P.J.

Yeah, so totally not his fault. He's on ATWT for their last year as Bob and Kim Hughes' son Chris. It's Danny's charm (and the fact I watched "Little Billy" grow up) that keeps me from ragging on Bill and his attitude the last two years of GL. He's borderline obnoxious, and certainly not acting like a Lewis (which I guess is debatable..lol) but I mostly blame that on Dinah's influence. Which makes him act like she's the only sister he had.

Or Edmund. Ol' Eddie is right up there. Wasn't this Cosgrove's first story? I think we were supposed to be shocked that "Little Bill" was all grown up, yet didn't really remember his sister's BFF looked remarkably like this random chick he met. Or that Beth is at least 18 years older than Bill.

Well, at least you skipped the brief (but remarkably horrible) Ryan Brown (son of Sandra Brown the writer) era as Bill. Yeah, love Danny Cosgrove, hate his pairings other than Lizzie.

While she's all wrong for Harley, she might've made a good Dinah.

I honestly wasn't expecting much when she took over the role of Carly's sister. I assumed someone who'd spent their time playing some sweet ingenue type wouldn't really fare well against Maura. But she held her own.

It was a line more suited to one of Nola's fanstasies, that's for sure. lol.

Thanks! I didn't realize she was that much older. I guess because they played characters the same age, I assumed they were.

I know she had earned that comeuppance, but Vanessa screeching "you...YOU VIXEN!" like it was the worst thing she could call the person she hated most in the world will never not be funny to me.

Didn't Beth Maitland win it the year after Judi? She couldn't have been any older.

Looking back, I thank God Cady McClain came on the show. Otherwise we may never have gotten Jack and Carly. I'm convinced Goutman and Sheffer loved Craig that much. @MLH Phillip is probably one of those characters that you have to know from the beginning to tolerate his [!@#$%^&*] moments. I know for many Reva defines GL, but I would say her and Phillip are neck and neck, in terms of importance. I think the failure (real or perceived) in the Phillip recast with John Bolger kept them from even attempting to recast Reva. Phillip was always a character viewers wanted back. And he's probably even more teflon than Reva, as the fans always seemed to be ready to forgive him, even though he kept betraying Rick over and over.

OH HONEY....not only did I have to put up with Hunt Block's "acting" on GL, he spent 5 BLEEPITY BLEEP YEARS coming between my Jack and Carly on ATWT. One of the most overhyped actors in daytime. PERIOD.

Beth in '89-'91 is nearly a completely different and sane character. She's grounded and the voice of reason.

It is a lot weird, just in terms of time. Phillip and Beth (Grant and Judi) were together less than a year before she took up with Lujack. They broke up when Mindy turned up pregnant, and never really got back together. Beth and Lujack were together longer, before he died in Nov '85. John Bolger and Judi were briefly a couple before she left in '86. It's really the teenage zeitgeist that they captured that made them enduring. There was something about the way they were each other's first true love and how they bonded because of the traumatic events in their lives (he found out he wasn't a Spaulding, she was raped by Bradley). It's kind of the same thing with Josh/Reva. They initially were only involved for a year before Robert Newman left the first time. But they ended up being played by the same actors throughout the run. (I can't even recall anyone ever being a short recast for either of them, which is kind of amazeballs.)

Just as an aside---if you think soap fans are crazy, you ain't never met comic book fans. I learned this while watching Arrow. There were "purists" who thought Oliver and Laurel belonged together because that was comic book canon, even though Stephen Amell and Katie Cassidy had zero chemistry. The other problem is that there are different series of "realities", where other pairing hook up/play out. GL had supercouples, Quint/Nola, Josh/Reva, Phillip/Beth. But if you mean if they "went adventuring" like Luke/Laura, Anna/Robert, etc....then I guess the answer would be no. Of those, only Quint and Nola ever really went on an adventure. Guiding Light didn't really do those type of stories. (Harley and Mallet did so some crime solving in the early '90's). But Guiding Light didn't have a cop as a central player until Rusty in the mid-80's. They really didn't have "action adventure" type characters. As much as I love Billy and Vanessa, and think they get short-changed in the discussion of GL's best couples (thanks to being sandwiched and overshadowed a bit by signature couples like Quint/Nola, Josh/Reva and Phillip/Beth) I don't think they would qualify as a supercouple. Which probably does work in their favor, because it never seems to me like they're being forced together. (as opposed to say **** and Vanessa, where man0whore is suddenly supposedly reading poetry to somehow "prove" how well he and Van are matched. RME but, que sera, sera.)

It's funny, you know I've been rewatching GL, and I've forgotten so much, it's not funny. It's like being spoiler free....but not quite. lol

Well, by that time, Manning would've been in the league nearly ten years. You've would've had to been living under a rock to not have heard of him.

Okay, because I had to know, and I happened to stumble down the 2008 rabbit hole (which may make me a bit of a masochist)...Feb 28, Beth renames baby Bernadette. She was up at 2 am (when there's not much on but old movies, infomercials and classic sports clips.) She wants to name her baby after someone who's a leader, able to be her own person, a winner and able to stand in the pocket unafraid. Peyton Spaulding. God...Beth did love Alan. BLECH.

I'll bite---what does Blake have to do with it?

Ooops...yep. How could I forget that? He dies when Billy takes the Towers. D'oh. lol

I'm not really sure she married Rick in the '00s. I know he claimed paternity to keep Alan away from Peyton. I know (or at least think) Rick and Beth married in late '89 after Phillip faked his death to avoid going to prison in the Neil Everest case. Had Jordan's absence in '93 been treated like a maternity leave (with a certain end date, I mean) he and Van probably wouldn't have divorced. (Or had what's his name been better received in the role...darn it, Dynasty dude. I'm too lazy to look up his name. Geoffrey whoever) But I don't think it was really in Van's nature to cheat on someone if she was in a relationship. It may be splitting hairs, since she had no problem sleeping with Billy when he was married to Nadine. And she's (imo anyway) really in love with Billy when she's sleeping with Fletcher. (She does kiss Billy when she's nearly engaged to Fletch, but well...girls' prerogative and all that...lol) Did Ross and Van have a fair shot at reuniting in '87? In hindsight? Probably not. Even though she and Billy had been at odds for most of '86, they were still in love and trying to make it work. The issues over Dinah seemed more than slightly forced. I think GL pushed Ross and Van together too fast (from what's up, it seems like they started to fan those flames up around March and Ross is asking her to marry him in August) And Alan's making goo-goo eyes at her by at least June. That's not a lot of time to reestablish a connection, even with a newfound child to anchor them. Van and Ross never had a real shot after that. There's a little possessiveness on Van's part when she returns in '89, but she quickly gets sucked into Billy's situation with Dylan, and Ross is chasing Holly. GL gets caught up in May/September romances---Ed/Eve, Ross/Blake and Van/**** in the '90s.

LOL..Billy and Van would always have a slight edge for me, but otherwise I feel the same. It's funny---I just realized Van was never fought over in a triangle. (I do not count Billy's pissin' match with Fletch...Fletch was always the also ran in that contest. LOL)

It really is kind of amazing to see the difference in the writing from the pre "supercouple" era to the supercouple era. I mean, GL's Ben&Eve and Jackie&Justin were starcrossed and popular and all that---but they got married and divorced and had other relationships. You can always keep that door open just a crack to facilitate something down the road.

Part of the problem was shows grew adverse to ending couples seen as "fan favorites". I liked Blake and Ross, at least at first. And I can understand why Ross needed a stable relationship after nearly 15 years of lovin' on the town's womenfolk. But at about affair number #3, they should've been over. Even Josh and Reva took breaks from each other (at least when either RN or KZ left.) And no matter my feelings about ****, the show might've been better served when Maeve wanted to leave by letting her divorce **** and keeping a (arguably) popular leading man. I don't recall them having an abundance of them at this time.

How Ross, Van and Josh ended up the straight-laced, moral pillars of Springfield is a little strange. LOL. Ross and Van should've been that couple of old lovers that had a hot affair and turned the town on its ear.

Grant had ooodles of chemistry with Sherry. Then again, I think everyone did. Even Frankie D.