I thought the same thing too! I swear they were going in that direction, because there was a lot of foreshadowing (no one does it better than Agnes) that somehow Vanessa was related to Erica. Is it too late to go there?

Marj Dusay + Susan Lucci = awesome.

Back when Vanessa came to Pine Valley, TV Guide (USA) had a healthy soap site and folks like Jonathan Reiner, and the Michaels Logan and Maloney would answer fan mail. One could sense Vanessa's "shade" towards Erica, and I wrote in hypothesizing that Vanessa had had an affair with Eric Kane and David would turn out to be Erica's brother a la Mark. I think it was Maloney who raved about that idea, but of course AMC didn't go there (they'd later do something similar with Trey/Richard Fields, and they revealed that Vanessa knew Eric too from her Hollywood days).

I think they were trying to hedge their bets, as bringing Anna to AMC after her years of complex history with GH may have been a big gamble. I think they were also trying to set up a mystery, they thought "Is she Alex or is she Anna?" would get attention. Unfortunately, the whole brouhaha over Michael Nader's firing and the general lack of chemistry between Finola and John Callahan put a damper on things.

How well was her return to AMC advertised to GH fans as well? I don't remember much but I didn't follow GH but I mean, when around 93 or 94 Angie returned to daytime, but on Loving and not AMC I swear many of my AMC fan friends who NEVER watched Loving had NO idea. She didn't come to Pine Valley first and announce it or anything--which seems a bit of a wasted opportunity to me (especially since this was pre the Net letting people know a lot, and Loving had virtually no promos anyway...)

Can someone tell me about the behind-the-scenes stuff with Cecily's return in the mid 90s? Was her return a huge deal when it was announced? Did Rosa Nevin end up quitting or was she fired?

Cecily left right aroudn the time I started watching, the first time (91?) so I didn't knwo the character when she came back but I don't remember there being any real hype although I was aware she was supposedly a fan favorite back. She came back along with the DOZENS of characters who came back for the Martins housewarming for AMC's 25th anniversary, and then was one of the few who stuck around. But that may have made her comeback seem lesser as well--when so many characters were temporarily back

Cecily and Charlie had that whole internet dating thing (again AMC latching on to something that would go on to become very culturally relevant) and they married and then left the canvas... I assumed they both were let go for the old storyline dictated reasons. I don't remember why Cecily even came back in 1994? Did she have a big storyline that demanded her return?

Yep and as we discussed on page 4 or somewhere in this thread it was perhaps onbe of the boringest storylines on the show ever (OK, I said that, some on here said they liked it...) But thankfully it got rid of Charlie the Horse.

That story was the end for Palmer. Mr U wasn't bad, but Opal was the kiss of death. It was such a brilliant idea that he never had a story again after being one of the main characters who drove story for a decade.

What was the Mr U story? Again when i came to the show Palmer and Opal had become a couple (I rememebr Petey's birth in the storm well) It's true he never had as good a story again though I think it was partly just the way the show progressed as Mitchell got older (when they introduced the gothic Wildwind saga, which I loved, in many ways it was a repeat of themes from the introduction of Courtland Manor 15 years previous) Don't get me wrong, Mitchell and Palmer are faves of mine and I'm not saying it was good they got phased out, but... I still kinda wish he had been Adam/Stewart's killer for an exit. Or maybe Daisy could return and he could leave with her and Nina (since Nina is back for th eanniversary)

Not that I remember, and sadly, I can't even remember one scene shared with Phoebe. I do however remember plenty of scenes of her and Charlie sitting five feet away from each other at their desks at the P.I. office, IMing and giggling without realizing they were talking to one another.

YES lol And no I don't think there was any Phoebe interaction--certainly at the time I wasn't aware there was any connection

I'm pretty sure she was a Nixon creation.

ETA: Before anyone chimes in to tell me McTavish's name was on the credits when Vanessa came on, I recognize that. But what many people don't recall (or never even knew) was that McTavish had lost creative control of AMC at the start of 1999. ABC was just playing things very close to the vest... I think McT's 1998 stint was looked upon as a major embarrassment, and they wanted to quietly take her contract over to OLTL.

It wasn't publically revealed that McTavish was no longer writing AMC until the soap press kept digging at the rumors. In late-Spring, they confirmed that Agnes Nixon had already been head-writing the show for some amount of time... and also then confirmed Elizabeth Page and Jean Passanante as co-headwriters. They cited that McTavish was now a consultant for ABC Daytime. But it didn't take a genius to figure out she was in fact writing the "headwriter-less" OLTL.

A side note: At the end of 1997, reportedly Nixon altogether walked off the AMC writing team in protest of Lorraine Broderick's dismissal... though ABC would never confirm or deny this.

ABC really tried to downplay all these events... and like I said, it was almost as if ABC was embarrassed to say what was going on with McT at that time.

I'd buy all that. Certainly OLTL was in a dreadful state at the time (while McT basically just did JFP's bidding when she moved there, the show did *slightly* improve--and that tells you all you need to know about the mess that OLTL was at the end of the century) and AMC still felt like it was easily salvageable if they worked fast (it's too bad that hiring Passanante to co write with Agnes Nixon proved to be such an ultimate mistake--I know up till then she was respected as one of the best breakdown writers at ABC due to her work with Michael Malone and Griffith, despite an awful few months co HW OLTL with the awful Leah Laiman)

I know it would never happen but I'd love to have a tell all book that talked about all of these kinds of behind the scenes gossip stuff--of course the people who would make such a book don't realize there'd be any demand for it.

Eric's up late again. You've apparently haven't gotten to my post.

How well was her return to AMC advertised to GH fans as well? I don't remember much but I didn't follow GH but I mean, when around 93 or 94 Angie returned to daytime, but on Loving and not AMC I swear many of my AMC fan friends who NEVER watched Loving had NO idea. She didn't come to Pine Valley first and announce it or anything--which seems a bit of a wasted opportunity to me (especially since this was pre the Net letting people know a lot, and Loving had virtually no promos anyway...)

There was definitely more attention paid than what Debbi Morgan got, which sadly was around the time ABC was moving into shifting away from having black characters in prominent roles on their soaps.

At the time there was a lot of fan backlash over all these permanent crossovers. Many people wanted Skye to stay on AMC, they didn't understand why Anna wasn't at GH, they didn't understand why Rae was some annoying busybody who went from show to show and searched for her child of undetermined gender or age.

There was a lot of criticism of AMC, not GH, having the scenes where Robin reunited with Anna for the first time in almost a decade.

Looking back, I would say that no one running GH by then probably cared about having the reunion on the show anyway.

Mr. Ulatowski was Palmer's chauffeur/right hand man who he'd met in prison. I was a young, casual viewer back then so maybe I didn't catch some of the more obvious signs, but I liked Mr. U actually, I thought he was a fun, quirky AMC kinda character. But he had the hots for Opal which made me laugh just writing that and he went all dark and evil and tried to kill Palmer by poisoning him. Oh God, remember Gloria poisoning Adam's rice pudding, hahaha, I think I have an old ep of Gloria in the loony bin,she had some crazy ass eye balls when she went over the deep end.

Cecily left right aroudn the time I started watching, the first time (91?) so I didn't knwo the character when she came back but I don't remember there being any real hype although I was aware she was supposedly a fan favorite back. She came back along with the DOZENS of characters who came back for the Martins housewarming for AMC's 25th anniversary, and then was one of the few who stuck around. But that may have made her comeback seem lesser as well--when so many characters were temporarily back

Cecily actually returned a bit prior to the 25h anniversary. She was already back on the canvas at that point. For someone who asked above, I think she only had one scene with Phoebe her entire second run on the show. She kept referring to living at "Chez Wallingford" a number of times, but we never saw her there and that set hadn't been seen in at least two years at that point. I think Megan's plan was to do some sort of Cecily/Charlie/Hayley triangle. Lorraine came on board and introduced the rest of the Santoses and paired Hayley with Mateo, leaving Cecily and Charlie out in the cold. The Charlie/Cecily stuff was more about Hayley and Mateo. It was never really "their" story. The best thing about the Cecily/Charlie romance is that it culminated in a wedding that saw the two-episode return of Mary Fickett after not having appeared for quite a while.

Wikipedia is totally user-driven, so who knows? It's possible... though, whatever the case, I hope Lorraine sticks around for a LONG time - even if it's to be in a consultant (as in a real, active consultant) capacity.

Amen. (I love ABC's consultant program--I'd love to knwo what years the consultants they hire are actually used--I love that long youtube interview Marlena did with Agnes where she asks about Agnes Nixon's consultant position on The City and Agnes looks surprised and then kinda laughs and implies she basically just reads over some long term story plans). I agree. I know Karen has a lot of fan love and if Broderick is involved i'd be ok with her ultimately taking over though--more than some other possible names anyway. But I hope Broderick realizes how much she missed Pine Valley and sticks around

(this brings back the Passanante mess--how did she co-HW with Agnes, who admitted she was pretty overwhelmed and would never fully write the show of course--and seemingly none of Agnes' sense or quality rubbed off on her work? What a schizo team up)

Honestly, I don't think they've ever stopped putting her name up for nomination. I haven't seen the actual Emmy nominations for this last year, but I have a hunch, had the writing team won, she would've gone up there and she would've gotten an Emmy. She was there in the audience. Out of deference, I think they still submit her name even in recent years where she's gone uncredited.

I remember when the show did press for the 35th Anniversary, Agnes was credited as a consulting producer as well. ABC released some photos of her, together with JHC and I believe Frons and the caption said consulting producer. If you can find the link to the ABC daytime press area under the producers section, her bio is also there. Her ranking and position is a bit obscure.

I wouldn't be too surprised though I seem to remember at least one year year she wasn't. It has of course led to the somewhat comical thing where whenever there's even one scene on AMC that some fans like, int he past 8 years or so, they suddenly credit Agnes for ghost writing that scene

The Kit Fisher stuff, was that the last straw with ABC? That was a potentially OK idea, but as soon as the rape started, it went to hell. Even McTavish said that her biggest mistake was saying Kit had once falsely accused Tad of rape.

As awful as that all was I do think some of the blame (and this goes for Matteo's ex from his past, Braden, etc) was due to awful casting too. AMC had had pretty strong actgors for roles up till then and during McTavish's era for some reason we got a lot of newbies in awful characters but who were also awfully cast. I'm not trying to excuse how awful these stories or characters were whatsoever

Angela Shapiro was the one big on all the ABC soaps being in the same universe, right? Rae Cummings was her doing. Initially, she wanted to buy Felicia Gallant from P&G but they wouldn't sell and that's how Gretel Rae got resurrected.

Yes this concept and Shop the Soaps were her two only babies that I could tell (of course ABC had done heavy crossovers before her, the pretty major Loving/AMC one in 92 or so for example)

Edited November 27, 200916 yr by EricMontreal22

Well, something definitely smells weird about that Wikipedia entry. I checked the history of the page's alterations, and the part about Lewis being made co-headwriter was entered at the same time as the part about her being 3rd choice for the position in 2008... and that Soap Opera Digest reported it. Now, not only do I not recall this being reported, it's also just not something that would normally get published - even if it were true. The magazines don't just do stories, or even blurbs, about who "came in third" for a job.

HAHA I wish the soap rags WOULD publish stories like this!! I'd read them, but no, they don't at all.....

I'm sure they existed, but I'd be lying if I said that I remember even one promo touting Angie's return to ABC daytime over on LOVING. I don't know what numbers were like, but as a viewer, she definitely injected some more warmth and familiarity into the little 12:30 show that could (or couldn't). Were they perhaps trying to woo some of Y&R's black audience with Angie (sans Jesse for that matter) at 12:30?

The thing I remember most about Angie's return to LOVING was getting to see Pat Baxter (Lee Chamberlin) again, but this go round with long, flowing blonde weave as she always wore her hair cropped so close on AMC. Lee, Rosalind Cash, and Ellen Holly played Lear's (James Earl Jones) three daughters in a famous Public Theater/Shakespeare in the Park production of King Lear. I've seen some clips of Lee's performer daughter (who looks just like her) on YouTube, she is... interesting.

God only knows what they could have done with Cecily with better writing, but returns like that are just so sour for a fan, they leave you with the impression that lightning can't strike twice and you can't keep time in a bottle. Cecily, Nico, Julie, Charlie (the one who was in Masters of the Universe), that was a special little time...

Yes this concept and Shop the Soaps were her two only babies that I could tell (of course ABC had done heavy crossovers before her, the pretty major Loving/AMC one in 92 or so for example)

Megan has always taken credit for the "Linda Dano Does the ABC Soaps" concept. She claims that it was all her idea and that she wrote the outline for the story. I always found that rather hard to buy, because (1) was she even writing for an ABC soap at that point or employed by the network in any capacity? I could be wrong, but I thought that Dano returned to OLTL after Megan had been fired; and (2) it's hard to believe Shapiro would even take a meeting with Megan to discuss something as outlandish as this, especially since Shapiro had already bad-mouthed Megan's 1998 return to the press, criticizing her work and saying that she personally called up Agnes to "return to save her baby." God, I love all this behind the scenes stuff. Yes, someone should write a book. I know I'd definitely buy it.

Edited November 27, 200916 yr by LoyaltoAMC