vetsoapfan

But...at least we had that last hurrah to savor. As disappointed I am about how the soaps have been decimated over the last few decades, I'm still grateful for the gems we received from time to time.

I personally have been disappointed in every soap I've seen DePriest write, but I will freely acknowledge that her AMC was better than the dreck foisted on the show by Charles Pratt, Jr. (the worst scribe in the show's history, IMO), Jean Passanante and Megan McTavish. I do think TEON would be a good bet to reboot (DS has been attempted twice), but with the right writers, both AMC and OLTL could have a decent shot at successful reboots too. The problem is, of course, that TIIC never seem to find, nurture and hire potentially-great new writing talent. They keep recycling the same old hacks, with the same poor results. If AMC were to be revived, I'd want Lorraine Broderick at the helm of the show. ABC would insist on Charles Pratt.🤢

As Tishy-Lish indicated, he did soften Aunt Liz. She had once been a domineering, hyper-critical shrew...it was both unnerving and fun to watch. I have audio material from the 1960s, where she (as played by Audra Lindley) just screams and screams at people. Flash forward to Harding Lemay's version of the character in 1974. Rachel storms into Alice's house and tries to evict her, prompting Alice to go berserk. Aunt Liz sits passively on the side of the bed with tears in her eyes, and murmurs weakly, "Rachel, you'd better go." HA! Audra Lindley's Aunt Liz would have torn Rachel a new one and dragged her by the hair down the stairs and right out of that house.

Being one of the ret-con, "fake" Bauers, I never really warmed up to Johnny Bauer, and I found both Chelsea and Fletcher to be tedious. Various factors did keep up my interest, however, like the return of Holly and later Roger. I was glad I saw TGL's last hurrah, which in my mind was the period written by Nancy Curlee and produced by Robert Calhoun. Yes, Robert Gentry was an attractive man, but I found his Ed to be so temperamental and inflammatory, it was hard to find him sympathetic. Johnny Fletcher was like a sweet puppy. It was impossible not to root for him. What did you think of Erik Powell, who replaced Scardino in the role? I was disappointed, as I felt he lacked Scardino's charm and warmth. On the other hand, Mart Hulswit (who replaced Gentry as Ed) won me over immediately and he became by favorite Ed.

I consider it a miracle that several soaps did archive all their episodes, whether the tapes have ever been made available to the public or not. At least we know they exist. It's so frustrating to know, however, that many of the best shows wiped/erased their material up until the late 1970s. AMC was its best (IMO) from 1970 to 1989, as written by Agnes Nixon, Wisner Washam and Lorraine Broderick. Then, with the advent of Margaret DePriest, Megan McTavish and others, the writing deteriorated and so did the show. At least eps from 1979 to 1989 should still be around. Alas, the best of AW (Agnes Nixon's and Harding Lemay's material) is apparently gone forever.

During the 1960s and 1970s, OLTL was very naturalistic and grounded in reality. Then the 1980s came along, and science fiction, camp, and insta-ethnicity changes took over. For me, it was painful to see a once-fine soap self destruct so quickly. Once Gordon Russell left the headwriting team, I knew the results would not be beneficial to Llanview.

THANK YOU! It was painful to watch Marlowe hesitate, stumble over his words, and so clearly struggle to remember his lines. Poor Dwyer was the one who worked with him most often, and she must have borne the brunt of getting them through their scenes. In his book, Lemay blamed Dwyer for supposedly tripping Marlowe up, but that was just not a reasonable assessment, considering that HM had the same issues when he worked with anyone, and even got worse after Dwyer was fired. The writer didn't realize that we already had Aunt Liz to be Liz. We didn't need Mary to be Liz Lite too.

It came across (to me) that Courtney was just the target Lemay rushed to condemn, whether it was justified (and rational) or not. IMHO, JC was top-notch, and her breakdown scenes were quite effective. After she died, even Paul Rauch (!!!) was quoted in the press saying that Jacquie was great and always gave good performances.

I agree with this. When Lemay took over the show and carried on with the structure, themes, and characters established by Irna Phillips and Agnes Nixon, everything was splendid. Plots were not really his forte, but his writing worked because of the absorbing character delineation and interpersonal-relationship vignettes. Daily episodes were like a slice of life; slightly romanticized, but within the realm of reality. Unfortunately, when he and Rauch started to dismantle the original core of the show, the tone shifted badly, and a lot of ultimately-pointless characters and contrived plots were foisted on the audience, weakening AW's previous effectiveness. Lemay's writing spiraled downwards and the magic was lost. Still, I will never deny that during his initial heyday (1971 to 1974), Harding Lemay worked miracles in Bay City. His irrational, venomous commentary on Virginia Dwyer and Jacqueline Courtney was both baffling and (frankly) embarrassing, but to his credit, he did keep them front and center (particularly JC) for half of his tenure as head writer.

I always appreciate the fascinating, in-depth and accurate contributions you share with the SON community, about soap history. It's great to have information about the shows' earlier days, which we otherwise would never know. Thank you.👏

I agree. IMO, TGL had felt like it was on its death bed for a number of years, but with the advent of Calhoun and then Nancy Curlee, it made a remarkable comeback. Unfortunately, the renaissance was short-lived, but it did confirm that TGL could have been saved if competent PTB were to stay in control of the show. (Spoiler alert: they did not.🙄)

I do believe that since the dawn of movies and television, it has been the case.🙂

Sorry I got too personal. If I had stopped and thought about it first, I probably would have been more circumspect. And in my defense, I was originally trying to tie in this conversation angle to TGL actors, specifically, whom the viewers found attractive. It seemed to be having a snowball effect; everyone is chiming in! The first guy on the show I found truly adorable was Johnny Fletcher, as played by Don Scardino. Sadly, I can't find any good pictures of him from that era.

Did you have any non-TGL celebrity crushes when you were in high school? That's old enough to check out attractive people on-screen, even if no Springfield hotties grabbed your attention. Throughout the decades, I found many soap performers appealing. I started noticing them when I was, like...12. (Don't judge me, LOL!)🫢

I'm tempted to compile a list of all the actors from TGL whom I find/found the most desirable, and see how many SONers have the great taste to agree with me!🙃 Bwahahahahaha!😝

That's interesting. Was there a replacement actress in the role whom you felt was the most miscast? Wesley Pfenning being hired baffled me. It was like seeing Grayson McCough as Dusty Donovan, Susan Batten as Connor Walsh, Roger Howarth as Paul Stenbeck and Jason Kinkaid as Tom Hughes on ATWT. I kept thinking, "Huh?!? What were TPTB thinking?" To me, JC was the one and only Alice. Beverly Penberthy won me over 100% as the replacement Pat (she was excellent) and Barbara Rodell made Lee Randolph her own, but La Courtney could never truly be replaced.

Well, as of now, anyway, it's still quite easy to download and keep copies of current soaps on DVD-Rs, flashdrives, your HDD, etc., since there's they are not copy-protected. I just have to wonder, if fans today find anything on the modern soaps worth keeping, or intriguing enough to warrant review and discussion decades into the future.

Possibly, The Mod Squad had used the footage before AW, but had taken it from a stock-footage company, which would allow any interested producers to use their material. According to Google: "Some scenes (of TMS) were filmed with the actors, while others, particularly car chases and other large-scale action sequences, were sometimes augmented or even entirely replaced with stock footage. This was a common practice in television production at the time to save on costs and production time." Walter Curtin's crash crash being generic stock footage, available to anyone, would explain AW being able to get it easily instead of having to barter for rights with TMS and ABC.

I wonder if, 50 years from now, soap fans will be reminiscing about anything that took place on any daytime drama in 2025!🤔😬

Thanks for doing the leg work. I was just about to see if I could find this information.

LOL, I did not think that you would be.🙃 I get a bit of chuckle when folks go absolutely ballistic over different opinions, different recollections, different preferences regarding popular culture. Folks can disagree amicably. It's not as if anyone is fighting over the single correct path to saving the planet from extinction. Memories can get hazy and/or distorted over time. People can swear on a stack of Bibles about remembering incidents from long ago, which other people's memories contradict. C'est la vie. I remember all that St. Croix stuff, quite clearly, too. We're aligned about most facts. But different memories and perceptions can lead to additional conversation fodder and even jog further memories, which just keeps conversations lively. Your bringing this up made me remember reading the same story. It is. You know, someone I interacted with a while ago was insistent that Paul Williams had given Nikki Reed an STD on Y&R way back in the 1970s. I was sure it was the other way around. Both of us "remembered" being right. In the end, we both agreed that if the story was memorable enough for us to be discussing it decades later, it was a success, and that was the most important thing.

My recollection is, the shots of the snake were real (they looked like filmed stock footage inserted into the scene; different in texture/quality from AW's usual videotape), and we just saw close-ups of it by itself in a patch of grass. The actual attack was not seen. We only heard the commotion from off-camera. It's like Walter Curtin's fiery car crash footage from the early 1970s. AW used a filmed clip of an automobile, outside at night, getting into a terrible wreck. That specific material was edited into the episode and looked noticeably different from the rest of the day's videotaped footage.

Hutch just ended up having no real spark with anyone. His story with Rose seemed manufactured and tepid. Yes, he was well-built and had a great body, but soaps' leading men are not made successful by looks alone, if they are otherwise colorless. Some of the genre's biggest superstars weren't even conventionally attractive (Tony Geary and Jonathan Frid come to mind). I do agree that under Douglas Marland and Pat Falken Smith, Luke had originally been a complex character, which is why (IMHO) viewers first noticed him. After Marland and Smith left GH and Geary's ego was catered to, however, Luke became hard to stomach. This ended up tarnishing the character. Unfortunately, the rapist-turned-romantic-lead horror had already been ignited by Geary/Luke, and continued unabated with all sorts of degenerates being glorified to this day (Sonny, Jason, Todd Manning, et al). I imagine if Hutch had struck gold with a viewer-captivating romance, he would have stuck around longer than he did, but I was relieved when the character was eliminated. I was always grateful that TGL never turned Roger, a rapist with serious crimes under his belt, into an exalted saint and exonerated of all his sins by the good people of Springfield. When Laura Webber of GH talks to Sonny, in a chapel no less, and praises his virtues, it makes me gag. Roger's complex nature was a large part of his draw. Roger was indeed intense in the 1970s. In real life, I would have steered away from him too. From the safety of my home, however, far away from Springfield, I found him quite mesmerizing. I don't recall hearing about Zaslow ever being burned by the press. It was rare for soap mags to do that 50 years ago. Back then, there wasn't a lot of mud-slinging. I wonder if the culprit had been a rag like National Enquirer. They were openly inflammatory about Emily McLaughlin's (Jessie on GH) health woes.

In the 1970s, one of the soap mags wrote in their gossip section that they were getting a lot of mail singing Zaslow's praises and saying how sexy he was. One woman wrote that she wished TGL would put him in tighter pants without any underwear. I was surprised that comment got published...but seconded the sentiment, ROTF!

So many shows, daytime and primetime, seem to think that skimpy, tight clothing and lots of male and female T&A can keep audiences invested. Nope. After an initial glance or two, that sort of thing quickly becomes irrelevant. Mister Mxyzptlk-like is a great way to describe that jaw-dropping failure of a character, Lacey Bauer. I must say, speaking of the tightest jeans on the rack, that honor must go to Rick Moses as Hutch, the hitman, from his days on GH. LOL.