Love the spat between Tonio and Emily in this scene. KMH has had her moments but I still see Melanie as the true Emily.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viZiSiYjwQc&feature=related

Love the spat between Tonio and Emily in this scene. KMH has had her moments but I still see Melanie as the true Emily.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viZiSiYjwQc&feature=related

Melanie Smith will always be the real Emily for me.

Personally, I love KMH, but I feel that for as long as she was in the role, Emily was such a secondary or tertiary character. Especially in the last decade or so.

Another 1985 episode up on Youtube! Can't get enough of these. This one is solid from start to finish but the best part is seeing Barbara lay out her reasons for being sick of being a victim and how she's not going to take it anymore. The reaction from Tom and Margo when she says she's changing her last name back to Ryan is great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFdt6SSglPQ

Another 1985 episode up on Youtube! Can't get enough of these. This one is solid from start to finish but the best part is seeing Barbara lay out her reasons for being sick of being a victim and how she's not going to take it anymore. The reaction from Tom and Margo when she says she's changing her last name back to Ryan is great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFdt6SSglPQ

I love these clips. Gregg Marx is so sexy and Scott Bryce looks so young and cute....hehe

Flove HBS as Margo!

I love these clips. Gregg Marx is so sexy and Scott Bryce looks so young and cute....hehe

Flove HBS as Margo!

My favorite Tom and Margo was Marx and HBS. They seemed like they would really go together, which I never got from Holmes and Dolan. Deas just really never worked for me as Tom, he was just too "weird," though he and Colin brought the smoking chemistry..despite the fact they were like Tom and Margo on crack.

This was a great time in ATWT where you see all the transitioning to Marland. Babs taking a stand, the Hughes family coming front and center, the intro of the Snyders and finally, a definition of Lucinda and Lily's relationship. Back then, before everything was focus grouped, blanded out you could really see a writer's particular style shine through as soon as things changed over. Many times this doesnt work with the show but this time it did, big time!

Edited September 16, 201015 yr by Mitch

The most famous episode of all, part of it anyway

The rest of the day is up there if you want to see how it all played out

Greetings, all!

The full uninterrupted episode is available for viewing at the Paley Center for Media in NYC and Beverly Hills!

Regards from Soapluvva in NYC!

http://www.youtube.com/soapluvva

I keep going back and forth on my feelings about the finale. On one hand, it was very respectful to the show, its history, and its fans. Nothing was outrageous or insulting or ridiculous. But it also felt kind of hollow to me. In some ways -- and I'm sure I will be killed for saying this -- I preferred GL's finale. Sure, it was Ellen Wheelerized to the max, but people moved around, interacted with a variety of other characters, really wrapped up their threads. With ATWT, it seemed like everything was done prior to this last episode, and pockets of characters just spent the hour beating their happiness into the ground.

Anyway, the finale made something stand out to me. For a long time, ATWT has seemed to me like a few different shows stitched together. They didn't do themselves any favors by isolating everyone in weird pockets of four.

I was watching the finale and going, "Lily and Kim are on the same show? Really?" So, question: have those characters ever had any significant interaction? I honestly can't remember. I guess there must've been some overlap during the Hope/Faith debacle, right?

I continue to have my medical problems, but I will make the effort to go by train to the NYC 'Save Our Soaps 2010' rally in NYC on Monday afternoon.

ATWT fur fashion show, in a February 1986 episode not far from when Doug Cummings takes Kim and Frannie. Always great to see more of this era of the show, especially since there was stuff right before this (when Margo confronted Tom on his "affair" with Barbara) and a bit after it. Kind of hilarious seeing a fur fashion show dumped in the middle of everything. At least they hired some genuine models along with our Oakdale favorites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5juyGpLe80s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W11fD3lrjPY&feature=related

I did NOT know that Tonya Pinkins was on ATWT.

Ah, "furs provided by Christie Brothers." They provided OLTL with its furs up until JFP put the kibosh on that.

Kim's commentary is KILLING me. I remember her in a few coats herself over the years.

Frannie is lookin hella glam.

What's up with that key??

I didn't know OLTL still had furs up to 1998.

ATWT women wore fur quite a bit in the mid to late 80s. I was bewildered seeing just how common it was not just for "bad" Lucinda or for stylish Lisa but even for Kim, who was the true blue heroine. I guess it makes sense though, as ATWT had a lot of sleek, glamourous older women (older meaning 40-50) who could pull off those types of clothes. Seeing Lily in a fur wouldn't have had the same impact.

There's a funny scene right before the fashion show where Barbara wants to change how the lineup goes and tries to overrule Kim and Doug snaps at her and says Kim must be right! It's a glimpse of his obsession with Kim.

Tonya Pinkins was on the show for about 3 years. She played Heather Dalton, who was friends with the younger set (Betsy, then Frannie). She had the old story about the woman who can sing but doesn't want to go into music and has concerns about secular music. She briefly was talked into trying for a music career but then went to law school. At this time she was dating a detective, Roy Franklin. She left the show later in 1986, when her engagement to Roy ended. I'm not sure why. I think it was because she helped his younger sister Nella cover up her pregnancy. Nella was played later by Kasi Lemmons, who went on to direct Eve's Bayou.

The key was to a shrine which Doug kept of Kim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnxgJ_JXJbk

From a July 1976 Daytime TV Stars. Their Serial Review. This shows you how much pressure ATWT was under to "modernize." It's by Michael Brownstein.

As the World Turns - Is Less More?

Not long ago As the World Turns was reviewed in DAYTIME TV STARS, the result of which was a staunch defense of one of daytime's truly boring dramas. This month Deborah Channel is on vacation and when they asked me to write a guest critique, I thought it might be good to get my digs into As the World Turns, especially since it is now aired for one hour.

An old friend of mine, who has acted in soaps himself, always uses the expression..."less is more." Why, oh why, won't the producers of daytime listen to that advice. Daytime shows going to one hour often give less when they give more. The only more they do give is padding. And in the case of As the World Turns, this becomes intolerable.

Carol Burnett in her television spoof of soaps calls her As the Stomach Turns. Indeed, indeed. I don't care what Ms. Channel thinks of this soap opera; I don't care that it is number one in the ratings. People can be wrong, and for sure, this soap is all wrong.

Ms. Channel thinks that it is nice to go back to "a world gone by," where relevant issues do not plague the drama. It's 1976 and the women's movement has significantly changed the role of the female (thank God) and the coffee cup is no longer filled with a wholesome brew, but is freeze-dried. Even Greenvalley, Idaho, is aware of the changing complexion of the times, and it is the responsibility of any communication to reflect that dimension in our lives.

How much more exciting to watch The Young and the Restless, a show that gives you the chance to breathe the air of the times. Conjugal beds and dramas depicting the harrowing experiences of mastectomy make the juices jingle with anticipation. As the World Turns offers Chris and Nancy Hughes bemoaning the sufferings of their children. Unrequited love is not very nice, but enough already.

Ms. Channel in her critique of the soap delights in the fact that it is slow. My God, ti does not take eighteen months to have a child. Slow! The world is too fast for slow. Let me sit on my sofa and see a crazy man silently hound an unsuspecting heroine; let me sees thieves blackmailing; let me see a woman dealing with death. Let me see, let me see, but don't give me my daily medicine in slow doses.

With As the World Turns now one hour the clock ticks to an even slower beat and I die, I rant and rave until something, anything happens.

You know something else, I'm not even that keen on the actors who are cast in that soap opera. There's not a good looker in the bunch. You tune in to Young and Restless and that show has a look to it; so does Days of Our Lives; and so does Another World. Even the new Ryan's Hope has people on it that I want to see.

A major thrust of Ms. Channel's review pitted As the World Turns against All My Children. Well, for me the latter wins hands down. Forget about the fact that Ms. Nixon, the show's creator, has made attempts at relevancy, so subtly or not subtly put down in Ms. Channel's opinion. Viet Nam, child abuse...let's forget about these issues of relevancy. But one thing that All My Children has is drama. My goodness, I care about those people. I care about Chuck Tyler, and I'm mad as hell at Phoebe, and I love and feel for Tara. But who cares about any of those people on As the World Turns.

What I am saying is that As the World Turns is so clearly a thing of the past; it's a middle of the road compromise, never risking, always staying the same. A Picasso takes a blue period and turns it into an abstract expression of a concrete vision; Stephen Sondheim will turn his earlier simple melodies into present-day complex stanzas on the keyboard.

The only hope this world has is in change. Even soaps are changing. Sex is coming out of the closet; priests fall in love; drugs cause hell and havoc. And the form of soaps are changing. Fifteen minutes has given way to thirty and now to sixty minutes. But As the World Turns revolves on its same axis, its vision going round and round and round, lost in its own space and time.

I care about soap operas. I feel the form gives complete entertainment to millions of viewers daily. But a lot of people put soaps down. And no wonder when there are shows like As the World Turns on the air. The recent special issue of TIME devoted to afternoon television gave World Turns one tear drop, out of a possible four, and I don't blame them one bit - When that show airs, I change the channel.

Edited September 26, 201015 yr by CarlD2

I don't care that it is number one in the ratings. People can be wrong,

...and this is where he/she lost me. Why must there be a "right" or a "wrong?" Jeez. She/he goes on and on about how bad the show, but yes, it was still number one, and was going to stay number one for two more years. Obviously there were millions of peope who disagreed.

...and this is where he/she lost me. Why must there be a "right" or a "wrong?" Jeez. She/he goes on and on about how bad the show, but yes, it was still number one, and was going to stay number one for two more years. Obviously there were millions of peope who disagreed.

And all the things she talks about are all the things I could (for the most part,) care less about, constant stupid over the top drama, models acting like Joe Everyman and woman, and "relevancy.' And actually a lot of that has become outdate and cliched now. The trouble that was to come for ATWT is that as soon as it slipped off of No. 1, they threw the baby out with the bathwater..getting rid of Chris and Nancy and the everyday touches which made it ATWT. Marland was the writer who got it right.