soapfan770

I will try to post what I can find, I've found some rankings for 1996, 1997, and 1998 so far. I think the Heather Tom thing might be a mistake, this was if I recall Sarah Aldrich's last month for the show unless I'm mistaken. I really don't remember Aldrich too well at all, just another blonde on the show at the time. I do recall when Tom returned, Victoria had been off the show for a couple of months and spied on Cole and Ashley kissing her first day back. HT's exit back in Feb of '97 was Victoria needing to take a break from it all after the never-ending quad she was in finally reached its tipping point. I don't think Nina's screen time didn't diminish until 1998, and even then she was still an integral part of the show unlike how she is treated now. I kind of wish they did actually follow through on the stories they wanted to tell for her ie. the soccer coach she dated was molesting Phillip IV/Chance, Raul being her long lost son etc.

Great to see the Christmas '92 ep back up on Youtube! Thanks yr9190! Bittersweet moment there for young Nick and Victor. I've found the cast/character rankings for July 1997, if anyone's interested: July 1st-July 31st 1997-Total Episodes: 23 1. Joshua Morrow (Nicholas Newman) 21 2. Michael Damian (Danny Romalotti) 20 *. Sandra Nelson (Phyllis Summers Romalotti) 20 4. Eric Braeden (Victor Newman) 19 5. Tricia Cast (Nina Webster McNeil) 15 *. Alex Donnelley (Diane Jenkins) 15 *. Scott Reeves (Ryan McNeil) 15 8. Lauralee Bell (Christine Blair) 14 *. Peter Bergman (Jack Abbott) 14 *. Sharon Case (Sharon Newman) 14 *. Sabryn Genet (Tricia Dennison) 14 12. Jennifer Gareis (Grace Turner) 13 *. Chase MacKenzie Bebak (Daniel Romalotti) 13 *. Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki Newman) 13 15. Doug Davidson (Paul Williams) 12 *. Jess Walton (Jill Foster Abbott) 12 17. Shemar Moore (Malcolm Winters) 11 *. Shari Shattuck (Ashley Abbott) 11 *. Kristoff St. John (Neil Winters) 11 *. Patty Weaver (Gina Roma) 11 21. Tonya Lee Williams (Olivia Barber Williams) 10 *. J. Eddie Peck (Cole Howard) 10 *. Victoria Rowell (Drucilla Barber Williams) 10 24. Marita De Leon (Joani Garza) 9 *. Ashley Jones (Megan Dennison) 9 26. Bryant Jones (Nate Hastings) 8 *. Nick Scotti (Tony Viscardi) 8 *. Heather Tom (Victoria Newman Howard) 8 29. Candice Daly (Veronica Landers) 7 *. Nicholas Pappone (Phillip Chancellor) 7 31. Camryn Grimes (Cassie Johnson) 6 *. Heath Kizzier (Dr. Joshua Landers) 6 33. Jeanne Cooper (Katherine Chancellor) 5 34. William A. Wallace (Brian Hamilton) 4 35. Christian LeBlanc (Michael Baldwin) 3 *. Granville Van Dusen (Keith Dennison) 3 37. Jerry Douglas (John Abbott) 2 *. Zachary Elkins (Noah Newman) 2 *. Aaron Lustig (Dr. Tim Reid) 2 40. Brooke Marie Bridges (Lily Winters) 1 *. Anthony Pena (Miguel Ramirez) 1

Hopefully my Christmas in Oakdale DVD will be either a belated Christmas/New Year's gift for myself. It hasn't arrived yet but I'm highly anticipating it after reading your review of it Carl. Willis Sparks and Hayley Barr obviously married some time after that. Other than temp casting frequently for Beth Ehlers on GL I don't recall if Sparks was on any other soap or not. A shame Rattray did nothing else in daytime. I know she's gotten an unfair amount of criticism over the years but I've never found any problems with her performance. For me its more of a Eileen Davidson/Brenda Epperson thing than anything else.

Reasons why I'm thankful a lot of WOST stuff has surfaced on Youtube. I remember endlessly watching these several years ago when a bunch of special holiday Christmas closings for ATWT were put up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4RWwUVSXlg Probably my favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYqOzI8NQ8Q

Found this on an old floppy disk(laugh all you want to please) today. It's SOD's annual status charts for ATWT between 1991 and 1995:

Good point. I didn't realize the topic of moving was that early in Bunim's tenure. We would have never gotten Helen Wagner back. Regarding NYC: One reason I miss Law & Order is because numerous ATWT, AW, and GL actors would pop up as guest stars over the years. I recall Michael Zaslow was a lawyer in one or two eps. Recently I saw a 1992 rerun with Finn Carter as a guest star.

That's interesting. I wonder if it had happened how it would have worked in the long run. All soaps that seemed to move from NYC to LA were on their last legs, with the possible exception of GL on the radio changing up production locales for a short time. ATWT was in fairly decent shape I imagine the transition could have been smooth.

This ad is in reference to Mindy's disastrous wedding to Kurt Corday(interesting last name for a soap character) in which if I recall right Billy went postal:

That's kind of shocking P&G wanted ATWT wanted to expand to 90 minutes, I thought was more of NBC's demand. I highly doubt CBS would have gone along with the plan. They were too busy pressuring Y&R to expand. I've always been more curious about Mary-Ellis Bunim's plan to move ATWT production to LA there in 1983/1984. How much of the cast would have made the move? If AMC convinced Susan Lucci, could ATWT convince Eileen Fulton? Would we have ended up with something like Melissa Reeves in the role of Lily?

I do remember this, MJ came back for the initial custody story if I recall right. At least someone still remembered MJ at this point because he was forgotten after this story. That doctor lady was completely out of line. John actually ended up losing custody here because of his and MJ's lies. Carly and Molly by this point knew Hal was actually Parker's father. Carly was going to use that fact as a last resort even though she would lose her trust fund. I cheered Carly on all the way because obviously the others involved ie John, Lisa, Rosanna etc were hypocrites. I certainly didn't like John and Carly's Thanksgiving wedding fiasco though. I forget which Brad this was but he and Carly married not long after this. Joanna Rhineheart as Jessica is worse than I remember here. After Jessica ended things with Ben she did nothing but be the town lawyer. Yvonne Perry is actually better than I remember here, though Cady McClain is an example of when the recast is better than the original. I still remember Molly first meeting Rosanna and insulting her appearance. I loved that little snippy remark Carly made to Ro after winning, and then Ro running out with her tail between her legs.

Very true, and I don't see Joanna getting the gracious, more sweet than bitter ending that Jessica had. Thought I might share this everyone, its an interview with Patty Weaver from 2005:

I wonder how it would have been if had Joanna Manning ended up HIV+ instead. Or would that be too much Terms of Endearment?

I have to wonder if they actually had any story for Alana after the story had finished. Sadly I doubt we would have seen Tyrone and Alana settle down for the good life afterward. Unless they were going to have Alana get involved with either Paul or Andy I doubt she would have continued onward. What did people think of Jessica's HIV/AIDS story? The whole thing to me sounds like over the top classic soap fare melodrama.

Neither Alex Donnelly nor Sabryn Genet made with 1999-2003 opening, and you know it was never really updated except twice to take out Bashioum and Moore. At least they used a new shot of Davidson to replace Moore's slot but as for the 1999-2001 Christine opening they quit using it entirely. It wasn't until the late 90s they started doing updates more frequently to the opening but even then a number of contact players either didn't make it or weren't featured very predominately. I think Nick Scotti and Ashley Jones only appeared in a single opening. For the record there are three variations to that Lauren opening, first one notably features Skip and Carol while the second one has Dru and Olivia for the first time:

Poor MTS and that green dress and bad hair day that lasted two years. Brenda Epperson actually wore a blue variant it seems, you can see both in this opening: Never realized Walton wore that same dress in both the old white and then jazzy red openings. Also I do remember the opening that both Ryan and Malcolm appeared shirtless in. These are the closing credits shots which often differed a little from the opening ones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2Nu01FzhLY

Personally these are my two favorite opening sequences out of the entire 1988-99 collection:

Brenda Epperson I've always thought Ashley must be a difficult character to write for her because she was so many things. When she wasn't weak and crazy she's cold and bitchy and Epperson captured some of Davidson's coolness from time to time as Y&R's secondary heroine(second to Nikki of course). Yet Ashley always maintained a collected, quiet maturity and warmth at the same time, more so with Epperson. That was one of the problems with Shattuck was she was too--with regards to Victoria Newman--brash and sassy to be Ashley.

Since getting the ATWT DVDs which I sadly admit I've only watched two eps so far I've been digging and reading through old stuff I have saved and collected over the years, some very familiar to me. Oddly though I don't recall ever seeing the Duncan/Jessica article before yet I did have a sense of déjà vu at the same time. I'm surprised Hollen wasn't given more to do but then again Hollen always did get the short end of the stick didn't she? What did you think about the whole Hans story overall Carl? I mostly remember for the Lily kidnapping stuff and then Hans sawing off Lily's wedding ring from her finger.

Catching up on all the ATWT discussion--ever since switching shifts at work I haven't had much to time to post but I'm glad to be reading all of this BTW who blew up Andy's car there in 1993 and what happened to him afterward? I don't really remember that at all.

Gotta love this: I've heard the biggest complaint about Eve Howard's return was the way Eve was remembered/written for as a lot was apparently swept under the rug and Eve was reformed for the most part. Then again being gone for a decade does have its advantages. Aside from very unsuccessfully trying to kill Nikki on her wedding, I believe most of Eve's schemes were carried out against Victor and Julia. Then again I do recall reading Eve had an affair to remember with Rick Daros while they were in the mental hospital together but how involved was Eve in the main Rick Daros story? I've always thought Alison Bancroft was more terrifying than Eve anyways.

Going back to that 1994 promo I loved the first go around of Holden/Lily/Damien and was happy when Lily stayed with Damien but anyone know why the show remained persistent at trying to pair up Holden and Lily again when Damian and Lily were a better match? Too much nostalgia?

Cal last appeared in 2001 or so when he visited with Rose.

We've discussed some of Bell's weaker stories mainly in the 90s a lot already, what were some of Bell's weaker stories of the 70s/80s? Obviously Cricket being caught between four different men certainly didn't bode well for some(hello Terry Lester!) while I don't think the Laurence family worked out too much.

Anyone seen that Mattel has produced Dynasty Barbies for the 30th anniversary of the show?

PS did you guys know Paul Rauch once tried to nab Michelle Stafford as a recast Annie there in 1998? No lie, I'll be posting the story later...