Khan

I remember how merciless many of us were at the time about Felix. His presence seemed to confirm for me my own, worst suspicions about Ron Carlivati and his attitudes toward gays and African-Americans. It's the reason why, to this day, I don't trust him to write either a gay character or one of color (or both) with any sensitivity or insight. Meanwhile, I wouldn't mind seeing Lucas back on the show permanently and paired off with another, male doctor, who is unquestionably brilliant and not apologetic about his sexuality, but who is also so closed off emotionally that it makes him seem arrogant and, at times, irascible or prickly (possibly because he's the scion of a well-to-do family who has mastered the art of keeping one's feelings and emotions close to the chest).

It was pronounced "Ghee." I'm kidding. Did Ron Carlivati really think Lucas/Felix were endgame? Aww. Bless his heart, lol.

ICAM, @All My Shadows. Watching Doug and Julie/Bill and Susan still in love with each other after so many years was like watching two people share a secret that only they knew about and no one else (if that makes any sense, lol). Compare that to the latter years of Luke and Laura, when it often looked as if Tony and/or Genie* were praying to get stabbed on the way to work so they wouldn't have to keep doing scenes with each other. DAYS spent the next three decades attempting to replicate the magic that the Hayeses shared. Some came very close; others didn't. But no one on that show made you believe in the power of romance like Bill and Susan Seaforth Hayes. Something that gets overlooked is how music used to play an integral part in the storytelling on DAYS - and that all began with Bill Hayes, too. Whether it was in the form of live performances from him, or Patty Weaver, or Gloria Loring, or Marilyn McCoo, or in those MTV-inspired montages that came to define the Al Rabin/Shelley Curtis era in the '80's, music really enhanced the storylines and helped DAYS stand out from the rest of the pack; and although it can be tough to watch DAYS now with its' Goodwill Store/Salvation Army production values, to me, what really hurts is that the show no longer has the budget for music. It's as if taking away the music took away the soul of the show, too. (*But mostly, it was Tony, lol.)

Trixie Norton was not much of a role, but I thought Joyce Randolph worked so well with Art Carney and Audrey Meadows. I just hope she had a rewarding life and that she knew how much "Honeymooners" fans appreciate her. May she RIP.

The only thing I remember about Alec Musser's Del was that time when he wore just a pair of decorative red sweatpants for Christmas at (I think) Wildwind.

I wondered whether his SaBa opening was going to be like the one he premiered on OLTL, with pictures of cast members sets against shots of the real-life Santa Barbara.

Whenever I think about GL, that set is one of the first things that comes to mind. It's amazing to me how long that set survived.

I wish her well, too. We have lost so many wonderful people from this industry lately. It feels like soap operas are just vanishing before our very eyes.

It's very depressing to be reminded of how cheap GL's production values had become in its' final years.

Eric.

May we all be that lively and inspiring at that age. God bless him. If/when DAYS decides to acknowledge Doug's passing - you know, fifteen years from now - I hope Kristian Alfonso will return for the memorial, and I hope Corday, Peacock and/or Sony will spring for a few extra bucks to replay him singing "The Look of Love," too.

I remember reading that as well. IIRC, Rauch was keeping the theme song, but he was going to premiere an entirely new opening.

That might have worked, too, although I was fine with her as nuLiza. Like I said before, I thought JL was good, just...different. I mean, it's not as if they replaced MW with Charity Rahmer, right, lol?

Now, more than ever, I advocate for digitizing and making available to the public all episodes of DAYS that Corday and Sony have archived. We are losing so many giants from this genre; and with them go the history of soaps themselves. Charge a subscription fee for that [!@#$%^&*] if you gotta, but if we can go out of our way to preserve all other, fading forms of entertainment, why couldn't we do the same for the soaps?

Several weeks ago, I said DAYS needed to reunite Doug and Dougie while they still had the chance. Now, that chance is gone. Getting me to cry for two people whom I've never met is not easy...but here we are. I'm reading the news of Bill Hayes' passing, and the tears are literally streaming down my face and onto my shirt that reads "Keep Calm and Date a Big Guy." You can't begrudge a man for living every single one of his 98 years to the fullest, but man, does this one hurt. In a way, it's tough for me to separate "Doug and Julie" from "Bill and Susan," just because the two seem so intertwined. After all, Bill and Susan met IRL around the same time that Doug and Julie did on the show, and they married roughly around the same time as well.* So, it's almost like you can't talk about the one without talking about the other as well, know what I mean? DAYS' longtime EP/director Al Rabin once said that the essential ingredient for every couple on his show was the belief that one loves the other more than they love themselves. Never was that more true than it was for Doug and Julie (and for Bill and Susan). All Susan had to do was to look up at Bill with those gorgeous, closeup-ready eyes of hers, and all Bill had to do was to return her look with one of his own - with eyes that remained impish and charming to the very end - and you just knew. Julie never would ache for anyone as deeply as she ached for Doug, and Doug never would recognize the best parts of himself the way he recognized them in Julie. Doug and Julie weren't soaps' first supercouple, nor were they its' most influential, but for me and for generations of others, they were its' most gratifying, because they proved to us all that love always wins. My heart goes out to Ms. Hayes, to her and Bill's loved ones, to everyone at DAYS and to fans of the couple and their love story (both on-screen and real-life) everywhere. May we all find that someone who cares for us and makes us want to be our best selves for them the way Bill and Susan Hayes always were for each other. *We'll just ignore the forced break-up, the remarriage, the second, forced break-up, the years apart (on-screen, not off) and the truncated reunion that rushed Susan off the show in the early '90's. (Damn that stupid show, lol).

Yep, lol. IIRC, too, they wrote it into the story by having Nola redecorate it in some weird, purplish hue. I could buy Nola "sprucing up" Company, but never to that degree, lol.

Didn't GL's Danny and Michelle start out as one of those forced marriages?

At this point, I'd settle for episodes uploaded from somebody's old Betamax tapes.

All those GL sets look(ed) terrible, IMO, especially when you compare them to the ATWT sets that @Liberty City posted in the ATWT thread. I don't know whether GL's budget was any smaller by that point than ATWT's, but you could tell just from looking at those sets on camera that GL had become so bare-bones. If Marshall Hilliard had been cast either after or instead of Jeff Phillips, he might've lasted longer on the show. As it was, he was, like, the fourth actor to play Hart (including the temp recast, Sean McDermott), so I think he was doomed from the start.

I joked once that I think even I played Patti Tate for a few episodes in the '60's, lol! I agree!

I agree.

I agree.

I agree.

In that case, good for him! I think ageism is a BIG problem in the film and TV industry, so I'm glad whenever any older writer who is 50+ lands a steady gig.

Is there any truth to the rumor that the producers found her working at some fast-food joint and offered her the gig? Or was it one of those "discovered at a drugstore" tales that PR people love to make up? (Personally, I thought the concept of someone with no prior acting experience landing a role on a hit TV series after being noticed at a fast-food restaurant would have made for a great Hallmark movie, lol).