P.J.

Yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot lately too. Especially since it seems like celebs from my childhood have been dropping fast and furious lately.

I miss it so much too. I've been watching tribute vids on youtube and it makes me sad. With all the crap on all the tv channels we have nowadays, you'd think they could either rerun the show or revive it in some manner. The other thing is yesterday was Don Hastings' 83rd birthday. I was surprised to find out he's slightly younger than both Eileen Fulton and Kathy Hays, who were both born in '33. (Don was born in '34, if my sources are correct.)

Happy anniversary ATWT.

They do, and I'd expect them not to bother airing something opposite the final four game, but it seems late in the season to take an entire month off. Of course, Arrow will probably announce something similar---I think they just aired 5x17, which means they've got maybe 6 episodes left.

Wow...a month? Didn't they get a full season order?

Damn, Mamma Daxamite ain't playin'.

Probably. I think FMB did some kind of set purge. God only knows how old that set was. And bite your tongue. It may not have been "pretty", but it felt like a Midwestern farmhouse kitchen.

I think they moved in early '00. IIRC, they moved during Maura's maternity leave, and she had a little trouble finding her way around the new studio at first. Those credits are from spring of '99. Lorraine Broderick is HW (her stuff last aired in August of that year with the Parker paternity reveal). Carly is credited as Carly Dixon, and she divorced him and married Brad in May. (She first makes love with Jack in late July of '99. Giggle at my Carjack-centric memory quietly...please. :D) I can't recall a "defilement" of a special ATWT set. They did give Emma a new refrigerator once. At some point, they quietly traded it back.

personally, I always liked ATWT's (&GL's) sets better than Y&R's. Y&R's sets always reminded me of a museum---no one looked like they were allowed to touch anything. The P&G sets looked like they were lived in. Can you imagine if Marland were writing now? He'd love the freedom to write a true gay couple. Re: Luke/Noah and viewership---there was a lot of discussion at the time about whether or not a significant portion of Luke/Noah fans were watching the show or simply catching clips online and then acting as if they were the show. I mean, you can only have so many discussions about Van Hansis being an acting God before you want to gouge out your eyes and bitchslap an entire fandom.

I never thought Marland's show was boring. Yes, looking back I criticize, but as it happened, ATWT kept me glued to the set.

God...seriously? SETH? I don't remember that at all. I'm sure Marland played the beats of the story---and I'm sure he loved writing big, meaty, angsty stuff for Lisa Brown. It just continually skeeved me out, and giving Josh and Meg their HEA, with Iva forced to be a bridesmaid at their wedding was beyond the pale.

But that just makes me sound vain and shallow....lol I meant more along the lines of he's always playing the "guy with an edge", and never anything I've seen him has an ounce of relatability. And for a while there, it seemed he was everywhere.

I think the Josh character was an example of Marland retooling the character because he liked the portrayer so much. Fitchner's not exactly my cup of tea, but he acted his ass off in the role. Still, even with the intensive weight put on showing Josh "dealing with" his past, that the entire story sent a dangerous message about rape that was surprising coming from Marland. Other than Josh, I can't even think of a serious relationship Frost had in the role. Runyeon left not long after she started, Bryce wasn't an option. She probably did get lost in the shuffle, somewhat. Part of it was probably also just the reluctance of the audience to move past Steve and Betsy in general.

Wow...don't remember this guy at all. My guess would be that Tad's backstory was tweaked, and that guy didn't look like the high roller Tad was supposed to be. Frost may not have been as "beloved" in the role of Betsy, but it wasn't because of her acting ability. I've loved her in her work since then. The only thing I really disliked about Betsy during that time was her relationship with Josh/Rod---and that had zero to do with her and everything to do with excusing a rapist and forcing everyone around Iva to make her accept him back into her life.

Warren Frost has died. He played Jared Carpenter (Iva's bio-dad) in the late '80's and was on the original TP. He was also Lindsay Frost's father (Betsy), which I don't think I realized at the time, in spite of them sharing the surname Frost. :0

Michael and Laurie Park celebrated their 21st anniversary in January too.

Donnelly Rhoades (ex Philip Chancellor II. Y&R, ex Dutch SOAP) was on the Arrowverse crossover event playing "Agent Smith" (the man in the glasses). I recognized his voice first. He seemed a lot frailer looking than I remember.

Well...I kind of thought Em acted like she'd had a lobotomy during the Hal years...but I understand why TIIC paired them. Emily had degenerated into a cartoon by that point. And I kind of liked the fact it annoyed Margo. :D

That was one of the few times KMH was likeable as Emily.

It's literally the nicest I've been about SH in 16 years. Thanks for reminding me who RV played. It was bothering me.

Yeah, I grew to really loathe Holmes, but his early stuff with Ellen Dolan was still good. There was just a point (probably around '99) that I think he realized that he was clearly the second banana in that relationship, that he wasn't going to get meaty material anymore (the affair with Emily was just so wrong on so many levels, and trying to sell Holmes as a man who'd interest Emily on any level was redonkulous) and was simply on redial for his performance to the end. It's interesting that Holden pretty much became the understanding dad type (after having been a hothead in his younger days) while Tom, who should have been, given that his father was Bob, just seemed to do nothing but yell at his kid. The way he kept calling Casey "stupid" whenever that kid screwed up (after he was aged) just grated on my last nerve.

I don't mean to be dismissive of the relationship. And you're right...everything was more blatant under Marland. Family was always up in each other's business. For a long time, Frannie was the only sibling Tom had. Chuckie died in the early '70's. Lisa was supposedly hiding Scott, and Bob wasn't into fathering half the town like Hal, John or Victor Newman. Re: Babs/Sabrina/Bob&Kim...I was kind of shocked to realize years afterward that Bab's mother Jennifer wasn't some kind of saint. Being too young to remember her in any way, I'd always relied on the way Kim and even Bob spoke about her to build an image of her. I guess that's silly, given that it was a soap opera, but realizing Bob and Jen weren't some version of soul mates kind of stunned me.

Well....the thing is I don't exactly recall Tom/Frannie as being "close". I don't doubt over the years they were shown having a bro/sis bond...but Tom was out of Vietnam before Frannie was even born. He'd been married at least three times before she was a teen. He was protective of Frannie, and at the point you're talking about, he'd known Sabrina probably about a year. The other problem is that it's Scott Holmes, who a lot of the time, came off as cold and prissy in the role. The man rarely exuded warmth. But this is also Marland's Oakdale. So, I'm sure at some point, Sabrina was forgiven and accepted into the Hughes clan. I don't think Babs "ruined" Frannie/Darryl. Darryl was a lying dawg in the first place. It's completely different situation, going after your sister's man and having a ONS that happens to show up in town years later. Besides, being told that truth wasn't going to stop Frannie. She already knew he was a married man with a crippled wife when she started crushing on the man. Caroline was barely cold in the ground before Darryl was proposing to Frannie. I liked Frannie a lot. But sometimes she acted like the world owed her nothing but roses and rainbows. Yes, it's always better to tell the truth, and Babs' should've just told Hal from the beginning he wasn't Jen's father. But at the point Darryl came to town, Frannie expecting Babs to blow up her marriage to Hal to warn Frannie away from a douchebag liar seems a little much to expect. Barbara's reaction to Sabrina was more than just about Seth. She had a hard time accepting that Bob and Kim had had an affair behind her mother Jennifer's back, and it resulted in a child. I can't recall if the affair was well-known factoid around town or not before Sabrina's arrival. And even if it was, it's one thing to kind of accept that "something" happened, and seeing the living proof that your mother was cheated on, kwim? Kim had really stepped in and become a second mother to Barbara (as well as Betsy and Frannie, for that matter), and it really kind of tore at the image Kim projected to the town by then. I don't think there's any doubt ATWT had a hard time transitioning from the mold of soap opera they helped create to the "new" mold post GH-resurgence-Luke &Laura. But I think if you'd go back, most soaps would seem overwrought. I do think they particularly suffered under a string of bad HW's. Or if not "bad"---ones that didn't really fit ATWT, like the Dobsons.

I'm sure they grew to accept her (I can't recall Tom having a problem with her but I do recall Babs being upset because of what she represented).

I understand getting tired of what the "supercouple" became, when it took on some kind of treadmill quality. (OMG, Brooke and Ridge broke up more than Carjack...) But I never got tired of Michael and Maura's chemistry. I would have appreciated some variety in the story (Carly screws up usually grasping for money) and more actual lulls where they were just happy (I got one solid year between Sage's birth and Jack going off the bridge---that's really it.) re Holden: I can't imagine a worse fate than being stuck with Jon Hensley. You could practically hear him snoring through the role. At the point TIIC needed to bring on Rose to find something for Martha to do, they should have simply committed to a permanent breakup between Holden/Lily. But here's the thing---if you want to go there with Holden and Carly---don't write it as a skeevefest where they go at it at a children's camp and have his preteen daughter walk in on them. Just them kissing would have set off enough fireworks had they been walked in on. But because Lily had to be the injured party, Holden had to be leading both Carly and Lily on, and yet somehow walk away unscathed, while Carly nearly got her ass run over by a demented Lily. re Andy: I have to wonder if part of the reason why he wasn't recast is because Scott was married to Maura. Yes, they're all professionals, and people move on, and maybe Scott was just over acting ('cause he's never really done much else since.) But I'm not sure you want to test those waters. And I'm not sure a significant part of the viewers would have accepted a recast. We didn't watch one Chris grow up on the show. Paul was recast multiple times, and there were a lot of people I knew who despised Howarth in the role. Dusty had at least 15 years between recasts and don't get me started on retooled/revised/destroyed Craig under the Sheffer regime.