juniorz1

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.

You mean someone on the show mentioned him? Or one of us?

I know I've mentioned him quite a few times on here- I love me some Connor Davis and Scott Thompson Baker.

Annual Cast Shots

-1991

- 1992

Are you sure those '91 and '92 cast photos are marked right? Kimberlin was full time on Y&R on '91 and joined B&B in '92.

Actually, I'm pretty sure it can't be right- Scott Thompson Baker was on AMC from 1991-1992- he didn't join B&B until '93. And I remember Kevin & Keith- I'm pretty sure they didn't join until '93 either. Plus they're pictured in '91, not in '92, and then again in '93, so the timeline is off. Also, Darla's hair is short in the '91 picture and long in the '92 picture. She started with long hair and then cut it short. Also, Michael Watson only appeared on the show in 1992.

I'm pretty sure the '91 picture is actually '93, the '92 pic is actually '92, and the '93 pic is actually '94. Then the pics from '94 to '96 are actually cast pics of the year after, which fills the '97 gap you have. Just an educated guess, but I'm pretty sure it's right.

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.

Actually, IMO, Carlson was the only improvement. Stenovitch, who looked just like Carlson, seemed to just try to imitate Amy's version of the character and didn't do it very well. I thought Carlson was quite terrific in the role. In fact, she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for her last year on the show. I enjoyed the Gary/Josie romance but only with the original portrayers in the parts.

Either way, IMO, Wilson was AWFUL, Carlson was VERY GOOD, and Stenovitch was adequate.

ETA: Oh, and while I thought the quad with Cameron & Amanda WAS rather pointless, I really liked the Cameron character. He was so masculine and brooding, kinda like the new Mitch Blake. He was something that was missing on AW at the time and I really enjoyed him, his portrayer, and his romance with Amanda.

Thanks. I've never known how to do that. I just end up posting the link and then the video shows up.

It's the little chain-looking icon next to the smiley face in the post screen. You click on that and paste the link in the box. There's also another box below it where you can name the link like this:

EARLY MAURA- Carly and Mike do the Nasty

Thanks. It's funny I just watched those last week. I've been trying to make my way through ATWT from the earliest years on Youtube to up to about 1994 or 1995. I don't have the stomach for a lot of the show after that.

1995 was pretty awesome, thanks to Maura's arrival as Carly and the Rosanna/Mike/Carly triangle.

God, re-watching those Colleen scenes and now the vintage Maura is making me miss the hell out of ATWT. Hard to believe it's almost been a year.

Haven't seen it- off to watch now! Be sure & use the link feature on clips that cannot be embedded!

Can someone PLEASE post clips from the Susan/Bob/Kim storyline, ESPECIALLY Susan/Kim rivalry clips.

Noelle Beck, Kimberly Simms tested for AW's Vicky in 94 when JB left briefly as did Ellen Wheeler all three got a no

That's too bad about Kimberlee Simms. She would have been dynamite as Vicky, far better than the awful Jensen Buchanan.

I LOVE Noelle Beck but she would have been all kinds of wrong as Vicky. I'd have liked to have seen her take on Amanda though.

Adriene Frantz says AMC was interested in her as the Bianca recast in 2010

***spits orange soda all over the computer screen***

:lol:

Speaking of Ben Warren OnGL was written for James Depavia

I'm pretty sure that role was written for Philip Brown, who was actually cast but had to quit because he had problems memorizing all of the lines.

Yes I did because I remember reading that very same article. I wish I could re-watch Savage in the role as well. She and James Horan had some white hot chemistry, that's for sure!

It was more a statement than a question, but yes, I saw it. The problem was the show never stayed committed to the characters. Yes, his mother and father were on the show for much of its run, though they were never major characters. Rafael was a vagabond of sorts and at one point, I believe they ended up recasting both parents, albeit at separate points, only to bring them back.

In the span of the show, they cast 2 brothers for Cruz and a sister. His half brother, Rafe, was on the show all the way until the end. His little sister Carmen barely lasted a year and wasn't very interesting.

Their best chance at having a long-term Castillo besides Cruz was with Ric and they dropped him for some reason. It probably had to do with the show pairing Kelly with Robert instead of Ric and them never going back to that. Ric ended up paired with Tawny Richards, the daughter of a couple of characters who were written as though they were going to be long-term and then dropped, I believe by the Dobsons. This was around 1990, when SB was a revolving door of regulars and the only ones who continued to stick were the characters already on the show (The Capwells, Gina, Julia, the Lockridges, etc...)

Ric really should have remained and been a spoiler for Robert/Kelly- in fact, I still think Ric & Kelly should have been endgame in that storyline. It's really too bad because Ric definitely had long-term potential for the show and could have been great with any number of characters, including Laken Lockridge when she returned in 1990. But SB never explored those avenues and it's truly unfortunate that they didn't.

I have never seen Robert Dubac. I liked RM as Clay, but I was shocked when he became Alex with long hair and different kind of clothes. During that period Lisa Peluso took over as Ava and I lost all interest in them. James Horan didn't make Clay Alden very interesting.

Aww, really? I thought James Horan was very good and his Clay was far more evil and calculating than his replacements were.

I agree with you on Lisa Peluso, though. I couldn't warm up to her at first, until I said something to my grandmother about the "new Ava" not being the same. She told me how much she like Lisa because she played Wendy Wilkins on her all-time favorite soap, 'Search For Tomorrow.' She watched SFT from the beginning so when Lisa joined 'Loving', which she started watching as a replacement for SFT, it was like getting a piece of her old show back.

Elizabeth Savage looks like Anita Morris there. That pic of Trisha and whatshisname is epic.

Whatshisname is Jeff Hartman, played by Richard Steinmetz. The Jeff/Trisha storyline was the awesomeness, as Loving wisely took its time with the pacing of it. The 2 year arch was Bill Bell-esque IMO.

As for Elizabeth Savage, she was just EPIC! Don't get me wrong- I love me some Christine Tudor Newman, but Savage was well beyond your average recast. She took a very complex character and made it her own almost instantaneously. There's another actress that should have landed another daytime role post-Loving. Too bad because she was so gifted and would have brought A LOT to any soap that was lucky enough to have her. IMO, she would have been great over at ATWT.

Why do you think they didn't go for Kelly/Ric? Didn't it seem like they struggled with Cruz's family (although I know the guy who played his father won an Emmy).

I'm glad you enjoyed the article. You're such a big fan I am never sure if you've already seen these but I'm glad you hadn't. I have one of Carrington Garland from around this time, if I can ever find it again. I really liked her when I watched the show back then - it sucks she never ended up on any other soaps.

I Carrington so much and am truly disappointed that she never got another daytime role. I know it wasn't from a lack of trying, as she was always on a list of contenders for roles, especially at Y&R. I believe she was 'thisclose' to being cast as Mari Jo Mason. She was a truly gifted actress.

As for them not going the Ric/Kelly route, it just didn't pan out. They brought on Roscoe Born as Robert Barr and decided to pair Kelly with him, pitting her against Eden. It was a brilliant move to finally have Kelly's feelings of inferiority to Eden be brought to the surface. As much as I wanted Ric & Kelly to be together, I absolutely LOVED Robert & Kelly together. Born & Garland were simply magnetic together and sold the hell out of that storyline. Plus, Carringron grew immensely as an actress by working with Roscoe. He's even been quoted as saying that he witnessed the strides she was making as an actress and that she worked extremely hard on that storyline.

Like I said, Carrington had boatloads of chemistry with ALL of her leading men- Peter Love, Born, and John Callahan. Her dismissal, for me, was one of the true Jump the Shark moments on SB. Garland was perfectly cast as Kelly, she looked the part (the resemblance between she & Walker was uncanny), and made me fall in love with Kelly all over again. She was very much different from Robin Wright's version and I loved her all the more for it.

When Dobson decided to replace Carrington Garland, Santa Barbara was experiencing a big drop in the ratings especially after Marcy Walker had left the show.

At that time the priority was to try to increase the ratings and when they knew that Eileen Davidson was ready to return to the daytime, they decided to take her to increase the ratings, given that Davidson was very popular at the time.

But they had to give her a prominent role and principal, or she would never have accepted it and they thought to Kelly.

Neither do I agree with this policy in Santa Barbara last year included a series of characters just to be able to enter very popular actors and actresses (Thaao Penghils, Kim Zimmer, Eileen Davidson, Stephen Nichols...)thinking attract the audience, staking everything on them and forgetting about historical characters (Robin Mattson on all).

The audience trickled to the bottom.

Exactly. NONE of those characters caught on. It didn't help Davidson that they used her to pair Kelly with Cruz either. While I think it was a bad idea in the first place, A would have had far more chemistry with Robin Wright or Carrington Garland. Kim Zimmer was another bad choice- most SB fans already had a predisposition toward her because she was always in competition with Marcy at award shows (Emmys & SOD Awards). And then they go and pair her with Cruz also!?! Oy vey! Not to mention that she shows up at his high school reunion with nary a mention of Santana Andrade being there. Since long-time fans knew that Cruz & Santana were high school sweethearts, it rang false. Again, it made no sense, especially since Santana was back on the canvas at the time (given, she was played by the horrible Wanda DeJesus, who never really 'was' Santana). Thaao Penghlis was put in a convoluted storyline and Stephen Nichols didn't even begin airing until the show had already been canned.

The way to bring viewers back was to get Marcy back on the show, keep A Martinez, throw in a dash of Louise Sorel and Justin Deas and maybe they would have seen a ratings spike. NONE of those actors you mentioned were going to be able to do that and of course, they didn't.

Awww, thanks for posting that article- I remember reading it when the issue first came out (I believe it's in the Santa Barbara farewell issue, no?). Somehow over the years, I lost it and I'd LOVE to have it back so if anyone has that particular issue and would like to mail it to me, I'd SO appreciate it! Just shoot me a PM and I'll give you my address.

I must point out that, while I agree CC's "funeral" was one of SB's funniest sequences ever, that it was Keith, not Gina, who pricked CC with a pin, springing him back to life.

I could buy that Peter Love and A Martinez were brothers ... it's in the jeans.

:lol:

SO true- some of the best asses in the business! In all seriousness, Peter Love had that same natural quality to his acting that A Martinez always had, even though he obviously was never quite as good an actor as A. I absolutely adore Peter though and LOVED them as brothers! Ric Castillo should have stayed on the canvas until the end.

Finally watching the last episode of ATWT.

It was such a great finale IMO. MUCH better than the one my beloved Santa Barbara got.

Hell, I liked it better than AW's finale also and I, unlike many others, thought AW's was pretty damn good.

OMG! That photo is from Lionel Lockridge's faux funeral, one of my favorite SB episodes of all time! I've been DYING to find in on youtube but so far, have had no luck. Where did you find that? You don't by chace have those episodes, do you? They're from the summer of 1990- some of Louise Sorel's funniest moments on the show were during that sequence!

I hadn't seen that before. Is that Eden at the end?

Yes, that's Eden on the end.

Thanks so much for posting the Peter Love article! I LOVED him as Ric and thought he had amazing chemistry with Carrington Garland. I was seriously pissed when the show ended up pairing her with Robert instead because she and Ric were red hot. It took me a while to warm up to Kelly/Robert, though I eventually did.

Say what you want about Garland, but she had AMAZING chemistry with every man she was paired with on the show- Peter Love, Roscoe Born, and John Callahan. I'll never get over the Dobsons firing her and bringing on Eileen Davidson, the worst Kelly EVER. Yes, that includes Kimberlee McArthur.

I don't recall Sunny leaving with Quinn. By Search's end, Sunny was with Bela and, I believe, pregnant by him. Quinn ended up with Kat Fitzgerald.

Teri Eoff played Suzi, not Liza. Sherry Mathis was replaced by Louan Gideon. Gideon is now in real estate.

You're SO right! I always mix their names up- Louann Gideon is the one who went on to a decent career, including a guest spot on Seinfeld as Jerry's girlfriend's stepmom, who put him on her speed dial. I guess I remembered who played Suzi in the end after all!

I swap them I think because both were such poor replacements for Sherry Mathis (Liza) and Cynthia Gibb (Suzi). I thought Mathis and Gibb were so beautiful and fit their roles perfectly, especially Mathis. Both were major characters and you really felt the shift with different actresses in the part.

I can't believe I forgot about Sunny & Bela- you're right about that too! She did date Quinn for a while though, didn't she? Either way, while Bela was a fun character and brought out a different side of Sunny, for some reason, I always saw Hogan/Sunny as a supercouple and could never accept either one with a different partner. And I HATED Patti SO MUCH!

Near the end Brandt put in some good performances.

No, he didn't.

He still looked constipated all the time.

I have some doubts:

lane davies, why he left the show?

Lane left to travel the world with Todd McKee AND because of his volatile relationship with Nancy Lee Grahn, following a messy affair and breakup.

it is true that relations between Marcy Walker and Robin Wright were not good after the success of The Princess Bride?

I know Robin was pretty much a bitch on set when TPTB forced her to extend her contract for a year in order to get time off to film "The Princess Bride." However, I'm pretty sure she still got along with Marcy rather well. The only reason I can think of that there would be animosity is because Marcy was extremely close to Bridget & Jerry Dobson and may have been protective of them against Robin's bad attitude.

Why after the flop of Palace Guard, Marcy Walker was not reported immediately to Santa Barbara?

I'm pretty sure at first, she was contractually obligated to CBS and was unable to take any other jobs, including going back to SB. I'm not sure if the contract lasted the whole primetime season or 2 seasons, but I know she had a contract with them. I think she was able to return in '92 when A was leaving, but they didn't ask her. She was also more than willing to come back for the end but again, she wasn't asked.

Why the episode in which Mary is crushed by C has become so famous?

Because it was shocking and a totally original way to kill off a character. Soaps just didn't do stuff like that at the time so it was pretty huge and memorable. I know I'll never forget it.

Why Charles Bateman was fired?

The show (rightfully IMO) wanted an actor with a stronger presence to play CC and decided to go with Jed Allan. Jed had previously auditioned, but they deemed him too young for the part. They even made him dye his hair grey to age him. What's funny is that the producers didn't bother to tell Charlie- Jed himself ended up doing it. They were at a party together and Jed apologized to him for his taking over his job. Allan was stunned that Bateman actually had no idea and this was the first he'd heard of it.

Why Santa Barbara was canceled in 1993 while loving, who plays minor, lasted until 95?

That was some BS on NBC's part, but it's widely known that the major factor in their decision had to do with the results of the lawsuit of the Dobsons vs New World. I'm not sure exactly what happened, as the records were sealed, but it's been widely speculated that that was the nail in SB's coffin.

Generations had it tough.

By the end,the show had really come together(isn't that true of many cancelled shows?)The timeslot was one factor-up against 2 top shows. Also,I don't think it ever had the affiliate support as NBC was never a player at 12.30 and it never had strong network coverage.

Where are you getting 2 top shows from? I know Y&R was on top but Loving, it's other time slot competitor, was at the bottom of the ratings.

I wondered that too. I can't remember if Lynn commented when Mary passed away.

I can imagine that Lynn may not have wanted to ever go back, but considering Secret Storm got Jade Rowand back, you never know.

It's still a bit off to me when I see Jacqueline Schultz as Patti, although I guess it wasn't as bad as it could have been, since Patti had no children on the show (which would have pointed out the age issue more). I have a harder time with the women who play Liza and Suzi in the last year...they got on my nerves in the flood episodes, quite a bit.

Who was Suzi exactly? Cynthia Gibb played her before this other woman right?

I didn't like the character of Patti when she returned. They put her with Hogan, who I always felt belonged with Sonny. Unfortunately, the show didn't see it that way and it ended with Hogan's wedding to Patti and Sonny left with his brother, Quinn.

I'm totally with you on the Liza and Suzi recasts. The new Liza ESPECIALLY I could never warm to. She just wasn't Liza IMO. Sherry Mathis was perfect. Teri Eoff, the recast Liza, just didn't fit, though she's obviously a capable actress as she's gone onto a variety of other TV roles. I have no idea who played Suzi in the end but she sucked. I really liked Suzi before she took over the part.

I did like Estelle though.

I wonder how popular the McClearys were, and if the show had so much of them in the last few years because of popularity or because they just couldn't come up with anything else. By the end it seemed like you had everyone but Kathy Garver as the long-lost McCleary cousin Cissy.

I liked Estelle too but she was a royal bitch!

As for the McClearys, I really only watched since 1983 because it was my paternal grandmother's show (my mom watched NBC anyway and ended up picking up the habit as well). But I LOVED Hogan and I liked Quinn also. From what I remember, my grandmother liked them as well and she had watched the show from the beginning. I know for a fact that Hogan and Cagney were very popular characters. Not too sure about Quinn though.

Clementine Ford wasn't a bad Mackenzie.

The writing was horrible as was the constant Chloe propping but she was solid & unfortunately was fired right as she began hitting her stride.

Word!

I thought Kyle was a bad Phillip

AWFUL Philip.

The ridiculous thing about the story, which I mentioned earlier but will repeat for those just joining, is I think it was done for shock value. The problem was how pointless the whole thing turned out to be. Aside from a few random scenes with other women, Todd McKee's story as Ted pretty much ended with Hayley's death. I wasn't surprised to see him leave the show a year later. Then, when Ted came back two years later as Michael Brainard, he eventually fell for Lily, whose evangelist background was completely forgotten by the writing team.

Actually, they did address Lily's evangelist background. Lisa Fenimore, played by Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, despised Lily because either she or her father got caught up in Lily's evangelist movement and found out she was a fraud.

I was reading the SOD panning of the Eden split personalities story - they basically said the story made no sense, it was tough to tell some personalities (like Channing and Linda) apart, and that it made no sense that Cruz didn't recognize Eden just because she had a dark wig. They named it the worst story of 1991.

Do you agree with that?

Wholeheartedly. That story was a mess from jump and it re-wrote some of the history of the show. All the crap with Andre and the tiara and her Lisa personality was sheer crap.

I disagree that it was tough to tell the personalities apart though. For most of the storyline, Eden was split into only one alter, Lisa, and Marcy did a very good job of distinguishing her from Eden. Then when she "died" falling off the cliff, she came back as "Suzanne Collier," complete with an awful brown wig. Again, it was easy to distinguish this new personality from the others, given the wig and Marcy used a different voice. HOWEVER, you could EASILY still tell that it was Eden and for Cruz (and Sophia I think) not to recognize her was PREPOSTEROUS! As for the Channing personality, he only showed up on Marcy's last episode, when Eden (as Channing) shot Sophia.

The Dobsons returned to the show after this storyline had been going on for like 4 to 6 months so they were stuck with it. Unfortunately, Marcy had already announced her departure and so they had to use it to write her off of the show. Bridgette has been quoted as saying that she never would have done the story in the first place and certainly never used it to write Marcy/Eden off the show.

With all that said, the Dobsons actually did a VERY good job with it when they came on. The previous writers used Eden's witnessing Lionel & Sophia discussing their affair and Sophia falling off the yacht to her "death" as an excuse for the split, but never gave that angle a second thought. When the Dobsons took over, they re-centered the storyline around that incident and wrote it as such, hence Eden shooting Sophia as "Channing", just as Sophia had done to her brother Channing years before. I still didn't like the story, but they did their best to salvage it and for the mostpart, they did.

I WILL say that I'm forever grateful to them and Marcy for giving us that tiny scene about a month later, where Eden is shown in a window as Cruz is meeting the real Suzanne Collier. You could read her lips say "Goodbye Cruz. I love you." as tears rolled down her face. She left her wedding ring on the window sill and was never seen again, but that moment at least gave us one final glimpse of Eden and some closure.

Imagine how frustrating it would be if your favorite character of all-time was leaving the show and for the last 3 months she was on, not once was she acting as that character. It was just awful.

On the bright side, Paul Rauch produced ANOTHER WORLD so lavishly back then, it's unfathomable to me how his style came to be so overblown on subsequent shows. Either he didn't have the same level of talent supporting him on OLTL, GUIDING LIGHT, etc., or he was overcompensating for poor writing.

No doubt! That clip practically looks like it's in HI-DEF!

I guess Lemay is remembering things wrong then.

Actually, the writers' strike happened earlier in 1988 before Lemay returned as head writer in September. It is widely known that Swajeski served as head writer during the strike and she eventually replaced Lemay in November. And it is very possible that the stories that were happening in spring 1989 were Lemay's ideas since head writers then often wrote one- or two-year bibles for their soaps.

Incorrect. The strike happened after Lemay was brought on, and Swajeski wrote during it. When the strike was over, they kept Swajeski and fired Lemay.

http://www.welovesoaps.net/2009/07/harding-lemay-interview-part-three.html

I would aregue that Stacey/Jack, Jim/Shana, and Alex/Ava were just as popular as Trucvker/Trisha.

Oh no way. Not even close. Trucker & Trisha were easily Loving's most popular couple EVER. You could maybe make a case for Alex & Ava, though I still say they're not as popular. But Jim & Shana and Jack & Stacey don't even come close to the popularity of Trucker & Trisha. Hell, Trucker and Dinahlee were more popular than those couples.

I also loved Colleen Dion and thought she had more chemistry with JJ's Steve than Noelle Beck did.

I disagree here too, though I LOVED Steve & Trisha. I definitely think they had lots of chemistry. Cecilia was always such a boring character IMO. She couldn't even touch Trisha on her own, let alone her chemistry with Steve.

Hey- FYI- RTSB is BACK! For REAL this time! I just re-read the ENTIRE blog from beginning to end, my mind is refreshed, and I already have posted an episode, with another 1 coming tomorrow. And it's not a short one either- we're back to regular length, with the stories moving full steam ahead. I'm going to try and feature each story and character this week to bring everyone up to speed on their storylines and get them all fresh in our minds. There will be some recapping and some movement in each storyline. I hope to see you there! It's such a THRILL to be writing again!