Mitch

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!!!

Yea, I just don't see Carol as being a really good rival for Margo. Not only the fact that she was so nice she would never go after someone, but she was so boring and soft, and I think it was always played that the two of them were young and it was a mistake from the start. Tom, even before Deas and Margo, like his women a little more zingy, which makes sense being raised by his control freak grandmother and having Lisa for a mother. Now bringing back JC as Natalie would have been really, really good. The Dobsons or whomever blew it by bringing her back totally miscast. I would have liked to see how Chapman and Colin worked together or HBS....(I think Dolan's Margo would have just wanted to BE the one to sleep with her herself!) Yea, its werid about Deas, I never thought he was that magnetic but what is it about soaps twisting themselves into knots to write for him? On ATWT the writing made a little sense as I could see Tom being a bit of a hippie, kinda guy, with Lisa for a mom a clean cut lady killer for a dad. Its just too bad they erased his whole sense of being a Hughes, I can not remember a scene he had with Wagner and McLaughlin, and don't really remember a warm relationship with his parents..which is odd, I would think he and Fulton would have been a hoot together, and Hasting can work with anyone and make them look good. On GL it became the Buzz Show and Buzz wasnt that pleasent of a character to begin with.

Now Maura West could have done something with her (and I have never liked Carly or Carjack that much.) Plus, she looks like she could be related to Zimmer. Sigh...I think the worst thing about the Rauch/E& B era is that it had potential. Through most of it, right up until San Crud took over, it had really entertaining parts to it, I would say it was a lot more entertaining then the last year or two of JFP. But there was so much wasted potential which was coated in a sheen of bland or safeness. Having Reva deal with her white trash yard dog of a sister would have been way more fun then watching the two of them buddy up all over town and be selr righteous shrews (self righteous and Reva should never have gone together. )

HATED Laura Wright's smug, annoying Cassie, gritting her teeth and snarling at people, but EVERYONE loved her! Even Reva got told off and yelled at by other characters, hell, even St. Harley got told off during the Wheeler/Kreizman era and she was like, their patron saint! Vanessa was able to have a few short exchanges where MK was able to spin it that Van really didn't like Cassie, but was too well bred to make a point of it. When they first brought her on I really thought they were going to make her a hellion, and what fun could that have been? Giving Reva a sister that was not only a vixen, but sometimes outright nasty (which Reva never was.) But LW's Cassie outlook and the way she acted never matched her backstory!. The chick grew up in foster homes and had a kid with a drug dealer, but she ran around acting like she was an entitled cheerleader. I blame that on LW's ego...and the fact that she was friends with the headwriters and that Rauch had them on site, so that LW had easy access to them (and could take them to the bar across the street.) Its too bad, as I think she has the talent and the hard edge to bring an edgy character to life.

Yes, didn't she appear during the whole, "Earl Mitchell is missing/did Grant do it," storyline as rich society matron girlfriend of either Earl or Grant? They SHOULD have brought her back as Jennifer for the Amanda parentage thing, at least it would have made it SEEM that it made more sense. There was enough ambiguoty to have Amanda be Brandon's daughter (didnt he originally say he was...) if they would have connected the dots better (and it was the first step of turning Alex into a total shrew, that she would have know the truth but never said anything, to be replayed years later by trying to shoehorn Gus (and Icky Ricky) into the Spaulding family.

Yea, that was weird, you could see that the storyline was going in the direction of Miranda dieing in Bob's arms but they changed it. I don't think that Miranda was a Dobson character, so I am suprised they wanted to keep her at all, but it was odd, that they married them off and she all of a sudden became this paragon of Oakdale society and then nothing. They did have a little thing where Bob wanted Miranda to live with Nancy and Chris, and Chris didnt want to as he had protected her from the "criminal element," but then he relented. As Helen Wanger was gone by that time, and Don McClaughlin was kicked down to recurring they didn't pick up on anything after that but can you imagine a storyline with exotic criminal Miranda living with iron fist Nancy Hughes? They also had started a little something with Frannie having problems with Miranda but they dropped it. It is too bad, Miranda could have been a very Lucindaish character, a mixture of good and bad. Running a business but loving her family and trying to protect them, and also butting heads with her mother in law.

Well, you could see that Pat Holland character was trouble, she actually had a perm and wore a graphic T-Shirt to Nancy and Chris' backyard!!!STRUMPET!!! She was really sporting the Joyce Dewitt look didn't she??? I know that Larry B has always been trouble, but he really, really added a sense of, "reality," to the show. His John was neither good or bad, hell, he even made the Dobson's material, when it became the John Dixon show, real, and gave John motivation despite the sometimes misogynistic writing for him at that time. I really think that today's writers don't really know how to write for characters like John, Lisa or Lucinda who are shades of good and bad. People can still do shitty things, but the writers make them act like their [!@#$%^&*] don't stink. I think that AMC kind of co opted ATWT formula and updated it. It was about small town life, and families, and traditional values, but was faster, had campy aspects, etc. I do think that they threw out the baby with the bath water, getting rid of Nancy and Chris and that family feeling. Even GH kept the vets with the goofy stuff going on at that time. The Dobsons got rid of them, but kept the slow pace and the kinda boring feel (I remember particalarly the Dee actress and her long pauses and open mouth staring into the camera) instead of updating the pace and keeping the stucture. Oh, well, four years later Marland showed them how to do it, though none of the idiots in the industry tried to copy him.

Bob looks great now...I just ment he kinda looks sexy in this photo and I think its weird (and almost sacrilegious) to think Bob in anyway being sexy! Who is that couple behind Chris to the left behind Carol and Jay? I can see why the show needed to be "youthized," as it was full of just middle aged people. Just too bad that the Dobsons through out the baby (and Nancy and Chris) with the bath water. Who is the young girl with the curly dark hair to the right of Alma? I grew up with the show and remember Grandpa Hughes and Alma better then any Don..so he kind of was just there. Jay's sox are weird..the actor was gay right? That is Joyce in that red dress, and she looks really pretty. LOL on the woman in the jumper, have no idea who that is

I love this..it looks like a real family picture despite the astroturf! They would never do that now. Bob is looking kinda 70s studly!!!Where were David and Ellen and Lisa?