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Another World & Texas’ Vivien Gorrow as the Cory and Iris’ maid. Not too many people could steal a scene from Beverlee McKinsey, but Gretchen Oehler’s Vivien could.

The episode where Rachel and Janice fought in the swimming pool 3/14/80 just aired a black background with the theme as the credits that day. There were no scenes from the episode aired in the background as the credits rolled.

Two new 1983 episodes…

Two other notes regarding NBC Daytime- it had success with game shows like Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Hollywood Squares, Sale of the Century, etc. But NBC was notorious for putting on game shows for a brief time and canceling them- Go, Hot Potato, Match Game Hollywood Squares Hour, Blockbusters, many versions of Password, and Just Men (for which Betty White received a Daytime Emmy) and was still canceled. Also, when AW and DAYS were challenging ATWT ratings in the early and mid 70s don’t forget that CBS counterprogrammed reruns of primetime hits All in the Family and MASH against AW. For a time, they even moved the Price is Right to the afternoon as well.

When Jensen Buchanan was playing Vicky on Another World and got a helicopter written into her contract to take her to/from the studio, the character of Vicky from 1996-99 was in a bubble only interacting with certain characters- Jake, Donna, Shane, Marley etc. She rarely interacted with the rest of the cast in any storylines. Rachel was Steven’s grandmother and Vicky and Rachel never had any scenes together for those last couple of years of the show.

A lot of mistakes were made with AW in a 3 year span from 1979-82. AW expanded to 90 minutes when it was starting to lose viewers to General Hospital and Guiding Light. AW was in the 3:00 PM time slot since its debut in 1964 where it was successful . The 90 minute broadcast moved its start time to 2:30. Once NBC/P&G realized the 90 minute episodes were not working, they decided to spin off Texas. In 1980, AW changed time slots again with a 2:00 PM start time where it would remain until 1999. A lot of NBC stations moved the daytime lineup around and aired programs in different time slots. With Texas debuting in 1980, it removed Iris (Beverlee McKinsey) from AW. She was one of AW’s most popular characters. The character would not return to AW for 8 years. In addition, Texas was doomed from the start in the 3 PM time slot against GH and GL. NBC should have left AW in that time slot and put Texas on at 2 PM in between DAYS and AW. The writing on AW was not the best in 1981-82. A bright spot was the Blaine/ Sandy/ Cecile story, but that worked because of the talented actors, not because of the writing. The biggest mistake during this time was reviving the Rachel/ Steve/ Alice triangle- which on paper was a good idea- but Steve and Alice were recasts, not the original actors. Once Paul Rauch left in 1983, and Allan Potter returned to AW as executive producer the show turned itself around creatively until 1985. The ratings went up, but AW would never move out of the middle rated soaps. The only real problem with Potter’s AW was that the show brought back Jacqueline Courtney’s Alice but then never gave her a big storyline. While she was featured prominently, she remained a supporting character.

When Douglass Watson passed away suddenly, it must have been hard for the cast to play out the scenes of Mac’s death on Another World. The song that played during the tribute to him ends with “the show must go one,” but after his passing AW was never quite the same.

Season 1 Episode 21 of The Golden Girls entitled “The Flu” has a sequence where Dorothy, Blanche, and Rose catch the flu, and argue about what to watch on TV. Blanche wants to watch “the continuing story of Another World” while Dorothy doesn’t. I wonder if they did that as a nod to when Rue McClanahan was on AW! Clearly someone at The Golden Girls was a fan of AW! 🤣

Carmen Duncan (Iris, Another World) also subbed for Eileen Fulton in 2004 when she was sick.

Janice Frame, played by Christine Jones, was only on Another World from November 1978 to March 1980. Her breaking up of Mac and Rachel’s marriage, her lover Mitch Blake, her marriage and poisoning of Mac, Rachel killing her, and Rachel sleeping with Mitch that resulted in her giving birth to Matthew would continue to have storyline ramifications into the early 1990s.

In 1974, Another World did the experimental one hour episode for its 10th Anniversary when John Randolph disrupted Alice and Steve’s wedding. For the 20th Anniversary in 1984, original cast member Jacqueline Courtney returned to the show as Alice and the David Thatcher murder mystery began. The murder mystery would be the big umbrella story for 1984. The 25th Anniversary coincided with the conclusion of the Jason Frame murder mystery was filled with returning characters and flashbacks. It was well done considering most of the episodes had to quickly be rewritten when Douglass Watson (Mac) passed away suddenly. The 30th Anniversary revolved around the 30th Anniversary of Cory Publishing. The 60s themed party ended with the characters breaking the fourth wall thanking the audience and showing highlights from 30 years of the show. The 35th Anniversary was basically overlooked and nothing was done on air as the show was cancelled a few weeks before the anniversary.

I remember the character of Rose flirting with Mac the night the North Woods Inn burned to the ground. Rachel followed Mac to the restaurant and caught him dancing with Rose. An electrical problem caused the Christmas tree at the restaurant to catch fire. Mitch had to rescue Mac from the burning building.

If the P&G shows ever see the light of day again, it wouldn’t surprise me if they showed up on the CBS owned Pluto TV. Pluto TV has a lot of classic TV content- including vintage Price is Right, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and a ton of Goodson-Todman game shows on Buzzr. They also have a Soaps channel with Y&R and B&B episodes and a Dark Shadows channel. If you watch any of this content, P&G buys advertising blocks on the various channels. One day, I was watching one of the sitcom channels and every commercial in the 30 minute block was for a P&G product.

This will be the first time in 73 years that NBC has no entertainment programming (soaps and game shows) between the hours of 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM.

Given the cliffhanger ending of BS2, will the story continue on DAYS or are we getting a BS3? Today's episode was all over the place jumping from Hong Kong to Caracas, but it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

I thought the exact same thing- and they used the original song Tonight, I Celebrate My Love by Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack. They did a great job using the song at the DiMera party in Hong Kong, as well. The party set is small, but at least they had a lot of extras in those scenes today.

Today's episode was the best episode of the week. The episode was written by Carolyn Culliton. KA and PR definitely still have chemistry together. The one thing that is evident is that Beyond Salem needs to be at least two weeks long. Without spoiling anything, one episode of Beyond Salem could have been a Bo and Hope flashback episode looking at past clips of the couple.

Pammy Davis was a character played by Pamela Toll on the first year of Somerset (1970-71). She was the daughter of Gerald and Marsha Davis, and she was Rachel's half sister. I know at some point in 1987-88, there was a blurb in Soap Opera Digest that TPTB were playing with the idea of bringing Pammy back to Another World, but nothing ever came of it.

I've always believed that the character of "Paulina" should have been the return of Nancy McGowan. This would have been a good nod to history-Nancy not liking Vicky and Nancy having a crush on Jake. Paulina was an unnecessary character, and the storylines that did play out could have been done with the character of Nancy.

1984-85 Another World- Nancy, Perry, Ben, Marley, Jake, Vicky, Julia, Thomasina, and Carter

I'm not sure of the exact date, but NBC bought ownership of The Doctors from Colgate. From 1979-82, NBC placed The Doctors in 3 different timeslots. From March 1979-August 1980 The Doctors moved from its longtime 2:30 start time to 2:00 PM. From August 1980-March 1982, the show moved to 12:30 PM. From March-December 1982, the show aired at 12:00 PM when Search for Tomorrow jumped networks. By March 1982, a lot of NBC affiliates did not ever air The Doctors as part of the lineup.

Fred Silverman did not have a successful run at NBC like he did at CBS and ABC. Along with the programmers at NBC, he did three things that would cause Another World to never be a top rated soap the rest of the time it was on the air (19 years): 1. AW was already starting to lose viewers to ABC before NBC went ahead with the 90 minute expansion in 1979. 2. The 90 minute expansion would cause AW to move out of the 3:00 PM timeslot where it had aired for the first 15 years of the program's success. Now, AW began at 2:30 PM. 3. Once, NBC and P&G saw that the 90 minutes AW was not working, they considered the antebellum concept called Reunion. This morphed into the Dallas "clone" Texas, moving Berverlee McKinsey's Iris from Another World to Texas. They essentially removed one of AW's biggest stars from the show. NBC also moved AW to the 2:00 PM timeslot, giving Texas the 3:00 timeslot against General Hospital and Guiding Light. Texas should have been given the 2:00 timeslot between Days and AW when it made its debut and AW returned to the 3:00 PM timeslot. These moves would cause a general collapse of NBC daytime that would result in the cancellation of both The Doctors and the short lived Texas. Days and AW would start to show signs of getting it together in 1983- with Days faring better than AW.

His character just stopped appearing on the show. There was no real explanation of what happened to his character.

Larry Haines played Sidney "Sharky" Sugarman from February to July 1989. He dated Ada during World War II and in 1989. Ada and Sidney's WWII backstory was explained in the 1989 Valentines to Singles episodes. The character was dropped shortly after the death of Mac Cory. The show used Ada to support Rachel after Mac's passing, and they probably chose to use Ada with this storyline rather than featuring her dating Sidney.