Were the Cooper family originally created to be of Greek heritage or was that done because of Frank Dicopolous casting? I think the back story used was that Pops came to the United States as a young man and Americanized the family name from Kouperakis to Cooper.

3 minutes ago, kalbir said:

Were the Cooper family originally created to be of Greek heritage or was that done because of Frank Dicopolous casting? I think the back story used was that Pops came to the United States as a young man and Americanized the family name from Kouperakis to Cooper.

I’ve heard that story about Frank D-it’s funny to me how no other Cooper looks particularly Greek besides Eleni so not sure the point of the whole backstory around Frank.

I know Frank D actually is Greek but it’s funny how AM/Rick looks like he’s the one who could slide into Eleni’s family and not Frank. (RH is half-Italian.)

Edited 3 hours ago3 hr by GL95

1 minute ago, GL95 said:

I’ve heard that story about Frank D-it’s funny to me how no other Cooper looks particularly Greek besides Eleni so not sure the point of the whole backstory around Frank.

It's like a reverse Full House. John Stamos had Uncle Jesse last name changed from Cochran to Katsopolis to reflect his Greek heritage but I wasn't convinced that the three blonde-haired blue-eyed Tanner daughters had a Greek-American mother.

Well, that's always been Frank's story. Being Greek is not really integral to the introduction of the Coopers, that I recall. I guess GL had already done Irish roots with the Reardons.

FWIW, I went to high school with someone who had a very Greek name (first and last) and whose family ran a Greek-style pizzeria but was not only blonde and blue-eyed but bore a slight resemblance to a young Meryl Streep.

I hit May 1993 and you can definitely tell it was sweeps. Everything came together.

Buzz gets caught by Mallet at the airport as he tries to disguise himself as a woman and gets interrogated in a hotel room while still in the dress. (Marion foreshadowing lol?) Frank/Eleni get married and she immediately goes into labor afterwards, and while Eleni is giving birth Harley learns Buzz is her father. AM watches the wedding sadly from the Journal terrace-Blake drops by sad Ross won't propose with some wine. AM briefly commiserates and sends her back to Ross saying he won't be the guy she goes to for revenge. (In my binge AM had a similar scene with Harley where she kisses him when she's still crushed about Josh and he says he won't be used to get over someone else.)

Nadine's web of lies all come crashing down at once-Baby Peter is revealed to be Bridget's kid and that she knew who Buzz was all along. While everything is hitting the fan with the lies but before Bridget is fully revealed as Peter's mom, she takes off with Peter and has David watch him as she tries to explore her options. It quickly gets reported as a kidnapping and Billy makes a plea on TV with Roger giving him airtime while Hart watches while neither know Peter is Hart's. Bridget eventually returns with Peter and Vanessa susses out that Bridget is Peter's mom and Van bonds with Bridget as she shares about her past with Dinah. Bridget clearly wants to keep Peter and move in with Ed, but Ed is in a bad place and inadvertently dissuades Bridget without knowing about Peter.

Eve has her full freakout. First she drugged Mindy at the fashion show and Mindy gets in a serious accident with Little Bill in the car. Then as Mindy recovers, Eve comes and knocks her out. Nick arrives and she drugs him too. Nick manages to call Ed who arrives as Eve flees as it all sinks in what she's done, and she plans to jump off the lighthouse. Ed eventually talks her down and takes her to a mental hospital after we learn just how bad things got in Cambre. Nick sympathizes with Eve but Mindy is not quite there yet haha. Somehow Nick/Mindy look to be on the verge of reconciling and it's really pretty amazing that Mindy would forgive Nick for all the terrible things he believed about her that Eve told him. Crazy Eve was kind of fun so it's a bit of a bummer how deep her trauma is to bring it on-I admittedly would not have minded a little longer psychological torture of the various Mindy recasts (both Ann Hamilton and Barbara Crampton play Mindy as this is happening).

Finally there is a whole lot of Hart/Julie/Dylan with Bridget getting her heart broken by Hart again who is fixated on Julie. It is remarkable how everyone is in love with someone bland in this story and Bridget is on the outside. (Bridget has a really great scene with Kat where she breaks down about hiding the pregnancy because she was ashamed when Kat is mad she didn't trust her and they make up. I want David/Bridget/Kat on my screen any day over Hart/Julie/Dylan.)

I know people think '93 starts to slide, (and full disclosure, I'm too heartbroken to watch after Jordan Clarke's exit) but I think the first half is classic soap. I'd put those scenes with Ehlers/Deas/Carol in my top ten. BE is fantastic confronting her parents.

And Maeve gets some great lines---"what are you going to do, Nadine? Put it in the oven and broil it?" and (when asked where she came from) "my mother's womb--I think. Where did your baby come from?"

29 minutes ago, GL95 said:

I hit May 1993 and you can definitely tell it was sweeps. Everything came together.

Buzz gets caught by Mallet at the airport as he tries to disguise himself as a woman and gets interrogated in a hotel room while still in the dress. (Marion foreshadowing lol?) Frank/Eleni get married and she immediately goes into labor afterwards, and while Eleni is giving birth Harley learns Buzz is her father. AM watches the wedding sadly from the Journal terrace-Blake drops by sad Ross won't propose with some wine. AM briefly commiserates and sends her back to Ross saying he won't be the guy she goes to for revenge. (In my binge AM had a similar scene with Harley where she kisses him when she's still crushed about Josh and he says he won't be used to get over someone else.)

Nadine's web of lies all come crashing down at once-Baby Peter is revealed to be Bridget's kid and that she knew who Buzz was all along. While everything is hitting the fan with the lies but before Bridget is fully revealed as Peter's mom, she takes off with Peter and has David watch him as she tries to explore her options. It quickly gets reported as a kidnapping and Billy makes a plea on TV with Roger giving him airtime while Hart watches while neither know Peter is Hart's. Bridget eventually returns with Peter and Vanessa susses out that Bridget is Peter's mom and Van bonds with Bridget as she shares about her past with Dinah. Bridget clearly wants to keep Peter and move in with Ed, but Ed is in a bad place and inadvertently dissuades Bridget without knowing about Peter.

Eve has her full freakout. First she drugged Mindy at the fashion show and Mindy gets in a serious accident with Little Bill in the car. Then as Mindy recovers, Eve comes and knocks her out. Nick arrives and she drugs him too. Nick manages to call Ed who arrives as Eve flees as it all sinks in what she's done, and she plans to jump off the lighthouse. Ed eventually talks her down and takes her to a mental hospital after we learn just how bad things got in Cambre. Nick sympathizes with Eve but Mindy is not quite there yet haha. Somehow Nick/Mindy look to be on the verge of reconciling and it's really pretty amazing that Mindy would forgive Nick for all the terrible things he believed about her that Eve told him. Crazy Eve was kind of fun so it's a bit of a bummer how deep her trauma is to bring it on-I admittedly would not have minded a little longer psychological torture of the various Mindy recasts (both Ann Hamilton and Barbara Crampton play Mindy as this is happening).

Finally there is a whole lot of Hart/Julie/Dylan with Bridget getting her heart broken by Hart again who is fixated on Julie. It is remarkable how everyone is in love with someone bland in this story and Bridget is on the outside. (Bridget has a really great scene with Kat where she breaks down about hiding the pregnancy because she was ashamed when Kat is mad she didn't trust her and they make up. I want David/Bridget/Kat on my screen any day over Hart/Julie/Dylan.)

LOL at Buzz in a dress - that shocks me. Was it actually good or too obvious it's Buzz?

This all sounds fun, thanks for the details!! The Peter/Bridget story is one I can't wait to see. I'm also intrigued to see crazy Eve, considering when I saw her in 1995, she was pretty bland and normal before she died (but I remember the guys here telling me last year her wild backstory).

I'm not familiar with Julie. Sounds like I'm not missing much though.

14 minutes ago, P.J. said:

I know people think '93 starts to slide, (and full disclosure, I'm too heartbroken to watch after Jordan Clarke's exit) but I think the first half is classic soap. I'd put those scenes with Ehlers/Deas/Carol in my top ten. BE is fantastic confronting her parents.

And Maeve gets some great lines---"what are you going to do, Nadine? Put it in the oven and broil it?" and (when asked where she came from) "my mother's womb--I think. Where did your baby come from?"

Love to hear this about early 1993. And of course LOL at Van's zingers.

16 hours ago, DRW50 said:

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.

I thought there was one that focused on someone's Bridal shower, but it got cut for some reason (something from the news). I only remember Kat, Michelle and Bridget trying to get the decorations up and talking about their fantasy wedding. Maybe that was the 'all female' version?

I hated the Mattessa wedding with a passion. It was so boring and not funny to me. The food poisoning was treated like a joke and that isn't a joke. The being stuck in the same hospital room with your nemesis fell flat to me.

Only weddings I liked was Reva/Josh one in 89 and Billy/Vanessa one where they were all dress up in old time clothing from another era. It was funny and romantic.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by MLH
added

12 minutes ago, MLH said:

I thought there was one that focused on someone's Bridal shower, but it got cut for some reason (something from the news). I only remember Kat, Michelle and Bridget trying to get the decorations up and talking about their fantasy wedding. Maybe that was the 'all female' version?

Thanks. A shame that was never shown, like they showed a glimpse of Reva's funeral that had been preempted.

14 minutes ago, P.J. said:

I know people think '93 starts to slide, (and full disclosure, I'm too heartbroken to watch after Jordan Clarke's exit) but I think the first half is classic soap. I'd put those scenes with Ehlers/Deas/Carol in my top ten. BE is fantastic confronting her parents.

It took longer than I'd like to get to the Buzz reveal, but the payoff has been great. I also am liking this different dynamic with Harley/Mallet as the constant bickering gets a bit old for me. (I think those are the sorts of things where binging can make things grate a bit.) Like you said, BE is definitely bringing it.

I don't necessarily know if I think it's better per se, but I actually am enjoying March-May or so of 1993 more than the back half of 1992. Everything was so bleak for awhile there in 1992-not just Mo's death but all the AM/Eleni stuff got super bleak too. Also Holly's breakdown was a hard watch. as well as Mallet's recovery period from the explosion. Bridget pregnant in the attic while in "Appalachia" wasn't particularly fun either. It was a bit unrelentingly dark for awhile there in 1992-weirdly Mo's death/aftermath seemed to be the culmination of that tone. I like after the dramatic payouts played out from 1992 that the first half of 1993 is a better mix of drama/fun/camp IMO.

25 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

LOL at Buzz in a dress - that shocks me. Was it actually good or too obvious it's Buzz?

This all sounds fun, thanks for the details!! The Peter/Bridget story is one I can't wait to see. I'm also intrigued to see crazy Eve, considering when I saw her in 1995, she was pretty bland and normal before she died (but I remember the guys here telling me last year her wild backstory).

I'm not familiar with Julie. Sounds like I'm not missing much though.

Buzz basically just went into the ladies room at the airport and changed then tried to blend in but Mallet figured him out-it didn't go on particularly long. They did have him give a long, dramatic speech while handcuffed to a canopy bed post (nothing dirty haha) still in the dress and some makeup.

Spoiler: You're both not missing all that much with Julie but she gets her own Crazy Julie run. (She's Mallet's sister to fill in who she is-I don't get all the Lucy hate when Julie is right there taking up screen time in back to back snoozefest relationships with inexplicable amounts of screen time.)

2 minutes ago, GL95 said:

Spoiler: You're both not missing all that much with Julie but she gets her own Crazy Julie run. (She's Mallet's sister to fill in who she is-I don't get all the Lucy hate when Julie is right there taking up screen time in back to back snoozefest relationships with inexplicable amounts of screen time.)

My issues with Lucy were her being brought in to replace Harley and just them trying too hard at spunkiness, quirkiness, what have you...if the show hadn't been so alienating to me at the time due to so many cast exits and focus on the wrong people, I probably would have been more receptive. I grew to accept her more during the Brent story as the character had more of a purpose, even if as is often the case on soaps that was done via assault.

Julie I didn't mind as much because she was just a generic ingenue and I thought JS did an OK job - she was very good at sincerity, or so I thought at the time. I remember being involved with the Hart/Julie relationship the first time around. By the time she was with Dylan I'd started to lose some interest in the show.

I probably should have been more annoyed as she replaced Sam, someone I liked, but I guess even then I must have known the show had written Sam into a corner.

37 minutes ago, P.J. said:

I know people think '93 starts to slide, (and full disclosure, I'm too heartbroken to watch after Jordan Clarke's exit) but I think the first half is classic soap. I'd put those scenes with Ehlers/Deas/Carol in my top ten. BE is fantastic confronting her parents.

And Maeve gets some great lines---"what are you going to do, Nadine? Put it in the oven and broil it?" and (when asked where she came from) "my mother's womb--I think. Where did your baby come from?"

In my binge-watching, Billy really stands out. He's usually giving one-liners and a backup to Josh, but I really love how he comes across. He's generally nice but has a rugged edge. He doesn't mind breaking some rules. Was Billy a huge character in the 80s or just a romantic foil for Reva and Vanessa? I read that Jordan Clarke always kept his other job as a handyman while working in daytime(not sure how true that is)

I'm almost done with my 2005 binge. I found myself interested in the Manny saga with Hope, but I always understood why the writers decided to give the couple a rest. Michelle is screeching in the cabin with psycho Edmund and I still don't get why she had to leave town. But it got my interest.

I got so excited seeing Paul Anthony Stewart and Laura Wright in scenes as Danny and Cassie (mini Casey and Ally reunion).

Laura really made Cassie feel special and a stand-alone character outside of Reva, Tammy, or whoever else. Never solely someone's sister, mother, wife, etc. The essence of Cassie left with her. No shade to her replacement.

Jeffrey is scum. He's no better than Edmund at keeping Hope from Michelle. I don't know how this guy became the show's lead.

Speaking of 05, Ava's character just doesn't work for me. Not the actress (who seems nice in real life) or her purpose on the canvas. She comes off like a watered-down Drew who actually had some fire to her. But the writers are at last getting to Jammy becoming a couple before the horrid 06 Lizzie nonsense begins.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by CrazySexyQ

1993 from the aftermath of Maureen death was a chore to get through. Way too much Buzz.

Highlights of 1993 for me were Roger visiting Maureen's grave (January 22) and Roger crashing Ed's party at the country club (July 16).