Contessa Donatella

27 minutes ago, Khan said:

 

I'm curious as well, @Roman.  The only plan of his that I know of was (of course) giving the men of Salem back their balls.  (Hogan Sheffer was REALLY obsessed with men's balls for some reason.)

Yes, Hoagie had testosterone on the brain!

19 minutes ago, Khan said:

 

If Cynthia Watros can't make Nina "pop," then you KNOW the character has to GO.

Wow, I didn't realize the writing for her was so bad. If Watros can't play some part, whatever that part is, then, there is something dreadfully wrong!

Mary Alice Dwyer-Dobbin, nicknamed "Mickey" since childhood. She is an American television network executive. Accolades include recipient Maggie award for television documentaries Planned Parenthood Federation American, 1982, Ace award for best magazine show, 1983, Clean Air Week award American Lung Association, 1989. Member National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (board directors 1985-1987), National Cable television Association (chairman Ace awards committee 1983-1984).

https://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/1240445

Dwyer-Dobbin initially stated that no soap opera would be canceled under her watch; however, that promise was broken when, in 1999, Another World was cancelled after 35 years on television. This decision appears to have ultimately been made because NBC and Procter & Gamble could not agree on the fee NBC would pay for the show; nonetheless, viewers blamed Dwyer-Dobbin.

(That is the first time i have ever heard that as a reason for cancelling AW. Has anyone else ever heard it as a reason?)

Mary-Ellis Bunim (RIP) was both a Producer and a network Exec. She produced at different levels at SFT, ATWT and SB. Then she became associated with Jonathan Murray where they formed Bunim/Murray Productions. It was best known in daytime drama space by a reality "character growth/life coach" show, STARTING OVER, where they housed a half dozen women in a place to work on their lives. In primetime they did REAL WORLD and various shows like ROAD RULES and music management. STARTING OVER was probably best known for the wisdom of Iyanla Van Zant.

52 minutes ago, Mitch said:

People JUMPED on my on the Facebook GL thing when I said the whole thing was stupid..they just didnt get that it made no sense, I wasnt interested in watching the actors do anything but act as their characters, and it was a waste of time and energy when we were on the chopping block!

Zimmer didn't want to do it for that reason: because she didn't want to break the fourth wall & be Zimmer instead of Reva. That's why they did it as webisodes rather than regular episodes.

41 minutes ago, Roman said:

Loved Victor and Victoria's scene.

I just happened to be up front in the living room when that scene was on. Our weekday caretaker Val watches Y&R. I watch DOOL back in my room. The times are different. Anyway, that was a terrific scene! I don't even like Victor & it was great.

6 hours ago, Donna B said:

P&G was not really a network or a creator but rather was a distributor & an advertiser. At one point P&G owned more soaps than anyone else. And, at one point P&G advertised more products than anyone else except for cars & for phone companies right after they had been deregulated by Reagan.

    

          Around the globe Procter & Gamble Co. products take consumers from cradle to grave. Pampers diapers cover babies' bottoms and Ivory soap floats in their bathtubs. Crest toothpaste brushes their teeth and Tide detergent washes their clothes. Folgers coffee starts the workday; Duncan Hines cakes mark each birthday.
          The Cincinnati company is an American success story. A share of P&G stock purchased in 1986 hsd appreciated 159 percent by 1992---more than double the Dow Jones Average growth rate---and the company has increased dividends to shareholders for 36 years in a row. All told, P&G goods are found in 98 percent of all kitchens and pantries. P&G's invention of selling competing brands has been duplicated to sell everything from Cadillacs to candy bars.
     P&G, which popularized consumer advertising and daytime soap operas, has built an empire partially by reinforcing stereotypes about women as subservient to men.
     P&G's standing as the country's largest advertiser gives it a stranglehold on Madison Avenue. Armed with a $2.15-billion annual advertising budget, the company blankets the country with messages about Ivory purity, Downy softness, and Scope freshness. Those massive P&G accounts offer steady work in a tumultous industry, but the soap company controls virtually every aspect of its ad agencies' work. It has tried to block mergers between agencies and moved multimillion-dollar accounts when its wishes weren't obeyed. Even account managers get locked into restrictive P&G agreements that limit where they can work after doing business with the company.
     P&G tried its soap opera format on daytime television. Their first daytime soap was "The First Hundred Years", launched in 1950. It lasted only a month.
     But, P&G tried again with "Search for Tomorrow" and a TV version of its radio show, "The Guiding Light". By the mid-fifties it had thirteen different soaps on the air.
     The company was criticized from the start about the sappy content of its ads and TV shows, but P&G believed it was in the business to sell soap, nothing else. "The problem of improving the literary tastes of the people is the problem of the schools," said CEO Neil McElroy in 1953. P&G consumers "aren't intellectuals---they're ordinary people, good people, who win wars for us, produce our manufactured products, and grow our food." He then added, "They use a lot of soap."
     P&G's G-rated nature is hypocritical considering its continued sponsorship of the daytime soap operas "Guiding Light", "Another World," and "As the World Turns", which all portray marriage as disposable as diapers. For example, in a typical episode of "Another World" the women sob about their tortured love lives.        
     P&G  has moved into new markets in China & Russia & they've sent their old traditional soap operas there, too. "Search for Tomorrow and "Guiding Light".

Apple's introducing an otter emoji!

So, listen, I had to miss the show again yesterday. What did I miss< Thanks.

16 hours ago, Dan said:

I think sadly that Peapack could have really been good had they not approached it as a budget cutting measure designed to stave off cancelation. Keeping the control room and being able to control lighting and blocking would have done wonders. Not to mention keeping the music department intact instead of that elevator muzak bs. Shame we couldn't have better writing at the time too, come to think of it. 

Now the music was another element that I loved.

17 hours ago, Khan said:

 

At the very least, David Kreizman could have written a short-term arc about the "scourge of homelessness in Springfield" that would have dovetailed into the show's real-life work with (I think) Habitat for Humanity.  As it was, though, switching from episodes with ongoing dramas to those featuring real-life humanitarianism with no appropriate correlation was jarring and, frankly, silly.

Yes, that could have been written.

On 10/9/2019 at 1:27 PM, KMan101 said:

 

lol exactly.

 

I'm not thrilled but I could use a break from Hope, personally.

 

I can agree with some that it's kind of lazy but at least he plays with the past. Though it does irk me he has Hope becoming Gina, Adrienne dying and Bonnie returning (not confirmed?), Lani going crazy, Claire went crazy, Abby went crazy ... can we stop? I know some of them were boring before and crazy is always more entertaining but I can see why some are getting annoyed. He tossed Maggie off the bottle for all of 5 seconds (and she became the most entertaining she's been in two decades). And I'll always appreciate Gabi embracing her inner diva and bitch (I never thought I'd care for this girl but damn I enjoy watching her being a bitch). I was hoping beyond hope that Ron would turn her into Bitchy Bangs 2.0 and boy did he ever. Sometimes it works, other times it feels a little lazy like "they're boring" (remember how often he had Jessica on OLTL not herself ... I fear the same for Abby).

 

Nicole, who should be "crazy" (not really, but you know what I mean), is boring as [&#33;@#&#036;%^&amp;*] ...

 

And I know he's ReRon, but how many times can Julie be in the hospital? lol ... and how many times are we going to have the bitch of the month trying to kill Marlena for John (I'm guessing that's Gina job this go around). Hattie, Kristen, Diana, Gina ... I mean it plays to their history but I would like a little more for them ... maybe it will be?

I missed the show again yesterday. Or most of it, anyway. What did Rolf do to Hope?

On 10/10/2019 at 12:09 PM, DramatistDreamer said:

It's unfortunate that none of the P&G soaps got onto social media (YouTube specifically) in time.  YouTube, Facebook and Twitter were all around years before GL and ATWT got cancelled but sadly, they were still underutilized mediums by most, at least until about 2008-2009.

It would have been very popular with fans if they had!

On 5/27/2016 at 9:58 AM, London said:

Is anyone highly anticipating this new OWN drama coming in June and will likely be paired with, either on the same day or one after, The Haves & Have Nots... GREENLEAF! I'm loving the heavy hitters like Oprah and Lynn Whitfield... Keith David is also a favorite of mine growing up. This drama is NOT from Tyler Perry which I think is great because Oprah can get some other good and quality shows on her station and in her line-up. 

 

 

What season is this? We watched Season 1 & loved it. I just want to know if we're behind now.

On 10/5/2019 at 10:11 PM, P.J. said:

 

The way he tended to repeat his own stories. The first summer, Lily and Simon were stuck on an island. The next summer, it was Katie and Henry on the same island. (And I swear the summer after that, there was another "island" story...) Bringing back old characters with new personalities like Craig, Rosanna, Dusty (I'd add Brad, but that was Pissy). Writing every teen like an idiot. Giving stories that just weren't working a farce-like ending (Billy, Bonnie, Issac and Lisa (I think) spent like a month in Scotland in some bizarre excuse for a wrap up that included a dwarf and one of the Monkees, as I recall...) 

Well, now that you mention it, refreshing it in my mind, the Island Tales were sheer drudgery.

And, the time spent in Scotland wore me down.

On 10/5/2019 at 10:11 PM, P.J. said:

At the time, I remember there was a lot of bitching on various boards about Craig eating the f'in show. We counted---he was on 40 straight episodes at one point. 

Yikes! That was way too much Hunt Block!

18 minutes ago, Xanthe said:

 

I'm curious in what sense it fell apart. This is well after the expansion to 90 minutes and the spin-off of Texas, both of which are discussed as the beginning of the end. Was there a major change in the writing or in the cast that made the wheels come off?

AbcNbc247 was speaking of 1981 .... so, looking at other dates, Doug died May 1989 & Connie died Feb. 1993 ...

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Someone asked where the AW Bible is.

It is in the Publications Section of the AWHP. It's easy to find once you land in that section.

On 9/19/2019 at 6:33 PM, allmc2008 said:

Where is the AW bible?

NBC's Susan D. Lee was one of the handful of people who made the decision that Frankie Frame would be brutally murdered by a serial killer, Fax Neuman, written by Margaret DePriest. They had started out to kill off Donna as part of that "age thing" they were onto. Well, fans found out & pitched fits! JFP & Susan D. Lee then moved on to 2 mid-level actresses: Frankie Frame & Paulina. They held a focus group to see who would be chosen. As it turned out it was Frankie. Now, she was one of the Frame family that Harding "Pete" Lemay had written back in the day. And, she was married to Cass & had a child with him, Charlie. And, she was a P.I. with Joe. And, she was a very grounded person. Meanwhile, fans were against all of this! JFP tried to talk MdP into not having her killed dramatically onscreen but she wouldn't hear any of it. They went ahead with their murder of Frankie. Some fans left the show entirely.

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It really made no sense that NBC's Susan D. Lee gave Sunset Beach a 6 month extension when AW had better ratings. And, MADD had put AW on a deadline & then came back in the country just to cancel it before that deadline was up! (MADD aka Mickey was a network exec.)

Chris, like everyone at AW, openly wept at the end of the show.

A few months later Susan D. Lee was fired. My partner & I had a party!

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Paul Rauch was not a network Exec. He was an EP. And a noted one.

But, he did pull one stunt that maybe equates to a Network Exec's.

Rauch appeared at the end of the final episode of Santa Barbara on January 15, 1993. The final shot consisted of Rauch standing in front of the camera, smashing a cigar under his shoe, and walking away.

On 9/29/2019 at 5:35 PM, Donna B said:

While she was at it she tried to get them to make her the star appearing above Victoria Wyndham's name. Meanwhile Ellen Wheeler had been ready to come back in & play both parts for just ages! At the very end of the show she played a Marley who was taller than Vicky! Now, of course, Jensen has really screwed things up by having a serious accident & a DUI, etc.

 

 

 

 

And, before anything else happens, JFP fired Barbara Berjer for being too old, aka over 50. (Same for David Hedison.) I don't know how much it meant at GL for Barbara Berjer to be fired but at AW, she was always there to take care of Vicky's two boys!

On 10/9/2019 at 4:57 PM, Donna B said:

Wheeler left the role in 1986 and returned in 1988. ... "I felt that total connection to Jensen, the second I was back. I didn't even know her, so that's really weird. We had been parts of the same person. We had helped create the same people. A part of what I did influences how Vicky is today and part of what she did influences how my Marley is today, so it's an odd thing to say, but it gave us a common ground immediately."

I think that's so bizarre.

I've been a fan of and a scholar of daytime dramas since the 70s. As a fan activist it was impossible for me to not know about the networks, companies that were interested in AW, honchos, etc.

Near the end of AW, in the 90s, Viacom wanted either to merge with P&G or to acquire AW. It was a Sumner Redstone project. Fans were in favor of this because it would keep the show on the air. It fell through.

Paramount wanted either to merge with P&G or Viacom or to acquire AW. Eventually Paramount & Viacom merged with Viacom as the parent company. This did AW & its fans no good at all.

The last company that wanted in on a P&G/AW deal was FOX. They had wanted a daytime lineup for years! Their choices were the P&G soaps. Beginning with AW and ATWT would have given them a minumum of two to start with. Eventually they did begin a daytime lineup but it wasn't soaps. Instead it was news shows & talk shows.

Brandon Tartikoff, who began on ABC and the moved over to NBC, ran into Victoria Wyndham, met her, and said,  “Oh my God, you’re the only reason we keep that show [Another World] on the air.” And he was dead shortly after that, so it didn’t help me very much." He died at the young age of 48. I keep thinking that he did a cameo on some show but I can't get any further with that memory. Anyone? I think instead I'm thinking of Brian Frons appearing as god on Santa Barbara.

On 10/2/2019 at 4:11 PM, YRfan23 said:

Everyone keep Tricia Cast in your prayers her husband passed away.  

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.

Speaking about Michelle Stafford, though, our weekday caretaker watches Y&R & so I see some of it sometime & I just think Gina was better.

19 minutes ago, dragonflies said:

I find Days entertaining. It is perfect? No, but as much as I detest ReRon, he seems to at least be trying

Even I think DOOL is trying. Of course, GL was trying like crazy at the end.

50 minutes ago, Mitch said:

Good lord how the mighty have fallen..wasnt she such a big star that P& G sent a helicopter to get her to work everyday? Oh honey, I hope you saved your money...

P&G sent a helicopter for her, yep. And, they let her work 4 day work weeks, not 5! The mighty have indeed fallen.

50 minutes ago, Mitch said:

 

Seriously, hope she has beat the demon drink. As for Zimmer, I would have volunteered to be her designated driver, in between bars and stops for burriots and tacos...(You just know Kimmer likes to eat when she has a few..)

I didn't know that!

1 hour ago, Mitch said:

 

 

Never got the Carl Rachel thing...when I watched in college on and off, he was trying to kill her and her family...too much suspension of belief to think that Rachel would accept him...and yea, I am with the network, the long hair on that old guy....only soap opera watching "fraus" : )  would think that was HOT or exotic. But I can't believe they gave "old" people a love story so there is a plus there.

 

Yeah, you're with my brother there. Me, I loved Carl & Rachel. The YouTube Cips we put up of Carl & Rachel #1, #2 and #3 are great to me.

I just found and got a new kindle book: The Unofficial Guide to Daytime Soap Operas 1950-Present Fortunately it was only 89 cents because I think we know everything in it all ready.