I must have dreamed Hutton being on GL because it sounds like only Murphy appeared on the show.

I love that the person who wrote the review had a crush on Murphy because I did, too, going back to when he was on the show Alias Smith & Jones. 😁 Another reason I probably forced myself to sit through the movie.

21 minutes ago, Soapsuds said:

Brad Pitt might not have been hired by GL, but a year later Dallas hired him in the role of Randy. His acting was nothing to write home about.

When was it ever? He's a star, not an actor.

In the right role he can be good. Usually in comedy. I liked him in Burn After Reading.

But people saying he’s due an Oscar...oh, please.

2 hours ago, DRW50 said:

A year or so before ABC had had several GH cast members playing other roles in a TV-movie with Suzanne Pleshette, but playing their soap characters I don't think was ever done.

That was 'Fantasies'

That movie's awful. It would be interesting to see the ratings on it--if that was an experiment, then I assume it failed, because I can't recall any other movies tie ins being made.

Ben appeared in a few episodes prior to The Cradle Will Fall airing to cross promote.

The problem was trying to shoehorn the GL characters into the plot of a successful novel.

Had they used a script tailored to include GL characters or adapted a book that leant itself better to incorporating the soap characters things might have been different.

However The Cradle Will fall was a ratings success airing in the final week of May sweeps and finishing at #15 for the week with a 15.5/25 rating considering it was up against a repeat of The Enforcer which ranked #8 17.6/29 and Three's Company #10 17.3/28.

Kim Zimmer - How to cry at the drop of a hat

13 hours ago, DRW50 said:

They mentioned that Elvera and John Wesley Shipp were going to return for GL's 60th in 1997. They said that Rauch stopped Elvera and John from returning.

I can't see JWS returning, but it would have been cool to see he and Lisa together. A nice chat about the past and maybe him saying, "I made the wrong choice." Elvera...I just wish they had recast Hope. One would think maybe Rauch was hedging his bets and wanted to save Hope to recast in the future, but that didn't happen. At least use Hope to usher AM and Lucy off the canvas...maybe she is running a Bauer Foundation and AM leaves the evil empire of Spaulding to work for her.

2 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

I can't see JWS returning, but it would have been cool to see he and Lisa together. A nice chat about the past and maybe him saying, "I made the wrong choice." Elvera...I just wish they had recast Hope. One would think maybe Rauch was hedging his bets and wanted to save Hope to recast in the future, but that didn't happen. At least use Hope to usher AM and Lucy off the canvas...maybe she is running a Bauer Foundation and AM leaves the evil empire of Spaulding to work for her.

That would have been a lovely scene with Kelly and Nola. And a logical ending for Alan-Michael at the time. They missed so many opportunities with Hope. Reminds me of ATWT with Frannie.

9 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

That was 'Fantasies'

That movie's awful. It would be interesting to see the ratings on it--if that was an experiment, then I assume it failed, because I can't recall any other movies tie ins being made.

Ben appeared in a few episodes prior to The Cradle Will Fall airing to cross promote.

The problem was trying to shoehorn the GL characters into the plot of a successful novel.

Had they used a script tailored to include GL characters or adapted a book that leant itself better to incorporating the soap characters things might have been different.

However The Cradle Will fall was a ratings success airing in the final week of May sweeps and finishing at #15 for the week with a 15.5/25 rating considering it was up against a repeat of The Enforcer which ranked #8 17.6/29 and Three's Company #10 17.3/28.

Thanks. Maybe even with the ratings hit they thought it was too much of a headache to try again.

There is or was a news feature on Youtube where a reporter went backstage at GH to talk with Stuart Damon and Robin Mattson about Fantasies. The clips didn't look great...

Fantasies actually did well in the ratings, ranking No. 9 for the week of Jan. 18-24, 1982. Bear in mind, though, that this was January 1982, at the time when ABC Daytime ruled the world, and the competition was weak.

M*A*S*H (No. 17), House Calls (No. 44), and People of the Year (No. 60) on CBS. The latter was a special hosted by Bob Newhart (!) about People's 25 Most Fascinating People of 1981. Over on NBC, The Long Summer of George Adams, starring James Garner. "In 1950s Oklahoma, a railroad worker's job is threatened by automation, compounding domestic problems with his wife and the ridicule he faces from the townfolks because of his second job as a watchman." It ranked at No. 40. This was when NBC's highest-ranked program was Real People (No. 13).

14 minutes ago, Franko said:

NBC's highest-ranked program was Real People (No. 13).

A decade later NBC would be appointment TV.

I looked up Fantasies. It did not have just soap stars from GH. I was pretty certain I remembered Peter Bergman in it, and looking it up confirmed that. But they also had Robert S. Woods and John Gabriel, along with Bergman, so it was ABC soap stars.

This just goes to show how strong a draw soaps were back then. There was a feature film around that time called Young Doctors in Love that was a spoof of soaps. I had the opportunity to see a raw print of the film that was shown to theater bookers because I knew someone who did that and he knew I liked soaps. It starred Michael McKean and Sean Young. It was packed with cameos by soap stars, most of them from GH, but from other shows, too, including Kin Shriner, Janine Turner, Demi Moore (yeah, they were really pushing her), Jackie Zeman, Stuart Damon, etc.

It was directed by Gary Marshall so it wasn't completely awful, but there was no, um, affection for the genre so a lot of jokes landed like lead.

BTW, the theater bookers thought it was effing hilarious. I was a representative of the audience they were making the film for and I kept looking around, thinking, "What's wrong with you people? It's not that funny." Possibly some were plants by the studios to encourange the bookers to book the film, I don't know. Definitely one of the most bizarre movie going experiences of my life.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by DeeVee