As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[Soapsuds]

Here's the promo from the Holden memory loss story that is featured on the 1992 Christmas episode on the DVD.

<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3-ytvusjRGM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[DRW50]

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Thanks to Oakdalian and munecojim, you can see the time before and after the Lily reveal, along with the fallout of Craig's "death." Very good stuff and it really enhances the episode that has been aired on CBS and is available on the DVD, which, on its own, isn't the greatest.

[Brandon's Buzz]

Hey guys, just wanted to thank you all so much for all your great, great questions for Susan Bedsow Horgan. We had a fabulous chat on Friday afternoon, and I will be airing the resulting conversation as my final episode of this year tomorrow night at 10pm EDT / 7pm PDT. Here are the details:

A brand-spankin'-new DVD box set of classic episodes of the legendary soap As the World Turns has just been released, and since my new pal SUSAN BEDSOW HORGAN --- who was the head writer for World Turns for a time in the mid-'80s, and whose May 2011 appearance on Brandon's Buzz has been far and away my most popular installment of this year --- has some work included in this set (and since I'd been dying to have another chat with her anyway), I was thrilled to invite her --- and, as luck would have it, her great friend THOM RACINA, whose early-'80s work on General Hospital and Days of Our Lives is the stuff of soap legend, and who just happened to be visiting Susan the day I interviewed her --- back to Brandon's Buzz for another chat about a life spent spinning suds!

Brandon's Buzz episode #87, featuring soap writers SUSAN BEDSOW HORGAN & THOM RACINA

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

10pm EDT / 7pm PDT

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/brandonsbuzz

An mp3 podcast version of this episode will available as a free download from the iTunes music store beginning on Wednesday morning.

Thank you for humoring me with my requests for questions, and I hope you guys enjoy the show!

[DRW50]

That's wonderful. Thanks for letting us know.

[Soapsuds]

Got to mark it on my calendar.

[DRW50]

I'm pretty sure I've never seen the 1986 Christmas ATWT episode. I didn't realize until now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvMT22vEZ-M

[DRW50]

Ad at about 1:40.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2exjeQpB2v4&feature=autoplay&list=UUn3n_-KM0Fa-LgpOp4nZ7IQ&lf=plcp&playnext=6

[DeliaIrisFan]

Fascinating... Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at that dinner party with Doug Marland and Millette Alexandra, et al circa 1986-87(?)! And I believe this was the first we've ever heard of Marland having a "significant other"? It's probably also the first we've heard that cast him in a less than saintly light. Which is a good thing...he created so many iconic, but obviously flawed, characters - some of whom live on to this day - so of course he must have been a human being himself. His work was before my time, largely, but knowing how much of what this genre did best and having seen clips of his work over the years, it's nice to think that he was loved until the end, warts and all - surely what Nola, Bobbie, et al always longed for.

Thank you!

[DRW50]

Thanks so much for including some of my questions! Most of them were too detailed for 30 years old, so you did a great job of choosing those which would get a good answer. I'm pretty sure that Eileen and Helen left and came back around the time of Horgan's work on ATWT but then she was there and I wasn't, so...

I didn't know she was married to Patrick Horgan (or I forgot). I would love to hear his thoughts on his soap roles (especially that Ryan's Hope role that seemed very truncated).

That Gloria Monty story is SHOCKING. I love it.

Susan seems to truly understand the genre and I appreciated hearing her views on the soaps back then. Not only the stories about Marland, but about being inside P&G - these are priceless stories you're documenting.

I also would love to have seen what she would have done with Sierra, as she was generally very wan throughout her time on the show and not much of a character in her own right, mostly made stronger by Finn Carter's performances.

I'm glad Khan's question got in there too. It's so nice of you to really read these questions and not just come in and plug yourself, as so many do.

Edited December 15, 2011 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wddWa9b-4aA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIgVh4sbSQ0&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzk-XOSr5-U&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

[Khan]

What did we learn about Douglas Marland, the person?

* He was not a "warm and fuzzy" type of person.

* He lived and entertained lavishly.

* He had a temper and could be "intimidating" but he also was "loyal to a fault."

* He had Gloria Monty's picture taped inside a toilet lid.

Seriously, he and I had so much in common, it's almost scary. (Except, my lid has John Conboy's picture.)

Thank you so much, Brandon, for that informative session with SBH. I am literally envious that you get to talk with her. I am only sorry she and Marland did not mesh well as writers. If anything, he needed her sense of "high romance," as she put it, because Marland could be rather...cerebral when it came to that stuff.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Khan

[DRW50]

This is random as hell. I wasn't watching ATWT much - if at all - at this time so had no idea MJ was brought back to testify in John's custody hearing.

You can also see Roscoe Born in one of his short-term roles after he burnt his daytime bridges a year or two earlier. GL and ATWT were the first soaps to hire him again.

And there's the OTT bitch Rosanna that I knew she always was underneath (I just wish Edwina had been there to comment!). And that temp Brad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aE4EyhyJFA&feature=plcp&context=C2a856UDOEgsToPDskLexdEc-Xmr74lJMVgET85x

[EastMA2]

Like all of us, Susan did forget some things, understandably. She was definitely a Producer working under Mary-Ellis when Helen Wagner left and when Eileen left, yet she doesn't recall that. Perhaps because she wasn't writing the show then and was a Producer and not the Executive Producer, she wasn't as involved enough to remember that Eileen definitely left and was replaced by Betsy Von F.

The same thing happened when Brandon interviewed Pamela Long. Pam claimed that she didn't write the Reva drives off the bridge (I'm coming Bud!!), but Pam most definitely was the headwriter then. But all of us have forgotten details from 20 and 25 years ago so it is understandable.

[DRW50]

That, and the part about her becoming EP of OLTL when Marland passed on (I didn't think she became EP at OLTL until 1994 - or did she take over earlier? Or was she an unofficial EP?) I paused at, but like you said, it's been a long time. I also wonder if Eileen never really officially left, even though she was recast. I'm still glad the question was asked; hopefully it didn't distract from any of the other questions she did seem to have more to speak of.

[Brandon's Buzz]

Hey guys, thanks so much once again for listening to the show with Susie Horgan and Thom Racina, and for your help with all the great questions and topics of conversation. (You all were lifesavers, and I was more than happy to give credit where it was due!) I, too, was surprised at a couple of her memory lapses (or, at least, what I perceived to be memory lapses), but we're all human after all!