Bill Bauer

I did the tour as well. What struck me most was how tiny the area where they had the Ewing Barbecues was in real life. It seemed like a much bigger area on screen.

The Lisa/Ellen feud went way back to when Ellen was trying to get custody of Dan. Lisa was very against what Ellen was doing and let her know it. It didn't help that Penny and Ellen were best friends and Penny couldn't stand Lisa either in those days. Then, the animosity got a lot deeper when Lisa had an affair with (and a baby by) Ellen's stepfather, Michael Shea. The affair turned Claire into a suicidal lush and pretty much destroyed her. Ellen never forgave Lisa for what she did to her mother.

Yes, she was pregnant and gave the baby up on screen. She didn't want to give the baby (Dan) up but was pressured to by Judge Lowell because she wasn't married to the father (Tim Cole) at the time. He was married to someone else. So she gave the baby up for adoption. Tim subsequently got a divorce and married Ellen but died soon after from leukemia. It was only after Tim's death that Ellen decided to try and get her baby back. David and Betty had adopted Ellen's baby. That's how she got into David's orbit. She tried to get Dan back from David and Betty. Betty died from pneumonia and then Ellen married David. So, she married her baby's adoptive father. Franny Brennan, the Stewarts housekeeper, threatened to tell Dan that Ellen was his real mom (she was hiding that fact from Dan). So Ellen killed Franny by bashing her over the head with a paperweight.

You forgot her mother Claire.

On ATWT, although I preferred Julianne Moore's Frannie over Mary Ellen Stuart's Frannie, Moore looked nothing like her mother played by Gillian Spencer but, in my opinion, Stuart looked just like her (especially when Spencer had blonde hair). However, Kim Onasch definitely looked like she could have been Julianne Moore's niece. Also, the baby who played Adam looked like it could have been Benjamin Hendrickson's real life baby.

I think Waters was trying to defend his movies from being labeled as simple "camp" by splitting hairs about the definition of camp. However, few people would argue that John Waters movies aren't campy or that he was was innocent to the fact that he was making something intentionally bad. I'm talking about his early material.

John Waters would disagree with you.

I'll have to respectfully disagree there. Charita could play cold better than anybody and she played Bert as very cold for most of the character's run. Way colder than Nancy ever was.

Not much. Locher just retreaded the same old tired stories about her almost pulling out the pregnancy pillow on live TV, getting hit by the irate fan, having her recite her married names, etc. It honestly was just like all the other interviews you've seen with her in the past. Just with an older Eileen and a befuddled interviewer. Not much tea was spilled.

Liz was trying to save Emily, not Betsy. Betsy was not a toddler then. Emily was.

Wasn't Hugh Marlow the one who was always flubbing up his lines? He probably blamed it on Dwyer. Sorry, but Hugh Marlow had no room to criticize someone else's acting skills.

I have no idea if it's true or not, but I read that it's because of all the songs Ciji/Cathy sang. They didn't want to pay music royalties. There might be some truth to that if they only released the first two seasons. Didn't Ciji first appear in Season 3?

I agree. I don't think it's an unpopular opinion. Maybe if you're just going by ratings at the time. Knots Landing, I believe, has more enduring fans who feel more passionate about it than Dallas does despite the fact that it's not readily available on a modern format. Although I liked Dallas ok, Knots Landing was much more intelligent, complex and interesting. Dallas got extremely repetitive and boring after the first few seasons.

I just saw No Time to Die. Billy did a great job in it.

Well that was certainly a busy scene, wasn't it? It was like watching an emotional orgy.

Yeah, but all those guys had some redeeming qualities except for Martin (but he was pretending to be somebody he wasn't). I just never saw Whit's redeeming qualities. Every time I saw him, he just seemed like an abusive blowhard and never pretended to be anything different.

Yes! Especially since AW seems to be one of the least preserved shows. There is basically nothing, even in the museums, pre-1979. I consider the first ten years of AW to be one of the best stretches of soap opera (if not the best) in the history of soap opera and it's all just gone with the wind.

It does seem odd that Lisa would marry a man who seemingly had no redeeming qualities. She was often swept away in romantic emotionalism but she was always too feisty to allow herself to be dominated by an abusive man and Whit seemed very abusive. The only exception to this would be Michael Shea but Lisa was forced into that marriage. Was Betsy von Furstenberg playing Lisa the entire time she was Whit? I could sort of see the Lisa as she was portrayed by von Furstenberg putting up with Whit's crap.

I think 1986 was the best year for the show. There was absolutely nothing that was fast-forward material. Followed closely by 1987. That's a limited opinion since I didn't first-hand witness every year and only know the synopses of every year.

Yes. Prinz was in the original cast in 1956. Hastings joined in 1960 when Bob was SORASed. There were MANY things that felt wrong about the show towards the end. Forgetting important characters was just one of those things. I mean, I can sort of get that if you have a tight budget you can't bring back a lot of actors. But were Donald and Penny even MENTIONED when their mother died? The only reason Frannie was mentioned toward the end is because Julianne Moore was making an appearance. If she wasn't coming in, they would have kept pretending like she never existed. As I said before, I remember the Frannie/Sabrina Haiti reference so well because I was shocked they even mentioned them after so long. Looking back, I do believe the mention was to sort of remind the audience who they were before Julianne Moore's appearance. ATWT towards the end became this bizarre world of unrecognizable newbies and people who had no connection to their own past. It seems like Marland really hated the character of Steve. He broke up his marriage, framed him for murder, burned down his dream house and sentenced him to 25 years in a Greek prison.

LOL. I don't blame you at all! When I get to that time period in my chronological watching, I'm sure I'll skip through everything that doesn't feature the Hughes family. Like I said, if I come across the reference I'll let you know but it might be a while and, like I also said, by that time we'll have forgotten this bit of trivia.

Hey DD, Yeah, I mentioned it was probably a Thanksgiving or Christmas episode because that's when they usually mentioned missing family members. However, since the Haitian earthquake was in January 2010, Julianne Moore returned in April 2010 and the show was off the air in September 2010, I think the Haiti mention was probably sometime in February or March (since ATWT taped in advance). If all the February and March 2010 episodes are up on YouTube, and you have the patience to go through them, you'll probably find the mention in there somewhere. I would just skip to all the Hughes scenes though. I'm sure it was Bob or Kim who mentioned it. Now, I'm not 100% sure of this so please don't get mad at me if you sift through all those episodes and it's not there. 😀 I'm currently going through the entire series but I'm only up to 1999 so it might take me a while to get there. But, when I do, and I hear the reference, I'll let you know. Although by the time I get there both you and I will have forgotten about this I'm sure.

Actually, I strangely remember this happening (my ability to store soap trivia is near savant level). I can't remember the exact year but I remember there had been some big disaster in Haiti in real life that was all over the news. It was either a hurricane or an earthquake or something. At that time, it was very briefly mentioned only once that Frannie and Sabrina had gone to Haiti from Montega to assist in the relief efforts. I think Bob and Kim were talking about it. Probably at Thanksgiving or Christmas when they explain the absence of family members. It stood out so in my mind because it was so random. Frannie and Sabrina hadn't been mentioned in years. There was only that one mention of it. Maybe two mentions. But that was it. Actually, I looked at Haiti's natural disasters and they had a massive earthquake in January 2010 which killed up to 316,000 people so that was probably it since that's huge. I think that was it. They might have mentioned Frannie and Sabrina so randomly because Julianne Moore was planning on coming back that April for her guest appearance. They usually start mentioning an old character if they're planning on coming back. The timeline would be right.

Others share the same opinion. Me included. But AW post-1980 wasn't even the same show as AW pre-1980. I look at it as two different shows.

I believe you're referring to Cal Randolph.