Mitch

Ed was there, played by the original Ed..I remember at the Bauer BBQ Holly mentioned that she got a letter from her brother and the actor started rubbing his arm as if remembering. Now he quickly disappeared so he wasn't there for crazy Holly, but he was there for the start...

I hated that we lost the "map" of Springfield that various writers helped create in our heads over the years. The Bauer house was originally next door to the house Alan and Hope lived in (typical Marland annoying character Hope was..she didn't want to live in a mansion...) but then they moved back to the Mansion,..the Bauers lived on a different street name..(I cant remember it...)but other writers would occasionally say the Bauers lived next door... the Spaulding mansion was next to the Country Club..as Alex mentions suing the club for a gate, etc. Pam Long did create "the Hill" which later writers dropped...( I liked it, a small town friends lived in had a mansion and it was on "the Hill" and gothically loomed over the town.) H.B. and Reva/Billy and Van/the Spauldings/ and the Chamberlins...(Henry/Quola..live in the old "English" house) are said to live on the hill. 7th Street is Company/Boardinghouse, Cedars...5th Street is the Diner..which is on the river...(Harley was called a "river rat" by snotty kids..) Reva Bend is..in the bend of the river and also not a "great" neighborhood...(it must have gentrified to have snooty Holly living there later...) The set for the Bauer house has been consistent through the years as was Ross's house..the Spaulding mansion changed constantly, as did Company..RevaBend stayed the same through Hollybend and then somehow became the Jessup farm set... I used to love Alan's weird black apartment which had an elevator open in his bachelor pad living room..Roger's asian theme pad tried to come close but it lost out to Alan's cool evilness.

I know its not popular to say this but I hated Andy because of that..he was a morose bore! I know its the way they wrote him but I never really liked Scotty D...he always looked like he was going to burst out in tears any moment. When they put him with that boring girl who was going to be a "fashion model," ..UGGGH.

Marland showed such poor judgement by splitting John and Lucinda up..for freakin' Mama Snyder and Iva..(which would be gross even if they weren't related...) They could have been the anti Bob and Kim...bickering across Oakdale. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb....

I think that the problem with Evan was also..he walked into a room and the walls caught fire from his flaming! I obviously have nothing against gay guys as I have been with one for over 20 years...but it just kills me when they have a really gay guy who can't play straight to save his life...(Marty West..I am talking to you...) and they have them mooing over women! Though I thought the kid above who played Hutch was queeny too, but he is straight ??? Aunt Mary was so boring. It was another long lost Mommy of Marland's tired old storyline. Only this time we didn't care about Hutch or Mary so it was no Lily/Iva thing. If they had made her Aunt Mary and a high riding slut that would have been fun..(I think Marland was going for that Aunt Mary was an attractive sophisticated woman but more fun if she was just a non shamed whore!) Poor Taylor was just plain..and this is mean..homely...No sex appeal so she was no threat as a vixen..(though Scot Holmes Tom was so boring and sexless they might have made a good couple!) The interview with Fulton is hilarious as she acts like she liked the Dobsons...when she left the show in a huff they were the headwriters! James Stenbeck of course!!!

I wish Marland would have brought back "Chucky" (with a changed name) instead of boring Scott..as he originally intended to. That would have been great to bring back Dr.Shea too, alive and well and brought the kid up to hate his mother. Wagner was gone by the time of the 25th anniversary..I think her contract ran out a week before. Judge Lowell never appeared during the Dobsons time. It was weird they didn't have Bob and Kim having an attraction to each other when she was married to Nick, who was dick. She could have turned to her easy going friend and they could have John stirring up the past to make Nick jealous until he bites the big one. And then Kim would feel quilty and push Bob away, etc.

ATWT WAS awful back in the early 80s..not coming to terms with their own damn matriarch Nancy and just mentioning her now and then...(at least they didnt kill her off) letting Rodell go on her bday...(and Joyce just kind of came by and told Lisa she was moving back to San Fran..at least make her go nuts and kidnap Lisa..) at the same time they wrote Grant Coleman off...by not even writing him off, he just quit appearing..weird time on that show.

edgeofnik..no problem..HATED the Snyders and that damn farm and how "fantasy rural," it all was. Of course Emma didn't want any fancy appliances cause she's a "down home girl" yes Marland we get it..but even 1950s fridges die... what I hated most about that kitchen was the bathroom right off it, so you hear Emma taking a mean crap (and you KNOW she did) while eating the "Hubbard Squash.." or whatever it was. I have always wondered why they didn't incorporate the bathroom into the eavesdropping storylines with someone taking a dump and as they wipe they hear who their real daddy was!

I know Marland came from a rural family, but it was just dumb to make the Snyders a farm family in previously unheard of "Luther's Corners" (even that name grates..) The show needed a bit of grit and they should have just been a family in the poor section of Oakdale..(I know its like the Reardons, but 7th street never seemed that "urban.") I think it did indeed isolate them and having to have characters hike out to godforsaken "Luthers' Corners" was just stupid...(really Lisa, one does not wear a sparkly top and heels to freakin Bumfuck...) Plus, for coming from a rural family, Marland didn't "get" the issues facing farm familes at that time (I come from farm country and houses did not look like the Snyders out of the 1930s..)I remember one of the "european" characters at the farm mentioning that the farm reminds them of Tuscany or some such place (uh...the midwest does not look like Tuscany) and how all the little farm houses sprang up and Mama Snyder said that was because people had to sell off portions of their farms and people bought them and split them up and ...it just did not jibe with what was going on at that time. Not..only that, I never once heard the Snyders talk about the weather, bad crops, harvest...(they ALWAYS had time to screw each other and talk about their annoying feelings..) I never understood, with all the history they ignored, like GL with the Coopers, they kept that family intact. If I was a producer after Marland died I would have burned that damn farm house to the ground !!!

LOL..I forgot about annoying Lesley Ann..who not only was Candy, the ex hooker turned nurse and good friend of equally annoying and seemingly lesbianic Hillary Bauer, but was dating obviously gay Warren Andrews (come on, I can see Alex keeping him around as an arm to go places with and to do her bidding as she manipulates everyone in sight..and to tell her which one of her necklaces was too..chunky to wear when going to blackmail someone... but as a passionate straight guy..noooooo...) and was bit by a mouse as she reached for a fork..(come on Warren, a little housekeeping does wonders...) and was infected and died of the "Dreaming Death!"

Weirdly, the start of the resolution of the Laura Simmons story came at the same day that Laurie Dan murders happened in Chicago. Dann killed two girls in a Winneteka school and shot a boy and then went into a house and took a son and his mother hostage until she shot herself..this was big news back in the days before shootings happened constantly and I remember watching ATWT and goofy Laura Simmons when the interuppted for the news on this.

I loved how Blake felt part of the Bauer family there with Ed and thinking of Mo as a mother figure. I always thought Ross and a more mature Blake should have moved into the Bauer hours with their kids and formed the core...Ross was the dad of SF and LK's Blake always gave off a warm vibe.. God I hate Irizzary, and this is the fake Mindy...Marj hadn't started yet...the show really did loose its steam with the loss of Bev, Simms and Mo. Nice to see Jenna before she got sucked into the black hole of Buzz/Deas.

Lucinda was already on canvas when Whit died. She blamed him for Martin's suicide (though we saw later that it was because of Lilly adoption, which Marland never connected to previous) and she took over all of Whit's media empire.. she WAS one of the suspects in his death (Lisa thought she was the murderer) but the original plan was to kill Lisa...or at least that is what Fulton claims, so she said she would come back..

Von Furstenberg made a better Lisa then I remember...I can see why they recast with her when she walked in I thought it was Fulton..and her voice is very familiar. She made a more to the manor born Lisa and didn't have the fire that Fulton had...though it was nice to see a Lisa scene without stuttters, flitty body movements and flirty eye lashes going. Furstenberg was very much a "Lisa grown up and settled" but that ain't Lisa. I wonder what they might have done if they had given her some flipping out meaty scenes ..she was hamstrung with the terrible Whit actor and they just had her standing around. Since they were getting rid of Miranda I wonder if they were going to go into a Lisa/Bob thing again? I llked this Frannie..she seemed "real" (no offense but I never like Marty Stuart whatshername ..she just seemed so..." big" big hair big framed... Who was the writer at this time? A name flips by at first and then a bunch of writers names.

LOL... good move on Wagner's part. What were they going to do with her, kill her off? Have her in the kitchen? Its funny, we rightfully dis writers and producers who kill off legacy characters and write off the vets...and Irna had no problems with it, didn't she also write off Ellen Stewart and she wanted to kill the entire Stewart family in a plane crash...Irna was "hard core."

I remember watching that scene and I was like "DAMN...kiss him back you idiot!" Yea, did not like the storyline..as a) we knew that even dumb flighty Luke was not going to fool around with Luinda's man...and...really...LL could have gotten a million times better then Luke...I hate the sterotype of an older gay guy always chasing after the twink...even if he is not that attractive..(okay, I admit..it happens too much in the gay world) but it would have been good to watch LL's character with an another "adult" man...Henry would have been preferable!!

That was the trouble with the "new" (Post MADD) PG soaps, they had their teens stuck working only with other newbies who were just as bad, so no one got better...(I remember on GL they had Chele,Jessie, Bill, and whatsherface with the New YOIK...accent..moving into a loft together, which would have been fine but they never had scenes with anyone else...the Jesse actor in particular benefited working with better actors....when he had scenes with Aunt Meta and even ugggh, Buzz(Deas was always good with the younger actors then left on his own to YELL) he improved. I didn't like Aaron as he was way too much a typical soap pretty boy. Holden looked like a beefy farm boy and in those early days the actor kind of just sent out a sexual vibe which was unheard of for the later soap sanitized pretty boys. LOL on Emily and Holden in the shower..reminds me of when they implied that he and Rose had anal sex..

That would have been a great storyline and Fulton would have loved it as she wanted to bring back the nastier side of Lisa. The start of Marland had Lisa and Craig investigating Lucinda to find out the secret she had and why she went after Whit...but then when she found out in involved LILY, they dropped it of course and Lisa was reduced to insults that Lucinda shrugged off. Fulton always said she would want to be bitchy and Marland would say, "Oh, that's not OUR Lisa!" God he could be so bland sometimes. I thought it would be great if Lisa blackmailed Lucinda with the Lily thing (having no intention of going through with it...) of giving back everything she stole from Whit...and then when everyone finds out that Lisa knew all along and used it for her own good...well, you know Scott Holmes Tom would get that dour ass face on and everyone else would be SHOCKED that she used LILY as a pawn.

Lisa actually got a lot of money from her marriage to John Eldridge..Fulton would talk about how dowdy she looked during her first run...(people had to wear their own clothes) but with tips from the Penny actress she learned how to dress and act more glam. So when she came back to ATWT after that prime time show she looked totally different (that was the blonde Lisa we know) and they explained it was due to her marriage and divorce from a rich lawyer. Tom said during the start of the Scott storyline that Lisa's marriage to Eldridge was the start of her wealth.

If you think he is shouty here wait until you see his "Buzz" on GL! Both Tom and Margo were so shrill at this time. "Steve" was shouty and obnoxious too and I really hated the Dobson's semi misoginistic writing... Kim of all people was cow towing to both Nick and Steve..a long way from her "LOOK buster" days. The show was rudderless with Nancy and Chris gone and the obscuration of the Hughes family. Now this version of ATWT looks like the Dobson's test run for SB. Ariel was great as she was totally a comic vixen...the actress had great comic timing and no matter the awful things Ariel did they always blew up in her face and you couldn't help but kind of feel sorry for her.

Yea I liked Mallet and thought Derwin was hot at the time, but Mallet vs. Rog...uh, no. I always thought that Ed should have found out that he had a daughter with Rita and it was she who got involved with Hart...so you have both Ed and Rita against it, etc. I would have made Jean...a throwaway character, Rita instead, so there would be oomph there for all the characters.

Especially since it was so STUPID to have Frannie's half sister-cousin (not her twin) look exactly like her! Just get another actress to play her... I agree on this, the only good thing was the conflict that came from Babs, which was totally realistic (though of course, it was coming from a anti-heroine..the rest of Marland's goody goody Oakdalies would have said..."Oh it happened so long ago." I also like despite the fact that Babs didnt like her she "saved her life" by tearing up the paper before Sabrina could see James picture...(as it that was the only issue printed in Oakdale..) I also agree that she would have been more fun as a vixen. I would had her come in as a total lower class slut, smoking cigarrettes, pulling scams on people and rolling her eyes at the Hughes, but I do like her "acting" like sweet lil thing while not being it. And Babs being on to her schtick. We all know that Lisa's always had time to take another bad girl under her wing to reform her. Lisa"Now Barbara we all have done things we werent proud of...Sabrina just needs another chance." Babs "Really, tell me, are you making a percentage of the 20 bucks a pop b*** jobs she is offering in the alley behind the Mona Lisa" Nancy..."Oh DEAR!!!!!"

I too think the split would explain Beth's out of character behavior (would have loved to see Loreli fleecing some dirty old man they named "Raul Paunch") But Loreli was a fun loving gal..not the ice cold bitch that Beth was when she came to town again...I would have loved to have seen that and Chamberlin would have played the hell out of it. I like Marcy but not as Lizzie...Lizzie should have been much darker and edgier a character....but Wheeler was just into casting cute young sweet girls like her and annoying Mandy Bruno and the Chrissy girl.

I think Marland had a burr up his ass about Sabrina and thought she was great, as opposed to the rest of viewing audience. "Hey Julianne, to show your range we are going to have a twin sister to your docile, nice Frannie....what, is she going to be wild and a slut..no...she is docile and nice..but you will get to wear glasses, wear a wig and have an accent!!!" I hate boring Sabrina too, (oh my God, the endless scenes of boring Sabrina with boring ass Seth...) what a waste when they they have could have brought some cockney ho bag into the Hughes family! "Hey Gram..that Holden looks like a nice piece of a** "

Why next to Loreli's Diary I am sure!!!