soapfan770

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:

I have a question regarding GL in 1984 vs. AW in the early 80s. GL pretty much lost all of its veteran cast and characters there 1982-1984 yet never faltered as badly as AW did. What was the significant difference? Was it because of AW's revolving door?

The chimp was utterly ridiculous. It was introduced chasing around Kathleen Noone's character trying to put a diaper on her(!). Actually I always found the writing for Noone's character extremely degrading and insulting. I still can't believe they had her pee and mop it up with the wedding dress, why can't she couldn't have spilled coffee on it or something? I will say I though Passions was at its best 2001-2003. Oh and maybe spicy guacamole. Loved the double-wedding fiasco, loved Theresa discovering she was married to Julian, love Julian and Timmy's adventures, loved Julian and Eve. I did hate though that Sheridan was trashed and was turned into a villainess later on in its run. I found it bad that my fav Amelia Marshall from GL was so awful in the role of Liz. I hated how there was no progress or payoffs. It was weird how more and more former soap stars started popping up. Kristina Sisco of ATWT fame was the second Charity. Oh and one more thing about rewatching those early eps when they reran on SciFi....I always hated whatever the HELL it was in TC's DAMN shed. For five years it was held super secret until we found out it was...a car he crashed.

Wow I didn't know the character of Bob started off so young. That's interesting about John and Edith Hughes. Laurence Hugo, who is best known for playing the second Mike Karr on Edge of Night played the role of John Hughes. I'm surprised no later writers especially Marland never tried to bring on any characters related to this side of the Hughes family. Question: Who played the role of Erma Kopecki, the wife of Pa Hughes in the mid-70s? What was the story there?

Not surprisingly, it is: Here's the Macy&Sally scenes I was talking about when Macy was introduced:

This was an early ABC soap that ran for a couple years in the mid-60s. I guess there was a title change similar to how Portia Faces Life became The Inner Flame. Had no idea Irna Phillips was involved--that means she had power at all three networks! Here's what Matt P. Smith had to say:

Ridge and Caroline Ads:

Well, another June 25th has came and went Matt P. Smith took a detour on his usual write-ups for soaps and for Another World he wrote quite the extensive essay, even more so than his essay on ATWT. I love his sense of optimism at the end and it made me a little sad:

Oh your welcome Carl I'll try to post what I have. The early years of B&B fascinate me to no end. I know Joanna Johnson has had a fairly successful writing/directing/producing career in the past decade but I've always wondered how B&B would be had Caroline never died. Uber-serious is right; After seeing clips of Macy's first scenes I was shocked by how cold and distant Macy was to Sally. Sally is all thrilled that she's back in town from school but Macy only wants money. Also the "Angela Forrester" story was so creepy and bizarre, what a strange story but I must say the actress was quite good. Odd that Sally was involved when Deveney gave her sad speech on the Queen Mary. For the record, I thought the show was on fire from 2000-2003 but yeah it lost its steam due to some messy mistakes. 2005 was pretty good I thought, but after that its been all downhill.

Um, so we have that ever lengthy thread on classic Y&R articles and discussion, I was wondering if we could do one for B&B? I mean the whole show is a hot mess and has been well at least since 2007/2008 and unwatchable but I'd like to think back to when I loved the show 1991ish-2006. A lot of stories liked and/or remember well have now been long forgotten like Ivana's murder and the mystery around it, Macy vs. Karen, Connor(someone mentioned him recently!) Dylan and Michael, CJ/Becky, Sly, Grant. Hell Macy was my favorite character right after Sally of course.

I don't know if this has been discussed or not, but in the movie Driving Miss Daisy the characters of Hoke and Idella are seen watching The Edge of Night in 1963. What storyline were the two watching, and who was the blonde they both marveled about in the movie?

While I am posting Matt P. Smith's write-ups on short lived soaps from the 50s, here is Smith's extensive essay on ATWT he wrote. The last sentence makes me sad:

Matt P. Smith had pretty much the same observations and info on Kitty:

Oh lol thanks for reminding me of that. I find it hilarious especially since Eddie usually maintains good level of objectivity in his writeup. It was AW 1998/1999 and that point I my watching was becoming increasingly infrequent but I couldn't appreciate Jake and Vicky so I got behind Gary and Josie as my rooting couple along with Grant and Cindy. I liked they brought back Holbrook too to bad they didn't keep her til the end but hey Goutman was EP....

Carlson was alright, I did like Stenovitch better. I do get what you're saying as I found it completely unbelievable for Josie to become a cop and I do recall she was terrible as a cop too.

Harshness. But if it's because her Matthews and Frame sides were never utilized, I completely agree with you. I would have even like her more had she just gone by Josie Matthews instead of Watts. However I did like the Gary and Josie pairing and enjoyed the '98 recasts although the triangle with Cameron was really pointless and the story ended sad with the two ending up with another dead child. Yeesh. Oddly each Josie recast was improvement an over their predecessor.

Is this Sonni's final scene? I've heard over the years Sonni's final scene was of her leaving Springfield yet as she did it was strongly hinted Solita had come out. I love Michelle Forbes though. Is Alex's dream of Life After Alex from January '89 up on Youtube? I loved that episode when I first saw it online a few years ago on the old WOST site. Both Forbes and McKinsey had a wonderfully bitchy chemistry there.

I think I could agree with this but I don't know where to put my finger on it. I'd say it was a time of transition as ATWT as the show had new characters like Evan, Connor, Edwina(LOL I miss her!), Linc, Rosanna plus all those involved in the never-ending Carolyn Crawford mystery. I think some elements changed too. Watching 1985-1988 eps even if the show had a dark atmosphere there was an air of whimsical fun about all of it. 1992 eps under Marland all seem like pure heavy drama.

Were they planning to bring back Patty around the same time Alex Donnelley was brought back as Diane? Bell must have been getting nostalgic there in 1996 besides bringing back Diane we also got the weird Audrey North story that brought back Dina and Traci for a short time only to drop it. Why didn't they try to bring Andrea Evans back in 1996? Was it because she was still in hiding after the stalker fiasco? Although she popped up as Tawny on B&B a couple years later before doing Passions. Besides wasn't it Evans' Patty who shot Jack? Would have spared us the pain thirteen years later.

It's no problem and I actually enjoy writing this down in a way because I realize this even with what comes and goes on Youtube not all will ever see the light of day again. Those Dani scenes were actually very tedious to watch, mainly because Ashley Williams was terrible in the scenes and its hard to watch a discussion on Tolstoy novels. That's a good question about Ellen, doing a search on Youtube lead me watching the '95 Christmas and New Years Eve eps where Susan and Emily were such wrecks with Larry's affair and Jeff leaving they could have really used Ellen. Sad to say though in the above episode I summarized Ellen and Nancy had matching granny dresses on bringing out coffee and doughnuts and Bruder's hair was entirely gray though I guess since Dani is Ellen's great grand-daughter they did that. Still makes no sense why they got rid of her. I have a few more summaries I'll be putting up here sooner or later. Here's this clip from this time period I discovered that I didn't even think was still up, its great. West looks a LOT different here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkr0hVexqTs&feature=related Gotta love that slap!!