P.J.

Well, you can't have everyone have a tie to the Hughes family---you end up with B&B, which is incestuous to the point of ridiculousness. The important point is that there's balance. There were certainly other characters besides Hughes' that could have been brought back. Why they never recast Scott Eldredge (who's still related to a Hughes) is beyond me.

Oh. I'd forgotten they were dating at this time. It's just odd to me (the character relationship I mean, not the actors dating). I can never remember how long it was before John found out and if that affected his relationship with Iva.

Yeah, it ended his relationship with her. Which at the time struck me as really ironic, since it was about the only lie she ever told on the show. My guess is their relationship lasted a year, give or take. I think she was even pregnant with their son MJ when he broke it off.

It was a really odd hook up---he'd been with her mother, and married to her worst enemy. Marland usually stuck to the "opposites attract" theory, and in some ways John and Iva were too alike---both kind of morose sticks in the mud.

At the time of the Aaron paternity story, was there anyone you sided with or didn't side with? At the time I remember always sympathizing with Iva, but then I didn't watch every day.

Doesn't it seem like there's a big change, stylistically, in ATWT starting around 1991 or so?

By the time everything came out, I was definitely on Iva's side. Here she had sacrificed to raise this child who Julie really couldn't (saving Holden from a lot of misery, given his new marriage to Lily and the strain the family was already under given the Holden/Caleb feud after the ONS with Julie). It related to her issues so beautifully---having been adopted herself and not being able to raise Lily.

Iva had always been the one who got kicked in the teeth---she got shipped to Henry and Elizabeth's when money was tight, to get raped by Josh. She has to co-mother Lily with a woman who hates her. She has to "accept" her family forgiving Josh, to points (like her being in Meg's wedding party) that it's ridiculous. She loses Kirk to Ellie. Even Emma was very upset with her when the relationship with John came about.

So she spends a year or more rearranging her life to care for Holden's kid, loses John, at one point is raising two toddlers on her own, and when it all hits the fan, Holden basically walks in, demands his kid and she's just expected to hand him over without a word. (At the time, Holden was kind of an emotionless SOB, thanks to losing half his brain...)

I don't know if it was a stylistic change...but for a while, Marland's writing was really dark and heavy. You had the Crawford murder going on, Angel's incest story playing out, Lily got blown up, Hal was supposedly shot dead undercover, James was running around town....the bad thing (at times) about Marland was he wouldn't arbitrarily "happy things up" if it didn't fit the characters or story. He didn't really do camp, other than with Shannon. There was comedy, but it came in moments, not entire arcs.

I think John and Iva were really only paired because Brygmann and Brown were dating at the time. It did however play into the Julie/Holden/Aaron paternity secret, since she lied to him and went along with letting everyone think Andy was the father.

I believe that's part of the 45th anniversary shoot. I believe it was a longer photo, with cast on either side of this "nucleus". The 50th cast photo is them all on one stage, and I know somewhere I've got the Carly/Jack/Julia segment of this photo saved.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HExGuuVa-3o

*weeps with JOY* THANK YOU!

I <3 Michael Park.

Thanks. I thought they had, but sometimes my memory plays tricks on me.

Someone remind me...did Gina Tognoni's Dinah return before or after Jerry verDorn left for OLTL? They have a nice (nonromantic) vibe as Clint and Kelly on OLTL.

I think the thing about the Parker/Faith scene was simply to give them some kind of future direction. I thought it was sweet, and was disappointed it wasn't part of the last episode. Of course, they could have spent the entire week tying up loose ends...but at least Parker was a legacy character. It's the time spent assuring us Janet would be "happy" that bugged the crap out of me.

I FLOVED Kirk and Iva. I don't know what the fascination was with Kirk and Ellie. Other than the obvious---Ellie was a hot piece of ass, where Iva was a cold fish. It's really sad, 'cause that was really the only romance Iva got on the show.

This also has Glenn Harrington's brother, who has the awful feathered hair of the era. I do not remember reading about him or anything. Who played him?

That's Chris Durham. He was one of the Matt McCandlesses on Capitol, and he was the first Silas Whitman (the smarmy congressman Molly was having an affair with) that sabotaged her car when Jack showed up in NY after he took off after Brad's death.

I don't remember any significant story when he played Glenn's brother.

And thanks for posting that interview with Ben. Sigh...that cover was the first time I was really aware of soap mags. I was amazed to see Hal and Barbara on the cover. Little did I know ATWT barely got any soap coverage.

Apparently Goutman told Soaps in Depth that the finale was cut by 12 minutes and there were good scenes with Lisa cut, including her scenes with Bob and Kim, and he wanted to make them available online, but wasn't allowed.

I'd like to know why, when they did put scenes that were cut from the finale on-line. The three I remember were Holden/Lily, Parker/Faith, them with Carjack, and one with Craig and Rosanna.

I can't believe anyone would begrudge the actors submitting themselves for their work. If hacks like Vanessa Marcil or Drew Tyler Bell can win for a couple of months' work, certainly being on a canceled show shouldn't disqualify Maura, Michael or Colleen from contention.

And honestly, having suffered through six months of Y&R and it's bland, robotic "suspense" delivered (mostly) by actors who seem to be on autopilot, I'm even more impressed by our actors who took crap and made it seem urgent.

I think any "secret plan" Kirk was hatching was about wooing Lily, the boss' daughter. I believe at some point, he admitted that to Iva (or his ex-lover, Addie). I don't remember him conspiring with Spencer, but I do remember Craig having the feeling he knew/had met Kirk before he came to Oakdale, which I don't think was ever explained.

That clip kind of freaks me out. EF was acting, HBS is freakily like Margaret Colin, and Colleen Zenk looks exactly the same---save the length of her hair.

Sigh...I wish P&G would get their head out of their ass and put their stuff online.

Marland never let anyone say anything bad about Lily, unless they were bad or "misguided," themselves. In the good old college TV room when ATWT was on, the dorky joke when someoene walked in was to say, "But how does Lily feel about this??" or in a super serious tone "How is Lily today???"

Or how the entire town would literally STOP dead in their tracks to celebrate Lily's August birthday. *eyeroll* I loved DM, he was a wonderful storyteller, and probably the BEST I've ever seen at balancing and timing stories. But DAYUM, he had a blind spot as big as the Sun for Lily and MB. To the point where all his other ingenues (who were arguably just as talented as MB) got NOTHING for story unless they managed to get out of Lily's teen/young adult circle. Lily was almost as bad as Y&R's Cricket in the "every man falls in love with them" department. I remember loving John's newfound son Duke simply because he refused to kiss Lily's ass. If Michael Louden had been as conventionally hunky as say Shawn Christian, no doubt Duke would have been one of Lily's victims too.

The Julia Larrabee saga, while "horrific", wasn't a Julia Lindsay (Jack's first nut-job wife) return. Julia Larabee was "simply" a nurse with the same first name as his psycho bitch ex-wife so in a confused moment, he would "connect" with the name, and later so he could find out about the psycho and think he might not want to return to Oakdale.

It was just really poorly written...I remember kvetching at the time that somehow Jack had managed to cross the Mississippi river from Illnois into Missouri, where he was hospitalized. And honestly, if TIIC hadn't hired Sarah "three time emmy award winner" Brown, the story would have been hastily wrapped up in six weeks. HS and CG practically wet themselves hoping SFB would grace ATWT with her magnificence forever. So much so, when CG hired Julie Pinson years later, he nearly handed the show over to her to keep her in what amounted to the same role (only sluttier).

Park was never leaving the show. Sarah Brown sucked in the role, mostly because she came off as an unsympathetic, using bitch. It's the one and only time Carly was ever given the upper moral hand, and most of the town still managed to take the other woman's side, or at least declined to help Carly try and get Jack help. It made me madder than spit to see Lisa basically tell JuliaII that it was more important that she get fucked every night than an infant (Sage) have her father. Even Holden refused to intercede with Jack when it came to trying to get him medical attention (to see what might have been causing his amnesia.) And then that rat bastard helped Julia break in to Carly's home and find out where Carly had lured him to (Montana), telling him his mother was sick. That's ONE reason I never EVER bought the Holden/Carly affair. They never liked each other.

I forget exactly what EF's medical emergency was, but I remember finding out later it was serious.

Okay, I so wasn't going to admit to the ST:TNG connection...but since you posted the pic...

I can only imagine the chemistry had Joe Breen schemed with Carly...Doug Wert was like the second Caleb. Only not as carbon-copy in looks. Yvonne Perry---ugh. At least when Martha Byrne played the poor little rich girl, her poutiness and spoiled rotten persona hinted at more. Oh, and she was like 15, not 30 trying to be 18.

I think the story of Scott got derailed when Joe Breen was "let go" after being diagnosed as HIV+. It's too bad, I thought he was exactly what Oakdale needed, an outsider to stir things up without being "EVIL" like Tonio or James. The problem was he had NO chemistry with Ellen Dolan (or whoever was playing Margo at the time) and the rivalry with Tom felt forced. (Of course, it didn't help Scott Holmes has two modes, pissed and pissed like a wet hen...)

Doug Wert came off like the class clown.

I still miss ATWT so much. Thanksgiving just wasn't the same without the annual Hubbard Squash. Christmas seems hollow this year with no Hughes/Snyders/Ryans to watch.

Anthony Herrera was on freakin' Y&R????

No. Freakin'. Way.

How ironic it was Hogan's one and ONLY payoff. And Katie was swiftly turned into his bumbling, BUBBLES-Y, quirky "heroine".

Hope dated Ben?!?!? I only (barely) remember Ben as Eve's(?) bf/husband.

Quick question---remember that basketball bachelor party? Who's was it? Ross's or Hamp's?

I liked Brooke Alexander much better than the second Samantha, Sheri Alexander.

I don't think people outright hated Noelle Beck, but I think there was a lot of resistance to her simply because of the way Martha's departure was handled. Personally, I stopped caring about Lily long before Martha left. Her Lily was a whiny little self-righteous hypocrite. I honestly think the show would have been fine without a recast Lily, period.

I actually liked Heather Rattray in the role too.

Interesting tidbit, Lindsay Frost is married to the actor who played Nick Costello (James' henchman who infiltrated the OPD and burned up in the Ruxton Hills fire).

Sucks that there's a thread in cancelled soaps for ATWT. I don't think I've accepted it yet.