EricMontreal22

I just wanted to echo what you say--such a great depiction of a grandma. I wonder when soaps lost this? I guess I know but. I'm lazy with my broken leg trying to catch up... But can anyone fill me in on this guy with the hand issue?

Yeah call it me being dumb but I don't blame her for any of that--it was all Ron's writing.

Could you imagine her working under Valentini? That said, I've always been curious about her co-writing stint at OLTL and if there were issues... As much as I worship Broderick, she wrote a few dog stories at AMC (Maria's baby comes to mind.) In general it's such a depressing, and annoying situation. Just six months later, I am convinced they would be able to have handled it.

"(She's back in 2025 doing a one woman show onstage these days at like 87 or something - and what a treat to see her young too in these '70s eps! Makes me wish we could see Wanda visit Llanview one more time.)" Yeah my friend who knows my love for One Life and All My Children, and is a regular theatre goer in NY sent me a text with a pic of the program for her show asking "Do you know her?" Apparently she's amazing in it. I was always team Karen Witter as Tina, but I admit that;'s because she's the Tina I was introduced with. But, I remember when I started posting on Usenet I was surprised that she was doisliked. And you're right--Malone DID bring Larry back for that story. I wish he had been asked to somehow be a part of the ABC finale as well.

"Luna guiding Tina through 'visions' of her past life with Cord as a pirate, etc. as early as fall '91, and Kevin's wild visions of Lee Ann around the same time." Wow I don't remember this at all. But it totally jives with some of Malone's fiction I've read which can go on tangents about past lives, etc. I DO remember the Midsummer Night's Dream moment. I do love that Virgil moment too (I recently revisited all those Megan episodes)--I like how Malone and crew did acknowledge all of OLTL's history but in a way that never felt like paying lip service, the way a certain later HW would. Really, one of the few mistakes the first time around I think was not trying to up Larry into the role of a patriarch (even flirting with him and Vicki?) Turning the character into someone who only existed as a doctor was a big mistake I think, and it would have been nice if they had built up his character after the final Rauch years (where he was barely a player in the storyline involving Dan his son, from what I can see.) Of course keeping Wanda around would have helped with that, but I understand it was her decision to leave.

Woah, I hadn't ever thought about that--definitely character changes towards the more Southern Gothic. I admit at that point I knew nothing about Another World except for its fabled history I had read about in books, but I decided to check it out because Malone would be writing. I remember--like what often happens--at first everyone seemed excited by the energy he brought to the show, but pretty quickly the lustre wore off and it was clear he was a bad fit, or P&G weren't allowing him to do what he wanted to do (or probably both.) I remember Connie/Marlena wrote an article about it

Aww I've missed your posts. I think this is all spot on. To be honest, my memory of the Heart of a Lord story was that it was partly undone by really poor casting. No, a Mists of Llanview approach to OLTL was probably not what was needed or wanted for the show at the time, but at least the ideas were interesting (and, at least as a concept, less schlocky than when Rauch-era OLTL went into fantasy and sci-fi.) I wish someone interviewing Malone had called him out on that aspect and asked about the approach (I suppose someone could still ask Griffith about it but, even if Griffith did apparently create himself key stories and characters during their run as a duo--the development of Todd especially--and I think Malone's work at OLTL was *always* better, during both runs, when Griffith was co-headwriter, I think his main strength was just helping Malone develop his ideas into the soap mode.) And of course you're completely right that the Gothic element, while I'd argue not the focus, was always prevalent during the first run--Hell, I think if it wasn't Billy Douglas that got me watching it was the whole "Max/Luna/Death" storyline. Given Malone's interests, it's no wonder why he was such a natural fit for an Agnes Nixon soap (and it's amazing that Gottlieb thought to ask him, especially since she came to the show--it would seem--with zero prior knowledge about soaps.)

I joined Rumble and found you! Thank you, looking forward to checking the videos out, and certainly looking forward to revisiting this episode of Tomorrow. James Lipton is a joke. My number 1 love and where my work focus has been is on Broadway musicals (I teach a Sondheim history course) and James Lipton has infamously had several disastrous attempts at Broadway musicals. Like much of his soap writing, I think the man was a hack who was never very good at anything he attempted to do (obviously I never saw his acting on GL so maybe he actually could act). Certainly, he earned his name as a soap killer IMHO. What he WAS good at was self promotion and making people think he knew his stuff--an image that he polished with the creation of Inside the Actors' Studio where he seemed like an authority just because he was talking to so many greats. BUT my idea about how Bell and Nixon both took separate aspects of the Irna soap and then took off from there goes to just what you were saying actually how Bell saved Irna's (well as co-creator) Days and Nixon saved Another World. I think even if you look at HOW Nixon "fixed" AW and how Bell "fixed" DAYS you can see the start of how they were going off in two different directions. I love the bit in Wakefield's All Her Children where Dan is having dinner at Nixon's home and he talks about how her daughter brings up a new soap that is also targeting a youth viewership (obviously Young and the Restless) and the daughter says there's one storyline on it (something to do with a gun? I can't remember) that is ripping off a story her mom has written for AMC (I think, it may have been OLTL). And Agnes Nixon is quoted as replying she knows the writer of that show and thinks he is extremely good, and that it isn't a rip off because he will have his own stylistic take on a similar idea.

Yes, and I felt like Andy was so worried about time that he cut it short--they didn't even go the full hour But, I can't complain in the end because we got more than what I'd expect (usually these kinds of fan reunions wouldn't even think to invite people like Francesca James or Lorraine Broderick let alone Judy--speaking of, she said she was casting agent for 22 years, what exactly were her years at the show?) And you're right about Susan. I love that she speaks out about the show, that she speaks out about Agnes, and that she does (in a coy way) mention how aware she was about some less than great writing (I remember on the View anniversary special when Broderick was about to come in to replace Pratt and Susan Lucci actually said how they were all aware that they had had bad writing for a while now but that would change...) But she also is known to stumble on her actual facts (on that same View special I think she said Agnes Nixon created... I don't remember, but some soap she wasn't even involved in.) I did find it weird that Andy Cohen asked Broderick if they felt competition from the other ABC shows, but not the NON ABC shows which I assume would have been a more direct issue (I mean it was under Broderick that we got the voodoo story and the gossip at the time was it was being pushed to compete with DAYS' increasing craziness.)

In the early 80s ABC owed Agnes Nixon a LOT--I believe she was still overall consultant for ABC daytime, but either way daytime, largely due to her work (of course not discounting GH.) And yes, much to the understandable frustration of Ryan's Hope fans, they gave Loving its slot. But regardless, I have no idea why they didn't just agree to her request to have Loving sandwiched between AMC and OLTL. It just seemed like such a no brainer. RIGHT the fertility statue or whatever on Another World. I'm convinced too that when Malone and Griffith returned to OLTL they were cribbing from ideas for Bourbon Street--which is why unlike most of their first run, suddenly they took an extremely Gothic approach (the Baghara Diamond or whatever it was, Heart of Lion, the Lord secret mansion in the fog, etc, etc) All that stuff felt kinda WTF and not what we were wanting from their return at the time, but in hindsight I kinda liked that they were trying different things and of course it was MUCH more interesting than what we then got from Dena Higley (which was either drawn out and boring or actually offensive.) And no, I have never seen the infamous pilot that those who've seen love so much... It's like the one piece of lost media I'd most like to see.

I saw some of it years back... How do I access this site? Awww Where in Canada are you? Yes, but DAYS wasn't a P&G soap I agree though that it always seemed quite contemporary, something Bell certainly was influenced by when he conceived of (with Conboy) Y&R. The Bell style of soap always fascinates me, because from the way I see it you can see the Irna Phillips classic soap--and then how her two proteges Bell and Nixon took aspects of her "classic" soap opera she had finetuned but each took different aspects and went in different directions with it. And then, of course, P&G felt in many ways that they had to play catch up with BOTH of those. Thanks everyone for the welcome (backs!) It's nice to be back

Right. I suppose ATWT and GL are the two soaps that are most identified with Irna, so it makes sense that they'd hold on to that classic Irna feeling the most (even if this ATWT I guess was immediately after Irna's disastrous return as HW.) I love Anthony Crivello due to his musical theatre work--I was 13 when I saw him in Kiss of the Spider Woman and he's one of my fave voices on a half dozen cast albums I know. I really think he's one of the best modern leading men Broadway has produced. And it was only when I got to email him about an obscure musical he did that I was presenting on for a conference (the 1965 Arthur Laurents/Richard Rodgers/Stephen Sondheim hidden gem Do I Hear a Waltz?--Crivello was in the premier of the revised version in Pasadena in 2001) that I suddenly put two and two together that he was Johnny Dee!! (granted, Johnny Dee was two years before my time, but over the years I had seen enough of him that I shoulda put two and two together...)

Mitch, they really are incredible, and have sparked a lot of talk on here!

Admittedly what hooked me at 12 on AMC and on soaps in general was the Natalie in the Well, saga of Wildwind storyline, and you don't get much more Gothic than that (I may have my timeline wrong but I believe that was when Nixon had returned as HW with Broderick and Washam as associates, just before she handed things over to McTavish which carried over some of that but kicked into high gear with Who Shot Will?) It's interesting because when people (and I guess I mostly mean the soap press) talk about Nixon and her achievements and style they *never* to my knowledge bring up her love for dipping into the Gothic, as if saying that would tarnish her well won reputation for social realism, drawing room comedy, etc. (And this wasn't a faux Gothic like JER wrote, but truly the stuff of 1860s sensation serials, etc--) I fully believe she was overseeing in some capacity the 2013 AMC. We do know on pretty good authority that she wrote herself the funny scene between Joe and Billy Clyde (where he thought he was soliciting) at the request of Ray to actually get to do a funny scene. When I saw Francesca James on the Y panel talk, all I kept thinking was "please, please tell us where the Celia mystery was going!" And ugh, Vee, you've made me sad and annoyed all over again about what coulda been with AMC2013...

Ha thanks for the welcome, Contessa. Funny to see that old post of mine (there are a lot of them if you dig far enough back...) I think that really was the issue with Fairchild--she largely seemed to be there to be there. That's why I took so much more to Tracy taking over--as soon as her character came on she had drive and moved up the momentum of all of the other stories. I am sure I said this in one of my old posts, but for its last year or maybe 8 months, my ABC affiliate (I was living in Vancouver so watched on the Seattle one) was airing The City at 11:35 at night, and I felt like it played SOO much better as a late night soap (certainly it never worked as a *morning* soap which is where Loving/The City aired earlier.) That was around the time that Fox still had plans for their Malone/Griffith/Gottlieb 13 Bourbon St late night soap, so I had high hopes for that project (before it was briefly retooled as a primetime series--which never happened anyway, but I digress.) I was a high school junior at the time, and really looked forward to checking in with The City before going to bed.

I understood this as the fact that it IS by committee--they all weigh in--but from what I've read, Francesca is also right in that the *final* decision is the network execs. As to one of the other comments, at its peak anyway, AMC was known to be one of the soaps (if not THE soap) with the highest percentage of male viewers but there's no way it was 60%. I think what I've heard was more vague and closer to "a bit over 1/3 of the audience is male." TVGuide in 1986 DID say it was the most video taped program in the US, though--maybe Susan Lucci could put that bit of info in her wheelhouse to use instead I really enjoyed the special--it flew by, but man, oh, man Andy is a terrible host. Not only with some lame questions, and a habit of not letting people answer (I get it, they had under an hour--I think they should have had 90 mins...) but you could also see him going through his question cards, etc, while they were answering which is something I'd expect an interviewer with his experience to not have to do.

And it's fascinating. It really does show exactly what the show set out to do--and why some felt it was slow to catch on (I mean the 10 minute sequence might as well be a therapy session.)

I admit for a while there I was so down on the state of soaps (what else is new? ) and just sorta needed a break from even thinking about my old faves. But I have a feeling I'll be sticking around for a while now. And thank you! Nice to see you and other fave posters still here! Yeah, I think ultimately Joe Stuart was good for the show--not just rating wise but also creatively. Although in Llanview in the Afternoon Sam Hall certainly has nothing good to say about him (as expected.) But I think he did push story and more often than not in the right direction, at least during the 70s. It's funny, again in that book, he's quoted as realizing that what soaps should focus on is character and character based stories, but admits it took him a bit to realize that at OLTL. And some of the early moves sure are baffling. Did he not see what the show was doing and see that Nancy Pinkerton's Dorian was one of the most fascinating characters on screen? Instead it seems he decided he needed to sex her up (I admit, I think that episode from May 1977 is the only one I've seen featuring Mallis' Dorian, so maybe they toned down her horniness later, though I get the impression, divorced from Pinkerton, the character became less distinctive and wasn't given much to do until Strasser. Who of course unequivocally loved Stuart and he loved her.) Side note--when I watch the Pinkerton episodes, she reminds me SOOO much of Carrie Coon's acting and characterization in The Gilded Age. Everything about the performance--maybe I'm crazy. I agree with you about the P&G soaps although from what I can tell this was especially true of ATWT and GL, or maybe the CBS ones in general. The Another World stuff I've seen feels... well not like the ABC soaps but not quite as "classic/old fashioned soap opera" as this stuff (of course that includes things like the two 60s episodes from Agnes Nixon we have--so not a big surprise there--and of course, as well, Irna created AW with the desire to make it full out melodrama and less low key in style.) I hope I don't sound like I'm insulting the shows we see in those episodes by saying what I said--I just meant it really was striking how different they were. And that's to their strength--it was smart for ABC to counterprogram the way they did--the problem is that even by the 80s (let alone the 90s,) as you say, as the P&G soaps tried to capture what ABC was having, it just made all of the soap operas more homogenized in style and feel (if not necessarily in actual quality.) So something was lost there. And obviously ATWT was still holding on to its audience... (Those voice overs though... I guess we know where JER got it from.)

Oh wow! I've been so out of the soap opera loop, I totally missed a full Eden episode 😮 😮 And yeah, I think it would be impossible to suggest that Nixon didn't create Kate and Ava (unless whoever did, did so as a homage to her AW and AMC creations of similar characters ) I know it's largely believed when Marland left after two years, that Nixon became the defacto uncredited HW for at least a couple of years (I believe Ralph Ellis got credit but his credit wasn't separate from the rest of the writing team the way a HW credit usually is, but, again, my soap opera knowledge is rusty.) As you know, I also have a lot of affection for Loving even if I acknowledge what a mess it was, and how frustrating it was too that often when they seemed to be on the right track (like in the early 90s--when I started watching due to the AMC Carter Jones cross over "event," up to which point I wasn't even aware of Loving's existence--when they briefly refocused on the campus) we'd get a regime change and it would be back to square one. I think I'm in the minority but I really enjoy Nixon's year long stint as credited HW again around 93-94 (I even have some scripts from that time,) even if it included Nixon at her most full on Gothic (Dante and his "pet" who turned out to be Curtis in a cage, etc.) I know Gothic Nixon is something even a lot of Nixon fans don't really like, but obviously it was a side of her writing she seemed to enjoy indulging in every so often. (I guess I should post in the Loving thread ) My pleasure--this is the type of stuff I could talk about, try to work out from the little we know, etc, endlessly. (Nixon's memoir was a mess when it comes to facts--and a lot of the reason for that was stuff that I guess couldn't be helped, including how during writing it she had another stroke, that her well-meaning son was basically her fact checker even though, despite how important the project was for him, he never was much of a soap watcher, etc. But I was still so disappointed that I don't think Loving even is *mentioned* in it. And then there's her role as a consultant/co-creator of The City, a soap whose final six months I really loved... In the long Museum of Television video interview with Agnes I think she's asked about her role in The City and she completely blanks like she'd never even heard of the show ) I actually have an old OLTL and two AMC scripts with her notes on them as I befriended a wonderful woman who worked as a freelancer on those shows, as well as Somerset, for a brief time back when they'd actually freelance scripts out when they were overworked (I think she did her work between 190-73?). She was terminally ill and wanted to unload some of her stuff on people who would really appreciate them. Anyway, it's *wonderful* to read Nixon's corrections and comments--and like any good teacher she also is sure to give full out praise to stuff she likes. But I can understand why writers like Mulcahey felt condescended to and stifled working in that way.

I'm back! Of course I had to come here and see what the talk about these videos was, and chime in. Full disclosure, I'm friends with Mike Poirier (we've traded various soap opera stuff for years--in my case mostly Agnes Nixon show related--scripts, bibles, story treatments, etc.) I was glad he decided to finally release these public! I have a lot of thoughts, of course, but it's great to see (I didn't realize 45 minute episodes actually ran a full 33 minutes without commercials.) This is pretty much smack dab in the middle of my favourite era for the Agnes Nixon soaps and we have so little of it. It's interesting to watch these, ending in March 1977 and then watch the previously uploaded April and May 1977 episodes... So much upheaval between April (the wedding of Larry and Karen) and May. I have an article from a TV mag from that time about the "mini massacre" as they call it (I would upload it here but until I get my account back I can't.) They mention how EP Doris Quinlan was fired with about a weekend's notice (as we know from the OLTL oral history book,) how the cast was complaining about slow and repetitive writing, and how major cast firings happened as soon as Joseph Stuart came in as EP (he had been one of the heads of ABC Daytime who hired him based on how highly regarded his run at The Doctors had been.) It seems funny to me that the writing was criticized though I know ratings weren't great at all despite the 45 minute gimmick (it probably didn't help that GH I think was still even lower rated and the whole gimmick was that people would watch both rather than switching networks.) I just find it so... solid, but I'm prone to like anything Russell writes with Sam Hall (Hall's run after Russell's death in hindsight still had a lot of good stuff but that was when things were the show was already changing with the Buchanens who I *think* actually were all Hall's concept judging from his interview even though Russell was there.) Quinlan says in the piece that the network also complained about the writing--she wondered why they then fired her but kept the writing team (the only change was Peggy O'Shea was added to the writing team but that might have had nothing to do with anything.) BUT my point is watching that May episode is such a culture shock from the April one. Nancy Pinkerton (the article confirms she was fired, presumably by Stuart who wanted to sex things up) being replaced by Claire Malis is such a change--and suddenly Dorian is HORNY and seems preoccupied with sex (trying to seduce her accountant.) Farley Granger was fired as well, and the new Will Vernon is HORNY and suddenly is sexually fixated on Jenny, and just in the space of a month the show feels in many ways quite different despite the same writers. Ultimately, these changes were probably a good thing (well, Pinkerton should have never been replaced) as it led to some great stuff in the next 2-3 years and a big rating bump (helped by AMC and the GH phenomenon) but it is a big change that's not talked about much (probably because the Rauch turnover 7 years later was a much bigger change) As people have noticed Mitch has also uploaded 1973-74 clips of How to Survive a Marriage (which is fascinating and totally confirms the criticism of the episodes when Rosemary Pinz was on it, before they desperately tried to be more traditional soap, where it feels like a LOT of talk therapy. Not a bad idea for a soap, but obviously not going to quickly get an audience) and the 1973 episodes of ATWT and GL which are fascinating to me. Those are discussed in their own thread but still in the organ music era, it's fascinating how, for all their soapy goodness, at this stage they were *completely* in the style of how people (still) mock soaps. Lots of coffee, lots of makeup, LOOOOONG internal monologues, and organ music. Watching them back to back with the OLTL from a few years later (granted, the Dobsons had come to P&G soaps by the mid 70s to shake things up) or even comparing these episodes to the 1970 AMC episodes and that one 1969 OLTL, you REALLY see why people found the Agnes Nixon soaps to be so revolutionary (remember that some soap press refused to CALL them soap operas as they didn't think they fit.) I remember when I was researching my soap MA article there were several articles with the new college fanbase for these two shows (especially AMC) where they just said when they discovered them on tv they didn't even recognize them as soap operas. The gap in style really is so noticeable (and wouldn't be ten years later.)

I don't know about Mulcahey's involvement, though obviously he was a major part of the small writing team at the start. However, Loving had a more complicated creation, one I had confirmed 10 or so years back when I had a brief email correspondence with Dan Wakefield while I was researching my Nixon/AMC related MA thesis. Dan Wakefield, who passed away just last year, was a well regarded novelist most known for Going All the Way and Starting Over. He actually also wrote the screenplay decades later for 1997's film of Going All the Way with an amazing cast--that was a big mess but the director's cut released a couple of years back is worth watching. But I digress. Wakefield also wrote the 1976 book All Her Children, one of the first books to take soap operas seriously, and as anyone who remembers me on here, a book I champion all the time, which talks about how surprised he was to fall in love and become obsessed with AMC, and then examines soap operas and its fans in general as well as profiling Agnes Nixon. Around that time Wakefield actually created the show James at 16 (though I think network interference meant he didn't stay with it for its brief run.) But he remained close with Nixon, and they hatched a plan to create a soap opera together, and he would be the headwriter. It was his idea to set it on a college campus. In my emails, Wakefield, who was flattered anyone was interested in this aspect of his career, said he'd look for the outline and mail (!) a copy to me, but our emails petered out and he never seemed to find it. This was when it was still called Love Without End (which doesn't flow off the tongue but I still think is a better title.) Anyway, Dan realized just how much work and what a commitment being headwriter would be, and he amiably left the project, and it was, from his understanding, around this point when Nixon contacted Marland (at that stage in her career, Nixon didn't want to actually be a headwriter for a new show, but she did want to oversee it.) I believe Marland at the time only had cable soap New Day in Eden occupying him and it probably quickly became apparent that it was a non-starter (how I wish I could see more than the 5 minutes of an episode I've seen of that!) Knowing what we know of Marland I think the basic character/family setup of Loving was his work. But we now know that the combo never really worked--apparently Nixon insisted on giving plenty of notes on all the early scripts, which wasn't what was expected. etc.

As a teen I loved the return of Janet (and all her mirror talks) but that's a good point--I don't think they did ever explain why she was given the experimental surgery (and it's not like people would follow her later to see how the surgery worked out...) But Jane Cox was great, and Harold figuring it out lol

Thanks for that!

Yeah this would probably been just before 1995? Right when the station premiered. Oh I have a lot of respect for Marcus (I don't really know about her DAYS except what she says in her interview--I'll investigate ). For the msot part she seemed to understand how shows worked, and I think also it's impressive that she could handle "legit" soap as well as parodies like Mary Hartman Mary Hartman (it must have been kinda annoying that Norman Lear always got all the credit for that...)

Too bad these have no credits--but it should still be Agnes Nixon