Paul Raven

Did they hint at a Nancy/Jake/Marley triangle?

As you stated,there was a lot of negativity to Kim getting involved so quickly with Nick and they were in fact married off quickly (not years of complications to keep them apart).Then once they were married,there was nowhere to go.The Dobsons left and new writers decided to kill off Nick(or was that the Dobsons again on their second go round?) He was on from Jan 80 till Sept 82. When dying,he made Betsy promise not to see Steve,which set in motion the whole Steve/Betsy saga.

Michael Forest (Nick Andropolous) then and now. Nick was one of the new characters brought in by the Dobsons.He swept Kim off her feet and seemed to be brought on to counteract the Bob/Don/Dan/Tom type good guys that ATWT always presented as Mr Right.

MMeg and Van battle over a gun!

Interesting that Bobby was 11 in 56 and then married by 1960! Irna went for SORAS when she could have either made Bob older at the start,say 15 or let him age more realistically and be ready to take on 'adult' story in the 60's. Ronnie Welch was the second teenage Bob.I think he was the actor that originally interacted with Lisa/Eileen Fulton for a few months. I have read that Irma never appeared onscreen and was only referred to, as was Pa's wedding to her in 75. Maybe saynotoursoap can shed light on this and how Santos Ortega was written out. I read when the show went to 60 mins ,Pa was dropped to recurring and hardly seen. Was this because Ortega was not well? Seeing those stills of Edith after watching the clips,I can recognise her apartment set.

Whatever happened to Jean McBride?? Did her choosing to leave cause the writers to decide to shift the tone of the show,or was that decision made and Jean dismissed? I remember the writers plans that Carl posted earlier in the thread had Meg returning in the early 60's which,of course,didn't come to pass.

That's Conard Fowkes but not sure who the woman is.

For whatever reason,Lassen changed her name to Natalie Israel.

Barbara Rodell was fired as she didn't have the experience needed for the lead role. She stated this in a SOD interview in 79.

There were 4 Ricks over the years. Interesting that he outlived all other characters from 1960 except for Van and Bruce,especially in light of the many writer chamges over those years.

Just watched the Aug 1960 ep saynotuoursoap has posted. Don Ettlinger was the writer (the 3rd since 1951).Only 4 main characters in the show.It was surely so much easier to write the shows back then with 1 or 2 stories and a few scenes each day. Or maybe it was harder to keep up interest for the same reasons? Anyway,wonderful to see such a rare ep. apparently,this was the 3rd opening the show had. The first was the shot of the fountain outside the hotel,which can be seen in episodes on the net. Then came a short lived opening of a flower blooming in slow motion Then came the starry sky we saw in the ep under discussion. Does anyone know how long that lasted and what replaced it.The next opening I know of is the flowers on the windowsill from the 70's. Surely there were other openings in between?

I'd forgotten all about Rick's 82 return,That was such a bad time for the show with lot's of writer and cast changes and dreary stories.

Great articles. Edge never had strong families because of the nature of the show,but Judy Gibson could have come back widowed ,with a child and become immersed in crime and mystery. Maybe a new love interest who was a criminal.

They took their eye off the ball by ignoring the Hughes and Stewarts and later the Snyders.. One thing that happened when the shows went to an hour and the years went by was that so many characters came and went and the cast was a mixture of several writing regimes. There should always been a committment to having core characters involved at some level.It is easier to use vets if they can connect with family members. I think that CBS and P&G thought that by backburning the central families,they would shake off the 'dowdy' perception these shows had. It didn't work. Characters that were under utilised Andy Dixon Frannie Hughes (and her children) Sabrina Rick Ryan-he should have been brought back along with Barbara in the late 70's Kristina Hughes Ryder The Ward children Dee Stewart-again she should have come back and by the late 90's her children would be major players. Ellie Snyder Had they not done Frannie/Sabrina and Scott,they could have brought back Chuck Shea by having Lisa discover the son she raised was accidentally switched at birth