Broderick

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

LOL!!! "I've got something really HEAVY to lay on you, Chris. But you seem so OUT OF IT right now."

Yeah, the first time I remember seeing Rose DeVille was in the summer of 1979(?) when she was operating her little antique shop, "Second-Hand Rose's Antiques and Pretty Things", which was really a front for a slavery ring. She was driven out of business by Snapper and Brock after she attempted to abduct Chris and that girl Sharon. Rose disappeared for a few months, then quietly reappeared with a little modeling agency called "La Plus Belle Rose", which is French for "the most beautiful Rose". That one turned out to be a prostitution ring. The stupid Nikki Reed stumbled right into that, of course. Rose DeVille gave Nikki a contract, then advanced her some cash, and when Greg Foster told Nikki to void the contract, Nikki had already spent the cash advance, was too stupid and embarrassed to admit it to Greg, and ended up modeling lingerie and then going to meet a client named Walter Addison who was really expecting more than modeling. Walter Addison had a heart attack and croaked while chasing Nikki around a hotel room, which inspired Nikki, Rose and Vince to dump Mr. Addison's corpse in an alley. A little boy named Tony Baker came wandering along, stole a watch off Mr. Addison's corpse, and was arrested for murdering Mr. Addison. Naturally, Greg Foster was assigned by the courts as public defender for Tony Baker, which led to Nikki's whole role in the ordeal being exposed. Rose then disappeared for several years, till about 1986, then quietly reappeared running a home for unwed mothers, which was really a black-market baby ring. Nina Webster (and an annoying little twit named Mollie) were residents of Rose's home for unwed mothers.

I guess the best way to describe Lynne Topping's version of Chris would be to compare her with Brenda Epperson's version of Ashley Abbott, if you know what I mean. Lynne Topping was PRETTY, and she seemed SWEET, and she wasn't a bad actress AT ALL, but she just wasn't ever Chris to me. I think most of us who saw the original actors in the roles of Chris and Leslie just never warmed-up very much to Lynne Topping and Victoria Mallory. There wasn't anything "wrong" with either girl; but they just didn't have the vulnerability and fundamental likability of Trish Stewart and Janice Lynde. Bill Bell tried his best with Lynne Topping. He kinda carefully constructed a friendship (and flirting relationship) between Snapper Foster and Casey Reed while Chris was gone, so that when Lynne Topping stepped into the role, she could be the "victim", which would earn her the audience's immediate sympathy. Naturally, Snapper chose Chris over Casey, and we were all supposed to breathe a big sigh of relief that True Love Has Triumphed, and Snapper has chosen Chris!!! I didn't feel that way at all; I kinda wanted to see Snapper throw Casey Reed down on the floor and pork her brains out. lol. Bell's next attempt at making us like the New Chris was to put her in physical jeopardy. This weird woman named Rose DeVille popped up in town running a shop called "Second Hand Rose's Antiques & Pretty Things", which was really a white slavery ring. Rose and her henchman Vince were intending to round-up some "pretty things" and ship them off to South America as sex slaves. This dimwitted random teenager named Sharon stepped right into the trap, like a rat heading for the cheese in a mousetrap. Chris had sorta befriended Sharon, followed her to Rose's shop, and was also captured by the evil Rose and the evil Vince. Snapper and Brock showed-up at the last second and saved the two girls. We were supposed to breathe a big sigh of relief and say, "Oh thank God!! Chris is safe!!" Instead, with Lynne Topping in the role, I was kinda hoping she'd get shipped-off to South America so that Snapper could bang Casey Reed without having to feel guilty about it. (There wasn't much to like or dislike about that replacement Peggy. I wasn't ever a huge fan of the FIRST Peggy, but the second one was just a window decoration, pretty much. By the time the character became relevant again, during the cult storyline in 1980, the real Peggy --- Pam Peters -- was back.)

I don't remember Chris ever commenting on (or being involved with) the business between Jill Foster and Kay Chancellor. Snapper and Greg were involved in it, of course, but I don't recall Chris ever being dragged into it. When that wedding clip (Chris and Snapper) first started circulating on the web, it caused a lively debate on another message board. In the clip, the minister can clearly be heard referring to Chris as "Kristen". ("Do you, Kristen, take this man William to be your lawfully wedded husband ... ") Several viewers insisted that was a mistake in the script, that the character's name was "Christobel", not "Kristen". Several other viewers insisted Chris's name was "Kristen", because that was clearly what the minister had called her. (I stayed out of the discussion entirely.) Do any of y'all remember what her name was? I can just about swear that when Trish Stewart left the show and was replaced a few months later by Lynne Topping, the character's name began appearing in the closing credits as "Christobel Brooks Foster", although no one ever called her anything except "Chris". (Just as Lorie's name was listed in the closing credits for years as "Lauralee Brooks Prentiss", although no one ever called her anything but Lorie, except for Vanessa Prentiss when she was being all Eddie Haskell-ish, and she would start a conversation by hissing, "I have something to discuss with you, Lauralee ...."

Yeah, the girls didn't actively HATE Jill until she tricked their dad into marriage (by pretending she was pregnant), when he was supposed to be marrying Liz. That's when the girls (justifiably) turned against her. They could see a pattern developing whereby she seduced men 20+ years older than she was, then married them, had a baby, then fought for a settlement. She'd already done that with Phillip Chancellor, and now her next victim appeared to be their own father. (Victim #3, of course, would be John Abbott a few years later, lol.) The girls had a big "family meeting" --- seems like Lorie was the instigator of the convention --- to discuss how to get rid of her. The other girls dragged Peggy back from San Fransisco (or wherever she was) to make her participate. Seems like that's when the brief Peggy Recast (Patricia Everly?) joined the show.

I can only remember one ocassion when Jill interacted with a Prentiss. Around 1979, Leslie Brooks disappeared off the face of the earth for a while. (She was with Jonas at his nightclub.) Lance Prentiss was concerned that perhaps Leslie had another nervous breakdown or whatever, when he wasn't able to locate her anywhere. He called Stuart Brooks' house (of course) to see if Leslie's father had any knowledge of Leslie's whereabouts. I guess Stuart wasn't on the show that day, so Jill answered the phone. It was like a 30-second conversation. "Hi, this is Lance Prentiss. Who is this?" "This is Jill." "Oh. Is Mr. Brooks there?" "No." "I was wondering if maybe Leslie was there ...." "No, haven't seen her." "Has Leslie been by there at all today, or yesterday, or the day before?" "No." That was about the extent of it, lol.

I believe that the constant repetition of NAMES was something that Irna Phillips developed in the 1950s, and then passed along to Bill Bell. The idea of repetition initially stemmed from the realization that viewers might wander into the kitchen or the utility room during the show, but if the names were being repeated during each line of dialogue, viewers would know who was speaking even if the viewer was merely listening (like the old radio shows), rather than actually watching. (Plus, as y'all said, it also reinforces to newer viewers who the characters are.) Bell was a master of "stylizing" his dialogue. For instance, a scene would start with, "What brings YOU by?" And the answer would be, "I think you have SOME IDEA why I'm here." The first character would then say, "No, I can't imagine what YOU could POSSIBLY have to say to ME." And the answer would be, "Oh, I think you KNOW what I'm here to discuss with you." "Well, I'm not interested in anything YOU have to say." "Oh, you'll be interested in THIS -- very interested, indeed!" (lol. Who the hell talks that way in real life?! But it slowly develops the tension of whether or not *the secret* that frames the scene is about to be revealed to the other character and to the audience.) Bell's characters were also very STYLIZED in their stage movements, though this was probably a joint effort between Bell and John Conboy. We saw this type of stylization VIVIDLY in the 1975 episode where Jennifer Brooks was being wheeled into the operating room for her mastectomy. There were six characters present for Jennifer's surgery --- Stuart, the four daughters, and Bruce Henderson. At the end of the episode, as the orchestrated music swelled to its climax, all six of the "surgery witnesses" strode into the hospital corridor and struck stylized, non-realistic, magazine-type poses that would linger in the viewer's mind long after the closing credits rolled. Peggy threw herself into Stuart's arms, carefully projecting her profile toward the camera. Bruce Henderson stood against the wall and struck a GQ pose, with his arms folded across his chest. Lorie, Chris, and Leslie positioned themselves directly in front of the operating room doors like Charlie's Angels, with the blonde girl in the middle, and the two girls with darker hair flanking her on either side. They all placed their arms around each other, with Lorie and Leslie gazing toward the camera, while Chris raised her face and looked toward the ceiling, allowing the lighting to gently carress her beautiful blonde hair. The girls' outfits were carefully selected in advance from Giorgio's of Beverly Hills so that the girls would look color-coordinated with each other, and none of them would clash with the operating doors that they would be posing in front of at the conclusion of the episode. THAT'S the kind of stylized posing, posturing and voguing that made Y&R look so strange and so astonishingly unique.