watson71

Allen Potter came to the show in Spring 1983 and stayed at AW until the end of 1984. He quickly cleaned up the mess that Paul Rauch left at the show. Potter did raise the ratings, but the show could not break out from the middle of the pack in the ratings. Had the show jumped significantly in the ratings or received some Emmy recognition, I believe that Potter would have not retired at the end of 1984. Props have to be given to Dorothy Ann Purser as well. She was the head writer in 1983 into 1984. She gave us the double wedding, killed Alma Rudder, moved Sally front and center, and created Carl Hutchins and Catlin Ewing. The show should have kept her and paired her with Culliton and Tomlin. And the biggest blunder in the show’s last 20 years was the mistake of killing Sally Frame in 1986. They should have let the character leave Bay City for awhile then return as a recast. She was a legacy character that started on the show in the 70s, one of the last Matthews on AW in the mid 80s, and once she was gone there wasn’t much for Aunt Liz to do and gave Alice Frame no reason to return to Bay City again. Also, having Sally on the show would have slowed the rapid aging of Amanda. Mac and Rachel were like parents to Sally and could have been involved in her storyline during that time. Sally could have driven story for years on the show, and maybe the 90s would not have become the “Vicky Show.”

Cecile kidnapping Cass and taking him to St. Thomas was a fun summer storyline. TPTB should have found a way to keep Cecile in Bay City past August 1986- given the fact the cast would be purged in late 1986. Surely had she stayed the Sin Stalker would have made several unsuccessful attempts on her life. It would be 3 years until 1989 that Cecile would return to Bay City. I wonder if Cecile’s return was part of Lemay’s proposed storylines when he returned in 1988?

Regarding those finales, Ryan’s Hope and SFT wrapped up nicely. As did Texas, with the loss of the TV station coinciding with the loss of the show. AW and GL were a mixed bag, but they were watchable and entertaining. Edge of Night was the same, didn’t care for the Alice in Wonderland mystery that was highlighted in the last episode. However, it looked like the mystery was going to involve most of the cast. The last episode of The Doctors seemed rushed and sloppily put together. AMC and OLTL did themselves no favor ending with cliffhangers when they thought they would continue right away. Viewers never got a real goodbye from both shows. The OLTL portion where Fraternity Row was cancelled and they discussed the loss of a beloved soap was good. ATWT was the absolute worst. 9 months to wrap up, vets featured as day players, and not pre-filming a Helen Wagner ending was terrible. Eileen Fulton was on the show 50+ years and had only a few lines in the last episode - not to mention Lucinda and John making a fool out of her.

In his Locher Room interview today, Stephen Schnetzer announced that he will be returning to DAYS as Julie’s brother, Steve Olson, for several episodes.

I believe that NBC intentionally waited until the last possible minute to cancel the show. P&G should have been more savvy knowing the show was on the chopping block. They should have had an outline to wrap up the show and if it was renewed plans for summer and fall 1999. Goutman blundered the end of ATWT way more than he did AW. He had 9 months to plan the end of ATWT. It was cancelled in December and went off the air the following September. Knowing this, did it ever occur to him to pretape an ending with 90+ year old Helen Wagner? She died before filming was complete, and they gave her a one day funeral. The vets were treated like glorified extras in the last episode, and a 54 year old program ended with a cheap plastic globe spinning on Dr. Bob’s desk. ATWT’s ending was way worse then what happened at AW which had 6 weeks to wrap up.

Not to get off-topic, but Potter was very successful at GL. He kept the show competitive with GH ratings wise at the height of the Luke and Laura’s popularity. In addition, Potter’s GL beat GH as the Emmys twice during this time as best drama series. He cleaned up the mess that AW was in 1983 quickly, and if the ratings rose higher and AW won some Emmys, Potter would have probably stayed at AW longer than the end of 1984. To his credit, Potter retired and kept his word- he never worked in daytime again.

Totally agree about them, but Executive Producer Allen Potter was there as well at this time. Potter cleaned up the mess that Paul Rauch left rather quickly in 1983. Yes they did come up with Carolyn the Gorilla in the summer of 1984, but it was this situation that first paired Felicia with Wallingford. Wallingford was introduced as an informant for Cecile, Cass, and Felicia as they investigated David Thatcher’s murder. I suspect TPTB thought it was cute to revisit Carolyn during the last week of the show as a salute to Cass and Felicia’s capers with Wallingford. I didn’t mind it, but the time they wasted in the last episode could have gone to Rachel having some flashbacks of past characters in the final scene of the series.

Ron Harper who played Taylor Holloway has passed away. His character was featured on AW in 1980. https://deadline.com/2024/03/ron-harper-dies-journeyman-actor-generations-another-world-loving-1235867791/

In real life Dwyer lived until 2012. If she was in good health, and Lemay hadn’t killed the character of Mary- the character could have remained on the AW canvas for its entire run.

Janet Matthews- Jim and William’s sister and Liz’s sister-in-law. You could have built an entire branch of the Matthews family around this character and had her move back to Bay City. She could have married Vince McKinnon, etc. and been the matriarch of the McKinnon family rather than Mary. Gerald and Pammy Davis- they could have been grifters looking to get their hands on the Cory fortune instead of Ken Jordan and Paulina Cantrell. And Ada was still alive at that time to be included in the storyline. Peggy Nolan and Linda Metcalf- either could have been a cousin of Quinn Harding or Lily Mason, a love interest for Grant Todd, or been a relative of the Lawrence or Edwards families. Mike or Hope Bauer- Guiding Light clearly wasn’t interested in using them. AW could have brought them back in some capacity.

Linda Dano just uploaded a podcast yesterday with Jill Larson who played Opal on All My Children. You can listen to the podcast for free on Spotify.

That’s correct- they are posted on Spotify now. She also updates her instagram account when a new podcast is uploaded.

Victoria Wyndham and Carmen Duncan were excellent in the scene where Rachel told Iris that Mac had died on AW. This was raw emotion playing out in this scene as the actresses were also playing out the death of Douglass Watson in real life. Both of these ladies deserve an Emmy award. Also, think of how this scene would have played out if Beverlee McKinsey was still playing Iris.

I think many fans view the 90 minute episodes as a big mistake. After August, 1980, the following happened: AW would never be NBC’s top rated soap ever again; Beverlee McKinsey left AW and would never return; for the first time in 16 years, AW would not air in the 3 PM time block, with NBC moving it to 2 PM on the East Coast. NBC should have left AW in the 3 PM block where it was since it premiered. It was in better shape to do battle with GH and GL. Also, by the mid80s, both GH and GL were not as strong as they once were. Texas and Santa Barbara would have done better at 2 PM sandwiched between DAYS and AW.

Once Rauch left in early 1983, Allen Potter and writers Dorothy Ann Purser and Robert Soderberg cleaned up the mess Rauch left pretty quickly. Potter continued with Gary Tomlin and Richard Culliton as writers in 1984 and the show was good. Had Potter not retired at the end of 1984, we would not have had all the nonsense with EP Stephen Schenkel in 1985 - Rachel’s amnesia, Larry and the Miami Vice storyline, La Soliel, the Egyptian treasure, the urn with the poison dust, etc.

There were a few specific scenes that gave away Dr. Alan Glaser was the Sin Stalker. There were a few times in his psychiatric sessions with Donna that he would be rubbing his neck as she spoke to him. Remember the early May, 1987, episodes around AWs 23rd anniversary, where all of Bay City was at the Cory mansion celebrating Mac’s birthday in a thunderstorm. TPTB even got Ada in on the action trying to rescue Nancy as the Sin Stalker tried to kill her in an upstairs bedroom.

Alfred and his wife, Vivian, appeared briefly at the start of 1987, as Neal and Adam’s parents. Alfred was portrayed by Forrest Compton who was Mike Karr on Edge of Night. At the same time, Ann Flood, was on AW as a Cory publishing employee, Rose Livingstone, who was flirting with Mac. She played Mike Karr’s wife, Nancy, on Edge of Night. Were TPTB testing the waters to see the audience’s reaction to the characters to see if any Edge of Night fans would notice? By February, these characters were dropped and the Sin Stalker story was dominating AW.

I do wish that Lemay’s bible/outline from this time would show up online. Clearly his bible did not have Mac Cory dying. I’m curious how he planned to reunite Mac and Iris.

After doing some searching on YouTube, the same company that created the NBC Peacock “Brought to You in Living Color” logo was probably the same company that created Another World’s interlocking rings opening. https://youtu.be/HIxGyrQz_e8?si=esssgLI9XSvn-gVy

I almost wonder if they designed the 60 and 70s opening with a kaleidoscope toy and somehow filmed it to capture the interlocking rings and the title.

Always liked this theme and the one before it. Always liked that they kept the interlocking rings at the beginning of the opening credits as a nod and wink to the past. Also, for 1981, the credits were technologically advanced- I wonder if the company that created the credits for the Superman movie in 1978 worked on these credits? They are very similar.

Soaps started using exterior shots to establish a house or job location (hospitals, restaurants, etc.) before dissolving into the scene with the characters on the set. This was done a lot as transitions between scenes.

I suspect that was the time Rauch realized that his days at AW were over after almost 12 years as EP. Probably the last “big thing” that Rauch did at AW was to introduce the character of Felicia Gallant. P&G would move Gail Kobe to GL after TEXAS was canceled, and move Allan Potter to AW from GL in early 1983. Potter did clean up AW quickly given the mess Rauch left him with, and AW was again watchable for most of 1983 through the end of 1984 when Potter retired. The only real fault during Potter’s time at AW was not using Jacqueline Courtney’s Alice more effectively, given the fact that he was AW’s first producer in 1964. He was aware of Alice’s history on the show. Rather than give her a big storyline, he made her a supporting character in Sally’s story. If the show had waited to do the Steve Frame back from the dead story once Courtney came back, it probably would have worked.

This was from an interview he did in 1999 before the show was cancelled: Is "Frankie" the real Frankie or is she just someone Jordan Stark created, and what is she going to do to Cass and Lila's relationship? (don't do too much damage!!!) A.M. Pittsburgh, PA Chris Goutman: Let me answer this and hopefully we'll dramatize it because I think it's something we need to answer. Stark did not create her. This is a character who is her own person. Anne is her own person. Stark found out about her and that's about it. She came of her own free will and she has a history which hopefully the audience will find intriguing with what happened to Frankie.

If you look at the cast lists in those credits, only about 10 characters played by the same actor remain into mid-1983 (Rachel, Mac, Ada, Liz, Clarice, Larry, Brian, Blaine, Sandy, Cecile, Quinn). Characters like Jamie, Julia, Sally were recast with new actors. Everyone else was gone.