Mitch

Which was stupid, as I remember reading the Bauer BBQ was always counted on to spike the ratings. Remember when E & B forgot the BBQ one year because of San Crud!!!

MOL was so cute back then..always wanted Rick and not Phillip back then..but we know who aged better. Weird that the focus on this promo was Rick's drug habit and Roxie finding him hugging that boring chick..it all took place during Bert's memorial service so you would think they would promote that. Also interesting that the Bauer kitchen switched positions and the door that Roxie walks in would now lead to the patio ( I cant believe I know that....) It was too bad that Hutchison only had chemistry with Robert Newman...their one scene together I thought Seb was going to fall to his knees and they had Josh almost flirting with him!

Love those cheesy things...I see Zimmer gets the Eileen Fulton wink at the end. Geez Tersau is so made up she was orange..and I loved boring Johnny Bauer being oh so serious. Also love that they gave CB and BVK the "power," and "revenge," clips. Geez they were great..though I still always thought Bev's Alex could crush even CB's Alan...would have been funny to see her chew up and spit out Ron Raines Alan.

I loved Tom's quote, "Well, nothing seems to be wrong with her back now." I wonder if the writers threw that in there as a joke or if they were as earnest as the material they produced and didn't get it. I loved the days when the show revolved around Bob and Kim's house, and had everyone coming and going at all hours of the day and night, and calling,etc. Marland was great at having everyone be connected, even using a simple device as a phone call (and Marland's people were all calling each other constantly...) When the P & G shows dumped the concept of the action centering around one core family and home (Hughes and Bauers) they lost so much of what made them so special and really accessible. Anyone who watched for years and dropped it could get back in as everything was still centering around Bob and Kim and the Bauers...and the home sets gave new viewers a comforting intro to the show. The P & G shows became so cold after MADD.

When Sonni left town she was reformed (or was she, the goofy, "Smoking or nonsmoking? scene.) How did she and Alex end up? Would have loved to have seen Bev Alex chew up and spit out both the Annie Duttons thought I shudder to think if Alex would have fared better with her still in the role. Forbes was great, so good that Zimmer was threatened, just like she would be years later by CW. LOVED Sonni/Solita/Will and Josh. The storyline was so dark and no soap would do it today ("Solita," and Will had a S/M relationship, Catholic icons were used to show that Sonni was repressed by her culture, there was a subtle homoerotic thing between Will and Josh..) As a matter of fact, Reva was the dullest and least complicated character involved in the storyline. Love any storyline which has stages a cat fight in a convent on Christmas Eve!!!

I did, and I love that they dissed Lily and the line that Castle McKecknie doesnt fit in with Oakdale anymore (did it ever???) with the various "eaves dropping families," LOL. I remember the writer for the "Civil War," was a big fan of ATWT during that time, and he would take a break from his writing to see what was up in Oakdale and he would tell his wife that "Doorways and Windows," was on, as all the characters were constantly hanging out in doorways and at windows to happen upon the news of who their real father was.

Total agreement on Marland's dialogue...my god was that scene creaky and just plain unnatural. But then again, my main problem (really only problem) with Marland's writing is that he it was so damn cold and waspy. I always loved ATWT but I "liked," GL better in that the characters were warm and emotional and more "real," even the BIG characters like Alexandra, Reva and Roger. Again, my dream writing team would have been Marland and Long...he would have kept her in line and true to history and she would have made the characters more vibrant and alive and warm and yes, sexy. Loved Breen as Will but hated him as Scott, never felt he was Lisa's kid, but then, Scott Holmes Tom didnt seem like a kid of Lisa and Bob. I am in the minority in that I liked the hunky younger Scott with the great chest. I think he came off more as Lisa's kid, funny, flirty, sexy, selfish but not mean spirited, and someone to drive stuffy Tom nuts.

I think the fans as usual over reacted. In the original storyline, Lisa left Tom to go to Chicago to start a new life didnt she? It was entirely possible for the Lisa of that time to abandon a child. I think that Marland and Co. wrote the reasons well and as was stated, Lisa wasnt the same person she was back then. For the first time Lisa actually had to deal with her past bad behavior..(and I am not one of those people who thought Marland was a god...that scene was so creaky and unnatural "Well, hello father, grandmother, and who is this beautiful woman?" plus the Scott actor was too old to be playing this part..(IMO) The background music was freaky!!!

Everyone came off better then I imagined them. B & W have the personality of a two blocks of wood, but MADD didn't come off bad and Zimmer came off very, very well, especially her reprisal of Reva's "death," and resurection, with her sense of humor. Everytime I have seen her interviewed she has been too ON, and here she comes off as a normal person. I forgot how good she looked before the HUGE freakin' wait gain. By the end of the show she WAS a sloppy, Bert Bauer.

I love that picture of Bob and Lisa, in what had to be Nancy's kitchen (I remember the ever present cake tins in the back..though not the groovy green paneling.) They actually look like real people from the 70's. Its too bad that soaps including World Turns had to make everyone glam and rich and impossibly good looking. I can kind of see where Wheeler was going with her GL, making it more like the old time soaps, and maybe that would have worked with "real,"but simple sets where everyone had a living room and a kitchen and didnt live in a crappy hotel, etc.

I would have loved to see some of the Natalie Tom story (plus I think that guy who played Tom in those pictures is kinda hot.) Would love to have seen some of Natalie's scenes with Lisa, as she was a younger version of her, or even of Natalie and Nancy (as in"oh [!@#$%^&*] here we go again, would these guys ever quit thinking with their d*cks!!!") Poor Carol was so boring and sexless. What did they ever think in marrying Tom off to her first. Interesting point about the Doug Cummings storyline, Marcia, as played post 1995, would have been the over the top villianess so we would think it was her. As it is, she is underplayed so well that while we know there is something wrong with Marcia and we suspect her, we just don't know. The audience who could also so her living in Oakdale and going to the grocery store, etc, but still having some pretty weird secrets.

The Marie death story was written by DM and it was his first story, it unfolded into the Doug Cummings storyline. Marie and Kevin were introduced the spring summer before when Julianne Moore appeared as Frannie and she and Kevin were supposed to be starcrossed lovers. Marie was his ex girlfriend coming to town to get him and a more unlikely vixen you couldnt find.

I don't know, P & G start dismantling the Hughes family long before the Bauers, Nancy and Chris were treated as walk ons while Bert and co. were still charging on. It was funny, but when Marland came back and brought back the Hughes family GL had done a flip flop and dismanteld the Bauers. So it seems odd that it is just TPTB that were instrumental in this. I do think that there is some validity with what Long said, when she and the other guy was writing the show it was heavy on Bauers, Reardons, Spauldings, Marlers with the Lewises thrown in. This is the formula which got them to No 1 and when they dismantled this formula the show fell hard and never recovered. I don't see how TPTB could not have thought, "Hey, we made a mistake." I do know that Pam Long did give an interview that she was not interested in expanding the Bauer family (i.e Frank DickieD was going to be a Bauer) but wanted to create another family. So who knows.

I think Lisa Brown was good with comedy and yea, the only thing that Long and Co could see them doing was Lucy with the stiff professor. I do think that Quint had a short shelf life after the gothic stuff went away. It was good to have Nola happy for a little while but then they should have killed him off and had Nola grow up a bit. A less bitter, but still more grown up Nola would have been cool to see on her return under McTrash but that didnt happen. I think they were trying to do a spin on Q & N's old mystery stuff with the Jonathon thing, and to put what they thought was a "funny," spin. I don't know why they didnt have Nola and Quint involved with the cabin mystery which was going strong at this time. They should have had Nola get pissed off at Vanessa, find the cottage, move into it and then the spooky stuff starting happening, (with the added twist that no one would believe her but the house would have really been haunted.) They could have brought Tony and Annabell in with Annabell being psychic etc.

Ah, what a trip down memory lane... Paul's mullet, ugly Julie as the world's most successful model, Lisa's frizzy permed hair, Lucinda pulling all the strings and smirking when the sh*t hits the fan, and best of all, hot, hot Greg Beacroft in a suit as Brock Lombard. Why did they kill him off, he should have been the new villian instead of boring Antonio? Why did he never go back to soaps? I can't believe GL didn't bring him back.

First of all, they were dummies, the Diner was on 5th Street, it burned down and Buzz bought Company from Nola which was on 7th Street! Anyway, I never understood why they wasted that much space with that boring street. At least make it charming looking. Also, use it so you are able to drop walls down, etc. to make it something else. They could have used that space by having a Country Club set by dropping some walls down,etc.

Shannon was already on canvas, I think this was transition stuff from the old writers to Marland. Kim finds a body in the woods behind the Hughes house. I don't know how it all came to pass but I think Margo staged something so the thieves would show themselves, which they did holding both of them hostage in the Hughes living room. Margo outsmarts them. I think they tied that to the Falcon thing, so it most likely was a Marland transition.

I loved most of the mystery stuff, well, didn't like "Who killed Carolyn Crawford," but it involved too many people I didn't like it went on and on. I loved that Marland's stuff was so "dense," and that he didn't take the audience for being "dense." I loved that he and his team could spin this story and involve so many people, some of whom were never seen on screen, who you could imagine in your head. It was almost like radio soaps as you were allowed to use your own imagination to know who these people were and looked like. It also made it seem like there was a whole other "world," out there besides Oakdale. Compare that to the P & G soaps before they died, both GL and ATWT were like deserted ghost towns and the characters had no connection to each other (if they werent in the storyline) much less the rest of the world! I loved that Marland could have an international story going and we rarely, if ever left the same sets, (i.e Kim and Margo talking about the Falcon in the Hughes kitchen.) Made much better sense then Wheeler acting like Goofy Brad Cole and Jonathon were in Afghanstan or wherever and they were in a Peapack park. But then Marland was good about always talking about offcamera family, friends and nemesis like real people would, and not having to explain who they are.

I am not really one for the realistic storylines..as bad as this sounds, I like the soapy, returning from the dead, bad twin stuff, when done well and written "straight," and with some intelligence. The "movie of the week," relevancy stuff that Nixon and Marland did was not my cup of tea. Never liked Casey and Lyla bored me to tears so......

It was okay..Grant was gone long enough, and they made a good enough back story, (he lost his money, was involved with rich women) that it was believable. Also, the people who were suspicious of Grant were the ones who didn't know him, Shannon, Duncan, maybe Margo, etc. I just hated Earl as a charater and Fulton when she acted like a 30 year old romantic heroine. I wish they had evolved Lisa as more of a Lucindaish smart cookie, or just as a AuntyMame type of character (which to give them credit, the last year of the show they did give Lisa some really good lines when she actually was on, "Hmm, all this time the two of you were living in sin!!!")

Having them every week ruined the flow of the week. Each episode was a stand alone and sort of existed in its own reality. The ones that did impact story had everything piled into them, when we should have seen the natural flow of the story grow, example, the Mel and Rick one. We didnt see them more weeks, when we did everything seemed fine, then we saw that Rick was screwing Beth and that Mel and he had problems. All of that should have been played out over the months (and actually would have made quite good of a story, helping to bring Beth back to her old self, and giving Mel a more well defined character.) Also, the demand for having them every week made them become filler, like with the "Memory Forumla," one, and the "Superhero," one, and the goofy Cops one. Also, the same character dominating everyday, dominated the ITL, like Reva, Jeffy, Jammy, and the Coopers. Some were great.. I thought the 70th anniversary was really, really good. Loved the Jeva one which incorporated Billy and Van,

I LOVED Toby's Amanda...yea, I know she was deaged, etc, but they finally gave Amanda a personality (hated the first "frigid," Amanda of the Marland era.) Yea, she was over the top but Poser gave her a vunerablity that Amanda was protecting herself by creating this "persona," both to survive in life and in that family. The only thing I remember about them saying about Amanda was her hair (I remember Alex saying she was going to charge Amanda for all the plumbers she had to call in to fix her drains...) and Poser had a great head of hair. The Amanda is Bradon's kid thing was weird and convoluted over the course of McTavish leaving and the interm writers. It started out that Roger found Vanessa, and asked her why, when push comes to shove, Alan always gave into Alex. Vanessa tells Roger that Alex always bragged that she had an ace in the hole to keep Alan in line (which we never heard her say, but...) So there was definitely something else going on, as, why would Amanda being Alan's daughter keep him in line and by saying that, Alan would have already knew that Amanda was Brandon's daughter, which he didn't. Something else was planned but what it was, no one could tell. The actual storyline could have worked as that was how Amanda was originally introduced, as Lucille always thought that Amanda was Bradon's. Brandon was such a lier and a snake you could see him screwing everyone's head over with, is she or isnt she. It would make sense that Brandon would have had a new will when Alex found him alive in Barbados (Roger did mention a new Barbados will) and why she would have kept it a secret to not hurt Alan and to not upset the apple cart. They should have brought back Amanda's mother to clear up the loose ends (Brandon, in a rage that Alan was screwing a poor girl, went and raped her himself, etc.) and they did have great scenes between all the Spauldings, and what a great battle that would have been, Alex vs. Amanda and Alex and Alan vs. Roger and Amanda with poor Phillip stuck in the middle. By the time E & B came along they were planning on keeping Poser to replace Alex, Rauch even said it. However, it didnt work and she was gone. Which is too bad, Poser just had a great way of twisting a funny, sarcastic line...one of the few funny ones E & B wrote..Alan, after Josh attacked him during the Reva clone thing, "Amanda, he tried to kill me!" Amanda, acting as if she could care less "Who hasn't?!?!?"

That was back in Lisa's "hey day," when she was the conflicted bad girl, who finally (as Irna was wont do to) "punished," by being blackmailed into marriage by a man even worse then her..(to of course, save her own son.) I think was the turning point of Lisa from villainess to a sometimes bitchy but loving woman who began to learn from her mistakes. John Colenbeck was hot, and speaking of Michael Shea, I wonder what happened to the actor and why they never had him "return from the dead," to terrorize all and sundry. He was the Roger/John/James of his day. Wow, Rosemary Prinz seemed a bit full of herself. I guess this was back in the day that an offhanded "nazi," comment didnt bring out the wrath in people like it should.

She was VERY boring. She came in during the writers strike and at very weird time for ATWT, the Dobson's had started gutting the Hughes family, obscuring Lisa, etc, Wagner left, and then the Dobons's either got fired or left, their was a writers strike and then they didnt come back but some really bad ones did. That summer there were tons of new faces without connections to anyone at all, and a "drug," storyline. The Dobsons came back, got rid of the new faces and killed boring Connie off. Connie by the way was killed by one of Mr. Big's henchmen.

LOL on that clip, Fulton plays comedy so well, I can kind of understand why the Dobson's tried to turn her into a silly airhead..which is something Lisa would "act," like but never really be. Love the,"Are you going to take me with you?" "Lady, are you kidding me, that would me I would have to listen to ya, the whole time!" Love Bob and Kim!!! Wow Bruder had kind of a nice little bod there..she must have hated having to play so much older and be boring sadass Ellen....and her husband is kind of cute, in a 1972 way...and a doctor too!!!