Today we remember one of the most legendary soap opera writers of all time, Douglas Marland, on the 31st anniversary of his passing. Marland held two head writing stints at ATWT. The first being November 7, 1979 - January 4, 1980. And then again from 1985 - March 6, 1993.… pic.twitter.com/ewuDkZK24X

— As The World Turns (@CBSATWT) March 6, 2024

5 hours ago, TVFAN1144 said:

I wonder if the Penny recast would have worked better if they had waited a few years. They did that with Don

 

Maybe the writers weren’t interested or the character was indeed not replaceable . 

There had been a few Dons over the years and he didn't have the importance of Penny, the lead heroine. Also Bob, Ellen had been recast so Penny was a much loved original character and actress.

Penny was brought back in the two years Irna was not writing the show. I've never been able to verify exactly when Pheobe Dorin debuted or how long she lasted. Not long it seems, as she didn't have any story. Maybe the idea was a soft return where viewers could grow accustomed to her before there was any major story.

When Irna left, the show was still #1 and the jewel in the CBS daytime crown. That's why I am always puzzled as to why Joel Kane was chosen as her replacement. He had no daytime experience. Maybe after working with the all powerful Irna, P&G wanted more control and chose a writer they felt would be more malleable. Who knows?

I've never seen any articles from the time talking about this,

does anyone know more?

@vetsoapfan @Reverend Ruthledge

If this was posted already my apologies

How the Queen of Soaps Created a Television Dynasty

Edited March 6, 20241 yr by Soapsuds

8 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

What did you think of the relationship between Phillip Spaulding and Rick Bauer? To me, it seemed as if Phillip was supposed to be the “Alpha” male, while Rick was always the…well, not to be mean, but the “Beta”. Someone probably thought that, with Rick being from a surviving core family, they’d try to make him an “Alpha”, which is not a convincing role for him, especially as portrayed by Michael O’Leary, an actor best suited for playing the comedic sidekick, not the heavy, as portrayed by Grant Aleksander.

While I am  not a fan of much of what Pamela Long wrote during her original run on the show, I feel she "got" and developed the relationship between Rick and Phillip better than any other writer. (She was also the only one, IMHO, who understood and could write realistic humanity into Reva.) Under Long, Rick and Phillip had a strong  emotional bond which couldn't be put into a conventional box. It often felt like Rick had subconscious feelings for Phillip, and that Phillip could not bear to see Rick be closer to anyone else other than him. Pam Long said that O'Leary asked her point blank if Rick were in love with Phillip, because that's how many of their scenes played out.

8 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Maybe as an adult, Chris Hughes needed a “Rick Bauer” type to offer a contrast. Phillip and even Rick seemed like much better developed characters than Chris. Viewers at least saw the final stages of their teenage years into adulthood. Did we even see a teenage Chris Hughes with friends like we saw Andy and Paul or was it a Casey Hughes-like situation? Seemed as if Casey was slingshot into adulthood directly from early adolescence.

I don't believe Chris Hughes had a relationship with anyone else like Rick Bauer had with Phillip, and to me, Chris' lack of realistic peer relationships kept the character from being fully developed and realized. It was a combination of poor, uncommitted writing and generally weak casting. Did the audience ever truly become emotionally involved with Chris? I think Rick "gelled" better in his earlier years because of the effective relationships he was given with the other Musketeers. But he grew wearisome and ineffective in later years, alas.

8 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

And Chris Hughes seemed to go through that same transition. Maybe who paid more attention to Chris Hughes maturation process someone can tell me if he had a teenage cohort, or a high school girlfriend or a graduation like other characters in the past.

I don't recall seeing much of a maturation process for Chris. He kept coming and going, and the show didn't seem to follow through with anything while he was younger. The character was not handled well at all. By the time Daniel Cosgrove assumed the role, I didn't feel as if we had seen enough of him growing up and interacting enough with other characters, so I just didn't have any emotional investment in him.

4 hours ago, NothinButAttitude said:

I knew they were going to find some type of way to make Katie a Hughes in the end when Nancy's funeral became more about Katie than anyone else.

That. INFURIATED. Me.

We didn't see Penny or Don or Ellen or Andy or Frannie return for Nancy's passing, but we had even more Katie rammed down our throats.😡

4 hours ago, NothinButAttitude said:

I still bothers me that Goutman didn't pull the stick out of his a** and simply bring back Penny and Don for that one episode. I HATED Nancy's funeral episode. It was a disservice to Helen Wagner if you ask me. I did not care to see Katie sulk about being a widow and now losing Nancy. I wanted to see the Hughes grieve over Nancy. It's weird to me b/c I always say that ATWT (besides AW's handling of Doug Watson and Connie Ford's passings) is the one soap that has one of the best dedication episodes to a veteran actor in the genre and that was the death of Don MacLaughlin.  We saw a full-circle moment of life and death as they celebrated Chris' life, the announcement of Kim and Bob's baby, and the celebration of Christina. 

So many legacy characters' deaths on soaps were badly bungled and ended up being insulting to the character and the audience. Nancy Hughes on ATWT and Bert Bauer on TGL were just two of the most egregious examples. The days of respectful tributes to vets like Grandpa Hughes, Chris Hughes and Papa Bauer  ended long ago.

4 hours ago, NothinButAttitude said:

When it came to the many actors that played Chris, I did enjoy Dylan Bruce as Chris; however, I feel that the material he got was pure trash. 

I just grew to accept Rick/Michael O'Leary for what he provided. I never put much stock in Rick.

Same here, and that's the problem. As the only male Bauer scion on  the canvas, Rick should have been relevant, but he really wasn't.

4 hours ago, NothinButAttitude said:

This is why I hated that they wrote Michelle off. And as much as I am a MANNY fan, that pairing wrote her into a corner too soon. I could've did without Rick, but the only reason I wanted him to stick around was for them to SORAS Leah, so that she could give him h*ll alongside Blake's kids for his part in Ross' death. 

Unfortunately, the endless Manny stuff boxed Michelle into a corner, and Nancy St. Alban was probably the weakest actress in the role (Rachel Miner being the best). And when the show did SORAS Leah, it was ridiculously fast and jarring, only made worse because the show didn't do much with her anyway.

2 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

There had been a few Dons over the years and he didn't have the importance of Penny, the lead heroine. Also Bob, Ellen had been recast so Penny was a much loved original character and actress.

I wrote recently that some actors are just irreplaceable, and viewers can tell by instinct who they are. Once Don Hastings took over the role of Bob, he became one of them, but Rosemary Prinz had always been Penny, and the audience had a fierce attachment to her in the part from day one.

2 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Penny was brought back in the two years Irna was not writing the show. I've never been able to verify exactly when Pheobe Dorin debuted or how long she lasted. Not long it seems, as she didn't have any story.

The actress turned up in 1971 and only stayed part of that year, as I recall. Penny didn't have much to do other than interact with family members. My gut told me that TPTB were trying to slowly make the audience accept her as being part of the Hughes family before giving her any front-burner storyline. But while Dorin was adequate enough in the role, she just wasn't "our" Penny and never felt like a real part of the family. I was relieved when they had the character leave town again.

2 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

When Irna left, the show was still #1 and the jewel in the CBS daytime crown. That's why I am always puzzled as to why Joel Kane was chosen as her replacement. He had no daytime experience. Maybe after working with the all powerful Irna, P&G wanted more control and chose a writer they felt would be more malleable. Who knows?

I've never seen any articles from the time talking about this,

does anyone know more?

@vetsoapfan @Reverend Ruthledge

Joe Kane only lasted for a while in 1970, before being replaced by Winifred Wolfe and Warren Swanson, whose work did not impress me. By early 1972, Irna was associated with the show again, whether or not P&G thought she was a pain in the a$$, LOL. When Robert Soderberg and Edith Sommer took over next, the writing was very good, and Oakdale felt like home once more for the next 5+ years.

23 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

What i find most offensive about the Sheffer/Wagner interaction is not just that he turned down her request, but that he spoke openly about it in the press. How humiliating for Wagner, a beloved original cast member and lynchpin of the program, to have her participation be undervalued so publicly. Sheffer should have been gracious enough to keep such a private conversation private.

Now Sheffer was not my favorite but my memory of this is that in an interview he says he bumped into Wagner in the hallway and she said "You haven't been writing for me much!" and he admitted it and said, "She is our matriarch, she needs to be written for"..so maybe it was a different interview but he was not being rude here.

4 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

And when the show did SORAS Leah, it was ridiculously fast and jarring, only made worse because the show didn't do much with her anyway.

Worse than SORASing Leah (which I could deal with because it's done so frequently on soaps) is that they didn't SORAS her older brother Jude who then became her younger brother. As well as just being stupid, it had all sorts of storyline implications like the fact that that meant Rick must've cheated on Mel with Harley at some point. Just one of a million stupid decisions made toward the end of the show. 

19 hours ago, adrnyc said:

Lisa as well. Sure she had no romantic storyline but she was around a lot. Nancy was in her 80s in the last decade. There were times (even in the Sheffer era) where all the actress could do was sit in a chair. That's rather limiting to her storyline options. 

I do think Bob and Kim and Lucinda were written well until the end...( I would have brought back family members but...and I would never gotten rid of John, he and Lucinda would be the Bizzaro Bob and Kim...totally committed to each other and their families but sarcastic, caustic and not above making trouble for others) much better than GL wrote for anyone other than Java.  But I disagree on Lisa....she would have been very easy to write for as she loved getting involved with  everyone....she would be another greek chorus making catty remarks on what was happening and helping, in her own eccentric ways, the wayward youths  of Oakdale. I do think that Lisa is more interesting without a romanctic involvement but she could still be in the action. 

2 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

Now Sheffer was not my favorite but my memory of this is that in an interview he says he bumped into Wagner in the hallway and she said "You haven't been writing for me much!" and he admitted it and said, "She is our matriarch, she needs to be written for"..so maybe it was a different interview but he was not being rude here.

That's definitely not an interview/story I read. In it, Hogan related the story of Wagner asking him to be used more on the show. He was quoted as saying that she may have been the matriarch, but he was going to write the show as he saw fit.  My problem is not that he asserted his rights as the writer, per se, but that he revealed to the public a veteran actress had asked for more attention from her own series, and had been turned down by a newbie writer who didn't appear to understand the soap very well. Had I been Wagner, I would have been humiliated.

2 hours ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

Worse than SORASing Leah (which I could deal with because it's done so frequently on soaps) is that they didn't SORAS her older brother Jude who then became her younger brother. As well as just being stupid, it had all sorts of storyline implications like the fact that that meant Rick must've cheated on Mel with Harley at some point. Just one of a million stupid decisions made toward the end of the show. 

Yep. It was one idiotic decision after another.

Knowing how abrupt and straight forward Helen Wagner could be, I wonder what her response was to Hogan Sheffer. Helen wasn't a shrinking violet. 

31 minutes ago, TEdgeofNight said:

Knowing how abrupt and straight forward Helen Wagner could be, I wonder what her response was to Hogan Sheffer. Helen wasn't a shrinking violet. 

Helen Wagner of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s may have been a different Helen Wagner from the last 10-12 years of the show when she was of advanced years and coping with illness. Sort of akin to how vulnerable the actor Kristoff St. John was after the death of his son and he was practically pleading to be used more by Y&R to no avail. After his death, a friend and colleague of Kristoff’s pretty much said that, after such a difficult time with the loss of his son, work was really Kristoff’s refuge and even that had been taken away from him.

1 hour ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Helen Wagner of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s may have been a different Helen Wagner from the last 10-12 years of the show when she was of advanced years and coping with illness. Sort of akin to how vulnerable the actor Kristoff St. John was after the death of his son and he was practically pleading to be used more by Y&R to no avail. After his death, a friend and colleague of Kristoff’s pretty much said that, after such a difficult time with the loss of his son, work was really Kristoff’s refuge and even that had been taken away from him.

With a husband who was a broadway producers and years on the show..I don't think she really cared about the money, but more that she wanted to still contribute and be productive..so your right...work is important to us all and that is really humiliating if HS said that...making someone feel old and worthless....but from all reports Wagner was salty to the end so I am surprised if the next time contracts came up she didn't just tell them, "Uh..no!: 

Which reminds me when JER wrote Alice being killed (by choking on a donut no less)and someone said he was getting rid of all the "old people" FR reportedly s said something along the lines of "Who is he kidding, does he think he is a teenager himself.." and a disparaging comment on his weight.  You do not screw with these old pros who have seen it all and have nothing to loose!

1 hour ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Helen Wagner of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s may have been a different Helen Wagner from the last 10-12 years of the show when she was of advanced years and coping with illness. Sort of akin to how vulnerable the actor Kristoff St. John was after the death of his son and he was practically pleading to be used more by Y&R to no avail. After his death, a friend and colleague of Kristoff’s pretty much said that, after such a difficult time with the loss of his son, work was really Kristoff’s refuge and even that had been taken away from him.

Huh? Why is Kristoff being brought into this? Way off topic.

To keep on topic, all accounts say that Helen Wagner was a fighter to the end. She worked right up until the end with all of her faculties and Don Hastings confirmed it.  None of us will ever know what her response was to Hogan Sheffer.

1 hour ago, TEdgeofNight said:

Huh? Why is Kristoff being brought into this? Way off topic.

To keep on topic, all accounts say that Helen Wagner was a fighter to the end. She worked right up until the end with all of her faculties and Don Hastings confirmed it.  None of us will ever know what her response was to Hogan Sheffer.

Feel free to ignore then. 
 

Thanks for your response @Mitch64 I see what you are saying.

Over the years, in this thread, a certain person tried to make me feel foolish for even suggesting P&G could possibly get back into producing a soap…well..