As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Sarah played by the great theater actress Novella Nelson who died just last year.  There was Leonard, Sarah, Roy and his sister Nella.  There was a middle sibling who was dead, shot by the police which was a big (mainly unexplored) source of contention in the family, especially seeing that Roy was a police detective.  

I know that the graduation party was to emphasize Pam (excuse me for saying Meg, who'd already graduated) and Nella's ties but Nella predated Pam's appearance on the show.  The audience really should've been more familiar with Nella since she'd been on more than a year before Pam arrived on the canvas.  In fact, the entire Franklin family had been on before there was even a Pam character yet people can remember Pam but not them.  Therein lies the problem.

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

I remember the Franklins. Nella started as a friend of Meg's then became a friend of Pam's too. I mostly remember Roy, since Count Stovall was such a smooth looking actor (he seemed miscast as a cop, in my opinion he would have been better used as a villain, maybe an associate of James'). Perhaps if Marland had invested half as much care into the Franklins as he did with the Snyders, they would have been more meaningful to viewers and would have lasted as long as the Snyders.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Nella's appearances on the canvas pre-date her friendship with Meg. 

She was initially introduced as Roy's bratty little sister when Heather was dating Roy, sometime in early-spring 1986. 

Nella was initially involved in storyline during the early stages of the "Falcon" mystery because she was dating a drug dealer who Roy and Hal eventually ended up shooting when they interrupted a plot in action where Nella inadvertently got caught up with when this boyfriend lured her to the location where the shootout soon took place afterward.  Nella was pregnant with the said boyfriend's baby and had some sort of back alley abortion where she ended up getting an infection.  There was fallout from that as Nella confided in Heather but didn't want Heather to tell Roy and when Roy discovered this, he lashed out at Heather.  Roy tried to reconcile but Heather had left town, never to return.

 

Meg didn't start working at the hospital until the late summer and didn't begin the nursing program until the fall.  She met Nella during that time.

 

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

Of course her appearances pre-date her friendship with Meg. My comment about her and Meg was to indicate that friendship started before her friendship with Pam. I said she started as a friend of Meg's then became a friend of Pam's too. But I did not say she started on the show as a friend of Meg's. Make sense? So let's not try to correct other people's posts all the time. This is a conversation, sharing memories of the show. I do appreciate the details you provided about the abortion story. I still think Marland could have developed the Franklins a bit better. To me it felt like they got lost in the shuffle, probably because Marland had so many characters he was writing for at the same time.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Yes, of course that's obvious since Pam didn't arrive until later the next year in '87.  

I guess your post was unclear to me, which sometimes happens on social media.  

I know it wasn't your intention to sound dismissive of the character but sometimes people do dismiss characters, particularly the African American characters on the show as only being best friends of another character.  As a writer and a Black woman, who has been inspired to write because I saw so much lacking in media, I do admit to getting defensive when it feels like a character is dismissed as only having importance as the best friend or sidekick of a White character (which unfortunately happened all too often).

It was never my intention to sound didactic. 

Edited July 16, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

Thanks for clarifying. I would have said the same thing about Pam or Meg. That they were Nella's friend. My comments are not racially motivated. I am just commenting on how the writers used the characters, all characters.

[Soaplovers]

It also didn't help that Nella was played by at least three (maybe four?) actresses within a short amount of time (Victoria Rowell was one, I think).  It showed the lack of investment of Marland and co to service the Franklin family beyond just set dressing and even the most featured member of the family didn't really get serviced much beyond being Heather, and later, Jessica's boyfriend.

 

Jessica's family had a little more focus with the show at least attempting to feature Jessica's brother Lamar trying to work at the Argus and not quite having the journalistic touch.. and her married sister Fiona appearing from time to time.

 

 

[slick jones]

The Franklins:

Amy ___ Phillips Franklin   Karen Evans Kandel   abused wife of Lloyd Phillips, eventually married Roy..

Leonard Franklin, Jr.    Never Seen, deceased.

Leonard Franklin , Sr.      Charles B. Dumas   1989

                                          Mel Winkler   1986

Nella Franklin              Tiffani Caesar    1986

                                        Kasi Lemmons   1987-88

                                       Victoria Rowell   1988-89 (?90)

Roy Franklin                  Count Stovall    1985-89

Sarah __  Franklin        Novella Nelson   1986-89 occasional

 

 

 

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

Interesting info...thanks. I don't remember Roy's wife at all.

[Brolden]

I'm a long-time reader of this board and this thread (ATWT is the only soap I've ever seen), but haven't really posted in here before.

Last year, while I had some spare time on my hands, I started trying to compile a full episode list for the show. A few episode numbers have been well-documented, and I'm trying to connect the dots between them, finding out which episodes aired and which ones were pre-empted. Obviously, it's not going to be possible to go all the way back to 1956, but I'm hoping to get as far as I can towards 1985, possibly even 1979.

I've recently found myself having a bit more spare time again and I have completely re-traced every step I took last year to double check the dates. I'm keeping an excel file, in which I've put everything that I've confirmed in bold and everything that was pre-empted in red. I want to throw some of the question marks out here, to see if any of you can confirm if these episodes aired or were pre-empted.

So, working backwards, the first (rather large) era is 1995-2010. The final episode was #13,858. Episode #10,000 aired May 12, 1995. Both of those episode numbers can be found in a number of places. These are the pre-emptions I'm sure about:

1995 (post-May 12): September 4 & 8; November 23 & 24; December 29

1996: January 1; March 14 & 15; September 2 & 6; November 28 & 29

1997: March 7, 13 & 14; September 1 & 5; November 27 & 28; December 25 & 31

1998: January 1; February 16; March 12 & 13; August 20; September 7 & 11; October 29; November 26 & 27; December 17, 25 & 31

1999: January 1 & 19; March 11 & 12; September 6 & 10; November 25 & 26; December 31

2000: March 16 & 17; May 29; September 4 & 8; November 20, 23 & 24; December 25 & 29

2001: January 1; March 15 & 16; September 3, 7, 11, 12, 13 & 14; November 22 & 23; December 25 & 31

2002: January 1; March 14 & 15; September 2, 6 & 11; November 28 & 29; December 25 & 31

2003: January 1; March 20 & 21; September 1 & 5; November 27 & 28; December 25 & 31

2004: March 18 & 19; May 7; September 6 & 10; November 25 & 26; December 31

2005: January 20; March 17 & 18; September 5 & 9; November 24 & 25; December 30

2006: January 2; March 16 & 17; September 4 & 8; November 23 & 24; December 25 & 29

2007: January 1; March 15 & 16; April 17; September 3 & 7; November 22 & 23; December 25 & 31

2008: January 1; March 20 & 21; September 1 & 5; November 27 & 28; December 25 & 31

2009: January 1 & 20; March 19 & 20; July 7; September 7 & 11; November 26 & 27; December 31

2010: January 1; March 18 & 19; September 6 & 10

Taking into account all of the pre-emptions listed above, I'm coming up with three episodes too many between #10,000 and #13,858. So three more episodes were pre-empted. The problem is, I have four episodes that I suspect were pre-empted. Therefore, one of the below four episodes must have aired. These are the four episodes I suspect may have been pre-empted:

December 31, 1996: New Year's Eve was often, but not always, pre-empted.
January 1, 1997: New Year's Day was often, but not always, pre-empted.
July 4, 1997: I had this marked as pre-empted when I worked on this project last year, but wasn't able to verify it when I re-traced my steps this year.
May 25, 1998: I had this marked as pre-empted when I worked on this proejct last year, but wasn't able to verify it when I re-traces my steps this year.    

Any info on these four air-dates is would be much appreciated, especially if it can be backed up with some evidence. I'll post the next era (July 12, 1993 - May 12, 1995) later...

Edited July 16, 2018 by Brolden

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

Hi Brolden. I know when you get to the summer of 1987 there will be a few pre-emptions for the Iran Contra Affair hearings. You might find documentation about that in old issues of Soap Opera Digest. There were at least a half dozen pre-emptions during that time, maybe more.

 

When looking at the episode numbers of The Doctors, on another website, I realized that sometimes the numbers are not always consistent. Like when there was a pre-emption, the episode that didn't air would take a new number. So for example episode 1999 would become 1999/2000 since it ended up airing in the spot designated for 2000. And then 2000 would become 2001 and so on. This happened every time there was a pre-emption. I guess that's how they recorded the fact that something had two scheduled airings (though obviously only aired once). As a result of the duplicate numbering, the overall total is off. So on the wiki page for The Doctors, where it says there are 5155 total episodes, that number is actually incorrect...that number is in reference to scheduled broadcasts not actual episodes. This is because with the occasional duplicate numbering over the years there are probably a hundred less overall episodes and the real total is most likely between 5000 and 5100.  This throws off what people consider the milestone episodes. The episode they celebrated as #5000 was really the 5000th scheduled broadcast, not the 5000th episode.

 

I don't know if As the World Turns also employed a duplicate numbering process for pre-emptions. It was produced by a different company than The Doctors so it might have had a different policy. I am just mentioning this in the event you come across an old script and the number on that is slightly off from what you were led to believe it should be. The episode numbers may end up being approximations.

Edited July 16, 2018 by JarrodMFiresofLove

[Brolden]

Thanks JarrodMFiresofLove for that info. I have in fact marked everything between July 13, 1987 and August 7, 1987 as potentially pre-empted because of the Iran-Contra hearings, except for July 21, 22 and 24, which did air, according to my info (23 was definitely pre-empted).

That's interesting about the duplicate numbering. If ATWT did this as well, it may be quite impossible to ever get to a full episode list. I have noticed, though, that I have actually been able to make connections between the sparse separate episode numbers I've found online. It's definitely difficult though, as episodes found on youtube could easily be mis-dated as well. I've also based a lot of my info on hearing Dan Region (or McCullough, for that matter) say "Join us tomorrow..." / "This is Dan Region, inviting you to join us again Monday..." / "Due to special programming, As The World Turns will not be seen tomorrow, but will return...". That obviously helps with scheduled pre-emptions, but it may not cover any unscheduled pre-emptions.

In the end, it's guesswork at best, but I already gotten much closer than I could possibly have imagined (from August 27, 1980, which is the earliest 'checkpoint' I could find, I'm coming up 99 pre-emptions short... which seems like a lot, until you realize that there were 6,761 weekdays between then and September 17, 2010), so I'm hoping we might be able to have a breakthrough together. 

Edited July 16, 2018 by Brolden

[DramatistDreamer]

 

It really wouldn't surprise me if P&G, the network and focus groups had their say.  The ole "this won't appeal to housewives in the Midwest" excuse.

 

If you compare the Franklins and the Griffins, you will notice a lot of similarities.  It's as if Marland tried, didn't succeed, wait a couple years and tried again.

 

There wasn't much attempt after Marland, where most of the Black characters that followed were intimately connected to Jessica Griffin and even less before Marland (see Tucker).

 

This wasn't just a Marland issue, it was a daytime drama issue.  Across the board, it was systemic.

I would love it if someone had a good honest conversation with all of the surviving Black actors of daytime and really get their unguarded thoughts of what they thought of the industry as a whole, in its portrayal of Black characters and families. I'd pay good money to read all about it, lol!

[Soaplovers]

 

I remember Camille in the late 90s... and I enjoyed her.  She got some airtime and focus, but I always thought even with the increased airtime.. her character still had loads of story to tell that never got explored including who her father was, being a bi-racial child, her unresolved relationship with Ben and her all too brief relationship with Brad Snyder (I think that was due to recasting the character..imho).. and her interactions with Denise (hints of colorism??).

 

I don't recall how Camille was introduced.  I know she was a nurse, but did she just appear one day.. or was she properly introduced?

[DramatistDreamer]

I must admit that when I started college, I dipped in and out of daytime soaps, never watching continuously.  I missed some parts of Camille's early story and what is offered online from that time is quite choppy.

From what I've seen colorism was definitely an issue in terms of how the writers chose to portray Camille versus how they portrayed Denise.  Then again, colorism was a common issue through BTS dynamics at every soap and much of entertainment (television and movies).  Both actresses were great though, I enjoyed them both despite the limitations in their stories.

Edited July 16, 2018 by DramatistDreamer