20 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

I had no idea that was a real town! I thought they made up the name. That's very cool.

It's a very small town.   My mom laughed when we drove by it on our way to Lake Geneva when I was growing up because she tried to envision Chancellor Enterprises, Newman Enterises, and Jabot headquartered in this little town (which is about population 3000 nowadays).  And it's around 70 to 80 miles between Chicago and Genoa City (so people could drive to Chicago from there in about two hours or so).

Oakdale... there is an actual Oakdale in Illinois.. but it's in the southern part of Illinois.... however, I always thought that Oakdale Illinois was more like a Peoria Illinois (a 3 hour or so car ride from Chicago) with a population of a 100,000 with surrounding towns being smaller (like Milltown and Luther's Corner).

Springfield... if it ended up taking place in Illinois, than it would have been the capital of the state.  It had 100K living there and had state government as the largest employer so I assumed Springfield of GL was not the same as Springfield of Illinois.. but I could be wrong.

 

1 hour ago, Mitch64 said:

Irna lived in Chicago, so I do think that it was supposed to be a suburb ..like Oaklawn or Oak Park. When Lisa left ATWT she took a train to the city, but it seemed more than a commuter train to get there. 

Right. But as I said, in the early years of the show, it couldn't have been Chicago because Irna had Edith living in "the city" and not in the suburb of Oakdale. It was one of the things that distinguished the free-spirit, glamorous Edith from the conservative, traditional Hughes family living in Oakdale. Edith left "the city" and moved to Chicago for a while and wrote letters back to the family. She then later moved back to "the city" when she left Chicago. So, "the city" may have been based on Chicago but it definitely wasn't Chicago in the early years of the story. 

1 hour ago, Soaplovers said:

Oakdale... there is an actual Oakdale in Illinois.. but it's in the southern part of Illinois.... however, I always thought that Oakdale Illinois was more like a Peoria Illinois (a 3 hour or so car ride from Chicago) with a population of a 100,000 with surrounding towns being smaller (like Milltown and Luther's Corner).

 

That's how I envisioned it, and how I think it was meant to be envisioned, when I watched the show in the 80s. 

N/A

 

 

Edited September 28Sep 28 by TheyStartedOnSoaps

Thanks.

That episode was originally uploaded 14 years ago, but in parts. 

 

To add to the Bell/Chicago info:  Lee Phillip Bell, Lauralee's mother, had her own "news lite" program in Chicago.  It aired at lunchtime on NBC (channel 5 in Chicago).

I don't remember if her show was part of a lunchtime news program or a stand-alone show.  It ran for years during the 1970s and 1980s.  Very likable woman.

 

 

22 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

To add to the Bell/Chicago info:  Lee Phillip Bell, Lauralee's mother, had her own "news lite" program in Chicago.  It aired at lunchtime on NBC (channel 5 in Chicago).

I don't remember if her show was part of a lunchtime news program or a stand-alone show.  It ran for years during the 1970s and 1980s.  Very likable woman.

It was a standalone show. There are several episodes on Youtube.

I may be wrong but didn't Lee Philip air on WBBM a CBS affiliate?

 

23 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

Very true - I was hoping they would do more with Billy generally during this whole storyline. I was getting worried about Bill not being around, but they finally brought him in towards the end.

It has to be (if not the last appearance) near the very end of Bryan Buffinton's run as Bill. Which is very sad to me. I get that you have to let child performers go sometime, but there's a lot of history with that little guy. And he was a much better actor than Ryan Brown.

I just recall the entire set up being very segmented. People from Vanessa's "old" life waiting out in the hall (I'm not even sure if Ross is there, or was just mentioned as getting a call), and her "new" life (plus Bill) sobbing at her bedside. Sobbing Jenna and Buzz are in that room, while Billy is in the hall. Utter bullshit. They could've at least sprinkled some flashbacks in there showing her other relationships. 

I wish they'd handled Maureen's visit entirely differently, with Mo reminding Vanessa that she had always been a fighter and loved her children too much to simply give up without another one. Her entire focus being Matt and Dinah (with Bill and even little Maureen barely an afterthought) is really symbolic of what Van had been reduced to.

Which is really why Matt and Dinah should've screwed much earlier, or Matt and Beth, with Vanessa realizing she'd sensed/feared all along that Matt was not a long term thing.

Edited September 28Sep 28 by P.J.

Paul, you are correct.  I am wrong.  Lee Bell's show was on WBBM, Channel 2 in Chicago.

The show ran from 1956(!) through 1986, according to IMDB.  That site says that there were just 155 episodes hosted by Bell, and another 20 by a few guest hosts.  Thusly and apparently, a considerably sporadic show.

Guest interviews included Gloria Swanson, Burt Reynolds and Sid Caesar.

But get this - the announcer was Ray Rayner!  Wow.  Another well-known Chicago figure from the past.  Having lived the first 30 years of my life in Chicagoland, the memories are flooding in.  Sheesh.

 

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

I just recall the entire set up being very segmented. People from Vanessa's "old" life waiting out in the hall (I'm not even sure if Ross is there, or was just mentioned as getting a call), and her "new" life (plus Bill) sobbing at her bedside. Sobbing Jenna and Buzz are in that room, while Billy is in the hall. Utter bullshit. They could've at least sprinkled some flashbacks in there showing her other relationships. 

Of course Buzzard had to be hogging in....what the hell was this deep friendship with Jenna too? Brown was supposedly put on recurring, why wasn't Nola around...(it almost seems that some of Jenna's scenes were written with Nola in mind, taking Matt's side at first and then coming around to Vanessa's side would have been much stronger with someone in the family and with history. 

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

It has to be (if not the last appearance) near the very end of Bryan Buffinton's run as Bill. Which is very sad to me. I get that you have to let child performers go sometime, but there's a lot of history with that little guy. And he was a much better actor than Ryan Brown.

I just recall the entire set up being very segmented. People from Vanessa's "old" life waiting out in the hall (I'm not even sure if Ross is there, or was just mentioned as getting a call), and her "new" life (plus Bill) sobbing at her bedside. Sobbing Jenna and Buzz are in that room, while Billy is in the hall. Utter bullshit. They could've at least sprinkled some flashbacks in there showing her other relationships. 

I wish they'd handled Maureen's visit entirely differently, with Mo reminding Vanessa that she had always been a fighter and loved her children too much to simply give up without another one. Her entire focus being Matt and Dinah (with Bill and even little Maureen barely an afterthought) is really symbolic of what Van had been reduced to.

Which is really why Matt and Dinah should've screwed much earlier, or Matt and Beth, with Vanessa realizing she'd sensed/feared all along that Matt was not a long term thing.

Aww that's sad I'm almost to the end of Bryan's Bill. I really like him.  And agreed with your assessment on the 'old' and 'new'. Re: Ross, I found it odd too, he was there once but then disappeared, and they just said Ross was out of town during Holly's kidney transplant, so I guess Jerry might have been on vacation maybe? Not good though.

31 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

Of course Buzzard had to be hogging in....what the hell was this deep friendship with Jenna too? Brown was supposedly put on recurring, why wasn't Nola around...(it almost seems that some of Jenna's scenes were written with Nola in mind, taking Matt's side at first and then coming around to Vanessa's side would have been much stronger with someone in the family and with history. 

I don't know when that crap with Jenna developed. When I stop watching in '93, Jenna (with Roger's help) has hornswaggled Spaulding out from underneath the Chamberlains and the Spauldings, and Van snipes at Jenna at the Frank/Eleni wedding about how she wouldn't be welcome there. I don't know if it was in the wake of Henry's death, or maybe Jenna miscarrying Roger's baby, or even some unlikely bond over Nola's antics. But it just makes zero sense to me that Van would have accepted that woman as a friend in such a short period of time. It took Van years to trust Blake, if she ever truly did.  And then there's Buzz, who was an oily con man in '93, helping Nadine keep the Peter secret...getting special access (even if it's as Jenna's husband--were they ever married? I'm not sure.) 

UGH...and NOLA's not even there? When the child is named for her sister and there's been at least a thaw between Nola and Van? [!@#$%^&*] THESE PEOPLE. I'm outraged decades later...lol.

5 minutes ago, P.J. said:

UGH...and NOLA's not even there? When the child is named for her sister and there's been at least a thaw between Nola and Van? [!@#$%^&*] THESE PEOPLE. I'm outraged decades later...lol.

OMG - such a great point, I honestly didn't even think about Nola or where she was. Such a shame, but they've put Nola on an island after her obsession with Buzz. The Cooper's don't like her, J left town and she really has no one left. Buzz seemingly has his memory back (they haven't really confirmed this, it's very grey, but he's working at the diner and seems to be back with Jenna - the whole storyline has been back-burnered Jan-March). I guess the writers just didn't know how to use her during those scenes, which again is a shame.

42 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

Aww that's sad I'm almost to the end of Bryan's Bill. I really like him.  And agreed with your assessment on the 'old' and 'new'. Re: Ross, I found it odd too, he was there once but then disappeared, and they just said Ross was out of town during Holly's kidney transplant, so I guess Jerry might have been on vacation maybe? Not good though.

Bryan is flippin' adorable as Little Bill. If you ever get to back to '89, he's just a great little kid. He's not cutey pie almost-annoying as Ashley Peldon's Marah, and he's really the bridge that keeps Van and Billy in each other's lives.

The wrters could've justified it as Ross stepping back because he knew Van was annoyed with him--but this may also be around the time Jerry was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I can't seem to find when that was with a quick persual of the 'net.