7 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

I know the show referenced Tad a lot and was building towards him coming back to the show had it returned for a second season. But I don't believe MEK ever made it on screen. Am I wrong?

Not really, no. Tad was supposedly constantly away on various P.I. investigations, straining his marriage to Dixie who the show began testing with the widowed Dr. Anders. But Tad has a voice cameo in the season finale as Jesse calls him to come home and help with a situation - I think hunting down Cassandra's Russian traffickers - and says 'I'm on my way' or something, which I think is the last line of the series. I believe Tad appears in shadow onscreen in that sequence while on the phone, but it's anyone's guess if that was MEK.

Edited December 4, 20232 yr by Vee

On 11/27/2023 at 7:59 AM, SoapDope said:

I just watched an interview with Jack Stauffer from 2016 and he talked about AMC. He said he loved doing the show and said if he had to do it all over again he would have stayed on the show. The reason he left was he had married a popular TV actress( he doesn't mention her by name but it was Renne Jarrett) and she was in demand on the west coast after doing the short lived sitcom Nancy. He said after leaving AMC he had to build his career back up again.

He also talked about being on Y&R (he played Scott Adams in 1979) and said it was the only time in his life he had been fired. He said there was a line in the script that made no sense the way it was written and he decided to correct it. The Executive Producer berated him in front of the cast about saying things as they are written. He told the EP " I guess you don't want a real performance, just a line reading. He was fired 2 weeks later. He didn't mention his name, but I assume it was John Conboy. Stauffer said he disliked him. 

 

23 hours ago, Vee said:

Not really, no. Tad was supposedly constantly away on various P.I. investigations, straining his marriage to Dixie who the show began testing with the widowed Dr. Anders. But Tad has a voice cameo in the season finale as Jesse calls him to come home and help with a situation - I think hunting down Cassandra's Russian traffickers - and says 'I'm on my way' or something, which I think is the last line of the series. I believe Tad appears in shadow onscreen in that sequence while on the phone, but it's anyone's guess if that was MEK.

Thanks for the reminder. I wonder if the show pulled MEK's audio from an old episode or if that was a fresh voiceover.

Just now, Jonathan said:

Thanks for the reminder. I wonder if the show pulled MEK's audio from an old episode or if that was a fresh voiceover.

I'm pretty sure it was real. I doubt even PP at their wildest would've teased Tad's return if they hadn't secured some agreement from MEK to return.

@chrisml On the subject of actors not remembering, Susan Lucci said that Tom Cudahey was Erica's first husband when she was interviewed about her lifetime achievement award the other day.

SL does that a lot. On the Hallmark reunion show, she said that Agnes Nixon created Ryan's Hope.

Yeah, I was dreading Tad possibly coming back had the PP version of AMC continued because his character was played out and it was nice to see Dixie as a character again on her own without Tad around to overshadow her.

I had a feeling had Tad come back that Dixie would have been relegated to his arm piece instead of a character in her own right with loads of potential (dealing with Billy Clyde Tuggle's return, being supportive to JR, and a potential new love interest that she had chemistry with).

All My Children (December 21, 1989) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

For anyone who wants to see more of the infamous return of Erica's father, that storyline takes up part of this episode.

On 12/16/2023 at 10:35 AM, Soaplovers said:

I had a feeling had Tad come back that Dixie would have been relegated to his arm piece instead of a character in her own right with loads of potential (dealing with Billy Clyde Tuggle's return, being supportive to JR, and a potential new love interest that she had chemistry with).

I thought the Anders character was interesting but a bit arch and cartoonish in how they presented his overly anal, buttoned-down persona with the dead wife thing lurking in the background. More time spent on him would hopefully have changed that. I also wanted to see Dixie branch out, but they couldn't so easily cast off Tad either given everything.

Christmas Eve, 12-24-2000 Bianca came out to Erica as gay. I remember it like it was yesterday. 

I've been re-watching 1980s episodes and can't help but feel disappointed that Mark Dalton's character didn't stick around after 1989. It would have been beneficial for Erica to have another non-child relative. Mark LaMura's performance was truly impressive.

Edited December 24, 20231 yr by Jonathan

1 hour ago, Jonathan said:

I've been re-watching 1980s episodes and can't help but feel disappointed that Mark Dalton's character didn't stick around after 1989. It would have been beneficial for Erica to have another non-child relative. Mark LaMura's performance was truly impressive.

We also wouldn't have needed multiple engineered children for Erica if Mark's potential kids could have played the same role more organically. 

On 12/24/2023 at 11:51 AM, j swift said:

We also wouldn't have needed multiple engineered children for Erica if Mark's potential kids could have played the same role more organically. 

Popping in to say, as I do from time to time, that Josh should have been Mark’s son from a drug-fueled one-night stand. Would have given us a reason to see Mark more regularly at the time and made Josh loads more interesting.

2 hours ago, All My Shadows said:

Popping in to say, as I do from time to time, that Josh should have been Mark’s son from a drug-fueled one-night stand. Would have given us a reason to see Mark more regularly at the time and made Josh loads more interesting.

Literally anything would have been better than his being the Unabortion.

I found this 10 year old article about Megan McTavish writing an adaptation of "A Midsummer's Night Dream" to benefit the local historical society. The quote about making "massive cuts" to Shakespeare's work made me laugh.

https://www.ctinsider.com/entertainment/article/Dream-on-the-Green-to-be-Presented-Sunday-in-16895854.php