Y&R: Old Articles

[Broderick]

I really can't much remember who played Jane.  The whole thing was absurd.

It seems like Stuart and Liz Brooks were considering "downgrading" into a smaller dwelling and giving the old Brooks house to Chris and Snapper.  Snapper said, "Chris, I've got something really heavy to lay on you.  We can't accept your dad's house.  It's more than we can afford."  Snapper preferred to stay in that rinky-dink little apartment across the hall from April Stevens, who was on welfare.  As a "consolation prize", Stuart Brooks offered to buy Chris some new furniture.  Snapper told her they afford to buy a few articles of furniture, provided it was from a thrift store and provided none of the money came from Stuart Brooks.  Meanwhile, that Jane Lewis had decided to snatch Snapper away from Chris, and she was real transparent and aggressive about it. 

Chris went out and bought all this "heirloom" furniture, and Snapper had a dinner for some other doctor whose wife happened to be an interior decorator.  The interior decorator immediately realized all of Chris's "Goodwill furniture" was actually from some upscale store, so Chris had to send it all back.  And everyone lived happily ever after for about five minutes, until Sally McGuire resurfaced with the Kidney Kid.      

[SoapDope]

Snapper was a piece of crap in a lot of ways. No wonder Stuart despised him. He would rather Chris live in squalor and keep his pride intatct, than to put his wife and child before himself. Hasselhoff even joked that when he was on Y&R " I was the jerk who refused to buy his wife new furniture". 

In real life Snapper being a doctor, would have had plenty of money rolling in and could afford to buy the big house, the Mercedes etc.... but on Y&R he was still living hand to mouth  in a low income apartment. In what world was Bill Bell living in where doctors were struggling to make ends meet ?

Also, how many women tried to come between him and Chris over the years ?.......Sally,Casey, Jane etc...

Chris really should have married Greg. Then again there was Greg  a struggling lawyer living in a rinky dink apartment with tacky Nikki as a wife.......LOL

[Broderick]

Maybe Bell thought Snapper's hard-headedness was admirable.  I dunno.  Snapper historically spent a great deal of time toiling at the "free clinic", and Bill Bell seemed to believe that we don't get paid when work at a free clinic.  But Snapper was also an employee of the hospital, which supposedly DID pay him, lol.  I was never sure why Snapper and Chris would live in the same apartment building as April Stevens, a teenage girl on welfare, who had a child and no job.   April supposedly didn't have a nickel to her name (until her zillionaire twin sister whisked her away to Manhattan, along with their pauper parents, on a spur of the moment cross-country flight with all of their dowdy possessions), but April was somehow on equal social footing with a young physician and his heiress wife.   Again, these were just the strange facts of Y&R's bizarre transition period. 

I believe Bill Bell was intuitive enough to see that most shows did indeed falter when they went to the hour format.  For the 1974-1975 television season, Y&R was in NINTH PLACE with an 8.4 rating, behind As the World Turns, Another World, Days, Search for Tomorrow, All My Children, Doctors, Guiding Light & General Hospital.  A year later, Y&R had skyrocketed from ninth place to THIRD place, with no real ratings gain at all, simply moving up from an 8.4 to an 8.6.  All of Y&R's competitors (except As the World Turns and Another World) had simply collapsed in a heap and fallen flat on their faces.  The press was gushing about the "wildfire ratings success of Y&R", but really it was just that everything else was faltering badly.  And by 1980, when Y&R was pressed by the network to expand to the hour format, As the World Turns and Another World were ALSO suffering from dismal ratings.  Bell knew from what he'd seen happen to World Turns, Guiding Light, Days, Another World, and the ABC shows that expansion was usually followed by a period of adjustment and sinking ratings -- which of course turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophesy for Y&R.          

[j swift]

Upthread someone mentioned that both Joanna Manning (Fenmore) and Dina Mergeron abandoned their children, which I hadn't really considered until recently.  It is interesting to me that Traci's issues with self confidence were often associated with being abandoned by her mother, and Ashley's lack of romance was also attributed to a lack of relationship with Dina.  Lauren was always a "daddy's girl" who craved Neil's attention, and her relationship with Joanna helped create viewer understanding of her treatment of Traci.

However, very little mention was made of the effect of Dina's absence on Jack.  Of course, the more recent story centered on Jack and Dina.  However, I am referencing when Dina first returned right after the marriage of John and Jill.  Looking back, Jack was seemingly the most influenced by the loss of his mother.  His affair with Jill, and John's subsequent stroke, were straight out of Oedipal.  He practically begged all of his early lovers to have children because he so badly wanted to be a parent.  And, he relied on the substitute mother figure of Mamie more than either of his siblings. 

I think it is also remarkable that Victor was abandoned by his mother Cora.  The circumstances were different, but he still resented that she cared for his brother more than him.

Bill Bell had a Disney-like aversion to protagonists with mothers.  At the risk of being reductive, the mothers that did exist in Genoa City fell into the Madonna/whore syndrome.  They were either shrews or put upon victims who sacrificed everything for their children's happiness.  I wonder if the desire to create a youth-oriented drama was part of the motive to sideline or negate the maternal figures in the early plots?

Edited December 7, 2021 by j swift

[kalbir]

@j swift I had mentioned that both Dina and JoAnna had abandoned their families and re-entered their lives years later.

With TL's Jack, I think he was Dina's favorite child and his mother abandonment issues resulted in his playboy behavior and seeking his father's love and approval, but of course messing up while doing so and not being able to live up to his father's legacy. I don't remember TL's Jack wanting to be a parent. I seem to recall him setting up an appointment for a vasectomy not long after Patty approached him about having a child. Patty got pregnant anyway but miscarried.

Albert walked out on his family and left a pregnant Cora unable to care for Victor and the child on the way, that's why Victor was placed in the orphanage. Victor was abandoned by both parents. I can't recall if Cora raised Matthew or if he was eventually placed in the orphanage. 

Edited December 7, 2021 by kalbir

[Paul Raven]

Why not have Snapper encounter April at the free clinic?

What was Chris doing at this time-stay at home mom?

A natural story would have been for Chris to want a career ,which Snapper supported but in practice created difficulties.

Have Chris work at Jabot (not as a model) and be successful, encounter new people etc and have Snapper be put out that she is no longer as available to him as before.

[j swift]

I was referencing when he dated Nikki, after her divorce and he ingratiated himself through teaching Nick sports.

Also, I think the Albert part of the story came later because when Nikki originally found Cora, Victor was angry because he said that she had abandoned him.  That's when he told he the story about taking the name Newman as in becoming a new man (kind of literal, but still interesting, I would be fascinated to know if it was coincidence or part of the plan for the character, given that he wasn't meant to be a long term player).

Edited December 7, 2021 by j swift

[will81]

I can understand Chris having no money as Snapper had that draconian "i'm the man, I work, no inheritance for you" BS. Though by the time they met April he should have been making bank working at the hospital. I believe he was reinstated by that point and would have finished his intern/residency period. Sometimes I think Bell kept that couple frozen in time.

In terms of the hour, I think Bell in general hated soaps going to an hour and felt the 30min soap was perfect. I am in two minds about it. I do love the hour soaps, but the half hour is pretty spot on for a soap. 

[j swift]

Practically, (in these days when we are all more empathic to remote workplaces), I wonder how much of that had to do with the Bell family relocating to Los Angeles from Chicago?  I get that 30 minutes makes a tighter story, but I also would hazard to guess that it is easier to manage a 30 minute production remotely. Does anyone recall when they all moved and Lee finished her morning show in the windy city?

Edited December 7, 2021 by j swift

[allmc2008]

Not immediately. I now plenty of medical doctors who just started (within the last  5 years) and it really isn't that instant. Remember, the loan debt.

[SoapDope]

I understand that when starting out, but Snapper had 9 years to at least be making a comfortable living by the end of his run. He was not really better off in 1982 as he was in 1973.

Bell did seem to keep Snapper & Chris frozen in time. I think he made the mistake of marrying them too quickly in the shows run and then would toss out storylines that were not that great. Their storyline was pretty much boring past 1975. 

[Khan]

Didn't I read somewhere that Bill Bell always viewed Snapper and Chris as a couple who'd never divorce?

[Paul Raven]

He stated in that interview he did alongside Claire Labine that he married them off in Jan 74 and didn't know what to do with them next.

Rule #1-never marry off a couple without having the next story ready!

[will81]

I was pretty sure it was 1986 when B&B was being put together. Though apparently he was back forth to LA since at least 1973 when Y&R started. He might have spent more time in Los Angeles in 1980 while Y&R transitioned. Not sure to be honest. 

[j swift]

I agree with your timeline which makes me question the veracity of his backstage run-ins with exhausted actors.  I'm not saying it didn't happen, but his stories might be a pastiche of the experiences of a variety of executives and actors, simply because he wasn't available all of the time.