Broderick

59 minutes ago, kalbir said:

Bill Bell Jr. and Maria Arena Bell had a soap bible Coming of Age that they attempted to sell to NBC in 1992 or 1993. I wonder if CBS would have used that for a new 30 minute soap in March 1997.

 

I honestly kept thinking Coming of Age would be snagged by CBS, once "B&B" established itself as a potential winner in the CBS line-up. 

While Edge of Night was obviously doomed by the expansion of World Turns to an hour, I often wondered how it would've fared if CBS had held onto it.  Ideally, EON should've flourished on ABC in the early 1980s, as its lead-in was the most successful soap in ABC's entire line-up.  But it didn't flourish.  The show's low clearance was obviously problematic, but also its "film noir intelligence" seemed out of place in ABC's "love on the run" heyday.  The rapid ratings rise of the ABC line-up turned out to be a flash in the pan, and by the time viewers (quickly) tired of the ABC formula, Edge was left to flounder with low clearance and a lead-in that was bleeding viewers.  

If the show had still been included in the line-up with the newly-rejuvenated Y&R, Douglas Marland's crisper and more historically-based World Turns and the still-popular Guiding Light, I expect we would've seen it last far longer than its unfortunate 1984 demise, especially if it had remained under the craftsmanship of Henry Slesar.  

3 hours ago, JoeCool said:

Very strange that all these storylines are climaxing and the ratings tank!

The "tanking" of Y&R's ratings is really more attributable to the ripple effect of ABC's rise (propelling "Ryan's Hope" temporarily upward) than anything storyline-wise on Y&R, in my opinion. 

However, the storylines cresting on Y&R in 1981 weren't anything spectacular.  If they were seen on television nowadays, we'd probably say, "Oh, that's not TOO terrible", but at the time they seemed fairly dismal. 

A huge chunk of the show dealt with Lorie and Leslie's custody battle over Brooks Prentiss.  There was much "psycho-babble" from the judge and the attorneys about the rights of a "psychological mother" (Lorie) versus a "biological mother" (Leslie), which wasn't exactly enthralling drama.   And ALL of this was predicated on the misconception that Lucas Prentiss (rather than Lance) was the kid's father.  So at the conclusion of all this long harangue, Brooks was calling Lorie "mommy" and Lucas "dad", while referring to his mother as "Aunt Leslie" and his father as "Uncle Lance".  It was silly and seemed to move the entire storyline further (rather than closer) to its endgame.    

Eric Braeden was turning in some chilling performances as Victor, but he was a relatively new character, and his imprisonment of Michael Scott seemed more tawdry and morbid than realistic.  Everything in the storyline depended upon whether or not Paul Williams (another fairly new character) would check Randy's claims of being Michael Scott with Jill Foster (a recent recast) at Jabot.  Again, nothing terribly interesting there.  

April Stevens' parents, Wayne and Dorothy, were VERY lower-class, poverty-stricken characters who didn't have air conditioning in their hovel.  So Wayne sat around in a wife-beater tee-shirt watching TV and guzzling beer where Dorothy Stevens pushed an iron back and forth across a blouse, and both of them sweated like mules, looked frazzled, sticky, and overheated.  April would pop in, sweat like a racehorse, and ask them nosy questions about her twin sister.  Not anything terribly interesting there, and the set looked as though it SMELLED terrible. 

Roberta Leighton's Casey had one foot out the door -- the actress was leaving -- and was suddenly embroiled in a predictably dull "stalker storyline", in which her protector was Jonas, another character most viewers didn't care much about.  Casey soon snapped, nearly killed an old codger at the hospital on a treadmill, and disappeared from the show the next day. 

The stalker then moved his attentions to Nikki, who "inherited" Jonas, also had Jerry Cashman on hand (as she was a stripper in his club), also had Andy Richards (who was a bartender), also had Paul Williams (who was divorcing the sweating April), also had ex-husband Greg Foster's concern (and he suddenly began having mysterious migraines), and there was also Edward from next door (who was obviously the stalker all along.)  Wasn't a lot of suspense there. 

Chris Brooks was frantically popping Valium, which alarmed Snapper, but it turned out she was "anxious" because her furniture wasn't nice enough to suit her.  Snapper didn't want her to have anything nice, as he was running a free clinic, and evidently it would look terrible to Dr. Young, who was funding the free clinic, if Chris had a sofa that wasn't ripped to shreds.  So a new doctor (Jane) decided to bed Snapper.  Guess Jane could purchase her OWN sofa if she wanted one.  Again, dull as hell. 

About the only things percolating that were truly interesting and realistic (to me) were teenage rocker Danny's little crush on Patty Williams, who was smitten with the older, more mature playboy, Jack Abbott, who often took advantage of Patty's naïve nature and made Deborah Adair's Jill roll her eyes sarcastically and Carolyn Conwell's Mary Williams clutch her pearls and belt out a Hail Mary.  

Also, once that nonsense with Michael Scott and the cellar came mercifully to a screeching close, Victor Newman began buying-up shares of Prentiss Industries, which cemented Victor Newman as the ruthless, cutthroat, but vulnerable character who later would "define" the show during the 1980s.  We would see him begin a cat-&-mouse game with Lorie Brooks of acquiring her Prentiss shares, which she freely handed over to him, because Vanessa Prentiss led her to believe that Lance didn't love her anymore.  This was our more realistic "payoff" for suffering through all that nonsense about Brooks Prentiss's custody hearing. 

You'll likely see the show begin to slowly increase in the ratings as it eventually found its footings again, by retooling Victor Newman into a formidable business-type character, by taking advantage of Kay Chancellor's cutting sarcasm, by highlighting Nikki Reed's dingbat flightiness, by better defining Jack Abbott's devil-may-care spoiled playboy mannerisms, and then a few months later, the introduction of Eileen Davidson, Beth Maitland, and Jerry Douglas to round out the main cast.  Those characters (along with Paul and Andy) were destined to be the "new" Y&R, but in the summer of 1981, they were all stuck in a morass of storylines that really weren't working, surrounding by characters who desperately needed to be written off. 

I expect he would've sabotaged the deal.  He and Lee Phillip wanted the show on CBS from day one, lol.  

11 hours ago, kalbir said:

Let's hope Josh Griffith doesn't bungle the execution.

He'll mess it up.  And it's a shame.  That sounds halfway interesting.  

3 hours ago, I Am A Swede said:

I had no idea that Y&R was so popular this early in its run. That makes it easier to understand why CBS wanted to expand it to an hour..

During its third year on the air (1976), it shot up from 9th place to 3rd place. 

From then on, it consistently remained in the "top tier".

In its 50 years on the air, its only disappointing years ratings-wise were its first two years (1973-1975, when it was brand new), and its dismal performance in the very early 1980s after its expansion to an hour.  Even by 1984, it was occasionally inching back to #1.      

On 7/27/2023 at 11:48 AM, yrfan1983 said:

Sounds pretty much like I pictured

Snapper & Greg had already been in a little dust-up about Chris Brooks.  (She was in love with Snapper, but Greg had a crush on her.  She ended up working for Greg, with Stuart Brooks underwriting her salary.) 

The point of Gwen Sherman seemed to be (at first) Snapper was an authority on prostitutes and recognized Gwen was a hooker.  If he told Greg the truth about her, it could potentially drive a deeper wedge between the two of them.  

13 hours ago, yrfan1983 said:

Did anyone happen to see Jennifer Leak as Gwen from 1973-1976? How was her performance? Was she rootable as someone torn between prostitution and her love for Greg Foster?

I remember her.  She did a fine job.  I was a little kid, but to me it was more of a "salacious" storyline than a thoughtful one.  Greg's girlfriend is a hooker!!  Will Snapper tell him?!  Will Greg HATE Snapper when he learns the truth?!  What about Gwen -- will she continue as a hooker, or will The Love Of a Good Man change her forever?!  (Neither one, of course.  She joined a convent.)  

9 minutes ago, j swift said:

LOL - well at least it was respectful, I'm off to CBS...

( I intended to add at the bottom:

CC:  Mr. Harding Lemay )

On 7/25/2023 at 4:21 PM, j swift said:

Allow me to go back in time to 1979 and make the fanfic pitch to expand Another World to 90 minutes, as I think it might have been proposed.

With, Lovers and Friends we established a tenuous connection between the Cushing and Cory families, and tried to maintain Harding Lemay as a head writer, but the work proved to be too much for him and the new writing staff could not maintain his quality.

 

In my mind, that's always how I believed they pitched it.

Fanfic answer to the inquiry:  

Thanks for your proposal.  However, after much consideration, we feel that if the writer was unable to handle the crafting of storylines for a 60-minute serialized drama and an accompanying 30-minute serialized drama, the writer will likely be unable to produce quality storytelling for a 90-minute drama.  

While we appreciate your progressive suggestion, but we respectfully decline your proposal.   A 90-minute serialized drama seems too far removed from practicality to be considered any further. 

Please write again with any additional proposals you have. 

Declined.   

32 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

From what I understand Colgate exited out of the television production business in 1980 and NBC probably offered to resume production/owernship of the show.. hence why it continued for 2 more years or so until it canceled it.   As it turns out, maybe it wasn't for the best to let NBC have ownership of the soap since the quality declined and now believed 'lost'.  

 

That's the way I understood it.  At the time, the media made it sound as though Colgate-Palmolive dissolved Channelex, Inc., in September of 1980, at the conclusion of the 1979/1980 season.   That move left The Doctors without a production company.  NBC-TV, as the show's licensee, decided to assume outright ownership of it rather than cancel it.  Channelex Inc then punted the show to NBC, under whose ownership it limped along for another couple of seasons.  

19 hours ago, SoapDope said:

Victoria Principal. 

I expect she'd be interesting to speak with.   (I've never found most actors interesting enough to "faint" over, lol.  But I do sometimes get intimidated by writers, who are generally way more intelligent than I am.)    

5 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Thanks for clearing that up. 

Welcome.  I don't know enough about it to be "staunch" (as Little Edie would say), but I just figured from Day One any distribution package Colgate-Palmolive assembled for Retro-TV would be 1967-1980, with possibly a few outlier episodes here and there from the public domain.  The rest would be NBC's little red wagon to sell, and Retro wouldn't be getting it easily.     

Retro never seemed very certain (or very forthcoming) about what they'd acquired from Colgate.  

19 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

But didn't Colgate -Palmolive own the show from the debut? i think so. Retro did show the first episode/a b&w ep  didn't they at some point?

Don't know about the later episodes claims that NBC trashed them but it made sense to start the show from the color eps.

The way I've always heard it, NBC owned it from 1963 until 1967, with Colgate-Palmolive as the primary sponsor.  In 1967, Channelex (which was CP's little version of "P&G Productions") purchased it from NBC, produced it and distributed it to NBC until fall of 1980, and then threw it back to NBC.  

Here's a newspaper blurb indicating that's the case.  (They're discussing Hugh McPhillps who was the casting director of the show.)  This is from 1974.   "McPhillips, whose main job with The Doctors is handling the casting of each of the 250 half-hour episodes taped every year, has been with the soap since the mid-1960s.  A director for 17 years at NBC, who introduced the program, McPhillips left the television network when The Doctors was purchased outright in 1967 by Colgate.  He is employed now by Channelex, Inc."  

3 minutes ago, lucaslesann23 said:

I'm shocked they let him keep his crap there for 3 years. 

Just theatrics, I expect.  I believe his last appearance was in the autumn of 2020?  SURELY they weren't still wasting a dressing room on him?  "Sorry, folks, you can't go in there --- that's Doug's dressing room!  We're expecting him back in 2029!"    

7 hours ago, dragonflies said:

What killed me was a post about LLB and her anniversary on the show and the comments were about HIM and one tried to say she was a horrible "Writer" confusing her with Brad LMAO

Sorry to hear Lauralee Bell is such a terrible "writer", lol.

If Doug Davidson had just hushed-up five years ago, he'd probably still be getting a couple of episodes a month like Christian LeBlanc does -- instead of nothing.  

No one knows if a concept will work until they try it.  

But the 90-minute expansion of Another World seems so bone-headed.  Who on earth is going to devote 90 minutes of their weekday to watching a movie-length television show?  And what writer has the capability of creating 90 minutes of compelling drama daily?

Edge of Night made such good use of the 30-minute format.  Granted, that's a "niche" soap (mystery and suspense), but every scene appears to serve a distinct purpose.  Two people don't just meet randomly and chit-chat.  If two characters end up in a scene together, a pertinent bit of information or a clue is going to be exchanged between them.  There's an "economical quality" to the writing, and there's never much blatant padding. 

A lot of that conciseness is lost in a 60-minute show.  A 90-minute show seems like a disaster waiting to happen (and it was).     

13 hours ago, Chris B said:

This is what I think as well. I imagine they could be negotiating with NBC for them, but the smartest thing is to say they’re lost so fans don’t hound them about it. 

lol.  Several years ago, they made a BIG production of "we're going to begin airing episodes from 1967 when the show went from black & white to COLOR!!"  

I suppose that sounded better than the truth:  "NBC owned the show from 1963 to 1967, so we don't have the rights to air a blooming one of those pre-1967 episodes.  Sorry, folks!" 

And now they come along with this song & dance about 1981 & 1982, for the same fairly obvious reason.     

They can "up-seed" a player if they want to.  But I doubt there's any danger.  There are about 1,500 points separating them from the #3 & #4 players.  

On 7/15/2023 at 1:07 PM, kalbir said:

Whenever an episode surfaces from Summer 1986 to end of 1989 I skip all the Cricket scenes. Even when I watched that era in real time on school breaks I was like "why is Cricket on all the time?" 

Same -- that was sheer torture!  

As the years have rolled by, I find Cricket less annoying than I originally did, and I can now stomach her in (very) small doses.  

"After exhaustive research and discussions with the Colgate team, it could only be determined that those tapes were reused by NBC back in the day and thus, the beloved final two years of The Doctors no longer exist."  

Pfffftt.  Let's rephrase that.  "After exhaustive research and discussions with the Colgate team, it could only be determined that those tapes do NOT belong to Colgate-Palmolive, and we do NOT have the funds to enter into into negotiations with NBC to purchase the rights to air them."  

I expect those tapes will "miraculously reappear" if NBC decides there's money to be made in digging them out of their own storage facility and digitizing them.  

I *guess* #6 is about as low as Y&R will go before ultimately beginning its climb back to #1.  

MUCH has been written about the phenomenal success of Y&R and the ABC shows in the late 1970s, but I often forget how well Search for Tomorrow was performing, only to be kicked to the curb by CBS less than three years later.  

On 7/2/2023 at 11:16 AM, Soaplovers said:

Alexandra Moltke stated how she managed to get out of her contract with the show.  Apparently it wasn't due to pregnancy difficulties..but not being paid for all the episodes she had a voice over for and didn't actually appear in the episode....her lawyer told her this.

I've often wondered how the voiceovers were done -- whether she had to go to the studio daily to do them, or whether she recorded several of them at a time, on a day when she happened to be there.  

On 6/21/2023 at 7:59 AM, Beetle Bailey said:

In 1979, both Joe Riley and Dan Stewart were killed off their shows.  When OLTL aired Joe Riley's funeral, it felt raw and real,  it was like the audience was able to grieve along with Llanview, while Dan Stewart's funeral was so stiff.  It seemed to me as if the writing was too caught up in being dignified rather than mourning the loss of this important character.  Dan Stewart was the love of Kim's life, Kim was too stoic.  And this was the contrast between the two shows.

I wasn't a big fan of 1970s World Turns, though it was often playing in our living room.  I remember Dan's funeral pretty vividly, and how composed Kim was for the sake of Betsy.  It struck me as being shockingly real.  (But I was too young for anyone's demo, so my opinion didn't matter lol.)     

10 hours ago, kalbir said:

You liked the era that resembled a modern day western as opposed to the era that was more corporate.

Oh, yeah.   What appealed to me about the show was "nouveau rich folks who live on a ranch".

We'd often see Bobby or Ray SWEATIING outside after rounding up calves, and people would do "mundane" jobs indoors, such as Miss Ellie cooking chili in the kitchen for the Ewing barbeque.   They were people whom rural Americans, whether Southern or not, could relate to.  They might have a fancy Lincoln Continental, Mercedes, and Corvette in the driveway, but they were often seen doing "normal" things around the place that anyone -- millionaire or not -- would do on a farm.