As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[amybrickwallace]

Yeah, I was just going to mention Liza/Travis - and the pairing of Liza and her first husband, Steve (Michael Nouri) was also extremely popular.

[DRW50]

Mike and Sara Karr on EON.

[DRW50]

This clip and part 4 should come before the others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWLHsP3e4Oo&index=5&list=UUMzfXBdkJBnz14rGTDBnVDw

[DRW50]

Mitch, I know how much you love watching these therapy sessions. This is a lengthy session with Susan and Bob.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bfoKVXrwNs&list=UUMzfXBdkJBnz14rGTDBnVDw

Edited September 18, 2014 by DRW50

[amybrickwallace]

I'm sorry, Carl, I meant what year was the episode you posted with Kim, Bob, Jay, Carol, etc.?

[DRW50]

December 1979.

[amybrickwallace]

Thank you, Carl! I especially love watching soap episodes from the 70s. It really does feel like a bygone era.

[Mitch]

LOL..I watched the other clip and laughed at the mention of the therapy session! Watchign the first clip I remember how watching this was almost like if my own parents were splitting up! And they say college students dont like to watch "old," people. And WHY did they go to therapy? I mean Bob and Susan just got it on once right?

On that note, I HATED Mack! Why put classy Nancy with that gross old man who never gave out bad good advice like Chris would?

Edited September 18, 2014 by Mitch

[amybrickwallace]

Kim and Susan remained enemies right to the end, if I'm not mistaken.

[Soapsuds]

Not enemies....Kim learned to tolerate Susan but when their worlds collided again the Susan/Bob affair came up.....lol

Edited September 18, 2014 by Soapsuds

[amybrickwallace]

No matter how many writers/producers there were, the Bob/Susan affair was never forgotten, Kim never forgot it, and therefore the audience never forgot it. At least that was ONE point of continuity that went on until the end.

[DramatistDreamer]

I'm thinking it was more than sexual for Bob and definitely Susan but it was the emotional connection that had to be excorcised. Bob is just not the type to 'hit it and quit it' and leading up to the ONS, Bob had been caring for Susan's back injury and subsequent pill dependence. From what I've seen, it looks as if Bob's budding relationship with Susan had lead to a distance in his marriage to Kim for months, even before the ONS.

ATWT was really good in how situations like these played out for several months. Sometimes, Marland would keep people apart for a bit too long but it appears he timed this one right and with the noticeable strain in the marriage which played out in extensive therapy. He did not skip over showing the painstaking work involved in putting the marriage back together.

I could only imagine how today's soap writers would handle this:

They would've went straight from Susan having back pain, to her near overdose on a bottle of painkillers to Bob rushing to her side and then them sleeping together--- all in the same weekend!

Then on Monday Kim would discover it, be furious, yell and gesture a lot and within two weeks some other manufactured crisis would occur bringing Bob and Kim back together, as if the whole thing never happened.

No need for therapy, until Kim's repressed anger rears its head with her going off the rails (during Sweeps, of course), shoplifting at Fashions, running off with John Dixon and threatenting to kill Susan Stewart.

Edited September 19, 2014 by DramatistDreamer

[Khan]

You forgot the Sudden Plot Twist (That Will Change Oakdale Forever) where we find out that Bob was kidnapped months before and that it was his doppelgänger who had slept with Susan (and who had been using the hospital as a front for a human trafficking/drug smuggling scheme).

[amybrickwallace]

Speaking of Mark Rydell, here is a funny anecdote I read in Paul Denis' book, Inside the Soaps (published circa 1985):

"Don MacLaughlin (Chris Hughes on As the World Turns) recalls the time Jeff Baker (played by Mark Rydell) was missing in the story line...and everyone was trying to find him. MacLaughlin received a letter from a woman who revealed that she had just seen Jeff Baker leaving the 58th Street Library and was going to phone the police, but then reconsidered and was notifying MacLaughlin first."

LOL

[DramatistDreamer]

soap fans, God bless 'em...some truly struggle separating reality from the make believe.