30 minutes ago, P.J. said:

Diane and Joe were killed within weeks of each other.

IMO, if Douglas Marland made any real mistakes while at GL, it was killing off Joe Bradley. Now, Diane's murder might've been unavoidable, since it's my understanding that Sofia Landon wanted to leave; but Joe, as seedy as he was, could've transitioned into the kinds of storylines and romances that Fletcher Reade was a part of down the road.

8 hours ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

I tell you what, vetsoapfan, Hope's wedding is an episode I would probably like to get. Not because I like weddings. I actually hate them. But I want to see anything with the focus on the Bauers. I will get that episode eventually, even if it's post-1976 and the mystery will be solved for you. It just might take a while.

You are very kind--as always--and getting the script of that episode would probably solve the nagging doubts in the back of my mind. I'd appreciate it. That being said, please don't go to too much trouble; this is a not an issue on the level of solving world hunger or curing disease. I mean, somehow...some way...I can manage to survive living with unresolved questions and doubts about a fictional soap opera character from decades ago.🤭

I've always loved and been crazy about the soaps, but I am not totally insane!

(LOL, I hear hear sarcastic replies from the peanut gallery as I type this.😝)

2 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

What happened with Mike and Jennifer? No onscreen chemistry?

Geraldine Court was a Marland favorite, so I am surprised that romance was halted. Pure speculation but maybe Don Stewart wasn't happy with the pairing and spoke out. Allen Potter sided with Don. Part of the growing tension b/w Marland and Potter.

That's another thing that got scuttled because the Dobsons were kicked over to ATWT. The woman who came to Brandon's funeral in the hat and heavy black veils was obviously being signaled as a woman of mystery, maybe truly the love of Alan's life. Or not, she could have been out for revenge against him and his family for what they did to her.

In spite of the convoluted backstory Marland cooked up for "Jane Marie," it was pretty insipid and Jennifer was also insipid. I am certain Court could have played her as a MUCH more interesting character than what Marland created. If Stewart objected to being paired with her, it might have been for this reason. At least with Elizabeth (who also could have been characterized as insipid, which is kind of ironic) they were caught up in a big storyline involving many other possible connections/love interests with some real conflict driving the love story. After the trial (which Marland ripped off from that old movie "Madam X") there wasn't much else for them to play that was interesting.

2 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Agree that Hope and Alan were married too soon and given a dud ceremony. They could have got more out the relationship before a wedding. God knows, Alan had enough baggage to make Hope have some second thoughts before committing.

I believe that is very close to what the Dobsons were planning. No quick wedding, possibly no wedding.

As the Dobsons exited the show, Alan was going to be juggling a lot of women: Hope, Rita, Diane, Amanda's mother...they must have had a very big, very complex story planned beyond Alan and Hope getting married.

5 hours ago, DeeVee said:

You'll really hate this one because it's AWFUL. When Alan married Jackie it was a snazzy wedding on a yacht in the Mediterranean attended by European aristocrats and Arab shieks. Jackie wore a beautiful couture gown in a couple of shades of gold with Phillip giving her away.

He married Hope in her grandmother's house populated with hostile wedding guests. Hope wore a dress that looked like it was made out of a tablecloth.

OMG, I remember thinking that the wedding dress looked like a set of doilies sewn together. Googling pictures of it now, however, I must admit that the dress does not strike me as quite so hideous.

5 hours ago, DeeVee said:

The cake looked like they got it from Publix and they danced their first dance to Bert singing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart." (I SWEAR I didn't make that up).

Now, you might be saying, "It's a Bauer family wedding, that's nice, it's homey and sweet."

But it was ALL WRONG for the story and the characters. If she was marrying Ben, that would have made sense. She was marrying one of the richest men in the country and it seemed like an afterthought.

Good point. I justified the "cheap" wedding in my mind as Alan trying hard to convince Hope and her family that he could meet them on their level, act like a "regular guy," and not always remain in a gilded bubble with his immense wealth and power.

5 hours ago, DeeVee said:

Even though Marland kept Alan and Hope in front burner storylines (because they were a popular couple with the audience--he said that in interviews, I didn't) he just did not care much about the characters he inherited.

To his credit, Marland continued to write for fan favorites on all his shows, including Mart Hulswit on TGL, for quite some time. Even Harding Lemay focused on Jacquie Courtney, George Reinholt and Virginia Dwyer for the first four years of his tenure on AW, despite disliking those actors. Some scribes do understand the importance of keeping audience favorites center stage. I appreciate that. The cast purge in 1983 and 1984 in Springfield proved what a disaster slaughtering vets is to a soap's structure and stability.

5 hours ago, DeeVee said:

Anyway, I also want to see it again, to confirm it was as bad as I remember it and now I won't rest until I know if Bill Bauer was there, too. 😂

Oh dear God in heaven, as our dear Mrs. Chancellor might say, what have I done to you? Have I cursed you, too, with my obsessive, nagging doubts?!?😬

5 hours ago, DeeVee said:

By the way, @vetsoapfan is it possible you are thinking of Ed and Rita's wedding? A picture of them on their wedding day with the guests (Rita's in her traveling clothes after the ceremony) pops up in my Pinterest feed every now and then. Now I'm trying to remember if Bill was in THAT picture. If I see it in my feed again (searching for it yielded only a picture of Ed with Rita in her wedding gown), I'll let you know.

Uh-oh. The Pinterest picture I am thinking of was definitely from Hope's wedding, and I believed Bill Bauer was present in that one...but I always saw Ed/Rita wedding shots on Pinterest too, and if I was looking at both the Ed/Rita and Hope/Alan photos simultaneously, who knows what tricks my mind is playing on me now?

This added question may make me truly go around the bend!!!🤣

Edited 13 hours ago13 hr by vetsoapfan

3 hours ago, soapfave06 said:

Also, does the show go through a zillion characters between 1980 and 1982? I’m reading this thread which led me to the book and my mind is blown at how many characters are popping in and out and then so many seem to just flatline.

They do. With three writing regimes going in/out from '80-'83, you lose lots of major characters.

2 hours ago, Khan said:

IMO, if Douglas Marland made any real mistakes while at GL, it was killing off Joe Bradley. Now, Diane's murder might've been unavoidable, since it's my understanding that Sofia Landon wanted to leave; but Joe, as seedy as he was, could've transitioned into the kinds of storylines and romances that Fletcher Reade was a part of down the road.

Not to mention, every town needs a sleazy PI/lawyer. I wonder if the actor wanted out.

5 minutes ago, P.J. said:

Not to mention, every town needs a sleazy PI/lawyer. I wonder if the actor wanted out.

Good question!

Now, if it had been me, I would've introduced a younger sibling of Joe's at some point, in order to show he wasn't a TOTAL sleaze. Although I tend to be cynical in my everyday life, I think characters work best when they have layers.

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by Khan

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

Not to mention, every town needs a sleazy PI/lawyer. I wonder if the actor wanted out.

I think he quickly moved to the Doctors, although that show was widely known to be on its deathbed by then so you'd think it wasn't his choice. I do wish they'd kept Joe on longer, as a soap needs a sleazy but not too OTT baddie to drive stories. I can't guess where he would have been if he'd stayed though. I could have seen him teaming up with Josh for Josh's schemes.

8 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

OMG, I remember thinking that the wedding dress looked like a set of doilies sewn together. Googling pictures of it now, however, I must admit that the dress does not strike me as quite so hideous.

Good point. I justified the "cheap" wedding in my mind as Alan trying hard to convince Hope and her family that he could meet them on their level, act like a "regular guy," and not always remain in a gilded bubble with his immense wealth and power.

To his credit, Marland continued to write for fan favorites on all his shows, including Mart Hulswit on TGL, for quite some time. Even Harding Lemay focused on Jacquie Courtney, George Reinholt and Virginia Dwyer for the first four years of his tenure on AW, despite disliking those actors. Some scribes do understand the importance of keeping audience favorites center stage. I appreciate that. The cast purge in 1983 and 1984 in Springfield proved what a disaster slaughtering vets is to a soap's structure and stability.

Oh dear God in heaven, as our dear Mrs. Chancellor might say, what have I done to you? Have I cursed you, too, with my obsessive, nagging doubts?!?😬

Uh-oh. The Pinterest picture I am thinking of was definitely from Hope's wedding, and I believed Bill Bauer was present in that one...but I always saw Ed/Rita wedding shots on Pinterest too, and if I was looking at both the Ed/Rita and Hope/Alan photos simultaneously, who knows what tricks my mind is playing on me now?

This added question may make me truly go around the bend!!!🤣

That picture makes me chuckle a bit because adult AM in all iterations actually looks like the Alan his mom married. I swear when they cast Ron Raines they thought Phillip was the biological child and not AM (mainly that RR has a much more similar build to GA than Rick or any subsequent AM).

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by GL95

6 hours ago, P.J. said:

Not to mention, every town needs a sleazy PI/lawyer. I wonder if the actor wanted out.

It’s funny that in the early 90s pre-Sid you had reformed Ross and Frank as the PI who repeatedly couldn’t take on business because people he was close to ended up being responsible. The lack of sleaze led to some dead end reveals. I actually feel like David/Blake ditching Frank would’ve come up with a better business model.

10 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

I always saw Ed/Rita wedding shots on Pinterest too, and if I was looking at both the Ed/Rita and Hope/Alan photos simultaneously, who knows what tricks my mind is playing on me now?

We can eliminate Ed and Rita's wedding because I FINALLY found the picture. Bill Bauer was not at that wedding. Your mind wasn't playing THAT many tricks in you, LOL.

1 hour ago, GL95 said:

That picture makes me chuckle a bit because adult AM in all iterations actually looks like the Alan his mom married. I swear when they cast Ron Raines they thought Phillip was the biological child and not AM (mainly that RR has a much more similar build to GA than Rick or any subsequent AM).

To this day, I will never understand the casting of Raines as Alan. They waited FIVE FREAKING YEARS to bring Alan back. Nobody was going to bring to the role exactly what Chris Bernau did, but Raines was so wrong for the part. And then they kept him for 15 years. Yeesh.

Yes, Hearst was partly cast because he had some resemblance to Bernau, and so did the first non-baby AM actor, Carl Evans.

I’ve dipped in and out of all the soaps and never caught on to RR Alan but he was great IMO on the OLTL 2013 revival, which really shows his miscast, I found this even worse when I finally got to see the fascinating late 70s-early 80s GL (my absolute favorite era of any soap outside of OLTL)

With OG Alex and Alan being gone, they would have been better off moving on from the Spauldings.

2 minutes ago, soapfave06 said:

With OG Alex and Alan being gone, they would have been better off moving on from the Spauldings.

OR, handing the family over to the next generation.

This, IMO, is one of the many reasons it was a huge mistake to kill off Alex's son. With Amanda, Phillip, Alan Michael, and Lujack, there were plenty of players and natural conflicts between the siblings/cousins to keep the Spaulding family a powerful force in SF.

I can believe RR was good in other roles (I think he could have been a decent recast for Mike Bauer--he's even a singer like Don Stewart, LOL). He just did not have the qualities that Alan needed. He was also not helped by the writing for the character.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by DeeVee

19 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

This, IMO, is one of the many reasons it was a huge mistake to kill off Alex's son. With Amanda, Phillip, Alan Michael, and Lujack, there were plenty of players and natural conflicts between the siblings/cousins to keep the Spaulding family a powerful force in SF.

Especially since GA was in his late 30s early 40s around the time Rauch took over. Having Phillip and Rick acting almost as if they were in their 2os was silly. I would have Annie actually mistakenly kill Alan (or maybe not so..maybe she starts poisoning him I would have him getting bored of her instead of carrying her purse of evil deeds all day long) and then Phillip is forced into Spaulding patriarch, putting a crimp in his and Harleys relationship, brining both Amanda and AM back...with occasional visits from Alex to run interference, or cause trouble (Marj/Alex isn't bad when in small doses.)

Someone up thread mentioned Mike's women..does anyone remember when Reva first hit town she was flirting with Mike? I remember her in a big fur coat sitting on his desk...(why...was he lawyer to her to get a divorce from Billy?) I just watched some of the 60th anniversary episodes..and Reva is just walking away from yet another argument with Annie, and she closes paths with Lillian and Mike walking by, and she looks surprised and quickly waves. I wonder if that was Kimmer remembering that she knew him, etc (Kimmer looks great during the anniversary episodes I must say.)

Speaking of this time period, I know Rauch in in place, and McTavish was fired before Liabson, but the material seems to still be McTavish outline going into the anniversary..with the angel etc. I wonder if she outlined the Amanda is Brandon's kid or if that was a Rauch/interim writer thing...it seems all McTavish's style.

52 minutes ago, soapfave06 said:

I’ve dipped in and out of all the soaps and never caught on to RR Alan but he was great IMO on the OLTL 2013 revival, which really shows his miscast, I found this even worse when I finally got to see the fascinating late 70s-early 80s GL (my absolute favorite era of any soap outside of OLTL)

With OG Alex and Alan being gone, they would have been better off moving on from the Spauldings.

I think fully going next generation Spaulding could’ve worked too especially if you had Rick/GA on at the same time and even Toby’s Amanda and have Roger be the one stirring the pot who was always dipping in and out of Spaulding. If you wanted to close it out and briefly have RR, do the Brent/Marian plot but have Brent kill Alan when Alan was delivering the ransom money. Alan is a little redeemed in AM’s eyes when he dies and now enter in Phillip after Alan dies saving AM. I like with good actors a real AM/Phillip standoff is two characters in the gray who ultimately would benefit from coming together but the distrust and pride instilled in them by Alex/Alan makes it difficult which is infinitely more interesting than Alan screwing over his kids for years. The spectre of Alan is better than RR’s Alan in that dynamic.

He was very diplomatic about it in his Locher Room interview, but Rick made a comment about RR playing Alan differently than he would (basically the sociopathic no remorse element with no vulnerability unlike Zas who always played Roger with vulnerability mixed in), but that he learned to respect his theater rigidness that was so different from Rick’s style. I got the impression that RR was far from his favorite scene partner (people here won’t like it but I got the impression he did enjoy the unpredictability of Justin Deas but I think you can see it onscreen-Rick always played Buzz scenes with a hint of this guy is full of it bemusement) and I do wonder if it’s part of why he left and stayed gone.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by GL95