vetsoapfan

There have been so many reports over several decades, in soap opera history books and magazines, in interviews with actors and TPTB, in TV news clips, etc., for this to be an easy task. I have a plethora of history books, magazines and video footage, and trying to hunt down exactly where someone said vintage eps do exist (or that they don't) would be too herculean an assignment for me. Doing a Google search on the availability of past episodes of individual soaps might be your best bet.

Yes, I have read about Nixon's demanding the show be saved starting in 1977, too, as well as stories about a fire destroying a chunk of the archives. This, along with so many reports saying ABC (along with P&G) started preserving their soaps in the late 1970s, leaves the exact truth rather elusive. On Facebook, there's a poster who claims to have known someone who was an extra on Y&R many years ago, and that "extra" knows for a fact that NO archives of Y&R have been saved. Allegedly, DAYS has always been wiped, too, and doesn't keep its vintage eps, either. Such contentions by anonymous Facebook commentators fly in the face of all the flashbacks DAYS and Y&R use, even from the shows' earliest days. But I digress. One person announces all episodes of this show or that show still exist; another person insists that all archives of the exact same show have been destroyed. My stance now is: I'll believe it when I see it.

What a cute photo; thanks!

Actually, I was thinking of him today, when considering other legacy characters who could potentially return. Seeing Jeremy and Anne Logan at Audrey's send-off would be appropriate.

Oh, I would like that. I wonder about GH doing another memorial/tribute to a deceased actor, soon after Leslie Charleson's death. Maybe TPTB will just put off doing anything about Denise Alexander's passing for a while. We'll see. Mike showing up to say goodbye to Lesley would be quite touching, however. It's an impossible dream, I know, but I wish we could at least get a telephone-voice recording of Rachel Ames as Audrey as well. Events on soaps are always better in our dreams.🥺

I believe that dedicated fans appreciate when shows mine the past and use established history, rather than foisting awkward retcons onto beloved characters and historical events. Over at TGL, with several canonical blood Bauers available to use, TIIC decided against using any of them to rebuild the decimated family, and instead gave us a bunch of retconned, faux Bauers instead of the real thing. It went over like a lead balloon. There are so many characters from GH's rich past who could be reintroduced to Port Charles; do we really need an endless stream of newbies all the time? I did not want Howarth on the show in ANY role, let alone THREE. UGH. Soaps have to stop casting the same actor in multiple roles on the same show. It's lazy casting, if nothing else.

I knew about this mention of Amy. It may have taken TPTB five years, but at least GH finally got around to giving the character closure. I'd rather have seen Mike return as Laura's adopted brother than for her to have gotten stuck with the likes of Cyrus, which is why I was curious. Thanks, as always, for the information.

That would work.👍

I have some GH questions. After Shell Kepler (Amy Vining) died, did the show do anything to acknowledge either the actress' death or the character's absence in a timely fashion, or was Amy's dying just mentioned in passing years later, like Jessie Brewer's? Whatever became of Mike Phelan Webber, whom Rick took in during the 1980s? Did Laura consider Mike her brother after Rick and Lesley adopted him? (I don't know; I couldn't bear watching the show during that decade.) How many people have Jason and Sonny murdered?

There are some actors I tend to get confused, too. Like these pairs of performers:

Ada's living room set on AW had various reconfigurations over the years, like with a window appearing and later disappearing from a wall which had never had a window before. And the Horton house's atrium and the position of the front door keep moving around. It's distracting, but like you, I am glad certain sets continue to exist (in theory, anyway). That's true. Budget restrictions and considerations are painfully obvious on soaps these days.

I can live with it, too, for sure, but when I think about it, I find it distracting. It's like on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Rhoda's turret is supposedly "upstairs" from Mary's apartment, but the outside shots of the building reveal that there IS no upstairs. Mary lives on the top floor, and Rhoda's apartment is directly to the right. The interior set of the Bunker house on All in the Family does not match the outside shots at all, either. Don't even get me started on the issues with that stupid Jupiter 2 on Lost in Space, ROTF!

After leaving GH, he is credited as appearing in one episode each of the TV series Ballers (in 2015) and NCIS: Los Angeles (in 2016). In addition, he was in two short films: West in 2014 and Mr. Tolliver in 2017. Since ten, as far as I could find, nada. When was the last time GH was actually well written? Under Claire Labine? If the show must do this dumb story, Sean Kanan's AJ coming back would give it some purpose.

So many soaps soaps (like Port Charles and GH) made egregious and damaging mistakes in the past. If I could not realistically repair them today, I'd lean towards ignoring them completely. Children established to exist are worth working into a show's canon a lot more than vampires, magic spells, and other such onsense. Good idea. Flippantly acknowledge the stupidity in a throwaway line, then dismiss it and forget about it forever. All these years later, I still can't believe that degenerate criminal s and murderers like Sonny and Jason continue to survive and thrive. And go unpunished. 100% true. Alas, TPTB lack insight into what makes soaps satisfying to the audience. We want to see legacy characters, people we care about, not random and extraneous side characters. Lucy being Lucy and Tracy being Tracy made the scenes between the work nicely. I still can't get over the remodeled Q mansion, with the front door now to the right of the staircase. Would a change like that even be likely if the house were real?

Not to be a Negative Nancy, but more and more, I see total misinformation and blatant mistruths posted on Facebook (either as clickbait or because certain folks want to preen and feel important as if they are "in the know.") Most reports so far have said that either ABC did not start saving any of their soaps until the late 1970s, or ABC had an agreement with Agnes Nixon to archive the the show's tapes, but a slew of them got destroyed in a fire. The Facebook poster in question may indeed be sharing information she believes is accurate, but I'd hesitate in getting my hopes up until/unless we all can verify for ourselves that the vintage episodes still exist (i.e., if they ever start streaming anywhere in the world, or if ABC makes DVD boxsets available). Any random person on the internet can make claims, but the proof is in the pudding, as they say. The later, post-1979 archives are generally confirmed to exist, and the following news is promising for the potential streaming of vintage soaps: https://michaelfairmantv.com/all-my-children-available-globally-outside-us-beondtv/2025/09/23/?fbclid=IwY2xjawNAFGFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHt9byJhxt_LS0JFxuU85yG8Bo35cSPf2mH1TQYtNpVG6UhT8IKYn2KbymOi2_aem_e7A6KZw3mjFWlLTwp1VZiQ For me, AMC was at its best in the 1970s and 1980s. I'd start streaming it from the earliest-possible year. BEONDTV+ broadcasting the show starting in 1995, however, is still better than nothing.

Christina...? This is embarrassing. I've forgotten her, LOL. Please remind me. Oh, wait! Is she the little girl Scotty and Lucy adopted on Port Charles? Did she ever even appear on GH? I wonder when she was mentioned last. This is all news to me. Thanks for the intel. I wouldn't want to have him replaced, so I guess Logan can rest in peace.

By herself, Karen would not be essential to me, either, but since the Baldwins are the second longest-running family on GH (the first being the Hardys), I'd use her as an already-known, canonic component (along with Serena) to rebuild and replenish the clan. If it were not feasible to rehire Josh Duhon, for whatever reason, I'd forgo Logan. And, of course, I would never dream of resurrecting Roger Howarth, as any character, under any circumstances. I REFUSE to believe that my Scotty could have sired that icky Franco. It just boggles the mind how TPTB willingly slaughtered so many characters from among the Qs. They may not have had a choice in some cases, but much of the gratuitous carnage was ridiculous and unnecessary. I agree. In the modern era, GH has handled the passing of the vets well. It was lovely. I read an interview with Beradino once, from the 1980s, in which he lamented Emily McLaughlin's being so downgraded and marginalized on the show. He acknowledged that we barely saw Jessie at that point, and said, "We at least used to have her on the Christmas show, but not anymore. That troubles me." Mary Ann Anderson, McLaughlin's daughter, told me once that there was always the fear that EM would be fired for good, but when Joseph Hardy took over as producer, he had Jessie appear once a week (albeit in minor bits). Bill Bell, Douglas Marland, Henry Slesar or Agnes Nixon could probably pull a story like this off. Today's GH writers? I doubt it.

Are any details about the backstage issues publicly available? We never even found out what went down between Doug Davidson and Y&R. Of course, the public does not "deserve" to know anything about actors' private lives and issues, but curiosity does rear its ugly head.🤷‍♂️

I do appreciate how GH has been honoring veteran actors who have passed away the last several years, but it will always stick in my craw how when Emily McLaughlin died, the show just dropped the character of Jessie Brewer without a word. She simply ceased to exist and we had no idea what happened to her until years later when in a throwaway line, Steve Hardy mentioned she had died earlier. It was so dismissive and lacked respect.

I had never heard that rumor, but it would be cool. As the longest-running character currently available to GH (he began in 1965 as a child), Scotty Bentley Baldwin deserves a place on the canvas. (So does Doug Davidson's Paul Williams on Y&R, but that is a whole other can of worms.) And Maree Cheatham as Marie Horton deserves to have at least regular cameo appearances on DAYS. She's the only remaining original cast member from 1965. I know: I am dreaming in Technicolor.🤷‍♂️

I hear ya!

Really? That's too bad. I hadn't heard. Still, I'd love to see Scotty, Karen, Logan and Sabrina back in Port Charles. The core families have all been decimated. UGH! That recast Jagger and his pointless reintroduction to the show was insane! What an insult to the character, the show's history, and GH's longtime audience. (I'll always contend that Rick Webber's return as an evil degenerate was the soap's worst retcon/reintroduction of a character ever, however.) Yes, and the show could use a beloved patriarch to provide a moral core. Scribes keep changing, but the swill they dish up all tastes the same, alas. Along with a huge chuck of the pointless characters, Frank needs to get axed.

I admit I no longer watch GH on a regular basis. I peek in from time to time, keep up with its news on the internet, and listen to friends' commentary about it, however. Still, I am curious: someone has told me that the show seems to be starting a story about mad scientists/doctors conducting secret experiments in a hidden lab under the hospital, reanimating the dead. Is this true?!? Now I hear about brain microchips and USB devices in characters' heads, and my own head is spinning. This is not the 1980s with crappy sci-fi nonsense all the rage. Is the show really going there? UGH! (If the show is really going to embarrass itself with back-from-the-dead plots, TPTB should at least try to reanimate important, legacy characters who never should have been killed off in the first place, rather than irrelevant side characters. How about Tony Jones, AJ Quartermaine, Karen Wexler or Logan Hayes Baldwin? I'd love to see a beloved vet take over as chief of staff at GH, and Tony would fit the bit perfectly. The show needs to rebuild the decimated Q family, and AJ could drive a lot of story. The Hardys, the Webbers and the Baldwins could also use a boost. Josh Duhon, who played Scotty's son Logan, was sexy, a good actor, and had a je-ne-sais-quoi that actually reminded me of Kin Shriner. This show has so many minor, irrelevant, side and/or worn-out characters. Clean house and refocus on the core. Where is Tommy Hardy?🤔

Yes, that's how I remember it (I watched GH during its dark years in the 1970s), but I just wanted to acknowledge that another source contradicted my memory. Not to sound too arrogant, LOL, but when reference material contradicts what I watched first-hand and/or recorded at the time, I trust myself over sources which repeatedly prove themselves to be in the wrong about their information. (Exhibit A: SoapCentral.🙄)

Yes, as I just posted above (before seeing this message of yours), Samantha was always a minor, supporting player. She was never terribly well developed (with the poor writing which spanned multiple writing regimes, this was a problem for GH in the mid-1970s). With yet another change of scribes, the show wrote out the entire Baldwin/Chandler family in one fell swoop. Except for Lee (who would later return alone), none of the temporary family left any lasting impact on the show. It's said that GH only started keeping their episodes in 1978/9, so most/all of Samantha's eps would have been wiped long ago. EDITED TO ADD: I just read in a soap-history book (which has proven to be inaccurate in the past), that supposedly Samantha Livingstone Chandler remained on GH until 1979. I don't believe this is right. It would have brought her into the Douglas Marland era. With her entire family having moved to NYC, why would the show have kept around a minor player from a temporary family which never caught on in the first place? Anyway, if this is true, 1979 eps do exist, so the dream of seeing footage of the character could be within the realm of possibility.