1 hour ago, GL Oldtimer said:

@Soaplovers One of the reasons I enjoyed watching Guiding Light so much in the early 90s is because of the way the entire town of characters seemed to interact with each other. The writers did such a great job of weaving characters in and out of each other's orbits. That really did get lost by 1995 or so.

Annette

It happens super suddenly in 1995-you can see it with the boarding house. As has been discussed here, Bridget/Lucy were close and Marion targets David because he's protective of Lucy (and wants the room). Then I am pretty sure Lucy never talks to David again after leaving the hospital to visit him and almost never interacts with Bridget again. They also acknowledge the Bridget/AM "cousin" connection through marriage and it just gets dropped. Then the boarding house is basically just where the Reardons plus David live for the most part.

They also just really made the various workplaces pretty insular for the most part. At one point in 1992 you had all of Van/Mo/AM/Blake/Alex all working at Spaulding. By 1995 you'd think it was just AM/Lucy and whichever of Brent or Marion works there at the time. The Journal and WSPR also got whittled down to almost nothing but had some interesting combinations of characters passing through over the years. It was fun having AM/Holly briefly working together for instance. (Since Roger/Holly were actually together when Lucy's rape went public is I'm guessing why they avoided Holly trying to talk to Lucy when she had made a point of reaching out to Vanessa in the past, but again you just didn't have those types of interactions by then.)

2 hours ago, GL Oldtimer said:

I think the date of that episode is January 13, 1992.

That's the right date. Thank you.

3 hours ago, P.J. said:

The more I hear of this, the more of a horror it sounds like. Vanessa-GD-Chamberlain would never have a wedding catered out of a diner. I don't care if Eleni was suddenly a world class chef with Michelin stars. What? The nearest Chuck E Cheese was closed? RME. This is pure McTrash, isn't it? And that's what they wrote for their It couple? RME.

LOL - yep, it was McTavish. I'd have to go back and rewatch to remember some of the details of the specific wedding and how long it went on. I remember Matt in a kilt. But you're right, I'm surprised Vanessa wouldn't have wanted something more elevated. Although I think part of their charm was that this blue-collared, handsome younger guy sort of humbled her a bit in the beginning.

As gross as the food poisoning thing was, I did think some of the scenes in the hospital were pretty funny from what I recall. It also put people together that needed to have conversations that wouldn't have normally happened.

2 hours ago, GL95 said:

It happens super suddenly in 1995-you can see it with the boarding house. As has been discussed here, Bridget/Lucy were close and Marion targets David because he's protective of Lucy (and wants the room). Then I am pretty sure Lucy never talks to David again after leaving the hospital to visit him and almost never interacts with Bridget again. They also acknowledge the Bridget/AM "cousin" connection through marriage and it just gets dropped. Then the boarding house is basically just where the Reardons plus David live for the most part.

They also just really made the various workplaces pretty insular for the most part. At one point in 1992 you had all of Van/Mo/AM/Blake/Alex all working at Spaulding. By 1995 you'd think it was just AM/Lucy and whichever of Brent or Marion works there at the time. The Journal and WSPR also got whittled down to almost nothing but had some interesting combinations of characters passing through over the years. It was fun having AM/Holly briefly working together for instance. (Since Roger/Holly were actually together when Lucy's rape went public is I'm guessing why they avoided Holly trying to talk to Lucy when she had made a point of reaching out to Vanessa in the past, but again you just didn't have those types of interactions by then.)

You are so right here - spot on. That's what I loved about early 1995, but then we did slowly lose that community feel. I'll blame it on Reva :P Her Amish return ate up 33% of every episode for months, so you can't really have community scenes like people sitting around the Journal or diner talking about their day and lives. As much as I didn't really like Fletcher, I did always enjoy those scenes with Fletcher, Nick and Ben around the breakfast table at home just chatting about stuff.

Now that I'm thinking about it, watching 1999, with Nola and Bridget both gone, Company and the boarding house are basically non-existent now, which is so sad (except one recent scene with David and Vicky - apparently he's still living at the boarding house, but it was quick and looked different). I guess Millennium took over as the new Company. I still find it so odd that so many prominent citizens of SF are holding business meetings and lunches/dinners at this nightclub LOL.

Edited 17 hours ago17 hr by alwaysAMC

It's no wonder I have zero interest in revisiting the McTrash era.

Does anyone remember---were Nola's original fantasies just mostly her and Quint? I know a couple of the earliest ones were her and John Wesley Shipp, and one of the last was the Wizard of Oz thing about picking a name for AJ, that had Henry and Bea (I forget who else).

I was just thinking, it would've been interesting if they'd done an all women one, ala The Women, after Lisa returned. They'd done an all guy episode for Hamp's bachelor party, but I can't recall them reciprocating and doing one with just the women.

4 hours ago, P.J. said:

It's no wonder I have zero interest in revisiting the McTrash era.

Does anyone remember---were Nola's original fantasies just mostly her and Quint? I know a couple of the earliest ones were her and John Wesley Shipp, and one of the last was the Wizard of Oz thing about picking a name for AJ, that had Henry and Bea (I forget who else).

I was just thinking, it would've been interesting if they'd done an all women one, ala The Women, after Lisa returned. They'd done an all guy episode for Hamp's bachelor party, but I can't recall them reciprocating and doing one with just the women.

I think some of the first, like Casablanca and Shipmates Forever, had Kelly. I think one or two just had Nola. Quint was in a number of them.

I would have loved seeing them try your idea for a female fantasy sequence.

JFP never did that type of episode for the female cast, no. She repeated this gimmick on AW, maybe on OLTL too. She never had enough interest in women outside of men to give them a showcase episode.

So how many Nola fantasies were there?

I remember Shipmates Forever and Casablanca. There was also a Wuthering Heights one with Quint and Wizard of Oz. I'm sure there were others.

Just now, Paul Raven said:

So how many Nola fantasies were there?

I remember Shipmates Forever and Casablanca. There was also a Wuthering Heights one with Quint and Wizard of Oz. I'm sure there were others.

I think there was a Dracula. Now, Voyager. Jane Eyre.

Most are available on Youtube.

There's another I remember in a clip of a story but I don't know if it is on its own where Nola is the only one in the fantasy.

The Matessa wedding story was about everything going wrong that possibly could which is why it’s so haphazard. I don’t remember all the details other than Little Bill accidentally ruining her dress (it also got run over by a car?) so she wore that purple getup of Nola’s.

5 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I think there was a Dracula. Now, Voyager. Jane Eyre.

Most are available on Youtube.

There's another I remember in a clip of a story but I don't know if it is on its own where Nola is the only one in the fantasy.

I think there's one where she's Miss Marple. And one noir-ish one like Maltese Falcon/Murder My Sweet (this one actually annoys me as it pops in the episode where Billy proposes to Van. Nola's fantasizing while waiting for them. UGH.)

It seems like there was also one during Bertue Higgins performance of Key Largo. And I'd bet that was either Key Largo or maybe To Have and Have Not.

It probably would be easier to look up the Quola Playlist. :)

8 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I think there was a Dracula. Now, Voyager. Jane Eyre.

The Now Voyager one was partly in response to Bette Davis being a GL fan and particularly a Lisa Brown fan...I think she wrote in..."You got IT!" to Brown.

I am glad they dropped the Nola fantasies as only Marland did them well. The one where she is dancing with Buzz...WTF??? An occasional one done correctly, with the mentioned above "The Women," one would be good. I just wanted one of Nola writing her life novel and imagining various people in it (no we dont' need to go into the bad Phillip writes a book storyline.) Simply a scene of her imagining her and Van's younger selves..just to get Van in that big hair, shoulder pads and hat phase again..being a cold b*tch!)

4 hours ago, GL95 said:

The Matessa wedding story was about everything going wrong that possibly could which is why it’s so haphazard. I don’t remember all the details other than Little Bill accidentally ruining her dress (it also got run over by a car?) so she wore that purple getup of Nola’s.

Yes, everything went wrong and Nola had to " save the day." Matt's suit was missing, Van's dress blew out of Bill's car, Nola had to trick Alex into agreeing to let them use the Spaulding conservatory, (actually a dumb but funny scene when she got Hawk to drop a lawsuit on Alex by tripping him and he dumped something on her expensive clothes so she was going to sue him in return..Bev Alex would have froze Hawk by sight but MarjAlex and Hawk where funny) Bad part, it led to Jay Hammer trying to be funny as he shared a room with Roger and had the shits.) It was kind of weird as Nola was against Van and Matt (yes Nola) so they should have had a scene where she finally gives in.

I never liked Nadine but they ruined her by stranding her on 5th Street and mooning over Buzz. Someone mentioned it but it is weird that the Reardons and the Coopers didn't know each other at all. You would think people on 5th street would know the BH and 7th street people would stop in at the Meals on Wheels. Nadine and Mo were supposed to be close in age.

14 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

Someone mentioned it but it is weird that the Reardons and the Coopers didn't know each other at all. You would think people on 5th street would know the BH and 7th street people would stop in at the Meals on Wheels. Nadine and Mo were supposed to be close in age.

Oh, really?

Well, in MY head canon, Sean Reardon and Buzz were high school buds who went to Vietnam around the same time. Of course, the Reardons hung out at the diner growing up--it's only a few blocks over from the boarding house.

Plus, Nadine, Mo, and NotLana all went to school together, Mo and NotLana hating Nadine's snooty behind.

(I don't think Nadine was supposed to be Greek Orthodox. I see the three of them all being taught by nuns and Nadine getting away with smoking in the bathroom while the nuns punish the Reardon girls).

It's crazy to me that no one thought of creating a backstory connecting these families.