Paul Raven

Requests

Jane Kean

Theodore Bikel

Stacy Harris

Days of Our Lives   Drake  1967

On 10/23/2023 at 6:55 AM, Soapsuds said:

No one likes this story. Who the hell would pic frat boy Nick over hunky Adam? No one!!

Don't know that  I associate hunky with Adam but Ok...

CH stated in this week's SOD that she acknowledges Sally has lost her edge in this story and she's right.Adam and Sally would have made a good pair of schemers at one point.

I would have preferred to see Audra getting her hooks into Nick rather than yet another Adam/Nick involvement with the same woman.

The long term characters need to go in the new directions rather than rehashing past stories.

The Register Danville  Sunday Dec 3 1978

Soap-Opera Writing Big Crossword Puzzle 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 USA. They 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 65page script for the CBS soap opera “The Guiding Light” longest running drama in broadcasting and are on the telephone constantly with the producers in New York. Since becoming head writers three and a half 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 wonderful thing is that as writers we can live anywhere" says Dobson "We looked all over the country before deciding to move here” Bill and Joyce Corrington head writers for “Search or Tomorrow" live in New Orleans.

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 contract. "It's a giant crossword puzzle” says Dobson "You have to keep story flowing and at the same time use your actors the proper amount of time. We can only use seven sets a day so that has to be coordinated too" Bridget says "We may work from sunup to moonup.It depends on the arguments. If Jerry’s being good we’ll get through it fast. “We’re working on so many different time levels If someone asks me what's happening on 'Guiding Light' I have to stop and think. We plot the stories up to a year in advance The scene breakdowns are seven weeks in advance of airin. The scripts are four weeks in advance. Then there's taping and finally the air date”

The Dobsons sit in the sun by their Olympic-size pool behind a huge house built in 1916 Nearby on the four-acre estate are a croquet court putting green and tennis court They moved in years ago with their children Mary 16 and Andy 13 and their two dogs Both are early risers and jog through the hills. Dobson runs until he spots 30 different species of birds “My record is 12 and a half miles” he says. 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. His family owned walnut ranches that he managed after graduation. He still oversees two ranches that raise walnuts and wine grapes. Bridget is the daughter of Frank and Doris Hursley who wrote for "Search or Tomorrow” and created “General Hospital” "When I was a child I used to pass hors d'oeuvres to the same people I now work with on ‘The Guiding Light ’ she says.“I had no faith in my writing ability and taught school for three years "she says. Then she spent seven years as an associate writer with her parents on "General Hospital” until she says "I felt had to sell my writing to someone else.My ego needed it. So I wrote the people I used to pass the hors d'oeuvres to and they gave me a trial writing scripts which I apparently passed.Jerry had been running the ranches and he joined me in the writing At one time they were head writers of "General Hospital" They were asked to take over that show when Bridget's mother became ill.

“The Guiding Light” was created in 1937 by Irna Phillips and ran on radio until 1952 The television version began then. It was originally centered on a minister named Dr Rutledge which accounts for the religious overtones of the title. He and his family lived in the city of Five Points and sometimes a daily episode consisted of his sermon. His traditional Good Friday message "Seven Last Words" was replayed year after year. But in the late 1940s the Rutledges were replaced by the Bauers ‘“ As head writers they turn out a page script every day plot the series a year in advance and try to see the actual broadcast of every episode.

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. The characters are more multidimensional. "We push the limits on sex but it’s a matter of taste We like to use sub-rosa sex. Covert sex as opposed to overt sex. Delicious wholesome sex Every now and then the CBS censors will miss a line and we'll nudge each other”

The Dobsons record all the shows on their videotape cassette machine which they also use to view auditions of new actors. It allows them to vote on new performers without going to New York. They try to catch every show. At times they’ve rushed into bars and attempted to persuade the bartender to switch to the soap opera. Once they had to rent a motel room just to watch the one-hour show.

The Dobsons say there’s no formula for writing soap opera "You can't fill in the blanks” said 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” 

Fort Lauderdale News Thurs Dec 4 1980

'Midland Heights': Not a true high school picture

"To get on the air and be a hit, you have to do what you have to do." Listen to that man when he speaks. He's David Jacobs, the producer at Lorimar Studios who created Dallas, now honored as the most-watched TV show of all time.

He also created Knots Landing, the official Dallas spinoff and is the man behind Secrets of Midland Heights, CBS's newest entry in the soap opera arena. Secrets, which premieres Saturday on WTVJ-Ch. 4, is to Dallas what Gary Ewing is to J R. an incomparably inferior version of the original. Secrets also has an identity crisis, having been moved from a restrictive 8 p.m. slot to a more permissive 10 p.m. slot, opposite Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters and Fantasy Island. 

Secrets of Midland Heights was created with an emphasis on the town's high school students, and was scheduled accordingly to grab the youthful Saturday night TV viewing audience. CBS noticed,however, that all the other prime time soaps (all the ones mentioned above, plus NBC's upcoming Flamingo Road) were ensconsed in the latest prime time slot possible, and doing quite nicely. So Secrets is giving equal time to its adult community while simultaneously introducing a cast that in sheer size makes Peyton Place look like a ghost town.

What kind of place is Midland Heights? If you limit your, input to the pilot episode, as most discerning viewers will (if they watch at all), the bottom line is that Midland Heights is a boring place. The program is boring, true. But so are the inhabitants, the teachers, the hay-rides and even the TV stations of Midland Heights. Elements of the script sound like one-liners written for Henny Youngman. Secrets of Midland Heights would have us believe that this town is so small (how...small... is... it?) that it broadcasts a high school football game on the radio and on television. This town is so small that two generations of the same family coincidentally rendezvous at adjoining rooms of the town motel to engage in the throes of sexual passion. This town is so small that the high school kids go on hayrides, which are big deals in Midland Heights even if one dejected young lady manages to put the whole thing in perspective.

' "I think I'm mature enough to miss one Founders' Day hayride . without going to pieces," she says bravely.

It's easy to see why CBS wanted this series out of the reach of children. The actors and actresses are attractive enough to be immortalized on posters, but they're also eerily dissimilar to high school students of the current generation. High school seniors are no longer innocent and stupid (if, indeed, they ever were), but Secrets of Midland Heights has its young characters frozen in the anachronistic amber of the Dobie Gillis era. On the notorious hayride, for example, the students of modern-day Midland Heights break into a rousing chorus of Tom Dooley.

Now I don't mean to split hays, but Tom Dooley was a hit song for The Kingston Trio in 1959... three years before a modern-day 18-year-old would have breathed his first breath, much less hummed his first folk song. I doubt that you could find one high school senior in 100 who could identify Tom Dooley, let alone sing it. (Their follow-up number, incidentally, was Bottle o' Wine, a newer but much more obscure song that even Cameron Cohick, rock critic for The Fort Lauderdale News Sun-Sentinel, admitted was "before my time." If Cohick is incapable of dredging up more than the chorus, how can a Midland Heights teenybopper break into three-part harmony without so  much as a moment's hesitation?) It's worth discussing such picayune details at length because these very details can make or break a show of this type.

To reach a young audience, Secrets has to be believable to a young audience - and this one hasn't got a prayer. In the later time slot, CBS might be able to get away with more because parents won't know how outdated the show's portrayal of young people really is. It might, in fact, be a source of great comfort. In the soap opera sweepstakes, Secrets of Midland Heights comes in dead last. Dallas has the ultimate villain and a handful of delectable men and women: Knots Landing has good directorial style, and both it and Flamingo Road have female, versions of J.R.Ewing.

Secrets, conversely, has little to offer. The cast members aren't worth mentioning, so they won't be mentioned. The acting is minimal to somnambulistic, and the script is straight from the "One plot twist from Column A, two from Column B" school of building-block TV writing. The only thing Secrets has actually, is the best double entrendre line among the season's new pilot shows.

One howlingly funny line, though, is no reason to watch Secrets of Midland Heights. Nor, when you think about it. to make it.

When the question "What function does Secrets of Midland Heights fill?" was put to David Jacobs, the producer responded with the only acceptable answer. "What function?" he repeated: Then he smiled, obviously deciding to 'fess up. "Saturday at 10 o'clock.,.".

Manya Starr Obit Variety Aug 8 2000

Wouldn't be at all surprised if there was some retcon introduced that contradicts what we saw onscreen. This is Josh, remember?

Or maybe there was another Reed sister that Nikki never knew about?

I can't see 2 rival networks and 2 different production companies working together to arrange a crossover.

Had anything like that ever happened before or since?

Just Enquirer hype I think.

3 hours ago, danfling said:

I have two questions about Grandma Matthews (Vera Allen).   When the character was written off the show, what was the explanation that she was no longer living with Mary and Jim?    Did she leave at the same time Janet Matthews was written off the show or before that?

Granny was off the show a month into its run (June 64) I don't believe there was any explanation at the time. Maybe they were thinking of recasting?

I think a bit later there was a mention that Granny had gone to care for another relative out of town.

It's always stated that the role wasn't needed but after only a few weeks it would be hard to roll. Maybe it was a budget thing or they just realised the cast was too big.

Why mention at all if it is a contentious  issue? There are many past plots that could be mentioned in relation to current stories but are not so why bother with glossing over the Bill/Laura rape?

So Lesley had 2 dead children? 

Did the scab writers come up with the husband suicide/dead child scenario?

And then there was the Laura back story?

The idea behind Sue Ellen and a toy boy was good but the execution was off.

Unless you are into twinks, Peter had zero appeal. Compare it to DH and Jesse Metcalfe.

Chris Atkins had moved full speed into his twank era.

Who is the blonde b/w Linda and Sheree?

Linda always looks great.

How long can Elena stay around? Maybe Britni is already recurring?

Just like MacDonald Carey and Joan Bennett, Dana Andrews was cast to give the show some 'star power'. Someone like Andrews would have found acting roles hard to come by at that time and a regular income and 3 day work week would have been appealing. 

The Chancellor set bears only a superficial similarity to the original. The dimensions are much smaller. The front door is now visible from the living room. The length and width much reduced. There is now a doorway to the left of the fireplace that was previously a wall. There were previously doors that lead into the living room that were always open, now just an entrance .

The Newman living room was a new set introduced several years back replacing the previous ranch entrance/stairway/living room. This new set is smaller.

Y&R 

The Chancellor set. Apart from the fact that it has shrunk considerably, that bulky cheap looking sofa and chair bug me. Something more elegant would help a lot.

AW producers seemed more interested in dropping characters than committing to them.

I think Philece would have made a better Nicole.

Who would have been more suitable to play Donna? Anna left big shoes to fill.

For me it's Crimson Lights on Y&R. That 'zany' decor with the robot and the weird puppet thing on the wall.

And billionaire business people stop in for a coffee. It's well overdue for a revamp, but I guess with virtually no customers it's not warranted.

Request 

Tippi Hedren

1 hour ago, depboy said:

Life gets in the way!  I will be trying to resume the 1973 synopses soon.  Sorry for the delay!!

No problem. Thanks for the update. As Agnes Nixon said...Make them wait!

Just a guess but it may have aired on an independent station. This was not uncommon when an affiliate chose not to air a soap.

That was a nice touch. Have they ever done that for other cast members who passed eg Beau Kayzer?

A lot of viewers would have had no idea and it would be quite a shock I'm sure.

Robin was Kathy's daughter who was killed off in 68. She got married Mike Bauer at one point.

9 hours ago, Antoyne said:

It took soooo many years to repair the damage of this.

Was it ever repaired? Apart from being completely forgotten.