Failed famailies

[soapfan770]

Funny thing about Olivia's sister I seem to recall Ellen Weston changed their last names. I forget in the name, but Jonathan's last name was not Randall at all. That changed when Sandy entered the picture in '03.

[Paul Raven]

According to synopses of the time,the Gregory family was indeed killed in a plane crash in Nov/Dec 65 when Agnes Nixon took over.

Janet Matthews had broken her engagement to Ernest.The other Gregory family members never really had strong stories so it was easy to dispose of them.

The real myth is that Lipton devalued the Matthews,but in fact Pat and Janet and Bill were still front burner as were Jim and Mary.Russ and Alice at this stage had never been front burner,

It was Nixon who brought back Russ(aged) and gave Alice more to do.

[Saving ATWT]

The Snyder's are the main family on ATWT. That white collar upper middle class World Turns died ten years ago. I don't think this was Marland's vision but are in no way failed. I think the Kasnoff family has been the only failure over the last 20 years aside from the various efforts at building up a Stenbeck family: David, Jorden, Henry. I liked both David and Jorden but the writers never found a use for them aside from shock value. Maybe we could call today's Hughes family failed with the four (soon to be five) efforts to bring back Chris.

I agree that the McColl's were a good family that should have stayed. Matt LaBlance was HOT and Brian (the one who dated Barbara) was a well-rounded character. I wonder why they were written off?

[DRW50]

I think Kim Ulrich wanted to leave ATWT. I guess Whit was killed off for the big murder mystery. That left Kirk and Brian and I guess Marland and the EP didn't think they were worth keeping around. I'm not sure whether Marland was involved in Kirk's exit -- weren't Kirk and Marcy already on the way out?

[Cat]

GH - the Eckharts.

OLTL - the Rappaports.

Y&R - the Fishers (though I sort of love Gloria and Jeffrey in small doses).

B&B - the Morons and the Ramirezeseses.

[Paul Raven]

Maybe the Hortons on DOOL could be considered a fail in that only Hope is a blood Horton,Consider how many family members have been dropped and ignored over the years.

[DRW50]

Another from AW - Reuben and Ronnie Lawrence. I think we saw their mother a few times. I felt like the show didn't even try, especially with Ronnie, who had great poise and yet was stuck in a nurse role.

There was also a family on Emmerdale, I think they were named the Calders. The people in the roles won a "get a part on Emmerdale" reality show, and there was a big outcry about them being cast on Emmerdale, especially as at the time the unions and such didn't know all of them were trained actors. The show never made a serious effort to integrate them into the show and they were gone within a year. One of the most outspoken on the matter, Malandra Burrows, who had played Kathy for over 15 years, was fired, although something tells me they were probably looking for a reason to let her go.

[Sapounopera]

Santa Barbara:

Most of the original families were dropped within the first year. The Andrades and the Perkins family. Most of the Lockridges left by 1986-87 and they were brought back with recasts from time to time.

The DiNapoli sisters (Celeste, Emily and Lisa)

Harlan Richards, his wife Gretchen and daughter Tawney lasted a few months. I think Harlan was Carmen Castilio's ex-lover and the real father of Cruz's kid brother.

[Mitch]

Ulrich left right before Marland, as did the Kirk actor. Its too bad because, as someone upthread said, Diana would have been a great Marland good/bad girl. It is also too bad that Fulton left when Ulrich originally came on, granted, she was right about what the Dobsons were turning her into (a fluttering dimbulb, not the devious conniver of years back) but then they built a whole family as her as the anchor and she left. I think Ulrich and Fulton would have had some good cat fights,ala Rachel and Iris fighting over daddy. The actor who played Whit displayed none of his supposed "magnetic charm," though he did supply a bad toupe and dentures and bad acting. They actually killed him off as Lisa was going to be the murder victim...as soon as Fulton heard that she high tailed it back, which I think was the point, so Whit got a pitcher to the side of his head. Kirk and Marcy were on their way out, as I remember Marcy's wedding to Stewart (another failed character) was the beggining of the famous "Kim has a stalker," storyline.

That ATWT clip of the start of the ball, Whitney Huston/Jermaine Jackson? Chippendales dancers carring a barge..wow...that just screamed 80s!! But I got to see the hot actor who used to play Frank Andropolous....(I never got the Steve Andropolous thing,he always looked like a mouth breather to me) I dont know why Marland wrote him off, he was a cop and could have filled in better then Hal (I know, RIP the actor but really, Hal was a mopey bore.) Whatever happened to the Frank actor?

The Hughes as a failed family??? They survived for 52 years despite several writers and producers who ignored and obscured them!

[DRW50]

I can see why Steve was seen as hot (he was very intense and that always gets a lot of attention), but yeah, there's something very hot about the guy who plays Frank. I wish they'd kept him around.

I never knew that about the plans to kill off Lisa. I'm glad they didn't go through.

I was the one who said that about how Marland would have enjoyed writing for Diana. I haven't seen a lot of her, but I think he would have done better for her than the writing she had, which in the episode I saw, amounted to her designing baby clothes.

[Cheap21]

how about the Drakes on GH? Rick Springfield's returns have been a big bust and Matt is never on. Patrick these days doesnt seem to have much to do

[Mitch]

Intense is good, but the actor always flaired his nostrils and has his mouth gaping open. Plus, I can't get over the scenes we would have to watch of him and Maggie in Berumuda or someplace with him dancing around in a speedo.

Now HE was hot...quiet and smoldering. Yea, he would have been good in the Hal role and I could see him and Babs making it hot! Now that I could see Babs, Margo, and Carly jumping on!

I don't know if they were actually serious about it, but that's the story Fulton gives, and sometimes, uh, she likes to exaggerate. Anyway she says she heard they were killing her off so she called and said, "If Lisa dies its going to be me.." so she came back. Von Ferstenburg (sp?) played Lisa as to the manor born and a snob, which wasnt what Lisa is about.

That was the end of her storyline and I think she was preggers in real life, but when Diana first came on she was fun...like a forerunner of Mindy Lewis. At the time she was unlike any of the other heroines, like Babs, Dee and Betsy, in that she was fun and had a personality, and she was unlike the villians in that she wanst a pcycho or out and out evil. She resented Lisa, who didnt like her either (that was dropped when Fulton came back) and she was part of the Craig/Betsy/Steve thing, conspiring with Craig to keep them apart (I never got what Craig or Diana wanted with those two dimbulbs who were dull as hell to begin with.) So they came up with the typical soap ploys, fake pregnancies, fake paralyisis to hang on to them. It was dumb but I was in high school and college at the time and I loved it (it was also one of those situation where you could tell the writers hated the "heros," so they tortured them with more interesting villians.

An interesting character at the time who disappeared was Charmane, a Vegas showgirl who was Whit's real wife. She and Whit disguised her as Aunt Charmane and she became a mother figure to the kids and a thorn in snobby Lisa's side. She was fun and lively, and I can't imagine what stuffy Marland would have done with her.

[RomeAt50]

The Montgomeries were pretty big for most of McTavish's third run. Reggie and Lily were both fairly well liked and at the time Bianca was a major character and Greenlee was made Jacksons daughter but I guess they were a little too connected to the Kanes to stand completely on their own. They were most often referred to as the Kane-Montgomeries.

I was fairly indifferent to the Smythes as a family but I always liked Mary as an individual character. It would be nice if she showed up for a little while now that Greenlee is back from the dead.

[DRW50]

I never knew about Charmane at all! Did she have an exit? I'll have to see if she's online anywhere, the episodes.

Another failed family -- I did love Andrew Carpenter on OLTL, and I can see that his father Sloan also had a strong presence and shook up Llanview in his few years, but the later attempts to expand the family were a bust. Maggie Carpenter never fit in (one silly story after another didn't help -- she had some of the silliest stories ever), her relationship with her father was always a bit bizarre and unfinished (then he dropped dead -- lazy writing), and Ian, her twin brother she met and shared about three scenes with before she left town, was a boring character who was saddled with icy, chemistry-allergic Kelly, before being clumsily killed off by JFP as soon as she showed up.

[Mitch]

No Charmane just disappeared, no explanation at all. I don't think she and Fulton ever had a scene together. She would have been a hoot at the Snyder farm, wearing short, short overalls or Gingham dress tighter then tight, prancing around while Emma pops her eyes out. What was weird is that she was Whits' legal wife and after he died, she would have inherited the entire fortune, but they had Lisa inherit it all with no mention.

I thought she was a great, though cliched character, as she would wear outlandish costumes with cleavage but she was of course as innocent and nice as could be. I think they thought with BVF gone they couldnt play up the snob angle as much with Fulton, whose Lisa would have taken her under her wing and hung out with her.