watson71

11 minutes ago, BetterForgotten said:

Potter seemed to get along well with Bridget and Jerome Dobson - and I don't think you can get more "eccentric" than those two.

 

And if I'm honest, I would rank the Dobson's GL work over Marland's. 

Potter was a very capable producer.  When he was at The Doctors, the show had high ratings and won a Best Show Emmy, same goes for Guiding Light.  P&G transferred him back to Another World in the Spring of 1983 and he took the mess that Paul Rauch left him with and whipped the show into shape pretty quickly.  His AW from mid 83-1984, like his version of The Doctors and GL was engaging and entertaining.  He retired at the end of 1984. I wish he would have stayed longer at AW- the show would become a convoluted mess under the next producer, Stephen Schenkel.

A variation on the same publicity photo.   Other than the hospital scene, did Rachel and Liz ever come to blows and exchange punches?

9 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

For Lemay to criticize Dwyer and run her off the show when Hugh Marlowe was nothing special as Jim says something...maybe Lemay was impressed by Marlowe's CV

I agree- from what I've seen of Marlowe on YouTube, he always looked like he was struggling to get his lines out and trying to find his place on the cue cards

6 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

 

Heck yes.  Mary was NBC's version of Nancy Hughes and Bert Bauer, and the fan's loved her.  You simply don't kill-off a soap opera's matriarch.  

 

Had AW kept the character of Mary alive and active on the show's canvas, Dwyer could have been on the show for its entire 35 year run.  Dwyer passed away in 2012.  The show really could have used a mother figure in its later years after Ada passed away in 1993.  

Only two daytime soaps with a Southern location that I can recall are P&G's Texas (Houston) and The Catlins (Atlanta).  

NBC's new  prime time drama Council of Dads relies heavily on its Savannah, GA locale as part of the plot, as does Netflix's Outer Banks and its North Carolina locale.

Charita Bauer (Bert) passed away in February 1985.  Does anyone remember why TPTB waited an entire year before they acknowledged her passing onscreen?  They gave excuse after excuse why she was absent from Springfield- visiting Meta, etc.  Since they did wait an entire year, TPTB should have tried to get as many past characters as they could who had ties to Bert for her memorial.   Given her importance to the history of the show, her memorial wasnt't what it should have been.

Happy 56th Anniversary Another World.  Another World debuted today  on May 4, 1964!

1 hour ago, BetterForgotten said:

Why was P&G so enamored by Gail Kobe’s work on Texas (a failed soap, which did seem to get better by the end granted, but still a failed soap)? Look at the massacre she went on to inflict at GL.

 

It’s amazing that the show lived on for so long after this and even had brief renaissances. 

P&G constantly did that with producers.  In 1984, Edge of Night is cancelled, so P&G hires Erwin Nicholson as executive producer of Search for Tomorrow.  In 1999, Another World is cancelled, so P&G hires Christopher Goutman as executive producer of As the World Turns and leaves him in the job for 11 years.  He has the distinction of being the executive producer of two of daytime's longest running soaps at the time of their cancellation.

38 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

What stories were left to tell with Sara?  All I could have seen her contribute in 1983 and thereafter was as the resident therapist.  She probably would have counseled Beth after the rape, and Reva plus roxie...but what else was left to tell of Sara?

According to this newspaper article dated January 15, 1983 Millette Alexander decided to leave the show of her own accord.  Interesting that Giancarlo Esposito (currently Moff Gideon on The Mandalorian) was cast on the show at the time as Clay Tynan and that Micki Grant who played John Randolph's secretary Peggy Nolan for much of the 60s and early 70s on Another World was playing his mother Ms. Tynan.  Was GL planning on making the Tynans a new African-American family on GL and they got lost in the shuffle in the change of headwriters?  

I have binge watched Netflix's On My Block and Outer Banks.

On My Block is the perfect mix of comedy and drama.  All three seasons were excellent and full of surprises.  The Season 3, Episode 8 (Chapter 28) cliffhanger has one of the most brilliant flash forwards I have seen in a series as it jumps two years in the future and leaves you shocked.  The entire ensemble cast is good, but the two standouts are Diego Tinoco (Cesar) and Jessica Marie Garcia (Jasmin).  Below is a fanmade tribute of all three seasons of the show that does not give too many spoilers away, but gives you a good preview of the show.

Outer Banks is the story of 4 friends who are trying to solve the disappearance of one of the four's dad.  The story has a lot of plot twists and turns.  If you like mystery and action/adventure stories, you will like Outer Banks.

7 minutes ago, Neil Johnson said:

 

 

A year or so ago, I read an interview with Rauch.  He said that in 1981, he asked George Reinholt to lunch to discuss the possibility of returning to AW.  He said the meeting was pleasant, and that George was a great talent.  But he could tell George still wanted to "be the writer" (which caused most of the trouble in 1975), and he couldn't take chances on bringing that type of toxic behavior back into the studio.  So he hired David Canary instead.   

I think Jacquie Courtney would have been great with David Canary.  Although I didn't like Canary's interpretation of Steve Frame, it really wasn't his fault.  He obviously knew nothing of Steve's history or Steve's personality. He played Steve as loud and happy, while the character had always been rather quiet and brooding.  Canary just needed some direction, and I'm sure he would have been very good as Steve.  

Interesting that Rauch would even entertain talking to Reinholt in 1981.  His dislike of Courtney  continued well into the 90s- remember when he made a disparaging comment about her in the soap press and she responded in a letter to the editor to tell her version of the story to set the record straight.

9 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

The arrangement of the early 80's theme when Steve returns is beautiful...

 

 

AW would use this theme from time to time when the show was running short and utilized a longer closing credit sequence, sometimes running 3+ minutes.  A portion of this version of the theme was used in 1986-87 when Bill Wolff introduced that day's sponsor at the beginning of the second commercial break rather than being incorporated into the opening credits.  

An example of this starts at 9:27 in the video below:

9 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

 

Interesting you feel that way, because I have the opposite opinion.  Vana Tribbey (the first 1981 recast) was wrong for the role.  She was too harsh and too sexual.  The second 1981 recast, Linda Borgeson, was much closer to Jackie Courtney's interpretation of the role, so I liked her much better.  But you can't revive a love triangle with two of the three characters recast.  It probably would have worked, if either George Reinholt or Jackie Courtney would have returned to work with Vicky Wyndham.  And it would have blown-off the roof, if they'd both returned.  

This is so true- this triangle was doomed from the start because you had two recasts instead of Reinholt and Courtney.  Paul Rauch's ego was probably too big to even contact them to see if they were interested in returning.  If the show had waited until 1984 to do this triangle once Courtney had already returned and rehired Reinholt, I believe would have been successful.  Rauch was long gone by then, so his dislike of both of them would have not have  an issue.  I wonder if they ever considered rehiring Reinholt in 1989 after he appeared in the 25th anniversary episodes after Douglass Watson died.  You could have even incorporated it into the red swan mystery storyline- Mac  really left town because he discovered the real Steve Frame was alive with amnesia and that Edward Black (David Canary) was an imposter who assumed his identity.  Mac placed this information into the red swan and sent it to Rachel before he passed away.

5 hours ago, Forever8 said:

Was Cory Publishing shown in those years? 

The last I remember Cory Publishing was in Summer-Fall 1997 when Amanda was impersonating Hadley Prescott.   There was even a location sequence on the Cory Publishing parking lot involving Carl, Felicia, and Alexander Nikos where Alexander "accidentally" almost ran over Carl with his sports car.

4 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

I have to say that I'm always surprised when watching episodes form the 70's and very early 80's at how much superior AW's production values were to the other soaps that taped out of NYC at that time. There was a real aesthetic to the show in the 70's that the other P&G soaps or ABC soaps out of NYC just didn't have. I've mostly found Paul Rauch's tastes in aesthetics really tacky and even garnish on other soaps he produced, but 70's AW is a different animal on the production end vs. other east coast soaps.

 

I don't think this lasted into the mid-80s though - somewhere at that time the show took on a very washed-out and dated look that largely followed it to the end.

 

 

AW did have good production values under Rauch.  This is basically remains intact through 1983-85, even though the show needed to be "freshened up."  In the middle of 1987, you can tell that P&G reduced AW's budget.  Sets and costumes didn't look as nice.  After 22 years, AW longtime announcer Bill Wolff was gone, as were the P&G sponsor tags at the beginning and end of the show.  The familiar Score Production musical cues are gone.  Michael Laibson takes over as executive producer in 1988, and he did an great job production wise with the budget he had to work with- giving us the Snowflake Balls, the 25th Anniversary episodes, the Cass dream episodes, the remote location sequences on the French Riviera and Canada for Vicky and Grant's wedding.  AW received many technical Emmy nominations when Laibson served as EP and  won some as well.  The AW directing team won the 1992 Emmy.  JFP arrives in 1995 and decides the AW should be a mashup of ER and NYPD Blue.  Someone at P&G gave her millions of dollars to build this city set with a new hospital, Carlino's restaurant, and a new police station.  Did it not occur to anyone that every scene on the show could not take place at the hospital or police station?  Every character on the show was either arrested or admitted to the hospital during this time.  Then came show killer Charlotte Savitz who dismantled the city set piece by piece, and by the time Chris Goutman got there they were just using the sets that had been on the show for years.  Maybe P&G would had given Goutman money for some new sets and production upgrades if the show had been renewed.  I am glad that AW never suffered the poor production values that P&G inflicted on Guiding Light in its last years, and ATWT ended its run in AW's old studios, using much of the AW production crew, even using recycled AW sets.

In 1980, did Beverlee McKinsey (Iris) become daytime's highest paid star when  she was given star billing on Texas? Ken Roberts intoduced each episode as "Texas, starring Beverlee McKinsey"

2 hours ago, ScottyBman said:

I gave up.  It was unwatchable.  But some of them have been better as far as the audio/connection.  Did they mention Anna?  I would have loved to have seen her.

 

Yes, they briefly talked about Anna Stuart being a part of the AW cast that still gets together and how she attended the lunch in memory of Carmen Duncan, Iris.   Duncan was another cast member that they all spoke fondly of.

Linda Dano said that the last time she saw or spoke to VW was at Charles Keating's memorial service in 2014.  That was 6 years ago.  It was obvious that Dano and Stephen Schnetzer still think fondly of Douglass Watson- Dano told the story about how Watson had a big bouquet of flowers sent to her at the studio on her first day of taping as Felicia.

13 hours ago, Khan said:

 

If that's true, then P&G and/or NBC should have realized right away that the expansion was a mistake and cut AW back to sixty minutes as soon as possible.  The fact that they didn't proves just how grossly incompetent and indifferent TPTB were.

This is around the time that Fred Silverman took over as president of NBC.  In primetime, NBC was a disaster ratings wise.   There were few primetime hits on NBC.  I guess they figured that AW was their highest rated daytime program and turning it into 90 minutes, regardless of the ratings, would still turn a profit.  Back when there were only 3 networks, the networks would use their advertising revenue from daytime to fund their nighttime pilots.

I agree that AW should have been reduced back to 60 minutes as soon as possible and returned to its 3 PM start time.

4 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

Tom King seemed to have learned a thing or two from Lemay, and he was pretty good at writing for Rachel, Mac, Ada, and Iris.  But he didn't seem to understand Pat, Liz, or any of the remaining Matthews family, or the Perrini family, or just about any of Lemay's other characters (Blaine, Elena, Willis, Sylvie, etc.).  Plus, King was terrible at creating new characters.  Nearly all of his new characters were terrible failures and really harmed the show,  Additionally King hurt the show by introducing such a strong element of crime, police drama, and the mob.  For a couple of years, it seemed like half the cast was involved in plots that belonged on Edge of Night. King's only real successes were with Mac, Rachel, Ada, and Iris.  

And shortly after the P&G executive producer shuffle in 1995- once JFP arrived- AW rehired King.as co-headwriter for the show.  From August 95- May 96, King co-wrote the show with Craig Carlson.  In May 96 to January 97, King and Carlson served as breakdown writers for Margaret DePriest.  From January 97-March 97, King, Carlson, and Elizabeth Page served as headwriters. For March and April 97, King and Carlson were co-headwriters again until Michael Malone became the headwriter. King would remain a writer on the show until its cancellation.  

For a period during this time, even Harding Lemay returned to the show as a story consultant.  I wonder if JFP even asked his opinion of the ER/NYPD Blue mashup that she made of AW.

22 minutes ago, RavenWhitney said:

 

 

Maeve left GL after a 20 year run that started in 1980 (she took three 6 month breaks during her 20 year run) and ended in 2000. Paul Rauch became EP in  Nov 1996; Maeve worked with Paul for three years/ stayed until Sept 2000.  She then returned in 2005 until the end (Wheeler/Kreizman/Swajeski).

Kinkead took a year off from GL from 1996-97 when Vanessa faked her death.

Did AW get a ratings bump in March 1980 during the Rachel/Mac/Janice story culmination in St. Croix during the 90 minute episodes?  Clearly if the show did get a ratings bump it was not able to sustain it in the long term.

16 minutes ago, RavenWhitney said:

Just today on the Locher stream with GL actors, Maeve Kincaid who played Angie on AW and Vanessa on GL made a veiled reference to the toxic AW environment. When asked if she recalled day one on GL set she remembered the actress who played Hope Bauer telling her that the GL set was nothing like that other show.....

Maeve Kinkead had a bad experience behind the scenes at AW with Paul Rauch- no doubt she was probably a victim of sexual harassment.  Paul Rauch probably would have lost his job nowadays with the MeToo Movement.  P&G gave her the part of Vanessa on GL probably to avoid any lawsuits.  Not long after Rauch took over at GL in the 90s, Kinkead had left GL.

I think Paul Rauch, while being a creative genius had been documented to have problems on every show that he produced, was more of a problem than VW.  Rauch was producing a #1 show that was both a critical and commercial success, by winning Emmys and having high ratings, that dropped in the ratings rather quickly due to three stupid moves that he orchestrated- make AW 90 minutes (more is not always better), then when that wasn't working spin-off one of AW's top stars Beverlee McKinsey (Iris) on Texas, and the third move which I believe caused major problems for AW was switching it's time slot twice in 18 months bumping it to 2:30 and then 2:00 PM.  This moved AW out of the 3:00 PM time slot where it aired for 16 years.  I do think that NBC and Rauch should have left AW in the 3:00 PM time slot when Texas premiered.  AW could have held its own better against GH and GL than Texas which was doomed from the start.

i imagine that VW could have been a diva, and that being the star of a show that went from #1 to the bottom of the ratings was not easy during 1981-82.  Rauch and P&G were trying every and anything to compete with the ABC shows to make AW competitive again with a lot of location shoots and action/adventure sequences- something AW had avoided in the past.  So I can see why Burton and Canary would say what they said.  There can be a lot of finger pointing when things go wrong as to who is to blame.  

I think VW stayed out of loyalty to the fans who stuck with the show for all those years.  When AW ended, she was at an age where there were not so many parts available.  I don't believe she was not hired because of how she acted backstage.  I think she retired because she was tired of the backstage politics and game playing that still continues on all the soap that are still airing.

Two nice themes from other lesser known P&G shows:

The final Somerset theme (1973-76)

and the theme to The Catlins, a P&G soap that aired on TBS from 1983-85.  This theme is similar to the AW and Texas themes from the early 80s.  Wonder if The Catlins theme was considered for use on AW and Texas, but P&G decided to go with the themes that made it to air on both shows?