I was watching an episode of The Hitchhiker a few days ago, one of the many strong anthology shows from the 80s, and they had an episode called Homebodies where James Remar and some young guy were convicts on the lam. They eventually made their way to what they thought was an empty house, and they begin to fight. They are interrupted by the family who live there. A little boy, a mother and father, and a teenage daughter played by...Melissa Brennan, AKA Melissa Reeves, Jennifer Rose Horton. As the episode went on,

James Remar tried to make Melissa's character have sex with him, and killed her brother, her parents, and finally her. But the twist was that this was all a hallucination of the younger convict after his fight with Remar. Brennan and her family are actually just lifelike models of human beings, put around the house to impress potential buyers. At the end of the episode, an old woman stops by to check out the house, and sees James Remar placed at the table with the "homebodies." She says, "He looks so real," and when she opens his shirt, sees his bloody chest, and he collapses onto the table.

Were any other soap people ever on the show?

Edited May 5, 201015 yr by CarlD2

I recently saw another episode, starring Kirstie Alley (who, like she did in her other Hitchhiker appearance, hammed it up in a horrible way, very grating), a young Ricky Paull Goldin, and Elizabeth Ashley. There was also a lot of ACTING! from RPG and Elizabeth, especially RPG. Of course the 80s was full of overwrought drama...it depends on the director to harness it.

Elizabeth Ashley went on to be Frankie's mother on AW in 1989 or 1990. I can't remember if she had any scenes with RPG (who played her nephew).

The story was pretty good, if overwrought. RPG's character kept going through a bizarre, hellish hotel as he was trying to escape from something. Elizabeth Ashley was there as a guest who tried to take his gun. A mysterious young woman was there and also got upset when she saw his gun. Kirstie Alley played a magician who kept trying to get him to work with her, as all her assistants drop like flies. He went into a party and suddenly the guests became blood-soaked doctors and nurses. Finally she tried to get him to shoot himself in front of her audience, and he began to freeze and got colder and colder. Instead of shooting himself, he pushed her off the elevator thing they were going up. They cut to an operating room. A doctor told his mother (Ashley) and girlfriend (the young woman) he'd pulled through. He'd tried to commit suicide.

Because these were made in Canada (as was the 80s Alfred Hitcock reboot), for a LONG time they'd air (both in the "adult" softcore version and in the edited version") on late night Canadian tv to fill "Can-Con" quotas, and I swear I've seen all of them, but off the top of my head can't remember other soap stars. I'm sure there were some though.

I read that Kim Lankford/Ginger from Knots was in one too but I haven't seen that one.

The DVD I rented also had an episode with the always underrated Fred Ward and Denise Galik, who went on to be Karen's mother on GH (and once or twice on PC). He was some type of a demented artist and she was his terrified model, and things got really ugly when he brought some young stud around to keep Denise from leaving. It was all very OTT of course.

I do miss 80's anthology shows. Given how paranoid everyone is these days you'd think they would make a comeback, instead of the latest Botoxed bimbo and her D-list cable show.

Are you referring to Abby Newman 'The Naked Heiress'?

Ha. That's a good one. Well Marcy Rylan doesn't seem to be Botoxed, thankfully.