SFK

On 12/9/2021 at 7:06 PM, All My Shadows said:

No you cannot. Though there is zero physical resemblance, I think the late Bernie Mac would have made for a good Fred Sanford. Much of what made the character so hilarious was Redd’s unique cadence. I can imagine Bernie delivering Fred’s dialogue: “I could stick your face in some dough and make some gorilla cookies.”

Kim Wayans would be a good Esther.

I’m terrible with character names, forgive me, but I was getting ready for work some Saturdays ago and they aired the episodes where a wife found out that her husband was having an affair with their babysitter. I was so mad that I didn’t have the time to sit and properly watch. Just listening was so riveting. I’ll miss hearing that iconic theme which became my “You’ve got an hour to get to work… Okay, you’ve got half an hour to get to work” reminders.

2 hours ago, Bright Eyes said:

What are your favourite memories from the show?

The moment that has left the most lasting impression with me is Mark in the kitchen with his parents telling them that he is HIV positive.

Sad news for me. Admittedly, I never watched faithfully as just two episodes a weekend made for an impossibly slow viewing experience. But it was always nice to check in on these folks.

Special Announcement: WETA is sad to announce that BBC Studios has decided to stop distributing the beloved serial drama EastEnders to PBS stations in the U.S. The final two episodes will air on WETA UK on Saturday, December 11.

Thank you for your dedicated support of this beloved series; we have enjoyed sharing the show with you and the community of fans for more than three decades.

@Khanthe OLTL oral history is available in electronic format. I bought it months ago and devoured it in about two long nights. I think you’ll love it.

When I lived in Manhattan, I saw Colin Egglesfield at Barnes and Noble not far from the AMC studio one evening. I’m guessing that he had just finished taping, but I’m not sure. He was in the Sports section, reading with a grin on his face. I wish I had the wherewithal to say hello but I didn’t want to bother him and honestly I’m not sure what I would have said as I was so turned off by his storyline and probably jealous that he was playing Erica’s son. But I wonder how he felt about his AMC experience and if he had any clue why fan reaction was as such.

11 hours ago, j swift said:

It also brings up my old queery about the Lockridge Mansion.

Now we know that nobody on soaps has to use their bathroom, except to have sex in the tub, but if Minx lived in the primary bedroom, do you think that Augusta didn't have an en-suite bathroom (her makeup table was shown in her bedroom)?  Does this indicate the possibility (given the age of the mansion) that at one point Lionel, Augusta, Warren, and Laken all shared a bathroom?

This post makes me think of Capitol’s Myrna Clegg who had the most elaborate and oft-seen bathroom probably in the history of daytime. Sure, we never saw the actual WC, but we did see the jacuzzi tub so it’s not a giant leap that a shower and toilet were close by. That set is best described as a spalon. She had a desk for business, massage table, tanning lamps, pump chair and vanity for getting her hair done, expansive clothes closets, space for her to practice tai chi… a unique and well implemented set.

@DramatistDreamer Valarie worked with Fosse in the Broadway show Big Deal and was the original star of the Broadway musical review, Fosse. She has a great deal of experience with his choreography.

I also loved Fosse/Verdon. I was working on a touring production down in North Carolina when it aired. F/X would repeat the new episodes like two times a night and I’d watch over and over again.

Christmas 1984 was amazing. A pop culture explosion of great toys with their equally great cartoon tie-ins.

The devil is a little dizzying… to paraphrase Maya the Bee, Morphing here and morphing there, busy morphing everywhere. Trying to make sense of it is not worth our brain cells.

DF looked like he had pink eye in his right eye in today’s episode. Maybe he took some drama drops.

I like Xander and Gwen. Not sure why, but I do.

21 hours ago, j swift said:

Sharon Brown who played the character Daisy on the CBS soap opera Love of Life in 1971, and she originated the role of Chantel on the Generations from 1989 to 1990 is currently in the Broadway revival cast of Caroline or Change.  She is the rare case of an understudy who has gotten her own published reviews.  Many will recall that AMC's Tonya Pinkins originated the role in the first production.

Sharon Brown is a REVELATION as Caroline. I've never seen or even imagined a take on Caroline like this (even on various videos I've seen) - while Tonya and most actresses I've seen clips of play the role pretty angry from the jump, Sharon didn't - her Caroline was clearly frustrated but not visibly or tonally upset. In Act Two, you could see the anger start to come out and then her performance of "Lot's Wife" might have been the best thing I have ever seen on a Broadway stage. 

Sharon was one of the many Effies in Dreamgirls. She can hold a note forever. Many of the Effies were interviewed by Seth Rudetsky several months ago, it’s a great watch.

Her dad is Johnny Brown who played Bookman on Good Times. Sharon did an episode herself as “Fun Girl”, a young woman with a disability who corresponds with Michael over CB radio.

It’s a bit of a stretch when JJ consults the steno to read things back. I love JJ and it’s nice to be watching her new series from the very beginning. I’m a little less sentimental about Byrd. I was super happy to see him playing a reverend on B&B but I found him pretty useless on JJ. I thought he was paid far too much to stand there doing crossword puzzles pretty much ignoring the proceedings, failing to make eye contact and not even politely cracking a smile when JJ tried to engage him with a little humor.

16 hours ago, j swift said:

John Waters on camp (from an interview with The Face - August, 2019)

Does “camp” still mean anything today?
"If you know, if you’re in on it, it can’t be camp. It has to be something innocent that tried to be good, that was so bad, like the movie Boom! (1968). That’s the true meaning of the word."

Yes, I remember him saying years ago, “Camp doesn’t know it’s camp.” Waters’ films are campy but more satire than camp. Liza performing Quiet Love is camp.

On 11/18/2021 at 5:13 PM, Xanthe said:

Robin Strasser's Rachel never overlapped with David Bailey's Russ. Did the actors have some other connection? 

Hi, my mistake, I meant Sam Groom.

7 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

 

Does anyone recognize the set in this photo?  I started watching AW in 1971, and I'm fairly certain this set was not used during the time I watched the show.  So it must have been used prior to 1971.  

This is not Jim and Mary Matthews' house, but it might have been Liz Matthews' original house.  That set was never used again after Liz left the show in early 1971.  

Anyone remember this set on Another World?

I love the photos of Robin from this shoot, I thought she looked so pretty when I first saw them. There’s one with her and David Bailey that they used for a SOD article back in the ‘90s. That’s where my mind was blown learning that my beloved Dorian was the original Rachel.

Robin’s features are a little exaggerated in these photos because she was in fact swollen from an allergic reaction to mango. Robin said that Rauch destroyed most of the photos of her as Rachel when she quit the show and had to be replaced. She quipped that he of course kept the ones where she was temporarily disfigured.

What happened to Joseph?

I like TW King but I’m a little distracted by this in and out Irish accent he has woven in. I swear he wasn’t doing it when he first started.

20 hours ago, j swift said:

If the devil reveals that Lani is Paulina's daughter what are the consequences?

I get that Abe will be mad that she kept the secret, (as if she could have told him between kidnappings and being shot).  

But, does it actually impact Lani, Eli, or their kids if Paulina turns out to be the biological mother?  I feel as if I am missing something like it makes Eli and Lani related...

I’ll add that once this all comes out, a lot of Lani’s anger should also be directed to Tamara. I wasn’t watching when Lani was first introduced but I’m assuming it was Tamara who brought Abe into this mess.

Sherri is doing a great job and she has the studio audience in stitches. Her style is stand-up, her comedy is more crafted whereas Wendy’s appeal has always been her off the cuff messiness. They both deserve a place in daytime and I hope this opportunity leads to more for Sherri. She certainly is not as try-too-hard exhausting as Jerry was when he pinch hit for Wendy. He has made The Talk unwatchable for me. He is charismatic but he just needs to relax and trust himself more.

Tossing a few cents into the “If” jar, this show is not for ABC primetime. I think it would be a little smash if streamed, getting good numbers from a loyal soap hungry niche audience looking out at a sea of streaming content. It won’t stand a chance in primetime regardless of the names involved. We are soap fans. Many other viewers are not, and this being a derived premise will turn too many viewers off. Maybe a first or second curiosity watch, but I don’t anticipate that viewership in ABC primetime would sustain this show. Streaming from the start.

2 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

There was a point in time when Jerry Springer's show was more "serious" than Oprah's....

Things changed a lot after those ranchers in Texas sued her and when she started giving that quack Dr. Phil a platform to spew his sh!t. The "live your best life" nonsense made her so entitled and elitist, and it was never really the same after. The period around her epic box office flop with Beloved being the absolute nadir. 

The Quincy Jones/Rod Temperton produced theme ('Oprah's Theme') will always be my favorite, even if it's only known now for simply being one of the songs Carlton danced to in the Oprah episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air...

 

 

I’m from the D.C. area and that iconic synth pan flute solo got a Go-go remix that had a fair amount of airplay in the ‘80s.

I loved watching Oprah when I got home from school. Lots of warm memories. Haunting ones as well. Her show really was the perfect way to wrap up an afternoon of soap viewing and her final episode was emotional viewing like any soap finale.

I also must say that Oprah and Webster have got to be where I got this itch to visit Chicago. Still haven’t made it yet but those two shows definitely birthed my interest in the city.

We had a sock hop on a Friday night in the 7th grade and Oprah’s episode that afternoon was all about the latest dance moves. I feel like everyone there that night had watched.

Paul Simon’s 10th anniversary theme still makes me verklempt.

I’ve uploaded some clips to YT of a makeover episode I loved with Joan Collins, Debbie Allen, and Ali MacGraw.

Boyz II Men surprised two teenage fans and serenaded them as they cried their eyes out.

The Trudy Chase episode. Her description of her abusers filling a basket full of snakes and pouring it over her head has stuck with me for all these years and has my hackles raised as I type this.

I loved when Patti LaBelle was on and they cooked Patti’s macaroni and cheese together. Patti commended Oprah on her dough kneading for the biscuits. Oprah’s response: “I did a movie.”

Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, and Bette Midler on for The First Wives Club.

ANY time Susan Lucci and the All My Children cast were on. She’d also have Knots cast members on every now and then which I enjoyed.

Any time Whitney was on. When O adopted the I’m Every Woman theme, she dedicated some time in the season opener to playing the various versions (upbeat, slow and serious, Gospel) of the song for the audience.

Some awkward moments that live on in my memory include O using the term “skid marks”, and in her trashier days asking a guy how it was possible that he and another guy had sex with a woman at the same time. The guy replied, “I mean, we basically sandwiched her.” O: “You sandwiched her. Okay. Uh, I just want to remind everybody that this is a daytime show…” I was in elementary school at the time and even then I remember thinking, “Bitch, you asked!”

5 hours ago, Ponds said:

Who the hell is doing Hope's hair?  What a mess.

That’s what my grandfather’s shower would do to my hair when I was little.

@soapfan770 Wow, thank you!

On 10/31/2021 at 10:29 AM, Chris 2 said:

 “Beyond Salem” is a good example of how the future of the format can evolve. It’s essentially a limited series as opposed to an open-ended one. And they could do future “seasons” if they economics make sense.

What I loved was that I was legitimately excited to go on this cheesy little adventure. It was akin to that old school anticipation of a new soap’s debut. I hadn’t felt that since November 13, 1995 with The City. Yet in a limited run, you instinctively know that the show doesn’t have time to [!@#$%^&*] around, it has to take off running and be intriguing every day. Also there’s no fear of cancellation as it isn’t meant to last. It’s just icing. I loved when All My Children did those web only minisodes back in its final year or so. I haven’t watched Chad and Abby in Paris, no real draw for me there, but Beyond Salem was at least to me an undeniably fun little jaunt.

9 minutes ago, Vee said:

I believe the PP soaps are still on YT, for now. Someday I'll have to secure a torrent or something.

10 minutes ago, Vee said:

I’m smiling playing that OLTL opening in my head.

On 10/31/2021 at 9:44 AM, Liberty City said:

I noticed when Sunset Beach changed its production model within its first year it began to shift to a more standard-produced soap opera, but with no budget. I firmly believe NBC, much like Santa Barbara, was not the right network for the soap. I'm surprised FOX never tried to enter into the daytime arena with a soap opera, which would put it in direct alignment with the three major television networks. And given how successful Beverly Hills, 90210 was for the network, it would've been a solid sell. Spelling could've been the Dick Wolf of FOX. I'm just not sold on the Ben & Meg storyline, and why it was the driving force for the soap. I genuinely don't. Not to mention, I don't believe Robert Guza Jr. was the right person to head write for the tenure that he did. Not to mention, I would have loved to have seen what H. Wesley Kenney had in mind for the soap, especially since it's likely what caused him to leave, due to "creative differences." Kenny, to me, was a much stronger producer than Gary Tomlin; he worked such powerful soaps that he had the influence of the likes of William J. Bell. Up to that point, Tomlin had worked on All My Children as a producer, and I am unfamiliar if Agnes Nixon were around during his tenure (1995–1996), but his green showed in the quality of the serial's run.

I can't and don't hold that against them... it was a quick "get in and get it done" type of situation that producers and writers were placed into, and they all handled it as well as they could. Plus, many of the cast had re-located to Los Angeles for ABC's final months of production, so I doubt they wanted to return to the east coast, All My Children actors especially. For One Life to Live it was easier, since many of their cast were still on the east coast.

I think the formats All My Children and One Life to Live employed were ahead of their time; in re-watching All My Children, its production model reminds me that of Hollyoaks (which also streams on Hulu). Not to mention, Beyond Salem employed an episode-per-day format, and it seemed to work for them. And Days of Our Lives, from my understanding, is still a popular stream on Peacock (as it was on NBC.com), so I think if people are invested, then they're invested.

I'm going to embrace the new bailiff, and give him the benefit of a chance. I'm more so concerned about the other new rules coming into play.

I also think producing each soap for two-weeks and then swapping was a bad idea. Clearly, sharing a production space was another issue. Had they been able to get a space where both soaps could produce at the same time, I do believe it would've been oiled together. But, Richard H. Frank & Jeff Kwatinetz went in with the best of intentions, and I stand firm on that. But it's clear they were in over their heads with producing BOTH at the same time. They bit off more than they could chew.

I think it irked One Life to Live fans more than it did All My Children fans. But you could tell, when they swore off the swearing, the episodes still had them, but they were censored. Let us not forget this gem:

But, like you said, Erika Slezak's old-fashioned attitude is likely what brings on her view point of things, because it seems like majority of the cast had little issue with it.

I felt Téa’s, “I don’t f^cking care!” in my bones. So satisfying.

Having just caught up on three months of B&B (I was burning through several episodes a night), I really wish the PP soaps were still available for my next nightly viewing project. Just like with the P&G Soap Classics page on AOL, I wrongly assumed that anything uploaded to the Internet would be there forever. As someone touched upon upthread, it can be overwhelming when so much content is uploaded in a short period of time. IIRC, months of Texas were uploaded in a few weeks. It was almost too much of a good thing. I’m forgetting exactly what kept me from staying current with the PP soaps. I would certainly make the time now.