Reverend Ruthledge

Interestingly, he said Irna couldn't write dialogue to save her life but that she was a master plot-writer. I found her dialogue could be dull and affected at various times but the majority of times her dialogue was good and a few times downright brilliant. Considering the amount of dialogue she had to write, weaknesses are bound to come through at times but I don't get how he could think she was a BAD dialogue writer.

He wasn't saying he wrote the abortion story for AW. He was saying his character of Dick Grant on TGL was involved in the first abortion on TV. I'm not sure what that's about. Dick was on the show from 1951-1962. I have only read up to 1955. What he's referring to could have happened between 1955-1962 but it sure didn't happen from 1951-1955. I'll have to see. I doubt they would have had Dick perform an abortion. Perhaps Marie had an abortion. I don't know if I'd trust his memory. He also said he married everybody on the show but his mother. I know he's trying to be funny but he only married two people. That's a pretty low number for a soap opera and definitely not "everybody on the show". It was a weird comment to make. And I wouldn't trust him to remember the stories he wrote, either. He was the original hack writer.

Just listened to the Lipton interview. Lipton: You're asking me too much about soap operas. There are much more important things about my life to talk about. Interview: Ok, we can move onto other topics. Lipton: Good. Me: click

Thank you for that. It was interesting and confirmed my intense dislike for Lipton.

Oh. Ok. Got it. Thanks. I was confused because the other poster made it sound like the sportscaster was 66 and it sounded like you were refuting that because the actor is only 54.

There is no way that the Bill Shanks who was on ATWT is only 54.

That's not the same Bill Shanks.

Who are the man and woman in the picture right after that one?

I don't know but it could have been Lipton recalling the memory when he was playing Dick Grant and Dick also lost his ability to do surgery. Although his problem was mental.

LOL.

I've wondered whatever happened to him. He seems to have vanished from the public eye quickly after leaving ATWT.

Was Paul Bill's stepson? I thought he was his biological son.

You are correct. Cricket, at least, got a few mentions. Maggie just ceased to exist.

Yes, that's true. ATWT had many more characters tied to the past when Marland came aboard than GL did. However, Bill Bauer was out there somewhere. It's strange that he didn't bring him back. Or Meta. Or Trudy, for that matter. But Bill would have had more of a relationship with the current characters at that time. But then, it's not just about bringing characters back. After all, he never brought back Donald Hughes nor Penny Hughes. But then he did bring back non-familial characters like Grant Coleman. And he was good at creating new storylines that had some kind of connection to past storylines (the Sabrina Hughes story). GL may not have had a lot of veteran characters still on, but there was definitely no lack of past storylines to mine from. I don't know. It just seems odd that Marland seemed more interested in the history of ATWT than the history of GL. But then, maybe it was that he wasn't at GL long enough to flesh those things out.

I find Claudia Lonow very appealing in this interview and found Diana Fairgate so repugnant. It's a little discombobulating.

Yes, I agree. The first part of the decade was harder on TGL and the latter part of the decade was harder on ATWT. Don't get me wrong. Even though I consider the 70s a weak decade for those shows compared to the prior decades, both shows were GREAT in the 70s compared to what came after (except the Marland years of ATWT).

Where are you guys seeing that that's Tom Eplin in the news story? I'm not doubting it and it does look like an older version of him but I didn't see his name anywhere.

Sorry. Edit button doesn't seem to work. I meant to say the 70s was a weak decade for my two favorite soaps (GL and ATWT). However, it was the best decade for most other soaps.

How many years was he at GL? NO, NO, NO!!! I HATE back-from-the-dead storylines! Sorry. Just gives me a knee-jerk physical reaction. LOL.

I always thought it odd that Marland didn't seem to mine the history of GL much but REALLY mined the history of ATWT when he was writing that show.

You summed up completely all that's wrong with the genre. I too think the 70s were the apex for the genre even though I'm a huge fan of the 30s through the 60s. And even though I think they were kind of weak decades for my two favorite soaps (TGL, ATWT). However, for the genre itself and for most other soaps, the 70s were the best decade.

Truth. Back then, when the quality of the shows went south, you could count on them scrambling to try and fix it. Nowadays, nobody cares enough to improve the quality. The only thing worse than James Lipton's writing was his acting.

Yeah, I think the show suffered from the revolving door of head writers during that time. It was a weird mix of too many cooks in the kitchen and stagnation as they tried to hold on too much to a certain pace and way of doing things because of the lack of cohesive forward-focus. They weren't going forward like the other soaps during that time. Or, at least, not as much. Other shows were more ok with doing new things and stepping up the pace. There wasn't a clear direction on how to go evolve and so the audience, I'm sure, looked at the show as stale and boring. I, personally, don't think it was either of those things but there was a huge shift in the late 60s/early 70s culturally.

I could be wrong but I don't think the Hughes kitchen was introduced much earlier than the Snyder farm. Maybe just a few years. The Hughes set up until 1980 was Chris and Nancy's house. Although I'm not sure when the new set was introduced. The years 1980-1984 are fuzzy for me. Was it originally Bob's house? Or Kim's? They didn't get married until 1985 so I don't know who lived there before then. I remember seeing scenes of that living room with Kim and Meg Ryan's Betsy (if I'm not mistaken) so perhaps it was Kim's house? Maybe someone with knowledge of those years could help out. I do remember they used to show the living room/dining room, the den and the kitchen. The den was the first to disappear and then the living room/dining room disappeared and eventually everything just happened in the kitchen. Then, the kitchen strangely got turned into a WOAK set. By the end, the elder Hughes were relegated to having holidays at the hospital if Tom and Margo weren't hosting.

Damn! Why couldn't they have kept the tape going?!