Paul Raven

Came across this listing for Wed May 11 1983 for Des Moines Iowa

The NBC affiliate did not show Days of Our Lives. Pre-empted for movies chopped up for showing over consecutive days. 

13 - WHO (NBC)
5:00 am - Nightwire
6:00 am - AgDay
6:30 am - Early Today
7:00 am - Today
9:00 am - The Facts of Life
9:30 am - Sale of the Century
10:00 am - Wheel of Fortune
10:30 am - Dream House
11:00 am - New Battlestars
11:30 am - Search for Tomorrow
12:00 pm - News
12:15 pm - Duane and Friend
12:30 pm - Movie "Kelly's Heroes" (1970) (Conclusion)
1:00 pm - Movie "The Cowboys" (1972) (Part 1 of 2)
2:30 pm - Another World
3:30 pm - Floppy Show

BY Tues Nov 12 1985  Days was back in the schedule

13 - WHO (NBC)
6:00 am - Morning Agriculture Report
6:30 am - NBC News at Sunrise
7:00 am - Today
9:00 am - Your Number's Up
9:30 am - Sale of the Century
10:00 am - Break the Bank
10:30 am - Scrabble
11:00 am - Super Password
11:30 am - Wheel of Fortune
12:00 pm - News
12:15 pm - Duane & Friend
12:30 pm - Days of Our Lives
1:30 pm - Another World
2:30 pm - Search for Tomorrow
3:00 pm - Newlywed Game
3:30 pm - Let's Make a Deal
4:00 pm - Love Connection

I'll believe  an invitation was extended to Beverlee, but I don't think she would have accepted.

From everything I've read, she didn't seem the sentimental type and wouldn't be bothered returning to a show she left 19 years before that was being cancelled. And the fact that only Rachel was still around from her era wouldn't be much of an inducement.

1 minute ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

It was said recently that Bill Hayes's Doug singing live was the first one. 

I think Gene Bua (Bill Prentiss) on Love of Life preceded Doug.

And Mary Stuart definitely sang live on SFT.

Cancellations were a feature of the 70's.

CBS cancelled Where The Heart Is, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing and Secret Storm within the space of a year and dropped Edge of Night also. And only introduced one new show Y&R.

ABC cancelled Dark Shadows,Best of Everything and A World Apart.

NBC cancelled Bright Promise, Return to Peyton Place, How To Survive A Marriage, Somerset, Lovers and Friends and For Richer For Poorer.

So only 3 successful soaps were introduced in the 70's - AMC, RH and Y&R.

How did that story of Agnes killing off the Gregory family on AW begun?

Alex was killed in an offscreen car crash. That was it. The rest were just written out.

As for GH having more sets,maybe it's simply that the available studio space is larger so the sets themselves are bigger and there's space for more of them.

Does GH still do daily set changes ie a crew comes in each day to erect sets?

Do we know the taping schedule? One of the actors talked in SOD a few months ago about going in the afternoon and taping into the evening, which I thought was a big no these days due to overtime payment issues.

Looking at the Brad in a Cage location clip posted in the Old Articles thread, highlighted the contrast with the Nikki/Jordan story.

Location filming, and a longer term, more suspenseful tale.

Not just a bunch of people standing in a room in the culmination of a plot that lasted a few weeks.

2 minutes ago, Beachstorm said:

Why are there so many posters who still think that the Billy/Summer one-time sex event is relevant to anything on this show anymore? It wouldn't change a damn thing with anyone.

If it had have come up when Billy and Phyllis were still together maybe.

But it's like Billy/Sharon, Cole/Nikki, Jack/Sharon...no longer mentioned or relevant.

Gwynn Gillis

Guiding Light Molly Randall

Guiding Light Blair Van Houten

Gwynn Gillis lists these roles in her book 'The ABC of Soaps' 

Her character descriptions

Blair was a clothes horse, always pursuing the best designer
with the most elegant gowns. She’d lunch with her friends at posh
restaurants and try to stay on a her strict diet, to no avail. She
always had to buy new clothes because “nothing fit.” She briefly
appeared to help Mindy’s design career by commissioning her to
create a party dress in a day. Due to a snowstorm, Mindy lost her
car keys and never delivered the dress. Mrs. Van Houten never
forgave her for leaving her hanging with the dreaded reality that
she had to wear “last year’s dress,” which obviously didn’t fit,
wrecking her evening. Blair had a sense of humor, but only about
her diet, not her clothes.

Molly was a ruthless district attorney running for re-election
during a highly publicized murder trial in Springfield. Rather than
carefully prosecute a visible case with indisputable evidence, Molly
rushed in to arrest unlikely suspects, including Laura, who was
pregnant, just to capitalize on the publicity and guarantee her
re-election. When the evidence couldn't withstand court scrutiny,
she blamed several high-ranking police detectives and the police
commissioner. Molly was re-elected, though the lives of all those
arrested were destroyed—Laura lost her child and her marriage;
she was given a prison sentence, along with several others.

Blair I can see as a short term role but Molly is a mystery.Who was Laura? Perhaps Gwynn misremembered  the characters actual name?

Can any GL fans help out?

And both GH and The Doctors finally identified their locales-Port Charles and Madison respectively.

Re Paul Burke - Della and Royal Bay are the same project. When Royal Bay was rejected as a TV pilot, it was repackaged and renamed for some sort of theatrical release/syndication deal. I've also seen it as a VCR release under another name. 

And I had no idea that Ali Shawkat was his grandaughter.

Also,Barbara Rush's 57 No Down Payment has been cited as the inspiration for Knots Landing. PS It's a good movie if you haven't seen it -very soapy!

It's sad to think that 'going into the past' afyer 35 years of story resulted in a gorilla.

And having Sam Groom back , but not as Russ. And extended an invitation to Beverlee knowing full well ill heath or not, she probably wouldn't accept.

9 hours ago, SoapDope said:

The fitness craze started in the 70's and several soaps started to jump on board.

OLTL had the Health Club. Are there more examples?

9 hours ago, SoapDope said:

Super couples started having their own theme songs. 

Was Doug and Julie's 'The Look of Love'? What were some others?

More of a 60's trend I guess but the end of live broadcasts when ATWT and EON went to tape in 75.

Like John Aniston on Days there are many performers who had small roles on a show before landing a bigger role much later.

But I'm really referring to popular actors/characters who were dropped and then returned as an admission that the original departure was a mistake, and that hopefully a new role will recapture the magic.

Usually the original character was killed off, which created drama at the time but long term wasn't always the best move.

Despite the batting average being extremely poor as seen in the above examples, the soaps continued to try. 

Even in the great outdoors Y&R characters would talk to themselves...

Tracey/Lauren got two location shoots in major stories. Paul with SF and Barbados.  Did anyone else manage that?

AW tried several times with Robert Kelker Kelly formerly Sam as Bobby/Shane, John Aprea Lucas/Nikos and Alice Barrett Frankie/Anne.

The beginnings of 'celebrities' making appearances as themselves.

ATWT - Bobby Short

LOL- Sammy Davis Jr

SFT -  Melissa Manchester

OLTL - Bill Anderson

GH - Mamie Van Doren

Music/singers part of the story.

Y&R lead the way and DOOL had Doug and Trish.

SFT had Steve ,DRS had Andy and I think other shows dabbled in this area.

Requests

Barbara Rush

Paul Burke 

Peter Lazar

Jo Ann Pflug

Maybe this little bit of hype and attention will have Brad deciding to make this Diana Sheila's daughter after all!

It seems the second role is never as successful. Mariah is still around but she pretty much just morphed into Cassie.

OK ,in addition to lackluster writing, some of The Colby's casting was not up to snuff.

Who could you suggest as Jason,Frankie ,Bliss and any other roles you think were miscast?

Going by the ages of the actors cast in 85

Jason early 60's in 85

I'm thinking Sam Wanamaker (Berrengers) as a possibility.

Frankie 45 Yvette Mimieux? also starred in Berrengers.

Bliss 20 Mary Beth Evans? Chatherine Mary Stewart?

Several soaps have tried to capitalize on an actor's popularity and fix past blunders by bringing back the actor as a different character-sometimes related to the original but often someone completely new. But has it ever been a success?

Is it a bad idea from the get go? Is there any actor you would like to see back (past or present)?

Some examples

Days

Josh Taylor - Chris/Roman

Wayne Northrup - Roman/Alex

Y&R

Mishael Morgan - Hilary/Amanda

Ted Shackleford - Will/Jeffrey

AMC

Francesca James - Kitty/Kelly

OLTL

Lee Patterson - Joe/Tom

GH

Anthony Geary - Luke/Bill

 In the above list, most of the return roles were flops. Only AMC seemed to get it right. There are many more. Please add and discuss.

21 minutes ago, John said:

ABC should have cut AMC & OLTL each to 30 Mins

Not sure that would be financially viable. Maybe if they taped in 6 month blocks (2 eps a day) and went dark for the other 6 months?

As suggested in the 90's thread.

I don't think the list will be as long as the soaps were more under the radar in those days and each show did its own thing,

Anyway for starters

Expanding to from 30 mins

AW, DOOL, AMC, OLTL,GH,ATWT and GL all expanded. Gh and OLTL went to 45 mins at first and AW went to 90 mins in 79.

90 min premieres

How to Survive a Marriage and Edge of Night both had movie length episodes (in EON's case to mark the move to ABC)

Dropping older/veteran characters.

Really started to accelerate throughout the 70's.

AW killed off Mary Matthews, EON Martha Marceau, SFT John and Eunice Wyatt, ATWT Dan Stewart, Susan Stewart, Sandy,Judge Lowell, OLTL Victor Lord and so on

Lois Nettleton

The Brighter Day in the 50's and then countless primetime roles throughout the 50's till the 90's until finally returning to soaps as Virginia Benson on GH in the early 90's.

Let's hope he gives a good honest interview soon.

Now that a precedent has been set,who is available to take over Y&R?

@dc11786 another great analysis. The Dobsons had a template in place when the show started but quickly began tossing characters and actors which immediately gave the show a transient feel that it never shook.

Obviously plans change once things play out onscreen but I think they were too hasty to drop families (Perkins/Andrades) and focus on the rich folks. A contrast with lower socio- economic people would have been more interesting. 

As you said the light hearted teen stories were a bust. Maybe those characters could have been back burnered for a bit and some recast if necessary. Maybe they were too hasty to ditch them - many a performer has improved over time.

Brain Frons was NBC daytime chief at the time and commissioned SB I think and we know how he operates-very 'hands on'. Perhaps the Dobsons were out of their depth having complete control  and too ready to give into NBC's demands. Who knows?

A pity that in time some of those characters were not brought back rather than the constant onslaught of new short lived characters. But that's a far too common story on all shows.

The Perkins were dead and buried but the Andrades could have been rebuilt around Rosa and Santana. Weren't the a couple of other siblings mentioned in the bible and early episodes?