16 minutes ago, P.J. said:

!!! That AMC opening is what I grew up on and what I still think today is the best soap opera opening of all time 😜

Yep, that's Nadine. Long story short, Billy fell off the wagon when Reva "died". Billy had ended things with Nadine, and gotten engaged to Van, but Nadine would sleep with him, knowing he was drinking. When Josh left (to look for Reva, who might've been alive), HB and Josh put Vanessa in charge of Lewis Oil. (Billy had made poor business decisions and nearly bankrupted the company.) This pissed Billy off, and he took Nadine to Vegas to gamble. He won some money and married her while he was drunk. It took him two years to shake that bloodsucking tramp loose.

re: the character pics over the long ending credits, I can't think of another show that did them. But I only watched the CBS soaps. Y*R had the sketches opening for a long while, but ATWT never had characters in the opening until nearly 2000, IIRC.

LOL at the bolded! 😂 I remember your hatred for Nadine because of this Billy/Van stuff. I need to go watch that full episode, but thanks for the background on how he landed himself there in that bed. I can't wait to see all that at one point... really makes me want to go back and see if Vanessa acknowledged Nadine's death... I can't remember off top of my head, and I'm thinking Billy wasn't even back by then, but when he did return, can't remember if he had a throwaway line about it or not.

That's so late for ATWT considering most of the other soaps had characters in the intros throughout the 90s. I do think the spinning globe for ATWT was so iconic/marketable, that maybe they were hesitant... similar to the iconic DAYS hourglass.

45 minutes ago, P.J. said:

OMG---THANKS!! I've never seen the actual fight (I think part of the episode may have been preempted that day). that landed Reva that black eye. Josh's face is hilarious.

Ohhh was that Reva? I watched the promo (thanks @DRW50 !) and was like wait, did a man just punch a woman??? Even awful to do today, of course, but especially unheard of back then. I'm glad to know it wasn't purposeful.

35 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

LOL at the bolded! 😂 I remember your hatred for Nadine because of this Billy/Van stuff. I need to go watch that full episode, but thanks for the background on how he landed himself there in that bed. I can't wait to see all that at one point... really makes me want to go back and see if Vanessa acknowledged Nadine's death... I can't remember off top of my head, and I'm thinking Billy wasn't even back by then, but when he did return, can't remember if he had a throwaway line about it or not.

That's so late for ATWT considering most of the other soaps had characters in the intros throughout the 90s. I do think the spinning globe for ATWT was so iconic/marketable, that maybe they were hesitant... similar to the iconic DAYS hourglass.

Ohhh was that Reva? I watched the promo (thanks @DRW50 !) and was like wait, did a man just punch a woman??? Even awful to do today, of course, but especially unheard of back then. I'm glad to know it wasn't purposeful.

I loathe that woman, but she had better writing than ****, and at least had some semblance of a life outside of Billy. I guess I'm really a sucker for the ex's that can't stay out of each other's lives, because ATWT's Jack and Carly are cut from the same cloth.

I don't think anyone outside of the Coopers really acknowledged Nadine's death. They find her body at the beginning of '96, right? Billy doesn't return until the end of '96. They really should've kept Vanessa and Nadine in each other's orbits after the fallout, but Guiding Light really didn't do longstanding rivalries. And I think they were trying to rehab Nadine after the divorce, and wanted the audience to forgive her a bit.

ATWT had some version of the globe for YEARS. Then I think they went to the "Seasons" opening after Marland's death. Which is a beautiful opening, don't get me wrong. They never abandoned the globe, per se. It was just incorporated differently.

Yes, that's Reva, and the kid Billy's fighting with is their son Dylan (this is before they knew him.) It's some of Morgan Englund's first scenes on the show. Late June of '89.

Edited 58 minutes ago58 min by P.J.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

Sam didn't look like any of the actors who played her biological relatives, other than John Bolger. At a push, Cindy Pickett.

I recall there was a TV Guide article about the process of casting for soaps, and they used Sam's casting as a case study. Interestingly, Long was not for Suzy Cote. There was a blond actress in the running that she preferred. (Unfortunately, I can't remember her name). So she was overruled. I think she liked the other actress for more reasons than her physical appearance, but it is interesting that they didn't stop to think about family resemblence.

When they cast Amanda's mother Jennifer and sister Morgan, the three of them looked like they could really be related--they all had the same freckles! And definitely when they cast Grant and Carl as Phillip and Alan Michael, they both looked like their biological families. Rick I think was meant to look like his mother Leslie. And the Reardons...every single one of them looked like they belonged in that family. (Except for Sean, he was an outlier, LOL. But his son and daughter looked like Reardons).

Or course, appearance shouldn't be the primary reason they cast someone, but it is nice when people in the same family look related.

Edited 57 minutes ago57 min by DeeVee

Guiding Light promo (1996)

4 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Guiding Light promo (1996)

That's one...unique promo. Alan looks like John Houseman.