Matt

Please keep posting those episode recaps your source is providing! If I can't see the episodes first hand, I'd love to read the daily recaps. Also, thanks to a screencap tweeted to me by the RetroTV twitter, the first episode aired was #1305 with an original broadcast date of December 4, 1967. Interestingly, this episode was taped on November 10, 1967, which seems to me to be a a relatively long lead time between tape & air (the script I have in my collection from February 1968 gives the lead as only a few days!). The RetroTV twitter said they *thought* this was the very first color episode, so that might explain the month-long production lead. In any event, the episodes aired thus far are... 12:00pm (9/29/14) - #1305 (Original Air: December 4, 1967) 12:30pm (9/29/14) - #1306 (Original Air: December 5, 1967) 12:00pm (9/30/14) - #1307 (Original Air: December 6, 1967) 12:30pm (9/30/14) - #1308 (Original Air: December 7, 1967) And don't think my OCD behind isn't copying those recaps, cast list, and episode numbers/dates to keep. lol

I loved how clipped, distinguished, & patrician Elizabeth Hubbard's Althea sounds during those Maggie/Althea scenes in contrast to the casual brashness of Gerald Gordon's Nick with Matt. I'm eager to see them together. Nick/Althea were a HUGELY popular couple on the show. Also, major credit has to be given to HW Rita Lakin. Her tenure on The Doctors is regarded as one of the best, most intelligent periods on a daytime soap opera and I thought her script here was absolutely on point. There were character moments & story movement & recap, but not a single thing felt forced, imo. Today's episode didn't play like soap opera for me as much as it played like a legitimate (not that soap isn't, but you get my meaning) dramatic series.

I'd always said that if they were to bring back and recast Laura Horton on DAYS, Judith McConnell would be perfect for that role.

Isn't that the story when Stephanie found out she was the mother of Brian Emerson (I think that was the character's name. He was played by a bunch of different actors over a 4 year span) that she'd given up years earlier?

To say that the entire Bambi Brewster story seems laborious has to be an understatement. When I typed up all of the Jon Michael Reed recaps for LoL for my Tumblr, I never thought that story would end. It simply drags on and on through weekly recap after weekly recap. And there seemed to be a HUGE revolving door of "B" level characters during this time period, too. No wonder the ratings dropped back down to cancellation levels after having risen considerably, from what I understand, in the mid-70s.

I'm so glad George is gone. I hate him.

I'd also venture to include Bill & Tess from Love of Life on that list. Granted, their story only lasted a few years before they killed Bill off in a ratings stunt (and then promoted the hell of it with ads telling viewers to watch & cry their eyes out over Tess weeping over him), but Gene Bua & Toni Bull marrying in real life while on the show (and staying married until Gene's death just a couple of years ago) make them contenders, imo, for pre-80s supercouple status.

http://soapworldclassicsoaps.yuku.com/forums/92/Search-for-Tomorrow/Search-for-Tomorrow#.VBJ7M_ldWSo

These are from the AOL run.

I saw that about Brooke earlier (especially Beth Allan's farewell tweet) and thought about you.

Bill Bell liked to reuse stories. A good example is a key child of a central family finding out their paternity isn't what they thought it was. In addition to Lorie Brooks, he did the exact same story with Ashley Abbott and then, later, with Ridge Forrester on B&B.

KT & Hugh's son, Christian Marlowe, was also an actor for a while and appeared on 'Love of Life' as Andy Marriott in the late 70s while both KT & Hugh were on Y&R & AW respectively. He later won an Olympic Gold Medal in Volleyball and is currently sports commentator, most notably with the Denver Nuggets. http://www.nba.com/nuggets/staff_directory/Marlowe_bio.html

I've always thought that Derek Hough from DWTS looks alot like Dennis Cole.

Hearing that Routh didn't want to play a gay storyline is kinda ironic in hindsight considering he played a gay guy on the short-lived sitcom "Partners" a few years ago.

I did a quick scan of this thread and I didn't see this posted, but when I stumbled upon this on youtube just now I knew I had to share it -- scenes from 1974, complete with the opening/theme IN COLOR. They're posted on a youtube channel dedicated to actor Joel Marston who played Owen Stratton on GH in 1974. As to who this character was, I have no clue. lol In any event, color GH from this time period is ultra rare and, noticing the relatively low view count on youtube, I thought it needed to be seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VvWT-lNwU4

I get giddy every time I see that trailer for The Purge: Anarchy because Judith McConnell is in it. Moreover, I've always thought she would make an excellent Laura Horton recast on DAYS.

Actually, Judith McConnell was on GH during the early/mid 70s. After she left GH, she went to NY and ATWT where she played Valerie Conway for several years, then to AW where she played Miranda Bishop for a while before ending up on Santa Barbara.

Bethel Leslie (the 2nd Maggie on The Doctors) transitioned to writing and even served as head writer for The Secret Storm for a bit. C. David Colson, who played Tom Hughes for several years in the 1970s, turned to writing and now goes by the name David Cherrill & is a script writer for DAYS and has written for OLTL & AW and once served briefly as HW for SFT.

I really do hate to self-promo, but I have several Tumblr pages dedicated to posting weekly newspaper recaps for various soaps in order (mostly the "Tune in Tomorrow" recaps that began in 1976 along with others if I can't find find those for that week). On one of them, I'm currently in the process of posting the weekly recaps for "The Doctors" and I'm up to early 1980. Nola just lost custody of Jessica thanks to Mona setting her up to be photographed (drugged) in an orgy & arrested with (planted) drugs on her. And Missy was just in a car accident after witnessing Vivica & Luke on a romantic date (a situation staged by Vivica). The above mentioned Brad, Darcy, Jeff, & Alan are involved in story at this point, as well. http://vintage70ssoaprecaps.tumblr.com/

I really must be odd man out because I HATED Branson as Shayne. Billy Kay was always my favorite, but I even liked West dim, not acting ass over Branson.

Oh, of course. Cancel it now that I've started watching it.

Yeah, I kinda gave up with the subtitles on the youtube eps. Thankfully, I figured out that if you open the Das Erste Mediathek page for VL in Chrome & then let Chrome translate the page into English, when you watch an episode of VL with the subtitles (in German) turned on (I believe this is the only one of the German soaps to post eps with subtitles), Chrome will actually translate the subtitles into English! Sometimes they fly by really fast & sometimes they're very literal in regards to German grammer, but it's MUCH easier to understand that youtube. Also, I'm very surprised that NONE of the German soaps are country restricted on their websites and all current episodes of VL, AWZ, & UU are free to watch (there's a per episode charge for GZSZ, oddly).

OMG! Kim going OFF on both Tanja & Sebastian ROCKED MY SOCKS! However, Thomas & Biggi (while really charming) are as dull as yesterday's dishwater. And Giselle really needs to get hit by a bus. Maybe douchbucket Thore can run her over with his chair. Of course, Thore falls out of his damn wheelchair so much I swear that Caro needs to have Ricardo install a seat belt for him. Sascha & Olli -- *swoon* Of course, Sascha has to be an asshat and tell Olli that even though they did the deed, it didn't mean anything because he was just "experimenting." Poor Olli. But I guess that's what you get when you're always falling head over heels for partially straight boys.

Chiming in on Team David. I am SO there!

I'm surprised that I've found out that you can actually watch current episodes of Verboten Liebe, Unter Uns, & Alles was zählt for free on their respective websites without country restriction. There's a per episode charge for GZSZ apparently. Also, if you translate the page into English (which I do in Chrome) and turn on the captions on the episode (VL offers this option) the translated page will actually translate the captions into English! Granted, they captions are quite literal and direct and sometimes they flash by REALLY quickly, but it goes a long way to figuring out exactly what's being said.