Contessa Donatella

You're not the first J/M fan to feel that way about me! I put both J/M & Bo/Hope fans off because I'm not with them in the great campaigns of getting their two back together. I was a huge Roman/Marlena fan & I still wonder what Chris is doing serving chowder at the pub. But, I was both a fan of Bo & Billie (Love Lisa Rinna.) and of Bo & Carly (Crys is divine.). I am always attentive if Marlena is being kept prisoner whether it's in a cage, or a hole in what looks like a warehouse (Stella, anyone?) or the Paris underground or that quaint set-up for prisoner & guard, the secret room. No, I don't think they should have SH do even Kristen, much less Susan. I tried to like her. Trying wasn't good enough. SH always throws me momentarily because I think Susan (seaforth) Hayes. Yes, I'm a major Doug & Julie fan. My father (DOOL was a family affair growing up.) and I both had crushes on Julie back in 1968! And, I will admit that I do not have bad feelings toward Brenda - and I really like VM - but, no, sorry not a fan.

I am not a John/Marlena fan so I just had a totally different perspective on what was a big deal event to you. To me, not so much. And, when it comes to the 5 siblings, I cannot argue that it wasn't a stunt. Ha! That would be a laugh. Definitely a stunt, definitely wacky, fer shure. It wasn't something that was calculated if what ED says about how it came about is true. She says that they were going to hire someone to play this one character they had in mind, Susan Banks, and without really thinking about it, she said, "Why don't you let me play that?" So, she sort of baptized the start. I think once JER saw her actually do Susan that then his imagination started to swirl. And, all told, it worked for me in the final analysis because of the execution. That's not something I usually say about JER stuff, but this time they had it nailed. 'Never seen anything like it.

You're right about how bad John was in those terms. In soap tradition many men have slept with a woman & not realized who he was sleeping with & as an audience member I have yet ever to buy that. It is simply not credible. I hum la-la-la-la & put my fingers in my ears, not literally, just mentally. But, there it is, a worst case example, as are the other examples you list.

I would say that John being dumbed down is a regular event, although, sure, some times can be worse than others. Similarly, I would say it's not shocking seeing Marlena as self-sacrificing or even as Little Miss Goody Two Shoes. I think it's in her DNA. The lady is hard-wired, often to her detriment as people think she is just too good to be true. Me, I always bought her. She seemed consistent & true & there were always throughlines. I'm not known for liking JER's work after he became a solo HW, but I could credit Carrie/Austin/Sami and 5 Siblings.

I hope I'm not duplicating. I've looked. And, right off the bat, it's not anything that came out of my head. Nope, it's from Nancy Curlee Demorest's brilliant & composed brain. I was just making notes, and dropped my pen when she said it, in a Locher Room chat with Alan hosting her & her husband, Stephen. Great chat! Now to the point: Alan Locher did a Locher Room YouTube chat with husband & wife team, Daytime Emmy winning, Headwriters for GL, Nancy Curlee & Stephen Demorest. Curlee floored me by telling the room what she wishes she had done about Maureen Bauer looking back on everything that has transpired since the character was killed off from one of their scripts. ... Now, looking back on it, Nancy wishes she had written an altered story. The car would've gone over the cliff. The audience would see Roger take Maureen to an airport & put her on a plane with 'Mo just muttering over & over that she had to get out of here. You could practically feel the chat room's immense approval of this alternate universe cliffhanger. ..." This should go down in soap history as the best "what if" that was conceived of but not run up the flagpole! ... I can just see it. The camera follows the car down, down, down, then pans back up & it seems like there are two people standing up there, as we get closer we can tell that Mo is up there! Even closer & Roger is with her! ... Then, of course, it would be tough to write in bringing Mo back alive after keeping her hidden out for awhile. But it could have been done, I think.

Well, that's brilliant! Both. I wouldn't have been such an unhappy camper, heck, I might even have been a happy one. Both some Writers (and some Directors, maybe in another chat) have talked about this in Locher Room chats & they basically started batting around ideas for how they could do it as soon as Zaslow approached GL & asked them to create a story for him that would include his ALS. What they had come up with before Paul told them to stop & said that it was not going to happen & everyone knew that it was not going to happen & why. And, then, MADD piled on, of course, with her infamous egregious line that I will not type in here. So, like I was trying to say before I got in my own way & am now verklempt, is that they would put Holly back with Roger & have her be his advocate as well as his helpmate & they felt good about what they could write that would be good for MG as well as for MZ. Instead GL did not go forward as Zas had asked & he sued & presumably there was a settlement. And, he went to OLTL & for once in her life JFP did the right thing. As much as I dam* her, there are occasions when I have to give her her due.

I love Millee & CCulliton anywhere, anytime! I detested John Conboy at GL only, but his whole tenure there. And, there's a whole 'nother degree of hatred that I reserve for she who was hired only by Conboy, HW Ellen Weston! Sandy & his infernal sock puppet. Eden & the underbelly of Springfield. Ben Reade, first as a sex worker & then as a serial killer & last as a suicide. Matt Bomer deserved better. So did Fletcher. Maryann Carruthers & retconning 20+ yrs of history of 5 local men to throw suspicion on the innocent. Carrie Nye. Adolescents tunneling fall through the ceiling of Danny & Michelle's new apartment. (What show is this again?!) Marty West hired to play Shayne, exposing his buttocks in one scene & bringing down CBS Standards & Practices upon them & selling tapes of himself wrestling.

@SpoonGreat write-up of '86-'87 I see now why I have had a love/hate relationship with my favorite show at times. I love love loved Cass & Kathleen, Marisa LaSalle & her son Scott. Zane was my all-time favorite love interest for Felicia & I wept copiously at his death. (I went on later to enjoy PT on ATWT as Cal.) Bringing John Hudson on was a great idea & he had a great life on the show! @carolineg Speaking of the best of JER, I may hold a minority position because his best to me is by far the '5 siblings of Kristen Blake'. You can't beat Kristen, Susan Banks, Sister Mary Moira, Penelope & of course Tomas. JER has an assist from Eileen Davidson.

As we watched this play out, I recall feeling like there had been an abrupt shift in story complete with another very different persona for RKK to play, Shane Roberts & his ex-wife Lila, who was mortified of storms, etc. From that point on it was basically a show (13 Bourbon St. bible) in a show (AW). According to Wikipedia this had Josh Griffith as its co-creator & Linda Gottlieb as its producer. I've always been fascinated by that threesome & have wondered if they would ever again create "lightning in a bottle" as they did together on (MM's) first tenure at OLTL. Bobby Reno & Shane seemed like two completely different people. Lila was a believable fragile southern belle who would have the vapors at the first sign of a storm. There was dialogue about East Texas & Louisiana. The language of the Bourbon St. stories was richer than the AW stuff. I found it of interest that this was not to be a daytime show, set to be broadcast at night. And, I thought it really might have been a successful foray. It was a challenge as a fan to be so accepting of the 13 Bourbon St. partition while being so disenchanted with what MM was writing for the Bay City denizens. As was perhaps something he was known for, he didn't give one iota of concern for character history. One example, he created a new & different Jake more like a Cary Grant or Rhett Butler icon even with no hint of the lifelong chip on the shoulder from his background from the wrong side of town.

Really great obit! Thnx for the 411 that it is up.

Boy, you can say that again. Soaps have lots of Famous Grads & it is a kick to read about them, once. If they wanted a Famous Grad, they couldn't do better than Anne Heche, but if it were me, I'd leave the Famous Grads out altogether & concentrate on the show superstars or some 6th generation fans even! Hello, it's me. I've thought about it for a long, long time ... with thnx to Todd Rundgren

My only problem with BLQ & Chase is that the way they've chosen to keep them apart, this traditional hurdle, is so awkward! I get enough of awkwardness with Nina & Sonny. I sure don't need more between these two. And, of course, she doesn't get that she has completely misread the situation. I don't want Brook Lynn to be a lightweight. Then, when it comes to the young adults I think GH is fortunate to have such strong ones. The three I love play nuance. I saw the maturity first in Cam, then Trina, and finally Joss blossomed. Esme, I hate & I think she is very one-note, but then they're only writing her with the one same note over & over with the occasional mustache twirl for good measure so I might learn later that there is more there than meets the eye. With Spencer I am just a reactionary, he annoys me & I don't like him, he holds his own in a confrontation with my favorite kick*ss Ava Jerome & I pause.

Here's the URL for the WOST interview with Pete Lemay where he talked about expanding from 60 minutes to 90 minutes. WOST interview with Pete Lemay

This has been an eye-opener for me as I didn't realize there were so many I would call 'un-recastable'. But, I absolutely agree with Flannery (and on DOOL I always thought of Laura as really being Flannery, sorry Jamie Lyn Bauer), Braden, Lucci, Dano, Schnetzer, Wyndham, Martinez, Walker (and I always thought Robin was really Kelly), everyone named from DOOL, Genie Francis, KZ is Reva, Eileen Fulton is Lisa, and Steve Burton. I would add Mary Stuart as she was not only Jo but was SEARCH. SB had 3 great Masons but I always thought Lane really was the dude. I think only Nancy Lee Grahn could inhabit both Julia & Alexis. Wow. So many. I was not acquainted with my own opinion.

That's hilarious! 😅 Maybe this could be a serial killer with an impaired sense of direction. Salem to Port Charles, NY. How hard could that be compared to demonic possession that is as contagious as Omicron?

I have a blog, Blog 9 Famous Fans. I doubt it is all celebrities who love soaps, but it is a lot. You can find it: Blog Index https://wordpress.com/post/shallotpeelblog.org/4161

I dunno. But, supposedly she was a fan of AW. Lotsa people traditionally were fans of both those NBC shows. Me being one of them. Here's an excerpt from Blog 9 Famous Fans about just Julia Roberts and just AW. Alice Barrett (Frankie Frame) discovered that movie superstar Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman, My Best Friend's Wedding) is an "Another World" fan. Barrett filled in for Roberts during rehearsals for the series finale of "Murphy Brown," on which Roberts was a special guest star. When Roberts finally arrived on the set, Barrett was surprised to find that Roberts recognized her as Frankie Frame. After giving Barrett a hug, Roberts admitted that she was thrown for a loop the day Frankie was killed off.

The Networks & Expansion from 30-60 min. Episodes for US Daytime Soap Operas Her Stories: Daytime Soap Opera & US Television History by Elana Levine. Duke University Press. Durham and London. ©2020. pgs. 94-95. In the mid-'70s there was a move to take soaps from a half hour format to an hour long format. The first show to do so was my #1 all-time favorite, Another World, a P&G soap, created by Irna Phillips, broadcast on NBC, produced in Brooklyn, NY, beginning in 1964. The impetus to make this change came out of the network and an NBC executive, Lin Bolen lead the charge. This was part & parcel of the participation in 'up close and personal' action in the creation of daytime drama. So, it seems strange, doesn't it? P&G owned AW but the network was out front in this action. This "was also a development made feasible by technological changes, especially in video editing." (94) Bolen also took on the same expansion of time length afterward for another NBC soap, Days of our Lives. As of 1971 Harding "Pete" Lemay was HW of AW & Paul Rauch joined as EP in 1972. From the technology standpoint, they could abandon live-on-tape practices because of advancements that had been made in video editing. AW was a big hit at the time for NBC Daytime. And, daytime was a bit hit overall. Lemay thought that they should do an hour show because it would enable them to tell stories better. They could have longer scenes. I like to say that NBC used the carrot with the show. They offered them more space and more behind-the-scenes labor. Make no mistake, going to an hour show was going to cost more money to produce. The budget would have to reflect that. Bolen put it in easy to understand terms, by doubling the time length, they would be doubling the budget required. So, you might ask, why were they doing it? Ad rates would increase and that would be enough to make it more than worthwhile. As they did AW they found that the profit was enough to encourage them to go forward with the same expansion for DOOL. Their success & the competitive nature of the soap business led other networks to involve themselves in converting most soaps to the new hour long format. Agnes Nixon said she would never take All My Children to an hour and she suggested to Pete that he must be crazy. ABC used the carrot of studio space with her. William J. Bell was even more dug in against this move. And, CBS was ready for that, they told him they were taking The Young and the Restless to an hour with him, or without him. They used the stick. Not from the book "Her Stories" Moved to an Hour Timetable: AW Jan. 6, 1975* DOOL Apr 21, 1975* AMC 1980 Y&R 1980 *Both AW & DOOL had single episode stand-alone "one-offs" a few months before they began the permanent change on the dates listed above. Y&R began 1973. AW went to the disastrous EPIC FAIL 90 min. show Mar. 5, 1979. AW went back to an hour Aug. 1980.

In January or February 2022 in a soap opera fan space that shall remain nameless I participated in discussion of the last years of AW, of P&G & how they could never seem to bring themselves to make a deal for AW or even for a partnership of AW, and of the interested parties at that time. I posted about FOX TV wanting a daytime line-up with soaps & their needing to start someplace to that end. I posted about Angela Shapiro, head then of ABC Daytime & her making an offer first for the character of "Felicia Gallant" & when that was not accepted, making an offer for the whole soap, AW. (I posted about what she did do with her good friend Linda Dano & a resurrected OLTL character "Gretel Rae Cummings" & ABC's 4 soaps, after P&G refused her second offer.) I posted about companies that later became parts of Paramount & Viacom who made offers of an unknown nature to P&G but who were also refused. I posted about the company that had been Screen Gems, who was then Columbia Tri-Star and is now Sony & who was then owner of the Internet business SoapCity & of Y&R & of part of DOOL.

about the 1990s. "In this era, P&G explored new business models, including partnerships with Hollywood production studios Paramount & Columbia Tri-Star, the latter specifically designed to develop the sponsor's soap production business, given Columbia's position as owner of Days of our Lives and The Young & the Restless." (Her Stories, Levine. 212.) Recently in another space for soap fans, a friend and poster, found a YouTube audio only interview between a member of WOST (World of Soap Themes, once a wondrous resource for soap fans & aficionados, now defunct.) and Harding "Pete" Lemay, once HW of AW, during a golden era for it. They talked about the move to a 90 minute show at AW. (Donna adds: The 90 minute show was a dismal failure & is said by many to be the first nail in the show's coffin, as the affiliates detested the 90 minute show & began to transfer that hatred to the show, and, as well, the show lost Lemay to it as he was that dead-set against going to 90 minutes after what they had had to conquer to succeed with 60 minutes.) In the interview Pete revealed who had been the man behind the expansion to 90 minutes: Freddy Silverman. (Donna adds: I don't know when what happened but eventually Silverman was the overall Head of Daytime Programming for NBC, AW's network.) pg. 212 NBC balked when P&G wanted to hire the Dobsons (to HW AW) who were then just free of SB. Bridget & Jerome suggested that NBC wanted AW to fail because they wanted out of the sponsor-owned soap biz & wished to replace AW with GEN. (Donna adds: To people who guessed that P&G wanted out of the business for years, I suggest this is a more likely thing that was actually going on.)

Elsewhere some of us were fondly recalling some of her signature phrases, like "kiddo," "Toots!," and to John Dixon repeatedly in one episode, "Pal, do you remember me?" Then someone thought of a talk show appearance when she warned Maura that she'd better not hurt Scott. Mama Bear! They were engaged at the time.

I would come in & fire Noelle Beck & recast Hope with Martha Bryne, thereby reestablishing equilibrium in the midwestern soap fictional universe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVp2l_M2vvc&list=PLkJFofSi0CYQyB2s8Up5vhrivD5asxpzv In honor of James Patrick Stuart ... Valentin Cassadine

I don't know if this is a minority opinion or not but I am more than a little annoyed that they are now talking as if BLQ's song for Deception was performed & we just happened not to hear it. There has been ample time spent talking about it. I don't want it to be a phantom! 😜

I was thinking about the original demonic possession and I think of it as a virus that attacked one person only & caused plenty of trouble for multiple persons as a result of it but that it wasn't contagious. And then I think of this version as Covid-aware & highly contagious & infecting multiple persons & I hated the different voices in Johnny. They seemed so silly. Now Sarah is a child & she again seems silly to me. I hated the whole deal with the Parole Board pressuring relatives to take in a parolee. Just a cheap writer's trick to create automatic tension & conflict. I'm just so uncomfortable with a convicted pedophile sneaked in among normal people. And I have a pet peeve about bad Southern accents. I think they make the people using them seem stupid. And I think the accent James Reade is using is pitiful. Altho' it does fit with the name Clyde. I miss Hope. I think there's a glaring hole where she should be at times. Elsewhere I saw a poster claim that Ken Corday promised KA that Hope would not be recast. Evah! Of course that could just be gossip. They say, the oft noted they, that it was Corday's request that the show revisit the demonic possession. More that could be gossip. I still can't stand Gwen. And, I still dislike Leo altho' I love Greg Rikaart. Let's hope for better days!