All My Children Tribute Thread

[DeeeDee]

:wub:

[DRW50]

Sorry about the bad scan.

[DRW50]

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[DRW50]

I really enjoyed the 1991 episode - one of the few soap episodes where I genuinely liked every scene. What I like most is the show still had the sense of social classes. The scenes where Phoebe and Enid were going on and on about Hayley and Arlene, and Hayley blasted them, was priceless. It's the type of scene which can come off horribly (when they did this with Laura later on I thought she seemed like she had a big chip on her shoulder) but this time it worked great. Adam admiring her bluster was a nice touch.

I had no idea Tom and Brooke almost got remarried or that he posed as Jamie's father. I wonder how much longer after this that lasted. I like the chemistry between Brooke and Jack.

Charlie and Erica screams "We don't know what to do with Erica," but this Charlie was very handsome (he looks like Jim Hougton, and a young Tom Cudahy) and I'm even more confused that they would eventually replace him with middle-aged Chris Lawford. The faceoff with Brooke was great as always. I also liked that for once women on soaps weren't wearing sleeveless shirts in June.

Liked seeing more of early Janet - I preferred her this way to being totally crazy.

How much longer was the Glamorama around after this? Did it just shut down when Donna left town?

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3F3UCWPyQI

[ellabelle]

Yeah, Tom claimed he was the father of Brooke's baby because Brooke didn't want to hurt Dixie by admitting that Tad was the father. They all thought Tad was dead at this point. Tom claiming he was the father created lots of drama because Tom had just been married to Barbara who'd cheated on him with Travis - twice - and ended up pregnant with Molly and then Sean. I seem to remember Tom and Brooke telling people they were considering remarrying, but then Brooke got involved with Jack. Jack wanted her to fess up to Tad being the father, and Brooke was concerned about Erica still having her hooks in Jack, which she did, especially after she dumped Charlie later that summer.

The whole Charlie relationship was just absurd, but I loved the scenes where Nick came back to town. There's a wonderfully awkward scene where Charlie and Erica and Brooke and Jack are having champagne together to toast what is supposed to be Erica and Charlie's courthouse nuptials the following day. Jack and Erica are making lovesick eyes at each other across the table, and Charlie says something about how maybe in another year or so, they'll give Bianca a little brother or sister. The look on Erica's face is just priceless. It's like it finally hits her that maybe they want different things, and maybe this isn't a good idea. She dumped him the next day.

As much as I enjoyed Jack with Brooke, I will admit that I loved the Jack/Erica/Adam mess later in 1991 where she was trying to woo Jack back, and he was insisting that she be honest with him, but she was secretly forced to remarry Adam.

[ghfan89]

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[rlj]

Tom volunteered to be Jamie's "father" when Dixie and Adam I think) were browbeating her to admit that Tad might be the father of her baby, you know everyone had to protect the precious Dixie RME. I liked Jack and Brooke way better than Jack and Erica, I think they were together forthe rest of the year. I remeber having an SOD with them on the cover in the fall of that year.

[ellabelle]

They were over before the end of 1991 because Adam forced Erica to marry him that fall while she was pursuing Jack. Jack and Erica escaped and hid out at a country inn right after Christmas, but Adam tracked them down and busted in on them yelling at Jack "get your damn hands off my wife!" Jack was livid that Erica had lied to him (again), so he ditched her and then outed them as married at Jeremy and Ceara's New Year's Eve wedding reception. Jack tried to get Brooke to take him back in early 1992, but she was pissed off and refused. She ended up with Edmund shortly after that, which I personally think was one of her better relationships. I'm still bitter that Edmund and Brooke didn't get married in the early 1990s.

[ghfan89]

Didn't Adam reveal that they were still married from their first marriage? So would that make all of Adam and Erica's marriages within that time frame null?

[ellabelle]

Yes. And if you go back and look at some of the episodes that are online from the mid 1980s, Stuart really DID impersonate Adam at the divorce. So yes, her two marriages to Travis were null, she was bigamist, and Bianca was illegitimate, and he threatened to go public with that news, which she was afraid would hurt her attempt to regain custody of Bianca. And yes you are correct: Adam's marriages to Brooke, Dixie and Natalie were not legal either. As far as the rest of Pine Valley knew, Adam and Erica had remarried, but Opal was the witness to the ceremony and knew otherwise.

[Pine Charles]

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[Pine Charles]

LOL. Belle is so funny...

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[DRW50]

Thanks for sharing that 1991 clip. It's rare to see Tom so enraged - the last time I remember that was when he confronted Erica about the birth control pills. I think his bees of the world sweater sent him over the edge.

Everything with Brooke and Erica was first-rate. Did anyone else think Erica was styled a little more casually than usual? The production values were good though - I think that's the best I have ever seen Julia Barr look. What a contrast to later years when she seemed to spend weeks wearing white pants that would make Callista Flockhart look like a Kardashian.

It's a shame that the show seemed to lose its way regarding proper love interests for Brooke or Jack, among others. Jack was with, what, Angelique, and the Laurels? Brooke...no comment! I've always felt like the big failure they had with her and love interests in the mid/late 90's, along with making her way too needy, was the death of her character.

[DRW50]

I watched the 1987 Christmas episode and I thought it was perfect, one of the best Christmas episodes I've ever seen, and this was without some of my favorites, like Myrtle, Erica, Natalie. It had such a Christmas spirit while still advancing story. The Hubbards and Stuart/Cindy reconciling, a new love for Hillary, the heartbreak of Julie (with Lauren Holly far more vulnerable than she has been for most of her career). I kept thinking about how much the show would change within the next year.

Do you think the show had a certain formula which worked in 1987 and failed after this, or was 1987 already a year of decline?

Am I the only one who never really "gets" Cliff and Nina or cares that much about them? I wonder if they ever needed to keep bringing Nina back in the 80's when they had no real story for her. I was much more interested in the brief glimpses of Nina we saw in AMC's last 15 years. That Nina, and her kids, could have given Palmer and many others a lot of story.

Edited December 28, 2011 by CarlD2