vetsoapfan

What surprised me was that Lemay admitted Courtney was very possibly a reason why OLTL's ratings steadily increased after she was hired on that program. AW's ratings had also risen after her return in 1971 and remained high during her 1970s' tenure there, but started to drift downwards after she left. Certainly I am not implying that JC was the sole reason why a show's numbers would rise or fall (the improved writing on OLTL versus the weakening writing on AW had a significant impact, IMHO), but viewers do loathe losing their favorite on-screen faces. In the earliest days of the show, Alice was quite bubbly, akin to the Hollyood teens of the era; animated and energetic. Then after a few months, she became quieter, more somber on-screen. According to Courtney's recollections many years later, Irna Phillips did not like the "Gidget-esque" version of the character, so JC was asked/told to tone it down. She said to herself that, from then on, she was just not going to move a muscle on her face, LOL. It worked. Irna loved it, and a more introspective, tender Alice Matthews was born. It lowered over the years, and became huskier. Ptrobably due to smoking.

Frankly, I think it's a combination of both. I think Harney might have been more accepted by the audience if she had come aboard as another, new character, but the longtime audience never warmed up to her as Alice. Even Harding Lemay, who vocally derided Jacqueline Courtney at every opportunity, admitted that although he continued to focus on Alice when Harney played the role, her version of the character never gained the popularity that Courtney had engendered. Courtney simply had an indefinable "star quality" that the viewers reacted strongly to. Ahh, Paul Rauch, another producer with an atrocious reputation.🤮 He fired Coster from AW, too.

TPTB often don't understand that the familar, beloved faces we see on our screens for years or decades are a prime reason we tune in.

That's right. The family had to move away, at least for a while, to accomodate Courtney's husband's career. But Lyle B. Hill, the producer at the time, told Courtney that they would hold the role of Alice open for a while, in hopes of her return. During her absence, she made several guest appearance on the program.

Jacqueline Courtney had taken an extended leave of absence and was off AW from June of 1970 to July of 1971, except for a few guest appearances. She was deemed too popular to replace (this was later conclusively proven to be true, when the show tried to do so in the later 1970s and early 1980s), and the Alice/Steve story was put on hold for more than a year. I doubt it would have been backburnered at all, if the show had had any choice. When Courtney returned, the story became the focal point of AW again, and reigned surpreme for the next several years. Corrine Jacker later acknowledged that she disliked writing for the show, and it was evident from her dreadful writing.

Yes, from 1968 to 1975. Lemay's writing started to falter in 1975, but until then, the Alice/Steve/Rachel saga had remained strong, vibrant and compelling. I'd counter that it certainly wasn't played out in 1971 when Lemay arrived. The years 1971-4 were particularly engrossing for both this story and the show in general. On Days, Bill Bell and Pat Falken Smith kept the Bill/Laura/Mickey plot going for a solid decade and it was never boring. Ditto the long-running Roger/Holly business on TGL. the endless Jill/Katherine feud on Y&R, etc. With intriguing actors/characters and solid, imaginative writing, the longer soaps can extend audience-pleasing plots, the better. That being said, later trying to revisit/extend the Alice/Steve/Rachel storyline with different actors and dreadful writing was a major blunder. Since there was no chemistry whatsoever between the bland Linda Borgenson and David Canary, the new versions of Steve and Alice should have been shifted into other orbits in the early 1980s. By then, there was no question that the story was dead and should have remained buried.

When my memory does not fail me! It's strange, though: there are many minute details from 60 years ago which I remember with great clarity, yet specifics from a TV show I watched last Monday have already slipped my mind. Whenever a new season of something arrives on Netflix, I never seem to recall how the previous season ended, and I have to hunt down recaps before watching the new episodes. 🙄

As noted, the 1974 wedding telecast is available on audio over at the excellent Another World Homepage website. Fans can at least listen to it, as if it were a radio play. Allegedly, according to rumor, the color video version of that episode is also floating around out there among private collectors, who refuse to share it publicly. I have never been able to verify this as a fact, although a few folks have claimed to have seen bits of it. I'm glad I was "there" to see both weddings when originally broadcast. The only good thing about being ancient, LOL, is that was around to witness so many memorable historical moments!

Yes, the storyline had been a huge, extremely popular ratings' booster for the show, and upon Jacqueline Courtney's return, P&G wanted the Alice/Steve/Rachel saga to continue. Harding Lemay originally said that he thought it was already "played out," but AW got another four years of mileage out of the plot. Yes, Lemay wrote Alice's and Steve's first wedding in September of 1971 and later their May of 1974 remarriage.

It was definitely James Gerald. He was named after bother his grandfathers: Jim Matthews and Gerald Davis.

Actually, that would have been a good gamble to take. Reinholt was able to project menace, sarcasm, sexiness and charm, and would have been a stronger Alan that either the so-so Ron Raines or the tepid Daniel Pilon. In 1987, when TGL SORASed Alan-Michael to 17, Jacqueline Courtney was 41. Casting her as Hope Bauer would also have been perfect, since (according to Don Stewart, Hope had been about 24 when A-M was born, which aged Hope to 41 in 1987). The show could have used a "star" couple of actors in the 1980s, and having Courtney assume the role of a blood Bauer matriarch would have strengthened TGL's core, and mollified veteran viewers who were still vocally bitter about all the damaging changes Springfield had seen in the 1980s. A few years later, with Maureen Garrett and Michael Zaslow back in the fold, we would have had Jacqueline Courtney, George Reinholt, Beverlee McKinsey, Jerry ver Dorn, Garrett and Zaslow all on the same show...a soap fan's wet dream!!! Ahh, what could have been!

I believe that among long-time viewers, Hulswit has the edge on Simon, but since so many viewers today are too young to have watched the Hulswit era, Simon is the first and principle actor they know in the role, hence their preference for him. Since the Bauers are such a core part of TGL, and since the family had been so stupidly gutted over the years, I suppose I would have taken Simon on screen over NO ONE playing Ed...although that's not singing out his praises too much, LOL.

And both of them became impossible to tolerate, and had no viability as romantic leads whatsoever. Barbara even glancing at Henry was a bastardization of her character.

This is hilariously tragic...and true. Alan will neuter any controversial comments from EF immediately, as he is wont to do.

I was really devastated, and furious at myself for waiting so long to start digitizing my material (well, transferring everything to DVD-Rs, because I had no idea how to save Betamax or VHS material to the computer at that point). Another thing that I deeply regretted was getting rid of all my old soap magazines from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s when I moved into my latest apartment. I did not have the space to keep them all, and I foolishly thought the that soap press would continue to publish new and vibrant stuff for decades, and that I'd always have more and more magazines to buy. Little did I know that most magazines would fold, and the few that survived became too poorly produced to buy. Now, I would KILL to re-read my vintage copies of Daytime TV, Afternoon TV, Daily TV Serials, etc. Thank God I did keep some extra-special issues of those publications, at least. I do eBay search for magazines like Daily TV Serials, but $24.99 for an issue plus another $25.00 for shipping? Nope, not gonna happen. I did consult a few places about trying to salvage the material that had been corrupted on my flashdrives, but the repair guys told me that either it was unlikely the material could be retrieved, or it would be overwhelmingly expensive. I ended up throwing the USB sticks away in frustration, and began the process of replacing everything I had lost. Again, I will be eternally grateful to the friend who had saved all the material that I had copied and sent him years ago. And thanks to his generosity, youtube and the internet archives site, I have recovered most everything that had been really important to me.

OMG, I wish I had known about the existence of these devices years ago. I used to video-trade and collect for decades, and had a huge treasure trove of old soaps on Betamax and VHS (mainly from the 1950s, '60s and '70s). Unfortunately, most of the tapes had deteriorated and turned to dust before I got around to making back-up, durable copies of the episodes of them. I had previously transferred most of my stash to VHS for other collectors, however, and one of them was smart and patient enough to digitize everything important, just for safe-keeping. (He is a GODSEND! I will be eternally grateful that he did all the hard work.) Anyone who has a collection of old tapes, I urge you to digitize them as fast as you can, because from my own experience, videotape just does not last. I'd hate to hear than other SONers also waited too long to convert their material, and found their episodes to be in terrible shape and unwatchable.

Ross was indeed very do-able. ☺️ The older I get, the more I find younger people who are totally oblivious to all the cultural icons that I grew up with. Still, The Wizard of Oz is still broadcast on television every, so you'd think that it would not be outside the realm of the new generation's consciousness. Scary! I knew that society would go to hell when schools stopped teaching cursive writing, LOL!🙄 I did think Meg Ryan was adorable as Betsy, but LF's version was a stronger, grown-up women, and in the end, that's most appealing. I'd love to hear her uncensored take on Hogan Sheffer, Goutman and Jean P! At this point, I doubt she'd care much about filtering and censoring her comments. Alan would wet himself!🤣

Ahhh yes, Natalie Wood, the beloved star of The Wizard of Oz. 🙄 Anyone who doesn't know either Betsy Stewart or Dorothy Gale is dead to me. DEAD!

Do you know that I have met young people who do not know what The Wizard of Oz is??? I can grudgingly accept that some folks may not know Betsy Stewart...but DOROTHY GALE?

I think the weak, unfocused writing and tone of the overall show at that point did him in. The show did not seem to know whom they wanted Ed Bauer to be, who he had been in the past, or what to do with him. TPTB have to understand the history of a legacy character, and have a solid plan for him, if they choose to return him to the canvas. This was not the case with Gentry's Ed, sadly. Another World spectatularly failed with Jacqueline Courtney's return as Alice in 1984 too. TPTB never learn. 😑

Youtube being delete-happy is a major problem, and the reason why I started to download and save all my favorite material to flashdrives. Of course, it's not possible to save EVERYTHING that way, but I try to preserve what's most important to me. Unfortunately, some of my flashdrives have mysteriously become corrupted and therefore unplayable over the last few years, which meant that I lost the irreplaceable material on them. It's so discouraging. That seems to happen to all of us, LOL!

Vintage commercials can indeed be fun. It was a bit jarring, LOL. Right. 🤮

I used to tape trade a great deal many years ago, and one thing that always made my teeth ache, LOL, was how terribly some people edited out the commercials. They would leave some ads in, or cut out sections of program content by mistake, etc. I started to prefer it when new traders told me that the original commercials had been left in their tapes. Of course, when folks actually did do a good job of slicing out the ads, it was great. We really are fortunate to have youtube and other internet sites where we can store and share vintage material without worrying about videotape deterioration. I try to conserve all the "essentials" to flashdrives now. Stuff does disappear without warning from the internet, alas.

It really was a great special; well-researched, affectionate, with a lot of beloved actors involved, and with great clips shown. I watched it live when it aired and videotaped it, but (of course), the VHS tape wore out over time. I'm happy that the special is on youtube.

Warrick did later admit that she originally played Phoebe as a bit of a ninny, but when she found out Agnes Nixon was unhappy and saw the character in a different way, Warrick revised the way she played the part.