vetsoapfan

Although Raines was 14 years younger than Don Stewart, I also thought he would make a better Mike than Alan. That being said, if Stewart were never to be invited back, the actor whom I wanted as Mike Bauer was Jed Allen, whose appropriate age, talent, affability and popularity would have made him a good fit for the role. I always found Stewart to be somewhat aloof, so with a stiff, morose, listless Ed in Peter Simon, the Bauers could have used a mellower, more affable Mike.

Chris Bernau and Beverlee McKinsey were so unique and strong as Alan and Alexandria, recasting the roles was always going to be a tough, iffy proposition. Sadly, to me, neither Ron Raines nor Marj Dusay ever worked out in the roles. I felt they were both poorly recast. Oh, oh, oh! I am so glad you found that photograph of Ed's and Rita's wedding. What a wonderful shot! Thank you so much. I found both Ron Raines and Marj Dusay to be weak miscasts for Alan and Alexandra, but the show kept them forever, anyway. Shades of Peter Simon as Ed. Amelia Heinle has been playing Victoria on Y&R forever, too, so inexplicable casting choices are not limited to TGL.

OMG, I remember thinking that the wedding dress looked like a set of doilies sewn together. Googling pictures of it now, however, I must admit that the dress does not strike me as quite so hideous. Good point. I justified the "cheap" wedding in my mind as Alan trying hard to convince Hope and her family that he could meet them on their level, act like a "regular guy," and not always remain in a gilded bubble with his immense wealth and power. To his credit, Marland continued to write for fan favorites on all his shows, including Mart Hulswit on TGL, for quite some time. Even Harding Lemay focused on Jacquie Courtney, George Reinholt and Virginia Dwyer for the first four years of his tenure on AW, despite disliking those actors. Some scribes do understand the importance of keeping audience favorites center stage. I appreciate that. The cast purge in 1983 and 1984 in Springfield proved what a disaster slaughtering vets is to a soap's structure and stability. Oh dear God in heaven, as our dear Mrs. Chancellor might say, what have I done to you? Have I cursed you, too, with my obsessive, nagging doubts?!?😬 Uh-oh. The Pinterest picture I am thinking of was definitely from Hope's wedding, and I believed Bill Bauer was present in that one...but I always saw Ed/Rita wedding shots on Pinterest too, and if I was looking at both the Ed/Rita and Hope/Alan photos simultaneously, who knows what tricks my mind is playing on me now? This added question may make me truly go around the bend!!!🤣

You are very kind--as always--and getting the script of that episode would probably solve the nagging doubts in the back of my mind. I'd appreciate it. That being said, please don't go to too much trouble; this is a not an issue on the level of solving world hunger or curing disease. I mean, somehow...some way...I can manage to survive living with unresolved questions and doubts about a fictional soap opera character from decades ago.🤭 I've always loved and been crazy about the soaps, but I am not totally insane! (LOL, I hear hear sarcastic replies from the peanut gallery as I type this.😝)

I do remember the show used Meta as a reason why Bert was out of town for so long. Maureen even asked Ed at one point, "How is Meta?" after it was mentioned that Bert was visiting and caring for her. I don't remember any mention of Simone (even when Hillary died), but of course I will readily acknowledge that I did not see every moment of every episode broadcast, so it's quite possible, even probable, I missed things.

I hadn't thought about this at all for about 20 years until I saw a photograph of the wedding party and its guests on Pinterest in about 2023. Scanning the actors in the shot, I am sure Ed Bryce was present in a suit and tie, which made me exclaim, "Oh! I forgot Bill Bauer popped up at Hope's wedding!" Was I wrong about the identity of the actor whom I identified as Ed Bryce? Possibly. Was I outright hallucinating? Also possible, ROTFLMAO.😝 But I've always been obsessive about rare references to, or appearances by, beloved characters no loner on the canvas. Mart Hulswit's Ed made a brief reference to Meta during a telephone conversation during the Dobson's tenure, and I zeroed right in on it, just like when Nancy Hughes once answered the phone at the end of an ATWT scene after Rosemary Prinz left, and explained happily, "Penny!" Jim and Mary Matthews talked about getting a postcard from a departed Uncle Dru, after Geoffrey Lumb had been let go from AW. I remember quirky things like this. If people clearly remembered the wedding, I'd be more likely to accept their thoughts as definitive. I'm not prepared to die on this hill since my own memory is hazy. But folks are going on theories or speculation which are logical to them. This is perfectly valid, and I understand/respect why they believe what they believe, but the nagging feeling, based on my cloudy memory of the wedding and recollection of the picture on Pinterest remain. Fortunately, this is not a question which will determination the fate of the world! Like on so many other subjects, posters' variance of opinions and recollections are to be expected.

Ahhh, see, this is why everyone loves you, @DRW50 !🙃 Unfortunately, that brief clip cut off before the camera pulled back enough for us to see all the attendees of the ceremony. But, since so many SONers are collecting vintage soap scripts these days, I wonder if we could track down the Hope-Alan wedding script. It would list that day's characters, and the mystery would be solved!

Way back in the day, I used to keep extensive scrapbooks on all my favorite soaps, collecting story synopses, reviews, interviews and pictures about each one. It was a fun pastime and kept my memories of the shows clear. Alas, I dropped the hobby in the early 1980s (life got too busy for time-consuming pastimes), and after 45-ish years, most of the scrapbooks have long since disappeared into the Twilight Zone. There are certain things no one else seems to remember that I am 100% sure about, but in the case of Bill Bauer at Hope's wedding, I'm hesitant to die on that hill because my memory about it is iffy. If you find that brief clip of the wedding, please let us know.

To me, the drunken sexcapades between Frederick and Christinia will always be heinously icky.🤮 Just like Craig Montgomery and Dani Andropoulos (whom he used to babysit) on ATWT. I would have disowned Freddie and slain Craig, LOL.

On soaps, any death is treated as a reversible inconvenience, to be ignored if writers so chose. We saw Brandon Spaulding die, but years later...voila! He was alive again. Personally, I hate when writers ignore, erase or contradict established canon from the past. I'll go to my grave railing against all the family patriarchs going fishing together during the stupid Ghost in the Attic story, the Brandon-is-alive bullsh*t, the heinous Amanda-is-Brandon's-offspring dreck, etc. TPTB were clearly ignorant and dismissive of the show's legacy and integrity.

Long and her team seemed to have little knowledge of TGL's past, and they made various continuity blunders during their tenure. They didn't even know certain basic facts. I'd lean towards them not even knowing Simone existed or who she was, but I could be wrong. I tend to doubt Bert mentioned Meta. I loved the character so much, I probably would have screamed with excitement, LOL! You're so right: as we get older and the decades pass by, the mind and our memory can be quite fickle! I swear that Bill Bauer appeared on the show to attend Hope's wedding to Alan. I even saw a photo at the time of the wedding party and all the guests, with Bill there, among his family. Unfortunately, no one else seems to remember this and it's gotten me doubting my sanity!😆

Nope, I do not remember the sisters being notified about Bill at all. I did not see every second of every episode, so I could have missed a momentary reference about Meta and Trudy at the time, but I doubt the writers included one. They didn't refer to Trudy when Papa Bauer died, either (again, unless I missed a nanosecond comment).

Sadly, after years of being totally ignored and her absence during all of Phillip's trials and tribulations unaddressed, the show did acknowledge on screen that Elizabeth had died some time before. Lyman should indeed have played someone more pivotal to the action, however. TPTB failed the show in so many ways, alas.

Gracias, @slick jones !

TIIC never understood this. (Or much of anything else, LOL.) Right. The introduction of all these strangers who had never existed or been mentioned before was more irritating than comforting. It was clear what TIIC were trying to do, but the audience was not as stupid or as easily duped as "the suits" wanted us to be. Faux Bauers, whom we did not know or care about and whose very existence was absurd, did not placate the longtime fans who were continuing to voice anger at the decimation of TGL's core family. Demming was only 63 in 1985. She could have retired by then, sure, but many folks (and many soap actors, certainly) continue to work well beyond that age. I was ultimately pleased with Mary Stuart being cast in the role (it should have happened right after SFT ended, IMHO), but I would have approached Ellen Demming first, and then only cast another candidate if Demming declined to return. I don't recall either Trudy or Clyde being mentioned in the 1970s or ever again until the show ended. When Jeanne Cooper made a guest cameo on the show in his last days, I really wanted her to show up as Trudy Bauer, to give her real historical purpose to the canvas. Alas, her appearance ended being unrelated to anything, and therefore meaningless. Your posts are always so informative and enlightening, @Reverend Ruthledge . Most sources don't even mention (or know) that Meta appeared sporadically for several years. It annoyed me to no end when she was just dispatched into oblivion in 1974, without any fanfare or closure for the character.

Meta already had a stepson, Joey, whom she loved and who had been established on-screen. I would have just skipped over introducing all the faux Bauers and had #Johnny" be one of Joey's children whom Meta took in and adopted after Joey passed away. Then he would have legally and emotionally been part of the "real" Bauer family, and not a faux, retcon substitute.

So true. Teri Keane was a wonderful actress, loved by TEON audience, but she was handed the role of a retcon character who had never existed before, whom we did not know nor care about. Worse, she was given almost nothing to do. Viewers who were still resentful about all the beloved, "real" Bauer family members being purged from the show, didn't seem enamored with this new branch of the family tree. Starving dog, meet rubber bone. It didn't work at all, IMHO.

Soap opera ages often fluctuate and become ambiguous, but in a 1950 episode, when Meta was on trial for murder, she told the court that she was 31 years old, or born in 1919. That's the year Virginia Dwyer was born IRL. It could have worked. And after the atrocious treatment she got at AW, it would have been poetic justice to see Dwyer emerge the matriarch of another core family on another soap!

OMG! Now I'm going to be up all night trying to make up my mind.🤭

I wanted Ellen Demming (the actress who had previously played Meta for 21 years) to reprise the role. She was only 63 years old in 1985. Springfield needed the stability and comfort of seeing familiar faces back on-screen. Having her and Mart Hulswit return would have mollified me a lot. Having Don Stewart and Elvera Roussel asked back as well would have helped me forgive TGL for all the crap it had heaped on viewers for the last few years.

I had to stop myself; I was getting too mad, LOL! I didn't bring up Reva Dissolving into the Painting, either. I figured y'all didn't need to endure any more reminders.

To be fair, the writing was often so poor in the show's dying years that many stories were ridiculous, not just those foisted on Kim Zimmer. Harley the Super Heroine comes to mind. Dear God in Heaven! The problem with the Reva plots was that TPTB were so desperate and determined to keep her on the front-burner continuously, they just kept throwing anything and everything at Reva, no mater how ludicrous it was. I started in about 1963, although I later acquired a huge library of radio broadcasts from a kind-hearted and generous friend who had hundreds of eps from before the television era. I got to hear a significant amount of 1950, centering on Meta Bauer's murder trial. It was thrilling. The show really started collapsing in the 1980s, when a huge number of the core characters were wiped out (including most of the Bauers), the tone and style changed significantly, and the writing went drown the drain. It miraculously picked up again in 1989 or so, and was great for a few years, but TIIC killed off Maureen, the fine writer from that period left the show, and it disintegrated once more (with some ups and downs) after that. Of course, this is just my personal opinion. I do know other viewers who enjoyed various parts of the show after I felt it had become unsalvageable. There's no such thing as a "wrong opinion." Everyone has the right to hold and express his own. I was just crushed to see how this once-fine soap had been decimated. From what I could see, many viewers loved Rachel Miner as Michelle and others appreciated BJL, but no one ever seemed to warm up much to NSA, who was tepid at best and had no real spark with anyone. Yep, by the time it was cancelled, putting the show out of its (and our) misery was akin to a mercy killing.

@Reverend Ruthledge is 100% correct in his assessment of Robert Gentry's portrayal of Ed Bauer in the 1960s, of course, but I couldn't help but be won over by MH's much needed warmth and affability, particularly after dear Papa Bauer passed away. I preferred MH over Don Stewart, who always struck me as emotionally remote (although I never would have chosen to let Stewart go if I could help it). I had never heard that TGL tried to lure Hulswit back. I wonder when that was and who made the decision 100%, but TIIC seemed to be allergic to making good decisions which would benifit the show. I would not have hated that idea, and it would have tied MW to core characters and used the show's history. A win-win situation. .

I've always felt that General Hospital showed Marland at the top of his game and was his best work. It was astonishing how he revitalized that dying show and turned it around. Talk about soap miracles. DM also understood and used ATWT's rich history and the importance of the Hughes family to the series and the audience. I appreciated and was grateful for that.

It really was like watching a corpse rotting to dust in the arid desert sun. Rauch ultimately decimated TGL the way he had OLTL and AW. Reva the Clone was one of the biggest excrement stains in soap opera history. The majority of the Reva tales in the show's dying years were total garbage: Reva the Ghost, Reva the Amish Amnesiac, Reva the San Cristocrapian Queen, Reva the Blind, Reva the Illegal Immigrant Savoir, Reva the Clone, Reva the Time Traveller...🤢