Manny

2 hours ago, Videnbas said:

For me, the characters of early B&B were like stars in a constellation. They all work together to tell a story and paint a certain picture. It's impossible for me to reduce that complexity to a competition between teams. 

I never thought in my life that I would enjoy B&B. Based on what I have seen in the past through the 00s, I always found B&B to be the worst soap out of the bunch (except Passions.. nothing was worse than that). 

But watching now this show from the beginning, I am shocked at how much I am enjoying it. Such old fashioned soapy goodness! And indeed the characters work together really well. It's a shame that Logan family seems to have disappeared rather quickly after the first season though. I wonder how I will like that. But lets see.. I have now arrived to the point where Caroline's trial is finishing and the verdict will be announced (so exciting!!!) And omg, at that trick they did when they showed the verdict being read and it turned out to be Bill's fantasy. I was so confused that half of the episode would be about Donna's aspirations of being a model and Kristen and Clarke and then suddenly we are at the trial. I was so confused. And then the freeing verdict and Ron gloating in front of everyone and then Bill shooting him. It was so strange. But then it turned out to be a daydream  Good one, Bill Bell!

10 hours ago, kalbir said:

Bill exposed Ridge's cheating to Caroline just before the wedding and then pushed her towards Thorne, whom she didn't really love. That's pretty manipulative to me. 

Yes, Ridge did hurt Caroline but I didn't list him as his actions weren't manipulative in the way Bill and Brooke were.

I agree that Bill's timing was terrible. He should have told her the news earlier (as soon as he found out himself, I would say). But I guess I don't see that as a manipulation. I would be grateful to my father if he uncovered the truth that my partner/spouse was unfaithful to me.

He was pushing for Thorne to get with Caroline, sure, but it was finally Caroline who chose to be with Thorne, even though she clearly did not love him (at least not the same way she loved Ridge). 

1 hour ago, will81 said:

John McCook debuted Oct 30, 1975 as one of Leslie's fans. 

The Dec episode is from 1975. I am pretty sure Dec 2 or 3. Janice Lynde shared the episode on the FB group at one point

Also Mark Henderson is in that episode, He and Lorie were to be married in Dec 1975. In Dec 1976 Lorie married Lance.

Thank you for further details! Indeed in the vault it is marked as Dec 3. 

43 minutes ago, kalbir said:

I was team Caroline. I felt so bad for her that she was manipulated by two people she trusted the most, her father Bill and her one-time best friend Brooke. 

Can I ask how did you see Bill's actions as manipulation? I am curious since I have seen many people say this and I just don't see it.

Also, you do not list Ridge as someone how hurt her and she trusted him a lot. 

Correct! That is it! Oh, I completely did not remember to look at the closing credits to see the year! 

Thanks @Broderick!

9 hours ago, Broderick said:

I believe the current Writers Guild of America minimum for a head writer on a 60-minute serial is about $42,500 per week, or approximately $2,200,000 per year. Josh Griffith may earn more than the union minimum.  lol. 

No idea what coddled veteran actors are being paid nowadays.  But we know from court documents (Shattuck v. Moss) how much Ronn Moss, a 25-year veteran, was being paid by "Bold & Beautiful" for the 2011-2012 season ($700,000 per year), and we know how much he was offered (and subsequently turned down) for the 2012-2013 season (a one-year contract valued at $400,000 per year).  We can assume from his offer that salaries declined approximately 3/7, or 42%, from 2011 to 2012 for long-term veteran actors.  Assuming Moss had accepted the 2012-2013 offer of $400,000 and continued to work on the show, and assuming further audience erosion caused a further 25% budget decrease between 2013 and 2022, his $400,000 per year would now be slashed to approximately $300,000 per year. 

Extrapolating Moss's numbers to a 60-minute serial such as Y&R, you could have easily have had a veteran actor making $800,000 per year for the 2011-2012 season.  His/her offer for the 2012-2013 season would've been approximately $460,000, based upon the Ronn Moss contract formula of 3/7 decrease from 2012 to 2013.  Assuming that viewer erosion in the subsequent nine seasons has caused a 25% decrease in salaries from the 2012-2013 season to the 2021-2022 season, that veteran would now be earning approximately $350,000 per year.  So I'd guess the older codgers may still earn somewhere between $300,000 to $500,000 per year.  (The variables, of course, are that traditionally salaries are higher on a one-hour serial than on a 30-minute serial, but the lucrative foreign market of "B&B" might make that particular show's budget more in line with the budget of an hour-long serial.)        

Wow, they really slashed Moss' salary that much from one year to another? No one would accept that big of a salary cut. I mean, I get he would still be earning 400k which is a lot of money, but still.. no surprise that he refused.

4 hours ago, Broderick said:

One reason Y&R likely looks so wretched is that we're accustomed to something so much better.  (The bigger they are, the harder they fall.)  

Exactly. I wonder also if Y&R people just are not good in handling such a smaller budget since they were used to the much bigger one? Maybe they should hire some new people who would be better at handling smaller budgets and then still have a better quality on screen than what they have now.

Team Caroline by far.. I am not as far in watching as all of you are, but Brooke's reasoning and actions are just not right, IMO. Then again, I hate Ridge and I would never want to see Caroline with him, so I guess Brooke and Ridge can be together... 

Question... In the vault, there is an episode listed as December 1975. It features John McCook as Lance. However, several places that I looked online, I saw that John McCook did not debut until 1976. 

So does anyone know if the date on this episode is correct then? Should that maybe be December 1976 instead?

I am not a fan of opera, but omg this is very interesting!

Did you also find any similarities with the course of stories? I mean, I assume there is similarities, just wondering to which degree.

Thanks for sharing!!

Maybe also Y&R uses their budget to pay its stars more than other soaps, which leaves them less money for other stuff like sets, costumes, clothes etc.

It would be silly to just cast her for the sake of having "Reva and Josh" back together without any story or plan... so yeah, I guess they will do that

Omg, thats great for Robert Newman! 

I will tune in to Y&R to see his debut, even though I did not watch Y&R since Kevin saw that stupid chipmunk.

Rick Hearst already played Matt Clark on Y&R. I don't know if Y&R is reusing actors who had notable roles in the past in new roles. 

I am in October 1987, Caroline's rape trial began. I am pleasantly surprised at how they are telling this story, with a lot of explanations about why they are choosing a female attorney for Ron; a female judge; also the conversations that Caroline had with the counselor... 

I don't think they deal with rape like that anymore. I mean, they could be (I haven't watched modern soaps in years), but back when I did watch, I don't remember being handled like this.  

On the topic of Brooke... she really did change her mind about Ridge really quickly. She is telling her Mom that she is going for Ridge because Caroline is no longer interested in him. As a real friend, she should have checked with Caroline first. But she knows deep down inside that she is doing a wrong thing. 

19 hours ago, FrenchBug82 said:

I mean this is a very interesting question but to me it conflates "social media" with broader changes in social mores.
We tend to blame social media for a lot of societal ills - and by making it easier for people to communicate it does amplify voices that it once took a lot more time and work to grow. It is sometimes a good thing - like the progress popular culture is making on race or sexual tolerance - sometimes a bad thing - see the anti-vaxx disinformation and political conspiracy theories.

But in the end social media only reflects the society it is part of. It is not social media itself that makes a lot of the material that once flew by harder to imagine today and inversely it is not social media that makes stuff that wouldn't be OK then OK now.

Where I do think it might make a difference is to allow many opinions to express themselves so that executives realize it is not one-sided. It is usually the people pissed off about a storyline enough to write who get the last word so something like Neil/Victoria on Y&R back in the day was kiboshed because the racists cared enough to scream while everyone else shrugged because it was a pairing like any other.
Today the pushback if racists tried it online would be a lot more vocal and I reckon might shore up the resolve of a writing team if they wanted to go there. But the underlying truth is that our society is also collectively a lot more open to interracial relationships as a non-issue fact of life than it was even twenty years ago. So social media is not just the only reason it would be easier today.
Same for gay plots: it was once the homophobes who wrote in. Now the huge fanbase for these couples get to scream even louder online.

Of course, I did not mean to imply that social media has only negative or only positive aspect. I don't know how my original post came through, but I do agree that social media has both positive and negative aspects, as you said.

Reading the comments, I definitely see some points you are all saying. And of course there is not much change coming from social media in terms of soaps, because lets face it, there is not that many people that watch soaps. This is why I meant in the past, if social media existed, when Luke and Laura's wedding was watched by 30 mil people and they were all discussing it online, would that have an impact if you had such a huge number of people talking one way or the other. 

Someone said that we can only speculate and that we cannot know for sure how things would be.. well yes That was the point of my post. Just to bring some discussion and speculation... we are not writing a scientific report here, it's just a soap message board with speculation and discussion 

To give just some background on why I came to think about this topic.. Emily in Paris (show on Netflix). For those that are not familiar, season 1 came out last year and it was found to be very bad by many, depicting the French in a negative way etc. Then the Golden Globes nominated Emily in Paris in whichever categories and apparently the backlash was so huge that it started changes in Golden Globes that happened. Now, to be honest, I was not following this story when it happened last year, I was watching a video this year that this happened, so if the video was misinforming, I could be also wrong. 

Anyway, my point is, this type of backlash got me thinking about changes and impact on soaps in the past.

Of course, someone else said that it is all about the cash. I completely agree, because even in case of Emily in Paris, the show was not cancelled because of the backlash, season was released by Netflix, because even if it was so hated online, the show was still watched by a lot of people, thus generating cash for Netflix to order season 2.  But some things were changed in season 2 as a response to the critiques of season 1, so I guess backlash did help at least a bit...

But some new stuff happened in season 2 that got even Ukrainian government to respond, so lets see what happens in season 3  

I was thinking how soaps today are always playing it safe. There is barely no risk or barely any pushing the envelope. It seems that soaps nowdays are waiting for other media to push a topic into mainstream before soaps tackle it, while in the past it seems soaps were also telling these types of stories. One of the reasons why I think this is today is that network executives are afraid of negative social media reactions. While I know that network execs were probably afraid of negative outpour through letter campaigns back in the day, it cannot be the same, since it is so much easier to write a negative comment online than to sit down and write a letter and then go to the post office and send it. 

So thinking about this, do you think some stories would have been cut or would not have happened in the past had there been social media?

Would Erica have an abortion? Would there be interracial relationships of GH/GL/DAYS? Bianca's coming out storyline? Didn't ATWT have one of first divorces way back when?

So this just got me thinking... What do you think?

21 minutes ago, will81 said:

Was this the character played by Grant Cramer? Who played Shawn, Lauren's stalker from 1986? I honestly barely remember him. He was some real arrogant guy that was supposed to be a love interest for Ashley, but not even sure it went anywhere. 

Ah yes, thats the guy!

Okay, so I guess he won't stick around for long then

Thank you!

I was watching the old episodes from 1996. And there is the guy that seems to work in Jabot with Ashley. And if I understood the German pronunciation correctly, is his name Adam Hunter? Who is he?

I was rooting for France this year. 

While I think Maneskin did a great show and I can see why it won, it was not my type of music. 

50 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Thanks anyway for responding. Maybe someone will come across it.

Wow, so bookmarking it won't guarantee that you'll be able to locate it? Oh no.

They do have brief ads but they are rarely placed at the proper scene breaks anyway.

It's not often, but there have been a few episodes that are poorly presented- either something wrong with the audio/visual or in this case, an episode that looks as though someone recorded it on a VCR and left it on "pause" too long, forgot, then realized they should have hit "record" and hastily did so. I mean come in, these episodes are what, 22 minutes, how are you going to have minutes missing? 

Why are soap production companies so bad at archives and preservation?! And Bell productions are one of the better companies where daytime soaps are concerned.

I'm convinced that the people in of the business of daytime soaps, really don't like soaps.

Otherwise, what are they doing??

Re: the vault - I have my own person drive, so even if bookmark the vault, when I click on it, my browser takes me to my drive instead of the vault. Maybe if you don't sure the drive personally, then it would work. 

About the latter part of your post... I do think people in soap business don't like soaps. I have been thinking that for many years. Which is weird that someone would produce something that they don't like their own product. But I am grateful for the episodes of B/B that we get. So far I am still in summer 1987 and so far all the episodes are intact, as far as I can see. But I can imagine that an episode missing a key moment like the slap between Stephanie and Brooke would be a very jarring omission. Maybe something was wrong with the copy and nothing can be done to fix it?

23 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Other than Susan Flannery, Johnson was the second best actor on that show in those early seasons.

 

Okay, I'm getting frustrated with the B&B YouTube channel posting chopped up episodes. They actually missed the scene that featured the first slap Stephanie ever gave Brooke?! That's simply unacceptable! 

Okay, don't be mad y'all and I know this has been asked a hundred times now but which way to the Vault? 

I promise to bookmark it this time, but I need to see that episode properly, not the jumble of chopped up scenes presented on the B&B YouTube channel, which must by run by unpaid interns and volunteers. 

Indeed, I love both Johnson and Flannery. Others are very hit and miss.

Even when I bookmark the link to the vault, in time it stops working for me, so I don't have it.

36 minutes ago, Soapsuds said:

I remember when Jason Cook returned a while back and thought he looks good. He was on because BB wasn't available and it was short term visit. I prefer him over BB.

Oh yes! Definitely! This is around time when I last watched DAYS. I stopped watching after the Ben serial killer storyline finished. I loved seeing Jason Cook during the anniversary.  

9 minutes ago, ChickenNuggetz92 said:

Post-Bill Bell (and my personal favourite year) I would say 2001 was very good from start to finish for both Bell soaps storyline-wise and production-wise, with 1999 and 2000 not being too far behind (yes, even the sperm-caper story, total guilty pleasure of mine).

I was disappointed when they didn't show too many episodes from that year when last year's classics aired. It seems as though 2005 was a writer's room favourite year because a lot of things happened that forever changed the trajectory of some families during that year, also considered to be the last year Y&R was considered to be classic recipe by many.

I know a lot of people don't love that period, but I started watching with 1999 episodes and I loved all of it. Some of my favorite soap opera periods, all the way until 2004/2005... 

22 hours ago, Soapsuds said:

Yes it's Kenny. Great to see him back! I wouldnt have said that a few years back. Now if we could only bring back KevinC1980 I believe was his username. He loved Days and pretty much loved everything about it. That's true dedication to your soap!

11 hours ago, KLN said:

I appreciate that Ron! I'm happy to be posting here again. SON has always been a second home to me. 

Long time @Manny! You been alright? It's been ages!

What's Carlivati's name here?

I like MM too. I liked her better years ago but I think she makes a believable daughter for Marlena. She could definutely use a bit more warmth though.

Beemer is boring but I like his Shawn. Basic good guy, not a lot of complexity but they could always write him better. I think they should do a Shawn/Chloe affair.

@Soapsuds yes, it's good to see so many people from way back when still (or again) posting. When I came back to SON few months, I didn't think I'd find anyone who was posting from the early days of SON, but I was wrong, so that was cool  Although I am not sure I remember KevinC? Hmmm...

@KLN It has been long time indeed. Yeah, doing good, thanks! Hope you are too. It has to be like 10 years since we chatted, probably even more. Back in the day when we used to have those group video chats and played online Big Brother hhahaha Fun times!

Speaking of MM and BB, I always thought MM was a decent actress, she just never was Belle to me, even if she was a good casting choice as Marlena's daughter. I remember when we went from KS (to Charity Rahmer, eek!) to MM, it was so jarring becuase Martha was nothing like KS. She was older (and looked it) and while KS was bubbly and sweet, Martha seemed way more mature and serious. They never should have aged Belle and Shawn so much. 

Beermer was okay to me. Never had an issue with him. 

I've been watching Caroline's rape stuff and Joanna Johnson has been really good!