Mitch

That was indeed Vanessa rocking a leather skirt! This came at the end of Pam Long's de "fusing," of Van after marrying Billy, where she just sat around in matronly dresses, took care of her baby and said "Oh Billy!" a lot. They finally put her back to work at least, dumb as that was. So true about Wheeler cutting Jerry loose. At that time he was the Bert Bauer of the show, keeping it centered. One of Wheeler's stupidest moves to cut him and then keep Frankie D and Justin Deas!?!?!? Especially since he was the father of three kids (by the same wife no less) who could be aged into the "hawt," teens. Also, father of Dinah, etc. Just shows how Kriezman and Wheeler's obsession with Gush and the Coopers really did more damage then the budget cuts.

Your right, they are cheesy but a lot of fun! Also, can you believe they showed so many characters of all ages, with even Nancy Hughes being featured. They would never do that now. Funny too, how Hensley who was the stud of that era, really looks "natural," and not super cut steroid type...he actually had the body of a real farm boy. Amazing how we have come to a different weird idea on soaps and pop culture on how "hunks,' should look.

Louden died?? Of what. I hated Duke (like John or Oakdale needed another long lost son,) but wow, that's weird that he died. Wonder why they never brought him back(to be, edgY I am sure!)

Sadly I do, but I can't remember my mom's birthday! That was in the fall of 85, (when the show started to fall apart, I can't believe Curlee was there, and McTrash was still there) under the horrible Jeff Ryder.) That was Ross who opened his own office (that office was still around during Wheeler, they pulled it out for a celebration of JVD's anniversary and JVD found a copy of a mocked up clip of "Marler gets Mindy Lewis acquital, saves Lewis Oil," or something ) and Vanessa went to work for him as, believe it or not, his secretary!!!! It was supposed to jump start a Ross/Van/Billy triangle. And this was right before I think Mindy going on trial and Infinity??? Side note, remember when Bruce Jenner was cute before he fucked up his face with plastic surgery!

Beth C could make a great bitch. They had the golden opportunity when she married Alan to keep the Spaulding power and so no one could push her around again...after marrying him she had a good scene where she triumphantly proclaims "They will NEVER let him out!" Made perfect sense at that time. Alan needed a "rest," at that time so they could have had him manipulating her from behind bars, etc. but they let him out and she was screwing him and in love with him???? Made no sense at all (and grossed me out. ) From then on Kreizman had her alternating between being a victim of Alan to a vindictive mean bitch (i.e her scenes with Mel and then trying to screw over Rick with the baby thing, she would NEVER do that to Rick of all people.)

I think she means E & B when Harley came back. I remember that Sloan did indeed act dismissively with Harley, which is weird, as that was not very Lillian of her. I remember the whackos on the Pharley board going nuts over it. Phillip and Harley were fun for a while, but when they were treated like this great love, uh no. And yea, they would always play that goofy music when they were on. To her credit Ehlers said in interviews that both she and GA felt they shouldn't have brought the Beth character back so soon, as they had a great love, and Phillip and Harley were just starting to get to know each other. Ehlers felt that there was no way the relationship could have stood that test. But E & B tried to fix that by regressing Beth to a neurotic girl and a raging bitch to boot, so the audience would root for poor widdle Harley.

Sally was arguing with Alex, who was trying to bribe her to keep quiet about Marah, both to protect Alan and to have that info to save for when she needed it (remember the good old days when characters had conflicting motivations that made sense.) Sally conveniently started having a heart attack right in the Lewis spa, I think during Josh and Sonni's wedding, and Alex let her die without going for help( and Bev thought JFP made Alex too mean.) I freakin LURVED Sonni/Solita. It got off to a rough start, as Sonni was boring when Josh first married her. But when Will came in the picture, and the Sonni/Solita ("Isolated one!!" ) came in, it was great. Dark, exciting, and included almost everyone on the canvas in realistic ways! The only time I really, really loved Jeva.

I remember Parker starting and I thought, who is this ugly wimpy broad??? I like Dolan's Mo, but Parker made Mo her own, a nice normal person the rest of the nuts in town circled around. JFP and the rest of the hacks could never understand that a show needed someone like that. And Dolan, as her years as Margo proved, could not be a comforting warm actress to play that type of character.

One of us must have our memories wrong. The Reardons were banished and the Bauers backburnered just as Kyle appeared on the scene. The show was going great guns the year and especially the summer before, where you had the Bauers )Berts amputation story was front burner and featured almost everyone.) the Spaudldins, the Reardons, the Lewises and Three Musketeers all having equal footing and intertwined. The show actually hit number one that summer. And I think it was the fall that Kyle appeared along with everything going to hell..(actually it was the REVA show while Jarsh was gone.) Around the time of the clip they tried to get things back on track, finally putting Bert to rest (even if it was a pathetic attempt) bringing Simon back, bringing Alan back, and trying to center it as a less cynical amoral show (remember Kyle and that damn record company that would come to SF of all places and it was all about making a record for dopey Lujack.) It was sloppily done and things stayed a bit weird until Long came back (and yes, the Coopers hit town, and while Frank and Harley were rip offs of Tony and Nola, Coopermania didnt start in earnest until the intro of the dreaded Buzzard Cooper.) Kyle choose Maeve as an appropriate society spouse, and wanted to keep Reva as his "back door," whore as Reva put it (and I hope to God she didn't mean literally.) For that alone I never thought Reva would ever return to him. Of course, they repeated that in a better storyline with Alan obsessing over Reva but wanting to marry Vanessa as his appropriate spouse. I really wish Maeve hadn't left at that time, a storyline with them at odds was always good (never bought them as friends, did love whoever wrote the scene near the end where Lizzie says Vanessa kind of scares her and Reva agrees, "I've alwasy been afraid of her!" ) Hated Miss Sally but she was supposed to be annoying and trashy. Loved the scenes of her and BevAlex, "Please use the servants entrance to exit the mansion, thank you!" Though the scenes where Alex let Sally die to protect Alan were a bit harsh, and reminds you that they always wrote Alex with more then a bit of an edge if crossed.

Oh how I hated "KIIEEE-EL," and not because I was a Jeva fan. Larkin Malloy, (who I thought was friggen hawt in his early days on Edge) was such an overenuncing AC-TOR...actually, the only acting he could do is flare those huge ass nostrils. I also thought it weird that Reva would go from one controlling guy to another TOTALLY controlling guy like Kyle. But then their story just sucked...(it started just as GL went from a family soap with over the top elements, to a totaly over the top dynasty ripoff focusing on the Lewises and Reva). From the weird obsession he had with the Lewises (he thought he was one but found out Billy was really his brother) having Mindy trying to screw her own uncle, and having her shoot him, to Kyle and Reva being forced out of a plane by a spear gun, (Reva if full fur no less) and landing through the roof of an Amish barn,to the really, really stupid Infinity Ring, Billy is programmed to shoot Kyle(just shoot him already) with LM's chewing up the courtroom scenery "Just LOVE me brother,") to the stupid " Maeve tells Kyle the baby is dead but he aint," storyline, it was over the top, unpleasant, and just plain dumb. As you can see I think that was a particularly bad period of GL, maybe because it came off such a really good one, and I associate him (and Roxie, and Simon ugghhh) with that.

He was impossibly hot, especially for back then, when everyone on TV didnt looked "ripped." But he was so out of place in Oakdale, where everyone else looked normal, (and no one is like "WOA where the hell did you come from Mr. Shirtless!" and he couldn't act to save his life. Didn't the strike come and they revealed him to be a psycho? I wonder what Marland's intentions for him were (well, I know what personally his intentions were but the character.) Wonder what he looks like now and what he is doing. My favorite Margo. I heard HBS has a problem with other actresses, but she had the best chemistry with guys...(though her and Craig were a little "too," close holding each other, uh,Craig, thats your sister you freak!) Dolan never had the ummphh and warmth that HBS had. Sad as it is, I remember that dumb stock footage of the Parthenon to show we were in Greece.They showed it practically every scene!!!

I liked how he "came out," poor dishrag Iva, who apparently had no gaydar, was hot for him, and he had to come out to her, while sophisticated Babs was all, "And could you tell me something I didn't know???" I remember reading articles about Starcher at the time proclaiming his hetero ness, but was he or wasn't he in real life? I did hate that Hank had an offscreen boyfriend (annoying always refered to as "Charles,") and that he was dying of AIDS. But I think a offscreen was all Marland could do and a lot of gay men were dying back then. I do think he was the first gay "male," on daytime TV, the rest were as you said confused and women, (not quite as yucky somehow for the audiences at the time.) I was kinda annoyed that AMC went all .."Look we have a gay man, we are the first," when it came years later (and played by the hot, but stiff and not believeably gay.

That was kind of the ABC'ing of GL and when you really saw that they were going after a certain "audience," (teen, preteen girls who are at that stage that they are fixated on dating, guys, etc) and using focus groups to push their agenda through. One of the reasons that I first got into both ATWT and GL (besides growing up with them) was that they werent the typical "smaltzy," soaps of sterotype, their characters all had of course "romance," going on, but families, and work, and community obligations, and business fights, family dynamics and fights were always there along with "fighting for your man." That kind of phased out during the last part of JFP and McTrash really brought it home (i.e. Nola didn't have a man, so both she and Bridget were sad sack loosers bitter in life, when Bridget before, after having Peter, was also about her kid, and running the family business, etc.) But as I said, McTrash really isolated the characters, and took the family feel out of the show. Bridget was always considered a Bauer too, close to Ed and Chele, and then nothing, you never saw her near them. Which is too bad, as I said before, the show could have got back on its feet at that time if they had made use of the tight knit canvas, where really everybody was related somehow in a multigenerational extended family kind of way,)the Bauers were connected to about every family in town in one way or another.) That went away and we eventually had Wheeler's GL, which had a bunch of isolated character wandering around town, sad and lonely. Not a fun show to watch.

Marland never let anyone say anything bad about Lily, unless they were bad or "misguided," themselves. In the good old college TV room when ATWT was on, the dorky joke when someoene walked in was to say, "But how does Lily feel about this??" or in a super serious tone "How is Lily today???" The only reason I thought HR worked is that she was an ice cold bitch, and finally people could say, "Gee, Lily sure is a bitch!" The miscast just showed that Marland/ATWT was still a "soap," no matter how elevated he wanted it to be, as how the f*ck could Lily grow a couple feet and have a changed voice just by having PS, and then return to normal and no one says a damn thing! The problem with Rattay is that while she was a bitch, she wasnt a fun bitch like Lucinda, or Lilth (who really was just a fun psycho..) she didnt act like she was enjoying herself (once again, a problem with Marland's ATWT, NO one ever seemed to really let go and enjoy themselves) and her coldness didn't work for me as his ATWT was already too damn cold...she just kinda got lost in the ice with everyone else. I guess that is why, as much as I loved ATWT I always "liked," GL more, as it was more warm, vibrant and just fun at that time then ATWT and the tightly wound and reserved residents of Oakdale were.

And did we need another poor little rich girl who only wants to live at the Snyder Farm. Marland was repeating himself so much he basically ran out of steam. I wonder if he lived if he would have stayed at ATWT longer, been fired, or move on to that other soap he was working on?

The ratings probably went up as the last few months of JFP were total [!@#$%^&*] so anything looked better. Also, those last months had the show staggering and it had no energy. McT did bring a great deal of energy to the show, and there was always something happening. I suppose if she had a stronger producer she could have been kept reigned in. Brent was a great "umbrella," story, but as soon as that was over the show lost all its energy. She had extremely bad judgement (the Downs story going to Folly, it would have worked with Frank and Eleni, who had nothing to do..) the reversal of Roger to a maniac, the reversal of Holly having any feeling for Rog, Reva chasing after Buzzard begging him to schtump her, Alan and Alex having an almost incestual weird thing going, Michelle chasing after her own cousin, (by adoption) Michelle forgetting that Nola was her aunt (calling her Mrs. Chamberlin) or that Vanessa was her mom;s best friend and married to her cousin (calling Van"Mrs. Reardon," ) and of course, the black incest plot which ended with one of the few strong male black characters shooting himself to frame Alan. After Brent all we had was the battle for Reva and 5th Street (BORING) and Lonatrat...

Did it really change her history, as she was offscreen (in between "Our Private World," and Fulton's return to the show..) So anything could have happened. I do think its odd that Lisa, who matured into a good mother, would have allowed her son to be "motherless," especially with one kid dead and then her inheritance of all of McColl's wealth, she could have gone toe to toe with the Eldridges. I just think it would have been cool if Scott was as much of a skank (gay or straight) and manipulative as his mother was. As it is, Scott was suppsoed to have an "edge," but you know that Marland's men were either bland romantic leads or out right villians, he was much better with edgy women. I did like the "pec-tacular," guy who played him the second time around. Much more in what I thought Lisa's son would be... a fun loving skank (maybe cause Breen was too old for the part and always gave me the creeps. He was always "Will," to me.)

Well at least they could have made Earl a old queen out for Lisa's money, who then tries to kill her (strangling her with a featherd boa??) or something interesting ( I know GLADD woulda gone nuts.) I know he is supposed to be looking at her with awe and love, but Granger looks like he is about to say something bitchy about her dress or hair! I do think he was a good looking man for his age (in Strangers on a Train he is kinda hot) but not needed and boring (and cliched, "international spy," in Okey Dale????) Your thinking of Harriet, the wannabe Ethel to Shannon's wannabe Lucy (when they actually tried to make Shannon something other then selfrighteoulsy boring.) She was the world's cleanest and nicest homeless person when Shannon found her, only to be revealed to be an heiress with stock in Walsh Enterprises and then, nothing!! Steve was still there when Marland started. Runyeon gave interveiws revealing his obnoxious ego, about how the show became an ensemble show and he had nothing to do, and Marland responded that when he got there, the show was the "Steve and Betsy," show and he opened it up to include others and that basically everything that could have happened to S & B did, and their story was over, which was true...(if only MADD, Rauch, B & E and Gautman would have done that, saw that endless Josh and Reva, Michelle and Danny, Lily and Holden and Jack and "KEERRLY," was detrimental to a show's growth.) I was used to Meg Ryan's borderline retarded Betsy, when Frost came on Betsy grew a brain and about six inches, and she wasn't fun to make fun of, kinda just dull. Duncan was interesting for about three weeks when he first came on, Lucinda brought him on to break up Shannon and Brian and he got involved with Babs..but then, Marland pussed him out by falling in lurve with Shannon and having that boring sister/daughter story. When he first came on he was a rogueish bad boy, but we know Marland liked his nice guys bland and boring.

LOL..Lucinda was the one character who retained (even gained some)a sense of humor and fun when Marland arrived. I love that whatever happened to her she didn't moan and cry like other characters, she LOVED being Lucinda Walsh! Earl Mitchell, funny you should mention this, but under Marland's tenure is really when Lisa became the obscured and basically lone person she was when the show went off. I LOVED Lisa pre-Marland and as someone mentioned, with a big family of her own that she fought with and for, and coddled and butted into their lives (for their own good.) A much better use of Lisa then the "romantic woman," we see in this clip. I think Lisa as a wily crazy step mother fit her at that stage better then the endless woman in love with love. I do like that Marland remembered that she was always as much of a Hughes as Bob and Kim, but think they should have recast Diana and Kurt and Brian (talk about dull.) And you forgot one think about Earl,..dull, boring and so, so GAY!!!! I am suprised Lucinda didn't laugh about that "Good God James, Lisa will always be the oldest living Fag Hag on earth won't she darling!!!!" I am sure that the "Star," of the show was the Steve actor. I do love that when Calhoun and Marland got their he was obscured and left in a hissy fit that the show wasnt the Steve and Betsy show. Never liked the actor or the character much. And yes, the show was more freewheeling and just kinda messy and fun for some reason at that time.

McTavish's GL was so weird..on one hand really exciting (LOVED Brent/Marion) but disjointed and really, really weird (HATED Folly as they used to call them but I really hated Jay Hammer as Fletch...that pic is so him, starring straight at the camera he used to walk over Garret's lines all the time.) That was really the make or break of GL and point of no return to its eventual cancellation. If MCtrash had gotten someone like Aunt Meta in earlier to consolidate the show again, got us out of 7th Street and Buzz mania and not cartooned everyone out we could have repaired the damage that JFP's later years and ego did to the show.

"There she goes, shooting her mouth off again!" I love John vs. Lisa...huge Gautman mistake that his "thing," against Fulton prevented a longer, more protracted John/Lucinda/Lisa "brawl," for old times sake. I actually liked this period a bit better then Marland's..it was still ATWT but more trashy "fun," then Marland's sometimes uber earnest ATWT. Was that the Duncan actor as a extra playing a cop in the courthouse?

God, Marland's later ATWT years were so, so, so, homoerotic!!! How did Linc go from being a beefy BLOND to a skinny brunette??? LURVE Damien but forgot how young Lily looked (at that time) next to him. She looks like a kid! (LOL...at her "cutting an album," like anyone wants to hear her sing..why do actors who have an okay voice insist they can "sing."??) I woulda been just like that waitress "Well HELLO!" being confronted with Damien?

Wow, I had no idea!!! I thought for sure he was much, much younger.

Or the Bauers, Spauldings, etc. I rememeber my mom wrapping presents and watching ATWT and GL. Does anyone remember how the Scott Eldridge story played out? I remember them bringing back that RH actor as John Eldridge (which looked ridiculous as he was way younger then Fulton) and he was dying, but how did Scott find out Lisa was his mom and who was the actual father. I also remember flashbacks of Lisa with young actors playing John and his brother, and it was kind of gross, Fulton was playing Lisa and the actors were all younger ( I remember SOD saying, "Next time Lisa, just tell us about it, we will beleive you!")