Y&R: Old Articles

[janea4old]

 

 

Here's the same tvinsider clips on youtube (I find it easier than the article embed vid)
 

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[yrfan1983]

oh, thank you so much! I actually stopped watching the tvinsider version of the vid, as the ads were so annoying.

You're right! MTS has her 80s hair, while PBarton has that flattering shorter haircut circa '93. Maybe this is just photoshop?

[YRfan23]

Haha it’s very good photoshop if it is!

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[Joseph]

I thought the same! I have to wonder because I decided to look when I read that Jack Broke Scotty and Nikki's Budding Romance to Marry her to have leverage over Victor, so I got even more confused by this picture! 

https://theyoungandtherestless.fandom.com/wiki/Jack_Abbott_and_Nikki_Newman

There's a link to where the mess started!

[Paul Raven]

Jay Kerr talks abot Y&R

 

Interviewer: Tell me about The Young and the Restless.

Jay Kerr: I’ll tell you the honest to God truth. I was offered a chance to go read for that soap opera a couple of times and never would. Everywhere I go, people don’t say Five Mile Creek or Wizards and Warriors or First and Ten. They say The Young and the Restless. To me, it’s funny because that’s kind of the bottom. I hate to say this, but actors really want to do everything else. The last thing they want to resort to is a soap opera, and that’s where I was. It’s kind of like playing in the Superbowl, and somebody comes and remembers you, and then talks to you about what high school you went to. I had done prime-time television, which isn’t the Superbowl -- I mean, I never did film, but I had some success. I wasn’t working for a while. I had a Busch beer commercial that was doing real well, but as a last resort I went to work on The Young and the Restless. God almighty, I didn’t enjoy it. I was a terrible actor on it -- wore glasses and was completely miscast. My last line of the show was, ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes,’ and I never showed back up for years and years, and nobody seemed to care.

[Khan]

Guess what?  We still don't!

Edited June 30, 2024 by Khan

[YRfan23]

Well in that case sir:

 

 

[DRW50]

Talking about strange Y&R stories, Nikki marrying her new gynecologist would be near the top of the list for me.

Some of Katherine's stories in the late '70s, like everything with Suzanne and being on a desert island with Felipe, also seem very odd to me. 

Leslie being an amnesiac at a club where Jerry Lacy does his Bogart routine...

The whiteface story.

[soapfan770]

RE: Nikki and Josh.

What exactly happened to Don Diamont in 1996 that we saw Brad written out? It’s a bit odd the show spent nearly a year of the build-up of Brad and Nikki but it comes to an abrupt end between Victor’s shooting and Brad’s exit after being a suspect for it. Then just a few months later Nikki is hitched to Josh so quickly.

I seriously have to wonder if Josh was given what was planned storylines for Brad? 

On the flip side Hope returned and it seemed Victor and Hope were destined to reconcile until Victor pursued Diane and then Hope got relegated to a bizarre triangle with Ashley and Kurt before leaving…I know Signy was trying  to break into primetime at the time so she didn’t resign. She got that recurring role on X-Files but then quickly ended up on GL. 
 

Everything worked out well in the end for the show, but I have to wonder to what Bell’s original plan was before the show derailed as summer 1996 went on. 

[DRW50]

Hope's return was indeed very confusing. 

And Kurt Costner - just an odd story all around. 

This was also when Dina came back and they used Constance Towers to retcon her reasons for leaving, only for Dina to quickly leave again because she was so horrified by Shari Shattuck's bad acting.

[kalbir]

Going by memory, I think Nikki first met Dr. Josh in a medical capacity when she and Brad were engaged and Dr. Josh gave the impression that he was married. It was after Nikki and Brad engagement ended that Nikki saw Dr. Josh again and found out he wasn't married.

Hope was back for something like 8 months, returned Fall 1996 and was gone by Spring 1997.

Y&R had been off-track since second half of 1994 (it started w/ the frat party). Summer 1996 I enjoyed Who Shot Victor, but it was in the fall that the lull hit and it would continue through the first half of 1997. 

@DRW50 You are killing me 

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Shari Shattuck casting as Ashley derailed some storylines too. I think Bill Bell was planning a Victor/Nikki/Brad/Ashley quad but Shari Shattuck didn't pass the chemistry tests w/ EB and Don Diamont so there goes that storyline.

Edited June 30, 2024 by kalbir

[DRW50]

I shouldn't be too hard on Shari because she was tolerable by the end but what a case of nepo hiring in much too important a role, even if Ashley had been slowly downgraded during Brenda Epperson's time in the part. I can definitely see them planning that quad. And then there were her multiple failed love interests, one of them just disappearing (Lauren's former stalker by another name). 

I don't know if those episodes are around or not but I still think the character was brutally beaten in late 1996 in part because Shari was so hard in the role that they decided viewers needed to feel for her again. I have memories of John or someone angrily saying what does it say about the world now if you can't go out walking in the woods at night. I remember thinking - I don't know of any world where you could ever go out walking in the woods at 2-3 in the morning, or whenever it was, especially in a city as big as Genoa City, international hub of business. Even Ozzie and Harriet didn't let their kids go out walking in the woods in the middle of the night.

[Paul Raven]

When Brenda left, that was the time Ashley should have been rested for a while. 

Having to watch sad sack Shari and the crap stories she was given did nothing for the character or the show. We would have been spared the pointless Cole/Ashley marriage, for example.

And then Eileen could have returned guns blazing with story possibilities from her time away.

[SoapDope]

What was the point of Kurt Costner ? He was there to be a love interest for Shattuck's Ashley then they quickly paired him with Hope and then was gone. Leigh J. McCloskey seems to play every character the same boring way he did Mitch on Dallas. 

Grant Cramer also popped up as "Adam" a love interest for Ashley in the lab and only appeared a handful of times then disappeared. I guess Bell forgot he did that same story back in 1982 with Jay Kerr's Brian then went " Oh crap I did that all ready and nixed it"

The 90's had some wacky writing.

[kalbir]

In hindsight, Ashley should have been rested in 1988 and brought back when ED was ready to return to daytime.

ED didn't get a proper exit storyline and Bill Bell rushed into recasting Ashley but then BE Ashley basically floundered for like 6 months until Bill Bell set up Ashley/Brad/Traci triangle during Summer 1989.

BE was a serviceable recast, but looking back at her run, her main storylines (Ashley/Traci/Brad triangle, Victor marriage/divorce, Blade/Rick) didn't really work.

Second half of 1994 to first half of 1997 Y&R was off track and was shaken by the huge rise of time slot rival Reilly Days. That era to me is marked by the frat party, Nick/Sharon eating the show, and a lull in the storylines. The only bright spot was Who Shot Victor.