ATWT Tribute Thread

[DRW50]

3/30/82 SOD. The ATWT section of a holiday party.

[Mitch]

Natalie actually came back before the strike and during the Dobson's. She was married to a producer and they were making aboo(I think) into a movie using Oakdale locations. Which reminds me, remember when John wrote an Oakdale expose..."A Man Stands Alone," (LOL) and totally did a rip job on everyone in town, especially Lisa, which he called "Blondie," in the book! Maybe the Dobsons would have done something with her but she was miscast from the start (the woman playing her made a good curt bitch, but didnt have the vixen quality the first one had.) Sofia was a boring, boring character and the forerunner of the even duller "Bilan," which was Miranda's daughter. The Dobsons despite their much vaunted "contemporary," bent, really couldnt create good teen and early 20s characters.

Bob and Miranda could have been good, if as someone said, they brought up their differences, and the reactions to everyone around them. This was at the time that the Hughes were obscured, and Helen Wagner had left the show, so it would have been interesting to see Nancy's reaction to this former drug lord, exotic fashion designer. I thought Miranda would have made a good, Alexandra Spaulding/Lucinda Walsh character. A smart savvy woman who had an edge, and loved her family, and would rip anyone's heart out who attempted to hurt them. Having her go into business either for or against James would have been good, as we see her deal with being the quasi Hughes matriach but a woman who has a strong dark side. As it was her old boyfriend, the cheesy De Clerg guy, came to town and she jumped in the sack with him, after a year of being a simpering housewife. They tried to create a problem between her an a SORAS's Frannie, even had Frannie saying she was going to run away to Arizona to live with "Granny," (Nancy, lol, which Marland changed to the much better "Gram,") which would have been a perfect time to bring Nancy back and then have Lisa instigating problems..

That Cody was a director or something and he bagged Cricket and she got preggers and it was boring, boring, boring. However, that Gary Lahti guy who played some doctor was HOT. Wonder what happened to him (this was a terrible time after the Dobsons left, the strike and all of these boring new characters came on with no connection to anyone and the Dobsons wrote them out.

[DRW50]

Thanks for all the background details. The Natalie I saw in the 1981 episode seemed a bit frumpy. She wanted to produce a movie and she wanted Carol's baby (Natalie's baby biologically).

I wonder if they just brought characters in with a splash then made them more mundane.

What did you think of James's sister Ariel, and then Karen Haines, Dusty's mother? Were they Dobsons characters?

I guess Kim and Bob didn't have a lot to do with each other, aside from a friendship, but I wonder if there was ever any awkwardness over the flashy spouses they both had in the early 80s.

[Mitch]

Ariel was a good comedy bitch..she never really did anything that evil, she just wanted to get a rich husband and she bit off more then she could chew with John! The actress had a good comedic edge which we didnt see on GL, and she played up the Dobson's camp well. Karen Haines was a good bad girl, at least she had motivation to hate the Stewart sisters (besides the fact that watching paint dry was more exciting then the two of them) as she considered David her "father, " and felt abondoned when he got his memory back and went back to dull Ellen and the girls. Marland would have made more of that but the Dobsons glossed it over just so they could have a bad girl wreck havoc. The actress really was also good at comedy and she gave Karen a snarky edge but you also rooted for her as she became a better person. It was funny when she blackmailed James into marrying her (also biting off more then she could chew) and in addition to the infamous bull scene, James stuck her on a roller coaster which went around and around and around....

[DRW50]

Thanks for all the memories, I didn't know a lot of that. The roller coaster scene sounds fun. It seems like the Dobsons had a hell of a lot of fun writing James -- I enjoy the Marland version but the Dobsons one seems a bit different.

I haven't seen a lot of Ariel or of Karen. With Karen I had only seen the end of her run, when she and John were breaking up. I guess she had been reformed by then. I wonder why they never brought Ariel back. Or if they ever even mentioned her again.

Kathryn Hays mentioned, I think, something about not being thrilled with the location shoot in Greece, in that Paley interview (unless I misheard her). That was the one where she fantasized about dancing and she met Nick, right. What did you think of that?

[Mitch]

I dont remember much of that as I was in high school and that was preVCR. I do know in past interviews she says that she got a lot of hate mail in that Kim was chasing after a guy, who was still married (Even though he thought she was dead.) She did call that the remote from hell in the Paley, but I think they had bad weather. I dont think she was enamoured with the Dobsons either, as in later interviews she seems to knock them for pushing Nancy and Chris aside, etc...(which makes me love her even more, as they always wrote for Kim.)

I actually feel bad that James didnt get devolped as well as say, Alan Spaulding under the Dobsons and Marland. He was just an uber villian from the get go though he was fun in the way he torture Babs, and Karen, and John and Margo.

[DRW50]

Do you remember how long Chris stayed around after Nancy left?

I wonder if James/Dee was some sort of attempt at recreating Alan/Hope or if it wasn't.

[Mitch]

Yea, James/Dee probably was, but by that time James had already become cardboard so it was difficult (not to mention the actress who played Dee made the previous one look exciting.)

They kept Chris around..only popping in every few months for maybe a year after, which probably was the rest of his contract, but them put him on recurring and he did indeed come for weddings, births, etc, but then he disappeared.

[DRW50]

Thanks. Given all the praise for McLaughlin from so many in the cast, and how beloved he was, it must have hurt a lot of people to see him degraded that way. I'm really glad he got that nice tribute in 1986, for the anniversary. No wonder he and a lot of the cast seemed so emotional.

[Mitch]

I gotta tell you, the way they treat the vets on ATWT is about a hundred times better then how they treated MacClaughlin and Wagner back then. Makes me laugh when they act like this is a "new," thing. Wagner did say that DM was really hurt by the way the show treated him, and he started failing after that.

[DRW50]

That hurts to read. It reminds me of some of the stuff with Anna Lee and Michael Zaslow. I guess Helen was right to just walk immediately. It's also kind of ironic, that she was targeted for being too old, but she outlived a lot of the producers and writers and executives who were probably responsible for her exit.

[Mitch]

Which is why, as much as I dont like the creative decisions he has made, I have to give CG credit where credit is due, where we have all those vets sitting around with candles to honor Nancy/HW..with looking at GL and the mess it was, it had to be CG that fought as much as he could and was willing to, to even keep them on. And you know what, in the end the vet characters all were intact, they might not have been seen that much, but they didnt get the shitty treatment GL gave them.

[Soapsuds]

Just bought the As The World Turns Tribute magazine/book from Soap Opera Digest! A lot of my favorites pictures and a signed final cast photo! I just read what Kathryn Hays said about what kind of ending she wanted for Kim. I loved her answer. Kathryn is a very classy lady. I will miss her and Kim.

[Soapsuds]

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[DRW50]

From the 10/76 SOD. Enjoy holiday tunes with Eileen Fulton.