17 minutes ago, P.J. said:

I actually thought Lucy's mother had died. But maybe she just walked out on her and Buzz, which, knowing him, would've been the only real reason he "raised" Lucy.

It’s always sort of crazy that the 20-something generation on the show at that point had parents who were so bad that Buzz raising Lucy as a homeless grifter always on the run is seen as the height of fraternal stability. Half the “fun” stories she tells are objectively horrifying, especially when you consider that Buzz is not uniting her with his other family mostly out of cowardice.

There were times it was implied that Mike and Hope were very close. The last time I remember Hope being mentioned was when Maureen died. Ed called them ( they were on a trip together) and he told them not to rush back for the funeral.

52 minutes ago, GL95 said:

It’s always sort of crazy that the 20-something generation on the show at that point had parents who were so bad that Buzz raising Lucy as a homeless grifter always on the run is seen as the height of fraternal stability. Half the “fun” stories she tells are objectively horrifying, especially when you consider that Buzz is not uniting her with his other family mostly out of cowardice.

Well, that's Buzz for you. Horrifying "charming". And then he sends Jenna's kids off to her relatives to raise.

10 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

I think another thing that helped humanize Jackie was her friendship/mentorship of Evie Stapleton. If a sweet individual like Evie could see the good in Jackie.. than so could the audience.

I think that was also true of Rita. She also was a very complex character who could be very selfish. Evie helped to temper Rita with the audience. Marland also had Evie become friends with Ross when he decided to make him less of a villainous character. Which is kind of unusual; you don't see too many male/female friendships on soaps. But it did help change the audience's perception of Ross.

1 hour ago, GL95 said:

Watching starting in 1990 with how many times A-M is in peril and Hope never once coming is pretty wild.

Although several of AM and Harley's wedding episodes are available online, I can't remember anyone asking why Hope wasn't at her only child's wedding. Why she wasn't perhaps objecting to her 18 year old son getting married so young? (Did Ed--his great uncle--even put in an opinion on that? Maybe I have to go watch those episodes again).

I mean, we KNOW the reason. They SORASed AM so fast that they would have had to hire a much older actress to play his mother. They really painted her into a corner by doing it.

They papered over it at times by saying she had relapsed. But then you wonder...why wasn't her uncle helping her out? He was her sponsor.

Yeah, it was a big mess because no one gave it much thought. I've said it before, I LOVE Carl, Rick was also fantastic, and it's unlikely either would have done the show if they had SORASed AM more slowly. But they made it impossible to bring back Hope, who had tons of history that could have been used for stories. They got away with it with Amanda because she had no living children who could have been SORASed.

Gotta love the disregard for continuity, iirc a large part of Jenna's backstory was that she had NO living family. 😆 That's why she bonded with Henry and Vanessa as a surrogate family.

11 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

I think that was also true of Rita. She also was a very complex character who could be very selfish. Evie helped to temper Rita with the audience. Marland also had Evie become friends with Ross when he decided to make him less of a villainous character. Which is kind of unusual; you don't see too many male/female friendships on soaps. But it did help change the audience's perception of Ross.

Although several of AM and Harley's wedding episodes are available online, I can't remember anyone asking why Hope wasn't at her only child's wedding. Why she wasn't perhaps objecting to her 18 year old son getting married so young? (Did Ed--his great uncle--even put in an opinion on that? Maybe I have to go watch those episodes again).

I mean, we KNOW the reason. They SORASed AM so fast that they would have had to hire a much older actress to play his mother. They really painted her into a corner by doing it.

They papered over it at times by saying she had relapsed. But then you wonder...why wasn't her uncle helping her out? He was her sponsor.

Yeah, it was a big mess because no one gave it much thought. I've said it before, I LOVE Carl, Rick was also fantastic, and it's unlikely either would have done the show if they had SORASed AM more slowly. But they made it impossible to bring back Hope, who had tons of history that could have been used for stories. They got away with it with Amanda because she had no living children who could have been SORASed.

It’s a bit weird because they SORAS kids all the time where the original actor is still on the show or just ignore actors’ ages if they play older. Rick had two actresses around his age play up in years who worked closely with him in Toby’s Amanda and SS’s Blake (SS being 23 when she left the show blows my mind-even with Rick, SS’s Blake just seems so much older but ironically they started styling her younger late in her tenure I think to play up the Ross age gap). I feel like a late 30s actress with some gravitas could pretty easily pass as Rick/AM’s mom in soap world in the early 90s.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by GL95

3 minutes ago, GL95 said:

I feel like a late 30s actress with some gravitas could pretty easily pass as Rick/AM’s mom in soap world in the early 90s.

Hope was supposed to be around 24 when AM was born. The actress Elvera Roussel was actually in her early 30s. But she read as very young at the time. The thing is, part of the issues her family had with her marrying Alan is that he was much older. They de-aged Alan when they brought in Raines. (I never thought of it before, but that's probably why they de-aged Amanda). So they would have looked much closer in age. Which would have changed their dynamic.

(Yes, yes, soap math is a b!tch, LOL).

It's been said here a few times that TPTB had no interest in bringing Roussel back, even though she probably would have by that time been old enough to have had son AM's age onscreen, and they definitely could have made her look closer to her real age. Some people claim they thought she was too fat, or they didn't think she made that much of an impression in her initial run, even though Alan and Hope were a very popular couple. But one has to keep in mind she was popular with Chris Bernau in the role of Alan, and he was gone. So even if they brought her back, they couldn't do flashbacks, so they probably reasoned it was pointless.

We've thrown out names of actresses from that era who could have been a good Hope--she's not a character who would have been difficult to recast. Although I doubt she would have agreed to it, if they decided to just say "screw it!" about AM's age, Marcy Walker would have been fantastic as Hope, and would have had a role that had history and purpose and real connections to other characters on the show, unlike Tangie.

Re: Hope. They should've snagged Robin Mattsen to reprise the role when she was on the East Coast for AMC. Sorry @alwaysAMC

Alan-Michael was basically replaced by Gus, whose mom they should've made a factor instead of a dayplayer nun. Fans said at the time that Rita should've been his mom.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Spoon

Gus was similar to Nick McHenry as the more regular Joe Spaulding who was raised "blue collar."

I could not see Robin Mattson as a Bauer. By that time she was playing a different kind of characters and I would hate to see poor Hope turn into a nutjob. Although this would make a good excuse for never showing up for her son.

In the 80s perhaps Marcia McCabe or Arianne Munker, who was wasted in the Valere story.

I could see Patsy Pease or Kim Johnston Ulrich play Hope in the 90s.

5 minutes ago, Spoon said:

They should've snagged Robin Mattsen to reprise the role when she was on the East Coast for AMC.

I like that idea, too, though she also was close to AM's age. Just eveyone pretend not to notice. 😁

The thing that's so funny about all this is that AM was born in 1981, and Nola's son "J" was born I think 1984, and when they came back on the show J was only a teenager. So whacky.

11 minutes ago, Spoon said:

Alan-Michael was basically replaced by Gus, whose mom they should've made a factor instead of a dayplayer nun. Fans said at the time that Rita should've been his mom.

Yeah, that, or a child Alan had with a character who MATTERED on the show--I am fond of the idea of Alan having had a young love affair with the one missing Reardon sister, but Rita would absolutely work. Especially if there was doubt that Alan was his father, as Ed would have been the other possibility. They could have made a big deal out of waiting for the test outcome, or (because, you know, it's Alan) someone switching tests and stuff.

Maybe then they wouldn't have killed the character off. It was like Lujack all over again: why introduced a found family member only to quickly kill them off? Madness, it's madness, I say!

Edited 56 minutes ago56 min by DeeVee

6 minutes ago, Sapounopera said:

Arianne Munker, who was wasted in the Valere story.

Here's an interesting GL history tidbit:

Arianne Munker played Hope's friend Christie when she was a child. It was probably a total coincidence her new character was named Christine, but what a MUCH better story if it turned out she was THAT Christie. Maybe that was the plan--both Hope and Rita were mentioned at the time, so it seemed like there were thinking about bringing them back. But there were so many writer changes during that period it's possible that's why it never happened.

Anyway, Arianne would have also been a very good Hope. And Pease, Ulrich, and McCabe. There were lots of possibilities.

18 hours ago, DRW50 said:

@vetsoapfan @slick jones @Soaplovers @Tisy-Lish @Soapsuds @SoapDope78 @FrenchFan @Khan @jam6242 @Vee @Sapounopera @soapfan770 @Paul Raven @P.J. @DeeVee @Mitch64 @GL95 @Kane @alwaysAMC @Spoon @GL Oldtimer @kalbir @dc11786 @zanereed @Maxim @Franko @BoldRestless @Liberty City @Reverend Ruthledge @Speed Racer

The channel that tends to provide a few brand new vintage episodes a year for various soaps has found another for GL. In good quality too. April 1, 1953. I checked and couldn't find the episode elsewhere, although there is already some March and April around. There's always a double-edged sword in so much of one period being around when so much else is gone but I'm still very grateful and I'm sure you will be too.

Most of this is just the Roberts and the Grants, the former worrying about Kathy and the latter having Laura Grant at her most imperious in her schemes to break up Dick and Kathy. One surprise is we actually get to see Joey Roberts. I assume this is Tarry Green. I don't think we've ever seen him before, although I may be wrong.

I was going to say he looks a bit old for 18 but this is 1953...not sure how old Green was but I see he had been in Broadway shows starting in 1951.

Thanks for sharing. I don't think this episode has ever surfaced before.

That was a pretty good episode. I thought maybe we’d seen it before because the “19-thrifty-3” ad is definitely familiar, but I guess it was used on numerous episodes.

This one’s a great example of how 15-minute soaps feel like “dropping in” on the characters going about their lives. No plot movement whatsoever, but it still feels like you’re “seeing” a lot. I get more and more interested in these 50s baddies like Laura Grant because the portrayal of such characters had to be done so delicately in that era.

I’m in July 1992 when A-M is drinking himself into oblivion after he learns Nick is Alexandra’s son, and watching a lot of early 90s eps in close succession, I feel like they were setting the table for an A-M addiction story at some point. I can’t remember what triggered it, but in a different episode A-M swigs a drink in anger and Ed says something about that not helping. They have him pretty regularly cope with his emotions with booze and get really drunk several times. I could see the thought of planning Hope to come back for that then it getting scratched.

I could see that last go round with Eleni while the terrible Jenna lotion story was happening being there instead since he’s spiraling at this point. Then them mentioning Hope in rehab not long after when he’s looking for Alan-an addiction story seems so much more interesting than the roaming the beach/unconscious at Tangie’s place arc. It’s funny because if they wanted Tangie in his arc she was a bar tender so it would’ve been easy.

They also had Lucy doing absolutely nothing for months other than going on blind dates-Lucy being involved in helping him as a friend (maybe with Blake who would know the family history?) then Ed brings in Hope who learned a lot in that Swiss rehab. (I do think Hope as an alcoholic would give a bit of a natural excuse to make her seem older and explain how she seems closer in age to Alan.)