Paul Raven

That's fine. Take your time!

My first requests for the year Fabio Ronald Sylvers Simon Prebble Shirley Blanc

Variety reports in September 1968, that CBS president Frank Stanton ordered that all CBS be 'integrated' and that black characters depicted would be on an economic par with the white characters. Secret Storm, having a bistro set at the time, added a black singer. Reaction was immediate and there was an 'unbelievable amount of hate mail', according to a staff rep, and ratings dipped. However, after that initial reaction, negative mail fall to a trickle and ratings rebounded.

Radio In Review Soapland Discovers Homicide Commodity By JOHN CROSBY Arizona Republic Phoenix, Arizona09 Feb 1951, Edna Ferber once attributed the success of her novels at least partly to the fact that they dealt in the fundamentals of life birth, marriage, disease, death. Soap opera deals pretty much in the same primary commodities except that the emphasis lies on their frustration or perversion. Soapland is full of women who can't have children, of marriages that have broken up or are breaking and of deaths that are anything but ordinary. Murder, which intruded only occasionally in soap opera years ago, has become overwhelmingly fashionable. That old sleuth, Perry Mason, has Walter Bott on trial for his life for murder. My old friend Larry Noble of "Backstage Wife" just beat a murder rap for backstage killing. It was Claudia Vincent, as you and I knew all along, who was the killer. Claudia's mind snapped under the strain ana she s been put away. But not before she threw acid into the face of Mary Noble, "Backstage Wife,' possibly disfiguring her forever. www SOME INSTINCT tells me she'll recover her beauty. She s done it before after even worse tnbula tions. As a matter of fact, poor Mary has a rather nasty habit of falling victim to the mentally de ranged. Last time I listened in February. 1946, she was recovering njcely, after having been drugged, locked in a room and left to die by someone described as "mentally not well." Backstage and theatrical murders are rather fashionable among current soap opera. Front Page Farrell, the demon reporter, is currently trying to solve a double murder of stage folk. And Portia, the demon ladv lawyer of "Portia Faces Life," also has a twin killing involving nightclub people. The freshest corpse anywhere around is that of Ralph Kirkland who was done in by Rupert Gorham on "The Second Mrs. .Burton." Rupert then proceeded to elope with his victim's mother-in-law, Grace Burton, a nice touch. Ralph is so freshly dead that his wife, Marsha, doesn't know it yet. She thinks her husband is off again with that Elizabeth Miller girl who has again escaped from the hospital. A good many of the murders have been committed by women. The "Backstage Wife" and the 'Young Widder Brown" killings were both done by women and I strongly suspect the Front Page Farrell murders had a woman be hind them, too. That pretty well winds up the homicide in soapland, except that Stella Dallas just escaped a couple of attempted assassinations and there has been a good deal of bloodshed in "Lorenzo Jones" which was once primarily a comedy show. Murder has been popular a long time in the evening hours but this afternoon murder is a rather different dish of tea In the first place there is almost no element of mystery. The listeners almost always know whodunit when murder is committed, not so much to remove the victim from this planet he is better off dead than living in soapland as a means of causing suffering to the quick. Almost always an innocent person is indicted and the trial goes on for weeks or months, keeping the housewife in a wonderful state of sustained anxiety. Some times murders are committed for no other reason than to implicate Nora or Caroline or whoever, the victim having been unfortunate to be around when a corpse was needed. Jealousy is the principal motive but the girls, curiously enough, don't kill the other woman; they are much more likely to kill the man they both love. While good women are nobler than anything in your or my experience in soap opera, the bad women are more venomous than anything you'd care to encounter. In either case, the women are strong, just as men, whether good or bad, are weak at the best rather simpleminded and easily bam boozled by women. Also, while women are committing a good many of these soapland murders, these lapses from feminine grace are offset by the fact that women solve the crimes, too. It was Mary who put the finger on Claudia in Backstage Wife"; Portia is running down the nightclub murders and even Front Page Farrell is getting a lot of help from his wife. The man's job in soapland murder is just to stand around. Or better yet, to fall down gracefully when the bullets strike

I guess it will be a flashback episode so we see Neil, Joanna,Paul,Scott etc Do they have to pay the performer if they are seen in a clip?

Interesting theories but don't forget this is Josh Griffith writing. Similar theories were floating around about Ashland because what was presented was inconsistent, illogical and lacking any twists and turns and we were hoping for something more. But it all lead to nothing with Ashland being killed off and no aftermath to that.

Variety August 14th 1968 reported on the unique deal that Rita Lakin had negotiated with Colgate Palmoive and the Ted Bates Agency going into her second year as headwriter. She now shares the assignment with Rick Edelstein, a former director, while she resides in California and he is based in New York. They work through mail, only coming together with a weekly phone call with EP Allen Potter and have an arrangement that gives them 16 weeks off per year. Miss Lakin noted that most serials have one writer or a team working constantly to produce scripts for 5 episodes a week, 52 weeks a year. She initially worked alone but then created a company and hired staff to help reduce the workload. She then partnered with Edelstein and the two split the more than $100,000 salary which after taxes works out roughly the same as what she was earning solo. The agreement created has them working together for five weeks by mail, during this time they alternate writing the outlines for the week ahead and split up the writing for the current week with one writing MTW and the other Th F and then alternating. Then every 3 months one of them will provide a 3 month projection to the sponsor. After the 5 weeks of joint work, one of them will depart for 8 weeks leaving the other to write solo. They then collaborate again for 5 weeks before the other writer has an 8 week break, Miss Lakin said she was 'floored' when this writing schedule was accepted but noted the sponsor wanted to retain her and this way nobody gets too tired. She gets on well with Edelstein and is a fast writer finishing her 40 page story every morning as well as weekly and quarterly outlines. Lakin is collaborating on a feature film script 'Breakthrough' with Doris Silverman. She worked for 15 months on Peyton Place and is pleased with her current position financially and creatively, She noted that she could earn $6000 on a half hour script in primetime but then spend weeks in story conferences and rewrites, only to have it not how you intended in the first place.

To all the posters here at SON that contribute to make this site a special one, best wishes for 2023!

It does seem odd that he was replaced on one show, only to turn up on another on the same network. I can only assume they weren't happy with his portrayal of Larry. Maybe they thought he was better suited to be Mike. It must be demoralizing for an actor to be replaced two times in succession. Then they again cast an actor from HTSAM in Armand Assante, whose looks and demeanour were completely different to previous Mikes. It seemed like they liked the actor so shoehorned him into the role of Mike. The role would go onto be recast over and over. It's a wonder they didn't just decide to drop the character. Many other shows in the same position did just that.

It's never going to happen but i'd like to see Billy Abbott leave town, at least for awhile. i find the character insufferable and don't like Jason Thompson in the role.(He might have been better as Adam) Unfortunately, by saddling him with kids, it makes it harder to drop him. And Y&R have that core group-most of the cast ! that will be there till the end.

Looking at the opening credits and the episode itself, there were virtually no characters that had been around longer than 3 or 4 years. I'm sure TPTB were patting themselves on the back for 'modernising' the show and ridding themselves of those older and longer term characters characters, but in reality were slowly destroying the foundation and key to viewer loyalty. Look at Gail Kobe's reign. An invasion of new characters and stories that captured the public's imagination and did send ratings up initially but it was all short term. A lot of those new characters lasted the length of their contracts and their replacements fared no better. By the late 80's there was patchwork of characters from various families and no clear direction.

Love of Life Myrtle Oliver,nurse Justine Johnson July 1968

1968 NBC has 'From the Terrace' in development, with serialization elements, based on the book/movie and produced by Everett Chambers (Peyton Place)

Ok 50 most memorable moments... can we get a list going? 10 off the top of my head David Kimball's death Katherine's facelift Nikki/Victor wedding Jack throws the chair through the window Patty shoots Jack Leslie in the asylum Katherine drives Phillip off the cliff Victoria kills JT (just to add something more recent) Michael breaks into Christine's apartment Jill is shot

OK Thanks for clearing that up!

Wasn't Robert off the show from 1980 till 82?

Thanks for following that up. There was a general reaction to violence on TV at the time. CBS put out a memo to all their producers asking them to look at shows in production for fall and delete any scenes that may be considered overly violent.

Hotel's fortunes were directly tied to Dynasty. As that show slipped in the ratings so did Hotel. When Dynasty got moved back to 10pm, Hotel was discarded to Saturday, which by then was a poor night for ABC. I think ABC wanted to be rid of it, as often happens with shows from an old regime. I believe the budget was cut, as the guest stars were more run of the mill.

In the June 6 1968 issue of Variety, Bill Bell took out a full page ad An Open Letter to the Television and Film Industries The gist was that in the light of the murders of MLK and RFK, he asked the industry look to themselves as to the presentation of violence in these media. Next to his name was an asterisk and in the bottom of the page was a small note that he was writer of Days. He obviously felt strongly about this. At that time he was based in Chicago and would be pretty much unknown to the Hollywood community. I wonder if there was any reaction?

I dread the thought of yet another Newman child on the canvas. Adam completely washed his hands of Christian, who is never seen anyway.

Correction - Devon and Victor are billionaires!

With Y&R's landmark anniversary just a few months away, heaven only knows what Josh Griffith will come up with. Maybe we SON posters can give him some ideas. I'm sure what we come up with will be better than what we see onscreen. My first thought is a one week clip compilation segment paying tribute each day for a week to the 5 decades. eg Mon 1st 10 years, Tues next 10 years etc Story wise , maybe news comes in of Brock's death - a tribute to Beau Kayzer Lorie, Leslie, Jill, Julia, Mac, Murphy,Gina return for a memorial service a chance to show old clips- although this might be a bit limiting as it would exclude a lot of characters. Maybe Jabot 50th anniversary? Your ideas?

i'm not even sure that list is complete. Didn't Phyllis get the sack from Marchetti? And most of this business consists of chats at empty cafes and restaurants. When do we see board meetings, content creation, fashion shoots etc?

Can't remember the last time it was seen. Wasn't there some nonsense about Noah wanting to operate Glum from there? Also forgot to mention Dive Bar which was another popular watering hole. On the subject of flighty residents SOD year end summary provided this reminder of the transient nature of employment and business. Victor sold Newman Media to Newman Enterprises. Victoria folded the fashion platform so Chelsea was out of a job. Adam filled in for Victoria as CEO of NE so Sally took over at NM. Chloe became Sally's COO Victoria returned as CEO so Adam became co CEO at Jabot Victoria appointed Nick as her COO Jack bought Marchetti Kyle hired Diane for PR Phyllis sold Grand Pheonix to work at Marchetti Lily became CEO of Chancellor Billy was COO Lily and Devon merged their companies to form Chancellor Winters Amandi and Imani joined the legal team They both resigned. Nate quite the hospital to join CW Victoria replaced Sally with Nate Sally started an Interior Design firm. Billy started a podcast then dropped it Nick accepted a job at New Hope with Nick Noah quit NH and opened Glum Club YOU GOT THAT?

Variety reports that CBS will be mounting a 3 week publicity campaign beginning June 17 1968 to draw viewers to the show, which was struggling against The Dating Game and Days of Our Lives. Joe Hardy and Don Ettlinger were the newly appointed team behind the introduction of Spence Garrison and almost a dozen new characters with the thrust being the choice between personal and political ambitions. There will be plentiful daytime and primetime promos. Irna Phillips departed in Nov 67 and her storylines were dropped.