watson71

Here are newly posted AW closing credits from early 1982 from 4 episodes, including those from a location sequence featuring Diana Frame in a horse riding competition.

On AW, the Sven storyline was beginning to be front burner. He would kidnap Rachel. Iris was in on his schemes to break up Mac and Rachel.

At the time, CBS was counter programming AW with reruns of All in the Family (primetime’s #1 show) and Match Game, so that explains the dip in the ratings. They should pick back up again as AW tied ATWT for the top spot in the ratings for 1977-78.

You are absolutely right- on the 30th Anniversary episode @43:23 Charlie doesn’t even kiss Ada at the wedding, just a peck on the cheek 🤣

Rachel ran away from the funeral looking for Mitch who was suffering from amnesia. Mac and Jamie went looking for Mitch as well as soon as Rachel disappeared.

I agree that it was bad timing and the character was dropped from the show. Haines played Sidney “Sharky” Sugarman on AW from February to July 1989. In The Valentine to Singles episodes, younger actors playing Ada and Sharky were featured in a WWII sequence. In was mentioned in the story that Sharky had a wife named Sylvia who died, and an unseen son named Aaron.

Also, NBC and P&G tried to integrate Another World in the early 80s with black characters with no real jump in the ratings. You had Quinn, Thomasina, and Ed Harding. The Morgan family- Bob, Henrietta, RJ, and Mary Sue. Also, Roy Bingham and Lily Mason along with other minor black characters on the show. In 1982-83, there were 9 black characters involved in storylines out of approximately 30 contract players. If it didn’t work in 1982, I wonder how NBC thought it would work in 1989?

Had RH made it to the 2000s- how do you think the show would have incorporated the 9/11 attack into the storyline given the NYC locale of the show?

Cass needed a letter of recommendation for Dee to become a debutant so he tricked amnesiac Rachel Cory to write a letter for Dee in the storyline as well.

Dee was Tony the Tuna’s niece played by Katie Rich in 1985. She was a punk rocker who Cass tried to turn into a debutante. In 1982, Jamie Frame had a brief May December romance with Susan Matthews Shearer.

It does make you wonder if any of TPTB ever thought of bringing Gerald or Pammy Davis back to Bay City. It would have been a good plot twist to have Gerald be Justine’s father and have him plotting with Justine against Rachel. At least it would have explained the resemblance between Rachel and Justine.

Any time Doug Watson is mentioned by other actors it is always with great affection and respect. Linda Dano always speaks fondly of both Watson and Constance Ford.

Who is the AW actor that Amy Carlson mentioned in her podcast with Linda Dano at @17:20 who didn’t like the scripts and didn’t want to play scenes a certain way in rehearsal ? Linda cuts Amy off and says do not mention the person’s name, and Dano doesn’t mention the person’s name either. I’m guessing it was either Victoria Wyndham or Charles Keating…

Not even sure how Schenkel got hired at AMC. He took over AW in January 1985 and quickly dismantled all the good that Allen Potter did the previous 20 months to get AW back on track after a disastrous 1982. The only good thing Schenkel did at AW was introduce Jake McKinnon and Victoria as Marley’s twin.

In Beverlee McKinsey’s City Lights interview in 1982, she states that AW was making NBC $40+ million in profit from advertising revenue a year. I suspect that AW lasted as long as it did because it was still turning a profit for NBC- maybe not $40 million- but still a profit. The minute that Edge of Night and Search for Tomorrow stopped turning a profit for P&G they were cancelled. NBC wanted to keep SFT for another 13 week cycle, but P&G cancelled the show at the end of 1986, so they would not be in the red in 1987 losing money on the show.

AW was so good at this time with the Who Killed Jason Frame mystery, Felicia’s trial, the revelation that Iris was the chief of Bennett Publishing, the build up to the 25th Anniversary, etc. The ratings do not reflect the quality.

Paulina's mother, Maria Hernandez DeSilva, died when Paulina was only about a year old. With no one to care for her, Paulina was taken to the United States where she was placed in various orphanages. Remember they made the connection early on that Paulina and later Hannah Moore's foster mother Marsha Cantrell got them from an orphanage on Gold Street where both Fannie Grady (Felicia) and Derek grew up. I think initially the intention was to make her Felicia’s daughter, or they threw in a red herring to make the audience think she was Felicia’s daughter.

Definitely should add Mac Cory from Another World to this list. AW was never quite the same after his passing. And has any soap ended with a character that was off the show for 10 years as the final scene- after Rachel and Carl shut off the lights and the screen faded to black in the last episode, the final moment was a still of Mac Cory raising his glass to the audience one last time.

Don’t forget AW was in the middle of the Sin Stalker serial killer storyline, and the Sin Stalker tired to kill Crystal Gayle during this week before she sang sang the new theme song with Gary Morris on Friday’s episode.

The ratings the week of July 7th will be the last time that AW scored a rating of 6.0+ until its cancellation in 1999. This was during the Cecile kidnaps Cass and takes him to St. Thomas storyline. After this storyline concludes, several long running AW characters will be written out of the show- Larry, Clarice, Aunt Liz, Catlin- while other popular actors playing Donna, Cass, Kathleen, Jake, and Ellen Wheeler’s Marley and Victoria will leave as well by the end of 1996.

AW will see a bump in the ratings in February for Felicia and Zane’s wedding that was attended by Liberace. It scored a 6.0 the week of the wedding.

This is getting ready to air in November and December. Originally AW was to film scenes in Egypt and had to transfer to Arizona quickly after the the Achille Lauro ocean liner hijacking took place in early October when the ship was hijacked off the coast of Egypt by four men from the Palestine Liberation Front. It was in the news at the time that the safety of the cast and crew did not warrant the trip to Egypt. It was jarring onscreen that Carl Hutchins buried an Egyptian treasure in the Arizona desert.

Think how many Emmys AW would have won had the Daytime Emmys existed during Agnes Nixon’s time as headwriter…

Jacqueline Courtney’s yearlong return to AW ran from May 4, 1984 to April 15, 1985. Her return had little movement of the ratings with AW occasionally beating Capitol, but the show never moved from 8th or 9th place in the ratings. It will be curious to see how AW does in the summer and fall- the bright spot is that the character of Victoria will appear, but there are many bad choices made by TPTB- Perry is killed by falling on a pitchfork, Mary Page Keller’s Sally is recast with Taylor Miller, Larry gets involved in a “Miami Vice” plot about selling Ecstasy at a nightclub, Brittany continues to flounder going from a death mute to a scheming gold digger in a matter of weeks, and what I consider one of AW’s worst storylines ever- Carl Hutchins will fill an Egyptian urn with poisonous dust that will kill Grant Todd and put both Mac and Rachel near death in the hospital. The switch in EP from Allen Potter to Stephen Schenkel will result in a bunch of bad storyline decisions and useless characters.

Part of the problem with Michael Malone was that he was working with Charlotte Savitz as EP. She did so much damage to the show probably under the direction of NBC. The whole Vicky/Bobby Reno- Shane Roberts story was a convoluted mess. Even brining back John Aprea as a new character didn’t even work. They made Alexander so sinister, his relationship with Felicia didn’t even work. The only thing Malone did right was Victoria Wyndham’s 25th anniversary episode.