watson71

The DECADES network is airing a Dark Shadows marathon this weekend...

The link below is to the 1986 wedding of Zane and Felicia with guest star Liberace who plays at the wedding reception.  Linda Dano's real life mother and husband also appear in the episode as wedding guests.  This is a prime example of how soaps made big events out of weddings in the 1980s.  Every cast member appears in the episode, along with excellent production values and costumes.   You would not see this on today's soaps.

 

 

http://youtu.be/bqn5jvomzPY

 

The debut of Linda Dano as Felicia Gallant- January 6, 1983

 

 

 

 

 

Beverly Penberthy/Pat Randolph's last episode:

Wow! This episode is definitely a rare find. Hardly any of 1982-84 Another World exists on YouTube. Hopefully more episodes will turn up soon.

Here is yet another NBC sitcom referring to AW. Natalie thinks she spots "Rachel" from AW at a fancy NYC restaurant and follows her into the ladies' room. It turns out that this woman is a civilian and not an actress, but her life story is even more of a soap opera than AW!! LOLhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHkOGD8Yhjo

In that episode of Facts of Life is a young Peter Reckell (Bo Brady) from Days of our Lives. Even though this is the AW forum, here is a funny episode of Sanford and Son where Fred is worried that his TV will be repossessed before he finds out the paternity of Mike Horton on Days of our Lives. Redd Foxx gives a perfect summary of the Bill/Laura/Mickey storyline without missing a beat. You have to love Fred's line at the end of the show about being "an old, crippled zucchini parked in his wheelchair watching Days of our Lives" as he tries to con the repo man (Dick Van Patten, Eight is Enough) out of money. LOL. It was great that NBC would promote their daytime soaps on their sitcoms.

http://youtu.be/K4AnDyjm5gk

On the classic NBC sitcom, Sanford and Son, Fred (Redd Foxx) follows Lamont (Demond Wilson) and Rollo (Nathaniel Taylor) to a studio to get a part in a movie, not knowing that it is a pornographic movie. At the 6:40 mark, Fred enters the producer's office and there is a picture of Alice Frame (Jacqueline Courtney) and Eliot Carrington (James Douglas) directly over Fred's shoulder. The publicity department at NBC must have given the show the photos. This episode also contains one of Aunt Esther's (Lawanda Page) first appearances on the show. At the 14:45 mark begins a hilarious exchange between Fred and Aunt Esther in the jail. There is no way a writer scripted all the one-liners in this scene. Rather, it relies on the comic genius of Foxx and Page and the chemistry they had together.

Yesterday, the Hallmark Channel aired the episode of The Golden Girls entitled "The Flu." Beginning at the 11:00 mark, Dorothy and Blanche start a funny exchange on whether or not they will watch the continuing story of Another World as they stuck in the house with the flu.

http://youtu.be/Ea1tX1noEpg

Poor Rachel. She wasn't in the slammer for a good few hours and the vultures, Cecile and Miranda, were swarming around her family.

Ada broke my heart this episode. It had to be hard for her to watch Rachel be hauled off to prison. Constance Ford's performance broke my heart. It's subtle, heart-wrenching performances that deserves EMMYS. I don't know how she and Vicki Wyndham never landed one. But they are in a class of greats that were never rewarded one either.

YES! YES! YES! Could not agree with you more about Ford and Wyndham.

In the next few weeks, a lot of things happen with the Rachel in jail storyline. Ruby will tell Rachel about Sue and Danny finding a man in their van after pulling some robberies in the Cory neighborhood- the man is Mitch. Rachel will give birth to Matthew the week before Christmas. Mac puts two and two together with the Sue and Danny story and starts to investigate whether Mitch is alive. Charlie will die in his sleep leaving Ada a widow again. Rachel will break out of prison to discover Mitch is alive.

Yes, Miranda was the show's first attempt at replacing Iris. It didn't work -- mostly because Miranda and her clan were introduced as an entirely new family. I've always thought it would have been more successful, if Miranda had been Mac's widowed sister-in-law. Then her move to Bay City would have made more sense, and her family members would have been Corys -- perhaps feeling superior to Rachel (as Iris did) and causing more direct conflict in the Cory family.

Making her a part of the extended Cory family is a good idea- wonder why TPTB never thought of that...

Was Miranda the writers' way of replacing Iris as Bay City's resident troublemaker since Iris had moved to Houston at this point? I did not start watching AW regularly until 1983, and I have only seen bits and pieces of Miranda from YouTube episodes. It seems that she did not last long on the show.

Below is the complete November 25, 1980 episode of Another World in which Mac learns that Mitch is the father of Rachel's baby. This is the cleanest, most pristine copy of the episode that I have ever seen. Outstanding performances by all those involved, especially Douglass Watson who won an Emmy for his performance of Mac.

43 years ago today Victoria Wyndham began playing the role of Rachel on Another World. Below are clips from her 25th anniversary show. The episode certainly showed us viewers that she could play any material that was given to her and what great chemistry she had with her co-stars. How she and Constance Ford never won a Daytime Emmy will remain one of daytime television's greatest mysteries.

I could imagine that trying to premiere a new show (such as Texas) at the time opposite GH and GL would have been a daunting task for anyone. It's too bad about the constant time slot shifts because people don't like change. People are creatures of habit and if they have the habit of watching a show at lunch time then they won't tend to follow it if it gets moved to a later time (say 2 or 3).

From 79-82, there were numerous time slot changes at NBC Daytime: AW expanded to 90 minutes and began at 2:30 instead of 3:00. Then it is moved to 2:00. The Doctors moved from 2:30 to 2:00 PM, then was moved to 12:30, then was bumped up to 12:00 when Search for Tomorrow premiered. Texas stayed in the 3:00 time slot for approximately 18 months, then was moved to the 11 AM slot against The Price is Right. During this time numerous game shows also premiered, as well as David Letterman's daytime show. At one point, NBC was using reruns of Chips as filler during the 3 PM time slot.

Those were mistakes as was going to a 90-minute per day format. How they did it as long as they did (nearly a year and a half, I believe), I have no idea.

The 90 minute format was like doing an extra 10 episodes of a 60 minute program in a month. From what I have read, NBC boss Fred Silverman wanted a bigger, better AW. While he had successful runs at CBS and ABC, his time at NBC was a disaster in both primetime and daytime. The only primetime shows that were successes during his tenure were Diffrent Strokes, Chips, and Facts of Life. He was the mastermind behind Supertrain- think Love Boat on a train and to revive Sanford and Son- one of the most successful sitcoms of the 70s- without Demond Wilson as Lamont. As great a comic as Redd Foxx was, the show flopped because there was no Lamont, and Fred's foe, Aunt Esther only made occasional appearances.

NBC Daytime ratings were starting to slide because of the competition from the ABC soaps. At the 90 minute expansion, AW switched time slots to 2:30 PM, The Doctors moved to 2:00 PM, and Days settled into its 1:00 PM time slots where it remains today. Then, Harding Lemay left as headwriter, Bay City became overpopulated with new characters that no one cared about. Then, once TPTB found that 90 minute AW was not working, the idea was hatched to clone Dallas with the spin-off Texas starring one of AW's biggest stars Beverlee McKinsey. NBC purposely set the August premier of Texas because ABC would be airing the Olympics and pre-empting soaps. This did not happen because of the US boycott of the Olympics. So, Texas premiers, shifting the times of NBC soaps again. The Doctors moves to 12:30 PM, Days stays at 1 PM, AW is moved to 2 PM, and Texas is the first soap to debut at 60 minutes at 3 PM against General Hospital and Guiding Light. For Texas to succeed, it should have been sandwiched between Days and AW or placed in the 12:30 time slot, thus returning the other NBC soaps back to their pre- 90 minute AW time slots.

In 18 months, AW expanded to 90 minutes, lost a long time headwriter, changed time slots twice, then lost one of its biggest stars to the spin-off Texas. I'm sure that Victoria Wyndham was none too happy that Beverlee McKinsey received star billing on Texas- "Texas starring Beverlee McKinsey." If AW would have still been riding high in the ratings, I'm sure at some point the Bill Wolff would have been saying "Another World starring Victoria Wyndham" just to even the playing field.

Yes I have read that directors/actors had tapes made of various episodes so I am sure there is more stuff out there.

I also wonder about soaps produced outside of P&G.We know most of The Doctors exist.Maybe 20th Century Fox has Best of Everything and Return to Peyton Place?

Then there are the tapes that were sent to other countries,particularly Australia.Maybe sitting in a box somewhere??

I would suspect that given AW's popularity in Canada that more material is still out there with our neighbors to the north as well.

I would flip if the episode from 1969 would pop up of Rachel telling Alice she is pregnant with Steve's baby at her engagement party. It would be double awesome if it's in color and not grainy b&w kinescope.

I would think that a copy of that episode exists somewhere. With Courtney and Reinholt having passed away, I wonder if they ever saved episodes of their work and who is in possession of them now. I also wonder if Strasser saved any copies of her episodes.

P&G, at one point, probably would have saved a copy of the engagement party episode just in case they wanted to use it as a flashback in a future episode. I'm sure at one point that P&G had to do that with all significant story points just in case they wanted to include a flashback in a future episode. For example, I'm not sure if the original episode still exists where Rachel killed Janice Frame, but there is a lengthy flashback to that episode below. Two things I always wondered about those scenes- how close was Bay City supposed to be to St. Croix? Rachel still has that wet hair in the hospital when in reality it would take several hours to get back to Bay City from St. Croix. And if Rachel stabbed Janice, how come there was no blood in the pool?!?

http://youtu.be/XueINajXDxk

I think they started saving episodes in the late 70s- to 1980. I'm sure earlier episodes exist, just not the entire catalog for a particular show. I wonder if ABC saved all the episodes of EON when it switched networks. I am sure that most episodes of Texas exist, as well as the NBC run of SFT. They probably saved AW from the beginning of the 1979 90 minutes episodes, and I would assume they started saving GL and ATWT at the same time.

I get a little angry every time I hear "and next Another World" at the end of The Doctors reruns...

With all of these TV sub-channels popping up- Antenna TV, MeTV, Decades, RetroTV, why is P&G just letting all their material that does exist collect dust somewhere? It makes no sense, since the audience that brought their shows their initial popularity in the 50s-early 70s, are now retired and would most likely watch the shows again. This would also allow new audiences who never saw the P&G shows when they initially ran to watch for the first time as well. When you think about it, no one under 30 has seen an episode of EON or SFT broadcast on TV, only on sources like YouTube. There is enough P&G material to fill up an afternoon lineup on one of these sub-channels- SFT, ATWT, GL, AW, TEXAS, EON, and if it was saved The Catlins. I wonder what still exists from Somerset and Lovers & Friends/For Richer, For Poorer?

According to ED's AWHP, the actor that played Tic de Cosgrove, a society friend of Iris back in '75 has been identified as George Hearne. I have asked about this character here, and others have asked on other sites...just wanted to pass it along...

If this is the same actor, and I suspect it is, Hearne has extensive Broadway credits according to his Wikipedia page- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hearn. Also, his Wikipedia page states that Hearne " was born in St. Louis, Missouri, studied philosophy at Southwestern at Memphis, now Rhodes College before he embarked on a career in the theater, training for the stage with actress turned acting coach Irene Dailey" (Liz Matthews). He was also married to Dixie Carter (Brandy, EON) during the late 70s.

Watson71, my friend Chris Mann wrote Come and Knock on Our Door, the Three's Company companion book. As he was an AMC fan, he never saw AW and thus never knew the connections until I told him about it. He now finds it utterly amusing that Mr. Angelino and Lana were once "married"!!! LOL

That is really funny. They must have been popular AW characters to be two of the three AW characters that were spun-off onto Somerset in 1970.

Looking at the pictures of the AW cast got me to thinking that someone at Three's Company must have been a fan of AW. Audra Linley played Mrs. Roper, Jordan Charney played Jack's boss, Mr. Angelino, and Ann Wedgeworth played Lana Shields. :-)

Your guess is as good as mine...but you're right about P&G shuffling EPs to the different shows to keep them fresh. In a podcast interview I listened to with guest Susan Bedsow-Horgan (best known for her success as EP of OLTL in the mid-90s, but in the late 70s-mid 80s she worked at both GL and ATWT as a producer and a writer). At ATWT, the EP when she got there was Fred Bartholomew. At the same time, Mary-Ellis Bunim was at the helm of SFT. Then P&G decided to have them switch shows. Had AW lasted past 1999, I wonder how long Chris Goutman would have been in charge.

P&G certainly did do a lot of producer shuffling. Below is what is documented on the Internet, but I'm sure more than this went on:

1971- AW EP Lyle Hill will serve as EP of the AW spinoff, Somerset, only. CBS executive Paul Rauch is named EP of AW.

1978- AW Producer Joe Rothenberger is named EP of ATWT.

1980- Former EP of ATWT Fred Bartholomew returns to ATWT replacing Joe Rothenberger. Bartholomew served as EP of ATWT from 1971-73.

1981- The EPs of ATWT and SFT swap jobs. Fred Bartholomew becomes EP of SFT and Mary-Ellis Bunim becomes EP of ATWT.

1981- With new soap Texas in ratings trouble, Paul Rauch will serve as EP of AW only. Gail Kobe, a longtime P&G supervising producer, is named EP of Texas.

1983- After the cancellation of Texas, Gail Kobe is named EP of GL. GL EP Allen Potter is transferred back to AW. Potter was AW's original EP in 1964. He replaces Paul Rauch at AW.

1984- AW and GL producer/director Robert Calhoun replaces Mary-Ellis Bunim as EP of ATWT

1985- After the cancellation of EON, Erwin Nicholson becomes EP of SFT.

1985- GL producer/director John Whitesell replaces Erwin Nicholson as EP of SFT.

1986- SFT EP John Whitesell replaces Stephen Schenkel as EP of AW. Joe Willmore, former EP of ATWT from 1973-78, replaces Gail Kobe as EP of GL.

1987- ATWT EP Robert Calhoun replaces Joe Willmore as EP of GL.

1988-ATWT producer Michael Laison replaces John Whitesell as EP of AW.

1994-Longtime P&G supervising producer of GL and EON, John Valente, is promoted as EP of AW, where he was already working as senior producer.

1995- P&G Executive in Charge of Production Kenneth Fitts does an EP shuffle at the 3 remaining P&G soaps. Jill Farren Phelps is transferred from GL to AW. John Valente is transferred from AW to ATWT. Former AW EP Michael Labison is hired as EP of GL.

1996- P&G Executive in Charge of Production Mary Alice Dwyer-Dobbin hires Paul Rauch to replace Michael Labison as EP of Guiding Light and Felicia Minei Behr to replace John Valente as EP of ATWT. MADD doesn't replace Charlotte Savitz as EP of AW. Savitz would systematically dismantle AW over the next two years. If P&G wanted to save AW, Paul Rauch should have been hired to EP AW, not GL, at this time.

1998- ATWT director Christopher Goutman is hired to become EP at AW. He stays with the show 8 months when it is cancelled.

1999- After Another World's cancellation, EP Christopher Goutman and much of AW's staff are transferred to As the World Turns. He remains EP until the show's cancellation in 2010.

2004- Ellen Wheeler, who won an Emmy as AW's Marley/Vicky, and directed ATWT and served as a producer at GL, is named EP of Guiding Light. She remains EP until the show's cancellation in 2009.

100000000% agree about the ATWT finale. A disgrace.

Anyway, Sharon Gabet has put up a video that has clips of her three daytime roles. I don't know if all of this is available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLA0R_CvYKE

Sharon Gabet always did great work, even when the writing on the shows she appeared on wasn't that great. She made the most out of the material given to her.

The finales of AW and ATWT got me thinking- Christopher Goutman has the distinction of being the executive producer of two long-running P & G shows at the time of cancellation. While he was only at AW for 8 months, he stayed at ATWT for 11 years. P & G was notorious for shuffling producers on their shows. I wonder why they left Goutman at ATWT for so long? The only P & G producers that had longer tenures than Goutman were Lucy Rittenberg at GL- 20+ years and Erwin Nicholson at EON- 18 years. Goutman even tied Paul Rauch's long run at AW with 11 years.

Agree with the above. The Cass/Lila wedding would have been okay for a sweeps "stunt" (although it was a bit too over the top for me) but having a show of 35 years go out on that note was very disappointing.

I understand that the show barely had any time to wrap so it probably wasn't their fault. It would have been nice for some returns like Jamie and Nancy maybe... at least.

If this wedding had already been written before the cancellation notice I wish they would have re-written it and made it more of a "straight" wedding than a comedy farce. They should have taken out the whole Gorilla part. Cass and Felicia could have been stranded still somehow on the way (making them late) while sharing memories of other crazy times together over the years. I would have preferred they extended Paulina going around to the wedding guests letting them talk to the camera that she was using to record memories for Cass and Lila. Would have been a great opportunity for more flashbacks with "remember that time when....".

They could have cut out Cindy all around since it didn't really fit that she'd be at Cass and Lila's wedding and I would have left off Grant's reveal at the end.

You make some great points. I understood the reason why the included the Carolyn the gorilla caper. I just would not have included it in the last episode. It could have been done in earlier episodes. Carolyn the gorilla was one of the first capers that Felicia had with Wallingford. The gorilla was named after longtime AW writer Carolyn Culliton, and the zookeeper, Sam Radcliffe, was named after another longtime AW writer that had passed away a few years earlier.

They made a point of letting the audience know that Grant was alive and well in Tanquir. The audience would have gone crazy if it was revealed that Grant was plotting against the citizens of Bay City along with the former Queen of Tanquir, Cecile (Nancy Frangione) and Iris (Beverlee McKinsey) in a short scene. The three could have toasted to their revenge.

The best parts of the episode were when the cast said something nice about Cass and Lila, yet they were veiled good-byes to the audience, and the last scene with Carl and Rachel was great ending with Mac toasting the audience one last time.

I will say that AW only had 6 weeks from its cancellation to film its last episode. Its last episode was head and shoulders above the endings of All My Children- a character firing a gun into a crowded room and One Life to Live- with its Todd/not Todd reveal. I understand why they chose the cliffhanger ending because of their supposed continuation, but there was little closure and familiarity with this type of ending.

The worst ending to a show had to be the final ending of As the World Turns. The show was cancelled in December and had to September of the next year when it aired its final episode. If TPTB knew that Helen Wagner was sick, they should have pre-taped an ending keeping the character of Nancy alive so she could have been in the final scene of the series with a dedication to her memory at the end of the episode. They hastily produced a funeral episode for Nancy- a disgrace for a character that was on the show since its first episode. There were no flashbacks, no pictures of past cast members, and Eileen Fulton, the person who brought ATWT its major success, was treated like a day player/under 5 in that last episode. How did it end- with Dr. Bob retiring and a cheap plastic globe spinning on a desk. Given the time and notice they had to wrap the series- it was a major fail.

16 years ago today Another World aired its last episode on NBC. Below is AW's final scene. Wish we could have had more of these type of scenes and less Carolyn the gorilla in the last episode.

Below is a 1967 episode of You Don't Say with Tom Kennedy as host: