OLTL opening sequence news

[Ryan Chamberlain]

TSJ is only one of the actors/actresses that haven't had an updated shot since this opening started.

The others are

Robert S. Woods

Kassie Depaiva ...at least I don't remember her's ever having an update

Hillary B. Smith

I think that's it...but, they really need to update.

But on another note. 2 of AMC's actors need an updated opening shot more than anything right now. Like, their shots should have been updated like yesterday.

[SFK]

I don't think Viki's nor Dorian's have ever been updated, maybe diferent shots from the same taping, but not new ones altogether. Then again, when's the last time I actually looked at the credits?

[Ryan Chamberlain]

I knew I forgot Dorian.

But, I think Viki's has been changed once. She was wearing a black outfit in one of the shots. And, the second shot (the one they use now) she's wearing pink.

[EricMontreal22]

I agree with all of this, though part of it is simply that images of male beauty and body images in general have changed since then, and that trend doesn't seem to be stopping (I went back to do some teaching at my high school, ten years after I graduated and couldn't get over how much mor eimage conscious the male students were than even the mid 90s when I went).

In a way it's just human nature--with all the media imagery, etc, instead of things getting BETTER for women and the ridiculous ideals about how skinny to be, etc, soften up and be more like how it was for male actors (or models, or whoever), it's like the men now basically have to keep up with the women. This goes into my whole rant about how much I hate the perpetually waxed look of most shirtless male stars too (which *isn't* keeping with the times since body hair--not to the 70s extreme but in moderation is starting to be the trend again in modelling, etc, thank god). I'm sure most of the male stars mentioned above did do some light workouts, but even the way we work out is different--there's a reason that in the 50s even those male physique body builders you see never had 6 packs--people didn't know as much about how to isolate different muscles. Really, a "natural" 6 pack is rare except on certain body types in their teens and early 20s, but I honestly think many people who watch tv nowadays think if a guy doesn't have a 6 pack he's not "fit".

BUT, this trend in general has also been combined with a trend to cast more and more "model perfect" people on soaps (and tv, to some extent, in general). As I said elsewhere many used to praise UK shows and soaps for having real looking (even, gasp, "ugly") people on their shows but you can start to see even there this trend going away--probably partly as American TV becomes more of the standard world wide. I don't think it's a good trend (and yes, I think the increasing rise in obesity on this continent IS directly tied into the increasingly unrealistic look people see in the media--and not just when it comes to things like anorexia or steroid abuse).

*ahem* anyway.

[EricMontreal22]

No McTavish used another of the "instahunks" Frons and Rayfield hired as the red herring--ummm was his name Richie? He was a lawyer and paired with Simone, and actually he was IMHO by far the most appealing of the sudden batch of hunks they hired (maybe partly because he was a decent actor who actually had chemistry with other actors). Menard was pretty bad, but I think he has popped up in primetime--he's someone who seems to be able to handle small scenes in a cameo on primetime, but was completely out of his depth on daytime (where you don't get retakes the same way, scenes aren't filmed quite in such tiny chunks, you don't have as long to learn your lines, etc--there are a few actors I found utterly TERRIBLE on daytime but have been surprisingly somewhat, well decent in movies or primetime--Brandon Routh who was dismal on OLTL but an ok, if bland, Superman is an example).

But how could you forget THE worst of the Frons/Rayfield AMC "insta-hunks" and I think the worst male lead they have ever had? CARLOS! Oy, just, awful awful--and they didn't even know what or who his character was--a janitor? A secret poet writing letters? When McTavish came in she killed him off immediately, and hired his brother Juan Pablo who I admit was pretty bad too but compared to Carlos he was Lawrence Olivier.

Carlos was tired into the super crass and embarassing Sexiest Man Alive contest--at the time I was watching AMC with my mom at home and I literally was so embarassed when those segments--with "real American Hunks" would flash on. I can't even remember if the winner actually got any lines let alone a role after that. And some people wonder why some fans like me actually rejoiced when McTavish came back to the show and Frons suddenly seemed to drop SOME of his dream of making it a daytime mix of Sex and the City and Are You Hot Or Not.

[EricMontreal22]

I think actually this has gotten a bit better since the 80s (which is also when we had more explicit sex scenes it seems). It was John Conboy who bragged one Summer that he was keeping a lifeguard character on Capitol shirtless for the ENTIRE four months--and did! Of course in the 80s we also had speedos, which are just too ridiculous to have anymore unless it's a comic scene like Tuc Watkins can usually pull off (sorry--i know some guys on here are a fan of the speedos, but if you want anyone to take a soap even half seriously anymore...) So maybe it just seemed like more nakedness. (I did read the first soap to have a guy in a towel that was hung BELOW his navel was Y&R in the 70s--under Conboy again).

Since the 80s, the worst soaps for gratuitous male nudity have been the ones James Reilly is working with, I swear (that man--what went on inside his apparently Catholic, I can't help thinking repressed, brain). DAYS and Passions (and DAYS has kept it up to a lesser extent post Reilly, but never as bad as Passions) have the male characters rip off their shirts for any excuse (of course OLTL recently used their "I'm playing basketball so must be shirtless even though it's inside and we shouldn't be that hot or sweaty" ploy). With Passions at least, I suppose it was part of the joke (a joke I never really got, hence never being a big fan).

[SFK]

There were always bodybuilders or "muscle men" who lifted kettle balls and what have you but I think that was seen more as a subculture, like how we look at the tattoo/bodymod community of today (and even that's changing and seeping into the general population). But just like trendy neighborhoods in urban areas, didn't gays have a lot to do with the surge in popularity of the superfit average dude? I know I read something about that once, at least the theory. That with the dawn of AIDS, many gay men especially in the big cities like NY wanted to look "healthy" and they began working out and eating fastiduously carving these cut bodies. The urban Tarzan aesthetic appealed to women and straight men as well. Then by the end of the decade you saw the rise of the 6-packed male supermodel and such.

[SFK]

I was thinking of Conboy earlier when Carl and I were talking about Michael Bruno and his "I can teacha model how to act, I can't teach an ugly actor how to be pretty" quote. He was perhaps the original offender. I am to an extent a fan of his (namely his production values on Capitol and what I've seen of his early days at Y&R) but in one interview I read, he came out of his mouth with some bullsh!t about how he liked to hire young, pretty, inexperienced, untrained (I can't even bring myself to call them) "actors" because their work is so honest, they "don't know how to lie." They don't know how to act either.

[EricMontreal22]

I'm just amazed Valentini hasn't asked him to wax yet (though he is closely trimmed I guess). But yes, as hypocritical as I am...

[SFK]

Oh, and btw, I have an ep of Capitol on tape and Grant Alexander is in a speedo. I don't think he was the lifeguard Conboy was talking about though, he was a pervy con artist.

[EricMontreal22]

Right, but even those muscle men never had six packs, nor did the more svelt fit guys in that subculture--partly because they simply didn't know how to isolate those muscles for workouts back then--even with the hairless or shaved younger looking guys in the precursser's to gay porn like Bob Mizer's Athletic Model Guild magazines and film reels (Lord I know, or have thought way too much about this).

You're dead on that most of it trickled down from gay culture--the move from hairy=better in the 70s (in gay and straight culture) because it was more "manly" to being hairless/waxed in the 80s was two-fold, one was it showed off the newly ripped bodies better of course, but another reason many think is looking younger and youthful--ie hairless played into the "looking like you can't possibly have AIDS" fear. And then Calvin Klein, etc (including the daytime soaps) took that aethetic to the mainstream. I guess it always interested me because I always liked hairier guys, but when I was younger and coming to terms with my sexuality I hated my own body hair and waxed for ages till I was in my mid 20s or so and realized that was an odd attitude. (I did date one girl in high school who didn't realize that most hairless male models weren't naturally hairless--though of course some guys are).

But it's not like youth wasn't appreciated before--when the method actors brought (much to the public outcry of John Wayne who called it a "sissification of American culture") the sensitive actors--Brando to an extent but even more James Dean and (my all time fave) Montgomery Clift, it wasn't the Burt Reynolds hairy chest thing by any means. (nor of course were the 70s male teen idols with their Farrah Fawcett hair). But it wasn't the extreme it is today (but everything is more extreme--I guess that's just the natural progression of pop culture--at least until it swings the other way).

How to tie this back to OLTL... lol

[DRW50]

He was the guy who got Jess Walton hooked on drugs.

I think Speedos work on a guy if the guy has the confidence and body for them. John Wesley Shipp spent years on GL in Speedos, sometimes even white Speedos that should have been in Can't Stop the Music. Yet he looked perfectly natural in them. If you wear the clothes, and they don't wear you, then it works.

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah I've seen Shipp back then in a speedo, and don't particularly mind. My problem with the Conboy quote is just how cynical it is--if that makes sense. I know some would disagree and think the idea is, I dunno, fun or something but to outright brag about it to the press? Just how appealing do you think your show is then on terms of, I dunno, writing and acting... Couldn't you buy a swimsuit calendar if you wanted to see a guy in a speedo all Summer long, daily?

The lifeguard is an actor/character I don't recognize though he does have a nice hairy ches dark kinda curly hair. It's in the second edition (the 1987 one) of Schemering's Soap Encyclopedia in the photo section--a photo of him with the Conboy quote.

I certainly remember them not being afraid to show Alexander shirtless on AMC--I believe he liked to work out in the Chandler gym (!) and torment poor lustful Gloria who was trying to be good. LOL

[SFK]

Yeah, in the ep I have, he has a hidden camera focused on his hot tub and he's secretly taping underage Brenda in her bathing suit. He's watching inside, and then he goes out to join her. Apparently R. Kelly watched the stories with his grandmama.

[Bright Eyes]

For pointers?