Broderick

My recollection is that Beth Maitland first appeared on-screen about 4 episodes after Eileen Davidson. (Miss Davidson debuted in #2350, so I'd say Maitland was about #2354 or #2355.) Both of their initial scenes involved graduations in the spring of 1982. John Abbott went first to collect Ashley from college. (Ashley was graduating from college in the spring of '82.) When we first saw Eileen Davidson's Ashley, she was living in her sorority house, was very bouncy, beautiful, aggressive, and straight-forward. A few episodes later, John Abbott collected Beth Maitland's Traci from boarding school. (Traci was graduating from high school in the spring of '82). Traci was all downtrodden, bashful, and indecisive. Both of the characters were clearly identified and developed from the moment we saw them. A few episodes after their initial appearances, they were both living in Genoa City with their father and served as bridesmaids in Jack and Patty's wedding.

My feeling has always been that Bill Bell originally had an entirely different "blueprint" for the Phillip/Jill storyline, and he changed his mind once he saw how pathetically engaging Jeanne Cooper's Kay Chancellor character was. It's always appeared to me that Bill Bell originally intended to kill-off Kay Chancellor, have Phillip Chancellor marry Jill, and then Lorie Brooks would become "the other woman" in Phillip's life, just as Jill had been "the other woman" while Phillip was married to Kay. But Jeanne Cooper just nailed the Kay Chancellor character from day one, and that seemed to necessitate changing the trajectory so that Phillip died in the storyline instead of Kay. (The reason I believe this is because Bell had tried on several occasions to create a middle-aged, vain, selfish female character on Y&R whom the audience would sympathize with: Jennifer Brooks and Regina Henderson both come to mind. The audience never really seemed to have much patience with Jennifer and Regina's vanity and self-absorption, but the audience immediately felt sorry for Jeanne Cooper's Kay Chancellor, and while Regina and Jennifer were soon ditched from the canvas, Kay was saved in perpetuity.) Yes, Kay and Lorie interacted sparingly on several different occasions. During the 1979 storyline when Kay "died" in the sanitarium fire, Kay secretly lived in the Foster house with Liz. Meanwhile, Jill was living in the Brooks home with Stuart, and was about to bilk Stuart out of a huge divorce settlement. Kay Chancellor called Lorie on the phone, revealed that she was alive, and instructed Lorie to tear-up the check. Kay and Lorie also interacted during the "royal wedding" storyline in the summer of 1981, although the interactions were fleeting. (Kay Chancellor and Jerry Cashman joined Stuart and Liz in London, where Lorie, Leslie and Lance were also in attendance.) There was a bit more interaction just before Lorie Brooks left the show in 1982. Lorie was becoming engaged to Victor Newman in an effort to retrieve her Prentiss Industries stock proxies from him. Nikki, who had a crush on Victor, was extremely jealous of Lorie and confided in Kay Chancellor that she was afraid Lorie Brooks was up to no good and was going to take advantage of Victor financially. When Kay learned that Lorie Brooks was in the picture, she darted her eyes from side to side, waved her jeweled talons in the air and said, "Dear God in Heaven, Nikki, I'm afraid you've met your match with Lorie Brooks!"

I saw an interview one time with Sharon Gabet, where she talked about her relationship with Henry Slesar. She said that Slesar watched the show every afternoon, and he tailored his writing to the strengths and weaknesses of the performers. If he observed a quirk or a trait in an actor that appealed to him, he worked it into the character. He obviously studied her very closely and worked her best traits into the Raven character. It also helped that he wrote Raven's "adversaries" with certain strengths, so that they often just appeared fed-up with Raven, instead of cowering in terror when she tormented them. It made her interactions with each of them more riveting and interesting than just a run-of-the-mill "vixen versus hero/heroine" scenario.

Besides playing so well off all the leading men that you mentioned, Sharon Gabet also had some incredible chemistry with Geraldine Saxon, Deborah Saxon, and April Scott.

That sounds about right. Henry Slesar seemed to be on a VERY tight timeline with Kim Hunter, in particular. I'm sure she didn't come cheaply, plus she got "star" billing ("and Kim Hunter as Nola", in the closing credits). The budget probably dictated how long she could stay on the show, and how hurriedly her storyline had to conclude. The most GLARING example involved the speediness of the Draper Scott trial, which would conclude with certain confessions from Nola Madison. In one episode Draper was indicted, in the next episode Logan broke the news to Draper that he'd been indicted, and in the next episode his trial began. Not much time for the prosecution and the defense to prepare a case for a murder trial! I was watching it a few days and scratching my head about the speediness of it all, but then realized that Kim Hunter's exit probably dictated that Draper had to be sentenced by March the whatever of 1980 so that Kim Hunter's paychecks could end.

Yes, indeed! Complete idiots. I'm sure P&G was bewildered why "Edge" wasn't performing well in the ratings, while the rest of ABC's line-up was soaring. But the problem was clearly the time slot (very low clearance in many major markets), as well as the "niche" appeal of a 1940s-style detective story with off-beat characters and twist endings. The problem was never the writer. Slesar was an expert at crafting clever tales, dropping vague hints, throwing in red herrings, keeping us guessing, and surprising us at the end. Lee Sheldon didn't just have what it takes; maybe he got slightly better once he settled in, but he was never anywhere near in the league of a Henry Slesar. I remember reading a short story by Henry Slesar when I was a kid, and being very impressed. Once I realized that he was writing "Edge", I was hooked until the day they canned him.

My recollection is that Tony Craig left on his own, fairly abruptly, and without much advance notice. I believe the actor's official story was that he was suffering from "burn out". You could sense there was some backstage scrambling and re-writing going on to explain his exit. Suddenly one day Draper was appointed to some special "crime council" in London, and the next day, during the middle of an episode he said, "Oh, and by the way, I'm leaving today. Bye!" It was just a bizarre and jarring exit for a character who'd been on daily for the past several years. (I would assume that at contract negotiation time, everyone thought Tony Craig would be re-signing for another three years, and instead he evidently said, "No thanks" at the last moment.) Terry Davis, of course, was on a different contract schedule from Tony Craig, and just because he left, that didn't mean she had to be disposed of also. Henry Slesar kept April Scott in Monticello for several more weeks (probably until Terry Davis's next 13-week contract cycle was up). Then April said, "Oh, by the way, I'm joining Draper in London. Good-bye, everyone! Here, Miles, you can have my penthouse!" And she left too. My feeling is that if she'd been written out when Tony Craig left, the show would've probably been obliged to PAY her for the remainder of her contract, so they just waited until her next 13-week "drop date", and then exercised their chance to let her go without a big pay-out. Someone else may recall more details. I was just a kid, then, but it all seemed haphazard, unplanned and sudden to me --- which always stuck-out like a sore thumb on a show that was, in most respects, so carefully plotted and scripted.

J Swift, as I'm re-watching the old episodes from 1979 to 1981, the word that keeps crossing my mind to describe Draper Scott is YUPPIE. We see Logan Swift as charming and clever; Cliff Nelson is hilariously immature and theatrical; Miles Cavanaugh is smart, sincere, and dedicated; Mike Karr is perceptive and intuitive, and provides the necessary "gravitas" to his courtroom scenes. Schuyler Whitney, when he appears later, is a suave, sophisticated, worldly young tycoon. Draper Scott provides another archetype entirely --- the fairly bland, handsome, upwardly mobile yuppie. I'd never even heard the word "yuppie" in 1980, as the word didn't become fashionable until the middle-1980s, but obviously young, climbing urban professionals were a demographic that existed in 1980 (especially in the legal profession), and Henry Slesar put all the components in place for Draper. We learned that Draper would ditch Monticello in a heartbeat, if he could secure a position with the prestigious, upscale Seward, Paxton, & Whiteside law firm in New York City, and, as we would expect, Draper throws a childish hissy fit when Margo Huntington denies him the opportunity to move. He decides to live in a trendy home in the suburban utopia of Oakdale, and when he finds out that Margo paid $35,000 to make the house more affordable to him and April, he becomes offended and says, "By God, I'm going to pay for my OWN house for MY wife!" For Draper, everything should be prep-school perfect, and when things don't fit his preconceived Ivy League whitebread notions of life, he's embarrassed by them. ("Oh, April, don't tell these people about your premonitions; they're not interested!") He's sheepishly ashamed of his father Ansel's tendency to rendezvous with attractive young starlets and wealthy widows. Raven's fondness for utilizing sex as a bargaining tool --- well, that kind of behavior is just downright EMBARRASSING to Draper. That doesn't fit into his ideal of how people should behave in the junior chamber of commerce. Yes, he could be dull as hell, but he provided a much-needed archetype on the show, and one that Slesar evidently loved writing for, because for long periods of time, Draper literally appeared in five episodes per week. Maybe not so much for what Tony Craig brought to the part, but rather for the interactions generated by the other quirky characters when they played off the Yuppie. I really feel that Henry Slesar lost some steam when his Yuppie (and by necessity of course, April) were removed from his canvas of characters.

Check out the very brief scene from 15:10 to about 17:10, from January 1980, where Henry Slesar takes the huge risk of effectively "spoiling" the entire storyline that he's crafted to last through the entire summer of 1980. Over an innocuous game of Monopoly while Logan Swift is recovering from the flu, Draper and April discuss April's recent dreams --- she's in the hospital with a new baby named "Julia" (whose name she's unable to explain the origins of), a plaintive train whistle blows, a man appears with silver bracelets, and Draper disappears to some strange and faraway place where April is unable to locate him. In this brief two minute scene, we are given a preview of Draper's arrest for Margo's murder (though Margo is still alive and well when this scene aired), the train derailment at Grant's Falls, Draper's "abduction" by Dr. Gault and Emily Michaels, and April's subsequent relationship with Logan while Draper is presumed dead. This is definitely "high stakes spoiling" on Henry Slear's part, but he wraps-up the entire scene in such a vague and mysterious manner that it only leaves you WONDERING instead of truly "spoiling" anything at all.

Seems to me (in hindsight) that the show really suffered a lot after Tony Craig (Draper) left, because Draper & April were really in the "heart" of the storyline from about 1978 until their departures. I've been watching the Margo Dorn storyline on You Tube, followed by Kirk & Emily Michaels, followed by the Clown Puppet, and then of course there's Dr. Bryson. It's amazing how much of those stories are centered almost entirely around the lives of April and Draper. Back in the day, I thought April and Draper were kinda "goody-goody", and were therefore fairly dull. But in hindsight they aren't that way at all. Draper is fairly flawed (too much pride, too resentful of Margo's presence in his life), and April is downright MEAN sometimes -- sarcastic, cutting, and impatient. They definitely weren't traditional hero and heroine material. And they were very good foils for Sharon Gabet's manipulative Raven character. She sees them as soft, weak, and vulnerable, and she bats her eyes, smirks and tries to run all over them, which usually results in them raising their voices too loudly, rolling their eyes, and throwing her out on her tail. Once April and Draper were gone, Slesar seemed to position Miles and Nicole in the roles of the "young married centerpiece couple". But they really ARE awfully goody-goody, and they don't have the biting interactions with Raven that characterized April and Draper's relationship with her. Just something missing from thenceforth onward.

Yes, and the way "Robert Tyrone" walked around looking and sounding exactly like Tyrone Jackson (but dipped in all-purpose flour and wearing Groucho Marx glasses & mustache), but no one in the Syndicate noticed any similarity.

It was as dreadful as Y&R's other "I'm-in-disguise" storylines. She basically put on a pair of eyeglasses and draped a mop head over her hair, and that fooled them.

Yeah, I think Jill loved Phillip (in her own selfish way), but as Phillip pointed out in his testimony ("she abandoned me YEARS ago!"), he was often merely an inconvenience to her, and she was more than happy to ship him away -- out-of-sight, out-of-mind. It was only Kay's interest in Phillip that re-energized Jill's own interest in him, as she didn't want to lose her son to Kay Chancellor in the same manner as she lost her husband to Kay Chancellor. And Jill was definitely smug in this episode, knowing that Kay was about to be exposed as the wicked old witch who stripped him of his name and his inheritance when he was an infant. I think that's the fundamental key to Jill's behavior --- her love for her son always took a backseat to her hatred for Kay Chancellor. Somebody mentioned Joe Blair, and how long he was around. I believe these were some of his last scenes. "Capitol" went off the air in March of 1987, and soon afterwards, Todd Curtis(?) who'd played Jordy Clegg on "Capitol" was moved to Y&R as photographer Skip Evans.

Thanks for the clip! Phillip's court hearing was one of my favorite stories of that time period, because it brought back all the animosity between Kay and Jill, plus involved having lawyers "distort" the facts of their misdeeds, to make them both sound even worse than they really were. And say what you will about Thom Bierdz, but he had the Little Lost Boy role down to a science. Cricket, though --- good Lord, it's even worse than I remembered.

I guess Lorie and Leslie just had a THING for boys with holes in their chins who were tied to a mean old lady's apron strings lol. Seriously, I guess it's what Lance did for them when they were vulnerable. He helped Leslie get over Brad, and he helped Lorie get over Brother Mark. But he'd accomplished that in what -- 1976? -- and they were still collectively swooning over him five years later. As was his wretched old mother.

Yeah, it seemed that Lorie was REALLY shafting Goat Daddy, and I thought that was wonderful, but then Victor kept laying it on so thick and throwing jewelry at her and so forth that you could tell she was melting for his Goat Charms. And then that stomach-turning letter: "we've loved, we've fought -- the circle is complete." I about vomited. That whole harangue about the Four L's seemed to be Bill Bell's attempt to rewrite "King Arthur". Sir Lancelot was played by Lance Prentiss. King Arthur was played by Lucas Prentiss. Lady Elaine was played by Leslie Brooks. Guinevere was portrayed by Lorie Brooks. (I was reading "King Arthur" while that storyline was going on, and you couldn't help noticing the similarities.) The dialogue even referenced it. There was a tearful scene about 1980 when Lorie passionately cried out to Lance, shortly before John McCook left the show, "My God, Lance! We've had our Camelot! Let it be over!" I remember telling my sister that I was about ready to pull out my Excalibur and chop-off Lorie's head. Right before Lady Elaine dyed her hair blonde and started calling herself "Pris", I'd about reached the point where LUCAS was the only one of them I could tolerate. All Leslie did was sit around making goo-goo eyes at Lance. And all Lorie did was pout because she noticed Leslie was making goo-goo eyes at Lance. And both of the girls were dying to be the official guardian of Little Brooks, because he'd sprung from the loins of the wonderful Sir Lancelot. Leslie went around crying all the time, and Lorie went around making her cry. "You're in love with Lance, aren't you, Leslie? You're in love with MY husband! Admit it, Leslie. You WANT Lance for yourself. Well, you can't have him. I'll make sure of that." They were all just so OVERWROUGHT and SELF-ABSORBED that when Lucas came ignorantly breezing through, he was a breath of fresh air. But then when Vanessa took her swan dive off the balcony, he got just as annoying and self-centered as the other three of them were. When that kid nearly drowned, I was watching in horror thinking that Brooks was about to bond with Lance, because all we'd heard since 1978 was that Lance was the Real Father of Brooks. And both of those dingbat girls seemed to think that if they could just get custody of Brooks and then spring the news on him ("Surprise! Uncle Lance is your Real Father! Now, let's be a Real Family!"), then life would be complete. I was plumb terrified that was actually gonna happen. But no, the little kid rose to the occasion and said, "Get away from me, Uncle Lance. I want my daddy. I want Lucas. He's my daddy! NOT you!" That was the proudest I'd ever been of Bill Bell in my whole life. That whole entire saga seemed to have been geared from 1978 to 1982 toward the moment when Brooks would realize Uncle Lance was his daddy, and then he would melt into Uncle Lance's arms, and either Lady Elaine or Guinevere would come gliding in and form a "real family". But when the moment of truth finally came, that little kid practically knocked Lance down getting away from him and running back to Lucas. I loved it.

Ha! I'm just glad you brought it up, because I've never even wondered about it before. I guess they left in this order: (1) Lance, whose exit then inspired Lorie to write the expose' about Victor Newman and reject Victor's marriage proposal; (2) Lorie, amid a bunch of overdramatized tears with Lucas and Stuart waving good-bye; (3) Lucas, very quietly; and finally (4) Leslie, telling her dad that she was catching a plane for a never-ending concert tour that starts three minutes from now. The kid for sure didn't go ANYWHERE with Lance, because he'd have rather drowned himself. He didn't go with Lorie because she needed a solo good-bye to maximize her emoting. And then he "evaporated", which means he either (a) went with Lucas, and Leslie simply didn't give a damn or (b) he turned into a deaf/mute and never said another solitary word after Lucas left. From a real-life standpoint, it would've made sense for him to go with Lucas, because the main attraction that both Leslie & Lorie HAD for Brooks was that he was Lance's son, and Brooks made it clear that he didn't plan to associate himself with Lance period. I guess after the kid put the kabosh on building a relationship with Lance, the two women washed their hands of him. lol.

Well, the one constant "parent" in Brooks Lucas Prentiss's life was Lucas. The little boy had an endless parade of "mothers". First his mother was Leslie, but then Leslie turned into Pris and ran away, and Lorie snatched him up. But then "Aunt Leslie" came back and played the piano for him and usurped Lorie again. lol. And there at the end of Lance's run, as you pointed out, everyone just kinda said, "Surprise, kid, LANCE is your father!" To which Brooks responded, "Go jump in the lake!" (literally, lol) My recollection is that Lorie's final tear-jerking good-bye occurred in her penthouse, with Lucas and Stuart as the witnesses to her celebrated departure. Pretty sure that she didn't have the kid with her, because a child actor would've put a damper on her emoting, and she went ALL OUT with the "smiling through my tears" routine. "I'll be back one day, as God is my witness, with Lance at my side!" Lance had a weird good-bye. Lorie threw herself at him (as usual), and he said, "I have to lay something heavy on you, Lorie. We can never be together again, now that you've given Victor Newman your proxies. It's over between us, Lorie." Then he went running and proposed to Leslie, and she would've accepted but about that time Brooks fell in the lake. I seriously think Lance's final good-bye was with Robert Laurence of all people (lol), who was renting the lakehouse from Lance. The scene was basically just, "Here are the keys to the Lake Geneva house. Tell everyone I left!" Lucas didn't get much of a good-bye. I think he just told Lorie and Leslie (separately) that he might be leaving town soon. (It's possible that he took Brooks with him. But you'd think Leslie would've been heavily impacted by Lucas leaving town with her son, but she just kinda said, "It's time for a commercial break! See ya!") And you've seen part of Leslie's good-bye, which was all about Maestro and Stuart and the concert tour. Not much concern about Brooks, which makes me think he could've gone with Lucas, but if he did, Leslie clearly didn't give two figs. That's why I think he went with Leslie.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.