Ryan Mason

I don't know that I realized he was on this! Or that he had passed. He was one of my favorite playwrights.

From what I understand, TPTB felt like Dane's acting wasn't up to snuff. Mark Arnold was coming off a 3-year run at The Edge of Night, so I can see where they felt he brought more acting experience and possibly a following to the table. But to me, it's an example of this paradox I've noticed in soaps where you can sense that the recast is a more experienced actor than the person they replaced, yet at the same time, the choices they make with the character make it less likable. Like I feel like Mark Arnold was frequently overanimated and yapping in people's faces about something or other, so to me the character became more obnoxious and Shouty McYellerson. And the fact that they killed Joe off less than six months later when in the beginning he was one of THE major characters would indicate they felt this new take wasn't working either. It's other soaps too. Another example that comes to mind is when Chrystee Pharris took over Simone on Passions. She was clearly a more experienced actress than Lena Cardwell, but Simone went from being sympathetic to a self-righteous harpy. I have similar thoughts about Gina Gallego as Santana on here. Definitely a more experienced actress than Ava Lazar and Margaret Michaels, but whether it was the writing or her choices or both, her Santana to me frequently came across as annoying and an argument waiting to happen. And even though she was probably the greenest as an actress, to me the character never popped off the screen again as a major character the way she did when Ava Lazar played her. In hindsight, maybe they'd have best been served to get a strong acting coach for Dane and Ava first before jumping to recasting!

I think there were two very early episodes--like before Episode 50 or so--that were either missing or so deteriorated they couldn't be aired, so SoapNet just had summaries posted on their site. (Possibly only one, but I'm pretty sure two.) But other than that, everything aired up until whichever point in December 1981 they chose to stop at that round.

Speaking of YouTube uploads, in case it helps any of you, I wound up creating a public 1994 playlist that has everything I could find as of last May in chronological order. For whatever reason, that particular year had a lot of duplicate postings of episodes, episodes without actual dates, etc., so it took me awhile to sort through all of it when I rewatched the Marland era to mid-1997, and I figured I may as well share my findings in case it helped anyone else! Here's the link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEo4KpRAYkLxmI-O-g4Pju7QwD2vwChZ8&si=hA-WY8KYGeQP3Z-z

I remember they also mentioned a daughter named Olivia. Years later when they had a character named Olivia around late 1987-early 1988 I briefly wondered if it would turn out to be her. On a random note, speaking of names, I wonder what the fascination was with the name Lisa? They had three different characters (sort of) with that name--Lisa DiNapoli, Eden's split personality Lisa, and Lisa Fenimore.

There were times where it seemed like her dialogue was just endless variations on her whining "Teeedddd!" or "Motherrrrrrr!"

So from what I remember, Samantha Eggar was cast as Pamela but got cold feet about the pace of shooting a soap and backed out, so they then cast Shirley Anne Field. Then Marj Dusay took over a couple of months later. I also remember that the concept of Pamela was to be the Alexis Carrington of Santa Barbara...the ex-wife who would be stirring up a lot of trouble. I don't think any of the parties involved pictured her poisoning margaritas several months later! But what I forget is...what was the Dobsons' position on her? Was it that they were wanting Marj to play her all along?

I could see where, on paper at least, Robin Mattson might have seemed to make sense as Delia because she does specialize in playing manipulative pot-stirrers, which you could say Delia can be. And back in the day I actually went through Robin Mattson taking over a part on the soap I watched back then, Santa Barbara. Seeing her as Gina was jarring as hell at first because she was NOTHING like Linda Gibboney...but in that case, at least, the character went from getting on my last nerve to one of my favorites within a month or so. But I agree that she didn't work as Delia in practice, and I feel like it kind of comes down to a matter of basic essence. Robin just seems to bring this sort of innate confidence and surety to a character that, as it turns out, doesn't work for Delia. Delia can certainly be convinced she's right about something, or go after something she wants like gangbusters, but at the same time, there's always at least some level and history of being neurotic, needy, and insecure underneath it all. I feel like Ilene Kristen had more of an in-your-face desperation to her Delia than Randall Edwards, but I think they both got this quality quite well and I really liked them both. But with Robin...as much as I loved her on Santa Barbara, from what I've seen of her here, I just couldn't see or buy her being desperate to be a part of the Ryans or to have Maeve's approval, for example. I don't know if that makes any sense or not, but that's the best way I can think of to describe it.

This was really interesting to see laid out like this! Awhile back, I posted that I remembered reading an article back in the day where someone involved with the show said that the ratings were on a roll until Mary got killed off in mid-July 1986 and then they dropped and never recovered. But it looks like in actuality, when you look at its weeks rated 5 and above, the show got its best ratings ever from November 1987-February 1988. (Only three of those 5+ weeks occurred outside of that time period--one in February 1986, one in late July/early August 1986, and one in July 1987.) In terms of what was going on then: Cruz is on trial for Elena’s murder which leads to him going on the run with Eden (who regains use of her legs) and Kirk Cranston’s return, Pamela has just returned to town (and is recast with Marj Dusay at the end of 1987), Kelly and Jeffrey get married, Mason and Julia get together, Gina is temporarily blind, Sophia hires someone to blow up Pamela’s oil rig, Hayley is killed by a drunk driver, and the plots of Hal Clark’s murder years ago in the Capwell boathouse and the assassin known as the Fox (who seems to be newcomer Andrea) begin.

I live in LA now as well (I'm from Chicago and lived there when the series aired) and I love any excuse to get to Santa Barbara for the day! Every detail of the town is picturesque...like the court records office looks like you're going to get handed your documents by a Disney character or something and even the 99 Cent Store is about the quaintest-looking one you could imagine! It was so cool to finally get to see the actual place.

He was a scuba instructor and maintained a foundation that made scuba diving accessible for the disabled. I also seem to remember reading an article years ago that he taught John Allen Nelson how to dive.

You're welcome! And what was interesting for me too is that I just vaguely remembered that it was sometime in the summer of 1985 because that's when I started saving episodes on tape (we didn't even get a VCR until March 1985 so most of that first year was lost to me as soon as I went back to school) and I knew I'd seen it, but until I saw the summaries laid out like that, I'd forgotten that it was the one-two-three punch all within the span of a few days of finding out that Channing was gay AND Lionel's son and then finally Gina yanking the revised will and divorce papers away from him that he was desperately trying to sign that made his aneurysm burst and caused the long coma that Jed Allan woke up from in January!

I did remember for sure that it was the summer of 1985, so she was long past that period. I looked it up here and it was episode 276 on August 26th that I'm thinking of: http://santabarbara-online.com/Calendar1985.htm 276 Mason tells CC Channing was gay & Santana confirms it, Lionel sends CC Sophia's old audition tape, Gina learns from Augusta that Channing is Lionel's son, Steve & Mary look for Christie, Sophia convinces CC it doesn't matter if Channing was gay, Frank reads Lionel's eulogy, Christie warns Ted her rapist may be after him

If I remember right, that was where both he and the confrontation with Mason ended up, but for him to get there, Sophia had to talk him out of his initially more homophobic reaction. I think he was on the verge of having Channing's belongings burned in disgust and she talked him out of it.

I do remember something around the fall of 1988 where there was a patient in the hospital with AIDS and Tori helped him reconcile with his father. It was super backburner and around the time where she was also super-backburneredly seeing Heather & Michael's father Arthur Donnelly.

I remember reading in an article at the time that someone from the show said that the ratings were on a roll until they killed off Mary Duvall (Harley Jane Kozak) and then they never recovered. Creatively, the show was definitely firing on all cylinders for that first half of 1986, so to me at least on that level it seems plausible. She died in the July 14, 1986 episode so it'll be interesting to see soon if this winds up being true or not!

What's also interesting is that unless I'm forgetting any one-off appearances later on, I think he only interacted with Margaret Michaels as Santana!

Yep! And Samantha and Chip would be 36, Adriana coming up on 35, and Brandon would be 44! I feel like Brandon was a rarity for children on soaps in that he was on the show for just about the entire run and while he was recast several times, he never got prematurely aged; he didn't suddenly come back from summer camp or boarding school a senior in high school or anything!

Similarly, the driving scenes on Santa Barbara always looked super low-budget to me. There was such an obvious border outline between the actors in the car and the alleged moving "background"! 😃

It was actually even more extreme, believe it or not. I had read that she debuted in episode 304, which aired October 3, 1985, and didn't appear again until episode 341, which as it turned out aired November 29th! And I just went back and double checked it myself and that is indeed accurate. But when I did I also saw that there was a LOT going on in that time period...Gina plotted and executed the plot to frame Eden for pulling the plug on CC, Brick and Amy got married, Dylan and Mark came to town, Angel held the clinic hostage...so it may have just been simply that Santana wasn't necessarily that involved in those things. And I agree with you about Gina Gallego; she was probably my least favorite, but I'm not sure whether it was her or the writing. For most of her tenure I felt like Santana was an Argument Waiting To Happen and for months it seemed like her dialogue was just endless variations of "You don't LOVE me, Cruz; you love EDEN!" It got to the point where I'd see her and think "Oh great; what's she going to bitch and moan about NOW?" But then years later I enjoyed her on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend! It also goes to show the difference recasts can make. When it was Ava Lazar and Linda Gibboney in the beginning, I was rooting for Santana. By the time it was Gina Gallego and Robin Mattson, while I didn't necessarily *condone* the whole allergy pill/crack switcheroo, I was pretty solidly Team Gina.

I don't know that any of you will necessarily have an answer to this any more than I do, but this just popped back in my head recently. The switch from Margaret Michaels to Gina Gallego as Santana, while not as jarring as Gordon Thomson replacing Terry Lester as Mason MID-EPISODE, was nonetheless rather odd. Margaret Michaels' last episode ended with her demanding Mason tell Brandon the truth about his mother. The very next episode, Gina Gallego, in the exact same outfit, ran disappointed from the Capwell mansion AND the episode itself 15 minutes in when Mason opted not to tell Brandon that Santana was his biological mother. There was no opening "The role of Santana Andrade is now being played by..." voiceover to announce the switch, and you didn't see Santana again for about a month. I remember when the episode first aired, my 13-year-old self was like "Wait...she LOOKS really different, but they didn't SAY she's being played by someone else...am I going nuts?" until I saw Gina Gallego's name in the closing crawl. (Again...I was all of 13! 😃) So I've always wondered if there was some sort of similar scheduling mixup or crisis or what have you and they had to get Gina in there early to shoot what would have been Margaret's last episode. Because that long of a gap in appearances would have made sense if they wanted to give a break between the two Santanas like soaps often try to with recasts so they won't be as jarring, but as it was was rather odd. Again...I don't know that any of you would have any more information on this, but it's just something I've always wondered!

In 1984, Jack Wagner was pretty solidly ensconced and popular on General Hospital as Frisco, so unfortunately that wouldn't have worked. I do agree about Mark Arnold, though. I guess he had a pretty successful run on The Edge of Night for a few years before this, but here I feel like he basically turned Joe into Shouty McYellerson. It seemed like his Joe was just constantly yapping about something or other and it just got obnoxious after awhile.

Yep. Judith McConnell was still in the Dominic disguise only when she first started. It was right around the same time as the Joe recast as well. He was a temp. He subbed for Justin Deas for a week or two in the spring of 1988. I remember him fondly from an episode of Square Pegs where he played the school's new hunky substitute janitor, but he was an odd choice for Keith. I just figured maybe it was an emergency situation and he was the best available on short notice? Thinking about characters disappearing made me remember how I found it kind of hilarious that getting paired with Jane in 1987 was the kiss of death as far as your longevity on the show. She dated Pearl's brother Brian. He leaves town. Then she dates blink-and-you-miss-him Warren #2. HE leaves town. Then she dates Brick. This time they BOTH leave town!

I feel like character exits were handled in much the same way. Unless something really definitive happened, like they were killed or went to jail, half the times I feel like we just...simply never saw them again with no actual explanation, and then eventually we'd see the character had been removed from the end credits. Sometimes down the road Soap Opera Digest would give the generic explanation the character "left town"...but we'd never actually be told that onscreen. (And I definitely agree with you on Who Killed Madeline. There was that scene of Sheila telling David "Well, if *I* didn't kill her...and YOU didn't kill her..." and Julia snapping, "WHO DID?!?"...and I think something about Cruz saying they didn't have enough to hold them...and then nothing until about three months later Courtney suddenly starts having nightmares about blood on her hands from out of the clear blue sky.)

I remember Rosa saying she didn't want to talk about it when the land got brought up at the dinner party, and later remember thinking, "Well, I guess the writers didn't either, because I don't remember ever hearing much more about it!" Along those same lines, Pamela said she knew who Cassandra's father was, but *we* never found out who it was...or who Warren's was either, for that matter.