to that effect.   The backstory was also being carefully laid-out (the mother who'd abandoned the family several years earlier, the two daughters who were away at school, the younger daughter Traci being in an out-of-town boarding school, and the older daughter -- referred to as "Tiffany" at the time -- being away at college.  I got the impression that we were on the verge of meeting both of the daughters at any minute, although it was actually almost two years later before they were finally cast.   Suddenly, inexplicably, Brett Halsey was GONE.  I don't know if he was fired, or if he just decided to leave.   This put a quick kabosh on the Jack/Jill/John triangle, with the explanation being that John Abbott saw Jill and Jack in bed together and suddenly decided to relocate to Jabot's (never-before-heard-of) "New York office".  None of this seemed planned.  It just seemed to be a sudden, abrupt necessity because of Halsey's unexpected departure.  This kind of left Terry Lester "stranded", with no real conflict in his relationship with Deborah Adair's Jill, and Brett Halsey gone entirely from the picture -- nothing at all to work with, basically.  Then suddenly Lilibet Stern was playing Patty Williams, and she was sitting around in an "Urban Cowboy"-type bar telling her friend Gretchen that she'd "feel more like a total woman" if she could "give herself fully" to a man like Jack Abbott.  Obviously this wasn't the original intention for the Patty Williams character when Tammy Taylor was cast, lol.   It seemed to be a REVISION in the original storyline, compensating for the abrupt end of the Jack/John/Jill triangle.   We also saw Peggy Brooks and Jack Abbott suddenly and unexpectedly be revealed as former classmates and old friends; THIS made sense but didn't seem planned in advance, either.   This aspect of Jack's character allowed him to stray into Peggy's storyline with Steve Williams, enabling Jack to bang her a few times, playfully telling her that since the virginal Steve wasn't willing to fornicate, Jack would be more-than-happy to satisfy her urges.   Patty was probably SUPPOSED to be with Danny Romalotti, but with Lilibet Stern, she played better with Terry Lester's Jack, and of course Pam Peters had good chemistry with Terry Lester, as well.  But it ALL seemed ill-planned and sporadic.   Deborah Adair's Jill continued working at Jabot, but then Jack fired her, and she initiated a sexual harrassment suit, and that didn't play long either.  Basically, then entire storyboard seemed to get derailed when Brett Halsey left, and didn't get back on track until the spring of 1982 when Jerry Douglas, Eileen Davidson, Beth Maitland and Marguerite Ray were all in place in their signature roles.   And of course Deborah Adair's Jill was sidelined for much of that time in a storyline with Andy Richards (Steven Ford), who was originally one of Nikki's boyfriends, but who defaulted over to Jill until a new John Abbott could be hired.   I've always been curious what was REALLY happening behind the scenes with the John Abbott character during this timeframe, and how it affected the planned storyline for Jill, Jack, and John.   And of course several years later, in the mid-1980s, Terry Lester became a fairly hot commodity, and had several nighttime pilots in the works, several small movie roles, and there was always a great danger that he would permanently leave the show.   His character had some "outs" in the mid-1980s as a result of that, but not as glaring as his early years where the storyline seemed to start/stop/get reworked so often. 

Brenda Dickson definitely opted out IMMEDIATELY when the show expanded to an hour.  Matter of fact, her final script, from about 1/31/80 recently appeared on the boards here.   It had a pretty little typewritten coda at the end of the script from Bell or Alden that said something to the effect of, "Remember, today is Brenda's final day of taping.  Let's be sure we close the episode with a close-up of her.  We will show LIZ in the background climbing the stairs, but the camera will stay on JILL in honor of Brenda's final episode."   (That's not word-for-word, but it's close.)   

John McCook also opted out, but for storyline purposes (or out of respect for Bell and Conboy), he stayed for a few weeks.  He definitely appeared in the hour show, but not for very long.   The storyline at the time was that Vanessa Prentiss had threatened to oust Lance from the CEO position at Prentiss UNLESS Lorie would agree to divorce Lance.  "The choice is yours, Lauralee," the old crone would hiss.  "Lance can have YOU as his wife, or he can have his position at Prentiss.  But he won't have BOTH!  I will see to that, my dear!"   Lorie made the (painful) decision to divorce Lance, but wouldn't tell him exactly why she was filing for divorce.   She shoulda said, "It's because of your god-awful old mama," but of course she didn't.  Instead, Lorie just flew to the Domican Republic and divorced Lance.  There was a TRADEMARK Bill Bell scene when Lorie got on the plane to get the divorce.   Lance was shown in the penthouse playing the piano and singing the first verse of "The Way We Were" .... "Memories light the corners of my mind; misty water-color memories of the way we were."     Then the camera panned to Jaime Lyn Bauer on the plane, and Lorie sang, "Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind, smiles we gave to one another, of the way we were."  They did the whole song as a duet, with Lance in the penthouse on the piano and Lorie on the plane.   When the song ended, John McCook did a little flourish on the keyboard, and then started playing "Nadia's Theme", and the episode faded to black with Nadia's Theme tinkling on the piano.   That was pretty much THE END of John McCook as Lance.  (We used to laugh about this at my house, because I broke up with my little girlfriend about the same time, and my sister said, "Are you sure it's over??", and I said, "Hell, yeah, we sang THE WAY WE WERE, and the whole shooting match!"  lol.   McCook DID pop-up a few months later, just for a week or two, with a new fiancee named Simone.   This was to give complete closure to the Lorie/Lance relationship.   About a year later, Bill Bell decided he needed the Lance character back on the show, and I'm sure he reached out to John McCook, but got a no thanks.  So he cast that bland, dull Dennis Cole in the role, and that was truly the kiss of death for Lance.

Beau Kayzer also seemed to opt-out, but he stayed even longer than John McCook.   (I think Beau was a team player.)   Brock set-up his little law practice with Greg Foster, became involved in the defense of Cathy Bruder (who'd stolen Victor and Julia Newman's Rolls Royce and taken a joyride), became friendly with Julia, watched in horror as Victor became friendly with Lorie Prentiss, and then Beau exited not too much longer afterwards.  I think Beau probably just said, "Mr. Bell, I'll stay another 9 months", or whatever.  His entire storyline after the hour-format went into effect never seemed permanent, and Julia Newman was soon working at Jabot and paired with Michael Scott.

I expect Eric Braeden's character was being constructed ENTIRELY as the "German JR Ewing".  DALLAS was extremely popular in 1980, and JR Ewing was an awful character that the audience enjoyed tremendously.   Bill Bell gave Victor Newman a ranch, a trophy wife, a grouchy disposition, and a zillion dollars.   And Victor wore "Texas bow-ties".   He was clearly supposed to be daytime's JR Ewing.   Everything that JR Ewing did was later deemed forgivable, so I expect Bell knew we'd get over the dungeon and forgive Victor, just like we forgave JR.  lol.                      

12 minutes ago, will81 said:

Instead of Lucas actively testifying against her, his in good faith testimony could be twisted and manipulated by the D.A to make Lorie look bad, and the letter Vanessa wrote (making it seem as if Lorie was the one writing to Vanessa) could have been found by anyone and given as evidence.

Right!  The whole reason that Lucas Prentiss even lived in Genoa City at the time of Vanessa's death was that LORIE went and found him in Asia or somewhere and brought him back home, in order to please Vanessa.  Lucas knew that.  He also knew that Lorie had bent over backwards for years to placate and pacify Vanessa, and he was fully aware that Vanessa was never truly appreciative of anything Lorie had done.  Granted, you wouldn't expect your mama to take a suicidal swan dive off a balcony, but if she did, you'd probably have a moment of quiet reflection where you said, "This is exactly something my mother would do." 

The story would've certainly played better on-screen if Lucas had stood-up for Lorie, but privately had his doubts, and had his testimony twisted by the DA into something negative instead of positive.   It would've really made Luke into a complex and conflicted character.  As it was written, it just made Lucas seem like a jackass.  I'd always really liked Lucas, but by the time that long trial/harangue ended, I didn't care for him much anymore.  He was WAY too brash and hot-headed and resentful, considering what all he knew about his mother's past dealings with Lorie and Lance.       

While a lot of us probably have some fond memories of KT Stevens, she'd more or less "run her course" as Vanessa Prentiss once she successfully sabatoged Lance and Lorie.   Vanessa hadn't ever served any purpose on the show other than the Overprotective Mother Of Lance.   She obviously went out with a BANG, but again that storyline struck me (at the time) as showcasing how shallow and stupid the Prentiss boys were.   Both boys had been involved with Lorie for years and knew her INSIDE and out (no pun intended, lol.)  They also knew what a conniving old shrew Vanessa could be.   Why on earth would it ever even cross their MINDS that Lorie had really pushed Vanessa off the balcony?  I know that Lucas was in the apartment and heard Vanessa screaming, "What are you doing, Lauralee?!  Oh my God!  Why are doing this, Lorie?!  Get away from me!  I'm going to fall!  HELLLLPP"  But there wasn't a PEEP out of Lorie.  Looks like it would've occurred to Lucas that Vanessa was just being her usual god-awful vindictive self and blaming Lorie for some bizarre plot that she hatched herself.   She'd already followed that same modus operandi about 535 times between 1976 and 1981.  lol.   If I'd been Lucas, I would've said, "Well, Lorie, looks like Mother jumped off the balcony and blamed it on you.  As usual."   Lance, of course, had his doubts about Lorie's innocence as well, despite the fact that Vanessa had already popped a cap in him while trying to shoot Lorie several years earlier.  Made no sense to me that either boy disbelieved Lorie's version of events. 

Based on the news article above, I guess the "casting folks at Y&R" didn't "search TOO hard for a new Peg" when Pam Peters left the show.  lol.  To me, Peggy had about run her course after the Jack Curtis storyline ended in 1975 or 1976.   I can certainly see why Bill Bell brought the Peggy character back during the expansion to an hour.   She was a familiar character to the audience, and a younger one at that, and her scenes with Jack Abbott, which were fairly cute, helped to solidify Terry Lester as the show's new "younger leading man".   I don't remember a big good-bye scene for Peggy when she left the show.   Seems to me like she just vanished into the woodwork.  I remember she had a few dates with Greg Foster, and then she gave this big passionate speech to Stuart about a new series of articles that she planned to write for the Chronicle.   She'd gotten interested in the plight of poor people who were living in substandard housing, and she planned to expose some 'prominent business people' in Genoa City who were slumlords.   "These people who provide these vermin-infested housing units for the poor are the scum of the earth, and they deserve to be exposed for the slime that they truly are," she pouted to her father.  Meanwhile, Greg Foster decided that he wanted to get rich quick, and he started setting-up dummy corporations for a wealthy man named Mr. Dixon, who planned to open a bunch of low-rent Section 8 apartments.   You could see the writing on the wall --- Peggy was gonna start exposing people such as Mr. Dixon, but people such as Mr. Dixon were gonna leave Greg Foster, Peggy's new beau, holding the bag.  YAWN.  Peggy did us all a favor and disappeared without a trace during that wretched mess.   Greg seemed to limp along a little bit farther without Peggy, serving as Jill's attorney when she sued Jabot for sexual harrassment after Jack Abbott banged her, ditched her for Patty, and then fired her.  But as I recall, Greg sorta disappeared without a trace as well, just as Peggy had done.   (I actually found Jill's sexual harrassment suit against Jabot to be interesting, but it didn't last long enough.)   

1 hour ago, will81 said:

 

In terms of Stuart and Vanessa, was there any chemistry between them? I honestly can't see K.T Stevens and Robert Colbert together. I also wonder if Bell realised Liz was no match for Vanessa. I can't imagine Liz being able to deal with Vanessa's level of manipulation, it may have been too easy for Van to take Stuart away.

 

No sir, there wasn't ever any real chemistry between Stuart Brooks and Vanessa Prentiss.   The main obstacle was probably the (fairly obvious) generation gap.   Jeanne Cooper (Kay Thurston), Julianna McCarthy (Liz Foster) and Robert Colbert (Stuart Brooks) were all about 50 years-old in real life, having been born in 1928, 1929, and 1931 respectively.   Y&R, from the very beginning,  had been "graying" Julianna McCarthy and Robert Colbert, so the two of them wouldn't appear so glaringly YOUNG as the parents of twenty-something year-old children.  (Jeanne Cooper didn't require any "graying", of course, because her cigarette-smoking had given her plenty of wrinkles, and Jeanne's character was built entirely around the concept of "beauty that's faded".)  But any rate, KT Stevens was WAY older than those other three actors --- she'd been born in 1917 or 1919 --- and while she'd been an absolutely stunning young starlet in the 1940s, she was clearly 60+ years by the time she started her little "flirtation" with Stuart Brooks.   She was just honestly WAY too old for him.  Stuart still possessed wholesome, matinee-idol good looks and a little gray around his temples, but scarcely a wrinkle on his face.   KT Stevens, who was twelve or fifteen years older than Robert Colbert,  looked practically an entire generation older than he did.   And besides, Stuart Brooks had already been maniplulated all during 1978 and 1979 by Brenda Dickson, with her big, jiggling breasts and her sexy negligees.   Who'd want to see him immediately after divorcing Jill be manipulated by a wicked old crone like Mrs. Prentiss??   Nobody, probably, and that idea was ditched.   (But then the concept was resurrected yet AGAIN when Eve Howard joined the show, and it appeared that Eve would be working as Stuart's "administrative assistant" and manipulating him.   That idea, mercifully, seemed to die on the vine before it ever really took flight.)      

11 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

I wondered if Bill Bell considered having Stuart Brooks know Carl Williams and using that as a hook for Stu hiring Steve. It would have been quite feasible for Stu to be acquainted with Carl through his work. Liz could have also known Mary through the church (I believe that Liz was a church goer) 

Although having two similar women as friends?

And Steve could have been school friend of Snapper/Greg.

So straight away, using any of those connections could have eased the Williams into the show.

It's interesting that Bell chose to introduce  a working class family in the new format. Other shows were going with wealthier families eg Days -the Chandlers, AMC-the Cortlandts, AW-the Holloways.OLTL - the Buchanans etc

Also at that time Vanessa became interested in Stu, something that was quickly dropped.

Regarding Vanessa and Stuart, that really did kinda dissipate without going anywhere at all.   My recollection is that Vanessa just sorta sat around and said (to herself) that she was lonely, and she had a lot in common with Stuart Brooks, since both of her sons were involved with two of his daughters.   Seems like she may have even flirted with Stuart (in her own rather grotesque manner) a couple of times.   But when she found out that he was courting Liz Foster, Vanessa just threw in the towel immediately and never gave Stuart Brooks a second thought.  It seemed completely out-of-character for Mrs. Prentiss to EVER give up on anything so easily, lol.  We'd seen her hounding, pestering, and worrying the hell out of Lorie Brooks for YEARS relentlessly, and that kinda indicated that Mrs. Prentiss LOVED a battle.   She always seemed battle-ready.  But when it came to Stuart Brooks, she just inexplicably gave up.  I was actually looking forward to seeing poor, sweet, hardworking Elizabeth Foster having to deal with a devious, conniving old wench like Vanessa.   I think it could've made an interesting contrast.  (In the back of my mind, I kinda wondered if perhaps it eventually occurred to Bill Bell that if he pursued having Vanessa and Liz become "romantic adversaries", it might potentially result in a contentious relationship among Snapper, Greg, and Jill, verus the two Prentiss boys.  And Bell always seemed dead-set on having the Foster kids and the Prentiss kids operate in completely separate orbits.) 

Regarding Carl and Steve Williams, I don't pretend to have a perfect memory about their sudden appearance on the show.   It's very likely that Carl Williams did indeed first appear in the investigation of Nikki and Walter Addison in January of 1980.  If he did, he played an awfully MINOR role, because I just thought he was Random Cop #1, or whatever.   The main "police focus" during that storyline, of course, was on the suspect, the boy named Tony Baker, who'd stolen the expensive watch off Walter Addison's body, and who was unjustly jailed for killing Mr. Addison.   Greg Foster was appointed public defender for the Tony Baker kid, and Tony Baker's only real defense was that he'd seen a blonde girl (Nikki) in the alley when Rose DeVille and Vince Holliday dumped Walter Addison's corpse out of the car.  Tony Baker felt the mysterious blonde girl (Nikki) could testify that Addison was already dead when Tony found him.  Tony Baker provided Greg with a police sketch of the blonde girl, based on Tony's description of her.  Greg walked around studying over the sketch all the time, too stupid to realize the girl was his own wife.  (That storyline made Wings Hauser look so dense and incompetent, that it was difficult to focus any attention at all on the policeman --- probably Carl Williams --- who was interrogating Tony Baker and relaying information about the case to Greg.)  Steve Williams might've popped-up in that storyline as well, as Random Newspaper Reporter #1, but again his appearance, if it did indeed occur, would've been completely overshadowed by Greg's bewildering inability to recognize Nikki in the police sketch, which was basically the SAME Sandy Dvore sketch of Nikki that appeared in each weekday's closing credits, lol.

I just didn't become cognizant of Carl and Steve AT ALL until the following month, February of 1980, when they were sticking their noses into Derek Thurston's faux-kidnapping, in a somewhat overbearing manner (given their small roles in the proceedings).   Even then, I wasn't 100% sure that they were father and son, and I didn't comprehend that they were in any shape, form, or fashion related to that blond-haired sometimes-boyfriend of Nikki's who went around slouching in doorways and pouting (Paul).

In hindsight, what Bill Bell probably should've done, in early 1980, was introduce Steve Williams first, in conjunction with Stuart Brooks, vis-avis the newspaper.   It would've been much smoother and more character-driven, in my opinion.  There was a studio set already established that served as Stuart's office as the Chronicle --- we'd seen Stuart at his desk on several different occasions.   Bell should've set-up a scene or two where Stuart got a phone call (or a visit) at work from Lorie or Chris or whoever, and Stuart having to explain, "I'll be with you in a minute, dear.  I'm in a meeting with my new reporter -- Steve Williams."    Then Stuart could've gone into a spiel with Lorie or Chris or whoever that Steve was his most promising new hire in quite a while, has great potential, very smart, very conscientious, might make a good match for young Peggy, etc.   THIS would've probably gotten our attention better --- that Stuart Brooks thought highly of Steve and was thinking of introducing the boy to Peggy.  We'd have subconsciously started expecting Steve to play a bigger role in the storyline.  The next step could've been for Stuart to press Steve a little bit about his family life:  ("Carl Williams is your father?! -- why, yes, yes, I've known of Carl Williams for years.  Works for the police department, has provided me with information on various news stories for many years.  A fine man!  I've always thought very highly of your father, Steve.   As a matter of fact, I was just thinking of calling your father this afternoon to ask if there are any new developments in this Walter Addison murder.")   And then in another scene, Steve could've confided in Stuart that he was concerned about his good-for-nothing college drop-out brother Paul, "whom Mom, Dad and I are worried will never amount to much, if he doesn't turn his life around and get back on the right track."  The audience would've IMMEDIATELY made the connection that the "good-for-nothing brother named Paul" who "didn't amount to much" was that slouching, blond, long-haired, dead-end boyfriend of Nikki's we'd been seeing sporadically for the past couple of years, and who'd been featured so prominently in the VD storyline.   It just seems that establishing a mentor/protege relationship between Stuart Brooks and Steve Williams at work, and then having Stuart introduce the boy to Peggy, could've made the introduction of the entire Williams family seem far more smoother and natural than what we actually ended up getting on-screen.   Bell could've even set-up a get-to-know-each-other date between Steve and Peggy at the Allegro, and had Paul come slouching into the restaurant, asking Steve for a loan, to Steve's embarrassment and chagrin.  ("I'm so sorry, Peggy.   Trust me, he's NOTHING like the rest of my family.  My brother Todd is in seminary; my dad works hard at the police station; my mother's very involved with her church work.  We don't understand what went wrong with Paul.  He just doesn't have any ambition at all.   I'm afraid he's setting a terrible example for our younger sister.")  Just appears in hindsight that it could've all been handled very seamlessly, instead of the strange, disjointed introduction of the family that we really ended up getting on-screen.                              

Pretty sure it was the first week, or possibly as late as the second week, of the expansion.   Obviously we'd been seeing Paul on/off in a very minor role since 1978, but out of the clear blue sky he was anchoring a family.   And maybe Carl had previously appeared as a policeman for a few days, but I hadn't paid him any attention at all, until the "Derek gets kidnapped" storyline, when Carl started sprouting a wife and a houseful of kids that, to my surprise, included Paul.  (Again, I may have missed an episode or two.)   And then Steve Williams was suddenly branching out into his own storylines and giving pep talks to Jill (who was played by Bond Gideon), and you're looking at Bond Gideon and thinking, "Is that girl supposed to be Jill?"  lol.  The little girl Patty (played by Tammy Taylor?) didn't have much of a storyline until several months later when the cute Lilibet Stern took over, and by then I was accustomed to seeing the entire family on the show.         

It was definitely an awkward period, in just about every respect.    If I remember right --- and I may have missed an episode or two, of course --- was that the introduction of the Williams family seemed fairly haphazard and sudden.

There was a storyline where Suzanne Lynch pretended to "kidnap" Derek Thurston.   While they were in bed together, they decided it would be feasible to hoodwink Kay Thurston in paying a ransom to have Derek returned to the Chancellor mansion.   Suzanne and Derek would then split the "ransom", and Derek would go home.   Suzanne somehow magically acquired this device that would alter the sound of her voice, and she made all these calls to Kay saying, "Mrs. Chancellor, your husband is still alive.  But we will kill him, unless you place $50,000 in unmarked bills, in a shoebox, in a garbage can in the park."   The voice was distorted, really deep and metallic, so that Kay wouldn't figure out it was Suzanne speaking. 

A few months previously, Derek had hired a dayplayer con-man (Douglas Austin) to break into Kay's safe and swap-out an audio tape of Derek and Jill professing their love for each other.   Douglas Austin showed-up at the Chancellor house to extort more money out of Derek for the con-job, when Kay started receiving the phone calls from the "kidnappers".   Douglas assumed that the kidnapping was a sham, and that Jill was behind it.  (He was right that it was a sham, but it was really Suzanne instead of Jill.)   There was suddenly ALL this emphasis on Douglas Austin -- a character we'd only seen ONCE before, a few months earlier.  Douglas, surmising that the "kidnapping" was a hoax, told Kay Chancellor to turn the matter over to the police, despite the "kidnappers" making all these phone calls to Kay advising her, "If the police are notified of the kidnapping, your husband will be killed." 

The policeman assigned to handle the case was Inspector Carl Williams.   While Kay gave her statement to the police, the camera kept focusing on Carl Williams.   At first, I thought he was an ordinary dayplayer policeman, and I couldn't understand why the director kept focusing the camera onto him for close-ups, as though he were a main character.   It was just downright bizarre.   Then after Kay gave her statment, the camera stayed on the policeman, and his son Steve popped in (whom I'd never seen before), revealed that he worked for the newspaper as a reporter, and he had this l-o-n-g conversation with his father about whether or not Derek Thurston's kidnapping should be reported in the newspaper.  Then the policeman's wife, Mary Williams, called and wanted the policeman to come home, because she had something "urgent" to discuss with him.   Next thing I knew, we were at the policeman's house, and his wife was telling him that she was pregnant with a change-of-life baby.   (I'm sitting there thinking "Who are these people, and why do they have a new living room set?")  The son Steve popped in to give his two cents on the pregnancy, despite the fact that the audience didn't know him from Adam's housecat, and then Nikki Reed's old boyfriend Paul popped in to issue his opinion, indicating that he was the policeman's son also.  I'd seen Paul before, of course, but had no idea that he was part of a family unit.  As I recall, Paul was in favor of his mother having an abortion.  Then there turned out to be another kid in the house, a little girl named Patty (whom they called "Pipsqueak"), and she had to offer her own advice and suggestions, as well.   Then everyone dispersed, and the three kids sat around and discussed the pregnancy in-depth.   Then the dad and the son Steve had to reconvene and discuss how Paul wasn't even going to school, but had dropped out and was evidently going to be a failure.   And then the pregnant mother had to give us all this backstory about yet another son (Todd) who was in seminary.   I remember being completely bewildered by the whole thing.   But I was young enough (and Catholic enough) to be halfway interested in what these strangers were talking about.   But if I'd been an adult viewer, who wasn't Catholic, I would've probably just turned it off because I wouldn't have known or cared who any of these folks were. 

3 hours ago, SoapDope said:

 

Now I'm wanting see those crap early 80's storyline episodes to see what a train wreck they truly were. I was a small kid at the time and only saw bits of the show here and there. 

 

 

Well, I'd say it was more of a "mixed bag".   Some things were wretched; some things were pretty good.   I guess there were about four different things working AGAINST Bill Bell during that period:

(1) he and Alden had difficulties adapting to writing an hour-long show (and Bell had actively resisted expanding the show to an hour for that very reason);

(2) the actors had contracts to appear on a  half-hour show, and they could exercise an option to exit when the show expanded to an hour (which several -- including John McCook, Brenda Dickson, and Beau Kayzer did opt to exercise);

(3) there was a writer's strike during the transition period, which meant scab writers had to excessively drag-out certain plots from Bell's outlines, since no new outlines would be forthcoming until the strike ended;

(4) during a writer's strike, you count on the executive producer to keep things running smoothly, but in Y&R's case John Conboy was creating his own show for CBS (Capitol) and wasn't really studying Y&R. 

The ratings dropped from about 3rd place to about 6th place during the transition period, showing viewers' bewilderment with what they were seeing on their screens.    The show was pretty good in early 1980 when it expanded to an hour, and it was in pretty good shape again by early 1983.   But that three-year transition period --- we used to laugh at my house that a better name for the show would've been "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", because you definitely got all three of those things in every episode.  lol. 

1 minute ago, Paul Raven said:

Dr Jane Lewis - even the name was boring, earlier wasn't there Cynthia, the nurse at the free clinic who had the hots for Snapper?

 

The Sally return should have been epic but with a new Snapper and Chris - no opportunity for flashbacks- it fell flat.

 

Greg should have hooked up with Sally.Imagine the angst for Chris having Sally as a sister in law? And Snapper having to watch Greg father his son? and Mom Foster trying to keep the peace?

Lord --- she was a doctor?!  I was thinking she was a nurse.  How sexist of me, lol.   You're right, though, she was a doctor, because she tried ultimately to seduce him in the doctor's quarters at the hospital, I think.   She was spouting lines like, "Your wife -- I have to wonder if she's giving you everything that you need."   Snapper told her to take a hike, and Chris heard him rebuffing the vixen. 

I didn't get much out of the Kidney Kid storyline, either, until that very last episode when Chuckie was saying, "We're buds aren't we, Dr. Foster!  When I get big, I want to be a doctor just like you!  You're my hero, Dr. Foster."  I remember sitting there sniffling and whimpering during that entire good-bye.  lol. 

11 minutes ago, SoapDope said:

 

That storyline where the nurse fell in love with Snapper sounds bad too. I do know the nurse was played by Kelly Harmon (Mark's sister). Kelly was the spokesperson for about 15 years for tic tac. Kelly & Mark's older sister Kris was married to Ricky Nelson and she played herself on the family TV series.

 

 

 

Yes, the Famous Furniture Fable was stupid as hell.   It was about the way you described it.   Snapper came in, and there was all this high-end early 1980s furniture all over the apartment.   He was like, "Wow, Babe!  You must've gotten some really terrific buys! I've got the smartest, most incredible wife in the whole world!  I'm tripping, man!"  He'd take Chris into his arms, and the camera would focus on her stricken face, as she wondered whether or not to admit she'd raided Ethan Allen. 

The thing with the nurse was also extremely hokey.   I can't even remember the nurse's name.  Might've been "Jane".  Snapper would breeze through the hospital with a chart and say, "Nurse Jane, please check on Mrs. Cummings in 402," and then he'd go breezing away.   The nurse would step up dramatically to the nurse's station and say, "My, my, my, I can see myself having an affair with Dr. Foster.  This affair --- I will make it happen.  Mark my words.  It will happen.  It will indeed."  Cue the ominous music.   Just hokey as hell.   

32 minutes ago, will81 said:

 

Out of curiosity why did Snapper never earn a decent living as a Doctor? He was an intern when the show started so by 1981/82 he had been at it for almost 10 years and he still couldn't afford some nice furniture?

Snapper was too highly-principled to cash his paycheck, lol.   No, seriously, most of the time he worked at a free clinic, where he was paid a nominal salary.  He was on-staff at GC Memorial (remember, he was terminated from his hospital position wrongly when Liz unplugged Bill Foster's respirator, and Snapper took the fall for it.)   But a lot of the time, he worked at a free clinic.   It was explained that he and Greg, having grown up poor, wanted to give back to the community in which they grew-up by doing volunteer work (the free medical clinic for Snapper, and legal-aid for Greg).   I always thought this was actually sorta SELFISH of them.   Liz had worked her tail off in a factory to educate them, and Jill contributed to the family's expenses by cutting hair for old drunk sluts (Kay Chancellor).   You'd think that Snapper and Greg would've taken decent-paying jobs in order to pay back their mama and sister for the sacrifices the two women had made for them.   After Liz and Jill were repaid, Snapper and Greg could've spent the rest of their lives being poor if they wanted to. 

9 hours ago, yrfan1983 said:

@Broderick , I'm wondering if you remember the 1981 story of Chris' suburban-wife malaise? Where Snapper caught Chris using Stuart's money to update their furniture. Chris' excuse was that she needed some activity to brighten up their humdrum poor life. From reading the synopses, it sounded like a retro cliche story. This is also when they toyed with pairing Chris and Howard McMillan's Greg... I assume their chemistry was non-existent?

Yeah, I remember it, but not very well because it wasn't very interesting, lol.

Seems like Stuart and Liz offered to downsize into a smaller house and give the Brooks house to Snapper and Chris.   Snapper, of course, rejected the offer because "with my salary, I couldn't afford a house like that, Mr. Brooks.  That's where I'm coming from."  Chris got all bent out of shape over Snapper hard-headedness, and Snapper offered to let her redecorate their apartment, following a strict budget.   She actually took her dad's credit card and bought some expensive furniture, then told Snapper she'd purchased it from thrift stores, keeping with the budget.   They had a dinner party for some doctor, whose wife turned out to be an interior decorator (or something), and she immediately started commenting on the value of the furniture (which was pretty tasteless on her part, lol).   Chris had to fess up that she'd used Stuart's credit card to buy the stuff, and then she returned it.   I don't remember finding any of that terribly thrilling.  lol. 

17 minutes ago, YRfan23 said:

Bill Bell could have probably did a "Sheila" type of story with Snapper and Chris if he wanted......but I guess as of 2019 they are still happily married offscreen, LOL

I always got the impression that it was important to Mr. Bell that Chris and Snapper stay married.  They were kinda his "golden couple" in Y&R's early years.  When you think about it, it's kinda astonishing that they stayed married on the show from 1974 till their exits in 1982.   How many soap couples on-screen stay together for 8 years?  Not many probably.   And now, counting their off-screen time, they've theoretically been together for 45 years.  

Some of the dialogue was honestly wretched, and we sometimes forget how bad it truly was.

"This divorce -- I have to wonder if it's what you truly want.  A part of me died the night we signed those papers."

"What are you getting at?  Are you playing some kind of mind games with me?"

"My God.  I'm telling you how I feel inside!"

"But why?  I have to wonder why you're laying all of this on me right now." 

lol.

Yeah, most of Lynn Topping and David Hasselhoff's storylines from about 1980 till 1982 were hit-and-runs, because of Lynn's maternity leave and the "out-clauses" in David's contract.   They were more like mini-storylines.  Chris has been exposed to German measles!  Will the baby be deformed?!  No!  Thank heavens, everything is ok!!  End of storyline.   A nurse at Memorial has a crush on Snapper!!  Will he sleep with her?!  No!  Thank heavens, he rebuffed her, everything is ok!!  End of storyline.  Chris has bought some expensive furniture and pretended she got it at a thrift store!!  Will Snapper leave her?!  No!  Thank heavens, he forgave her when she returned the overpriced furniture, everything is ok!!  End of storyline. 

About the only genuine storyline they shared together was the return of Sally McGuire with the Kidney Kid, and that seemed designed to serve as David Hasselhoff's swan song.