watson71

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?

On AW:

The engagement party scene where Rachel tells Alice she is pregnant with Steve's child.

Mac and Rachel's first wedding on Valentines Day 1975

Beverlee McKinsey's debut as Iris

Mary Matthews death in 1975

46 minutes ago, soapfan770 said:

Actually I think that title belongs to John Valente, who severed as some type of producer and/or EP at GL, Edge, SFT, AW and ATWT. Speaking of Valente, apparently  he was unhappy about the big EP switch in 1995 going over  to ATWT and there is speculation he was actually sabotaging the show out of spite. Why Kenneth L. Fitts did what he did in 1995 is a real mystery but it eventually got him fired in 1996 along with all the EP’s and HW’s.  

You are correct- John Valente did work at 5 P&G shows.  Another person who worked at four P&G shows was John Whitesell.  He was at Texas, GL, SFT, and AW.  Remember he staged the Henderson flood on SFT and in less than a month he was transferred to AW as EP.  As a matter of fact, Whitesell was listed as both the EP of SFT and AW simultaneously for a few weeks in 1986.

24 minutes ago, BetterForgotten said:

Speaking of Marland and Calhoun separately, does anyone know what led to Calhoun's exist at ATWT? Was he starting to clash with Marland? 

 

He couldn't have burned too many bridges as Ed Trach hired him for GL a year or so later. If not for him, we wouldn't have gotten Curlee/Demoest as HW's either. 

Calhoun was replaced at ATWT by Laurence Caso.  Prior to becoming ATWT's EP, Caso had been CBS daytime executive.  P&G probably continued to keep Calhoun on a retainer and pay him until Joe Willmore's contract expired and he took over at GL.  Does Calhoun hold the record for producing the most P&G soaps?  He was a producer on AW and Texas and executive producer on ATWT and GL.

Another BTS shakeup that has always been clouded in mystery- in Spring 1988, AW rehired Harding Lemay as headwriter.  A writers' strike delays his debut until September.  By mid-November, he is replaced by Donna Swajeski, an NBC executive.  Many say that Swajeski borrowed heavily from the Bible that Lemay wrote for AW upon his return.

6 hours ago, Chris B said:

 

Even if you take the rerun aspect out, P&G is stupid for not going to Hallmark or Lifetime and doing ongoing movies for their canceled soaps. Both networks have a built in system to churn out those films and they have a built in audience. You could literally take any group of characters and throw them into movies about almost anything. Plus it keeps the brand alive. It's as if these people don't want to make money.

P&G has really missed the boat.  Yes, people would watch those films.  Plus, if they had already put their soaps on a streaming service, the viewership would probably be high right now with everyone stuck in the house searching for their next show to watch.   It's as if P&G doesn't want anyone to know they were producers of decades of soaps.

On 4/1/2020 at 2:24 PM, soapfan770 said:

He actually was pretty good  with ATWT in 1995 for the most part, not sure why he was let go as the show infamously imploded not long afterward. It was his insipid 2nd tenure for AW that left me very underwhelmed, although I know other factors were involved as well. 

Culliton's second stint at AW in 1998 was a mess because of interference on both NBC's and P&G's part.   This is really when they were trying to turn AW into DAYS.  During this time they turned Carl back into a villain again when Charles Keating was fired from the show.  This is when fans of AW began to realize that the show was near cancellation.

34 minutes ago, soapfan770 said:

Collins only had a 6-month contract, I seriously doubt she would have stayed beyond that even if Rauch had decided to stay.

 

Speaking of the MADD one, Ellen Wheeler was actually seriously considered to replace Rauch as EP as was Gary Tomlin lol, while after Taggart was out apparently Richard Culliton was approached to join Carolyn as co-HW. I’m not sure how well a Tomlin/Richard Culliton GL era would have gone over. 

Tomlin and the Cullitons did write an entertaining and engaging Another World in 1984.  It definitely would have been better than Conboy and Weston.

Anyone looking for a new series to check out while at home, check out On My Block on Netflix, about four high school friends living in South Central Los Angeles.  There are 28 half hour episodes of the series available for streaming.   The show is engaging and really knows how to do a season cliffhanger.

Hope everyone is safe and doing well.

From his return in 1988, Donna Swajeski utilized the storyline projections that were written by Harding Lemay.  I wonder how much these storylines were changed with the death of Douglass Watson in May, 1989.  What storyline was planned to reunite Mac and his estranged daughter Iris?  Has any other soap, besides AW, have to make major changes to the storyline due to the real life death of one of the show's leading actors who was heavily featured in several storylines at the time of their death?

5 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Carole Shelley (RIP) and her delicious hamminess being in the middle of these episodes never fails to crack me up.

 

Christine Jones was absolutely phenomenal in this story. You can't take your eyes off her and you can't help feeling sorry for how broken Janice is.

I agree the Carole Shelley was playing up the ham factor.  I do kind of wish that Beverlee McKinsey was In these episodes.  I would have like to have seen what she would have done with the material when it's revealed that Janice was trying to kill Mac.  

40 years ago this week- March 14, 1980-  one of Another World's most popular storylines culminated with Rachel killing Janice Frame in a swimming pool in St. Croix after Janice confronted Rachel as she was trying to save Mac.

TVOne has been airing a Best of Willona marathon today in tribute to Ja'Net DuBois- so many great episodes with Willona.  The Dinner Party sequence is hilarious, as well as The Rent Party episode where Willona, Thelma, and Florida sing Stop In the Name of Love as The Supremes at the rent party for Wanda.

4 hours ago, amybrickwallace said:

 

That was awful. Imagine if Doug Watson had still been alive, well and still on AW? If she had tried anything with him, I'm sure that irate fans would have been picketing outside the Brooklyn studios.

The same goes for Constance Ford is she was alive, well, and still on AW.  Given Ford's reputation for not suffering fools, I imagine that she and JFP would not have seen eye to eye, especially if she tried to remove Ford's Ada from the show.

1985 was a weird year for AW.  Allen Potter retired as executive producer at the end of 1984.  He was replaced the first week of 1985 with Stephen Schenkel.  Potter "righted the ship" and kept AW on track for the majority of 1983-84.  While he did raise the ratings, Potter could not move AW from the middle of the pack, nor did he win an Emmy like he did at The Doctors and Guiding Light.  I suspect that if AW moved to the top of the ratings or won an Emmy, that Potter would have stuck around longer at AW.  Published reports at the time had ATWT executive producer Mary Ellis Bunim was to be the new executive producer at  AW, but she went to Santa Barbara instead.   I'm not sure where P&G and NBC found Stephen Schenkel.  After he left AW he was hired at All My Children.

Richard Culliton and Gary Tomlin started off the year as headwriters.  Then, there was a writer's strike in the Spring, and Sam Hall and Gillian Spencer were hired as headwriters in the summer.   They were terrible headwriters, perhaps penning the absolute worst storyline in AW history- the Egyptian urn with the poisonous dust that Carl Hutchins hoped would kill Mac and Rachel.  NBC even put full page ads in TV Guide hoping this garbage storyline would attract viewers to AW.

In my YouTube feed, a 1951 episode of Suspense, an anthology series that ran on CBS, appeared this morning.  The episode features 30 year old Douglass Watson (Mac Cory) as a killer who follows a woman home on a stormy night.

4 hours ago, Xanthe said:

 

I thought I remembered reading that Steve Schnetzer campaigned for the Maggie storyline at the time. And I can understand the argument that just because Cass wasn't on the canvas at the time [when Maggie was conceived] doesn't rule out the possibility that Cecile could have met Cass and had a fling with him offscreen within that timeline. There would have to be an explanation for why she never tried to use Maggie as leverage earlier in their relationship though. 

 

As for Cass marrying Cecile in the finale ... Cass matured so much from his beginning through his first marriage to Kathleen and then later with Frankie and Charlie that in order for that to be satisfying, the character of Cecile would have had to grow a lot as well. Otherwise she and Cass would have been too far apart. How would it have been possible to rehabilitate the character so that the audience could imagine Cecile and Cass living happily ever after?

Was the character of Rachel rehabilitated and did the audience by into her living happily ever after with Mac?  Cass may have matured but marrying Lila who was a cheap imitation of Cecile- both spoiled and self-centered- was a quick way to wrap up the show.  At least having Cecile on the canvas from 96-99 would have made more sense to long term viewers.

26 minutes ago, chrisml said:

I've been thinking of Nancy Frangione and why her last stint didn't work. I don't remember much of it. Why didn't it work out? Was this another JFP thing?

First, TPTB never put Nancy Frangione on a contract when she returned in Fall 1995.  In the closing credits she was always listed with the recurring characters.  They also did not place Cecile in the opening credits that debuted in March 1996 because she was a recurring character- and not on contract.  Then, the writers gave Cecile two poorly written story arc.  First, they tried to rewrite history and say that Cass, not Sandy, was Maggie's father.  Long time viewers who were watching the show in 1982-83 knew that Cass wasn't even in Bay City at the time and Cecile went back and forth on whether Sandy or Jamie was Maggie's dad.  Next, Cecile hired Rafael to "kidnap" Maggie so that she could get ransom money from the Corys to help her with her money troubles.  Again, another poorly written story.  In early Summer 1996, Cecile left Bay City never to be heard from again.  Frangione deserved better than this.  TPTB should have kept Cecile on the canvas.  She- not Lila- should have been the one to marry Cass in the AW finale.

5 hours ago, Efulton said:

Rumour has it that Chris Goutman wanted Beverlee McKinsey to appear in the last episode / scene but Proctor and Gamble squashed it because they were still pissed off about how she left Guiding Light.

They should have had Iris and Cecile in the scene with Grant in Tanquir in the last episode plotting their revenge against all the people in Bay City who wronged them.   Definitely would have been fun to briefly see them together.

10 minutes ago, pdm1974 said:

I forgot....but what was the resolution to the red swan plot? What was the mystery behind it?

I belive there were papers located inside the Red Swan that stated that Paulina was Mac's long lost daughter.

10 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

 

I forget to mention -- I read near the time of Mac's death, that Swajeski had conceived the Red Swan mystery before she officially took over as head-writer, and had planned to use it as a major storyline.  But when Doug Watson died, she decided to tweak the details in order to incorporate Mac's demise into the plot.  I think Mac's passing should have been handled in a more straight-forward and believable manner, in reverence to both the character and the actor.  

If DW/Mac had lived, I wonder how they would have reunited Mac and Iris?  I suspect that something would have happened where Iris  helped save either Rachel or Amanda from some kind of peril and Mac would have been greatful.

2 hours ago, RavenWhitney said:

Was the Thanksgiving 1988 episode a Swajeski or Lemay episode?

Lemay's last episode was in mid-November, however I don't think Swajeski's episodes started airing until late-November or early-December.   Maybe the writers worked from an outline that had already been written by Lemay.  It has always been stated, but never proven, that Swajeski borrowed heavily from a long term bible that Lemay had written for the show.  If  this is the case, it would be interesting to read it to see how much Swajeski borrowed from it.  The Red Swan mystery was clearly a Swajeski storyline since no one could have predicted the sudden passing of Douglass Watson.

AW's Best Thanksgiving Episode- 1988

This episode featured the famous Mac Cory speech:

Well, everybody... It's been a hard year to get through for many of us. Yet, here we all are, for Thanksgiving. And together. I'm very happy Iris is with us after all those years. And as I look at Jamie, Matthew, Amanda, Sam, and then Alexandra, I am grateful for the awareness of the sheer munificence of life as it keeps on rolling on despite our little problems. Sharing our lives with our friends and our family is far stronger than anything that world out there can do to us. Today especially, though indeed every day, Rachel and I our truly blessed. Our riches are at this table with us today. [Looking to the viewer] As indeed you are in our hearts every day. And so I give you, all of us, I give you life!"

32 minutes ago, robbwolff said:

What seems to be missing here is whatever replaced Texas when it moved to 11:00 Eastern in April 1982. I believe it was repeats of CHiPS. Thanks for sharing this information. It's so informative and interesting to read.

CHiPS aired in the 3:00 PM timeslot from April-September 1982.  Fantasy- a combination American game show and human-interest show co-hosted by Peter Marshall and Leslie Uggams aired in the timeslot from September 1982 to October 1983.  It was replaced by The Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour from October 1983 to July 1984 when Santa Barbara debuted.