soapfan770

That's really interesting that GL and EON are no shows in the first set of the top 10. Ratings must have been very volatile outside of the top 5.

I've never found anything wrong with Carey's acting and he never gave up. I've seen the Thanksgiving 1990 episode when Alice and Jennifer were trapped at the Alamain villa in Spain and Carey went above and beyond just the role of central patriarch to turn out a solid, moving performance over his grief of family being missing and in danger.

I've always thought that AW should have used a globe of some sort for one of its openings ala ATWT. The '81-'87 opening in space would have been good. But yeah, the concentric circles were part of AW history for 23 years.

Wow that is just incredible to watch. I can't express how much I appreciate that, thanks so much! ^_^

One more thing I believe Bern Bennett was the announcer for this show. This was I believe the first CBS soap along with Full Circle to be produced at CBS Television City in LA. Never knew Ted Knight did soap work until reading about all of this. As for Mandan I don't know but he must have not minded it because he was on Days in the 90s although the role was a bit over the top(Jonesey died of a heart attack while having sex with Vivian!)

To add what Carl has started, here's Matt P. Smith's summary on it from his soap history guide. Did not this show premiered on my birthday(July 11th!) March has never been a good month for soaps on CBS either except of course for Y&R and B&B:

Can I say the 1975-1981 opening and music sounds like we're watching Masterpiece Theater or something. I think the music fit very well with Lemay's theatrical and realistic outlook on the show. The 1981-1986 opening was nice with the space credits ala ATWT. The music and opening itself is pretty tame though compared to the updates that ATWT, GL, and SFT got. How did you guys like "You Take Me Away" with the '81-'87 opening? I thought it worked, although a bit strange. Perhaps the only instance in daytime the music changed yet the opening remained the same aside from SFT. When SoapNet began airing the reruns, this was the opening:

A satisfactory answer actually lol. I knew she cut Hal Studer on ATWT pretty fast and almost did so with Helen Wagner but AW's start seems more notorious. I will have to visit the Paley Center then someday SFK

AW's start in 1964 seems very chaotic to me. Both the original Liz and Jim only lasted the first episode. Why did they drop both Granny and the original Russ so fast? PS has anyone ever seen the original 1964 opening? I know there's an audio recording on the AWHP and was one on the old WOST site but I don't believe I've seen video of it other than a picture of it.

Here's some more stuff: PSYCH with the last two! Someone here at SON(I don't remember) made those last two, which were brilliantly realistic and could have been believable in light of Sami/Stan and Marlena's pregnancy and hysterical amnesia.

I'm glad you do because now I'm looking up and down for it to no avail unfortunately. I don't believe I've ever seen someone discuss their stage work coming out of a shower before.

Ah thanks. The back to back deaths must have been rough especially with both Zimmermann and Getz being stars. The WOST site had ATWT closing credits from September 1972 with Getz, Don Stewart, Elissa Leeds, and Charita Bauer announcing GL's new time-slot, I wonder if that has made it to Youtube. Very bittersweet to listen to. Actually I've always been mistaken about Bernau's death as I though it was the summer of '88 when according to the synopses I've read Alan just slipped out of town out of the blue only to be found several months later in Mexico(and played by Pilon) by Reva.

I looked for it but couldn't find it. It came out in 2006 or so and someone had posted it on the old WOST site. Hilariously strange. That's a real shame about Zimmermann. How did th audience react? Was it as big as Chritopher Bernau's death in the middle of storyline?

How did Zimmermann die? Was he still in the role when he passed? I've read his successor Anthony Call had huge success on other soaps after leaving GL. BTW a few years ago Lynne Adams posted a very strange video of herself of her talking about her work and love of the arts while taking a shower and then walking around her house with just a towel on.

It was indeed. I quoted this essay on ATWT by Matt P. Smith for his Soap History project several years ago and posted this a few pages back but I've bolded below the parts you're looking for, hope it helps:

Both of these just made me laugh out loud for real. I've read much about Louise and she's always struck me as such as an odd character with all her plant naming. Would love to see some of Heineman's work sometime to see how she was and compared to another Emmy winner, Holbrook. I've heard Heineman's win was a fluke but there are a number of Oscar winners not well known outside of their win. One early 70s character I'm interested in is Bernice Robinson. The actress looks elegant what was her story and what happened to the actress?

Thanks for that shot of Tribbey, someone said she was the best Alice recast even ahead of Susan Harney. There's very little info out there about her other than being married to the actor who was Major Burns on M*A*S*H.

I think its Paulina. You're right about Nicole hooking up with Cass after the whole Rex stuff. That was kind of a bizarre story. I remember being thrilled to see Cass finally in the reruns only to be weirded out that Cass was not Cass. It was like a precursor to the John/Roman stuff on Days. Was there any plans to bring back Kathleen in '88? I remember from the reruns once Cass resettled back in his life he started searching to see if Kathleen was truly dead.

I don't think she was on for all but six months at the most but yeah it was a long-dead/forgotten spouse tale. It was John's first story after being revealed not to be Roman and she came to town claiming he was her wife. She was exposed to be some famous international assassin for hire and jewel thief and ran off, or was caught by the ISA. I don't remember which, but I don't think it was ever addressed again. This would have been around the same time period which John was said to be Forest Alamain, Lawrence's long deceased half-brother.

I've always wondered why AW killed so many of its vital characters off in the 1980s. Guess they had nothing better and hoped the deaths generated ratings? What did you guys think of Cass and Nicole as a couple? From what I saw from the SoapNet reruns I liked it, fairly interesting actually. I liked Anne Howard as the wounded bird Nicole was. Had these been posted yet?

How have I completely missed this thread?! Just the other week I started on for B&B modeled after the Y&R one and was thinking of doing one for Days. Anyways here's some starter stuff I have:

If I recall right they wanted one major character killed off by Fax Newman and originally wanted to kill off Donna but it leaked and got widely unpopular reaction as it should have so they went with Frankie, someone(like Maureen on GL) they saw of lesser importance. Phelps was oddly fired herself shortly afterward when Fitts was fired and MADD took over cleaning house. EDIT: Looks like we replied at the same time Carl. I forgot about Robert Kelker-Kelly's hiring I've heard they let Grayson McCouch go for the same reason. RKK shouldn't have been expensive except for his bloated ego from his Days run.

Doesn't that transition seem weird? I wonder why Funt and Lesan did that or were asked again to create a new show after their first one flopped. I think I've heard before Today is Ours was a disaster and a poor show but Smith doesn't mention it in his write-up on the show: It also sounds like NBC had major problems adapting radio serials to television. Where as GL's was seamless as the show simply became televised for radio listeners switching to TV, NBC soaps started were often completely different or start back at the beginning.

Here's another gem for soap historians. I find this funny and sad that this was the NBC soap that ran the longest until the Doctors surpassed it 1968. Didn't know this was an Irna creation as well. Also this was Nichols Coster's first daytime stint along with many other stars. Matt P. Smith gives rundown on it in his guide to soap history:

Here's the write-up Matt P. Smith penned on The Secret Storm for his soap history guide: