Michael

That's actually an incredibly interesting interview. Corday comes off as... Corday, hyping whatever the current thing is as The Best!, but Langan's answers are sort of fascinating. He comes off as both pompous and insightful, and only one of those is a thing I'd have gleaned from his onscreen work. I thought it was interesting that he was sort of openly disdainful of Belle as a character and how Storms infused the writing with something perhaps unintended -- not that I wanted him to stick around, but it makes me wonder if Belle would've gone in a different direction had that happened. Every writer stuck so closely to that "Belle is sweet and perfect!" thing, and it did neither the character nor any actress in the role any favors.

Something possessed me to watch the series finale tonight, and I had forgotten about that little moment where Bill says to Fletcher, "I miss Ben," and Fletcher responds that he misses him, too. The actors put a LOT into that small exchange, and it got to me. I just wish there had been time for more sentiments like that (er, minus the terrible foundation of Ben not being there to begin with).

Thanks for posting that. Really beautiful montage, even though it's difficult to watch tonight.

As popular as Reva had been in the 80s, I think there was some kind of weird network/P&G/show decision in the late 90s where they went, "Who's the Erica Kane/Marlena Evans of this show?" and crammed Reva/KZ into that role. It was so blatant and awkward. I thought KZ did a lot of great work, and she actually fit very well in the Peapack version of the show as this down-home kind of gal, but all the high-concept, "she's so sexy" stuff struck me as such an attempt to do what was working on other shows.

Weird that the caption says "their infant daughter" even though the story up above clearly states that she had a boy, Doug.

Not necessarily. The Irna Phillips lawsuit in the 1970's states that the trio initially created the program in 1961. The proposal is undated, but it could have been written in 1961, so then the birthdates would have been adjusted to later years when Days was eventually picked up as a series 4 years later.

Oh, interesting! So the 33-34 estimate would be right on the ball, then. Thanks for the info.

I just checked the "Days" proposal, and in it, Addie is said to have been born in 1926, and Mickey is "two years her junior", so he was originally born in 1928. Although those dates may have been changed through the years. But in the first statements ever written about Mickey, he was born in 1928.

Oh wow. So he was at least originally conceived of as being in his mid-late 30s by the time the show premiered. Interesting.

I actually remember reading -- it might've been in that Lorraine Zenka coffee table book -- that Mickey was 33 when the show started. That seems like a random thing to include if it wasn't said on-air or included in the initial bible/character bios. I think the narrative was that he was 33 and was a bachelor, always dating beautiful women and whatnot, until Laura captured his heart or whatever. I had never really thought about it much, but Maggie was definitely in like her early 20s when they got together, so there was a decent age difference there.

I do think if Maggie had been cut loose from the Horton fold in the early 80s, she would've gone the way of Liz, Don, Neil, and the like by the end of the decade. I guess her only chance at survival would have been if Melissa or Sarah had really taken off as solo characters and she'd gotten to stay around in the context of their mother (or if she'd had another kid by Don or someone who had done the same). But I don't think she would have become such a fixture the way she did in the 90s and 2000s -- she was a staple, even if she wasn't really given dramatic material.

What was also odd at that time was they had that Nikki Munson, who was a total miscast for Nikki but I think would've worked as Molly!

^ Whoa! Nice find. Thanks!

That's a fascinating (and blunt) article. Thanks for posting. Pat Falken-Smith's quote about the actors expecting too much is ridiculous, though.

^ Thanks for sharing!

I was just reminiscing on some old DAYS

https://youtu.be/Ywi1mHp43Wk?t=7m46s

God, she was so "good" (bad). I would love for them to give her a cameo for the 50th or something.

KB's Philip was very foxy. And Shawn in that cage was very interesting viewing, even though the story was so awful.

What in the EVER-LOVING hell?!?!

Thanks, Jason!

Re the twin story that played out with Marlena/Samantha. Indulge me in a bit of fan fic to work it into the Deidre Hall as Sandy idea.

Kitty Horton,Sandy's mother discovers she is pregnant with twins (as has already occurred in the Horton genes with Addie/Mickey).Alone, vulnerable and somewhat selfish,not close to her own family or the Hortons,Kitty feels two children to bring up will be a burden. She confides to a nurse at the hospital who says she knows of a couple who want to adopt and are willing to pay $5,000. Kitty accepts,justifying in her mind that what she is doing is best for everyone.

Sandt's twin,is named Samantha by her adoptive parents Frank and Martha Evans.The adoption was seen as away of saving their marriage as demanding Frank saw children as a neccesity to be seen as asuccessful husband. But that is not enough and Frank divorces Martha and leaves. Samantha is puzzled as to why her father has cut off all contact and an upset Martha reveals she was adopted and Frank feels no link to her. Samantha is devastated.Martha and Samantha struggle on but their fortunes change when Martha snags a wealthy new husband Lionel.Lionel and Martha have a daughter of their own who is lavished with love and attention.

Samantha acts out ,causing much distress. When Martha suddenly dies,Samantha is cut adrift and leaves the family behind,moving on and getting into various scrapes.

Flashforward to present day [1977] Samantha's old boyfriend Clint is in Salem and spots Sandy.He does some digging around and then reconnects with Samantha with news of her double,. Samantha makes contact with her aunt Ruth,Martha's sister who reveals that Martha told her that her bio mom was having twins.

Samantha realizes that purely through chance she was given away and Sandy had the life she was denied.She vows to take everything Sandy has...

I love that! Works really well, actually. Nicely done.

I'm always confused on something: have Frank and Martha Evans EVER appeared onscreen?

Interesting observations Michael. I didn't realize until I re-read that outline that there were no Hortons present.Maybe they should have made a point of having a Horton presence in each ep.

The one hour format allowed writers the chance to be freed from the restrictions of a small cast and move beyond the core but in the longterm it often meant that core families were neglected and diminished.

Once again I'll state - Deidre Hall should have been brought on as Dr Sandy Horton!

It's interesting to think about that. Would a DH-Sandy have taken off the way Marlena did? They never would have done the evil twin story with DH as Sandy, and that was one of the things that really seemed to boost her into the stratosphere, right? (It was also one of the first larger-than-life plots for Days, it seems.) It's really surprising to me, looking back, that Marlena was never paired with any of the Horton men.

I was watching at the time and I did get bored with some of the newer characters. Even though I liked Trish, I thought she was on too much. I didn't find Amanda especially interesting either. She was just okay to me. I did like Valerie & David (although I thought it was ridiculous that Julie had a son his age), and Brooke.

Thanks for sharing! It's always fun to hear from people who actually remember this stuff. Amanda, for having been such a major character for a time, really seems like a forgotten bit of Days history.

The best thing about findings like these are learning things about the characters I had never known before. I'm pretty sure Bob losing two sons has never been mentioned anywhere else. And it's the first I ever heard of this Richard Wells.

Yeah, I had no idea. I wonder what that's in reference to?!

Looking over that summary of viewer mail and the synopsis/treatment above, I have to wonder how the show felt to viewers at this time -- only eleven years after its very Horton-centric premiere, there are entire storylines involving people totally uninvolved with the Horton family. I know there was professional overlap with Neil and Marlena being doctors, etc., but it's very striking. I guess some of it was also the expansion to an hour, but the introduction of the Neil/Amanda stuff in particular always reads as very abrupt in storyline summaries.

(And thank you all for sharing this stuff! It's so interesting to read, and I realize how lucky I am to be able to see it at all. You guys are awesome.)

It's actually weird to see how much he has (visually) aged since 2006. He's filled out a lot but looks great. He seemed soooo much younger when he started on Days.

Thanks for posting that article. Such a "The more things change, the more they stay the same..." thing.

That is seriously the most ridiculous wardrobe I have ever seen on any television show in history. It is a SHEER BLOUSE EXPOSING HER BRA and she is going to work and taking a family Christmas portrait.

Thanks for directing me to that. I rarely check the non-soap forums here.

I caught Anna Stuart on the news on James Cromwell's arm in a post-Oscar interview, I think entering one of the afterparties. She looks great.

However, Josh Taylor played a great Quint, in terms of being a rugged man, who you could see out on digs, instead of the academic, kind of effette caricature that Tylo played. Personally, they should have made him an associate of Quints who was there when Quint was killed by a cave in, etc. So they could have a Marland kind of story where Nola was turned on by this rugged guy but not sure if he was responsible for his death.

Interesting way of breaking it down. 'Effete' is definitely a word I'd use to describe Tylo's Quint -- which, in these 80s episodes, I'm actually enjoying. He doesn't seem much like the other men at all (and the scenes with him and Tony are interesting for precisely that reason), more of a dreamer. I can certainly see how playing it more 'rugged' would play upon other aspects of the character.

He mostly just played the material of Quint pursuing Nola, and added his own flair.

Nola basically vanished after Brown was written out in 1998. She was never mentioned again, until she returned for a few days at the end. Lisa supposedly ad-libbed lines to make viewers feel that she had reunited with Quint. She ad-libbed a lot of important stuff, supposedly. That type of thing is why I can never see Ellen Wheeler as the demon many made her out to be. Rauch, JFP, etc. never would have let Brown do any of that.

Ah. Thanks! I watched the very end of GL, and even though the returnees had so little screentime, it seemed like their mere presence helped tie up a ton of loose ends.