Ryan Mason

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.

I can't say for certain that this had anything to do with it, but I do remember that right around the time Roberta Bizeau was replaced, Soap Opera Digest had a blind item to the effect of "A soap told an actress to make a choice--a new haircut or a new storyline. The actress happily opted for the former and split." It was a blind item so I can't say for certain that it was about Roberta Bizeau, but I do remember something about Flame going undercover in disguise on some sort of a sting operation and when it was over, she took off the wig she'd been using and her hair was suddenly short and spiky; I remember it reminding me of Marie Fredricksson of Roxette. Then she was gone shortly after and Marguerite Hickey took over long enough for Warren to send her out of town on a news assignment, if I remember right. So I always wondered if maybe TPTB nixed her chopping her hair off and then let her go when she did it anyway? Stranger things have happened in the world of soaps!