DAYS: Behind the Scenes, Articles/Photos

[Paul Raven]

'Afternoons...a time to share' what a lame slogan for NBC soaps. A time to share what?

And that promo, would anything entice you to tune in? I' be cleaning the toilet that Thursday.

The Robert scene would have to go and replaced with something to do with couples/a love story. 

Know your audience!

[Titus Andronicus]

Wes Kenney would have stayed at least a bit longer.

Harrower was publicly replaced, but yet had to write at few more weeks, too.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Titus Andronicus

[Mona Kane Croft]

I remember when Stephanie intentionally burned-off her fingerprints in a hot frying pan.  Yuck!  

But at least the show was believable during this period.  And it had not yet become the Hope and Marlena show.  

Edited January 20, 2022 by Neil Johnson

[beebs]

That had happened a few weeks before this. It is shocking viewing, and really could have set an interesting story in motion, but, of course, Harrower dropped the ball and that thread went nowhere also.

 

 

There seemed to be pressure above Kenney's head to make sweeping changes, and I am curious to know where that came from. From what I've deduced, there was some major behind-the-scenes issues during 1978-79. Remember that fistfight allegation between SSH and Kaye Stevens, which led to Stevens' departure, Ann Marcus walking after having her story to give Chris a Vietnamese child vetoed (which she then brought to LOL), and SSH's issues with having her mother write the show, with her claiming everyone, Bill Hayes included, complaining to her about her mother's stories.

I think things were pretty toxic on-set around then, and combined with stagnant ratings, this leads the dominoes to fall. First Harrower is fired, Kenney quits in protest, Rabin is brought in, and then the reports of a clearing out to usher out the, what was it, "culture of negativity" on set, thus leading to 1980 Massacre. Looking at the timelines, I think Rabin was mostly responsible for the firings, but that there was probably someone leaning on him/the show to clear house.

I get the feeling that there was a LOT of bad blood, especially if bits of the drama were starting to spill out to the press at the time.

[Khan]

It seems once Pat Falken Smith quit/was fired/whatever, DAYS turned to [!@#$%^&*] rather quickly.  

[OzFrog]

11 years exactly between these two scenes - Peter Reckell didn’t change a bit! When did Kristian Alfonso start to lose that baby-ish roundness of her face?

 

[Khan]

Every time I think about Bo and Hope, and the years of truly wretched writing this show threw at them, it makes me want to cry.

[Paul Raven]

This is cute.

Bill and Susan have a new project, where they share the secrets to  their nearly 50 year marriage.

Bill's grandson came up with the concept and appears at the start of each clip before the Hayes' talk about one aspect of their relationship and use a clip of Doug and Julie to demonstrate their point.

Check it out here

https://www.soapoperasecrets.com/

[j swift]

Someone recently mentioned the Days novels by Sheri Anderson , A Secret in Salem and A Stirring from Salem, which I really enjoyed.  In particular, I liked the characterization of Abby, being a social media savvy journalist who was bringing her parent's paper into the 21st century.

It was an interesting idea to make non-canonical stories using classic characters, and it may have influenced the current Peacock spin-offs.  They gave John another kid that has never been mentioned, and nobody seems to be eager to explore.

I wonder what happened that the final book in the trilogy was never published?  It was promoted as a series, and the two other books have around 50 reviews on Amazon which suggests that they were commercially successful, and obviously cheap to produce. They were published by the same company that did Ken Corday's memoir (totally worth the read) and one of the anniversary books in the same time period.   Did they bring Sheri Anderson on to write the main show, fire her, and rescind the book offer?

Edited January 22, 2022 by j swift

[carolineg]

She gave John/Marlena another kid, correct?  But one that was younger than Belle-because Stefano lol.  I haven't read the second book, but I liked the first.  I sort of liked how all this was occurring when Jarlena were off our screens for those few years.  I liked Abby and Chelsea a lot in the book.  More than on the show.  

[victoria foxton]

 

  

[jam6242]

Susan's mother wrote these scenes for them.  It had been almost nine years since we had last seen them on screen together. We never were given a reason for them splitting up in the first place (not counting the real-life factors).

[OzFrog]

DAYS history was made on this day 36 years ago…

 

[te.]

I didn't realise that John meeting Kristen was similar how he met Marlena lol.

[carolineg]

Lol.  I never thought about it but it totally is.  John Black is always the hero.  I think it's just a John thing because most of his love interests he was rescuing from some situation when they first meet.