watson71

Here is a brief background on Jason Frame: In the late 1960s, Jason Frame was a horse trainer for the Love family. He was in love with Elizabeth Love. When Reginald found out about the affair, Reginald murdered Elizabeth, then Reginald faked his death in Egypt with the assistance of Andrew Hutchins, Carl's father. Jason left Bay City and joined the Navy. Jason claimed to be in the Navy for over 20 years; however, it was revealed that he was dishonorably discharged on suspicion of treason for selling arms to the Viet Cong.

I liked the Jason Frame murder because it was a big umbrella story that built up for months before it happened and involved the entire cast. Jason knew Iris was The Chief. Jason knew that Evan was Janice's son. Jason knew that Steven could be Jake's baby. Jason knew Sharlene's prostitute past. Jason was remodeling Felicia's apartment and gave Felicia a gun to protect herself from Derrick who was stalking her. Viewers already knew that Jason would be killed and Felicia would be blamed because she had his gun. All these secrets that Jason had on everyone were exposed during Felicia's murder trial. We found out that Iris was The Chief- this created great scenes between Mac and Iris shortly before Mac's death. Derrick was revealed to be a foster child that grew up in the Grady household, and he accidentally murdered Fanny/Felicia's abusive father, etc. This served as a springboard for introducing Lucas and Felicia finding her daughter, etc. At first, we did not know if Nicole was the killer because she was wearing Vicky's earrings the night of the murder. The character of Nicole was sacrificed so that Cass could be paired with Frankie. Nicole was never heard from again. She was forgotten by the show, just like Donna's brother Peter was.

If Courtney agreed to stay in 1989, I would have tried to get George Reinholt to return as Steve Frame as well with a creative rewrite that David Canary's Steve was an imposter. Mac died offscreen. They could have said that he discovered the real Steve alive and sent this information to Rachel in the red swan that the real Steve was alive before his death. The show had nothing to lose by bringing Courtney and Reinholt back to the show.

I think that is what I appreciate most about Swajeski's headwriting stint was that she was a "consistent" writer the show had for four years steady. Between Lemay's 8 year stint and Swajeski taking over as headwriter in 1988, there were 9 headwriting combinations on the show: Tom King and Robert Soderberg- 1979-80 L. Virginia Browne 1980-81 Corinne Jacker 1982 Robert Soderberg and Dorothy Ann Purser 1982-1984 Richard Culliton and Gary Tomlin 1984-85 Sam Hall and Gillian Spencer 1985-1986 Margaret DePriest 1986-1988 Sheri Anderson 1988 Harding Lemay 1988 Of these, I believe Robert Soderberg and Dorothy Ann Purser do not get the credit they deserve. They quickly righted the ship and cleaned up the mess they inherited from Corrine Jacker. The duo created the following characters- Felicia Gallant, Carl Hutchins, Donna Love, Lily Mason, and David Thatcher. They created the "Who Killed Alma Rudder?" story, laid the groundwork for Catlin Ewing to appear on the show, reunited Mac and Rachel- finally!, and moved Mary Page Keller's Sally to the forefront of the show with her backstory of having a baby with David Thatcher.

I agree- the only time I didn't care for Felicia was when she was involved with John Hudson. I wish that the writers would have made an attempt to bring back Lorna or Jenna before the show ended. Those last couple of years, she had no relatives on the show.

I agree completely. I really cannot see anyone playing the role of Felicia but Linda Dano. I cannot see Jane Elliott playing Felicia for 16 years.

When she first appeared, I think TPTB were trying to have Felicia be daytime's answer to Alexis Carrington. She was still quite mean in the Summer of 83 at Mac and Rachel's wedding after she found out Cass was seeing Cecile behind her back. This was when she tried to pick a fight with Julia, and Julia pushed her in the Cory swimming pool. 😂

35 year ago, on January 6, 1983, Linda Dano made her Another World debut as Felicia Gallant- where has time time gone?!? 🤔

Not sure of the exact dates, but it probably ran the length of The Catlins from 1983-85 since they aired in a one hour block. I wonder if the episodes of The Catlins are still in tact. It would be interesting to watch the show online.

The Catlins aired on TBS for 30 minutes- it was paired with 30 minute episodes of the AW spin-off Texas. Apparently TBS edited the 60 minute Texas episodes into two 30 minute episodes.

Barrett also played Jacqui McCormick on the P&G soap The Catlins that aired on TBS from 1983-1985. The Catlins was produced by Joe Rothenberger who produced both Another World and As the World Turns.

I believe that Iris and Louise were tape recording Alice's conversations with Elliot when Alice was Dennis' nurse. Rachel somehow got the tapes from Iris to play them for Steve to show him that Alice was no longer interested in him. This was around the time of the Watergate tape scandal and AW received mainstream press comparing the tape story to Watergate. I am sure that was Lemay's idea, as well as bringing Russ back to Bay City in March 1989. Lemay was already gone from the show in November 1988, but it is always been stated that Swajeski borrowed heavily from Lemay's pre-written bible of story projections. We probably did not see Swajeski's original storylines until Summer 1989 when the show had to revise storylines because of Douglass Watson's death.

The character of Marley would show up in May 1984. I'm not sure if TPTB at the time planned for her to have a twin or if they had planned Donna's back story with Michael Hudson.

More of a class difference- go to the 17 minute mark in the video below- while Carl greets Perry and Thomasina with warmth, Donna is more reserved and says more with her body language than words:

Yes- they did test a Thomasina/Perry pairing with Donna being opposed to the pairing in Spring 1984.

I agree and enjoyed Allen Potter's AW in 1983 and 1984. The show had the same interesting, likeable, believable characters that his tenure on The Doctors and Guiding Light had. In 1982-83, when Potter took over from Paul Rauch, AW was in 10th place with a 4.8 rating. Potter' AW in 1983-84 was in 9th place with a 5.6 rating, and in 1984-85, AW was in 9th place with a 5.5 rating. Potter retired from AW with the last episode of 1984. I suspect that he would have stayed on longer had he been able to move AW higher up in the ratings. You have to give him major props for turning AW around quickly in 1983 after the disastrous 1982 the show had under Corrine Jacker's pen. Potter turned the show around keeping most of the cast intact without a mass exodus. My only fault with Potter's tenure at AW was his misuse of Jacqueline Courtney's Alice after her return in May 1984. Courtney would be gone from the show by April 1985, shortly after Potter's retirement. AW did the same thing ten years later with Felicia and Marshall Kramer. The viewers complained and execs got scared of the pairing. I also wonder why they never brought the character of Ben McKinnon back to the show in later years....

That is a rare 1984 video. Based on the storylines, this episode would be from early to mid-March 1984. This is after Mac was rescued from the plane crash, but before he had his stroke.

Christmas 1980 Christmas 1981 Christmas 1982 Christmas 1983- Carl Hutchins' first episodes Christmas 1984

Below is a 1965 promo for NBCs Daytime lineup, including Moment of Truth that starred Douglass Watson who would go on to play Mac Cory on AW:

I wonder if P&G ever considered transferring Douglas Marland to AW after he made ATWT a critical and ratings success in the 80s. He worked at AW in the 70s with Lemay so he had experience with the show. I also wonder if P&G ever considered hiring Paul Rauch back as EP in 1996 when he was hired at GL. Clearly Rauch was willing to work for P&G again. He also would have been better for AW than the sub-par Charlotte Savitz, who was EP for two years. In hindsight, P&G probably hired her to dismantle the show in order to make it easier to cancel. Goutman was probably getting "practice" as EP at AW knowing that if it was cancelled that he would be transferred to ATWT.

Carl probably would have been re-introduced as a villain, and he could have been redeemed by being paired with Felicia after Lucas' death or with Donna after Michael left Bay City. it would have been interesting to see what would have happened to the characters of Mac and Ada had Doug Watson and Constance Ford lived until the series end. JFP eliminated both Barbara Berjer (Bridget) and David Hedison (Spencer) from the cast in 1995-96. Would she have been bold enough to eliminate the characters of Mac and Ada too?

I suspect that the Red Swan mystery and Ken Jordan and Paulina would have never played out had Doug Watson lived. A connection to Lucas might have been made in the backstory via Cory Publishing that could have put Mac/Rachel in some kind of danger like what happened to Michael Hudson with Arianne and "The Club." Iris would have interfered in the situation putting herself back in Mac's good graces by saving either him or Rachel. Going forward, Iris and Rachel would continue to be at odds since Iris couldn't be trusted.

Thanksgiving 1988 was also a great episode. This was Mac's last Thanksgiving with his famous "I am grateful for the sheer munificence of life..." speech. This episode ends with a montage set to Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World." Almost the entire cast was shown in this episode as well. I agree that the absence of Mac left a void that was sorely missing in the last decade of the show. This was especially evident during those Christmas episodes when Douglass Watson would break the 4th wall and offer a toast to the audience each Christmas. No one on the show could do that the way that he did. I've often wondered how the writers planned to eventually reunite Mac and Iris had Mac lived. Clearly, the characters of Paulina and Ken Jordan probably would not have been introduced during the Red Swan story. Also, I wonder if the character of Carl would have returned to the show and been redeemed.

http://deadline.com/2017/11/nbc-buys-family-dance-school-drama-produced-sean-hayes-hazy-mills-thomas-ian-griffith-mary-page-keller-1202200524/ Mary Page Keller and Thomas Ian Griffith (Sally and Caitlin, AW) are going to produce a new family drama on NBC. A recent picture of them is in the article. They still look good 33 years later!

The Decades Channel is airing a two day Dark Shadows marathon this weekend to celebrate Halloween.