Y&R: Old Articles

[kalbir]

It's been posted here many times over the years that the CBS soaps highest ratings are in the South and Midwest whereas the ABC soaps highest ratings are in the Northeast and on the West Coast.

As for Y&R rise to #1 from 1982/83 (becoming CBS's #1 daytime drama) to 1988/89 (becoming the #1 daytime drama overall), it's a combination of strong lead ins The Price is Right or local news, weak time slot competition, not chasing all the trends (Y&R got Dallas/Dynasty influence right but action/adventure didn't really suit Y&R, and Bill Bell didn't seem to be big on the supercouple craze), and holding on to their audience during the writer's strike.

Edited July 9, 2022 by kalbir

[DaytimeFan]

Both of them were such talented actors. But Jeanne...wow. She played Katherine with such a chilling, haunted style. Her last 5 years on the show were so poorly written as the character became St. Katherine, but she had such a fabulous run playing Katherine with all her demons.

[Paul Raven]

To see that outline of the character of Brock....I wonder if Josh Griffith does the same for today's characters eg Allie

Maybe something like -a pretty, bright young woman who comes to town to reconnect with her family.

Cos that's all we're seeing onscreen.

[will81]

One thing I'd really like to know - was Kay basically a co-headwriter starting in the 70's? I found an interview with her from around 1979 which calls her a HW of the show. I know we or I use Associate HW but was she functioning as a co-HW?

I know Bell said there was a point in time where he couldn't tell the difference between one of his scripts and one of Kay's

Edited July 10, 2022 by will81

[Broderick]

Really, we were speaking of the show's popularity in the mid to late 1970s, when they first hit #1, and the critics were gushing about how the show's "wildfire ratings success" was attributable to "boundary-pushing, innovative storylines".  The Joann Curtis/Kay Chancellor storyline was a reminder that some "boundaries" couldn't be pushed, even by an enormously popular show.  I would say the show's sustained trip to #1 in the late 1980s was more attributable to the collapse of the ABC shows, while one might argue that the show's peak of popularity in the 1970s was likewise  attributable to the ratings collapse of the P&G shows.  

 

Deferring to the person who's actually spoken with Miss Alden, but I'd say yes, she was.  Obviously Bell's ideas and vision were taking precedence, but Alden seemed to be a major contributor along the lines of what you'd now call a "co-head writer".  But remember that Bell's job titles sometimes existed in their own universe (like his show).  For instance, when she was first hired, I believe Alden's official title was "girl friday", lol.   

[allmc2008]

It was a quick rise to that position.

At some point in the 70s Bill went on vacay and on vacay his dad died. Between the start of the vacay and the end of the aftermath of his dad's death she was flying the solo. It was like 3 months or so. I think that was 1976.

She did work with Bill on certain things like researching the breast cancer story

Elizabeth Hollower was also more of an active writer. Bill and Kay loved her eccentricity and basically had her write the Kay/Jill scenes back in the 80s. I THINK she wrote the dream sequences (don't quote me on that).

 

But the hour expansion really did a number on all of them. It was so much work but it was just them two plus Jack Smith. Bill never got over loosening the original characters though.

the 'girl friday' was true lol. She logged the fanmail and kept track of guarantees. He HATED clerical work -- he just wanted to be a writer.

One thing was that Bill sometimes had issues with not realizing if story could send off a bad message. She was there from the get-go to point things out to Bill if something could translate to the audience in a bad way.

As a human, Kay is great. She buys all her clothes at Walgreens. She's a bit like Esther as she's into healthy stuff and organic products and so-forth. She dramatic (and over the top) like Jill but she LOVES being with youth and loves helping others.

She even took on a homeless family due a few years, single mom and 3 school age kids. The youngest is special needs. She helped raise them for a while as the mom got her feet on the ground.

She actively stays in-tune with the current trends -- even music. She listens to ALL the latest recording artists and ALL genres. Same with TV shows. She thinks Shitz Creek is a perfect 'comedy soap'. She also likes South Park lol

But, yeah, she reads the various pop-culture mags and stuff to understand the youth. 

[Broderick]

Great stuff, and thanks for sharing, allmc2008!  I've listened to her long interview with the Academy of TV Sciences, and she's hard to pay attention to sometimes, with all that, "umm, umm, umm, ahh, I believe it was ..."  (You know what I mean.)  She comes across as fairly flighty and disorganized, but obviously that's not the case, since she was in many ways the "grounded person" on Bell's team, having to edit scripts, check continuity, make sure the actors were being utilized in accordance with their contract guarantees, etc.  

She sounds like a nice person and a hoot.  If she's still living where I think she lives, I hope her road eventually gets paved, lol.  

[allmc2008]

It hasn't been, no.

Her area looks disorganized but she knows where everything is.

Papers everywhere. Letters everywhere. Post-it notes everywhere. Looks cluttery but she knows where it all is.

She does use "uhhhm" a lot but she's strangely articulate. Everytime I call her I learn 4 new words that I never heard before. Her great articulation is mostly in the way she pounces her words. She's a master at raising her volume, stretching words, contracting words when needed. 

If you define Doc from "Back to the Future" as flighty, you will be right. There is a 'mad scientist' streak (in a good way) to her.

But, if you listen to Mel Blanc in an interview you can kinda hear all his characters at the same time. Being with Kay is the same, mostly with the female characters. You can sense a 'Victor Newman" in her when she is being harrased by bill collectors and scam artists on the phone. Or when she is angry about [someome].

One thing I did find funny is that she said from 1974 to the time she left Bold she hadn't had time to grocery shop. When she did grocery shop the first time, for the first time in 40 years, she was amazed by how much had changed. Like, produce having barcodes on them. Or how high-tech ot all is now. It's now her favourite thing in the world to do.

 

[Broderick]

Yes, she has an incredible vocabulary.  But when she starts going fast, she begins forgetting names and dates, and she just barks out things that are completely wrong and says, "Umm, I think that's right, no, maybe it's not.  Well, anyway ..."  In her interview for the Television Academy, she came up with the wrong date for Y&R's expansion to an hour (1977 instead of 1980), and she couldn't come up with Lorie, Leslie, Chris and Peggy to save her life.  But she could remember every detail of her initial meeting with Bill Bell at his apartment on Lakeshore Drive.  She's obviously someone whose mind is filled with a tremendous amount of information, and she needs to look things up to get them exactly right.  

There was once a photograph of her office in the Chicago Tribune.  I cut it out and saved it, to remind me I needed to organize my own work space.  lol.  

[kalbir]

Oh OK, I misunderstood.

[janea4old]

LOL

[allmc2008]

She said Bill was hard at remembering dates and details with ATWT when they first met.

[BoldRestless]

I can't remember it exactly or who said it but I once read a quote from a soap writer that said when they write a scene, they need to keep track of what they wrote about that character weeks ago (what's on the air currently), what they've been writing that's not aired yet, what they're writing in the current episode, and what the plans are for the character in the short and long term future. It really is incredible what they do and I can understand how they focus more on motivations and storylines than remembering details like names and dates.

[DramatistDreamer]

There are software programs that can track this for you.

It was pretty impressive back in the day though, when writers didn’t have these tools.

[Faulkner]