I guess they used David Canary's photo as he was known to Soapnet viewers through AMC. Not sure why they used a bootleg "The Music Sounds Better With You."

I always thought it too bad that soapnet started with reruns from the middle of 1987. It would have been more fun to see them start from early 1983. The show was stronger in 83, and we would have seen the beginnings of a number of major characters who dominated in the late 80s and 90s.

Edited April 10, 20241 yr by Jdee43

48 minutes ago, Jdee43 said:

I always thought it too bad that soapnet started with reruns from the middle of 1987. It would have been more fun to see them start from early 1983. The show was stronger in 83, and we would have seen the beginnings of a number of major characters who dominated in the late 80s and 90s.

They claimed that was a clean start, but I agree with you.

2 hours ago, Jdee43 said:

I always thought it too bad that soapnet started with reruns from the middle of 1987. It would have been more fun to see them start from early 1983. The show was stronger in 83, and we would have seen the beginnings of a number of major characters who dominated in the late 80s and 90s.

There was a rumor going around that since there was so much turnaround the year before, mid 1987 was the easiest time for fans to jump right in and have a good understanding of the show, characters, etc. 

2 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

There was a rumor going around that since there was so much turnaround the year before, mid 1987 was the easiest time for fans to jump right in and have a good understanding of the show, characters, etc. 

Didn't they also want to start there because it was when Anne Heche began as Victoria?

1 hour ago, Xanthe said:

Didn't they also want to start there because it was when Anne Heche began as Victoria?

This is what I was told.

10 hours ago, Xanthe said:

Didn't they also want to start there because it was when Anne Heche began as Victoria?

Maybe. I did hear that rumor too.

I also heard that mid 1987 was the point where there were no more missing episodes, and that the end of the Sin Stalker storyline was missing. 

3 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

I also heard that mid 1987 was the point where there were no more missing episodes, and that the end of the Sin Stalker storyline was missing. 

I remember the suggestion that they couldn't start with the early 80s because they didn't have all the tapes, but the idea that they were missing tapes from as late as early 1987 is blowing my mind a little. I wonder what the retention and cataloguing system was like because it was certainly common to have flashbacks to earlier events in the early/mid 80s. Most of the time they were pretty recent events (within days), but sometimes they were further in the past than that and they must have had a system to locate the clip they wanted.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Xanthe said:

I remember the suggestion that they couldn't start with the early 80s because they didn't have all the tapes, but the idea that they were missing tapes from as late as early 1987 is blowing my mind a little. I wonder what the retention and cataloguing system was like because it was certainly common to have flashbacks to earlier events in the early/mid 80s. Most of the time they were pretty recent events (within days), but sometimes they were further in the past than that and they must have had a system to locate the clip they wanted.

Everyone I know of thinks that P&G stopped the practice of wiping in either 1979 or 1980. 1987 would be so totally different. But, I'm sure it's true that even when they began to keep  a one-off here or there could be missing. 

On 4/9/2024 at 8:26 PM, Mona Kane Croft said:

It was very strange to suddenly have (not one, but) TWO of Mac Cory's nephews arrive in town as law enforcement officials, with no mention of that being unusual -- considering the multi-generational wealth of the Cory family. Wouldn't it have been expected that someone (Mac? Rachel? Ada? Jamie? The maid? or someone?) might mention how odd it was to have two brothers coming from a millionaire family and choosing law enforcement as a career? Trying not to stereotype, but it was written as if the Corys were suddenly working-class, with two nephews "movin' on up" into law enforcement.  

I'm not suggesting it should have been a huge deal in the scripts, but still it was worthy of mention.   And the situation itself could have made for some good social-class drama, had it not been ignored.  Imagine how Iris would have felt about two of her cousins joining law enforcement?  Or how about Neal and Adam's mother? She could have come to Bay City to express her displeasure about her sons' choices.   Lots of opportunities for class-conflict that were ignored or lost.  Just my opinion, of course.  

There were definitely periods when the show had no real sense of class distinction. When done well there is a distinction between wealth and class and different family members can be affected differently. 

As I understand it Mac was always less snobbish than Iris regardless of background. And with the later storylines it wasn't clear to me whether Mac had come from a wealthy background or if he had married a woman whose family came from money and that it was her stepmother's influence that had brought Iris up the way she was.

For some reason I thought that Alfred was perhaps a professor, but I am not sure whether that is correct.  Adam and Neal definitely appeared to have no issues or conflicts or baggage related to class. Maybe around that time Reginald expressed some disdain for Michael's humble background as a stableboy but it wasn't really very meaningful in the scheme of things.

Adam and Neal were really just a blip between Jamies and weren't integrated well enough to last. It was nice that Adam attended Mac's funeral but then the waters closed over him as if he had never been. (I take that back -- maybe Adam rated a mention when the McKinnons dropped in to see Kathleen in 1991. But probably not after that.)

8 hours ago, Xanthe said:

I remember the suggestion that they couldn't start with the early 80s because they didn't have all the tapes, but the idea that they were missing tapes from as late as early 1987 is blowing my mind a little. I wonder what the retention and cataloguing system was like because it was certainly common to have flashbacks to earlier events in the early/mid 80s. Most of the time they were pretty recent events (within days), but sometimes they were further in the past than that and they must have had a system to locate the clip they wanted.

 

 

I could be wrong, but when I was rewatching 1986-1987 on YouTube, those final two weeks of the storyline were the only part that wasn’t included. 

8 hours ago, Xanthe said:

As I understand it Mac was always less snobbish than Iris regardless of background. And with the later storylines it wasn't clear to me whether Mac had come from a wealthy background or if he had married a woman whose family came from money and that it was her stepmother's influence that had brought Iris up the way she was.

It was established during Mac's first few years on AW, that he was born into a wealthy Manhattan family and that Cory Publishing was at least three generations old at that point.  At one point, Mac admitted to Iris that he had never really loved her mother (his first wife) and that the marriage had been arranged.  This was before Iris's adoption storyline.  He also mentioned to Rachel that his own mother was a controlling woman consumed by social status, who was not very kind or loving.  

This is why the show's 25th anniversary episodes were something of a retcon -- suggesting that the entire company -- Cory Publishing, was only 25 years old in 1989.  There was also a period in the 1990s when the writers retconned Mac's personal background, suggesting he had been a self-made man who created Cory Publishing from scratch.  Too bad they didn't stick with Mac's original origin story, because that is what gave Mac much of his motivation -- both professional and personal.  

1 hour ago, AbcNbc247 said:

I could be wrong, but when I was rewatching 1986-1987 on YouTube, those final two weeks of the storyline were the only part that wasn’t included. 

Unless it was an official P&G account, I wouldn't expect there to be a correlation necessarily between what is available on YouTube and what the show actually had preserved. 

 

13 hours ago, Mona Kane Croft said:

It was established during Mac's first few years on AW, that he was born into a wealthy Manhattan family and that Cory Publishing was at least three generations old at that point.  At one point, Mac admitted to Iris that he had never really loved her mother (his first wife) and that the marriage had been arranged.  This was before Iris's adoption storyline.  He also mentioned to Rachel that his own mother was a controlling woman consumed by social status, who was not very kind or loving.  

This is why the show's 25th anniversary episodes were something of a retcon -- suggesting that the entire company -- Cory Publishing, was only 25 years old in 1989.  There was also a period in the 1990s when the writers retconned Mac's personal background, suggesting he had been a self-made man who created Cory Publishing from scratch.  Too bad they didn't stick with Mac's original origin story, because that is what gave Mac much of his motivation -- both professional and personal.  

There were a lot of points where they didn't bother much about consistency, either because they didn't know or didn't think it mattered (or both).

I found this episode where Alfred and Vivian come to meet MJ. The relationship between Alfred and Mac seems like acquaintances who haven't seen each other in a long time rather than brothers who were brought up together. Jamie (in between daydreaming about Lisa) casually and apropos of nothing mentions how unalike they are.

 

Mac does mention Alfred's dissertation so that may be where I got the idea he was an academic. 

I don't know whether they ever intended to do more with the characters but it doesn't feel like they put much effort into them.