DeliaIrisFan

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

Haven't I read that Marland was given the choice about which P&G show he wanted to write for, and he picked GL?  That he thought it was the more (for lack of a better word) modern, and thus easier to jump into? 

Well, that makes sense.  But especially if hiring Marland was indeed a coup, why not just sign him with an effective date that worked for all parties?  Or have him work with the Dobsons at GL during the transition (which would have made sense anyway, since he still ended up writing the conclusion of Roger's story, etc.)?

52 minutes ago, kalbir said:

I'd say the huge rise of ABC shook up both CBS and P&G. Then the February 4, 1980 CBS soap schedule change didn't help either.

I am sure the suits were freaked out, but why would they not just hire Marland for any/all soaps he wanted to write ASAP - and have him write GH-like stories from the start?

I've never understood that whole CBS/P&G musical chairs interlude in 1979, and I do like what I've seen of the Willows more than what I've seen of early '80s ATWT.

Were the Dobsons more of a "name" than Marland in 1979?  He was the one who had just brought a show from the brink of cancellation to #1 in the ratings.  If he was happy with ATWT, why did P&G care if the Dobsons were ready to leave GL or what?  For that matter, did either Marland or the Dobsons actually have a preference for one show or the other?

It's hard not to play Monday morning quarterback.  Marland's longer run at ATWT was obviously more of a success than the Dobsons' time there, and he clearly adored the show or at least came to adore it.  Both shows did live to die another day, so it's not like it probably would have made a huge difference in terms of longterm ratings. 

I just wonder if the Dobsons had stayed at GL and been the ones tasked with "modernizing" it, would they have taken a lighter touch than they did at ATWT, dealing with characters/actors they had known and worked with for years?  And if Marland had had a long-term writing stint at ATWT just a year or so after it had been at the top of the ratings, instead of years after its fall, and written the kinds of material he did in the late '80s/early '90s, I wonder how would those recently lapsed viewers have reacted?

I doubt Michael would have lasted very much longer, strike or no strike.  And the union writers were the ones to write out Kim as soon as they returned, a decision that probably would have stuck if the scabs hadn't defied all logic to make her the mother of Seneca's child and Rae's grandchild.  (A very petite woman who'd had an abortion less than a year earlier somehow didn't realize she was pregnant again until she was in labor?)

1981 was a disappointing year for RH all around, but I would rank the post-strike as the best of the year.  The ancient Egyptian curse and even the soap within a soap story didn't really belong on RH, but at least there were good actors with good dialogue and the stories proceeded at a pace that suggested there was a plan.  The material leading up to the strike was blah and yes Kim was dreadful, but the show at least abided by basic laws of time and space.  The strike material was just bananas to me, but again, the scabs threw so much **** against the wall that I wondered if one or two of the changes could have been interesting in a more sustainable way.

I don't even remember Barry's gambling, but I guess the timing of his exit would have lined up with the strike as well.  I want to say EJ came to NY looking for Barry, and just missed him.

The scab material was very messy, and I 200% support the writers' strike now as I'm sure I would have back then.  But indeed there were some scab elements that offered a glimpse as to what qualified writers might have done in the way of new ideas without gutting the show.  I'd forgotten about Kim staying with the Ryans, but in a similar vein I do remember Frank and Jill representing someone (Rae?) in Michael's murder and sleuthing to find out what really happened.  They actually had a fun kind of Nick and Nora dynamic, after sooo many years of angst.  Imagine a well-crafted whodunit on RH at that point, when the realism and original core were still mostly intact.

I don't think it's heresy for me to say the creators had earned a break - Labine herself said as much in later interviews, that she was burnt out and wished she'd taken a leave of absence around that time, but was afraid of what the network would do to the show.  In many ways, the strike material (not to mention the mid-'80s) confirmed her worst suspicions, but what might have been...

That was nothing against the actress who had guest starred as Kathleen.  She was a standout in that small role, but I know had other things to do careerwise.

Was Garrett really too young for Kathleen?  She was a few years older than Daniel Hugh Kelly, but he was gone and she was younger than 2/3 of the Franks to date.  Garrett was believably older than Siobhan and the recently deceased Mary.  And in terms of the next generation of Ryans, I think they could have cast adolescents who would have been credible as her daughters and older than Little John and Ryan.  (How old was the last child actress to play Christina on GL anyway?) 

Instead of EJ the young journalist trying to break into the business, they could have established that Kathleen had been a journalism major, decided to stay at home with the kids, and now breaking the Barbara Wilde story was her big chance to jumpstart her career after a decade or so out of the workforce.

Not to mention, they dressed EJ ~ 5-10 years older anyway...

Rose was definitely a victim of the 1981 writers' strike.  And the fact that Alaio would have shared a farewell party with Michael Corbett confirms that - the whole bonkers story of his exit (and Kim's pregnancy) was scab material.  I don't suppose the Guild had any policies around striking writers sending going-away presents to cast members who got the axe while they were on the picket lines.

As for that brief era of the Ryan cousins, I can only imagine the backstage politics were much more interesting than most of what happened on screen.  Admittedly, by that point, the siblings had all been recast so many times that it may have been a necessary evil to bring in new "blood," but I can't believe Labine and Mayer were that enthused.  I suspect Barry especially may have also been some kind of compromise between them and the network: someone related to the Ryans but (openly) enough of a gray character to scheme and backstab with Delia, et al. 

Barry's ties to the Ryans could have been interesting if the writers had explored Johnny's reaction to someone in his family being so immoral and/or given him some conflict with Maeve about whether Barry should still be welcome in the family.  Similar to what Labine later did with Dakota upon her final return.  Never mind if someone had actually pointed out that some of Barry's sins were the fractured mirror reflection of things the "good" Ryans had done before.  As it was, Barry's name was just an excuse for him to be at the bar, and Backus was a capable actor but didn't really spark either as a Ryan or anti-Ryan.

Whatever backstage changes led to Barry finally being cut loose, I will never understand why they wasted a casting coup like Maureen Garrett by introducing her as his sister right after he had left.  Especially when Mary or Siobhan #6 wasn't the only alternative in that era.  Why couldn't they have brought her on as a widowed or (to Maeve's chagrin) divorced Kathleen Ryan Thompson?

Thanks, DC, that is all fascinating.

How long did that window of time last when half-hour soaps expanded to an hour?  It couldn't have been much longer than 5 years, and I don't believe there were more than 1-2 shows that networks actually took a chance on expanding while they were struggling in the ratings in an effort to "save" them (GH and maybe Y&R?). 

It's interesting that Lee may have assumed an extra half hour would have solved Search's ratings problems, based on what had to be only a few examples in a very short blip of time.  Especially if the B-C characters she had lined up to fill the longer timeslots weren't strong.  Never mind that we now know that ship had already sailed - after AW's disastrous 90-minute experiment, no other soap ever expanded to a longer timeslot, right?

I feel like the main benefit some '70s soaps may have actually gotten from expansion would not have applied to Search by that point.  Arguably, some shows may have actually gotten a unique opportunity to expand their audience by suddenly having the extra time to feature the Bauers alongside the Spauldings, the Lords and the Buchanans, the Martins and the Cortlandts, etc. without shortchanging either the familiar or the new additions.  Whereas it seems like an hourlong Search would have just been a mix of the newest characters/families plus the slightly less new, no?

The most logical next story involving Karen in 1994, had she stayed, would have been for her and Laura to get to know each other, and Laura remembering/acknowledging her own rape after hearing about Karen's ordeal.  Not that I think ABC would have allowed such a thing at that point (as opposed to a few years later, under different backstage circumstances).

I binged those fall 1993 episodes a year or two ago, and it was such a blast (I believe the poster is active in this thread, so THANK YOU).  However, it was also glaring that the revelation of Karen's abuse played out in the same episodes as Luke and Laura's return.

I think at least the conclusion of Karen's child molestation story, taken in its own right, was handled sensitively and mostly holds up 30 years later.  (I have not watched the stripping episodes, and have no intention of doing so.)  But airing a "serious" story about the trauma of sexual violence while selling Luke and Laura's big, romantic comeback for all it was worth...so wrong. 

I can only imagine what Claire Labine thought coming in, with one of those stories already underway and the other advertised on billboards around the country.  I believe Karen's was the only rape story Labine was ever actively involved in writing, I suspect by choice. 

As for the recast Karen/PC, I agree she was a highlight of that show, and IMO much more interesting than what I've seen of the character's original run.  Even at the time, before I know anything about his portrayer's worldviews, I didn't feel like Jagger was needed when Karen returned.  Honestly, what I've seen of Brenda/Karen's rivalry would have been at least as interesting had they been fighting over who would get to keep one of his underwear billboards.  And it made total sense that a couple who got married right out of high school wouldn't make it longterm (they didn't even need the affair part).

Katherine certainly didn't benefit from her most memorable scene partners being exiled to PC (the spinoff, that is), but I'm not sure she would have added much to the show.  And I'm guessing MBE's contract would have been more significant for a half-hour show with much less ad revenue to absorb in their budget? 

Maybe they could have spun her off to PC for her last weeks/months and had Katherine killed by one of the serial killers or vampires or whatever, so at least someone would have a reaction to her death.  Although I wasn't watching either show anymore by that point.

I hated Katherine at the time, but with a little wisdom and perspective (and YouTube), I can appreciate MBE's place in the genre.  She deserved a better character.

1 hour ago, Vee said:

I never understood breaking up Mac and Felicia for Mac and Katherine or Tom and Felicia. I can barely remember Mac and Katherine were even together; it took me a while to remember Mac and Felicia were even broken up for a few years. Mary Beth Evans was excellent in the role despite Katherine's intense unpopularity, but with the exception of Richard Culliton's brief infatuation with pairing her and Stefan it seems like they only held onto Katherine because of MBE's cachet as a soap star and perhaps a very well-negotiated contract.

To be fair, Mac and Felicia broke up to move Felicia into Frisco's orbit after he returned.  All these characters were at best peripheral to my enjoyment of GH in the 90s, or worse, but in hindsight Mac and Felicia added another layer to the canvas and some pretty amazing stories, and I can appreciate that.  And their breakup made sense for the characters - and for TPTB as well, I'm sure, as long as Jack Wagner was available or potentially available.

That said, it would have been ridiculous for Mac and Felicia to get back together right after Frisco left for good.  They needed to see other people for a while, if only as B or C stories, and Mac and Katherine weren't a bad idea on paper.  It just didn't translate on screen. 

Wow....I never would have imagined ~ 30 years ago Nancy Curlee and Kimberley Simms watching those scenes in real time on video would even be possible let alone so meaningful.

I know Jordan Clarke's exit in the '90s was a sensitive subject and Kimberley wasn't even there for it, but I do wish someone had asked Nancy how much of the Who Shot Roger story was already in her mind at this point.  Every time I rewatch these 1991 scenes, I'm reminded that Billy being the one who tried to kill Roger a couple of years later shouldn't have been much of a mystery (and that guns really do make bad situations worse).  It's a testament to Curlee and Demorest's storytelling that there was still a plausible whodunit when Roger disappeared and it turned out he'd been shot, especially with an obviously temporary actor playing Billy at that point.  Roger switching the bullets intending to frame Billy was an ingenious red herring.

@BetterForgotten I actually believe GH would have made sense for Curlee's next chapter at that time.  The Quartermaines were still intact and front and center, and I imagine Curlee would have kept Monica Q vital a la Beverlee's Alexandra.  The rest of this is controversial, but I'll put it out there: The way GL made the Coopers into an atypical core family in the early '90s and gave Justin Deas lots of Emmy fodder—as controversial and problematic as it was—could have been a useful template for GH's Spencers and working with Tony Geary.  And it wouldn't have been at the expense of the Bauers because there was no family at all like that on GH.  Also, the types of stories Curlee, et al, gave to Roger could have informed an approach to the Sonny Corinthos character that might have kept him complex and engaging longer at that point.

That is all with the major caveat that The Mouse (or any other network at that point) would have had to let the writers the breathing room to do really good work.  By that point, I'm sad to say I doubt Curlee would have had much better luck at GH than Labine had at GL a few years later.

2 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

I thought Sloane’s first year was pretty solid I myself enjoyed the Christy Carson caper, Felicia’s alcoholism story, Jake/Paulina, Ryan/Vicky/Grant, Sharlene’s return and Matthew/Donna. However Sloane’s second year went off the rails between Kyle Barkely’s murder and then the complete and abysmal destruction of Iris as well as shoving Morgan and Brett as the “perfect 90’s couple” down viewers throats. 

Indeed.  It's tough to reconcile Sloane's earlier work at AW with the latter part, and she was only there two years, if that.  For most of her stint, I would only catch AW when I half shamefully tuned in to watch something outrageous on Reilly's DOOL and didn't change the channel.  Is it unkind to say that, in retrospect, AW at that time was a good palate cleanser between its lead-in and Nancy Curlee GL/Claire Labine GH?  The stakes were low, but many of the characters seemed relatable (although barely any of them seemed to be related to each other).  Even Iris herself was a formidable but dignified presence for most of that time, while other female characters in their 40s/50s even flourished in romantic stories. 

Then something consequential finally happened on Aw—to Iris—but it was still treated as low-stakes.  At least by the other characters, who laughed at her, then forgot about her, then became cozy with the ubervillains who facilitated her downfall. 

I also wonder about Lorraine Broderick's role, at AW and P&G in general in the mid-'90s.  She had been a head writer, successfully, but then was part of a large team of head writers at GL and seemingly took a demotion when she went to AW.  My guess is she had a hand in the social issue stories AW dabbled in at the time, which might have been better at GL, where there was more history and community reflected on the canvas that might have given those stories more lasting impact.  Meanwhile, there was no umbrella custody/parentage story on AW, which seemed to be Broderick's calling card at other soaps, and which could have brought some connection and drama to Bay City at that time.  How did Broderick not get equal billing, at minimum, given her resume?

I'm sorry, Caroline Brady altered paternity test results?  What?!!  Was Sami on the show at this point, to bond with her grandma over the experience?

I shouldn't judge not having seen it, but I have to say that sounds like a parody of what is sooo wrong about soaps' continued reliance on paternity mysteries after the general public became aware of DNA.  In hindsight, this is actually an (indirect) effect you could legitimately say the OJ trial had on the genre long-term.  Instead of recognizing that those stories were anachronistic and coming up with something new, most writers doubled down.  By the end of the '90s virtually anybody and everybody in a soap town could walk into a hospital lab and successfully switch test results with the click of a button, regardless of their education, security clearance, or lack thereof.

I have no recollection of ever actually seeing Kevin's character, even though I know I must have watched the show at some point while he was on.  However, the discussion of his and Iris's similar exits reminded me of reading eons ago, probably on the Another World Home Page and pre-YouTube, about this scene:

https://youtu.be/c4V2z6XvGrI?t=1507

It's fascinating that Kevin and Iris met on their way to Carl's trial, where he got away with trying to kill Rachel, given what became of all four characters.  The lack of continuity in the later years was really bananas. 

It's not news that the show ignored sooo much history where Rachel and Carl's pairing was concerned, and burned through years' worth of story when they could have been dealing with that history.  But especially after Keating too was cast aside and Carl's redemption was seemingly negated anyway, it could have been weirdly compelling to address how messed up it was that Bay City largely accepted him as a changed man and wrote off anyone who contradicted that.  What did it say about the community, the family, and especially Rachel?  Reckoning with the collateral damage—characters who made desperate choices but convinced themselves they were doing what they had to to stop Carl, and suffered greatly for it—would have added texture.  Iris, of course, but also, wasn't one of the teen characters introduced in the last weeks of the show supposed to be Kevin's son, and slated to be paired with Rachel's granddaughter? 

Anyway, back to 1991, it sounds like Kevin and Iris flirted for a few weeks and then nothing ever came of it.  I wonder if there was a longer story in the works for them, or if the writers just wasted a perfectly good meet-cute with no long-term plan.  It's always hard to guess what was due to change of vs. lack of plans in this era.  Iris with a younger guy could have been interesting, given her Daddy issues and history with older men and/or men who were hung up on their own estranged daughters.

The "Who Shot Roger?" story obviously came together once it was clear Billy had to be written out, and Jordan Clarke's absence diminished Billy's part in it.  But watching/rewatching 1991-93 a few years ago, knowing that he eventually would shoot Roger didn't not make sense.  Billy had come close to killing Roger once or twice before, and most of the town shrugged it off.  And Holly was momentarily appalled at the callousness on one of those previous occasions, up until Roger did something else to hurt her.

1 hour ago, Faulkner said:

It’s funny that in the mid-90s everyone wanted to be bigger, younger, and more exciting, yet ATWT went from that epic theme of the Marland era down to this modest, plodding piano theme that screamed “old people’s show.” 

I was probably the only one in the target age range at the time who was impressed by that lol.  ATWT seemed to me like GL's older (I know, I know, GL was first by a long shot, but you wouldn't have known it going by the cast members who were on the show by then), stable, more popular sibling, even if that popularity was waning.  As other soaps disappointed me, that sense of consistency started to appeal to me.  Even though I never found ATWT compelling long-term whenever I tuned in in those years, and of course it had as much turmoil behind the scenes as the other network/sponsor-owned shows by then.

4 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

But still, I would have just done what Rauch did, use a snipped of the lighthouse and "hold on to love" and right into the show...we know what show we are watching thanks! 

The Rauch version seemed abruptly truncated in comparison to the full one—like the video and audio weren't actually edited at all for that, they just deleted a whole portion—but with a little money put in upfront to it could have worked.  So many memorable scenes in the early '90s had included that theme as background and/or picked up the next day and segued into that opening...even the brief hint of that music evokes memories for me.  Not to mention, they would have saved money in the long run without having to update cast photos or keep paying for new openings.

On 1/27/2023 at 5:05 PM, j swift said:

This whole discussion has left me with two questions (1) What is the average cost of a new opening? (2) Has a new theme song ever resulted in increased viewership?

I doubt you could prove a connection with ratings, but I actually think it's interesting that Y&R has remained the highest rated for so long and DAYS is (was?) one of the last soaps, while both stuck with their original theme songs.  And each theme became part of broader pop culture in some unexpected ways over the years: Mary J Blige, Close Encounters, etc.  Who's to say that kind of free publicity didn't help keep those shows on casual viewers' minds at some point?  But it's also a case of the chicken and the egg - a mainstream entertainment project would probably not give that kind of shout-out to a soap or its theme music if both weren't so familiar to people.

3 hours ago, Faulkner said:

Thirsty tangent: Ted Marcoux was so hot in those little shorts.

Yes!  Young Cassie had both those guys vying for her...

TM looks familiar to me from somewhere, but none of his credits ring a bell.  I'm assuming he didn't actually return for one episode in 2002 as IMDB claims, going by the rest of the cast list.  I was definitely watching then, and at first I thought he might have been one of the cameos during Tomlin's "Live Week."  But even if I somehow forgot Dorian getting a surprise visit from Herb, OG Cassie, and Uta Hagen around that time, I do remember Strasser was off the show at that point.

2 hours ago, Faulkner said:

It really did sound like music you’d hear walking into a funeral. 

 

Awww...I have a weird association with that theme.  I don't believe I had ever watched ATWT before it premiered, but I knew from the soap press that it was the show with so much history.  Every time I caught a glimpse of the show in the mid-'90s, just abut every scene included at least one character who was seemingly related to half a dozen others, and at least on the surface the stories all seemed like to be about realistic subject matter.  I want to say one or more cast members may have even won award(s) for stories Marland had written by the time that music would have been what was played at the ceremony.

All to say, my teenaged brain filed that tune away with the Masterpiece Theatre music.  And it seemed like a serviceable daytime counterpart to the themes of some prestige primetime shows of the era.  By the time CBS started re-airing classic episodes on holidays, I was shocked to hear the '80s theme, although by this point YouTube has given me nostalgia for that one in turn.

Morgan Richards openly drooling over Holden Snyder...

I wonder in Doug Marland happened on any of those scenes and decided then and there that Jon Hensley had to play the love interest for his next teen heroine.

What I don't get is why ATWT repeatedly switched theme music altogether.  I guess all the P&G shows did, except EON.  But it's especially glaring with ATWT, because there were themes that lasted a comparatively long time during popular periods and probably got stuck in a lot of casual viewers' ears.

I think the mid-'90s opening and music were fine, but they could have accomplished what they were seemingly going for by bringing back an updated arrangement of the iconic '70s theme.  I can only imagine there would have been a nostalgia factor for those who grew up with ATWT on in their houses.  I'm not musically inclined at all, but I would guess even a subdued remix of the '80s theme could have fit the new tone.  If by that point TPTB would have rather appealed to people whose earliest memories were Steve/Betsy or Holden/Lily.

Instead, they went with something that was at best respectable and classy, but had no emotional association for a lapsed viewer who might have been home and flipping channels one day.  Why?

To play devil's advocate, you could argue Beverlee McKinsey on GL was a transplant from a canceled soap (Texas).  But I am guessing it wasn't so much that they were creating a character specifically for BM, but rather they needed someone who could fill Chris Bernau's shoes.  Alex's entrance story was Alan's (first) exit, right?  So they created a new character that filled a void and identified an appropriate performer who happened to have soap experience, which probably made a difference.

I can't imagine they actually subjected Beverlee to any screen testing with existing cast members, so it could have ended up being a complete flop.  But she was one of the best in the biz, and the comparatively luxurious amount of rehearsal time back then probably helped her build a rapport with acting partners and flesh out some distinctive elements to this new character.

I would guesstimate that creating characters for specific actors from other soaps has historically worked more often when writers have been the ones to come up with the idea, as opposed to producers.  At least, going by the instances when it's a safe bet as to who was responsible, i.e., when someone behind the scene worked with the actor previously.  At least if the one working out who the character is in their head knows the performer's past work and has been inspired by them enough to create a character they want to write for, there's a chance it could work.

5 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

Nadine/Holly:  They were co-workers/friends in the late 80s/early 90s.. but by 1992/3.. Nadine and Holly ever interacted with Nadine trapped in the Cooper bubble.. and Holly in the Thorpe/Springfield Journal bubble.

This is a tangent, but I re/watched 1993 GL recently (I had seen some but clearly not all of that), and the way Nadine immediately shed all connections outside of Buzz and his/their children after her marriage to Billy ended was really striking.  In part because so much of the rest of the show was still true to life and/or character history.  Meanwhile, Nadine accepted such a paltry divorce settlement from an oil tycoon that she ended up waiting tables at a diner before the papers were even finalized (in the Caribbean, after she signed away power of attorney so Billy could expedite his remarriage to Vanessa).

I imagine a lot of that had to do with centering Buzz as a newly minted patriarch - the only one who could bail the Cooper family out in an emergency.  I also think there may have been a concerted effort to avoid reminding viewers of Nadine's role in Peter's origin story.  Perhaps someone realized that keeping a pregnant teenager in one's attic as a de facto handmaid is pretty much irredeemable.  Speaking of dropped character connections, Nadine and Bridget rarely if ever interacted after that, even when they were in group scenes.

Maybe Jordan Clarke's abrupt exit also was a factor...

5 hours ago, kalbir said:

It's so funny that NBC dominated primetime for the better part of 20 years (start of The Cosby Show until the end of Friends) yet was mostly a mess in daytime in that same era despite supercouple Days, Santa Barbara Emmy and SOD awards run, and Reilly Days.

And wasn't it the opposite previously, at least by the '70s?  AW and DAYS were still doing well by that point, but wasn't NBC's primetime lineup a wreck?  I've read that the network took big chances on shows like Cheers and Hill Street Blues—ironically, helping open the door for serialized storytelling in primetime—and gave them time to find audiences because NBC hadn't had a hit sitcom or weekly drama series in so long.

On 1/21/2023 at 4:23 PM, victoria foxton said:

Tina really shined and had chemistry with everyone. Looks like the writers were chem testing Brad and Tina. Ivan comparing Karen and Laurel to Holden Snyder. Interesting reveal with Guiletta. I wasn't expecting that. 

I think it was more than chem testing with Tina and Brad - from passing references in the scenes that have been posted, it sounds like Brad had been Tina's confidant since before Mitch showed up.  Supposedly Brad saw Tina going into the secret room months before anyone else discovered it.  Too bad those scenes seem to be lost.  I wonder if Brad was originally meant to be more involved in Tina's story and the direction changed because Roscoe Born was available and/or it was decided they couldn't go as far as to have Brad commit premeditated murder on-screen (let alone everything that followed with Mitch).

The two most recent episodes have to be out of sequence, at least I think?  Viki was being hypnotized at the end of the show on Thursday the 18th, and then she didn't even appear in what was ostensibly the next day's episode.  Unless it was a fakeout cliffhanger and the next time she appeared viewers learned that the hypnosis didn't take the first time and she's going to try again.

The Ivan story is so weird, and seemingly out of place in this (comparatively) grounded interlude of the Rauch era.  Jon Hensley was beautiful circa 1985 (and 2010, and probably now), so I can't really complain about him being scantily clad, or Rob in just those cutoff shorts.  But the shirtlessness for no reason just added another layer of silliness: like Passions had an '80s flashback episode featuring all the parents in town when they were teens.