Paul Raven

@Reverend Ruthledge Thank you so much. This is amazing in details that I have never read before. Hopefully you can continue into 1941. The thing is most of this could play today with some tweaking. TGL should be relaunched using these stories and a multi ethnic cast.

BTG Some extra sets eg Jacob/Naomi living room, Banecker U., Martin's office etc More location taping taking advantage of the studio surrounds. Some actual hospital business rather than gossiping at the desk.

Devon was, is, and always will be deadly dull. They should have recast at the time Bryton was hardly appearing. As for making him Katherine's grandson, that was idiocy on a grand scale.

Yes to all of the above. The quality of the writing and production is an embarrassment at this point.

Thanks as always @DRW50

Reading this article got me to thinking how none of the original Y&R cast who left when on to have much success in primetime. Janice Lynde was all pumped for her 'Roxy' pilot that wasn't picked up and by 79 she was back on soaps on AW. Trish Stewart landed a series Salvage 1 but it was short lived and she pretty much disappeared. William Grey Espy never seemed to want to move to primetime and only found work at AW. James Houghton did OK with KL and The Colbys. He was the first of the originals. to depart. Did he have a shorter contract? Tom Hallick had a few pilots but then nothing. I wonder if any of them had regrets, or they took it in stride that being a hot daytime star didn't mean much out of that sphere. The Journal 20 November 1977 Tom Hailick TV Actor Wants More BY DICK KLEINER HOLLYWOOD — According to most polls, Tom Hallick is the number one male star of daytime television. Whether popularity is measured in terms of fan mail or viewership or whatever, the handsome Hailick hits the high figures. He's one of the big reasons CBS' The Young and the Restless is a top-rated soap opera. He plays Brad Eliot on the show and both of them are winners. But it isn't enough for Hailick. He enjoys being where he is because there's nothing wrong with the atmosphere at the top.. Even so, he wants more. In the first place he wants more money. "I have to say that I like the security of a weekly paycheck," he says, "and that's what you get with a soap opera. But I recently played a part on a TV pilot, 'The Return of Captain Nemo,' and I made doing that pilot than I made all year on The Young and the Restless. "I work very hard on the soap — I believe it's the toughest work there is for an actor — but compared to 'Nemo,' I make nothing. And on 'Nemo,' all I had to do was say 'Up, periscope' a few times." So there is the inducement of more money that beckons Tom Hallick to broader horizons. There is also the hope to attract more fans to his banner, although there is quite a crowd there already. "Actually," he says, "the make-up of the public who watches me is surprising. The show is a big hit on college campuses for example. It's almost a cult thing with the collegians, ahd I have a lot of teenage girl fans, too." Still, he'd like to become better known among the bulk of the public, those who go to movies and watch nighttime television. So he's branching out. He's done a couple pilots lately. One of the aforementioned, "The Return of Captain Nemo." Another one is a new Irwin Allen proposed series, Time Travellers. And a third pilot was for a syndicated variety series with Dan Rowan and Michele Lee called The American Flyer. "I think I can do both a nighttime series and the daytime series," Hailick says. "I want to have my cake and eat it too. I want that regular paycheck plus the other money. And most important, I like working hard." He has a clause in his contract which permits him to take time off from The Young and the Restless to do other things, provided he gives the show sufficient notice. He says it took six months to work out the details of that clause, but now it's proving its value. Tom began acting as a first-grader — "The Reluctant Dragon" was his first role — and never really deviated from the acting dream. "I did go to law school for a while, but that was mostly because I had, no idea how to become an actor." It was a long struggle working in Buffalo,in Florida, as a page for NBC in New York. Then he came to Los Angeles and things began going his way. Now he's number one — but is that enough?

Agree. Just add it to the end of an episode.

Yes I saw that yesterday. Amazing. Didn't know either of them could sing(that well)

The Journal Dec 1978 Writing Soaps, Getting Tanned MONTECITO, Calif. (AP) — "Forget the image of 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' where frantic writers run around the set and throw out pages," says Jerome Dobson, sitting beside his swimming pool."We'll start plotting and say, 'Pass the suntan lotion.'" Jerome Dobson and his wife Bridget lead a quiet, secluded life on a wooded estate between the mountains, and the Pacific in this affluent community south of Santa Barbara. But they aren't cut off from the world of Bertha Bauer, her sons Ed and Mike, and everyone in Springfield, U.S.A., who don't make a move or utter a word that doesn't spring from the minds of the Dobsons. Every day they turn out a 65 page script for the CBS soap opera “Guiding Light," longest running drama in broadcasting, and are on the telephone constantly with the producers in New York. Since becoming head writers 3 and 1/2 years ago they've given the soap opera which had been suffering from hardening of the arteries, a decidedly contemporary look and a faster pace. The Dobsons plot the series a year in advance, dictate the day-by-day outlines to a battery of secretaries, and send the outlines to four assistant writers to flesh out with dialogue. They use graphs and charts to keep track of all 30 characters and to be sure every actor works the number of. days required by his or her contract. "It's a giant crossword puzzle," Bridget says, "We may work from sunup to moonup. It depends on if Jerry's being good ,we'll get through it fast. They write wherever the mood strikes them — by the pool, in the pergola, or in, their private offices. Jerry and Bridget met at Stanford University. Bridget is the daughter of Frank and Doris Hursley, who wrote for "Search For Tomorrow" and created "General Hospital." 'Guiding Light' is a vastly different show from what it was, say, five years ago," says Bridget. "We were with the show a year and a half before I can really say we were proud of it. You can't change it overnight. The pace is faster, the characters are more contemporary,it's sexier, it-has more humor. characters are more multi-dimensional. The Dobsons say there's no formula for writing soap opera."You can't fill in the blanks," says Dobson. "You can't just punch up the characters. You have to write from the gut; You have to be true to your characters at. all times or the audience will jump on you."

Jordan was looking vampirish by the end of his Y&R run.

Just watching a bunch of people kissing ...sure romance is a big part of soaps, but they need to promote characters and storyline. And the 'sexy' scenes don't even look that hot.

What don't you like? The character poses? The theme? Any ideas of what you would like to see? As far as Ashley goes, I think Jen Jacob is fine-it was just the set up of her character and the triangle with Derek and Andre that was a fail for me.

@SoapDope78 Thanks for that episode. Has it been up before? The Journal April 17 April 1977 Actor Outlasts Soap Operas BY DICK KLEINER After 11 years of playing Dr, Bill Horton on NBC's Days Of Our Lives, Edward Mallory has reached the pinnacle of daytime television. He is one of the most popular of all the soap opera heroes. But does h e find the work satisfying? " No , " he says. " No , it's not totally satisfying. I'm like an airplane. I've been through all the training—Carnegie Tech and all that — and I'm a good plane. I'm all fueled up and ready to take off. But then I'm stopped just before the wheels leave the ground. I've only taken off a few times in 11 years with Days of Our Lives. Why, then, does he stay with the show? "Because of the money," Mallory says., with refreshing candor. Mallory comes originally from Cumberland. Met-, where he had a pleasant childhood. There was never a thought of acting as he went through school. After graduating from high school, he became a management trainee with a tire company. Then came the Korean War, which changed his life totally. He went into the Army, became a lieutenant, and was assigned to duties as an instructor. He found he could get his ideas across to his recruits better by dramatizing them — giving impressions, acting out his commands. It worked and -he enjoyed it. So, when he was discharged, he decided that perhaps he had a future in acting. He went to Carnegie Tech — now Carnegie-Mellon — where he studied drama. He acted in many of the colleges plays and continued to act during s u m m e r vacations. After graduation He stayed in the Pitsburgh area, working on local TV stations. He was spotted there by an ex agent who advised him to try California. In i960 Mallory m a d e the move, and quickly established himself in a career that would ultimately lead to his role on Days Of Our Lives. Now, however, Edward Mallory wants to branch out. His goal is directing. He has already tried his hand a t directing local little-theater plays, a film about acting, and a spoof of Days Of Our Lives for the cast's amusement. Now he's in the midst of making another spoof of the show, but this one is larger and more ambitious. So far, he's p0ured some $15,000 of his own money into the project. He's using the Days of Lives cast. And he's built a set — the castle of "Dr. Neilsonstein" in "Neilsonvania." The castle set is in Mallory's own living room. "It's all about a rating war between networks," he says. "And the upshot is that CBS tries to build the perfect soap opera hero — -and that's where Dr. Neilsonstein comes in. He makes the perfect-soap opera hero come to life."

Definitely should have cut that clip down. I started fast forwarding after about a minute. I remember the first few episodes-things draaaged. Not the way to hook new viewers in. The Alex/Iris scenes were torture.

Seeing the outside of the studio is frustrating. They could tape the Hayley/Randy meet ups in the car park, for instance. They have been outside a few times so it is puzzling why they don't do it more often.

BUFFALO COURIER-EXPRESS, Sunday, May 23, 1982 In 'a soap opera age of bland blond 'and boring brunette beatities, red haired Lurlene Harper on 'Texas" is a flapjawed, awkward, yet endearing relief. She's clean and fancy-free in appearance, guileless in manner and backwoods in speech. She may be the only TV woman capable of pronouncing her boy friend's name, Joel, in six syablles. She is so full of goidurned spunk and cotton-eyed charm that she outdistances the other "Texas" ladies in appeal by a country mile. "She's good-hearted and naive," says actress Tina Johnson, describing the character she plays. "She trusts everyone and doesn't believe that people can be ruthless, heartless or unfaithful, which produces a lot of conflict for her, especially in a soap opera. Lurlene also doesn't believe she's attractive. She's merely cute. She fantasizes about the men of her dreams who'll sweep her off her feet. ''She had a giddy crush on Jeb Hampton a year ago, and that was the only romance in her life until ' Joel tame along. But he's blind, literally. Otherwise, he might see her as other men do: a good pal." Ms. Johnson doesn't have a trace of the Texas twang she uses on screen as Lurlene, While most other actors on "TX" struggle to no authentic avail to deal with a Lone Star accent, Tina's is as authentic as sagebrush and armadillos. "I grew 'up in Tyler, Tex., and people back home see me on the show and say, 'her folks sent her to all those fancy schools and she's talkin' laik she always daid,'" explains Tina. Her christened name is Varina and it has been the name bestowed on every first girl born in her family for four generations, ever since her great-grandmother, an admirer of Jefferson Davis's wife. "My pa was, and still is, head of the music department at the Tyler High School. Ma's a violin teacher. I sang in the church choir since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and there was never a doubt me and my brother, who is now a songwriter and guitarist, wouldn't pursue music in some way." An interest in music professionally began for Tina at age 12 when she appeared, with Sandy Duncan, as one of the Trapp children in "'The Sound of Music," in Dallas. After graduating from North Texas State University, Tina toured in "Peter Pan" as Wendy and in "Cactus Flower" with Ann Miller. I never deliberately set out to change the way I talked. I just picked up accents naturally. I'm a sponge. I lose myself in the magic of acting and become this other creature. You have to mold your whole being for a character."

Daily Bulletin Endicott. Thurs July 26, 1956 'Romance of Helen Trent' Oldest Soap Opera of All by Charles Mercer. Yesterday a few bars of 'Juanita' sounded from a few million radios across the country and a soap opera called "The Romance of Helen Trent" entered Its 24th uninterrupted year of broadcasting on the CBS Radio network. As far as anybody can find out - and just watch a couple of authorities from somewhere arise to dispute the flat statement- "The Romance of Helen Trent" is now the oldest consecutive soap opera on the air. Its 5900 scripts, if laid end to end would consume fill 61 solid days and nights of heart-throb. Romance Over 35 Helen has survived by a simple, neat formula that has endeared her to millions of women as they slave .over their ironing boards and cookstoves. She demonstrates, in fact she proves—that a woman of 35 or older may still have romance in her life. Granted that Helen, a successful Hollywood dress designer may have been 38 when her perpetual and persistent romances began back in 1932. She now is a mere 62—a real spring chicken. One thing about Helen is that she's a mighty good girl, with none of the major or minor vices. She has been courted only "by wealthy men-it's doubtful if anyone knows how many. Yet, not once has she been led to the altar. Her listeners have their favorite suitors of course. One actor who played a suitor some time ago, says he used to receive constant communications from a listener, a sweet little old lady from Chicago, who was rooting for him. She's report what were being said about him behind his back on the program. She urged him to "strike back'' But when Helen finally rejects her listeners apparently accept the fact with a fatalism born of the ironing board. Tomorrow there will be somebody else. Tomorrow there will be hope. And there always Is Gil Whitney. Helen's most persistent suitor of the past dozen years. Helen was the brain-child of Frank and Anne Hummert. a husband and wife writing team. Only nine writers have worked on the show in its lifetime. The present writer is Margo Brooks, of South Salem. Ernest Ricca has been the director for the past 12 years There have been occasional substitute stars but the present Helen, who took the job at the age of 27 and will be 40 in -November, is an actress named Julie Stevens who Is married to a television executive named Charles Underhfll and lives in Armonk. , Helen .has .been aroundL*-long tinw-aiw shows-no' eigne of ever leaving the airways. One fact mint be. faced, however: Helen never can marry. if she ever did there would be no more romance for, a lot of listeners.

Melody Thomas Scott as Marge.

@soapfan770 I'd forgotten that the Dobsons had worked on a couple of episodes of Emerald Point. I agree that a Fri @10 slot could have worked but I guess the risk was too great in breaking up the Dallas/FC combo. What they could have done was have a couple episodes play Fri @10 before moving it to Monday ,hopefully building an audience that way and then debuting FC for the season in it's regular Fri slot.

Not sure if this has been posted before, but with close to 1000 pages... Margaret De Priest plans to spruce up'Another World' By Nancy M. Reichardt Award-winning soap opera writer Margaret De Priest, who took over the head-writing chores on NBC's "Another World" this past March, has plans to shake up the soap - and its viewers. "I intend to bring a solid focus to this show," says De Priest. "The audience will be able to say in one sentence or to see in one key scene what 'Another World* is all about." De Priest started her daytime drama career 17 years ago when she joined "Edge of Night" as an associate writer. She later co-created the short-lived soap "Where the Heart Is," then went on to become an associate writer on "One Life to Live" and later became a head writer on the NBC soap "The Doctors." De Priest was part of thé "General Hospital" head-writing team from 1980 until 1983, when she joined NBC's "Days of Our Lives" that same year, where she continued through 1985. De Priest received Emmy nominations for her work on "Days of Qur Lives'" {last year), "General Hospital" and "One Life to Live". Getting back to "Another World,""De Priest says, "The show is revolving around three core families: the Corys, the Loves and the McKinnons. Each family has a particular kind of lifestyle and philosophy. We're doing a classic drama, in the vein of Sinclair Lewis - with all those wealthy Loves on one side, the blue-collar McKinnons on the other, and the wealthy but socially conscious Corys in between.. ''We'll also be adding characters to flesh out each family," continues De Priest. "Several members of the Love family will show up soon, including an older patrlarchal figure and some of the younger members of the family. There are still a brother and sister In the McKinnon family that the audience hasn't met yet, and some of the Corys will also return." De Priest doesn't intend to use the typical: Friday cliffhangers to grab the attention of the audience. "The audience will be kept off balance," says De Priest. "They'll have to watch the show every day because events of momentous importance will take place throughout the week.

Soap Report Jon Michael Reed April 29 1979 NEW YORK - CBS's "Love of Life" has undergone many creative changes since last fall when new producer Cathy Abbi spruced up the visual look of the show with dynamic stunning sets and costumes. But a beautiful environment does got a good soap opera make. The story, under headwriter Jean Holloway, has gone to the dogs. The prime focus centers on a ridiculous story about locating Bambi Brewster's parents. At first, since the girl was in critical condition, the search seemed logical. Now that she has recovered and not expressed the least bit of interest in her boss Ray Slater's locating her family, motivation and reason has flown out the "'Love of Life story window. AND, HAS ANYONE out there in videoland been able to make sense out of the horde of various characters bearing the Brewster name that Ray contacted in Des Moines, where half the.town of Rosehill has journeyed to join Ray in the dismal hunt? The story's core characters have been left in limbo, meanwhile, with absolutely nothing.' Love of Life's" doldrums may be reversed, however, when yet anothér new headwriter Ann Marcus takes over the writing helm. . Marcus was in charge of Days of Our Lives story till last fall. Prior to that she had co-created "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, even earlier had scripted 'Search for Tomorrow." Her expertise hopefully will bring "'Loveof Life" out of the pits.

It speaks to my desperation! Maybe Josh will burn out? But I guess he's still got a few villains he can resurrect... Veronica Landers, Shawn Garrett and Mari Jo Mason for starters.

None of these (mostly)unqualified people are remotely believable as business dynamos because we never see them do anything apart from sit in restaurants. Fingers crossed Griffith will leave in 2026. Anyone will be better. I'd take Carvilati in an instant at this point.

Thanks @Soapsuds for continuing to post ratings. This was well into the new season and the networks were making some decisions. There were a lot of pre-emptions for Xmas specials and new series that had flopped. The A Team was NBC's biggest hit in years Tues @8 trampling Just Our Luck/Happy Days on ABC and The Mississippi on CBS. ABC decided to axe Luck and replaced it with Foul Up's Bleeps and Blunders, which did better. Remington Steele was losing a lot of the A Team lead in and Bay City Blues was a disaster @10 so Remington was moved to 10 and Riptide brought in @9 where it beat a weakening 3's Company and Oh Madeleine on ABC. Circus of the Stars did it's thing on Sunday where the comedy block was finally failing. Knight Rider was solid for NBC. So CBS tried to freshen Sunday with The Four Seasons @8 but it didn't help. Fortunately Murder She Wrote was waiting in the wings. Wed was all ABC Fall Guy/Dynasty/Hotel. NBC's only change was to place Night Cout @9.30. ABC's Thursday had been a disaster so changes were made. Automan was placed Thurs @8 but #47 on debut didn't help at all. It was still Magnum/Simon/Knots ruling Thurs. NBC moved Family Ties from Wed to Thurs @8.30 , Cheers back to 9pm and Buffalo Bill @ 9.30. Moves that would pay off when Cosby came along. Fri was still CBS domination although Dukes of Hazzard was failing. Webster was the only bright spot for ABC as Lottery @9 failed so they went with action with Blue Thunder. NBC dropped all their Friday flops-Mr Smith, Jennifer Slept Here, Manimal and For Love and Honor. But the replacements-Leg Men, The Master and The New Show failed also. Saturday-Love Boat was still strong for ABC but TJ Hooker and Fantasy Island were dropping with no real competition. Strokes and Silver Spoons were doing OK at 8 for NBC but Rousters @9 was a dud so NBC went with comedy-We Got It Made/Mama's Family moved from Thurs with Yellow Rose continuing @10. CBS showed improvement when they dropped a movie for Airwolf and Mike Hammer.

Just how does it come to be that the top rated show has the worst budget? Is the LA Bar going to be seen again? Or was money used up for a short term set? The creative decisions made on this show are truly puzzling.