ScottyBman

They needed to take a little of the over the top camp out of Cecile by the mid 90's. They started there a bit with the scenes of her and Felicia and Cecile was living in her car. They needed to get her back to the working girl she was in the late 70's and 80's. Maybe end up working with Donna at KBAY. But alas years as the Queen of Tanqueray (It's Tanquir mother as Victoria corrected Donna in my favorite scene...) made her too far removed to be that person again.

While Anna Stuart is the Donna Love, that I loved. It was funny watching Philece Sampler as snotty Donna. Although if we really pick apart the dialogue as she complained of the smells of the farm, history shows that she spent a good bit of time in the Love Estate Stables and I am sure the fragrance was about the same. But that is just nitpicking.....

I am also rewatching, although I am still at the end of 1981. It is mid November. I think even here I see a wind of change coming. Probably easier to see as watching in the future rather than in the present. Jerry just raped Clarice. Jamie is James and now being the "bad boy" Steven Frame is back and everything seems to be BlackHawk. Although I see that there presence will be big for a while, but not long term. I see many of the cast floating and many of them are surely posed to head off the canvas.

So I am chugging away through 1981. Mac just got custody of Amanda. (Who is played by the cutest little girl...she is just a sweetheart on the screen). "Steven Frame" is back in town as David Canary now plays him, but he has yet to reveal his identity. Mac is planning on marrying Alice (which I am guessing never happens...) Rachel is packing to move to California (which I am also guessing never happens...) I love the scenes with Ada, although as I had said earlier when I watched in the mid to late 80's as a much younger person I did not appreciate. Cecile is pregnant (shocker...) we know that one plays out. It's October 1981 in my world, a simpler time across the board.

I liked Jenson as Vicky as well. I think I remember reading that she was part of the plan to "mature" Vicky as she was more confident in her position in life. She was working and having a family. I met her once in the YO, I pulled some strings and got a backstage meet with her at a St. Patrick's Day parade in town. She was very gracious. I know she has fallen on tough times as a person and I wish her all the best.

I 100% agree with your thoughts. Anytime it got weird, I was out. Although referring back to my "writing venture", I dipped into the bizarre a couple of times with what I believe to be an epic fail. As far as AW goes, I would have never put Carl and Rachel together. I understand that Cecile burned her way through the families of AW, but somehow I would have found a way to keep her in the mix. AW to me, was often times the story of the haves and the have nots and how that all integrated. Anna Stuart was also a gem as Donna and would have always been in the mix somewhere. I loved when Donna lost her money (the first time) and sghe struggled to maintain the "Love fascade" being broke. Evidently, so did the writers as they did it to her 2x. :-)

I apologize for the redundant post, but love the response. :-)

I stumbled upon this from Douglas Marland, about how to write a Soap Opera. At one time in my life, I thought it would have been great to write a soap opera. I even penned one that I still have in notebooks 30+ years later in a closet. While not AW specific, the advice seems legit. During his tenure at As the World Turns, Marland gave an interview to a soap magazine with his rules on "how NOT to ruin a soap". In the years that followed, and since his death, the rules have been much discussed in the serial press and by Internet soap opera fans. [3] The rules are: Watch the show. Learn the history of the show. You would be surprised at the ideas that you can get from the back story of your characters. Read the fan mail. The very characters that are not thrilling to you may be the audience's favorites. Be objective. When I came in to (the show), the first thing I said was, what is pleasing the audience? You have to put your own personal likes and dislikes aside and develop the characters that the audience wants to see. Talk to everyone; writers and actors especially. There may be something in a character's history that will work beautifully for you, and who would know better than the actor who has been playing the role? Don't change a core character. You can certainly give them edges they didn't have before, or give them a logical reason to change their behavior. But when the audience says, "He would never do that," then you have failed. Build new characters slowly. Everyone knows that it takes six months to a year for an audience to care about a new character. Tie them in to existing characters. Don't shove them down the viewers' throats. If you feel staff changes are in order, look within the organization first. P&G (Procter & Gamble) does a lot of promoting from within. Almost all of our producers worked their way up from staff positions, and that means they know the show. Don't fire anyone for six months. I feel very deeply that you should look at the show's canvas before you do anything. Good soap opera is good storytelling. It's very simple.

Didn't Ted return to town in the mid 80's? Wasn't he and Nicole (the model) Love doing drugs in the Love Mansion?

So I am watching AW and it August 1981, Jerry is starting to have moments of "bizarre" behavior. He was nice one moment and then turned hostile the next. He saw Kit at the hospital and was talking to her about getting back with Joey, then turned away and came back and berated her. I didn't know he raped Clarice until recently here on the message board. I didn't hate this Alice, but I do not have much to compare to, but understand that for most she was a pale comparison of the other actress. They could be calling Another World at this time The Jamie Show. I am enjoying this stroll down through 1981 at the moment....

As I am watching 1981 unfold in Bay City, it is August. One thing I notice is how news is delivered. Jamie (James) Frame finds out from Rachel that Sandy Alexander is a Cory. The scene is pretty low key. Not the high drama that comes to Daytime by the time we hit the mid 80's. with dramatic music, super quick dialogue and over the top production. There is a natural feel about the show. I find this very refreshing and more authentic today, but at the time in the mid 80's I was younger and enjoyed the over the top melodrama that these shows produced.

Not at all...I got thicker skin than that....

I am glad I gave you a laugh....all I can say I was young back then. And I guess that when they did the shift in the mid 80's they were looking to capture my demo. I guess...but today I do see the charm in Ada. Age brings wisdom, I guess....

I admit when I was younger back in the 80's I was not interested in Clarice or Ada, but wanted to see more of the money and intrigue. As a (much older) person today, I see the charm of Clarice and Larry. I would have definitely hung and had a beer or 2 with him. I never realized the depth of her storyline though until now.

No worries. It happened in 1981. All talk is fair game. I like the relationship between Sandy and Jamie. I am guessing Cecile destroys it.

What?!? Jerry rapes Clarice? I am still at the hostage stuff. Mac just got shot....

I am going to change gears slightly, I am watching AW 1981, it is summer and the writer's strike is in full gear. Denny Hobson has been hired by the Blackhawk Group of which Petronia Paley works. But what struck me was that Jamie Frame is kidnapped, they thought it was Sandy and one of his kidnappers is a young Ed O'Neil who later became Ed Bundy and then Modern Family. It took me about 3 episodes before I realized it. Ed is from Youngstown, OH where I have called home for the past 25 years.

So I have been watching the episodes from 1981. I am now in June 1981 and Cecile has been recast and is now being played by Nancy Frangione. It is amazing how in a few episodes how the character has been ramped up into the conniving Cecile that I remember watching in later years. Was the recast Susan Keith's leaving of her own accord or a planned re-imagining of the character?

Right now for some unexplained reason, I am watching AW in 1981. I don't think my original viewing happened until about 1983-84. Which by then was a far different show than what I am watching now. What a difference a few years makes. The pace is slower. Cecile, played by Susan Keith is conniving, but not over the top. She has a career. When I started she was going after Peter Love, just for the money.... Ray Liotta is on a god bit. We have Peter Brady, I know, Christopher Knight. Blaine is also just going for the pot of Gold. There are the brother and sister who come from money, but I think their time is coming to a close. Mac and Rachel are in full storyline at the mansion and the Complex, which I don't remember being a term when I started watching. Liz actually works and is not just a busy body. There is a charm in this period. Although I am partial to seeing Donna and Vicky...Cass...Felicia...

So I spent the last month reading all the posts. A few every day. I started watching in about 1983-85. I can remember that I was at college watching and the scene where "Marley" aka Vicky comes in and kisses Jake was a shock to the few of us in front of the TV. I was a huge fan of Anna Stuart and loved snotty Donna Love. By far the reason I watched. When she left and then returned in that hall of mirrors, that was a very pleasant surprise for me. I know the mid 80's were considered "crap" by many, but I enjoyed it. It was fastpased. Building the Love family as some elitist patrician family was fun. Especially in the early days with the money gone how they struggled to mantain the facade. I lost interest in subsequent years, you know life and all that stuff. I would check in once in a while. Less Donna meant less me. But when the end was announced, I came back. What a mess. It was evident. A gorilla. Really. What crap. Everything in life has a timeline, so did Bay City and in a broader stroke Soap Operas. I at one point thought I would love to be a writer on a soap. I even wrote my own by hand for a few years. Looking back it was crap. But I enjoyed it. I loved the conjecture, the insight and the memories of this board. I am not usually a poster, and it has been a long time so probably not alot of notice, but I felt compelled to write. RIP Another World. It was like any relationship, we had our good times, our sad times, we were sometimes disappointed and sometimes we were delightfully surprised. This is my favorite scene(s). Donna, Vicky and Queen Cecile.