Khan

Yeah, I've read somewhere that the storyline w/ Vargas increased SFT's ratings by a half-million. Unfortunately, many checked out, or checked out again, when the story finished.

Was that the entire cast at that time? Shouldn't there also be Alan and Elizabeth (and Phillip)?

I still think my idea of Rick Bauer nearly dying and reuniting with his birth mother, Leslie, in Heaven was a good idea for GL's finale. Just as I still would like to have seen Phillip reunite with Elizabeth (in the flesh) and with Jackie (in spirit).

Dear God, did anyone "get" Becky Lee in the '90's?

The "Salem Stalker" storyline was nowhere near being DAYS' finest hour.

This is the kind of story, by the way, that I would have loved to see on daytime BITD.

As much as I loved watching Erika Slezak, Robin Strasser and Kim Zimmer in the same scenes, I have to admit that, IMO, Slezak and Strasser often overshadowed Zimmer. Maybe it's because Zimmer hadn't been on OLTL for as long as the other two.

IA. I believe there was room enough on GL for the Bauers AND the Spauldings AND the Marlers AND the Norrises AND the Thorpes AND the Reardons AND the Chamberlains AND the Lewises AND the Shaynes.

I wouldn't have minded Armand Assante as Rico. Especially because it was during the mid-to-late '70's and you had big-name, high-energy and decidedly ethnic actors like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino playing ethnic roles in iconic movies like "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Taxi Driver." Assante brought some of that to TD and to daytime; and having him portray Rico, rather than Mike, would have better exploited that quality. But I don't think I could buy Chandler Hill Harben in ANY role. IDK why, but he doesn't captivate me as a viewer.

I'm just glad they never had Dr. Bob go through some midlife crisis and marry a girl who was barely out of diapers.

If nobody else needed to sing the ADW theme song after Aretha sang it, then why did the producers have Boyz II Men come in and redo it for the last season?

Oh, well. He made his bed, etc.

Which was okay by me, since she was handled badly from day one.

I'm not going to lie or exaggerate: ever since I've heard about Manafort and Cohen, I've been downloading Pointer Sisters videos on YT like a mofo. It just seems appropriate to bring out Sister Ruth, Sister June and Sister Anita to help me celebrate!

Unfortunately, having Beyonce do the tribute would have re-opened old wounds.

Now I know why I've never liked roller coasters.

This is like "BlackKklansman," but instead of the KKK, you're infiltrating conservatives, lol! Sadly, though, I don't believe the GOP will ever take Russian interference seriously. If anything, they see it only as something that works in their favor.

On the one hand, you could say it was due to Viacom's takeover, but I think the real explanation goes much deeper. In BET's case, I think the trend away from airing music videos had a lot to do with the criticisms levied against the network by many, prominent African-Americans regarding the kinds of videos that they were airing. When they would still air videos from rap and hip-hop artists (and remember, not all the videos produced during that period passed BET's "smell test"), they were edited and/or censored heavily, or allowed to run during off-peak (meaning, late night) hours. However, even after being edited and censored and pushed off prime time, what made it to air often left a bitter taste in viewers' mouths, especially where the depiction of African-Americans, and African-American women in particular, were concerned. I mean, it's a little tricky for a network that's geared ostensibly toward celebrating our best Blackness, as well as being a voice for a market that has been marginalized elsewhere, now to run videos that feature young, undereducated Black men flashing more cheap gold than Junebug Slade, and being flanked by jiggly "hoochie mamas" showing entirely too much titty and ass. (I hated it when Taylor Swift took her cheap, easy shots at those aspects of our music videos in her own video for "Shake It Off," but damn if she wasn't right.) Simply put, I think BET "walked away from music," or from music videos, because what we had been putting out there was not us at our best. Plus, BET has always catered to "urban" audiences...but not necessarily to non-affluent "urban" audiences, which is probably the biggest market today for "urban" music. Don't get me wrong, I still love me some Donnie Simpson and "Video Soul." But, to me, BET always gave off a strong "bougie vibe," and an old vibe -- and that was before I knew that it was founded by the same family who founded Ebony and Jet magazines, practically the African-American guides to bougie living. Even now, when I do watch BET for stuff like the BET Awards, I get the sense that they'd be much happier running Anita Baker videos 24/7. Remember when MTV believed that grunge was a real revolution, and that Kurt Cobain was its messiah? I don't want to minimize Cobain's importance to his generation, but it really shows to go how desperate MTV was to stave off the coming of hip-hop.

Yep. That disregard was practically built into the network's conception. Cable TV was on the rise, so MTV set out from the start to cater to viewers who were younger, less affluent, and most decidedly midwestern and white. Their attitude was that those youths weren't living in places that had a plethora of ways with which to occupy their time (like teens living in major cities such as NYC, L.A., and even Chicago did), so they were the perfect, captive audience for an all-music video channel. Why else would they eventually do Spring Break and summer remotes from places like Daytona and Ft. Lauderdale? To the average MTV viewer of the day, that was closest they were ever getting to the beach. MTV never wanted to acknowledge any African-American-influenced genre, because, in their minds, their target audience (again, white kids from "flyover country") weren't interested. Therefore, I don't think it was just a coincidence that MTV ceased being a music network once rap, "gangsta rap," hip-hop, and all the affiliated sub-genres became mainstream. They didn't understand it, didn't know what to do with it, and frankly, didn't care for it at all. Frankly, it'll be hard for any awards show (or other show) to do an Aretha tribute, because she was so inimitable.

I've said the same about MTV's attitude toward rap and hip-hop in general. The network did not want to acknowledge those burgeoning musical genres until it had to; and even when it did, it did so in the most sanitized, "user-friendly" way possible with crap like "Yo! MTV Raps!".

"In the Heat of the Night" must be one of the cheapest shows to purchase. It really gets around.

Paul Raven meant Robert Getz.

I think it was Bunim's attempt to emulate Y&R's lighting, which was similarly shadowy.

Well, I'd have to agree with her. Autotune IS ridiculous. And it will never cover up the fact that yo' ass Can't. Sang.