1 hour ago, P.J. said:

B) it's not just me? It's not that people didn't gather and celebrate, it's that you never have that big moment of everyone gathered at a table . You never knew who'd host it that year.

Granted, I've only seen 3 Thanksgivings so far, but I felt the same... the only one coming to mind was 1997 when Meta led the Bauer's to jail to have Thanksgiving dinner with Abby. I can't really remember anything special from 1995 or 1996, and my notes don't have much.

4 hours ago, P.J. said:

A) who is Chuckie? The only Chuckie I knew was Lisa's son on ATWT

Another "Who's Chuckie?" that evokes sadness. LOL.

1 hour ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

Another "Who's Chuckie?" that evokes sadness. LOL.

I read somewhere that Chuckie's death upset so many viewers that some named their babies after him. So people cared. 😁

3 hours ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

Another "Who's Chuckie?" that evokes sadness. LOL.

You get the feeling Irna really didn't like Chucks. Lol

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

You get the feeling Irna really didn't like Chucks. Lol

Ha! Yeah, except that it was another writer that killed of Chuckie Shea. I always thought it was dangerous to be named Jennifer on ATWT. Jennifer Ryan gets killed off, Emily and Paul's baby Jennifer (named after Jennifer Ryan) gets killed off and Jennifer Munson, also named after Jennifer Ryan, gets killed off.

10 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

Granted, I've only seen 3 Thanksgivings so far, but I felt the same... the only one coming to mind was 1997 when Meta led the Bauer's to jail to have Thanksgiving dinner with Abby. I can't really remember anything special from 1995 or 1996, and my notes don't have much.

Did Meta mention at the time that she too was in jail. They had forgotten so much history at that time but apprently it was a big deal that they even had a contest for the audience to vote if Meta was guilty or not. Did Meta have step kids they could have brought back...wasnt there a pain in the asss Robin who married Mike Bauer?

5 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

Did Meta mention at the time that she too was in jail. They had forgotten so much history at that time but apprently it was a big deal that they even had a contest for the audience to vote if Meta was guilty or not. Did Meta have step kids they could have brought back...wasnt there a pain in the asss Robin who married Mike Bauer?

Robin threw herself in front of a car around 1966 or 1967. They'd wiped out everyone around Meta, but they had never mentioned the husband she left Springfield with in the early '70s - they could have easily adopted a child.

When Meta married Joe Roberts he had 2 children. Kathy who was Robin's mother and Joey who was written out in the mid 50's.

So Meta could have had 'grand children' through Joey.

Or they could have done rewrite whereby Bruce Banning found out he had a child and there were grandchildren through that.

20 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Robin threw herself in front of a car around 1966 or 1967.

October 1967

8 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

When Meta married Joe Roberts he had 2 children. Kathy who was Robin's mother and Joey who was written out in the mid 50's.

So Meta could have had 'grand children' through Joey.

Or they could have done rewrite whereby Bruce Banning found out he had a child and there were grandchildren through that.

Oh I forgot about Joey. A waste.

4 minutes ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

October 1967

Thanks.

With the talk some pages back of the Morgan storyline, here is how CBS was marketing it:

5 hours ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

Ha! Yeah, except that it was another writer that killed of Chuckie Shea. I always thought it was dangerous to be named Jennifer on ATWT. Jennifer Ryan gets killed off, Emily and Paul's baby Jennifer (named after Jennifer Ryan) gets killed off and Jennifer Munson, also named after Jennifer Ryan, gets killed off.

True. Although Jennifer's (Barbara's daughter) death seemed mostly designed to let Craig back into Johnny's life.

13 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

Granted, I've only seen 3 Thanksgivings so far, but I felt the same... the only one coming to mind was 1997 when Meta led the Bauer's to jail to have Thanksgiving dinner with Abby. I can't really remember anything special from 1995 or 1996, and my notes don't have much.

I suppose some of it is due to the revolving door of IIC. Maybe it's a little more realistic not to have gatherings where every newcomer in town gets invited to...but considering they'd throw a party at the drop of a hat, it just seems odd. I can't recall the Lewises ever sitting down to a meal at home, around a beautifully set table. Thanksgiving '89, they are slumming it down at Company, eating off the equivalent of lunch tables and folding chairs.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

With the talk some pages back of the Morgan storyline, here is how CBS was marketing it:

Teenage sexual angst...set to a disco beat?

Today marks the 40^th anniversary of my all-time favorite Guiding Light character’s death. On December 2, 1985, Brandon “Lujack” Luvonaczek breathed his last at Cedars after being caught in an explosion on the tanker Infinity. RIP

Okay so I’m going  to now go on a tear with my issues about the handling of Vincent Irizzary, Lujack and Nick.

First off killing off Lujack huge mistake. In a SOD interview co-head writer Jeff Ryder said instead of sending him off on a world wide tour of the OUT IN THE STREETS video killing him would catapult those around him into the next chapter of their lives. SPIN…I’m sure I’ve hears somewhere it was Gail Kobe’s sour grapes for VI not renewing his contract to explore a film career.

So the character was done dirty and we got to see Beth back with Philip after explaining the last two years why she had moved on and couldn’t /didn’t want to be with him anymore.

Now we come to Nick. They went through gymnastics to bring him back as a long lost twin only to pair him with…Mindy! The entire time he was on the canvas they never brought Beth back. That would have been an epic story. After he finally left again  he came back for two episodes at Christmas and they did not even write a scene where Phillip who was on the canvas meets Nick. Ball fumbled at every possible turn with Nick.

My hope bloomed when FINALLY Vincent left ALL MY CHILDREN. This was their chance to get him back AND if I could only have been on the writing staff not I had a scenario for his return not as NICK but as LUJACK.

How? He died on screen?

There was just enough wriggle room (especially given all the outlandish back from the dead and other things like clones etc.) to  make it work.

Remember Infinity was a powerful crime organization. The government could have been investigating it all along and never got anyone even close to it.  The explosion of the ship sets off alarms. They found out a critically injured Lujack was aboard. Did he see something value regarding Largo and  Infinity. They had to make sure he lived and didn’t want to trust Cedars. Louie Darnell, I believe was the attending physician when he died (can’t have Ed not save Lujack right?!) Long story short they pressure Louie in to doing something that simulates his death after he cried out BETH and apparently died.  Remember, when they came back from commercial, he was gone and everyone was greiving. That was when he was  spirited away by the government and eventually into witness protection. He chose not to come back because Beth and Alexandra moved on. He was tempted when Nick came but he stayed away. All this is revealed by a dying Dr. Darnell who wants to go out with a clean conscious. Alex and Beth, who were on the canvas at the time begin a frantic search and low and behold ...they find LUJACK.

It was doable with a scenario like this.

So I voraciously scoured the soap mags for any information on where VI would wind up, fingers crossed….I would have even taken Nick if he could have gotten a Beth/Nick story but no…he went to YOUNG AND RESTLESS as David Chow. When Chow got killed off I  prayed he would come back since VI is east coast based…but no GL did not bring him back…every chance wasted and eventually it became too late and the show was cancelled.

So yes, the minute the execs decided Lujack had to die they committed a self-inflicted gunshot wound the show would never recover from. This was Lujack we are talking about, a legacy character not some throw away like Kurt Corday or Detective Cutter  and they learned nothing from this debacle when they killed off a certain Bauer.

@Lujack4Ever I appreciate hearing your thoughts. You're right, killing Lujack was very short-sighted, likely a spite move, and produced little story value unless you are a big fan of Alex's decimation with Nick. I hadn't even thought of the lost story potential in Nick not meeting Philip.

Do you think Lujack would have worked with another actress playing Beth?