Mitch

I have to agree with Tina Sloan on this. But wasnt Pam Long the HW for Philli/Beth and Beth/Lujack?

Never ever did I buy Phillip and Harley because they had already established them as sorta like a Big Bri/Lil Sis to me, so I saw no romantic energy from them

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.

Thanks GLNo1 for the dates - I wish I had been as quick to save things and remember dates when I started watching GL.

Mitch, how did Alex let Sally die? I always thought Sally had some heart condition or something and she died when she was going to let everyone know that Marah was Josh's daughter.

What did you both think of Sonni/Solita?

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.

Oops - I meant to address one other thing. According to my trusty records, Ellen Dolan last aired as Maureen on March 21, 86, Ellen Parker started on April 2, Richard Van Vleet last aired on August 8 and Peter Simon was back on August 18.

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.

I agree about Maeve, how anyone would think someone would choose plain old her over saucy Reva is ridiculous.

Actually , I look at the Kyle era as the last of GL's glory years.Right around his departure we had the quick extermination of the Reardon clan (for me, Chelsea never felt like a "true" Reardon), deaths of Lujack and original Beth,and the start of "the Josh and Reva show" backburning a lot of characters/situations. Also, Coopermania would be right around the corner, sucking up a lot oxygen from the show. For sure, there would be times I enjoyed the show afterwords, but it never was truly the same.

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.

This clip reminds me how much I wish Alan and Kyle would have interacted more on the show,with two of the long missed acting heavyweights of the 1980s.

In fact Larkin Malloy's tenure on the show was way too brief,sacrificed perhaps for the return of the Josh and Reva show, even though IMO he had just as much chemistry with Kim Zimmer.

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.

Robert Tyler.....yummmmm

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!!!

Hank appeared in 1988...dont know if he was the first. Maybe one of our historians(posters) here on SON might know. I wish I knew. I was 18 when Hank frist appeared....I think he was the first gay character I had seen on tv.

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.

Lilith and Hank(ATWT first gay character...sorry Luke...lol)

Soapsuds, thanks for that! "Modeling was something I considered at one time, but the timing was just not right (cause I was too busy killing people and shipping their remains to my enemies..a girl has to have her hobbies)" What in the hell was Lilith doing hanging out in the hospital cafeteria? And god love the actor playing Hank, he really did come off as "gay," without," being a sterotype...(he would have made a great Will on W & G.) I thought for a minute that he was going to ask poor boring Iva to model! God that McKenknie set was uglier then hell.

It kind of makes you sad to watch that where all those characters were featured and with so many extras in the background (WAY too many extras, no hosptial cafeteria has that many people just walking back and forth.) Oakdale and Springfield were so damn deserted before they died.

It still pisses me off how the Hart/Dinah/Roger story played out, how Roger was turned into a blithering fool at the expense of the oh so amazing Hart and Dinah.

Actually when I think of McTavish's entire tenure, I get this bad taste in my mouth because the show centered itself around some disgusting qualities of its female cast. Holly, Dinah, Reva, hell even Gilly and Vanessa "schtumping" around town, their lives going to hell all of a sudden their lives seemingly revolved around the males in their lives.

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.

Didn't they initially imply this was the same Julia?

I think Lily worked because she was a believable angst-ridden teen. I think that a lot of viewers could sympathize with her because she wasn't the prettiest, she made mistakes, she could be a brat. And while there was a lot of Lily propping, you never had a story like Meg goes psycho and shoots Dusty in the head and frames Lily. The people who didn't like Lily - the few who dared to have that opinion - were still given stories and dimension.

Now this is all based on my Youtube viewing. My own experience was in watching starting around late 89/early to mid 90, by which time Heather Rattray was in the role. I liked Heather and I believed her Lily, a cold woman trying to find vulnerability again. I remember being moved by her work when Lily had a miscarriage.

I had little time for Byrne's Lily when she returned in 1993. Holden/Lily bored me to tears. So did her endless singing. So did her victim routine. I did grow to like her with Damian and I thought the Orlena saga of gaslighting and terror was entertaining. And I did think Holden and Lily were a natural fit when Jon returned in late 96.

My viewing after that was sporadic but I generally preferred Martha as Rose. To me Rose was a more interesting character.

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.

Okay, I so wasn't going to admit to the ST:TNG connection...but since you posted the pic...

I can only imagine the chemistry had Joe Breen schemed with Carly...Doug Wert was like the second Caleb. Only not as carbon-copy in looks. Yvonne Perry---ugh. At least when Martha Byrne played the poor little rich girl, her poutiness and spoiled rotten persona hinted at more. Oh, and she was like 15, not 30 trying to be 18.

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?

I'd like to see more of that too. It's probably the story which is available that I'd want to see the most, along with the full Carrie storyline. I have an interview with Rita Lloyd from around this time I will post sometime.

Mitch, I agree with you that McTavish was probably make or break for GL -- on the one hand, the ratings did go up for a while, and if that hadn't happened then there's a good chance GL would have been canceled. But by the time she was fired the show was a living hell. Looking back it's actually surprising GL managed to survive that...I guess this was when CBS/P&G still cared. Then Rauch revived the show before the long, slide downward.

I do wonder if McTavish helped create the initial plans for Meta. She had already come in by the time Laibson was going.

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...

Mitch..I think u also mentioned the whole fiasco with Scott Eldridge. I think that was one of Marland's worse stories ever. It did bring in a good character in Scott and his fights with brother Tom but the set up for his arrival was so badly written. So much of changing Lisa history and backstory.....I actually hated the story until Joseph Breen came to Oakdale. I forgot how Scott found out Lisa was his mother.

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.)

Lucinda was always love to me.

I think the only reason Earl was created was because he(Granger) was invovled with the EP at the time. Earl brought nothing to the show. I cringed everytime Shannon called him...Uncle Earl....ugh. He was a fugly gay man..sorry....lol..... and speaking of Shannon...couldnt stand her sidekick...gawd what was her name.....she was such an annoying boring character too. The only interesting part about Shannon was when Lilieth appeared....loved her. Duncan and Shannon were so boring together. Michael Swan was such a boring character as well. When Shannon returned in the mid 90's she looked so rejuvanted..fresh....only to be written out.

The Star you think was Frank Ruyenon...hmmmm.....Was Steve still there when Marland started?? IF he was....then Marland is the one that sent him to jail for drug trafficing...and then put Betsy with Josh...which I found rather odd and dull....lol.....I did like Betsy freedom from Steve even though I was a big Steve and Betsy fan.

And I floved Lyndsay Frost as new Betsy....

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.

Gotta love Lucinda!!

I couldn't stand the Earl Mitchell character...so dull and boring. I prefered her with Grant Coleman.

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.

From the August 29, 1995 Weekly (K-III Magazines).

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.

This is very jumpy but it's a fun scene, an early, awkward argument between Lucinda and Lisa, about 2 minutes in. The wardrobe seems very wrong for both ladies, especially Lucinda (that boring necklace and smothering hat and coat), but I love some of Lisa's lines, like, "the ladybird will soon be a jailbird." The outfit for Kim also seems odd -- she looks like she's going to a British Royal wedding. You can see a closer look at that in the first clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi3KrThPgok&feature=related

"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?

Love this one...features..Janice Maxwell.....Connor Walsh...and new Linc....right before his murder mystery.

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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?

Michael Levin "that RH actor" is older than Eileen Fulton. Levin was born in 1932 and Fulton in 1933. I see your point, though. Levin's appearance was younger than his age as long as he wore his toup.

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

I still miss ATWT so much. Thanksgiving just wasn't the same without the annual Hubbard Squash. Christmas seems hollow this year with no Hughes/Snyders/Ryans to watch.

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!")