SFK

Great thread idea! I have often wondered about SON members’ avatars. Mine of course is Robin Strasser and Larry Luckinbill.

That was my wishful casting way back when we didn’t even know what an Alicia Minshew was.

GT coloured her hair for Dinah as well. While I find KA’s wig oppressive (it literally looks heavy) I’d be lying if I said that it doesn’t give me the Taylor silhouette that makes such transitions easier to swallow. This is a believable recast. I don’t have to do the mental gymnastics to remind myself that this is the same character like I still sometimes do with TK.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hi, my mistake, I meant Sam Groom.

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.

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.

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!”

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