vetsoapfan

Please do try and find that interview. I've read and watched many interviews with him over the decades, and only heard him sing the show's praises. It would be fascinating to read an article in which he hoped his own show and money-making machine would get axed. (I'm not being snarky or sarcastic; I'd really like to see that.)

Yep, that certainly is true: the internet can be awash with...((ahem))...interesting people. 🤣

I have literally never heard any rumors about Bill Bell being unhappy with the first year of the show. Indeed, the only comments I have ever read and heard from him were about how proud he was of Y&R during its debut season and how successful it was. When the show was not instantly at the top of the ratings, some fans wrote into the soap magazines wondering if it might be cancelled, but Bell was quoted as saying that CBS was happy with the show's steadily-increasing ratings and there was no concern about cancellation. I DO recall Bell saying that if he could do the early years over again, with a significantly higher budget and all the advantages of modern technology, he would love to see what it would look like. As for the Bell/Conboy feud, I do believe it's well documented that Bill and Conboy had issues working together. Particularly after Conboy wanted Bell replaced, LOL. But their differences aside, what the two men produced together on-screen during the 1970s was soap magic. Who claims Bill Bell hated his own show? That contradicts all the print and video interviews I've ever read and seen with him discussing and praising its first years. I've only ever read that he would have liked to see what those early episodes would look like if they could have been done on a much-higher budget and using more modern filming techniques. The show did not move at a glacial pace in 1973 at all. Indeed, part of its appeal was that viewers applauded how fast the stories moved, and that you HAD to watch every day to keep up (which was a genius move on the show's part; forcing viewers to watch more regularly and therefore become more attached). It only took Chris and Snapper nine months to make it down the aisle. Contrast that that Bell's Days of Our Lives, in which it took Laura and Bill Horton...nine YEARS, LOL). Yes, during the 1970s, the show was really on fire and it revolutionized the soap opera genre. Today it is bland, listless and generic (admittedly, like all the other soaps still on the air). What a shame.

But if another youtuber has his very own copy of the same episode, and shares that on-line, it has nothing to do with the original uploader at all.

I agree: Dwyer was the matriarch of the show and an original cast member; killing off Mary Matthews was a huge mistake and forever damaged the core and structure of the show. I have a feeling Hugh Marlowe was starting to have memory problems in the mid-1970s. He was fine when he first began on AW, but as time passed, he started flubbing his lines more and more, looking lost in the middle of scenes, and generally giving weak performances. He allegedly blamed Virginia Dwyer for his on-set problems (or so Lemay claims), but to viewers it was clear that something was going on with Marlowe himself.

Yep. In its early years, I was interested in every single actor and character on the show. When I look at the four remaining soaps today, I'd be happy to axe 2/3 of the actors/characters.

As a longtime fan of William J. Bell, I was eager to see the launch of his new show in 1973. I knew the writing would be good. But besides the writing, I was amazed at everything else too: the cast, the direction, the sets, the BACKGROUND MUSIC...everything. The show clicked right off the bat, and had none of the difficult growing pains that challenge almost all new soap operas. Of the debut cast, Brenda Dickson seemed to be the greenest at first, but she melded well with her cast mates and didn't exhibit the campiness that she later became known for. Janice Lynde was not the first actress hired to play Leslie Brooks. The show had originally cast a singer/actress named Mary Grover in the role. But after a few weeks, shortly before the show debuted on television, Bill Bell felt an emergency recast was necessary. Lynde was hired at the last minute and had two weeks' worth of episodes to film in just a few days. That must have been a nightmare, but she pulled it off, and Lynde went on to be mesmerizing in the role. Mary Grover: That early cast of Y&R was just...on fire.

Because I am so totally hopeless with anything to do with technology, I have foolishly gone far too long without transferring all my ancient videotapes and audiotapes to modern formats. Fortunately, by my sending stuff to Eddie Drueding and @billbauer, those fine gentlemen have done the "heavy lifting" and been good enough to share many of my vintage soap episodes on-line with other fans. A huge chunk of the credit goes to them. And yes: contrary to what a petulant Harding Lemay contended, Jacqueline Courtney was great on AW. It's my pleasure, although the majority of the credit must go to Eddie Drueding, who agreed to digitize my tape and then share it on his excellent AW page!

If anyone is interested, I recently sent Eddie Drueding of the AW Homepage my ancient tape of the tenth anniversary of AW, the first hour-long episode which featured the second marriage of Alice Matthews and Steven Frame. It was broadcast on May 3, 1974. I had no way to digitize the tape, myself, but Eddie managed to make a pretty decent transfer, which he has uploaded to his website. http://www.anotherworldhomepage.com/tenthanniversary.html

Apparently, some folks feel that if they upload an episode first and put their personal watermark on it, the episode become theirs. I know. 🤔 I makes no sense to me, either.🙄

Thank you very much. I appreciate the heads up!

ITA. Where rare vintage episodes are concerned, I am always grateful to uploaders for offering us the material in any way they can, but it's always more enjoyable to watch the episodes in full, rather than in chopped-up, sequential segments. A youtube host does not acquire the rights to episodes simply by uploading them to the internet first, or even by putting his personal "watermark" on them. If another fan has a higher-quality (or a complete) copy of a specific episode, posting that one on-line as well only benefits soap viewers as a whole. Why would it even be a "problem" that two copies of the same video existed on youtube? Right, the problem with making youtube videos "private" is that you can only allow a maximum of 50 (I believe) people to view them. Those 50 people must have youtube accounts of their own and be authorized individually by the uploader. It's unnecessary work and inconvenience for a generous uploader whose goal was simply to share "soap goodness" with other fans.

Can some kind soul please DM me the link to the first two episodes from 1973? This is the first time in a decade that I am kicking myself for not having cable TV!

Yes, woohoo. I'm sure, but I will take what I can get. I dropped cable TV almost a decade ago, and watch all my TV on-line now, through services like Netflix, so I rely on the good people here at SON to record these treasures if they still subscribe to CBS.

Yep, it says episodes number one and two, from March of 1973, will be broadcast again this Monday, July 20, 2020. Please record them, people, particularly the second episode. We may never get the chance to see and save this episode again. (The debut ep is already available among collectors.)

Wait, say what? CBS is going to air a "new" episode from 1973? I just swooned!!!

Everyone can draw his own conclusions about whether or not duplicating a video that has already been uploaded onto youtube is "hacking" or "stealing.". I reiterate my point that IMHO, since none of the material in question was produced by or is owned by any individual fan, being possessive of it or becoming vexed that other fans are also sharing it for free on the internet is pointless. Since so many on-line videos seem to disappear without warning, I say the more back-up copies, the better for the soap community. We can never have too many "nice things"!

Of course, the person who accused you of "stealing" the material you uploaded is dishonest and self-serving, simply trying to justify his behavior. I know this, because many of the episodes on your youtube page came from ME. I sent them to you in the first place and freely agreed that you should share the material publicly. Why? Because I am rational enough to acknowledge one important fact: I do not own any of the episodes in question, anymore than your critic does. Many fans recorded soaps at the time of their original broadcasts, and there have always been multiple viewers with their own copies of the exact same episodes. But even if any specific ep had already been on the critic's channel, so what? That doesn't make it his exclusive property. If I upload a Taylor Swift video that does not mean all rights to the video suddenly become mine. For one individual to become possessive about content which he neither produced nor owns is pointless. To denigrate another, generous fan for the "crime" of sharing rare video treats with the soap community is worse. The critic's defense of his behavior pretty much says it all: "Nope, I will not be blamed for someone yanking their YouTube videos, just because one that they clearly hacked into the site to swipe from my #ATWT uploads was re-posted. If that was the basis for your whole 'collection' then you're the one to blame." You don't "hack" into a youtube site whose videos are all freely available to the general public anyway; it's not like hacking into someone's bank account or the FBI files. Nor is it "swiping" anyone else's material when you duplicate an upload of an episode which doesn't even belong to him. It's attitudes like this that do indeed ruin things for everyone.🙄

Please do not blame yourself for anything. Sometimes, even the most dedicated and generous people who enjoy sharing their material with others can be completely turned off by the belligerent, aggressive, mean-spirited behavior of trolls on the internet.

The writing for Beacon Hill, by the dreaded Anne Howard Bailey, was heinously awful. The first several episodes were atrocious. After Bailey got canned, the writing took a surprising upswing in quality, but I think by that time the audience was just not willing to give the show another try. The same thing happened on the daytime soap How to Survive a Marriage. Bailey was the original writer and her material was just awful. She was fairly quickly replaced by the wonderful Rick Edelstein, who wrote beautifully for the series, but after being burned by AHB's garbage, viewers never seemed to sample HTSAM again.

There are whiny, belligerent and mean-spirited fans of every genre who will happily cause trouble and ruin things for everyone else the minute they do not get their own way.

A while back, I posted a link to a web page containing scores of radio eps of TGL from the 1950s. I loved that page because its editor had gone through the trouble of putting all the 90+ episodes in proper, chronological listening order. (The Internet Archives has the same episodes uploaded, but they are NOT in the correct sequence, so it's not as enjoyable to listen to.) My old laptop died, taking all my bookmarks with it, before I could save the link permanently. By any chance, does anyone know the page/link I am talking about? I'd appreciate finding it again, and endless googling is not helping me.

I know some collectors who refuse to copy and share their treasures, even though their original tapes from decades ago are turning to dust. They simply do not want to let anyone else have what they've got. It's gratuitously selfish and mean-spirited.

I foolishly waited too long to digitize many of my ancient videotapes, and by the time I finally got around to doing so, many of my treasures had deteriorated badly and would no longer play. Fortunately, many of my "lost" videotapes have been popping up on your youtube channel, so I am both relieved and thrilled!

Folks tend to take for granted that what is printed in books is true, but that is not always the case in soap-related publications. There were even painful errors in the Agnes Nixon tome. I think Jackie Smith made an error and got her writers mixed up. The actors who played the Quartermaines, and Douglas Marland himself, have all acknowledged many times that he was the one who created the Qs. He was also the writer on board when Gloria Monty took over as producer. It was the Montry/Marland pairing that ushered in the new and improved General Hospital. I believe Russell came aboard as a consultant in the early 1980s after the divine Pat Falken Smith was foolishly fired. I remember scanning the list of writers at the time, cringing at how awful their material was in comparison to the DM/PFS regimes. If you are the uploader known as It's A Long Story, thank very much for all the time and hard work you have taken to share so many amazing vintage gems. Believe me, longtime soap fans appreciate folks like you, Eddie Drueding, and all the other people who share your treasures.