As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[Soapsuds]

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[DRW50]

A few other videos that used to be on Youtube and someone now reuploaded.

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Sad sighting of Chris Hughes wandering around as an extra in the last clip.

I always forget Eileen Fulton was still on as Lisa by this point. She wasn't really gone for that long, although I imagine it would have felt longer at the time.

I never can remember how many times John "died" in this period.

Who decided Kim and Lisa should have the same hairstyle? 

I love that Kim's reaction to seeing Steve is just complete exhaustion. Me too, Kim...

The whole music video presentation of the show's "supercouples" at this time (as shown with Betsy wandering around aimlessly to a treacly tune) is interesting to me because they didn't do this later in the decade with big couples like Lily and Holden, even though music videos were even more of a mainstay by that point.

I always forget about that dull drug runner Bob was married to until I see her again.

There's something grotesque in remembering that each actress who played Margo (aside from Glynis O'Connor) miscarried Tom's baby. The misogyny of soaps...

The chemistry between Margo and Tom is probably the only part of the Dobsons' reinvention of Tom that stuck after Deas left. It had become very, very intense by this point, to where (especially in the second clip) I almost want to look away. I was going to ask if any viewers at the time had an inkling that they were together in real life, but then I remember how little chemistry Larry Brygmann had with his real-life partners on ATWT, so maybe not. 

You can tell how much Deas loves Colin because he genuinely tries in those scenes rather than just going gonzo, as he often did with his screen partners on his other soaps. They were both doing much more of that usual style earlier on, I guess before the feelings hit. 

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by DRW50

[Vee]

Bob Hughes marrying a European drug smuggler played by Elaine Princi is still so insane to me. Which ep is she in?

Edited October 26, 2023 by Vee

[DRW50]

She mainly has one scene in the first episode - around 25 minutes, she's upset that her daughter calls to say she's not returning to Oakdale (I think her daughter was Bilan or something like that), instead selling movie tickets in Florida. 

[Khan]

I'm sure Don Hastings felt the same way, lol.

For me, the problem with Bob and Miranda's marriage - aside from the fact that it never made sense even on paper - is that DH and Elaine Princi shared no chemistry.  TPTB would have been better off reuniting Bob with Kim (which they did eventually) or even with Lisa.

I realize I'll always be in the minority on this, but I truly thank the soap gods for Justin Deas.  True, he could go over-the-top sometimes in his performances, but except for that period of time on GL when even he admitted he was on auto-pilot, he was never, ever, ever boring to watch.

[TVFAN1144]

Unforgivable storyline 

[Mitch64]

Terrible what they did to him during that time...Wagner said that he started to get ill because he was taken off of contract.  They could have at least had him give the toast. 

 

This is around the time that Fulton was fighting with Bunim and right before she left. She went red to "draw attention to herself" and..well, it was not the best look for Lisa. But this is also the time she started really leaning into the "jittery, fluttery, ditzy" side to Lisa...I'm glad that was gone when she came back. 

 

The Tom and Margo clip makes the annoying triangle of Craig/Betsy/Steve pale in comparison. Margo and Tom are both self directed people with jobs, and cause problems with each other due to their strong personalities...Craig is obsessed with Betsy, Betsy is a fool who apparently does not work, go to school or have anything else going on in her life but the men in it, and Steve is an annoying blow hard. I can't believe Kim did not give all three of them "kiddo" speeches.

 

I think the grandma clause was still in Fulton's contract? It's also interesting, knowing Colin's antiabortion activity, that Margo seems very adamant against abortion.

 

I forgot that I used to think Deas was hot...and could not figure out why after watching him play that troll Buzz, but I can see it here.  He is totally in LOVE with Margo/Colin and it does not come off as desperate (Craig) or controlling (Steve) or sappy sweet like Babs and Gunner. It just seems natural that this man totally loves this woman, even if they both can be pains in the ass.  I don't know if its was Colin who brought it out of him (I never saw that with Buzz and anyone else) or the character of Tom (Deas amazingly plays Tom as temperamental and offbeat, but also as a sweet guy who just wants to have a wife and family, an interesting combination of Lisa and Bob and he somehow makes it work. ) 

 

The Dobsons did not know what to do with any Hughes outside of Tom, so they just married Bob off.  During this time they also had Kim flirt with Stan, some boring FBI agent or something that she actually became his secretary.  I loved that they wrote boring "Bilan" out with a telephone call and having her sell tickets at a theater in Florida...what a weird way to write a character out. 

[Paul Raven]

TV Guide April 22 1995

ATWT's Vaughn: Love and Bloom

What prompted Robert Vaughn—Oscar nominee and prime-time giant—to join As the World Turns? “The schedule, the money, and Claire Bloom," reports the former Man from U.N.C.L.E. “The show agreed to shoot around my other projects [like ABC's remake of "Escape to Witch Mountain" on April 29]. The pay just about covers my children's private-school education. And they plan a romance for me and Claire—and I love Claire." The pair played Mr. and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson in the 1979 miniseries Backstairs at the White House, but their suds characters  aren't quite so lofty: Vaughn plays an egomaniacal lawyer, and Bloom a Lady Macbeth like murderess. We can’t wait for this wicked pairing to kick in, but Vaughn has no immediate plans to watch. “Frankly,” he says, “I haven't seen [ATWT] yet and probably won't anytime soon—it's on at the same time as O.J."

[Soapsuds]

I had to search for him on YouTube because I had forgotten he was on the show.

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[MarlandFan]

Not to be cold-hearted, but OJ did more than just kill Ron and Nicole.  His trial, with it's almost daily preemptions, helped to hasten the death of soaps. 

[TVFAN1144]

The Dobson’s did not know what to do with the history of this show.  I did not care for their writing on here. Which I don’t understand because they did good things on Guiding Light 

[Soaplovers]

The Dobson's had a quirky writing style that only worked on certain soaps... and ATWT was kind of staid and conservative.. while Guiding Light had a somewhat more out there energy that worked with what the Dobson's had to offer.

[Soapsuds]

It was very bizarre. I loved their GL but hated their ATWT.

I didn't care for SB either. It was dreadful.

[Mitch64]

I never understood how the Dobson's kept the Bauers the center of things while obscuring the Hughes family. I do think that GL has always been more...wacky and free spirited than ATWT (part of why I loved it more) but you have to write for the style of your show. I think it may have been harder to write for a more domineering matriarch (who wasn't evil) like Nancy Hughes as opposed to the perky, cheerful Bert Bauer..it wasn't until Marland that Nancy became more of a stereotypical soap grandmother...( I think it would have been fun and interesting to write for a strong willed woman witnessing the world and her family changing but it soaps you're either a good matriarch or a bad manipulative one. ) 

I think the Dobsons were so successful in the supposed "con temporization" of GL that they became full of themselves and had free rein at ATWT. But the writing, even at its most successful was shallow...James was never the grey villain that Alan was, Betsy was a stupid young heroine living for her men,Dee was so wispy and..just there.. there was not a Rita or Holly to be found

SB has its fans and that was great, and the Dobsons were free to do what they wanted as it was their soap. Funny though when they got canned and Pam Long tried to make it GL-California and it did not work. What goes around comes around Jerry and Bridget. 

True..but it also just showed how insipid the shows had become with its focuses on super couples...the O.J. trial had it all, family dynamics, sex, betrayal, a cast of eccentric supporting characters, mystery and unfortunately murder (and a final twist no one saw coming.)  Then the soaps doubled down on their "formula" as they were afraid to change and it all went from there. 

[DramatistDreamer]

More challenging but more interesting, just from the perspective of someone who once wrote a play about a mother who came off as domineering but had her reasons (whether the audience agreed with her methods or not). Perky would get very boring fast for me. I also think that, it didn’t have as much to do with a soap’s “DNA” as it was with executive interference, of which P&G soaps always seemed to experience more than their fair share.