Khan

But, Ted, Irna and the other guy created Alice and Tom, so....

They all owe their existence to Julie, since Don was brought on as a spoiler for her and Doug. No, wait! Actually, they owe their existence to Ted Corday, Irna Phillips and Allan Chase, because it was they who created Julie. Like sands through the hourglass, bitches!

Pat Falken Smith created the Bradys (and the DiMeras) to contrast with the Hortons and Andersons. Roman and Marlena were paired in order to create a spoiler for a potential Don/Marlena reunion (which, obviously, never happened). Just as Tony DiMera was introduced as Liz's ex-husband (er, still-husband, I guess?), and Vanessa DiMera was supposed to be a new love interest for David Banning. It all helped the new families become better established in Salem, but it's not the same as saying they were created FOR other characters.

This will be an unpopular opinion, for sure, but I think it's time DAYS retires the Horton tree trimming ceremony.

If you start quoting "Brown Penny," I'm outta here!

That isn't saying much.

Ron Carlivati is far too stupid to be the devil.

She ain't Lisa Rinna, but I'll take her back as Billie on DAYS.

That's okay. I'm still glad you made us aware of the article. David Milch has become another hero of mine.

If anyone could have turned out to be different from what anyone would have expected, it could have been David. For instance, he could have made his first appearance during the second season as a biker, the antithesis of his father, but maybe more in line with Daphne's side of the family. And the whole episode could have been about Frasier and Freddy attempting to mend the rift between Niles and David, but finding themselves at odds, too, over the best way to do it.

Thanks, @janea4old. David Milch is a brilliant writer, and a brilliant human being. Complicated, yes, but brilliant nonetheless. [!@#$%^&*] Alzheimer's.

I guess it would depend on when the story was told, but I'd love to have my mom's all-time favorite, Fred Williamson, in the part. That way, I could laugh and say, "So, I finally got you to watch DAYS!," lol.

Well, like we always say, it's called THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS for a reason. Bill Bell wanted his show to be about how the youth adapts to the challenges of their times. But that's a little hard to do when there's hardly any youth around, and those that are around stand on the sidelines while their parents and grandparents still act as if they're in their twenties and thirties.

I like Anders Keith, too. Instead of casting him as grown-up David, however, the new guys could've casted him as Frasier's new TA at Harvard: still cute, still goofy, still riddled with neuroses. (By the way, did I hear correctly that, in one episode of the reboot, Frasier gives David a "B" on his term paper? I'm sorry, but I find it incredible how Frasier's nephew also would be one of his students. That doesn't sound something you could get away with at a real university.)

Oops, I hit a paywall.

Unfortunately, I was born on a Saturday, lol.

Exactly. There was a time when new sitcoms were so bogged down by their premises - most likely as a reaction to the success of shows like "24" and "Lost" - that they left writers no room to deepen their characters. The first season of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" is pretty rough, but at least you can see them figuring out slowly how each member of the ensemble relates to Mary - Lou as the father figure, Rhoda as the best girl friend, Murray as the colleague and best guy friend, Phyllis and Ted as the antagonists (who aren't evil so much as they are irritating). I've said it before, and I'll say it again: this new series doesn't need David. It's like they wanted Niles to be there, but since David Hyde Pierce said no, they brought on Niles' son instead. But the truth is, the new series doesn't need ANY surrogate for Niles, or any surrogate for other past characters, for that matter. It really needed to be its' own animal, with the Frasier-Freddy relationship as the bridge between the two, and everything else either feeding into that dynamic or presenting an obstacle to it. I also think they needed to wait until the second season - provided, of course, that there IS a second season - before bringing in anyone from the old shows - and that includes Lilith. The new series really needed the entire first season just to figure out what kind of series it wanted to be.

RS left OLTL for the first time in '87, so she would have been available to play Pamela, depending on when the Dobsons would have needed her and whether she still was on OLTL at that point. It's a shame RS never appeared on the show, though. I think she would have made a fantastic addition to the show - if not as Pamela, then as another character.

I would include AW. NBCD just wouldn't leave their shows alone.

For some reason, I do remember reading in one of the soap mags at the time that Haidee Granger rubbed many people at the show the wrong way.

For sure, I would have introduced a brother or half-brother for Marlena at some point. And since this is DAYS we're talking about, he would be a love interest for Carrie, lol.

Please tell me Addie Walsh was told beforehand, or else that would have been a very soapy moment, lol.

So, Pamela was your basic mix of Alexis Carrington and Y&R's Vanessa Prentiss. And did they really have Pamela and Sophia get into a pie fight? LOL!!

Now there (Samantha's long-lost child) was an opportunity to introduce an African-American character with ties to one of the main families on DAYS. They could have said that Samantha got pregnant by a black man - perhaps, an O.J. Simpson-type, who was a successful professional athlete-turned-actor - but gave up the baby, because of her career, and because she was afraid her family never would accept a half-black grandchild. Even better, they could have revealed that Samantha turned to prostitution when her acting career had stalled, and that her child was fathered by one of her johns.

I like your ideas, @DramatistDreamer! Those definitely could have worked!