Mitch

LOL...no wonder the ABC soaps rolled over ATWT, they had young people who LOOKED young, and their older people had more style...well everyone had more style. Here, Grant looks like he came off of a bender, Ralph looked like he was on the same bender, or he and Grant were making out in the law office restroom and mussed up each other's hair...I can also see why the Dobson's used Dee, she actually looks good (love that big head of 70s hair) and has life..too bad they made her a mope later on. I was laughing at poor Pat Brueder's look, to make her look as old as Nancy when she should be young enough to be Nancy's daughter, and everyone except Lisa, Kim, Barbara and even Nancy acted like they were on sleeping pills. This reminds me what Pauline Kael (sp?) said about soaps once, "Everyone acts like they are acting under water!" I can see how ABC looked hyper energetic and young and exciting compared to this. I think GL found a way to combine the two elements, but ATWT lost its way until Marland came back.

Hmmm. well I can see why they needed to "update," things. As discussed, everyone seems middle aged..besides Tom, Babs and Annie, and Tom acts middle aged and Annie LOOKS middle aged. Only Barbara seems young and vibrant so we can see why the Dobson's used her so much. Seems to be that they are writing Valerie off (talking about going to see her husband at Christmas and of course, never came back) and did they say the "Hollister," farm? A lot of talk, talk, talk, talk...but liked the scene where Lisa discusses turning the basement into a "wine cellar/cocktail lounge," which predates her turn owning a restaraunt and an actual bar in the cellar. Laughed at Tom ordering a "Chablis," so 70's. Too bad about that actor, he looks like I would think Tom looks, but he is so stiff and uptight. Also, poor Jay looks like a gay leprechan, I don't think Kim Hays or Fulton every aged that much, add to that Zenk and Wagner..what was it with the ATWT women? Marland still writing this, Dobsons dont start until January right? You can tell besides the Inn story, the show was treading water.

LOL...I actually find all of this much more entertaining then the Dobson's stuff. People are interacting and we have a lot of good old Marland exposition. I wonder if despite what Bridget Dobson said, that the execs saw what Marland was doing and thought the Dobsons;s were at the end of the line at GL, and thought the switch would be good. Kim, "I think he is the perfect man for you and this is the perfect place for you,"...uh, Kim, Lisa is a man hungry, bed hopping, busy body, glitzy dress wearing broad, much less where the hell are they going to find all the peroxide needed for that hair out in the woods? Lisa's love interest would look more appropriate selling used cars then looking like a tortured writer looking ominous and mysterious. We have prove positive that Marland was writing this, murder victims/suspects/side characters were referred to with first and last names constantly "Derrick Bickford, Derrick Bicford..." and a cuff link was a clue! I surprised they didn't have the maid fondle a letter opener as she spat out the name "LISA!" What was the significance of the black cat? I love Betsy "wild," teen party. I wanted to see the bad disco!!!!

Interesting theory...they did the same thing to Babs after her the explosion..where her entire extended Hughes family, who had stuck with her through all the crap she did, suddenly turns their back on her. I think that, and with the Lisa thing, is that Gautman but especially Fatso HATED ATWT's close knit but constantly strained family ties. Too "old fashioned," for him. I also hated how they took Lisa, who would take all of the bad boys and girls of Oakdale , the down and outs, etc, under her wing to help them (going as far back as Marcy, who accused Bob of all people coming on to her, still took her in.) Its like she became a ABC soap snotty rich lady.

Carly was never my favorite character (she and Jack became as tedious as Lily and Holden) but damn does she look great..looks like no make up either!

Agree that Marland was burned out near the end of his tenure, I quit watching all together..he kept repeating himself and brought in all these characters far from the core...(who the hell was Aunt Mary and her Coffee house anyway???) He should have been training someone for two years to make way when he left and maybe consulted on ATWT for a year or two. I would have loved to see what a Pam Long with a strong producer could have done....or if they moved Nancy Curleee to be head writer.

It had to be Marland..it has all the earmarks, the gothic storyline which is the template for the Doug Cummings storyline (I cant believe Marland didnt have Lisa say,"Oh Frannie I was once involved with a man who had an assistant who was obsessed with him...." the way he uses phones to keep the characters connected, the coming and going in the Hughes kitchen, the intro of another character arriving in the John/Kim scene and that conversation that Kim had with John is going to repeat itself with "Andrew," and his drinking. You can also tell Marland loves Kim and KH. He writes her not as a mope but as a strong willed, classy lady that is just a bit sad and overwhelmed with everything that has happened since her husband died. The Dobson's turned Kim back into a romantic heroine who let her husband push her around and then just as Betsy's mom. I I also like his version of Betsy and the way she told John what was what. Quite a change from what the Dobsons do to her and what she becomes with Meg Ryan. I have never understood why those two had the careers they did. Speaking of the Dobsons and recasts. I think this Tom is actually pretty good and sexy here(not in a Greg Marx way but he is only human...) I like his early L.L. Bean look..I think he could have worked if they had just made him relax a bit. He played Tom like he was Don and Bob's age...(though Lisa doesnt look that much older then Tom here.) All in all they screwed up with not keeping Marland at ATWT , but then we would never have had his "fixing," of the show and its return to glory in the 80s.

LOL..thank God I don't have any of those feelings, the only fruit I like is the one's available! I also don't know about you Khan, but I have a feeling that Collier would STILL be off limits to 95 percent of us! You know, there is only so much "romance," I want to see in the over 60, 70 and 80 crowd. Add that, that Fulton still played it like she was 30, tossing her head back in romantic exctasy with Gay Earl of all people. Anyway, I don't mind that the older characters became talk tos...all of Irna's older characters were just that. I think the problem is that they became ignored and unlike Marland's writing you never believe they had a life outside of that. Also, if they had Lisa keeping her own "voice," and giving out advice that would be totally different then what Kim and Bob would, that would be interesting. "Oh, Luke honey, gay or straight all men want the same thing, so give him just a little bit of that good stuff and then drag him around by his....nose!"

Yea, I think the Dobson's felt that their new families should be introduced using core characters, which I would agree with. Besides Margo and Maggie, I was never interested in the Montogmery family that much, and Steve and Nick's relationship was so depressing and angry it wasnt fun to watch. In hindsight since TPTB were so interested in shoving Nancy and Chris aside it would have made sense to put Bob and Kim in that role earlier...(especially since Don McClauginlin was starting to fail I believe even before he was taken off contract. ) I thought it would have been interesting and tied the family into things if Lyla and Nick were estranged/divorced so that instead of two new families it is one new family in town. Say Lyla came to town, but divorced from Nick, who would follow her, then Margo, and then leave off Cricket. Lyla and Nick could have both gone on to date Bob and Kim as the storyline went, but then when the [!@#$%^&*] hit the fan about John being Margo's dad, Bob and Kim move toward each other. I would have then had Lyla on recurring, and then push Nick into Lisa's arms after Grant dumps her once and for all. Lisa never had a blue collar guy and I think it would have been kind of interesting to have this over the top diva with a guy who could ground her. Fulton might have actually brought out a sense of humor in Nick. I think Nick was ment to be long term and I think he was fairly popular (because of Hays who seemed to have chemistry with everyone.) His storyline just didnt work. They brought in Andrea as back from dead and that went no where, and then they just married Kim and he off. I think the Dobsons were actually thinking they were going to take Nancy and Chris place on the canvas but Nick was not going to be a new Chris. I think that most likely both DH and KH would have complained about being the tent pole characters so soon, especially as the Dobson's didn't write tent poles very well. I also think that the Dobson's werent interested in ATWT history and didn't like that they would have to revisit it with Bob and Kim.

Wow, he did look hot back then, but as Whit, not so much! Plus he and Fulton had no chemistry..she always looked grossed out by kissing him! I can't think of anyone that age who would have been a good match for her...I do think the guy who played Nick and she had chemsitry..too bad they didn't bring him in as a Whit McColl type and I think he played "bad," better then good.

I actually think the Dobson's were gearing things up for fun things for her to play, with the intro of Diana McColl, spoiled daughter of Whit. Would have been fun to see Lisa and her go at it and Lisa butting in when Diana was trying to break up Betsy and Steve. I think that the problem was the actor who played Whit, with the dentures and the wig. Wasnt he a friend of the Dobson's? Fulton left too early, for the Dobson's to write a whole family around her was a big thing. Never liked Craig as a "villain," he was too whiny and not fun..and of course that weird sex thing the D's would always bring up, making him impotent on his wedding night to Betsy, (thus insuring that Steve broke her cherry like that was a big deal) but able to screw around with a waitress on their honeymoon, (I think they even had Craig have a fantasy of her in a german beer wench costume so he could get it up...) weird,weird stuff. I like MD's Margo, she just came across as too strident sometimes. I can't imagine Marland writing for her and her having scenes talking with "Gram," etc. I never liked the

That woulda been fun to see Lisa being a real bitch again (instead of just saying bitchy things to John,etc.) and to see her spice up David...(I wonder if she and HF would have had chemistry...he seemed so laid back all the time, I wonder if it would work.) Also fun to see the wimpy Annie and Dull Dee freak out over their dad screwing the middle aged town slut!

I think over that summer of 80, or 81 HF was off doing the road tour of "Whorehouse," so they had David disappear right after John was run over, and of course, they had him as a major suspect in the piss poor "mystery," that became of it. They would bring in Chris for a scene every month or so where Ellen would worry about David's whereabouts. It was stupid that they had Jame run him over as A) James would hire someone and if he did want to run over someone he would not miss, and B, it made his character a cartoon (all I remember him during the Dobson's is rubbing his hands together for some dumb master plan of his.) Jame should have been much closer to Alan Spaulding, a conflicted villain. So they brought him back right before the Dobson's came back. And yes, Ellen moved into some swinging Oldster complex, which was weird, as they had her lonely and loosing touch with her old friends instead of how Marland would write it, as everyone supporting her (the Dobsons really took the idea of Oakdale being a community and threw it in the toilet.) Even weirder was boring Ellen screwing the hot doctor. Ellen's sex life, nawww, I don't need to know anything about it. I thought at the time it would have been interesting to have Lisa go after David...reigniting the Ellen and Lisa fued. Imagine what Nancy would say (though Wagner was off the show then) about her "daughter," going after her family friend's husband? It would also bring back Bitch Lisa (Fulton would have loved it) and made her town pariah again. I woulda brought back a recast Don and had him screwing Ellen just to REALLY get Nancy clutching her pearls and the town in an uproar! I Larry and Frannie were together? What was it about her that attracted nuts or turned nomal guys onto older women? Larry was hilarious as he never appeared "straight, " for a minute so I would have thought they would have him run off with a guy not a woman.

I think they definatley would have had to recast Davidson, and should have done it earlier. She reminds me a lot of Rachel Minor (Michelle Bauer) She was beloved, especially since the audience went through a major characters death with the actress playing the character. But she like Davidson, was not going to be cut out for a "romantic" lead. By the same token, the kids on GL at the time that everyone on boards said they loved needed to be recast, the kid who played Bil Lewis and the Ben kid actor (who, grew up in midwest Springfield but had that terrible New York accent...) I have a feeling the Davidson/Rekell romance was made up for their boring and non-existent storyline.

Bob spends an awful lot of time having coffee with his Mom and Dad!

Khan, I have to admit, I kinda thought Deas at the time of Tom was kind of hot...though not right for Tom. It might be his year as Freakin' Buzzard Cooper where he ate up my show and half the scenery that I started to call him Dustbin Fleas. as he looked like he hated showers and spit on everyone yet every woman in SF fell at his feet! So I would put Deas into two categories...B.B. (before Buzz where I thought he was okay on the show, kind of hot, in the "Dont let any of my neighbors see you leave in the morning way," and A.B. (after Buzz) where I wanted to spay Lysol on my tv when he came on. So, it would not be that big of a fight, (lucky for me I say!!!) I just felt he would have worked as the new hippie weirdo lawyer in town. If they had gone back to Tom's vietnam history, said it made him kind of anti-establshment..that he got the "oddness," from Lisa, but the do-gooder from Bob, and that he would have a push-pull thing with staid family I could have believed it..but they all acted like he was normal and they never had many scenes with his family. Greg Marxx is really, and truly gay??? Oh, if my college age self would have not that hot Tom Hughes was gay...I think I woulda stalked him! And yes...God I would loved to have scenes with Nancy Hughes.."Young man quit yelling!" Did they have scenes together?

HMMM, David Forsyth..(his name right) with a cute dog...I'm in LURVE!

Very true...and whatever mad doctor gave troll Tom Deas the pill that turned him into hot Tom Gregg Marx...send them my way! I agree, I think the problem with the Snyders were that it was almost like they were on another soap. Emma should have had NO romance..sorry not interested in seeing that.

Oh but they did..didn't they both screw Emily (but as Lucinda would say, "Who HASN"T!") I could be mistaking Emily for Mollly but ATWT for me since about 1994 was just kinda there...(though the second adult Chris Hughes was a little hottie.) I love the clips from 79..I think this Tom is kind of hot the more I watch (in a stuffy Hughes way) I still don;t know why they would recast with that troll Deas? I do want to say, "Hey Tom, if you didn't live with your mom, you might be able to score more ass!" What was Sheila's story anyway? And the dropped Penny story? And I have to laugh at Lisa in her old lady sweater and why in hell Lisa would want to live in that dumpy inn! Where the hell is she going to get her hair colored that brassy shade of blonde! How can she eavesdrop and meddle in people's lives there? The owner of the inn is quite, uh, non-threatening as I said before, or the least bit interesting. He looks like he should sell cars. This all was Marland's material before the Dobson's right?

I liked that the kitchen at first featured that toliet....so everyone had conversations about Lily's latest kidnapping (or all things Lily) the latest incestuous moment in their lives, etc, with a toliet right over their heads the whole time! The most annoying thing about the Snyders is indeed like they were transported from the 30's or the 40's. I come from a farm family and .....they ain't poor, and their kitchen is the twice the size and is much better then mine! I remember a scene where of course some big business people came to the farm..I think some Italian woman (and of course they were "bad," as they were business) and she was going on and on how the Snyders Illinois farm reminded her of the farms in Tuscany (huh???) but what about all those little houses on small farms close to each other and Emma says, "Oh those were all big farms that my friends had to sell so they split up the land and people bought small parts of it and started smaller farms, its sad!" Uh, Marland, have you been on a farm in 40 years??? Anyway, the Snyders on the outside were this bucolic idealized family, yet Marland kept throwing them into these disgusting incestuous relationships. Lily and Holden were bad enough, but then the insipid Angel Lange, and the guys screwing each other's partners practically as soon as they left the mattress of the other! They Snyders bored me and gave me the creeps at the same time and yes, I can't believe that kitchen survived while the Hughes kitchen and living room got dumped! I wish that Marland had made his family an urban poor one, as I think that would be more relatable to people. I know that he was writing his experience filtered by his nostalgia and erotic fantasies so it worked for him as it was persoanal, but they should have been written out when he died And in that clip above from 1979..is the middle aged looking Annie having an affair with a married guy, and Jeff is having an affair with his wife? How outrageous for ATWT at that time and kind of shows the...neither here nor there aspect of the show (I love the scandal of the open mouth kissing and that purple disco hat) and funny that Annie and Jeff, the adulterers married later and were treated as if their crap didnt stink. I never understood why they kept BL around so long, was the show so hard up he was supposed to be the "hot," young stud??? And that house set they are on...isnt that the same set they used for Lyla when she first came on with the horrendous "Cricket," ? Love the Kim/Ellen scene as Ellen, despite the old lady hair, looks the same age as Kim..I also wish, when Ellen asks, "What are you concerned about," Kim would have said, "Its John FREAKING Dixon you moron...of course I am worried!" Ellen acts like she is on tranquilizers or something there.

You can see shades of Doug Cummings in this story...the widowed guy with the assistant obsessed with him. I love her,"But I dont have to LIKE it," as if we needed any help figuring out she was the nuttso here. I love that the characters pull coffee how of nowhere..all of them, all of the time! I agree Melinda was a waste. That was more backstage political then anything else..(she was taking sides in the Zenk vs. the Dee actresses fued on who was the "Star," of the show.) They should have just wrote her out for a while..to kill her as she was pining over Brad the smuck was bad...plus no one seemed to care. I wonder what Marland would have done for ATWT if he stayed. If you are to believe Bridget Dobson (who I think is a nutball) they liked the Dobson's outlines over his, which I cant beleive as he went on to GL to bring it to number one while ATWT floundered for years.

I love this clip. The longer scenes really give it a feel of reality. Werid seeing Melinda here..she seems really intergrated in the family and then the Dobson's kill her off and everyone is like,"Oh Barbara , hope this doesnt delay your wedding "(or any of the Dobson's craptastic storylines.) John and Kim are acting like...John and Kim..he is annoying her and she gives it back to him..one of the consistent things right up until the end. Zenk looks almost the same today...this Tom is growing on me and wow, Bennett was quite a let down..I thought he was going to look menacing and gothic and he is just..some guy.

No..they used her as an excuse around 1984 or 85 for Fulton to go on one of her hiatus...Alma was sick in Florida and Lisa had to go visit her. They never mentioned her name but Tom talks to her about "grandma," and then when Fulton comes back he asks how "grandma," was. I can't believe I remember this stuff.

Paul, That is true that everyone was over 40..and of those over 40 it was kind of hard to distinguish them from each other. Ralph, Don, Grant...all stuffy uptight professional white guys. I can see why Bob lasted as long as he seemed more energetic and less stuffy then the rest (though I have to say, I thought Don was kind of hot in a stuffy middle aged DILF kind of way..maybe its the boxer nose he has...) Even Tom was leading into the stuffy guy routine (though I thought Tammi could have been kind of sexy..I guess I like the stuffy professional type.) I can see why the Dobson's tried to go against type by bringing in people they "thought," broke the mold but...Brad just didnt cut it as a young sexy lothario and Deas Tom was TOO much a break from the past(I never understood why they didnt just bring him in as another character to team up with John to drive the Stewarts and the Hughes nuts!) Agree that there was no new generation of Hughes to take over at that time...thought I thought it would have been cool if they had brought in Chris' family from the farm, his great neices and nephes, would be interesting if they had a Carly Tenny type character have to move in with Nancy and Chris because of farm troubles. Seeing Nancy hover over the new Lisa would be interesting and bring a jolt in the staid citizens of Oakdale. This Sheila...she seemed seemed like a sap that Marland would have liked, she was very Angle Lagnish....

LOL..so true. I love this clip..Kim is being the same kind of Kim we saw to the end of the show..did Hays ever age? This was pre-Nick and much better, I hated her with Nick. Lisa looks...odd. What's with the tie around her neck and blazer, very un-Lisa. The Tom actor was cute but stiff and Grant..what the hell was with those dark glasses? I remember my aunt thinking Grant was "hot stuff," lol, but he was always so stiff and boring. This was Marland writing, right? I can see his later ATWT with the mystery, the details, the foreshadowing, the way he could write where you could see what a character was thinking (you can clearly see that Lisa does not totally belive Bennet is innocent but damned if she will admit she is wrong to Grant..)