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Paul Raven

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I HATED the Roxie character, as there were just too many damn Lewis/Shaynes in too short of a time. I really hated her as they used her to break up one of my fave couples Rick and Minday (no one watching later on would believe me that MOL was cute as hell in his younger years and he and Terseu were just a cute couple together.) Not that I didnt think that R & M could break up, it just was a quick switch from Rick accepting and actually liking Mindy with all of her quirks, to him being totally in love with Roxie and hating Mindy for being vain, etc. Plus that dumb ass story they gave her of having a split personality...sorry, the actress was cute and had a nice warm personality but she could NOT act more then being cute, young and nice. Giving her heavy emotional scenes was ridiculous.

I thought Long was still there for Andy Ferris and Infinity right? It doesnt seem like her though???

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I think Michael was very cute back then and remained handsome when he returned...he aged, of course, but whatever he may have done to his face 3-4 years ago was the big mistake.

I wonder if they broke Rick/Mindy up to try to move Mindy into bigger stories? It seems like they had no idea what to do with Rick for years. His fling with Claire was a rewrite, wasn't it, or did that really happen?

I also think the show aged that group a little too much. For instance, by 1987 wasn't Rick already getting involved with Meredith, who looked much older? That whole story about passing Phillip's child off as Rick's also seemed too old for them. I think SOD named Rick/Meredith worst couple of the year.

I wish the show had done more with Mindy in the last year. The Rick/Mindy reunion was so rushed.

I thought Infinity was Ryder, but I don't know.

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That reminds me, I have the episode where Reva baptizes herself as the slut on Springfield saved on my computer. While KZ's scenes are one of the many highlights of the episode, another highlight is when Rick dumps Mindy into the fountain and forces her to take a good look at herself for the vain person she is. I really liked those scenes and made me wish they could have seriously pursued Rick and Mindy as a couple, instead of sending Mindy into Kurt's atmosphere and Rick into Roxy's. If the show really wanted a pairing for Roxy, I think they should have pursued Roxy and Kyle.

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Honestly I think that whole story was rushed and ill paced, from the episodes I've watched of Rick/Meredith (their proposal on the fourth of July...it seemed like Rick and Meredith had only known each other for a short amount of time, and all of a sudden Rick was proposing to her). While I loved the mechanics of the story, Meredith practically becoming a late 80s equivalent of Rita Bauer(Rick=Ed, Phillip=Alan), there were just some parts of the story that didn't work or seemed to not ring true to me, like Rick/Meredith's rushed pairing.

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MOL had work done? Big mistake as it was BAD. I remember up until really the time Abby left him he was still looking cute. Matter of fact, the Abby leaving episodes have him running around in some tight jeans with his shirt off and he looks great (obviously MOL had recently slimmed down, buffed up and wanted to show it off) so I always wondered what happened. As a fellow big Irish guy I know he probably has the same thing I do, when working out I build great but if you let it go it can turn to fat, and it looks like MOL really let himself go. Speaking of Abby, why did they let her go. I think those two worked as the nice couple in town, kinda normal but cute. Hated Rick with cold ass Mel.

Rick and Claire did have a one night stand, she "pop his cherry," so to speak. It was played for laughs more then anything, with Mindy finding out and then locking him in a closet at Cedars to protect him/harrass him about it when Darcy was going on her rampage. I remember when Mindy married Phillip and they went on their honeymoon to Cross Creek or the Bauer cabin, and Mindy starts crying because Phillip doesnt make burgers like Rick does!!

I hated that scene with Rick and Mindy in the fountain as it came out of nowhere and was just a plot point to move him toward Roxie. Kurt was a duller Rick, it was weird that they even did that.

They aged the FM's way too fast, but I think that came about when they recast Phillip with an older actor. One day they are all in college, the next Phillip is 35 and running Spaulding and married to India, etc. The Rick Meredith thing was weird...Meredith had all the charm of a turnip and how either one of those guys like her...

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I don't know if he did or not (get work done) but his face in the last years reminded me of that look men get when they've had a facelift. It's one of several reasons I don't watch anything with Jon Voight or Michael Douglas now.

I think Amy Ecklund left the show because they weren't giving her any stories. I liked her a lot. Her story was one of the few things McTavish got right without demolishing it later on.

I get the idea behind the ultimate betrayal of Phillip, sleeping with Rick's wife, and the baby, but that type of thing never has any real consequences. It would have worked if Rick and Phillip had been at odds for a long time, but that didn't seem to happen. It's similar to when Rick got Harley pregnant when she and Phillip were pretty much done, and Phillip was angry. In the end this just became another kid viewers never saw or heard about.

The story with Beth/Jessie/Mindy and Sampson Gal, what did you think of that?

It's strange to me how Liz Taylor's son pops up at random throughout the mid/late 80's. I thought he was a music person and then there he is working at the trucking company. While he looked good in jeans, I don't quite get the point.

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Ah, the last summer the show was "on fire," before it went to hell for several years really until the Curlee era. Never understood why the successful formula of the Bauers, Reardons, Chamberlines, Spaudlings and Lewises all mixing it up with a dose of camp, mystery, romance and goofy family schmaltz had to be thrown out for Infinity and constant Reva and the Lewises. During this summer the show hit number one and in the fall a radically different GL took over and the ratings dropped.

Did Long or Kobe hate Brown? The Cabin Mystery had Nola written all over it and it should have gone to Quint and Nola instead of Tony and Annabelle and then Fletcher and Claire of all people involved.

Loved the flash of cute Rick Bauer in the credits and then hottie Tony Reardon (Frank Cooper who???)

I did notice the start of it falling apart. Loved Reva married to H.B. and bugging the [!@#$%^&*] out of Billy, and the rest of the society "fat cats," but notice Vanessa sitting there saying nothing. This was after they defused Vanessa and she became really boring and would cow tow to Billy instead of slapping the [!@#$%^&*] out of him like she would do later.

Edited by Mitch
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This is terrific, Carl. I love seeing the old sets, like Rita and Ed's place before he bought the house we are so familiar with -the one with the arches and columns. All of these behind the scenes looks at days gone by are fascinating. I had a red and white striped jersey just like the one MZ is wearing in the photo. Oh, and to see Fran Myers as Peggy again. This was a wonderful period for GL, when it was beginning to rebound from years of boredom.

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Thanks for reading. I wish we could see more of Peggy too, and Peggy/Roger. It's kind of the forgotten relationship for his character.

I remember someone once saying that the story with Alan and Ed living side by side happened to help set up the Rita/Alan affair, but watching the clips from 1979, it seemed like it happened several years earlier. When exactly did Ed move in there?

I know the clip where Ed and Roger are fighting has a different set.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=pdnwF5O_Z4Y

Edited by CarlD2
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Thanks for both articles Carl! I never knew James Lipton and Nina Foch were married; unfortunately it appears to have lasted only a few years. I wonder if Lipton should have stuck to acting instead of taking up writing.

I'd actually love to see Roger and Peggy's wedding. From the synopses I've read Roger spent tons of money of a period of several weeks to give Peggy a big extravagant wedding and invited the entire town but the only invited guest to show up for the ceremony was Bert laugh.png

Interesting a few months after the '77 article was written the word "The" was dropped from the show's official title, but even now and through out the last decade my grandma will still refer to it as "The Guiding Light". Was there any negative reaction to the show dropping the word "The" from the official title?

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