1 hour ago, DeeVee said:

A few other possibilities:

The Lewises had their oil business in Venezuela. Didn't have to be Sonni/Josh's secret progeny (although that would be fantastically soapy, a fetus surviving Sonni's fall off a cliff). Lots of ways they could have gone with that.

Then, there's Alan's missing years in San Rios. I hate everything to do with that offensively written fake Latin country, and Alan had plenty of secret children, but Gus could have been from that era of his life. (And they could have not killed him off).

Then, of course, Roger. Another one of his kids from his years bouncing around the world as a CIA spook.

I love the idea of bringing in another Bauer child through Mike, but I'm not crazy about cousin couplings. One was enough for GL.

Doesn't Roger have some missing years in San Domingo? And, no Jami couldn't overcome it & if they couldn't, no one could. 

There was this thing about the Bennifer marriage that said it reset the time line to 2004 and what did it do to your show... 

#1 Danny became a Bauer via Mike.

 

Edited June 26Jun 26 by Contessa Donatella

3 hours ago, Ryanc2 said:

I’m not generally one of those people who thinks a POC should be on a tv show just for the sake of having a POC but the lack of diversity in the 90s cast is pretty glaring. It almost makes it kind of boring to not have atleast any Latino or black characters at all which we know there was plenty of in the U.S in 1999. 

Passions was one of the worst soaps ever (if not the worst) in terms of writing but one thing they did get right is their characters. They had a Latino and Black family that were front burner along with the Cranes and Bennetts. Having a diverse cast definitely keeps you interested. Having so many characters who are blond and white makes it difficult for me to separate them on screen sometimes. 

Ah man, bummer to hear the lack of diversity in 1999.  In 1995, we had a strong Black family (the Grants) that were featured, and then the Williams father/son duo that came in late 1995, but McTavish totally destroyed ALL those characters with a gross storyline. We lost Sid and David Grant first. Then lost Gilly. And once Griffin's assassination storyline ended, he and Vivian haven't been seen in several months, so I'm assuming they're on their way out too. Marcus and Dahlia are only on like once a week, if that. I've noticed as of early 1997, the diversity is lacking pretty bad too. 

The only other person I can think of right now is Eleni, who is Greek, but this new actress has slowly lost her Greek accent over the last 20 months...

4 hours ago, DeeVee said:

For something like two decades I did not know this scene existed. Thanks a lot. 😂

Hell loves company!!!!! : ) Grab a seat, the scenes of Buzz trying to save the diner during the 5th Street Fire are coming up!!!!

 

3 hours ago, Contessa Donatella said:

Now you have me intrigued. How would it have been tied?

 

I would have had a strong Latina woman, a first generation citizen, and a lawyer (with a big family) who actually is very active against the Santos family and what they are doing to what I would make, the multi ethnic community from 7th Street on down to the river.  Let's say Rick helps out at a clinic one day a week or so, and they meet.  Rick and she hit it off, after the required, "I don't like you," part of him not understanding her anger and she annoyed by his white, wealthy privilege. They come to a consensus on hating the Santos family and she softens when she hears that Rick's great grandfather was an immigrant who, when they moved from California to Springfield, settled in that neighborhood, which at the time was heavily German/Irish/Greek (Bauers/Reardons/Coopers.)  Eventually drama unfolds where she starts putting the Santos away and finding damning evidence on Danny, which affects Chele, so Rick gets involved. 

MOL needed a live wire to make Rick interesting (and avoid his mugging...) This character would eventually be very wary of Phillip and the damage that the Spaulding family had to the area and people there also..I always liked that Mel didn't seem to like Phillip but they never developed it or actually her character.

3 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

Ah man, bummer to hear the lack of diversity in 1999.  In 1995, we had a strong Black family (the Grants) that were featured, and then the Williams father/son duo that came in late 1995, but McTavish totally destroyed ALL those characters with a gross storyline. We lost Sid and David Grant first. Then lost Gilly. And once Griffin's assassination storyline ended, he and Vivian haven't been seen in several months, so I'm assuming they're on their way out too. Marcus and Dahlia are only on like once a week, if that. I've noticed as of early 1997, the diversity is lacking pretty bad too. 

The only other person I can think of right now is Eleni, who is Greek, but this new actress has slowly lost her Greek accent over the last 20 months...

The Grants (not Gilly, sadly) will still pop up here and there in the late '90s, but yes, diversity was poor.

18 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

The Grants (not Gilly, sadly) will still pop up here and there in the late '90s, but yes, diversity was poor.

Terrell Tilford & his wife, who did they play? And, yes, I could/can look it up.

@Mitch64I was thinking about O'Leary. He always needed something (or someone) to make him as important onscreen as he was to the cast & crew backstage.

I think the Santos family would have worked better as a first, or second, generation immigrant family trying to balance their dual identities (of being Americans and their country of origin).  I could have seen Mick being the bad seed son where his death would have bought on good son Danny to find out what happened to his brother... focusing on Michelle and the two develop feelings for one another with the conflict being that Michelle believes she's the cause of his brother's death.

Meanwhile.. his mother Carmen has managed to make a business a success while distressed over her son Mick's wayward ways and she depends on Danny to be the man of the house/head of the family after the death of her husband.   Carmen would naturally be resentful of Michelle for being the new woman in Danny's life and also being conflicted over Michelle's role in her son Mick's death understanding it was in self defense.. but still having a hard time forgiving Michelle.

The Santos family could have worked without the mobster element.. but that would have required the writers to think outside the box.

10 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

I forgot about that...the baby conceived on the outhouse floor..a true nadir in GL history and proof Wheeler didn't know which way was up. But it did give Van a great scene when Mel had the nerve to threaten her....Van, "I realize you don't know who you are dealing with, so I am giving you the benefit of the doubt, but I advice you to tread lightly" or something like that

Was that one of those weirder ITL episodes? 'Yeah...ick. 

And YEAH, I love that Vanessa scene. I never particularly cared for Mel, but no one came at  Vanessa's kids and should've expected her to walk away.

Okay, what do we know about the writing of the Santis? I must be laboring under a misapprehension as I thought someone actively wanted a writer or writers who would create for them a mob story on the show. So perhaps I am in need of enlightenment. 

9 hours ago, DeeVee said:

(And, of course, Zaslow could actually act).

ALL this. Zas could make you hate Roger, but then turn around and sympathize with him. Roger knew somewhere in his craven heart that he was the architect of his own disaster. 

Cole couldn't convince me the sky was blue.

20 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

That's how Billy and Nadine started interacting... because he was interested in trying again with Vanessa and he felt Ross a threat so he flirted with Nadine and she eventually agreed to help him keep Vanessa and Ross apart.  This was in the fall of 1989... but eventually the show decided to make Ross/Holly a thing... and the show decided to do a Vanessa/Billy/Nadine triangle.. but I'm sure when the show decided to go in that direction.

I do remember a scene where Ross and Nadine end up at a function at either the Spaulding mansion, or the country club... and Vanessa and Nadine meet.. and it was dislike at first sight.  I think it might have been before the 'soft reboot' of Nadine, or right after she came back from that brief absence.

 

I'm gonna have to scour '89, because I don't recall Nadine and Billy conspiring that way. Billy and Nadine met because she interviewed Hamp right after he came to town. Then there's a party at WSPR where Van is ignoring Billy while she watches Holly and Ross (he knows she's not listening, while he's trying to talk her into them having a family outing with Bill, and he goes "...and then I'll peel you like a grape..." she says something like "I'll check the schedule," and walks to Ross.)

Vanessa and Nadine met when Phillip had people over for drinks at the mansion, if I recall correctly. But I thought shortly after that, Nadine realized that she couldn't compete with both Holly and Vanessa, and left Ross' cottage with a little dignity.

Edited June 27Jun 27 by P.J.

It's gonna take me some time to adjust to reading discussion about the incomparable Michael Zaslow who so amazingly portrayed Roger Thorpe in the same discussion the very mention of that hack Bradley Cole. Is lightning gonna strike us? Maybe we should adopt a construct where we never uttered that name instead  just typed these characters. B--C--. It worked so well BITD on AMC with L* 

11 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

There is no way Ehlers came up with that...(the design of the suit, yes, she had to show off her abs..) but it was Kreizman and Wheeler who came up with that idea, which wasnt even a dream..it was supposed to be real. WTF, even Cleva would think that was stupid. No way did Ehlers or the designer go to Marvel and have a comic made..if they had that power neither one of them would have been on that shinking ship.

So weird..they must have made the Santos' Latino as they saw that the Latin audience for soaps was strong...but did they actually think that audience wanted to see a cartoon family of mobsters running around? I think GL, an show that was built around an immigrant German family making it to the upper middle class, would have been perfect to bring in a Latin family and tie them to that core family the Bauers..but as mobsters.It really showed how incredibly dense MADD, Rauch, the net execs were.

I think the idea of teaming up with Marvel for a superhero comic on a soap was a fun idea, creativity in a way that did show Wheeler was trying new things, but I never really knew how it would have worked. And I think they should have chosen Reva (even if Zimmer would have burst a blood vessel), as she had already been cloned and traveled through time anyway. 

I wonder if the original plans for the Santos family were very short term until Manny took off. 

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

I wonder if the original plans for the Santos family were very short term until Manny took off. 

I don't think it was short term, they just recast Michelle and moved her away from Jesse Blue.  Also, the HWs previously wrote for PAS (danny) on Loving.  Also, between the mob and d the Island people, Raunch was clearly molding the show in his own image.

11 minutes ago, Spoon said:

I don't think it was short term, they just recast Michelle and moved her away from Jesse Blue.  Also, the HWs previously wrote for PAS (danny) on Loving.  Also, between the mob and d the Island people, Raunch was clearly molding the show in his own image.

For some reason I thought it was said at one point Danny was meant to be a short-term role. It seemed like Michelle/Jesse were also the rooting couple early on (as Budig had left by choice, IIRC, not due to the show's plans), then that shifted after Joie Lenz worked so well with PAS and PAS was just so good in general.

I never saw the point of the Marvel stuff. As a lapsed GL viewer, I was not going to tune back into the show because of this. It felt like a distraction. If you're going to do something outside of the box, it should lure people back into the show. What former/current GL viewers are going to be swayed by a Marvel connection?  It's a misreading of what soap viewers actually want. We don't want gimmicks that mean nothing. The producers after Calhoun never understood that.