vetsoapfan

Keith Pruitt. He was very handsome and quite charismatic.

I was able to justify Meta's talking about Rev. Ruthledge by remembering that none of us knew everything that had happened to the Bauers before they were introduced on TGL in 1948, or everything about Rev. Ruthledge's history pre-1937. It's possible that Rev. Ruthledge had been sent around to do missionary work in various states/communities (including Selby Flats) before settling down in the church of Five Points. Because it was not blatantly impossible for the reverend to have met Papa, Mama and young Meta before we, the audience, met any one them, I gave TGL a pass about the Meta/Rev. Ruthledge link. The original "guiding light" was Rev. Ruthledge's Friendship Lamp, which he always displayed in his window to guide all the lost souls to his door. After he left the show, his lamp passed into different hands, and eventually stopped being mentioned or seen. I think the last time I saw it on-screen was when Rev. Keeler was appearing in the 1950s. I have at least one episode from that decade with the lamp featured. In my fantasies, I thought that a nice way to end TGL would have been if the Friendship Lamp had turned up again and been gifted to the Bauer family, in acknowledgement of the friendship Rev. Ruthledge had shared with Papa Bauer before we knew either of them (as referenced in some newly-discovered, vintage diaries that Ruthledge had kept from the 1930s.). The Friendship Lamp shining through the window of the Bauer kitchen would have been the perfect way to tie together the series' 72-year history. Alas, TPTB in the show's last decades never seemed interested in history.

Great post! I agree with everything! I was fully prepared to chuckle at Zimmer's histrionics, but then (I must admit), I kept bursting into tears every time she did! TGL can still make me cry, even in memory.

Wasn't John Conboy gay? If he was indeed straight, then his dating Weston would explain why he hired her, LOL. (Although to be fair, soaps have had their share of lousy performers over the decades, and the producers cannot have been dating ALL of them!)

Incompetent and unfathomable decisions by TPTB at all the networks have been a problem since the 1980s, so I cannot honestly say I am surprised by what soaps have endured and what soaps have been cancelled. Both the cancellations and the renewals have often seemed arbitrary to me, so nothing seems to shock me anymore. I just shake my head at the stupidity of it all. What DOES still surprise me (and I know it should not, by this time), is how the same hack writers and producers keep getting shuttled around from one soap to another, even though they have extensive track records of failure.

Feel free to ask me anything you want. I've watched soaps for several decades.

The story was kind of dumb and Ellen Weston was not the greatest actress, so I just wanted the story to end.

Look for the 1950 radio eps about Meta Bauer's murder trial, and any 1966 eps you can find (there may be 25-30) on youtube. They are great. Maureen Bauer's death is on YT as well. All worth your time.

That scene was supposed to be so dramatic, but it ended up being unintentionally hilarious. Katherine had stabbed Suzanne and TPTB put perhaps a tablespoon of VERY dried ketchup (or what looked like ketchup) on her dress to look like blood. Relating the incidence, Katherine wailed, "There was blood...SO MUCH BLOOD!" But no...there wasn't. There was the teensiest amount possible, and it was already dry 10 seconds after the stabbing. Production really bungled that scene. I laughed my butt off.

I have never seen an episode guide for TGL. Only a few soaps (like dark Shadows) have full guides like that readily available. You can, however, listen to a long string of radio eps from 1950 (which I have linked in an earlier post, a few pages ago) which has the air-dates and brief synopses included. And many of the avail;able episodes on youtube have synopses and airdates included too.

The Bauer family was first introduced in 1948, and co-existed with other characters of the day. Some very popular radio-era characters left the series because the actors chose to quit, and one (Rose Kransky) was spun off into her own series. I think that as the Bauer family and their stories grew in popularity, some other characters faded into the background because the show was only 15 minutes long at the time, and there was limited room to showcase a multitude of characters. But not only the Bauers made the transition from the radio version to the TV incarnation. Dr. Paul Keeler, the Roberts family (Joe, Kathy, and Joey), the Grants (Dick and Laura), Nurse Janet Johnson, etc., also appeared on both formats. Various characters came and went over a period of years, and the writing was great, so it was not a sudden or unpleasant shock watching the Bauers GRADUALLY became the headliners. I cannot say the same about the 1983-4 season, when 2/3 of the existing characters were suddenly slaughtered, one after the other, while the screaming Shaynes and the bellowing Lewises (and a horde of other newbies) were instantaneously rammed down our throats. To me personally, TGL was at its best from 1950 to 1982. (It perked up again in 1988-9 under the pen of Pamela Long (whose writing had vastly improved over her first stint on the show), and then had some very good years under writer Nancy Curlee and her associates. The show basically limped along from 1994 to 2002, with some years being slightly more tolerable than others. Its last period of quality writing was under Millie Taggart and Carolyn Culliton from 2002 to 2003. After they left, TGL's writing fell into in the toilet and remained there until its cancellation in 2009. The el-cheapo Peapack era production model only hastened its demise. Most memorable storylines? There are many! --Meta Bauer White's murder trial --Bill and Bert Bauer's ongoing marital woes --The Kathy Roberts saga --The Robin Lang/Paul Fletcher romance and marriage (and her problems with his son) --The Roger/Holly Thorpe nightmare (the marriage, the rape, the kidnapping, his return from the dead) --The Mike/Leslie/Ed Bauer triangle --Maureen Bauer's death (riveting episodes but ultimately a short-sighted, damaging decision) Viewers were blessed to have had so many brilliant writers working their magic on this show: Irna Phillips, Agnes Nixon, Robert Soderberg and Edith Somner, the Dobsons, Douglas Marland, Pat Falken Smith (whose stint was disappointingly cut short), Nancy Curlee. Those were the days.

No one loved TGL more than I did, and because it had been so consistent, well-written, and dedicated to using history for so long, the amputation of the earlier decades, which this show endured under Kobe and Long in 1983-4, was devastating to watch. The show changed from an adult, character-driven, complex drama with nuanced and familiar characters, to a cartoonish mess with low-brow, far-fetched campy stories. It not only trashed history, but foisted loud-mouthed and/or abrasive strangers onto us. It was not a pretty sight! In the series' later years, Josh Lewis met a young minister with the family name Ruthledge, and remarked, "Your grandfather is a legend around these parts." This was supposed to harken back to the show's original guiding light from its radio days, Rev. John Ruthledge, but it was awkward and showed that the lazy writers had not done any homework or studied the Ruthledge family history. Rev. Ruthledge had only had a daughter, and after she married, her children's surnames would not have been Ruthledge. We might surmise that he had sired a son after he left the USA and gone to war, however, and that that son could have then sired a son of his own, leading to the existence of this Ruthledge grandchild. But Josh's comment about the original Rev. Ruthledge being a legend around Springfield was improbable. The character had lived in Five Points, not Springfield, and none of the characters on TGL at that time had ever met or been ministered to by Dr. Ruthledge, so Josh's comment was just bizarre. Had Reva already travelled back in time and been awed by meeting John Ruthledge, LOL? During Mary Stuart's run on the show as Aunt Meta Bauer (the show had reintroduced the character of Meta after an absence of 23 years, but never addressed what had happened to her husband, Dr. Bruce Banning, who went unmentioned), she also referred to the Reverend John Ruthledge. During a Christmas toast, she said that he had been one of the greatest people to turn to in times of trouble, and she recited his signature poem: There is a destiny that makes us brothers None goes his way alone All that we send into the lives of others Comes back into our own It was sweet and nostalgic and I loved it.

Claiming that the 1980s represented TGL at its best is like saying Life with Lucy was Lucille Ball's best-loved television series ever. Or that Trog was Joan Crawford's most lauded motion picture. Or that Manimal and Supertrain helped revitalize NBC and helped the network soar to the top of the ratings. Um...no. Just no. And what a dreadful article! OMG! I am always happy to acknowledge and celebrate this beloved, iconic soap, but the article did not do it justice. The writer needs to be schooled on how to use an apostrophe. I know this makes me sound anal, LOL, but I loooooooathe when people throw in apostrophes everywhere they type the letter S: "The Bauer's were an important family on the show...." or, "There were many day's when I was bored out of my mind." And you do not use an apostrophe to denote plural years within a decade, although almost everyone makes this error: 1980's, 1940's, 1990's...yikes. It should be: 1980s, 1940s, 1990s. UGH. Pluralization does not require an apostrophe. Nobody would, or should write, "I have three brother's and three sister's, and when we were kid's, we had to share bedroom's with each other." Sorry, I had to vent! Anyway, with the glorious decades that preceded the 1980s still fresh in my memory, I cannot agree that the 1980s (as a whole) saw the light shine its brightest.

I see that All My Shadows has already answered this, very well. :) The television incarnation of the 1950s and onward felt like a completely separate entity from the radio version of the 1930s and 1940s, but the show was quite solid in its continuity and history from the 1950s to about 1983-4. Then, with the arrival of producer Gail Kobe and writer Pamela K. Long, the bottom fell out and most of what had made The Guiding Light feel like The Guiding Light for 30+ years was gutted. It was a very painful, unnecessary, and destructive transition. To me, in its final few decades, the show felt like it had debuted in the 1980s, with only a few bits of its history from before that time being acknowledged or woven into the fabric of the narrative. Ed Bauer, born on-screen in the 1950s, came and went, recast several times, but with revolving door of actors playing him and with writers not investing in his character, he became a minor, supporting player who no longer held a leading role in Springfield. We were very lucky to have Holly Norris and Roger Thorpe for so long, but the show ultimately failed those characters too. It took DECADES for TPTB to drive TGL into the grave, but they kept hacking away at the show until they succeeded.

Thank you so much for the link. Lucille did not actually do very much in this ep, but just seeing her again was a treat.

You are right. It was a very brief, inconsequential scene, but still...I adored Lucille and it was the last we ever saw of her, so I should have kept the clip.

I wish I had kept a copy of this episode.

"I intend to utilize all of our existing characters," said Long. "We're not bringing on anybody new right away and we don't have any big plans to get rid of anybody. I like the current characters." Known for her Gothic-style stories from her previous writing work on "Guiding Light" and "Texas," Long said she has a different style in mind for "Search for Tomorrow." "I intend to bring a reality to my storytelling on 'SFT,' which is a result of my own personal growth. I'm not interested in wild, outlandish, fantasy-type stories. People and their relationships are more fascinating to me." Sigh. If only she had not butchered 2/3 of the cast when she was on TGL, and if only she had not foisted dumb, campy stories onto that once-fine show.

The Suzanne Lynch story was pretty far-fetched and campy as well (which is why I just wanted it to end), but neither Y&R nor any of the other shows really went off the deep end until GH introduced the brain-dead Ice Princess story. (I don't count Dark Shadows, because it was a specialty soap, so to speak, and had been designed to be gothic in the first place.)

Well, yes. Although I found Vanessa and her veil to be too campy for my taste, it was not OUTRAGEOUSLY idiotic. I continued to watch Y&R religiously, even if I did roll my eyes at Vanessa's behavior. On the other hand, when far-less-less talented writers destroyed DAYS, GH, TGL, etc., with painfully stupid, campy crapola, I had to stop watching, in order to preserve my sanity, LOL.

I wanted Vanessa to die from the very moment I her stride into the living room wearing that stupid veil. It was way too campy for me.

Thanks for the links, YRfan23! That 1974 episode is in better condition than the copy I have, but for some reason I cannot download or save it. What a drag! Anyway, I'll keep trying. And the playlist with all the Lorie clips is much more extensive than I thought. I only had the first five or so, so again...GRACIAS! We vintage soap buffs have to share the treasures we find!

Cool. Where have fans seen that? Please send me the link, if you would be so kind. I thought I had already gotten all the available Y&R eps from the 1970s, but the one with Considine would be new for me.

My favorite Tom was Gregg Marx, although I also like Peter Galman's version a lot. Scott Holmes is a handsome man and a good actor, but the dry, tepid writing he was saddled with for years worked against him. HBS was by far my favorite Margo. MC was also good, but Smith was warmer and more mature and likeable. I never liked Dolan, either on ATWT or TGL. I found both her and GO'C to be cold and brittle and off-putting. Kinkaid's casting as Tom Hughes was mind-boggling. He might have be acceptable as a minor, comic-relief character (as he was used on AMC), but he was simply not leading man material.

Aside from one instance in which Paul Rauch said Courtney objected to a proposed Alice/Willis storyline, Jacquie Courtney was not publicly accused of being a troublemaker or causing run-ins on the set. George Reinholt, on the other hand, was said to have been a pain in the neck by several people on both AW and OLTL. Courtney and Wyndham both praised each other at the time they initially worked together and years later, so I doubt there was friction between them. For the 25th anniversary, I think that including vintage flashbacks of their work together from earlier years would have shown both actresses in a positive light (their performances in the early-mid 1970s had been sensational), and made longtime fans very happy. I would have preferred to see a Steve-Alice reunion or even just those classic Alice-Steven-Rachel clips on the anniversary than scenes between Lau and Reinholt, who shared neither history nor chemistry.