P.J.

Hated Rose. For probably the first three months, it worked as a gimmick, gave Byrne the opportunity to "stretch". It went downhill fast the more Rose intergrated with Oakdale, and seemed to completely forget she was a con artist and started treating her like a Joisey PrincessLily. I hate that Scott Hoylrod was tied to her---I'm sorry---Byrne looks a good fifteen years older than him. I don't think he ever truly got a fair shot at a storyline of his own after that.

Count me a "no" to that too. It was so out-of-character for Margo to start having sweaty, gotta-have-it-everywhere fantasies, and I really didn't see what either woman would see in Doc. There was a lot more potential between Jess and Marshall before the "nomightmeanyes" rape. And the less said about Margo's sex life, the better.

I never thought of Kim as "naughty". She was aloof, determined, and mysterious. The things she did, such as sleeping with Bob, happened on impulse. She did not commit her sins maliciously or to cause intentional harm to Jennifer. She was daytime's Greta Garbo, and quite enigmatic. It was an interesting era for ATWT. Truthfully, I prefer it over anything that came before or after.

"Naughty" as in less than the pure, pillar-of-the-community, "kiddo" scion of Oakdale that she became.

Melinda's appearance puts Chuckie's death in 1978.

I would pay to see early Kim as Jennifer's "naughty" sister. PAY.

My understanding is that Tom was driving when the accident (that killed Chuckie) occurred. Michael Shea was already dead by that time. Oddly, Chuckie's death isn't mentioned at all in ATWT's history book, the only time frame I can put on it is early '70's , with the last actor to play the part (probably) was David Perkins.

The last mention of Chuckie is about Don becoming buddies with the boy during his dalliance with Lisa.

What did you guys think of Edwina Walsh?

Rita Lloyd is so underrated. Lucille Wexler scared the hell out of me when I watched GL, and Edwina was the ultimate in reptilian mothers. LOVED her.

I think the analysis sounds negative. I'm sure if the same stories were airing today, they'd be pulled apart to the nth degree too. It doesn't make Marland less of a complete, multi-layered storyteller.

I'm not saying the criticisms aren't accurate or valid, but it's so hard to recapture the details of the stories so many years later. What I know is that families interacted, every action had consequences, and people had honest motivations, even if they were the stupidest decisions of their lives. I may see Marland through rose-colored glasses, but he is definitely the gold standard. The idiots now are simply gold-colored [!@#$%^&*].

Re: Carolyn Crawford....it's the one time (or the most obvious) Marland rewrote one of his stories to suit his fan base, and it was a huge mistake. Rex Smith was hardly Olivier...and if I remember correctly, wasn't there a writer's strike that played into it somehow?

The thing about Barbara and Frannie was that Frannie had gotten on her moral high horse about Babs' ONS with Darryl, resulting in Jennifer, and lying to Frannie about it when Frannie was getting close to Darryl. At the point it happened, it wasn't any of Frannie's business, and she herself had developed feelings for Darryl while he was married to Caroline.

Pretty sure Krueger simply went to jail off-screen.

Ellie was my least favorite Snyder. I think any censure she got from her family was over the fact she lied to Kirk about the abortion. I think this was after Lily's miscarriage (and lord knows Lily's feelings were always to be put first by everyone she knew...) and while Iva was raising two toddlers practically on her own.

Ellie looked like a selfish slacker.

Oh, I wasn't kidding when I said it was awful. There's some story about how it was considered "lost" until they found a print in a warehouse somewhere in '09.

It's just strange. Like catching Anthony Herrera in an old Rockford Files episode.

Was this after he left GL?

Don seemed to be accepted so immediately when he took over as Mike, even though Gary Pillar must have been pretty popular in the role. I guess he had such a warm presence.

One of those old soap magazines has him at a party in one of those white jumpsuits Elvis would have worn, super-tight. I miss the days when just about anyone would go out in that type of thing

It was like '81, '82. So it's towards the end of Mike's run, but I think he was still doing the soap. OMG---Don wasn't the original Mike?

It was very weird seeing him in more casual '80's wear instead of his ever-present suit-and-tie. My understanding is that it's considered a "cult classic". TCM occassionally runs it as an "underground" movie. It was introduced by Jane Powell, which was weird too.

OMG...I am watching the cheesiest movie, Carnival Magic, starring Don Stewart. It features a talking chimp.

The only good thing is seeing Don in early '80's form.

No Nancy?

And who's the kid next to Frank Runyeon? I understand the babies in the pic not getting a credit, but why Pintauro does and not that kid seems unfair.

Ben Hendrickson quit in '91/'92, that's why they killed Hal off. I think he came back a year later, and they said he'd been in the witness protection program.

As you stated,there was a lot of negativity to Kim getting involved so quickly with Nick and they were in fact married off quickly (not years of complications to keep them apart).Then once they were married,there was nowhere to go.The Dobsons left and new writers decided to kill off Nick(or was that the Dobsons again on their second go round?) He was on from Jan 80 till Sept 82.

When dying,he made Betsy promise not to see Steve,which set in motion the whole Steve/Betsy saga.

That's one of my earliest memories of ATWT. KH got hate mail over that?

Per SOD (7/5/11) Bryan Cranston auditioned for the role of Tom Hughes in the late '80's which went to Scott Holmes.

I don't think they ever killed her off. Her medical problems simply existed to explain Aaron's absences.

I'm always so confused by the timelines with the Aaron story. I know in some mid-1993 episodes John and Iva are back together. I can't remember if he knew by then. In late 1993 he was going to sue her for custody (perhaps that was just for MJ). At the time did you think they had Iva get pregnant with MJ to somehow make up for the impending loss of Aaron?

Yeah...I think in some ways, it was always apparent there was a hole in Iva's life having to give Lily away. Even though the pregnancy was written in way before they would have known JH was leaving, with Marland's style of writing, her deception never would have been rewarded by getting to raise Aaron.

What I hated most about the Aaron story is that after Holden took Aaron I don't remember him spending any time with Aaron at all. He just dumped the kid off on people. At the time that infuriated me, especially since Iva was gone and that meant a year and a half of Holden moping about Lily and staring into space. No thanks.

I don't thinkk JH was on long after he got back custody. But yeah, not only did I hate the way Holden treated Iva, I hated hearing he had just dumped Aaron off at Julie and Caleb's. I really don't think Julie had ever wanted the kid.

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.