ATWT: September 2010 Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

Margo and Craig were raised as full siblings. Only in 1981 or so did Margo, at some big trial, did Margo learn that John was her biological father. She thought Bart Montgomery was her father.

In the video thread someone posted a 1984 episode that has Bart in it.

[MichaelGL]

Oh how I took those days for granted.

That's an interesting idea, one that I would have liked.

[Mitch]

It was Dee's marital rape trial. Margo, if you can believe it, was a student nurse at Memorial and of course, locked horns with John (as did everyone on the show at that time..) Lyla came to town after Bart dumped her when he found out she lied, so she asked John for a job. They had some really funny flashbacks of John and Lyla (this was the first actress to play her) and Lyla was wearing some tropical mumu with a flower in her hair and GASP drinking (so you KNOW that Lyla was a BAD girl back then.) John used to call her "Delila" and would do so in the present time to bug her (they dropped that, would love to have him say that when she was doing some of her bad singing at the Mona Lisa years later.) This gave Lyla the motivation to be overprotective of Cricket, who originally was going to follow in mom's footsteps and be hot to trot but she was a terrbily written, and acted vixen. Lyla was there the night Dee was brought in after the rape and John was blackmailing her (as John was wont to do back in the day) to keep her mouth shut or he would tell Bob about their relationship.

[!@#$%^&*], now that the show is gone, who am I going to share this useless information with???

[DRW50]

You can keep sharing it with us, we talk about useless information for shows that went off in 1962!

I can't imagine Anne Sward playing any of that "Delila" (sounds like that radio DJ) stuff. It must have been very odd. I'd like to see Margo as a student nurse. They never mentioned any of that later on.

I wonder if any of Veleka Gray as Lyla is out there. What did you think of her? She was on a lot of soaps but then dropped off. She was also all over a lot of the Soap Opera Digests of the 70s. She showed photos taken by Joel Crothers on his world tours and then she had a very 70s, very rambling advice column. Some of the letters in there would make your eyes pop.

[dragonflies]

I like reading it! It makes me wish someone had episodes to watch posted somewhere

[P.J.]

I really wish P&G would upload EVERY episode they have of ATWT on Hulu or whatever. I would LOVE to see stuff I missed. I can't imagine watching the Kim/Bob/originalJennifer triangle. With the Kimster as "the bad girl". Welovesoaps has been posting old photos, and in one of them I noticed some teen actress billed as "Susan Burke". I really had no clue the character of Susan was on the show before becoming a doctor.

As long as someone's answering history questions, maybe you can clarify something. My mom SWEARS Barbara at one time "had the hots" for Bob. (I assume this was teenBabs...) Does anyone recall?

[Mitch]

LOL, a little known soap actress with a penchant for being fired gets a soap advice column?? (which reminds me, remember when Kim had an advice column? Or when Lisa had her gossip column under the name "Dolly Valentine," (for all her bitching the Dobsons always wrote for her.)!!!

It wasnt Anne Sward playing the Delila stuff, even though she was younger then Gray...Gray looked like somone who had a rough younger life and would make a better boozy sl*t. I liked Gray as Lyla (I never liked Sward, she was too young, and too dull to play a woman with a past.) Hastings didnt like Gray but since they broke up soon after it really didnt matter. Also, Gray and Brygman had a good antogonistic relationship...Sward was always too weak with him.

[DRW50]

I didn't know that Kim or Lisa had advice columns. I'm not sure what advice Lisa would give...

So was the Donna Wandrey Barbara interested in Bob? I have never seen her. She was very striking on Dark Shadows, albeit a terrible actress.

If P&G cared about making money they would sell DVDs of classic episodes of their shows, or put them on a subscription based website. A lot of people would eat this up. I don't give a #*$& about demos -- look at where the demo chasing got them. P&G soaps appealed to tens of millions of people for a reason.

[Actor87]

Veleka Gray recently taught an acting workshop here in Louisiana.

[Mitch]

Lisa was a gossip columnist of course!!! The forerunner of Blake Mahler and the "Springfield Burns," blog...(which actually was kind of a funny idea.)

However, Lisa could give great advice, though most of it would not be able to printed in a paper. But she could let people know that by sleeping around and marrying a lot could bag you a lot of money to buy businesses you have no business actually running!

P & G I think just want to let them die and not have people remember or care anymore. They view their soaps like a product, they feel that it is not meeting market share it is gone, without a thanks!

A classy thing for them to do was to have a big party to say goodbye to ATWT and invite all the former soap stars, actors, etc of the P & G stable left alive to join in to put a cap on things and say goodbye. As it was the pics I saw was a party in the Snyder kitchen with a bunch of preseco..I mean, they couldnt have sprung for some White Star at least???

[DRW50]

That does sound like fun for Lisa. What was the advice column Kim had? They could have had another stalker story for her with that.

P&G used to have such nice parties for their shows for years -- I've seen some of the stuff they threw for SFT, ATWT, EON, etc. in the 70s. I guess they really lost interest about 10 or 15 years ago. It just is so frustrating because with better guidance ATWT would probably still be a top soap.

[Soapsuds]

I'd love to see the best of ATWT on DVD. I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

[Soapsuds]

It's too bad Lyla wasn't brought back. Margo could have yelled at her too! There was a missed opportunity with her not returning. The storylines would have been endless. Starting with why Katie needs a man every 5 seconds and Katie and Lyla bitch slapping each other for obvious reasons.

[DRW50]

There was no reason not to bring Lyla back. All her children needed her. She might have made Katie's or Craig's scenes less pointless. These two have been repeating stories for years and they never change. Lyla was needed. Unfortunately that would mean remembering the show's past, and to Goutman, that means a big stretch is bringing back Abigail for two days.

[Soapsuds]

Once ATWT was cancelled ..Lyla should have been brought back to deal with her children. Instead we got more of Juicy Janet and Co. Lucinda's involvement had no big punch to it a la Marland. It was nice she was involved but Pissy cant write drama/suspense period!