As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[P.J.]

Nope. And I remember really liking VW in the role. I remember she got some sitcom that tanked, and had a couple of appearances on HIMYM.

[Xanthe]

 

I had forgotten she was on HIMYM -- I think the brainspace that remembers *Ashley* Williams was on the show absorbed Virginia Williams. I know she was on Fairly Legal with Sarah Shahi (which I didn't watch), but I did see her on the last season of Why Women Kill in a smallish role and she was memorable enough to me from ATWT that I call out "Brandy!" when I see her.

[DRW50]

Helen Wagner and Eileen Fulton interviewed on Donahue. There's a 1958 clip around 21-22 minutes with Nancy and Grandpa. Donahue (sometimes I forget how much he annoyed me) talks all over the clip but Helen helpfully gives some background to what's going on. Ruth Warrick also talks a few minutes after the clip about the Edith storyline and how Irna was ordered to kill off either her or her love interest.

I can't remember if I've seen that old clip before or not. @vetsoapfan you may know. (sorry to put you on the spot)

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Edited February 21, 2024 by DRW50

[Soapsuds]

Thanks for posting it!

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[vetsoapfan]

@DRW50, you are not putting me on the spot at all. 

I can't say if you have seen the clip before, but I know I have. I remember Phil's comments about the vintage scene from when I watched the Donahue episode originally.

[DramatistDreamer]

Thanks posting this @DRW50. Yeah, Donahue could have waited for the clip to end before talking. It seems like the habit of someone who is pressed for time. In an editing room when people have to decide where to make cuts, that’s when you hear people chatter over film like this. Otherwise, Donahue is actually engaging with the actors and at least isn’t condescending and let the actors on the panel be their charming selves. 
I wonder who put these clips together? It could be the Donahue people but it reminds me that today, the PAs on shows like The Talk or even The View are unlikely to even watch today’s soaps as the times I have watched their segments, maybe a tribute or anniversary episode on one of the remaining soaps these segments appear out of synch or seem to make little sense.

I love how obviously happy Eileen Fulton is to have Helen Wagner back on the show.

And Eileen’s insistence that had it not been for Lisa, Alexis on Dynasty is unlikely to have happened is probably a correct assumption, even though delivered with bravado.

Edited February 21, 2024 by DramatistDreamer

[DRW50]

I did roll my eyes a little at some of the line of questioning which felt very mandated (especially all the talk about sexual content), but he did seem to genuinely want to hear their thoughts, unlike many of these segments on other shows. I hadn't thought about the clip selection - a part of me thinks they chose whatever survived and had the actors, but it must have been more involved. 

I was mostly just so interested in hearing more talk about Edith Hughes (I suppose it shows how much time had passed even in 1985 that the crowd had no reaction to her) I had wondered at times if she ever interacted with Lisa. Hearing that she left (aside from brief returns) just as Lisa was arriving on the show feels like another of those fate of the universe moments. 

It's too bad the show never replicated her type of role in the Hughes family. 

Glad you got to see it again. I hope the full version may pop up someday.

[TEdgeofNight]

Eileen Fulton is abit……much. Not my favorite actress. Annoying. Onscreen and on Donahue. 

[DRW50]

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Skimming through this, I notice several overacted aw shucks one-episode characters that I don't associate with ATWT that often before this point. I guess it is about on the level of hackiness of that writing team.

[Paul Raven]

Apart from Lisa, John and Lucinda there wasn't really anyone else that had longevity at that point.

I get that they need to keep the show young but most of those characters had no connection to the history so  there couldn't be any generational storytelling.

[P.J.]

Scott really should've had staying power, but after Joe Breen was fired, the writers seemed to regard the character as nuclear.

It is an odd episode, having so much focus on the hokey wedding. 

[Khan]

For years, there were rumors that suggested then-EP John Valente had sabotaged ATWT deliberately because he was mad that P&G transferred him from AW.  I don't know whether there was any truth to those rumors, but watching that episode again, it does make me wonder.  Like, maybe Black & Stern got caught in the crossfire between Valente and P&G; and maybe - just maybe - if they had had a more supportive EP, whose only agenda was to help the show get back on its' feet after Marland's death, they might not have been such total disasters as HW's.

[DRW50]

A part of me also wonders how many actors had been fired to waste money on all that...I don't know who the guest actors are but that must have been one hell of a day for them to get to play out a whole wedding and reception.

I used to think they were more of the problem compared to Valente as his work before they arrived wasn't as bad, but I wouldn't be shocked if this was the case. Something was just alien and rotten at the time beyond even what made sense. I guess P&G being so rudderless didn't help (and then the solution was just to try to copy ABC - their final fatal mistake).

[vetsoapfan]

I've always heard they were gawd-awful at Falcon Crest, and crippled that show instantly when they took over the head writing reigns. I don't think Black and Stern were were as bad/damaging as JER, Charles Pratt, Thom Racina, Leah Laiman, and some other, notoriously-awful writers, but I have the feeling that their material would not be stellar under the best of circumstances.

[wonderwoman1951]

not sure where black and stern fall in the pantheon of bad headwriters. what i can tell you is that it was at les moonves’s “suggestion” that black and stern became atwt’s headwriters, which they both told me, and was confirmed by lucy johnson, head of cbs daytime.