vetsoapfan

5 hours ago, adrnyc said:

@Reverend Ruthledge and @vetsoapfan  Thanks for helping explain the Liz plot. I still have those books and should go back and read them again just for fun. Dying from being stabbed from the shard of a broken tea pot sounds just as kooky. I know distortions like that can irritated long time soap viewers but sometimes you just have to laugh!

Seeing egregious mistakes in and distortions of history can make me laugh AND cringe in agony, if that makes sense.

4 hours ago, NothinButAttitude said:

Would Liz's fall somewhat along the lines of John's fall on the stairs when he learned of Margo messing with James? Because he hit his head hard on the stairs and watching it, I was shocked he survived that fall. 

The slight "bone of contention" I had with Liz's fall on the stairs, was that I really didn't see how she could have had the life-threatening (and ultimately life-ending) injuries from the accident. But on television, we often have to suspend disbelief and "go with the flow," so to speak.

4 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Or just ignore them entirely, lol, as if they don’t exist in your world.

That's what I strive to do, the majority of the time on social media. I must admit, however, that if people are being willfully and relentlessly antagonistic for extended periods, I will not hesitate to..."toy" with them for my own amusement.

5 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:

I am definitely in that group! Once someone gets on my “list” they usually stay there.

Yep, me too.

I've always said that it's better to actually BE alone, than to continue putting up with people who make you WISH you were.

ARGH!

I reeeeeally want to see those scenes now.

Thanks for the screenshots, @Liberty City.

I never thought I'd see Marlena and Maggie share a scene again.

Strangely, even after not being a regular soap viewer for a few decades, I am still interested in "my" characters.

Once a soap addict, always a soap addict!

@Liberty City, thanks for sharing the latest photos.

I can accept differences in paint color and living room furniture, but the shifting position of the front door in the foyer annoys me, LOL.

BTW, I was not able to see any of the recent flashback episodes with Tom and Alice.

Did DAYS feature any "real" Horton-family scenes from years gone by, or did we only get recreated flashbacks with the young actors?

And I haven't seen any interaction between Maggie and Marlena in so many years. I wish I could find their recent scene(s) together on-line somewhere. What was the context; what did they talk about?

1 hour ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

1. Good Morning

2. I'm gonna have to say that if this was cutting it short, I cannot wait to see how many volleys might occur if you really dig in!!!

What I meant was, that I tried twice to put my participation in the discussion to rest by posting, "...it's true: you have every right to disagree. There is not, nor should there be, forced conformity of opinion." And then later, "Sometimes the wires of communication get tangled. it happens." Both comments were designed to let the issue drop, since agreeing to disagree and then moving on works best when different people have opposing, firmly-held viewpoints.

2 hours ago, Mona Kane Croft said:

I think it is unrealistic to expect an end to the occasional discussion the firings of 1975 (Dwyer, Reinholt, and Courtney).  This is after all, an Another World discussion thread.  Those firings were shocking at the time, and very unique decisions in the entire history of daytime.  Fans, especially long-term fans, have strong opinions about something that was very important to them at the time, and we enjoy speculating and revisiting that part of AW's history.  I understand it can seem repetitive, but nearly every topic on this entire message board has been discussed ad infinitum. Frankly, there isn't much new to discuss in the history of cancelled soap operas.  If we criticize every repetitive topic, there won't be much action here in the future.  Of course not every topic is of interest to everyone, that should be expected.  Just my opinion.   

Perfectly said, from top to bottom. 

I daresay that certain debates will rage on forever among internet commentators:

https://neal.fun/lets-settle-this/

For soap fans, in particular, viewers have been rehashing and debating Maureen Bauer's death on TGL for decades. Ditto: "Who was the better Rachel on AW: Strasser or Wyndham?" And, "Do sci-fi and camp elements belong on daytime TV?" Not to mention, "Should ailing, long-suffering soaps just be cancelled and put out of their misery?" 

The list (and the debates!) go on.

You are 100% right when you point out that not every subject will be of interest to every person. But that's just the way message boards work.

21 minutes ago, j swift said:

I hope we can put a moratorium on the semi-annual retrial of Virginia Dwyer's firing.  The interpretation that any writer had enough power in a production to dismiss an actor on their own because they didn't like the way that they read their lines is simply too literal. I am not quoting anyone in particular, I am just voicing my frustration that we keep circling back to the same disagreement.

Saying that Lemay pushed hard for Dwyer's dismissal cannot be taken to mean that Paul Rauch did not agree. Obviously the move was okayed by TPTB.

That being said, I had no interest in getting into another extended discussion about it, which is why I cut it short.

29 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Yes, as I said, here tonight, in this thread. 

You said: Raunch could have fought against it, perhaps, but he did not

So I concluded that Pete's opinion won over Paul's. I honestly thought that was what you meant. If you didn't, sorry. 

Sometimes the wires of communication get tangled. it happens.

5 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

I do not accept some idea that Pete undermined him in this way.

You are basing your reply on an erroneous misinterpretation of what I actually said. I neither wrote nor implied that Lemay "undermined" Rauch. Where you got that idea, I have no idea.

5 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

But I consider Pete to be a truthful person with integrity.I fully realize that not everyone shares that opinion.

I'd counter that his snide and untruthful commentary about certain people would contradict that statement, but...

5 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

It's not a problem with me to agree to disagree. 

...it's true: you have every right to disagree.

There is not, nor should there be, forced conformity of opinion.

7 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

But, I would suggest that you are not in a position to know what your second line says. 

Haven't you read Lemay's book more than once? 

2 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

I really need to read him again. It's been years since the 3rd or 4th reading.

I disagree completely about the firing of Dwyer. I have no problem believing what was said about the firing of George Reinholt or Virginia Dwyer. But one thing I will say is that Rauch was the EP, not Pete. If he'd not been convinced of the need I don't think he would have fired them. Many times Rauch & Lemay were in accord. But, they also disagreed & fought things out. 

One notable thing that they did together was to attend the theatre & critique actors & actresses, often finding someone they wanted to cast.

Lemay has been repeatedly quoted as acknowledging his insistence that Dwyer be fired.

Raunch could have fought against it, perhaps, but he did not, and both men have revealed their arrogance and control issues over the years.

4 minutes ago, Efulton said:

Doesn't Harding Lemay write about Hugh Marlowe's frustration with Virginia Dwyer in Eight Years in Another World? Lemay was fine with Constance Ford changing dialogue to better fit her character but when Virginia Dwyer did it is she was difficult.  

Ariana Muenker (Marianne Randolph) spoke of Hugh Marlowe struggling to remember his lines.  I think it was in a Locher Room interview.  Once again Lemay showed his bias with the actors he preferred.

You'll notice that Marlowe has never been quoted as saying he had trouble with Dwyer; it was all Lemay.

And yes, the scribe would vehemently condemn some actors (like Dwyer) for the EXACT SAME on-set behavior that he praised his pets for. 

18 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

In my forum the firings of George Reinholt & Jacquie Courtney & Virginia Dwyer just came up & we were discussing actors hiding their lines all over the set & one poster told me that Hugh Marlowe who played Jim Matthews was driven crazy by Virginia Dwyer. He apparently said that she never fed him his cues or picked up on hers. That was news to me. 

That story came from Harding Lemay, who loathed Virginia Dwyer for reasons of his own. He claimed that it was Dwyer who made Marlowe stumble over his lines all the time.

I call BS. 

Poor Marlowe forgot and got tangled in his dialogue a lot, with many different scene partners, and the problem only got worse after Dwyer was long gone.

I'd say Lemay was smearing Dwyer to justify his very unpopular demand that she be fired.

4 hours ago, adrnyc said:

Thank you for this! It's good to have the knowledge. As you said, it's part of soap opera lore and I've heard it mentioned so many times but didn't see it. I could swear that it even got into those "Soaps & Serials" novels from the 80s. I have the ATWT ones - read them probably 15 years ago - and I think that fake storyline made it into the book. Because I remember thinking "WTF is going on here? Why would they write that she fell UP the stairs? Did they make a mistake?!"

There's a major difference between getting injured by falling as you are running up the stairs and "falling up the stairs," which is how various condescending critics and clueless soap "historians"  have described the scene. Just trying to make fun of the soaps, as usual, I guess. But viewers who actually watched know good the show was back then.
 

13 minutes ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

No, the Soaps & Serials rendition of what happened didn't have her "fall up the stairs" but it was just as weird. In the book, she wasn't running up the stairs but was walking up the stairs with a tea tray and tripped. The ceramic tea pot shattered and she was stabbed with a shard of the broken tea pot. I think they were competing for the weirdest version of the accident. I never got the tea pot angle unless the writer was trying to make some statement about Liz being English and being killed by a tea pot. Soaps and Serials would change things up for no discernible reason. Sometimes they were accurate to what really happened and sometimes they just completely pulled something out of nowhere.

I had to give up on the Soaps & Serials books pretty quickly, because their glaring errors and "creative reinterpretation of history" drove me crazy.

The only soap novelizations which I've read, and which were reasonably accurate, were Another World I and Another World II, by Kate Lowe Kerrigan.

5 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

It was great to see that type of consistency in a character, tbh. Even in the 1980s, when I started watching as a child, there’d be these warm holiday gatherings and Ellen would be there and Lisa would enter the kitchen and flounce by and Ellen would shoot such a look at her. Just the memory of these encounters sends me.

Ellen never let up on Susan, either.

Scenes like this add realism and relatability to the characters. Let's face it, some of us can hold grudges for life.

4 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

Ellen would get to slap Lisa when she was hysterical...Lisa, "I wasn't that hysterical," Ellen "I know, but it's a good excuse..that slap was years in the coming!" 

I'd pay to see that!

On 2/26/2024 at 7:51 PM, adrnyc said:

Ah, thanks. Still, the idea of an "Unabortion storyline" is definitely fascinating. Sorta like dying by falling UP the stairs. 

The death-by-falling-up-the-stairs myth is firmly ingrained in soap opera lore, but never actually happened. Liz Stewart on ATWT was seriously injured when she fell while running up the stairs. Critics have spun this as she "fell up the staircase," which of course is absurd and never happened. Folks just took pleasure in mocking the soaps.

14 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

Ellen would have been a character like that..during the dumb Emily and Tom affair she should have been there, reigniting her "feud" with Lisa...."Oh, it's funny you call my granddaughter a slut when the word was practically invented for you!" 

I always found it amusing how long and hard Ellen would and could hold onto a grudge, LOL.

16 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

I apologize. I exaggerated. Please forgive. Mea culpa. I knew you weren't giving them a pass. I was feeling whimsical. My fault, entirely.

No harm, no foul, no sweat.

59 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

So you give them a pass because someone had the sense to fire them. That's kind of cute. I don't agree but it is amusing & not threatening. You still have your values intact!

In no way did I ever say, or imply, that I give Stern and Black a pass. I acknowledged their contribution to ATWT was weak. I would never hire them to steer any soap again. I said they were not my choice for the absolute WORST writers in daytime's history. That cannot be construed as giving them a pass.

59 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

I do so miss the New York soaps. If I could have my druthers of an all classic soap streaming service it would be showing AW, ATWT, GL, Santa Barbara (I know Disney owns them, this is make-believe.), PC, Texas, AMC & OLTL. 

I'd add Henry Slesar's years at The Edge of Night to my dream list of TGL, ATWT, AW, DAYS, Y&R, OLTL, GH, AMC and probably even SOM (all in their best years, not necessarily in their entirety).

59 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

And don't even get me started on Goutman. When he told Jennifer Lenhart that he did not want to hear what the fans thought because he knew what was right for the show & then she gave him a chance to keep that statement out of the Q&A, inquiring if he was sure the really wanted to say that, he did not take it back, no, he told her to print it. Well, that was an incredibly dark day for ATWT, for soap fans, etc. 

After giving AW the most hated finale in all of soaps, he progressed to make the ATWT set no longer the happy place it had been for 4 decades. 

Most people I speak to agree he was a destructive, negative force.

27 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Oh, no, (MMcT) IMO is & was a bonafide #SoapKiller. Not even Reilly could out-do the UnAbortion. 

The unabortion ranks down there in the pit of soap-story hell, and I agree with MMcT beings dreadful, but overall, I have to say JER was worse.

27 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

You will excuse me if I continue to blame Connie Chung's husband for that particular debacle. The only saving grace is that they were not left to do their worst for very long!

Not like JER, Carlivati, Pratt, McTavish, Racina, Higley, and others whose tenures seemed to last forever. That's why I assert that Stern and Black were not the worst of the worst in the history of the genre..

27 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

And, maybe they see the value in keeping certain viewers. What an idea, to maintain a loyal fanbase?!!

When TPTB don't care about older viewers of soaps, they are signing the shows' death warrants. Older viewers are a huge part of the potential audience.

27 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Or AW or GL. The traditional P&G theatrically inspired, kitchen table talking, multigenerationally living, New York located soaps are gone forever. 

Alas. 

34 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Re Ellen

Had they nurtured core families, with a little SORASING you have her 4 grandchildren ready to be the new teens/young adults.

That should have been a gift to the writers but they chose to ignore it.

Her daughter Dee never returned. She could have come back as a business woman, ready to get revenge on John, or fallen for him again etc.

Plenty of opportunities for Ellen to be strong supporting.

Over the years, I have also thought about the different ways which the Stewarts could have been revitalized and returned to prominence. But I knew the show, its characters and its history, and I cared about ATWT's legacy. I have a feeling this was not the case among the revolving door of TPTB.

40 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Yes, it was a real mistake to never do anything with Dee or Annie down the line. I suppose Marland may have thought they would make no sense with the later canvas, but I think it could have worked.

Me too. And to give Marland credit, he kept David Stewart's presence alive on the show until he had no other choice than to replace Henderson Forsythe with another actor, or lay the character to rest. And after David's death, Marland kept Ellen around and seen fairly regularly. Marland knew that on ATWT, audience love for the characters was strong.

48 minutes ago, Khan said:

I agree.  Even back then, as it was happening, I didn't like what Stephen Black and Henry Stern were writing for ATWT, but at the same time, I didn't think they were so destructive that the show was being damaged irreparably.  Especially when I compared it to what JER was doing with DAYS, or Megan McTavish with AMC and GL.

UGH! JER eviscerated DAYS, IMHO. MMcT might have been somewhat less heinous, but she really stunk up the joint in Springfield and Pine Valley.

It is bewildering that soaps have failed to cultivate and hire quality writers in so many, many years. Obviously, recycling familiar hacks who have failed everywhere else does not work. At the very least, hiring Stern and Black was a stab at trying something different.

41 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I think what upset me at the time was, beyond how cheap and crass the show started to feel (like infamously having a lengthy sex scene between Mark and Connor in the show's 40th anniversary episode), I missed the history and tradition, the returns of former characters, etc. Choices like dumping Ellen upset me a great deal. With hindsight, I know that wasn't their fault and the show was going to be yanked in that direction no matter what, even if it still doesn't make me see their era as much better in quality (if I tried to do a full rewatch I might have a more positive opinion, as they did at least give story to the vets, and while it was somewhat criticized at the time, I think they wrapped up Mac's Alzheimer's story decently enough, especially compared to how many soaps handle this topic).

Having watched the show my entire life, I was quite partial to the Lowell/Stewart family, and Ellen was its remaining lynchpin. I was furious when TPTB dropped the character without any reason given on-screen (at the time, anyway). I had to admit, however, that with almost all of her family gone, and with Ellen a widow, I was surprised she lasted as long as she did.

39 minutes ago, DeliaIrisFan said:

There was something I noticed when I tuned back into GH after many years for Jackie Zeman's send-off last month.  This is a slight exaggeration and certainly not scientific at all, but it seemed to me like there are more Gen X breakout soap stars of their day featured prominently on that one show than there were Baby Boomers on the frontburner across all the soaps in the late '90s/early '00s, who would have been around the same age then.  To say nothing of even older cast members.  It seems like those actors are there now because someone thinks they'll appeal to lapsed soap viewers, even if those viewers are older now.

Actually that is a good point: GH's use of "older" characters may very well be an attempt to interest/lure back lapsed (now older) viewers. The show would probably not feature appearances by Scorpio, Anna and other folks of a certain age to bedazzle 18-year-olds in the audience. One could say that DAYS might be continuing to use Julie, Doug, Maggie, Marlena and John because of longtime viewers' loyalty to those characters, not in an attempt to pander to Gen Zers.

39 minutes ago, DeliaIrisFan said:

Of course, many of those middle-aged+ performers who are now getting work on GH made their names on shows that are off the air (like Maura West, to bring it back to ATWT) and/or in stories that were mostly lackluster to begin with.  And whether they're being well utilized is even further off-topic, so I'll just leave it there on that note.  It's just sad this couldn't have happened when there were still ~ 10 soaps with 40+ and 50+ year-old veterans who had rich histories that could still be mined - ATWT chief among them, of course.

The fact that ATWT held on to so many of its older veteran actors was an incredible gift. It was just an infuriating waste that Sheffer barely used them most of the time. I'm not fan of Jean Passanante, but at least she did pay attention to folks like Bob and Kim more than Sheffer did.

39 minutes ago, DeliaIrisFan said:

That said, I don't know if the all-powerful demographic has actually been debunked or if networks have given up on the idea of 18-34 year–olds watching a soap, or perhaps any other network TV in the daytime.  Still, knowing what I know now, a part of me wishes TPTB had decided in 1990-something that soaps were on borrowed time and let them keep doing their thing for as long as it continued to make sense to keep them on the air.

Yes, the "suits" should have backed off decades ago and let soaps be soaps and do what daytime dramas do best, without all the ((ahem)) helpful hints and outright mandates from TPTB. The micro-managing was always misguided at best and harmful at worst.

42 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

They talk about Frank & Ron saving the show & they talk about what people usually want to do with their vets contrasted with Frank & the vets. 

I will hold my breath, pinch my nose, and give Frank a brownie point for that. In all seriousness, many executive producers would have dismissed many of the veteran actors and characters. With a lot of them still on GH's canvas, there's at least a chance they will be used well someday. Fingers crossed, Patrick Mulcahey.

What a shame that we will never see ATWT get the chance to shine again.

7 hours ago, Mona Kane Croft said:

It seems to me, based what's going on with the remaining television soap operas, that the shows have completely given up on attracting the youth demographic.  It seems they are seeking ratings in general without pursuing a particular age group. If they had made this decision 20 years ago, there might be several more soaps still on the networks.   Does does anyone else agree?  

This is an honest question and NOT in any way meant to come across as snarky.

What are the remaining soaps doing these days that indicate they are working towards improving their general ratings?

From my (admittedly limited) interest in today's soaps, I only see them making the same old mistakes over and over again.

And also, do you think that the way TPTB are handling the surviving soaps will do any good and actually help the anemic ratings increase?

Again, no snark intended.

4 hours ago, Khan said:

I don't hold what happened at FC under their watch against them, as I think FC had problems even in its' peak years.

But things can always...get worse, LOL!

Seriously, from my personal experience viewing their ATWT material, I do not believe they were the worst-of-the-worst soap scribes. Not great by any means, but soap fans have endured weaker and more destructive head writers, IMHO.

25 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Logically I know that nothing was probably going to keep the soaps on the air, and it was a miracle most of them lasted as long as they did, but I'll still always wonder if ATWT (as it's the topic, sorry to go off course) and others might still be here if they had been run with any level of care by greedy, soulless networks who never understood that the time the genre made them the most money was when they had the least involvement in the product.

Oh, yes, if intelligent, perceptive and knowledgeable PTB had been in charge a few decades ago, and had worked effectively to stop the hemorrhaging of daytime dramas, old warhorses like ATWT (which still had a viable, but misused, foundation upon its cancellation) might very well have survived and potentially even thrived.

Unfortunately, the money-hungry and oppresive, micro-managing suits just continued to drive the shows into the ground.

25 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I'm glad some soaps are still on and I hope there will always be soaps on but it's always a tough moment to remember that something made in 1950 through a radio so often feels more relevant to today than soap product made in 2024.

You can listen to vintage radio soaps and watch older television episodes from the 1950s, and quickly become immersed in the drama because it was predicated on identifiable human emotions; experiences the audience often shared and could identify with. It's telling to me that in 2024, so many viewers are caught up in the Hortons losing their house, the family's Christmas ornaments being at risk, and Doug's impending death. Nobody expresses this much emotional involvement in brain implants and uber villains threatening to kidnap the central heroine for the 17th time.

The viewers want the timeless basics of the genre. They're not getting them. The soaps are dwindling away. And after decades, TIIC still don't get it.

8 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I'll never forget seeing those scenes praised in soap magazines for their great comedy element. That was when I truly knew how much the bottom had fallen out on those publications. 

The soap press died a long, slow and brutal death; much like the soaps themselves.

I get sh*t for saying this from stans who insist that I must praise the soaps to the heavens at all times, to convince TPTB to keep them on the air, but honestly? With little-to-no hope of the genre ever healing, I wouldn't be too crushed if the remaining four shows were laid to rest. Put them out of their misery. 

2 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

It was when we got scenes like Julia punching Jack and killing a horse, and all of Craig's sneering (which we were always meant to find hilarious and true) that I truly did feel like the canvas became repulsive in ways that were difficult to get past. There was indeed a mean-spirited, callous nature that was exalted at every turn, a sociopathic tint that was so typical of that era of pop culture and infested onto daytime by people who hated or misunderstood the genre.

Perfectly said. When ATWT was number one in the ratings for its first two decades, and when it commanded fierce and unwavering fan devotion, a sense of community, warmth, humanity, family values and decency were the cornerstones of the show. When all those "old-fashioned" tenants were wiped out in favor of harsh, mean-spirited and callous shenanigans, the show was in deep, deep trouble. None of the modern era's PTB knew how to fix it, and I daresay most of them didn't care to return Oakdale to its roots. The soap just got worse and worse.

2 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

ATWT always had a steely side, and there were certainly patches of ugliness before Sheffer (like the Diego stuff or that David/Reid fiasco), but nothing to that level which seemed to consume the entire canvas. I felt dirty even trying to watch. If the James return/Margo miscarriage story had happened in that era, we would have had James pop into her room to laugh at her and call her barren, as we were invited to clap our hands in glee.

Jack Snyder's sexual abuse by Julia came across (to me) in a sniggering way, which I found offensive. It was like the audience was supposed to find some truly ugly events amusing (wink, wink), and they just weren't.

The uglier the events on screen became, the less  ATWT resembled...ATWT.

14 minutes ago, Mona Kane Croft said:

In my opinion, Sheffer needed a co-head writer or a stronger executive producer -- someone who could hold him back a bit.  Much of Sheffer's writing had "good bones", but he lacked self control.  

I think he showed promise at the beginning of his tenure, when he worked with Carolyn Culliton. Later, when there was nobody to pull in the reigns, he went wild. He downplayed the vets and the Hugheses far too much, and overplayed his favorites. God knows what his beef was with Eileen Fulton, who became like an irrelevant, rarely-seen under-fiver during his reign. I felt there was a mean-spiritedness to his writing, which lacked heart, warmth and family values which were the core of ATWT.

10 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Other than some truly gross choices with characters like Emily (taunting a blind woman - how hot!), I don't think anything they did was as damaging in the long-term as a number of other writers (including Hogan Sheffer) - their problem was just being so out of step with what the show should have been and coming along at a time when the show and the genre were in deep distress. This was also when such badness was still a relative surprise as Marland had only been gone a few years. By the time of the mid '00s it was just another day.

UGH! Hogan Sheffer really s**t all over the show and its legacy, and did tremendous damage. By comparison, Stern and Black, and even the dreaded Jean Passanante did less harm. Now that we can look back, hindsight tells us that Stern and Black, while bad, could have been worse. They could have been Sheffer or JER or Carlivati bad.