ScottyBman

10 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

Oddly, I thought Jenson was a better Marley than Vicky especially when she first started.  She almost regressed Vicky back to circa 1985 when she first started... Anne Heche had gradually matured Vicky while maintaining her more dramatic tendencies... while Jenson played Vicky like Ellen Wheeler did when she first started as Vicky.  

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.

11 hours ago, Melroser said:

I always wanted to write for AW too! It was my show. Especially the characters of Cecile, Cass, Felicia and I loved Vicky and Jake (But Anne Heche as Vicky). Rachel, I thought, was so underused at times. I'll say if I wrote the show her and Carl would never have been a couple after the years of previous history. Nor at the end of the show would there ever have been a Jordan Stark or Lila's baby in a tree! Ridiculous...

 

I've always felt gimmicks were never the way to go. Devil Possession (DAYS). Vampires (PC). Alternative places like Eterna (OLTL). Yes, maybe you get a few more viewers on a temp basis, but I prefer character driven stories.

Just my opinion. 

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.

13 hours ago, katie_9918 said:

The talk about Jerry Grove reminded me of something I still find amusing while watching these 1981 episodes and having read the 1979 synopses. Ted Bancroft, Brian’s son, apparently got pistol-whipped over the head after trying out journalism got him in trouble with gangsters. The brain damage apparently led to strange behavior that culminated in Ted kidnapping a woman and taking her to a yacht, and Ted ended up committed.

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?

6 hours ago, rlj said:

Back to AW

Who is this Alice they are clearly Chem testing with Mitch in 81?

Is Dr Olivia Delaney, Olivia Matthews Mom?

Why would Jerry rape Clarice?

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....  

21 hours ago, Donna B said:

That made me laugh out loud! First I've heard of someone not interested in My Lovely Ada!

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....

11 hours ago, slick jones said:

This.

 

I loved Clarice. In a world of wealthy characters, you could count on a good old down to earth conversation between Clarice and Ada.

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. 

10 minutes ago, AbcNbc247 said:

 Clarice getting raped by Jerry, Jamie's book. I wasn't a fan of any of that.

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.