vetsoapfan

Linda Dano outed Espy in a Cosmo article a few decades ago.

Just for clarification's sake, Greg Foster was a lawyer, not a doctor. The physician in the family was his elder brother, Snapper.

To me, the 1970s were the very best years of the soap opera genre. I mean, we had William J. Bell, Pat Falken Smith, Agnes Nixon, Henry Slesar, Douglas Marland, Harding Lemay, Claire Labine, the Dobsons, Ann Marcus, Rick Edelstein, Robert Soderberg and Edith Sommer, Gordon Russell and Sam Hall, etc., at the top of their game, giving us riveting storylines that were must-see TV. Trying to keep up with all the shows during that decade was a herculean challenge. At first I recorded them all on multiple audio cassette recorders (which I set up in different rooms of the house), but as soon as I could afford a VCR (in 1976), I bought one of those. And then another. I would use my Beta to record from one network, my VHS to record from a second network, and then watch the third network live. If I had to be out of the house, I would use my old standby, an audio tape recorder, to tape the third network. Back then, soaps were a HUGE money-maker for all the networks, so because millions of dollars in profit were at stake, competition was always fierce. Lousy writers and incompetent producers did not last for YEARS as they would later on, when ratings (and profits) plummeted and the networks and P&G lost interest in putting out quality product anymore. Back then, the audience EXPECTED to see great soap opera because it was what we were used to; what we demanded. Competition to produce quality television was strong, because viewers had so many good soaps to choose from, and wouldn't settle for mediocre (or worse) drivel. How times have changed! Today, the audience is served nothing but drivel, and we are grateful to see ANYTHING on ANY remaining show that rises to the level of, "not as awful as usual."

Well, we do not know where Meta and her family lived when she was "a girl." We only met the Bauers in 1948 when all three children had already grown up. So it doesn't actively contradict established history to indicate that perhaps the Bauers had lived in, or visited, Five Points twenty+ years before we met them. And as a travelling minister, Rev. Ruthledge could have visited any other town which the Bauers called home before they began appearing on TGL. So I gave write Claire Labine a pass on this scene, because she was trying to weave history into the present day, and I got so verklempt just hearing Rev. Ruthledge's name. I can accept that the Bauers had known John Ruthledge because it ties together the first two "periods" of the show's history. Yes, this is a more egregious/careless error; harder to explain away or excuse. As far as we know, Rev. Ruthledge only had a daughter named Mary. Steven Ruthledge was said to be the original John Ruthledge's "grandson," but to bear that family name, Mary Ruthledge Holden would have had to give birth as a single woman to Steven, and bestow upon him her own maiden name rather than his father's surname. Or, possibly Rev. Ruthledge had met a woman while he was in Europe and sired a son by her before his death in 1946. Both these theories are possible, but viewers should NOT have to do mental cartwheels in order to justify what we see on-screen. With the introduction of Steven Ruthledge, it looked to me like the writers had done a half-assed job of examining history, and did not care much if they had made a continuity error. They probably figured that no one in the audience would know or care.

Thank you (and all the other fine fans) for providing us with vintage links like these. I cannot tell you how grateful we are.

Well, to be honest, that is the decade I am most interested in, but it's always a treat to see episodes from the soap's golden era under William J. Bell. And we are VERY FORTUNATE to have access to ANY material at all from Y&R's first decade. I'll always be thrilled to see more episodes if they ever pop up, but I am totally appreciative for the ones we already have. I'm more likely to re-watch material from the 1970s than to endure new episodes produced in 2019, LOL.

You. Are. Wonderful. Thank you so much for everything that you share with the soap community.

Me too! Thanks.

There is an entire coffee-table book filled to the brim (or should I just say BULGING?) with photographs like this: TWINS by Steven Underhill. That was clearly the idea, although years later, Bruce tried to downplay the erotic pictures, saying that Underhill had only photographed the boys "standing close to each other." Um...no. There was serious subtext under the physical proximity.

Let's kick back, have a smoke and a drink, and revel in the view from here.

Bruce-Michael and Seth Hall, the only reason to endure this show.

After TPTB stupidly killed off Maureen, the Bauer family was left without its matriarch, its heart. At that point, Hope Bauer was desperately needed as the matriarch-in-training. Alas, the show just did not care.

It's because we are ALL better writers than JER. (I amuse my evil self.)

Right: breathe in and breathe out, but through your mouth because PASSIONS reeks.

I remember how enthusiastic he made his target audience. 😉

I'd have to counter that a soap which remained firmly in the toilet of the ratings for its entire run (either in last place or occasionally second-to-last place) never had a successful season.

That. Is. HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally, Irna's soaps were set in a few different states, but TPTB just transferred them all to Illinois later on. TGL was originally set in Five Points, Illinois, but then moved to Selby Flats, California. When the show mysteriously began referring to its town as Springfield, it was only said to be in the mid-west. (So maybe Illinois again, maybe not.) On ATWT, the Hughes family originally lived in Ohio. Another World's Bay City and its spin-off Somerset were in Michigan. They mentioned this ON-AIR, so someone at P&G should have made a note of it, LOL. I think as the years went on, producers and writers at P&G and the networks were too lazy to research their own shows, and all sorts of continuity errors cropped up.

Jack and Lainie and all those "fake" Bauers alienated me. I was furious that TPTB did not mine the show's rich history for REAL Bauer family members. They could have had Paul Kinkaid reappear and prove to be Bill Bauer's offspring. After leaving Springfield in 1974, Meta could have adopted an orphaned teen and later had grandchildren. Rita Stapleton could have turned up with Ed's son. Mike, Hope, or Trudy could have had additional children. Sloppy and indifferent writing and producing, all around.

Of the three recast actors in the role of Greg, HM was the "Greg-ist." Brian Kerwin was as dull as a wet noodle, and WH came across like a would-be serial killer. If the writing had been better, and if TPTB had committed to the character, I think HM would have eventually worked out.

Looking back on it, we were blessed to get so many gifted, charismatic, fine actors among the original cast. I grew to appreciate them even more as the recasts rolled in. Brenda Dickson was successfully replaced as Jill Foster, but all the other replacements ranged from bland (Brian Kerwin) to downright awful. Wings Hauser. UGH. Need I say more?

Before Roger returned to Springfield during the infamous wedding , there were scenes of Blake talking about Bert Bauer as if she had known her personally, and how some of Bert's recipes were so memorable. When questioned about her comments, Blake stumbled and stated that she had "heard" a lot of good things about Bert from the Bauers, but her explanation was not convincing. Later, while folks were going through a scrapbook in Ed's house, they asked who "the little red-haired girl" in some pictures was. Ross said, "I know who that is!" and proceeded to give a recap of Christina's history and her place in Ed's life. Holly also had extensive flashbacks to her time with Roger, leading up to his "death" many years earlier. When the truth about Blake came out, she and Ed had a very poignant scene together. He said quietly, "There was a time when I called you Christina. And...you called me Daddy," which led to a discussion of the past. Holly even brought up the fact that it was hard to believe that Roger would use the pseudonym "Adam," considering the bad blood between Roger and his father...which resulted in more exposition. So even newer viewers would have been brought up to speed on the principle relationships and conflicts from a decade earlier. I don't think soap fans, particularly veteran viewers, mind how long a character has been gone, as long as the story surrounding his return is well-written and his former ties to the other characters on canvas are explained. One of the best-received decisions TGL made in 1996 was to bring back Aunt Meta, who by that point had been off-screen (and largely unmentioned, except for twice) for a whopping 22 years. Soap fans love history.

I am now verklempt.

If they are well done, I can also appreciate/enjoy darker, gritter stories...just not to the exclusion of everything else. Toxic, degenerate people exist in the real world, sure, but I do not want to see them overwhelm the soaps and be treated as romantic leads whom everybody else reveres. I constantly thank my lucky stars that I was "there" when the greats like Irna Phillips, Agnes Nixon, William J. Bell, Henry Slesar, Roy Winsor, Harding Lemay, Pat Falken Smith, Claire Labine, Rick Edelstein, etc., were headwriting American soaps!

Back in the day, soaps would often focus on star-crossed romances that made the audience get teary-eyed day after day, week after week, month after month...BUT! We knew the score. We knew that no matter how torturous the road became for the characters we loved, in the end they would be blessed with a happy ending/fairy-tale wedding. So there was always hope. Soaps today are relentlessly grim, with toxic and degenerate characters committing heinous crimes and never paying the consequences. There's dark, repugnant violence and little light, little hope. Personally, instead of tuning in every day anticipating that longed-for happy ending, I tend to tune OUT because everything is so unpleasant and so hopeless, and so few of my favorite characters remain. Today's PTB do not understand the soap genre or how to produce it in such a way as to satisfy an audience. I do not see that changing any time soon, alas.