SoapDope78

Bob was a good host, but he had his flaws. I recently saw a 1979 episode of the Dinah Shore talk show where he and his wife Dorothy Jo were guests. DJ talked about when she met Bob as a teen she was smitten with him. She said Bob told her she was fat and if she lost weight they would go out. Which she did. They married out of high school. Dinah then later was talking about the cooking segment coming up and Bob remarked that DJ ate like a bird and was always eating lettuce. My mind sprang to the idea that DJ had an eating disorder. I think it was mentioned she weighed less than a hundred pounds. DJ was also a chain smoker which led to her death in 1981. Bob was devastated and never really got over it. Bob became a producer of The Price Is Right the following year and I think that's when his ego grew out of control. DJ was no longer there to reel him in. Bob became an animal rights activist and vegetarian after her death as a tribute (as she had been). When TPIR went into reruns, he had it written in the contract that episodes featuring fur coats as prizes be forbidden to repeat.

I read that the E! channel series " Dirty Rotten Scandals" plans to air 2 episodes on March 18th at 9pm discussing the Price Is Right. From what I gather the former models, crew, etc...are going to dish the dirt on Bob Barker and what a toxic backstage environment it was working there. I watched the Barker era growing up and still watch the old episodes of it on youtube and streaming. The show was as it's best with the Barker Beauties Dian, Janice, and Holly and announcers Johnny Olson and later Rod Roddy. The show started to fall apart when Bob started the affair with Dian in 1989. She left the show in 1993 and sued Barker for sexual harassment in 1994. Supposedly Dian wanted Janice fired during her affair with Bob. To save face Bob went public in 1994 with the info of his fling with Dian when the lawsuit hit. He also wanted Holly to lie in court which she refused to do. Holly also gained weight do medication she was taking. Bob forced her of the show in 1995. Holly filed a lawsuit which took her about 10 years to win. She was living out of her car for several years before winning. Janice and Kathleen were forced out of the show in 2000. That is just the tip of the iceberg. I am curious who will be interviewed for the documentary. I doubt Dian Parkinson will participate. Dian hasn't been seen in public since the mid 90's. I remember in the early 90's she posed for Playboy to celebrate turning 40. The thing was her real age was 46. Years later when the arrival of the internet someone found her birth records and she was born in 1944. Footage also surfaced of her winning several beauty pageants in 1965-1966. She first met Bob Barker at that time. She was hired on Price is Right around 1974.

Thanks for sharing this here. I was just about to do it before I saw your post. Any episodes from the Woolery era are a rare treat. Supposedly NBC wiped most of the 1975-1985 daytime episodes.

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She does look familiar. Did she do a soap? P.J. Soles at the end as the graduate. I wonder how many phone books Charlene had to sit on to see over the steering wheel?

Yes. Knots never resorted to cat fights like Dynasty but this would be one time I could see Karen physically attacking Abby and having to be pulled off her.

That would have been interesting. Mama Karen would go "Karen" on Ginger's @$$. Imagine that happening at the same time she was dealing with Diana & Chip. There would be no scenery left after Michelle Lee finished 'Acting"

Yvonne Perry won the Soap Opera Digest Award for" Outstanding Female Newcomer" in 1993. I remember thinking it was kind of out of thin air since she had barely started. Yes, the Ned Simon thing was during the time ATWT when the writing was becoming subpar. Things really got bad around 1996 when NuPaul, Sara, Zoe etc...arrived. I noticed most of those actors never had many or any credits after their ATWT stint.

Thanks for the correction and recap. It was an awful storyline and I probably snoozed through most of it. I was also in high school and probably only saw it here and there. This was also when Rosanna started eating the show. I was also surprised when Yvonne Perry won an award right out of the gate shortly after starting on ATWT.

ATWT.....Debbie Simon (Sharon Case). I barely remember her character being a blip on the radar. She wore glasses and didn't she lose her virginity to Hutch?

Y&R.....Jack's Insta Family in the 90's. Vietnam war love Luan. Keemo (Jack's son), and Mai (Luan's daughter). Reportedly Peter Bergman detested the entire storyline and Luan was killed off and Keemo and Mai written out.

Y&R.....In the 90's Woody Brown was cast as an abusive husband named Jake (I think it was) and the Bug was going to help the wife. I remember SOD did an interview with Brown and he said he was happy to be joining the show and how his character was bad news. I got the feeling it was supposed to be long term and play out like a redemption story ala Ron Becker from the 70's. I don't think Jake and his wife appeared maybe like 3 times before they disappeared.

ATWT....Bianca..... Lucinda adopted her then she kind of hung around for years before disappearing. Sometimes she would be absent for long stretches then she would pop up during a breakfast scene or at the Yacht club. Darryl & Carolyn Crawford..... By the time that convoluted murder mystery played out, people didn't give a crap.

Y&R.......Brian Forbes Ashley Abbotts first love interest circa 1982-83 that disappeared by going to make a phone call and never came back. In the 90's a mustached/dark haired Grant Kramer (who had previously played crazy blonde Shawn Garrett) came on as Adam Hunter. He was Ashley's new lab partner/potential love interest (like Brian had been years before). I think they only showed Adam maybe 3 or 4 times and he disappeared. Then came the ill-fated Kurt Costner (Leigh McCloskey). B&B........Jessica Forrester. I don't think she went over all that well. ATWT.....Brad Hollister and a bunch of those other characters the Dobsons introduced when they took over the writing in 1980. It was similar to when all those sucky characters that arrived in the mid 90's. GL......Jennifer (Geraldine Court) That character was blah......along with several other characters that Marland created. Marland was excellent at ATWT but GL was hit or miss. At ATWT he loved to dive into the history of the show. At GL he couldn't be bothered much with character's he didn't create. Dallas.......Mitch Cooper (Leigh McCloskey). Nothing against McCloskey, but he always acted/spoke in an affected manner like he was doing Shakespeare no matter what role he is playing. There's a Princeton/Harvard quality to him as if TV was slumming. KL...Kenny & Ginger Ward. The writers had 4 seasons to come up with something, but couldn't figure out what to do with them.

Re: Dead Leaves Opening. I think it's cool, quirky, and of its time. It grows on you. The theme music is beautiful. They made a good decision when they dropped that creepy woman moaning in the end credits. A lot of the comments on youtube have people saying as children they were freaked out by it and often ran from the room. I read somewhere that sequence was stock footage that was found (maybe a camera test) that they turned into opening credits.

They all look great. The mustache suits Mart. Too bad he & Lenore were off GL by this time.

Dallas wasn't the only one trying to copy Dynasty. Y&R was writing and dressing Jill Abbott to be a daytime Alexis clone. Dallas made the mistake early on by writing out Alan Beam. That character had long term potential. If he and Lucy had been married, they would have been in the thick of things for years scheming to get their piece of the Ewing pie. Lucy would have given Alan her proxy to control her shares of Ewing oil. But the writer's thought "Mitch" was more interesting.🙄 Dallas really started to fall apart early on, especially after the Who Shot J.R. hoopla. The also foolishly killed Kristen off.

I ran across this photo of Linda & Victoria with Kenny Rogers. If Dallas was going to stunt cast with Christopher Atkins, it would have been more believable for Sue Ellen to have fallen for a character played by Kenny. Gray later did one of The Gambler films with Rogers.

I think someone like Robert Parucha (Matt Y&R) would have been more up Sue Ellen's alley.

Some other actors in the age range for Mike & Ed were: Gary Swanson Jack Stauffer Colby Chester John Findlater (who looked a lot like Mart Hulswit as he got older).

The reason I chose Rod Arrants as a possible recast was because there's something in his facial expressions that is a throwback to Robert Gentry. Gordon Thompson may have worked as Alan, but then he may have camped it up. Steve Carlson is another actor with an Ed Bauer look. I have not seen enough of his work to judge if he would have worked. We should do a thread on Fantasy Casting for all the soaps. Like inventing a Canadian cousin for Vicki on OLTL played by Anne Murray.....🤣

I could see Tom Hallick (ex-Brad Elliot Y&R) as a potential re-cast for Mike Bauer in the 80's/90's. Maybe Rod Arrants as Ed. He would have been better than Peter Simon in my opinion I always felt Rick was miscast with Michael O'Leary.

I could see Sherry Mathis as a re-cast Elizabeth during the late 80's/early 90's. Unfortunately, she passed in 1994 at age 44. Mathis was 5 years younger than Dalton.

Maybe Lois Kibee could have been Trudy in the 80's after EON ended. Bert's sister should have come on and have been played by Sada Thompson.