7 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

There was a swing set on the playground in Lassiter, PA that Vicky & Jake would go to, as a special place where they would go when things were awful. And in an incredibly stupid move the show had them move it to Bay City. 

Did Vicky and Jake actually transport the swing set as part of a storyline, or did the writers just dispense with having them travel to PA and start showing the swing set as conveniently local? 

Geography is one of the things that can get flexible when they aren't careful. The Frame farm springs to mind. And as far as Vicky's past goes, I was watching a scene where Felicia confides in Donna that she is looking for a daughter she had thought died at birth, and Donna commiserates with her and throws in a comment that Victoria was never adopted but was raised by Bridget. The original version of the story was that Bridget was employed by Grace and Philip Carson who adopted Victoria as a baby and then died when she was young so Bridget raised her. Maybe Victoria was too young to remember the Carsons and that's why they never got mentioned but they did exist. 

2 hours ago, Xanthe said:

Did Vicky and Jake actually transport the swing set as part of a storyline, or did the writers just dispense with having them travel to PA and start showing the swing set as conveniently local? 

Geography is one of the things that can get flexible when they aren't careful. The Frame farm springs to mind. And as far as Vicky's past goes, I was watching a scene where Felicia confides in Donna that she is looking for a daughter she had thought died at birth, and Donna commiserates with her and throws in a comment that Victoria was never adopted but was raised by Bridget. The original version of the story was that Bridget was employed by Grace and Philip Carson who adopted Victoria as a baby and then died when she was young so Bridget raised her. Maybe Victoria was too young to remember the Carsons and that's why they never got mentioned but they did exist. 

I thought moving it was actually in story! And I definitely remember that Vicky was the adopted child of people who Bridget worked for in the original iteration!! 

6 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

To AW's credit, they did briefly hire Michael Malone who had great success at OLTL, but for some reason his work at AW was a complete flop.  I don't understand why he was not successful, but the things he tried to do just didn't seem a good fit for Another World.  It has been suggested by others that Malone was most successful with he had a good writing partner, so perhaps the lack of a partner contributed to his failure.  Or perhaps there was not a good fit between Malone and the executive producer.   But I can just imagine what Douglas Marland would have done at AW.  Too bad Marland didn't come to AW directly after Lemay!  

Idk those final years of AW seemed like a really sketchy time. So much interference, so much back and forth with NBC and P&G, that maybe even one of the greats that you mentioned may have had just as much of a difficult time as Malone did. 

I know everyone's seen it & it's not even AW but it came up this weekend, Connie Ford's most famous slap ... in A Summer Place  

 

Did the producers and writers have much say with the show the last few years? It just seemed to be that that decisions were constantly made that would hurt the show. If a bad decision could be made, TPTB would make an even worse one. It feels the way P&G destroyed GL the last few years. 

15 minutes ago, chrisml said:

Did the producers and writers have much say with the show the last few years? It just seemed to be that that decisions were constantly made that would hurt the show. If a bad decision could be made, TPTB would make an even worse one. It feels the way P&G destroyed GL the last few years. 

I doubt it, at least not in big departments like exits. I remember Malone saying, when asked about whether Iris would return, that they were focusing on younger characters (paraphrasing). I doubt he would have felt that way. I doubt he would have dumped Anna Holbrook, David Forsyth, Kale Browne, etc.

He did supposedly re-use a lot of his bible for that New Orleans soap that never got picked up, although I imagine P&G and NBC would have been fine with it as at that time they were still chasing DAYS ratings.

Edited September 5, 20232 yr by DRW50

1 hour ago, chrisml said:

Did the producers and writers have much say with the show the last few years? It just seemed to be that that decisions were constantly made that would hurt the show. If a bad decision could be made, TPTB would make an even worse one. It feels the way P&G destroyed GL the last few years. 

P&G and NBC were at war with each other in the case of AW. They had been for many years. 

At the end of GL (and ATWT) P&G was at war with CBS but that had only been going on since 1995. 

There were other factors but those underlying ones were pretty important. 

Personally I believe P&G just got tired of fighting, but it was the networks who made the cancel decisions. 

@DRW50  Oh, it wasn't supposedly! Dr. Shane Roberts, Lila Roberts & her personality & quirks, etc. were from 13 Bourbon St. I'm sure of it. Although, no, I've not seen the pilot or the bible, just a description. So it is opinion. 

 

Edited September 5, 20232 yr by Donna L. Bridges

19 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Oh, it wasn't supposedly! Dr. Shane Roberts, Lila Roberts & her personality & quirks, etc. were from 13 Bourbon St. I'm sure of it. Although, no, I've not seen the pilot or the bible, just a description. So it is opinion. 

I believe so.

The shift to making Cindy so similar to Alex Olanov (which Kim Rhodes somehow made work) and the unfortunate rape story with Toni felt like Malone re-using his OLTL material.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

The shift to making Cindy so similar to Alex Olanov (which Kim Rhodes somehow made work) and the unfortunate rape story with Toni felt like Malone re-using his OLTL material.

Oh, yeah. I wasn't even thinking about that. Definitely doing the ole retread scripting. But, supposedly Savitz didn't like any ideas he liked. 

It was so weird that P&G and NBC took turns picking the EP. Why did P&G ever let NBC have so much "creative" power?!! 

It always amuses me when networks say they're firing an actor for budgetary reasons, but then hire actors (Robert Kelker-Kelly and Lisa Peluso) who don't come cheap. It's like Warner Brothers saying they need to cut debt so they gut the profitable TCM, but then they have enough money to spend massive amounts of money to promote BARBIE.

Mid-1980s ad for Alberto V05 shampoo with an unconvincingly-dubbed Kristen Marie (Cheryl).

 

 

1 hour ago, chrisml said:

It always amuses me when networks say they're firing an actor for budgetary reasons, but then hire actors (Robert Kelker-Kelly and Lisa Peluso) who don't come cheap. It's like Warner Brothers saying they need to cut debt so they gut the profitable TCM, but then they have enough money to spend massive amounts of money to promote BARBIE.

Absolutely! I mean can we talk about net versus gross? And, how wrong it is to get rid of known to bring on unknown?!! 

On 9/3/2023 at 12:38 AM, DRW50 said:

The most successful character since Reuben (they could have done a lot more with Reuben)

I found Clayton Prince charismatic as Reuben and he was a good friend to Josie, worked with Zack and Cass and Frankie, and had a little romance with Kasi Lemmons as Tess. So they did try, but maybe the real problem was they didn't do enough to connect him and Ronnie and Tess to the rest of the canvas. Ronnie was dating Zack but although she worked at the hospital and singing in the club she didn't seem close to anyone else. Tess was really only connected to Reuben I think (even though she was supposed to be rich so could have intersected with the Cory or Love families).

8 minutes ago, Xanthe said:

I found Clayton Prince charismatic as Reuben and he was a good friend to Josie, worked with Zack and Cass and Frankie, and had a little romance with Kasi Lemmons as Tess. So they did try, but maybe the real problem was they didn't do enough to connect him and Ronnie and Tess to the rest of the canvas. Ronnie was dating Zack but although she worked at the hospital and singing in the club she didn't seem close to anyone else. Tess was really only connected to Reuben I think (even though she was supposed to be rich so could have intersected with the Cory or Love families).

They sort of hinted as Reuben/Josie too. I think, beyond what you mention, they just weren't going to give a black character a more central role. 

I did like Ronnie a lot. I wish they'd done more with her. She was very sweet.

Edited September 5, 20232 yr by DRW50

I think AW did a pretty great job casting black actors, all the way back to Micki Grant as John Randolph's secretary and law clerk, Peggy Nolan. They just didn't write much of anything for them.

The exception to that was Corinne Jacker's headwriting stint, with the introduction of the Morgan and Harding families. Unfortunately, the writing was sub-standard. But the actors were very good.