Bill Bauer

Who was the headwriter from November 65 to mid 66?

Also, isn't Unshackled weekly while The Archers is daily?

That's a massive possibility. Eileen didn't have much of a filter even in her younger years (when people's filters are stronger) and Alan, as a PR man, is ALL ABOUT the filter.

Well, I'm a Christian so I didn't mind the spiritual aspect but I never got really into it (even though I love OTR) because I'm more into the serial format and Unshackled was anthological. I just am surprised it's still in production. I wonder if it rivals The Archers at this point for radio drama longevity.

Unshackled is still in production? I'm literally shocked by that news. I thought it was reruns I was listening to 20 years ago! Wikipedia has her listed as "story editor" for Days but doesn't list what years. I think I had read that she was pretty involved in Days at the beginning but kept a low profile. I would imagine she gave Bill Bell the ideas for stories and then let him go with it.

By the way, I'm probably the only person in the entire world who would care (especially in 2020) but that article is wrong in the way they describe Ted's shooting. Ted and Meta weren't having an "hysterical argument" at all. In fact, just the opposite. Meta was pretty calm and cold when she shot Ted.

I wonder how hard he's tried. She has a fan page on Facebook and I can't imagine that the person who runs that is not in contact with Eileen.

Thanks for sharing this! I'm currently listening to Meta's trial and I was going to try and find out what the results of the poll was through research. I have about a year's worth of episodes from that time and the announcer talks about the poll but the episodes end before the final verdict is announced. I believe Irna was a consultant for Days of Our Lives in the beginning which would explain why her favorite storyline reappeared on that show. Irna had an affair with a married man, got pregnant and the child died. She would write that scenario over and over again in various ways on different shows. A lot of the time, after the child died, the woman would kill the father of the baby. This might have been Irna's way of processing what happened to her with a bit of fantasy of what she would have liked to have done. It was always an "illegitimate" child. Sometimes it would die (Rose Kransky, Meta Bauer, Pat Matthews, Susan Martin), sometimes the child would be given up for adoption and then retrieved by birth mother (Ellen Lowell, Julie Olsen, Meta Bauer), sometimes the mother would kill the biological father(Meta Bauer, Pat Matthews, Susan Martin), sometimes she would marry the adoptive father (Ellen Lowell, Julie Olson). Then you had the theme of a woman being a pariah because she was in love with a married man (Rose Kransky, Janet Matthews, Edith Hughes). Of course, there are probably a lot more example of those themes going through Irna's writings but those are the major ones that come to mind. Anyway, I believe Irna was a consultant for Days in it's early years and that seems pretty evident in the repeat themes that Irna loved.

There was never really a "Holden family". Ned was a Holden but he was a part of the Ruthledge family. The show was mainly about the Ruthledges and the Kranskys in the first ten years. Don't forget fooling around with his crippled friend's wife over in Bay City.

I’ve always found it strange how Y&R has always pretended like its first ten years never happened.

I was recently watching some GL from 1997 and I forgot how great the show was at that time. Did it lose steam shortly after that? I don't recall. I watched very infrequently back then. Ironically, I watched daily in one of it's worst times (the mid to late 80s). I should have watched it daily more in the 90s.

Lemay was such a weird writer. He did such good things in his writing for both AW and the Matthews family and then seemed to intentionally gut it all by the time he left. All of these soaps seemed to take the same course. AW went from being about the Matthews family to being about Rachel. GL went from being about the Bauer family to being about Reva. ATWT went from being about the Hughes family to being about Carly. AMC went from being about the Martin family to being about Erica. As a person who loves family drama, I never liked that trend. Nor understood it. I guess they were trying to appeal to their largely female audience members who could relate to a central female character. That always made the shows boring to me. What made soaps great was the ensemble aspect of them. Besides, I hated Rachel, Reva, Carly and Erica.

The 80s was ATWT's decade, the 90s GL's.

I didn’t even watch ATWT when Grant was originally on but I still thought it was weird that they made him a suspicious character when they brought him back. Like it was possible that he would be trying to kill Lisa or drive her crazy or whatever. He was an established good guy for many years on the show. Melanie Smith had so much sex appeal, she would’ve had chemistry with Pa Hughes.

I believe Vera Allen went on to play Granny Matthews on Another World.

He really, really was. He delivered every line exactly the same way. Like he was announcing sports scores.

I think I heard that too. She killed her off in another morbid but creative way when she fell up the stairs.

Must have been. That was the same year she had lead character Robin Fletcher kill herself by throwing herself in front of a truck on Guiding Light. But Irna was always very morbid. Ten years earlier, she had Robin’s mother, Kathy, killed when, confined to a wheelchair, she was knocked into oncoming traffic by kids on bicycles.

But Meta never lived in Five Points and never knew Rev. Ruthledge. I guess I’d be one of the few that would know that or care.

Yes, it would have been more logical but I think the reasoning with the writers at the time might have been; to be a “Bauer”, they had to have the last name “Bauer’”. That couldn’t have been done with the off-spring of Meta and Trudy. I honestly believe that they heard the audience cry of “We need more Bauers!” at the time and thought the only way to answer that was to bring on more characters with the last name “Bauer” even though they would have to reach far across the family tree to do so. They just didn’t get the fans’ love of the history of the show. The love was for the family who had been the focus of the show for decades, not for the surname “Bauer”.

Thankfully, not long. A year maybe? It was awkward probably because of a combination of the actor’s style and the way the character was sort of shoe-horned in. It was just a way for the writers to bring in more “Bauers” without bringing back more Bauers. It was just silly. I couldn’t tell you a single storyline the character had. I think she just sat around looking confused and startled.

Oh wow. Now that you mention that, I vaguely remember it. Given the year, I’m sure they were going to link her to the fake Bauers (Jack, Lanie, Johnny and Lacey).

Not at all and that’s why they were my favorite soap family. To me, the Hughes family were the”good guys” and more boring family. Trudy hated Meta. Meta shot and killed her husband. Bill was an alcoholic who cheated on Bert several times. Bert was a nagging shrew in her younger years. Mike was a womanizer who drove the mother of his child to suicide and committed adultery with the wife of a crippled man. Ed was an alcoholic who beat one wife and cheated on another wife, indirectly causing her death. The only real “good guys” would probably be Papa Bauer, Mama Bauer, Chuckie, Hope, Hilary, Maureen, Rick and Michelle. That’s a pretty big number but the greater Bauer family was always so complex. I love the Hughes family but they were a little “too good” for a soap family.

The Bauers were never the same after the mid 80s. Bill, Bert and Hilary died and they shipped off Mike and Hope. I’m actually surprised they let Ed, Maureen and Rick stick around (although they were reduced to secondary players). Of course, Charita Bauer’s passing couldn’t be helped but someone during those years really hated the Bauers and nobody after them cared enough to place them back front and center.

God, I love the 70s!