Paul Raven

Was Larry Haines even on contract?

2 minutes ago, watson71 said:

Also, NBC and P&G tried to integrate Another World in the early 80s with black characters with no real jump in the ratings. You had Quinn, Thomasina, and Ed Harding. The Morgan family- Bob, Henrietta, RJ, and Mary Sue.  Also, Roy Bingham and Lily Mason along with other minor black characters on the show. In 1982-83, there were 9 black characters involved in storylines out of approximately 30 contract players.  If it didn’t work in 1982, I wonder how NBC thought it would work in 1989?

With every thing that was going on with the show at the time, I don't think you could blame the Black characters for the lack of a ratings jump. Had some of those characters stayed around and viewers got more attached and interested then it might have followed through in the ratings. But only Quinn and Thomasina had any sort of staying power and they were eventually dropped.

Crimson Lights is so overdue for a renovation. No wonder it has no customers.

That decor with the robot,the creepy face on the wall and the puppet...the stuff of nightmares...

22 minutes ago, Khan said:

It's been years since I read Marland's original bible,

Is that available anywhere? Would love to read it.

1 hour ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Julie was with David so Doug was with Addie

Julie was married to Scott not David.

2 hours ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

And he created the first supercouple with that formula. 

Some would argue that Penny and Jeff of ATWT were the first 'supercouple'.

6 hours ago, danfling said:

At the time when Tracy Delmar (who was later revealed to be Charlotte Waring) was introduced and played by Victoria Wyndham, which actress was playing her "Aunt" Sara.

I believe Victoria/Tracey came on in November 67 which means that Patricia Roe was Sara. As we have discovered through research, dates recorded in reference books can be off, but from what we know this seems the most likely.

Stu Bergman was definitely a light hearted humorous character on search for Tomorrow.And he was introduced in 1951!

GH- Jimmy Lee Holt

B&B - Kristen and Felicia Forrester

Days - Scotty Banning

ATWT - Frannie Hughes

Requests

Dana Andrews

Dick Gittings

Paulene Meyers

Charissa Chamorro

As The World Turns

Back from the Dead /Presumed Dead took hold in the 80's.

It had been used previously eg SFT Sam Reynolds, GL Bill Bauer but became more commomplace in the 80's and the 90's.

Days used it with Roman coming back as John Black, and Stefano ,AW with Steve Frame/Edward Black, GH with Luke ,ATWT with James Stenbeck.

So was anything changed in Ada's living room to be repurposed as the Shea's? Like ornaments, sofa etc? That lattice work at the entrance is quite distinctive and I'm sure even viewers who didn't pay much attention to sets would have noticed.

Just thinking if Harry Shea had have been anew love interest for Pat, there would have immediately been more connection. Maybe play a class conflict thing.

Dropping Pat was such a mistake. Beverly was a very attractive woman, good actress, long standing cast member and Pat had been married once only, so plenty of scope for a new romance.

She could have been the link to a new family a la Jill on Y&R with the Abbotts.

As The World Turns

Josh has been working at Y&R for years and was first a headwriter in 2012.

And in 2023, he has to be told about the Eve Howard story? Unbelievable.

Maybe over COVID Josh, you could have read some old synopses??

Looking at 73/74 Lesley's arrival was well timed. The show had pretty much relied on the same characters for the first decade and the hospital needed new blood.

Jessie became a talk to-there didn't seem to be any interest in giving her a story, which was odd considering she had been front burner since Day#1.

I know this has been discussed before,but was Lesley created when ABC lured Denise Alexander or was the character already in the planning stages and signing Denise maybe forced them to get her on air sooner?

8 minutes ago, TVFAN1144 said:

What did Stu do for a living before running the Inn with Jo?

For many years he ran Westside Auto a car repair business. Ellie was his faithful secretary.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but Sam Reynolds may have assisted Stu in setting up his own business. Previous to that he may have worked in a similar business as an employee?

1 hour ago, Khan said:

I realize that Nikki was pushed this time off the wagon.  Nevertheless, I'm just bored with watching MTS play drunk.  To me, it has a real "been there, done that" feeling to it.

But that's how Josh rolls.

The Adam the  outsider trope, Phyllis seeking redemption, the back and forth on business-it's the same stuff over and over.

Was Corinne Jacker given free reign? It seems that way. 

Maybe if she had been given more guidance or an experienced co writer ,things might have been better. She claims to have watched from the start, but nothing onscreen reflected that.

Courier Express, 27 December 1981

Playwright enters Another World by Tom Jory.

-Corinne Jacker was hired by producers of NBC's "Another World" to pump new life into the slumping daytime serial, and the Obie-winning playwright says she knew right away what had to be done.

"I'd followed the show from the start," says Ms.Jacker, who took the job as head writer for the series in October, "so it was easy. I felt the stories they'd been using lately had taken 'Another World' away from the things that I loved about the show. "I told them 'I wanted the show to reflect normal life -- no gangsters, no dope, no towns freezing over. I said I wanted to find drama in the people, the characters.

"IT SEEMS TO ME the soap opera is as close as you can get to a novel by Dickens or Balzac - which, by the way, were serialized first in cheap pulp editions. And that's what I hope to do, only more. Because when you look at Dickens, he's characterizing in broad strokes - villains are villains and good people are good people. I want my characters more finely drawn.

"And I think we're beginning to accomplish that," she says. "The kinds of things I didn't like - 'The Breather," the rape scene - are gone, and there's no more organized crime. Remember, there's plenty of drama in life, like in Dickens and Balzac, and that's what's happening in 'Another World.'

"'The problem with the other stuff," she says - the city froze over in ABC's 'General Hospital" - "is it works for a while. You tune in to see Liz Taylor on 'General Hospital," and it's exciting. Then the others try to imitate that, and it doesn't work, and the viewer is less thrilled."

IN ADDITION TO MS. JACKER, the series' producers hired two new directors and a new scenic designer, and changed the show's music and opening. There have been several cast changes under the new head writer, and Ms. Jacker is busy adjusting the demographics for Bay City, the fictional setting for "'Another World." 

The hourlong show, once on a slide opposite "All My Children" on ABC and CBS "As the World Turns" and "Search for Tomorrow," seems to even have begun stabilized - maybe even began an  upward swing. Ms Jacker's background is in the theater theater and, she says the stories will get deeper, with more wrinkles. My reputation is of a serious dramatist. I've never a written  episodic drama. I'm  a little more interested in the subtleties of characters than others might be."

SHE'LL ALSO INTRODUCE what Paul Rauch, the program's executive producer, calls "contemporary issues." One of the first characters Ms. Jacker created was Harry Shea, a union boss, played by Ed Power. "We're  having a black family come into the show as a core family and I think I'm right that it's the first black family in a soap where one member is not a doctor, lawyer  or other professional person.  And we've got an older mother who gets pregnant. In other words," she says, "'we're trying to deal with issues that affect all of us."

Ms. Jacker has been prominent as a playwright off Broadway and for regional and repertory theater for more than a decade. Her "Bits and Pieces" at the Manhattan Theater Club in 1975 won an Off-Broadway Obie award, and "Harry Outside," produced at the Circle Repertory Theater in '76, was similarly honored. She is playwright in residence at the Circle Rep.

MS. JACKER  ALSO has written extensively for television. She wrote the script for Katherine Anne Porter's ''The Jilting of Granny Weatherall," an "American Short Story' presentation on +public TV in 1980, and developed and wrote scripts for three episodes of "The Best of Families," a public television miniseries broadcast in 1977.

"My feeling in taking this was that the key lay in the organic development of the plot," she says. "So I've restricted myself to the longterm plot and the daily story breakdown. The five writers who work with me do the dialogue." Ms. Jacker says she develops biographies for all the characters in the show, for use by the dialogue writers, and they're working now on a map of Bay City, to help with geographical relationships.

Love the way that with an alcoholic in the house, who has succumbed several times, the Newman ranch has booze right there in the room. Very considerate, Victor.

That Griffith interview was a tough read. The guy is deluded.

And the gushing questions from SOD - sheesh....

AW got back on track in terms of structure in 86.

The McKinnons and the Loves 2 contrasting families. The Corys representing whatever history the show had left.

If they could have introduced some Matthews at that time even better.

But then they systematically began chipping away. As stated Reg, who could have been a compelling villain was given no nuance. Mary's dilemma was not explored properly.

Ben was dropped and forgotten, MJ recast and her character changed for the old 'I was once a prostitute' plot. 

Zane killed off. Cass and Kathleen left,so did Jake and Marley,Nicole ,Peter,then Nancy. Quinn murdered.

And so on-one bone headed move on top of the next.

Ina decade, NBC were back where they started with all their soaps in the bottom.

Jackie Smith couldn't work the magic she had at ABC. But isn't that often the case, where someone is expected to come into a totally different environment and make a success of it?

This Jordan/Eve plot has more holes in it than a bathhouse on  a Friday night in 1975!

How did Jordan get poison into the bottled water?

What happened with the private jet crew -are they just hanging around the airport?

Newman Security strikes again-the whole family heads out of town and nobody is alerted.

And the baby switch- wouldn't the parents of the dead baby missing a baby?

If Eve was sickly wouldn't she be under strict observation. How would Jordan gain access? And how could she look after a very ill infant?

I can't believe they are saddling Victoria with a grown child. She and Nikki can compare notes.

Maybe the whole thing will be uncovered to be Jordan's delusion and Claire is someone else all together (hopefully)

If she is Eve I get the feeling Cole will be around a few weeks and then return to his life-of course promising to be in constant touch.

Like they did with Phillip/Chance and Brock/Mackenzie.

I really don't see Cole/Victoria having any legs.

The original half hour Y&R with the focus purely on the Foster and Brooks families was entirely Bill's vision. With DOOL he had to work with what was there, even though he came in about 6 months in, he must have been a little restricted by what was there in place.

But with Y&R he had free rein. And the first 5 or so years was especially compelling. What made it special to me was the campy quality -some of that leaden dialogue, the 'daring' elements eg Lorie's book and centerfold, the rape stories, Katherine's drunken escapades (enhanced by Jeanne's OTT performance) Brock's preaching and singing etc

As college students we mocked those aspects, but Dear God in Heaven, we did not want to miss an episode.

I liken it to those glossy Douglas Sirk/Ross Hunter movies eg Imitation of Life. You rolled your eyes at Lana Turner, but were brought to tears by the time the funeral rolled around.