Paul Raven

From what I have gathered, Irna considered Bill her right hand man and they worked together on ATWT, OPW and AW. Maybe the feeling was that at some point, Irna would 'gift' a show to Bill. Perhaps co-creating was a step towards that but AW wasn't a great experience. So when Bill was approached to take on Days it was obviously tempting. Maybe the fact that the show was up and running but not really established was appealing and he was offered free reign.

Thanks for taking the time to dig up all this info. Never thought we would learn more about these shows. I can see why Road to Reality flopped. Watching a bunch of people in therapy day after day would be a big ask. Maybe if we saw their lives outside and then the therapy sessions were interspersed somehow, it would be more appealing?

Thanks for posting. I had seen one of these before. I also recall an ep from around this time featuring Dan(?) in a freaky dream sequence. This is Irna's writing. all of those pauses. Live of course and originally in color. Dean Santoro as Paul. By March of 73 Irna decided to drop Dan/Susan etc.after having killed of Liz and Paul. Then the strike hit and Irna never returned.

Re Charles Baxter/William Bogert - Jeff Carlson. I wonder what his relationship was to Henry and Vivian Carlson ?

Melinda believed she was a targeted individual - a cover up conspiracy using mind control https://youarenotmybigbrother.blog/2020/04/01/actress-melinda-fee-dead-by-stroke-march-24-2020-was-she-death-ray-silenced/ The unified effort and goal were then and today to expose a well-hidden, heinous high-tech technology focused on U.S. citizens, and various types of nonconsensual mind invasive patented technologies in full use for ongoing massive human experimentation for what it is. It is a monstrous, official high-tech targeting program, for social and mass population control that is now highly perfected which has marginalized anyone, men, women, and children to scientific objects, dating back DECADES in research, TESTING, and development!

Looking closely at the Chancellor set makes you can see that over the years much of the decor/furniture was changed. Yet it was very subtle. The curtains for instance changed to a burgundy velvet set .I wonder when and why those changes were made. SPW did a story on that set in the 90's and they stated that only one or two pieces were part of the original set. I think the wing chairs in front of the fireplace survived. Love Jill fondling the furniture like she was in the palace at Versailles and settling into that rather hard chair as though it was super plush.

Glad you enjoyed it! As you know I have been collecting soap articles/downloads for years and as I go through various files I'll post stuff that I hope others are interested in. Here's another glimpse into early Y&R (love the Snooper reference from Lorie) #181 Monday 24th December, 1973 (Tape date: Thursday 6th December) The show opens in the upstairs hallway, as Chris comes from her room to Leslie’s room and the door is slightly ajar. Chris looks in on Lorie and happily reflects on having her older sister home again. Chris tells Lorie how much it means to her to have Lorie there for her wedding. Chris tells Lorie that she’ll be meeting her future brother-in-law tonight. Lorie inquires after “Snooper” – Chris smiles and corrects her to “Snapper”. Lorie wonders why Chris isn’t wearing her engagement ring. Chris touches on how Snapper is already working all sorts of hours at his outside job in addition to his work at the hospital. Snapper and Stuart talk in the Brooks living room. Stuart asks Snapper where he works and what time he’s due at work tomorrow morning. Stuart offers to give Snapper and Chris a loan after they’re married but Snapper declines and says they’ll make it. Chris proudly introduces Snapper to Lorie. After the niceties, Lorie suggests to Stuart that maybe Snapper and Chris might like some time alone, so they both leave the room. When Snapper gets home, he’s surprised that Jill is still awake. She’s made a hot toddy each for them. They share a tender brother-sister moment as Jill says she’s going to miss him. Snapper picks up on the fact that Jill is a little troubled. She says it’s been a kind of an emotional night for her- the fact that Snapper will be getting married, how unsettled she is with her own life, how much she misses Brent. She said she misses the Christmases they had as a family before their father left them- they didn’t have much but it was a special time. She reminds Snapper how much he idolized his father and how they would pick out the perfect tree together. She wonders if their father will come home for Christmas, yet they don’t know if he’s dead or alive. Jill observes how lucky people are to have their parents and how often they don’t stop to count their blessings. Leslie and Lorie catch up with each other in their bedroom. Lorie’s been away for four years. Lorie eventually inquires into Leslie’s personal life and asks about there being any man. Leslie keeps quiet about Brad. Lorie says relates Leslie’s lack of men to spending all her time at the piano. They eventually talk about Snapper and Chris. Lorie says she likes Snapper, but thinks that Chris doesn’t realise that struggling without money is not as glamorous as it sounds. Liz comes out into the Foster living room and sees Snapper apparently asleep on the couch and says “I’m going to miss you, boy”. She said she’d been waiting for him to come upstairs – he said he was about here but was just lying here thinking about weddings, apartments, etc. Liz is mindful of the fact that he hasn’t given Chris an engagement ring. Snapper says he’ll give one to her one day, but right now it doesn’t matter to Chris. Liz says she has a ring which she never uses but would be mighty proud if he gave it to Chris. Snapper accepts the ring from her. They go upstairs together. (Fade to black)

So who played Brent? #136 – Tuesday 16th October, 1973 (Tape date: Tuesday 2nd October) Chris is in her bathroom, rinsing off her face when Jennifer comes from behind and mentions that Greg is downstairs. Chris knows that the women are coming from the rape crisis centre tonight – but she doesn’t know when. Chris tells her mother she’ll slip on something and come down. Greg waits with an obvious penetrating curiosity. Jen comes down and says Chris will be down in a minute or two. Greg expresses his feeling that there’s something everyone is keeping from him and he suspects that something is going on there. Jen handles the moment with sensitivity. Greg tells Jen that he happens to love Chris, and whatever it is why won’t they tell him. Chris comes down and says how grateful she is that he’s here. She’s just wanted some time to herself and that it has nothing to do with him personally. Chris graciously touches on the idea that she’s expecting someone. When she opens the door for Greg to leave, the two women from the Rape Crisis Centre are there and said they were just about to ring the bell. Greg asks Chris privately about why she’s talking with women from the Rape Crisis Centre. She tells him that she has to go in now, but perhaps they can talk in a day or so. The two women leave having made an impression on Chris to report her rape. Brent walks Jill home after an evening together. He asks her if she enjoyed herself and she says yes, very much. They talk for a while and she complains about her work at the beauty parlour, yet she’s good at it and is lucky to have a job. She complains that she doesn’t want to grow up and live like her mother – and yet she thinks her mother is super. Brent reassures her that there’s nothing wrong ever with a person trying to improve herself, reach beyond what her parents have had. Jill tells of how she answered a modelling ad and Chris Brooks was there. The photographer told them the kind of pictures he wants and both she and Chris decided to leave. After they left, Jill lingered in the ladies’ room until Chris had left, then went back and asks the man if she could try out for the job, but by then he had hired someone. Jill admits to Brent that at that moment in time she would have gone ahead with it. “How about that for looking for a way out?”, Jill says. Brent suggests to her that they discuss this on their next date.

Could you post Sally Kirkland Tony Musante Natalie Priest Danielle Brisbois Bettye Ackerman Jay Bontabinus Peter Fernandez

No matter what the year, there is always a gap b/w #8 and the rest. Days or OLTL for example were in 8th place but moved up at various times and another show was bumped down. But AW never jumped to say 7th or 6th - always mired at 9th...

Brad Bell interview from 199? Bradley Phillip Bell, head honcho of The Bold and the Beautiful, is one of television's youngest — and most successful — writer/producers. The Chicago native moved to Los Angeles, with siblings Bill Jr. (B&B's Director of Business Affairs) and Lauralee (currently on sabbatical as The Young and the Restless's Christine), to help his parents, Y&R Co-creators William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell, launch B&B. He started as a dialogue writer and was promoted through the ranks over the years. B&B is holding strong and steady in the No. 2 position at a time when soaps are losing viewers, recently scoring a 5.0 in the Nielsen ratings. Never one to let the success go to his head, Brad recently chatted with TV Guide Online about the Forresters, the Spectras and B&B's future.— Michael J. Maloney You must be pleased with the show these days. Yes. I was very psyched to see the show hit the 5.0 rating [the week of Aug. 2 to 6]. It was very gratifying. You refrained from creating a teen story on the show for a long time. What prompted you to go ahead with the Amber/Rick/Kimberly/C.J. saga? I wanted to do a story with family members. So it was kind of a waiting game — literally waiting for the next generation of Forresters and Spectras to get to the right age where you can start telling story. I waited and then I aged them a bit. We've heard there are plans for a remote at the end of the year. Yes. Right now we're tentatively booked to go to Venice [Italy] for a location shoot in the first week of December, and it will air the first week of January. Which characters get to go? I'm still formulating that. Brooke is likely [to go]. Thorne, too. Possibly Ridge and Taylor as well as the younger group, Amber and Rick. It will definitely be one of our full-scale extravaganzas. Given that the soaps's audience has dwindled over the years, would you do anything different if you were launching a show today? I would do a lot of things the same way. You have to create families that the audiences care about and create real situations as opposed to fantasy. What's important is to have human drama where people will watch it and say, "Wow, that happened to me, or to my mother or my aunt." That's what any good drama will be about. When Stephanie was driving up to the cabin to confront Brooke over her relationship with Thorne, viewers were treated to a series of flashbacks detailing the long-running Stephanie/Brooke rivalry. A show really can't buy that kind of intense history. You really have to put the time in to get a payoff like that. Definitely. It sure is great to be able to draw upon that kind of richness. When the Brooke/Thorne relationship began, some people thought, "Here she goes again with another Forrester man, and this is just because she can't have Ridge." However, Katherine Kelly Lang and Winsor Harmon (Brooke and Thorne) share a surprising chemistry. Definitely. The chemistry Jeff Trachta (ex-Thorne) had with Bobbie Eakes (Macy) was fantastic. But I didn't necessarily see it [between Jeff] and Hunter Tylo (Taylor) and at the time I was taking the story in a Thorne/Taylor direction. Now I'm seeing chemistry with Winsor and Katherine. It comes organically off the two of them. He's a very chemical guy. Right after the first on-screen kiss they shared, I thought we have the opportunity to build a relationship and have some very attractive and sexy scenes. B&B has gone through a number of cast departures over the last year. Clearly, though, your decision to refocus on core families and teen storylines paid off, as indicated by the 5.0 rating. It's difficult and, in many ways, a gamble to get rid of people you know are talented actors, like Kimberlin Brown, Ian Buchanan, Barbara Crampton, and Paul Satterfield (ex-Sheila, ex-James, ex-Maggie and ex-Pierce). They were all fantastic actors and great contributors to the show. You're never totally sure that the direction you're going in at the time is the right one. But what's never let me down is building things around families and bringing in new family members. Scenes between family members are always much more riveting than ones between friends and strangers. The Soap Opera Encyclopedia, by the late Christopher Schemering, calls the Mike Horton paternity storyline on Days of Our Lives, written by your father, "probably daytime TV's longest held secret." On your show, the secret of baby Eric's maternity seems to be unraveling now that Becky knows that he is really her son. Had you thought about extending that revelation? At first I was eager to break the record by keeping the maternity of Amber's baby a secret even longer, but I decided to keep the story fresh. Becky finding out has brought more dimension. And at this point, the Forresters don't know. That secret is going to be held at least a little bit longer. The medium's ratings are plummeting but Y&R and B&B stay at the top by sticking to the basics: strong storytelling and consistent casts. Where are the other shows going wrong? I've noticed that [shows] have been following what tends to work for the short-term. If you get too far away from the family and reality-based stories then your audience is going to splinter. If a show tries something different, sure, it may look good in the short-term and get some attention, but in the long run it's going to do more harm. Do you get direction from the network? Not really. The vision for B&B is the other writers — Jack Smith and Teresa Zimmerman — and myself. Also, my father [who serves as B&B's Executive Story Consultant]. So, yes, the show is really our vision coming straight from the writing staff with no interference from CBS. I can't tell you how grateful I am to [the network] for having the discipline and the faith in us to let us tell story the way we tell it. Everyone from [CBS Entertainment President] Les Moonves and [Sr. Vice President of Daytime] Lucy Johnson have been wonderful in respecting us. They know we won't go too far in terms of bad taste, too much violence, or things that are too sexually explicit. They know that that's not our style. Your wife, Colleen, has worked on the show in various capacities. Does she still? Yes. She's a production assistant in the booth a few times a month. We'll watch the show together and I'll bounce some ideas off of her. But she's really into being a mom right now. How do you juggle your busy life? It's become manageable. I do work long hours. Yesterday I worked from 7:30 am to 10:30 pm. It was a big day. We don't really talk about the show on the weekends. Saturdays and Sundays are my days off. We had a great two-week break over the summer and we'll have another one at the end of the year. I've taken up surfing. Really? [Laughs] Have you told CBS? [Laughs] No, but I think they've seen the surf rack on my car. Sounds like fun. I just started a few months ago and I'm hooked. Speaking of hooked, Brooke seems to have given up her obsession of Ridge. The character seems more sympathetic when she doesn't have him. I think that Ridge and Brooke will always have some magic between them. But [Brooke's pursuit of Ridge] was a story that people were tired of watching and one that I was, in a way, tired of writing. Something had to give. The Brooke/Ridge/Taylor triangle, in terms of being a solid front-burner, three-to-four-day-a-week, carry-the-show-story went on for as long as any I could ever think of. It was the heart and soul of the show for a long time. It was limiting as a writer. I was ready to throw away the security blanket and strut my stuff in other ways. I've found the show more manageable by going in different directions and by bringing in new characters. It's much easier to write and more fun, too. Sounds like the future's pretty bright. We're very excited right now. We started in 1987 in the mid 5.0s [ratings-wise]. When I took over the show, we'd dipped into a 4.6 or 4.8. To maintain the ratings in this kind of climate is something very exciting. Our international market continues to grow. We're looking forward to a very bright future.

AW was facing cancellation as early as 1987 To continue growth in the afternoon, Frons said NBC has signed writer Sally Sussman, who spent the past five years with CBS's The Young and the Restless, to develop a new serial for NBC. "Sally expects to deliver a bible [treatment) to us by January and, if we push the button, we could have a new NBC -produced serial on the air by the second half of 1988," he said. "We would schedule this show as a half -hour or as an hour. This should motivate Procter & Gamble to continue to improve and invest in Another World. P &G has gotten the message that they must meet a higher standard (since the cancellation of Search for Tomorrow)." The weak Another World lead -in has hurt Santa Barbara's share, as affiliates are painfully aware. The network has "taken a hard look" at Another World and completely refocused the story by getting back to basics and adding new talent, said Susan Lee, vice president of daytime drama. "Our goals in daytime drama are to continue the growth of Days of Our Lives and Santa Barbara and to drastically improve Another World by year's end, or replace [it] with a new NBC produced drama," she said.

Why is CLB on contract? The character is played out and never on.

NOV 1985 A DAILY soap opera depicting the lifestyles of the black community is under development by O.J. Simpson's Orenthal Productions and Ralph Edwards Productions in association with Columbia Pictures TV. The serial, called Heart and Soul, is being developed for syndication. It will revolve around the music industry and will feature original music produced in stereo. Stephen Karpf, Elinor Karpf and Jason Karpf, whose previous credits include the daytime soaps General Hospital and Capitol, will serve as head writers and producers on the drama.

Let's post and discuss ratings from that era here. To set the scene an article from Oct 96 NBC daytime- empowered by ratings growth in households and key female demographics - is looking to 1997 as the year in which it begins to enjoy the same success as its prime time counterpart. Consistently shadowed by the monolith that is CBS's The Young and the Restless and The Price Is Right and by the strength of ABC powerhouses All My Children and Genera! Hospital, NBC plans to drop the viewer -challenged magazine show Real Life in January to make way for Aaron Spelling's Sunset Beach. Another soap, network executives say, may be in the works by next fall for a potential launch in spring 1998. Promising a coastal drama different from NBC's former Santa Barbara, Sunset Beach will focus more on 20- something friends and less on the traditional family units that anchor soaps, says Susan Lee, senior vice president, NBC daytime. At least four actors have been cast, including Ashley Hamilton and Randy Spelling, the producer's son, who has already had acting stints on Fox's Beverly Hills, 90210. "I think there is more pressure on us [from prime time counterparts] because working here you certainly feel that you want to be performing as well. You want to be able to say 'I got an A on my report card too,' " says Lee. "We decided on a new soap because our feeling was it was a branding issue, particularly with so many channels where you can get a lot of different programing. What networks do that's unique is daytime dramas." And it's something CBS seems to do best with its number -one The Young and the Restless, which finished last season with a 7.6 Nielsen rating /27 share, up 4% over the previous year. Coupled with the strength of Price Is Right and Guiding Light, CBS won for the eighth year in a row in households (5.3/20). ABC followed, with a 3.9/14, and NBC had a 3.2/12. Yet the #3 ranking didn't tell the whole story for NBC, which enjoyed the largest growth in households, with a 17% jump over the previous season. Strides also were made in women 18 -49, up 20 %, and women 18- 34, up 22 %, Lee says. She attributes the growth to over- the -top Days of Our Lives stories of exorcism and stolen human eggs. Yet ABC still took the top prize last season for women 18 -49 (3.1), followed by CBS (3.0) and NBC (2.4). To boost its share of those viewers this year, ABC plans to expand its practice, started on All My Children last season, of incorporating recaps and teasers to keep fans updated. "We're not in the household games, we're in demographies," says ABC's Pat Fili- Krushel, president, ABC daytime. "Women 18 -49 -that is our goal, and we have been number one since 1975." Whether Sunset Beach represents a threat to ABC and CBS and a boon to advertisers remains to be seen. ABC, for instance, already has its own investment in The City and worries more about the loss of talent from an already small writing pool than about an increase in competition. "Writers burn out. It's very intensive," she says. "We call it the Venus flytrap of storytelling. It would be great to give them a hiatus so they [could] regenerate. We're talking 52 weeks, or 260 episodes." "Now is an excting for NBC to introduce a third soap," counters Michael Maloney, West Coast editor of Soap Opera Digest. "Days of Our Lives currently is number two in ratings, and Another World has had its demographics improve over the last year as well. Since soap fans tend to put one channel on and leave it there for a whole day, adding Sunset Beach to the lineup will help produce a strong soap block for NBC." Media buyer Bill Sellers of Western Media Inc. in Los Angeles warns that recent network attempts to add soap operas "have essentially failed or have been no better than the syndicated fare that's come across." In 1995 ABC's The City -a new version of the network's Loving, which had debuted in 1983 -was the last soap introduced to daytime. Earlier, NBC said farewell to three of its soaps: Santa Barbara, dropped in 1993 after eight years; Generations, which debuted in 1989 but was canceled less than two years later, and Search for Tomorrow, off in 1986 after four years on the network and 31 years on CBS. CBS's The Bold and The Beautiful, launched in 1987, ranks as one of the most successful new soaps since the launch of sister show The Young and the Restless 24 seasons ago. "The expansion doesn't have as much to do with distribution as [with] getting affiliates to go along.... It's been a struggle," Sellers says. "If they are going to expand, affiliates are going to have to give up time and inventory for syndicated stuff and work for both parties." NBC says its has clearance in at least 90% of the country and promises to be available for promotional support to stations over the next two years - roughly the same time period that networks give for a new soap to succeed. "History suggests it's a long haul to come up with a project that changes viewership patterns," Sellers says. "I'd bet against it, and I'm right probably 90 percent of the time."

That's interesting regarding Katherine Meskill/Helena. i wonder if she played the role in the same timeframe as Augusta Dabney as a temp or earlier /later?

Posted earlier in the thread. Yes the GH rating is higher than TPIR in 84. That statement may have been CBS network spin. Although the Daytime TV ratings are never clear on what they represent - is it a monthly average or just a random week from that month?

Thanks for posting. Yikes at that Brad/Leslie scene of him telling her she could lose a few pounds. Wonder how Janice Lynde felt about that?

Agnes with Doug Marland and Joe Stuart

Never really seen many pictures of Linda Gottlieb. Soap mags always used the same headshot.

Never knew there was a GH tie in paperback. seems to be from around 74/75. This was #3 so at least that many in the series.

It seems that the Dobsons created Chad and brought in Andy Norris.Had he always been mentioned as apart of that family but never used till then? Interestingly Doug Marland brought him on again 5 years later. Both stints were short lived. Seeing TJ (Tim) befriending Billy Fletcher again suggests that Billy could have been aged Like Tim and been part of Springfields new teen scene under Marland., rather than inventing Kelly. Billy already had history on the show. Does anyone know why the Dobsons departed GH? Were they dropped because the ratings had fallen or lured away for big bucks by P&G? GH was a family legacy for them, but were they merely employees with no financial stake?

The Derek/Jill story suffered from muddled motivations and eventually just fizzled out. Derek was forgotten by Jill, Kay and Bill Bell.

Thanks for digging up all of this. High Street seems to be praised as much as Better or Worse is savaged. One other obscure show in this genre is Road to Reality...if you have the time?

Ron was a central character during his stay as they really went into his psychology and he had a lot of powerful scenes. Dick DeCoit handled them very well IMO. They are really no scenes available from that time.