All My Children Tribute Thread

[Khan]

Yes, but I wouldn't have done the Liza/Tad affair.  I didn't think Liza would have gone back to the guy who'd once slept with her mother.  

[Franko]

The show was definitely asking a lot from longtime fans with that one.

[Khan]

Frankly, there was a point when AMC was asking too damn much from everyone, let alone from people who'd watched the show for years and years, lol.

Edited March 7 by Khan

[Franko]

All My Hot Messes.

[SFK]

The lovely Jill Larson was in the studio audience at Live! with Kelly & Mark this morning. K&M talked to her within the first three minutes of the show, a sweet exchange. In my market, the show reairs at 2:35am, check your local listings.

I remember Kelly saying in a SOD interview back in the early '90s that she and Jill were dressing room buddies as they were both smokers at the time and stationed in the smoking section. Unheard of these days.

[Khan]

Believe me, I called the show just that on many an occasion, lol.

There really was a point when I would watch an episode and think, "You'd have to be certifiable to think this [!@#$%^&*] is any good, or is in keeping with what AMC is supposed to be about."  And that was BEFORE Chuck Pratt hit the scene. 

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Edited March 7 by Khan

[janea4old]

I don't remember much about them from watching all those years ago, but I do remember that I found Cecily extremely annoying!

[EricMontreal22]

I was just going to say, among the major prime time soaps anyway (and shows that were specifically primetime soaps, so not serialized dramas like the Herskovitz/Zwick shows which were all character) Knots Landing--at its best--was the one that had the most in common with that daytime soap opera tradition although that was increasingly lost in later years (notice to that in later show the show started to bump up the glam quotient.) 

Henry and the Chinese restaurant--which we learned had LONG been one of Joe Martin's fave lunch joints.  Who knew!  I mean honestly that had potential, and I actually thought (I know I'm in the minority) some of the Adam and Liza therapy sessions with Lysistrata were genuinely funny.  But the show really was *odd* under Rayfield (when Cascio joined it slightly improved) not that they had much time to prove themselves, but it somehow often felt more like a... dramatic sitcom?  I remember when McTavish came back (with a fourth of July episode I believe) to her credit the show *suddenly* felt much more like Pine Valley.  That did not last very long, but...

(And to give Brian Frons some unearned credit, when he returned to ABC Daytime he did make some decisions that looked good on paper.  According to Lorraine Broderick herself, she was asked to return to AMC but at the time was burned out--I guess her last stint had been the odd co-HW era at OLTL which leaned into camp--and so Frons looked at who else had written successfully for AMC in the past couple of decades and chose McTavish.  For OLTL he hired Griffith who finally convinced Malone to join him.  All decisions that made a LOT of sense--but without the infrostructure that those regimes had when they were at their best in the early 90s it of course wasn't the same--not the least because of Frons' own interference.  Still, I thought McTavish's first year had a lot of good stuff, despite things like her immediately trying to replicate her Who Killed Will mystery with the similarly plotted Michael Cambias one...)

Are you watching on YT>?  I couldn't find the episode--but would like to revisit more of the Margaret DePriest brief era, which it's been fun following in your summaries.

Culliton actually seemed quite interested in revisiting (in a way) history--I remember he had a hunky recast of Timmy show up (at the hospital?) with some mystery and then (typical of the stories of this time) that was just all dropped.  I wish he WOULD talk more about his year on the show, but whenever it comes up in Zoom interviews I've seen he genuinely seems to just blank lol

I agree with you abotu McTavish's first year.  And yes what's amazing about the Rayfield era with all those newbie actors is... none of them seemed to show ANY potential at all, (wasn't MBJ actually McTavish though?  Or am I wrong?  at any rate I think he DID show instant potential.)  Seyfried whose character (Joanie?) was dating Jamie also showed potential so it seemed a mistake to sideline her storyline as merely supporting to the teen story of JR and Alex Daddario's character (Laurie??)  Laurie's storyline seemed another attempt to play short term social relevant stories (sorta like Gottlieb and Malone tried when they first started at OLTL with a wife abuse story) with Laurie having an abusive drunk of a father.

[DRW50]

I'm not sure how many viewers were bothered. Greenlee was bitterly anti-gay and some fans sure loved her. I think Becca was just a copy of a copy of a copy of Nixon tropes, and she had no real chemistry with Scott. Once that pairing tanked, the show lost interest. 

The biggest failing was that the whole class structure Nixon had in mind just didn't feel organic to 2000. There were still class struggles, but focusing on the country club set and garden parties just didn't pack the same punch it would have in the '70s and '80s. The spark was gone.

That's so nice. Thanks for letting us know. Always glad to hear about Jill - so underrated.

[Khan]

Which tracked with Brian Frons' stated vision for AMC as daytime's answer to "Sex and the City," a show about four, white, self-involved women from NYC with highly disposable incomes, which had absolutely zero in common with AMC.  (If you wanted SATC on your network's lineup, Mr. Frons, you should've just aired the reruns and then called it a day).

I always break it down like this: you watch DALLAS and KL for the acting and the writing; DYNASTY, for the wardrobe and hair; and FC, for the simple fact that you can't find your remote.

[EricMontreal22]

Well 18 year old me LOVED all that (yes, kinda antiquated) class structure stuff.  It's not my reality, but I thought it fit the show in a way the later yacht club etc didn't.  I also loved early Greenlee (I know we disagree on this DR

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that's ok, we can disagree sometimes.)  But Greenlee was not being presented as a character whose views we were meant to relate to or agree with, there's a big difference between her being homophobic and Becca being.

I'm always amused on Broadway message boards when younger members are AGHAST to find out that their heroes were smoking (or sometimes still smoking) well into the 90s. 

We get the show repeated later as well so I'll see if I can check it out.  I think I've told the story on here (probably several times) of literally bumping into Jill Larson when I was at LaGuardia Airport about 8 years ago and how gracious and lovely she was, especially when I recognized her (and went into "stammer" mode.)

I know you were a long time AMC fan and came from a completely different perspective than I did, but I still think compared to virtually every show, it kept its identity the best throughout the 90s.

[Soaplovers]

Joanie started off as Laurie's side kick and/or kind of the Liza of the new batch.. and I think that's why she ended up lasting a bit longer because of Seyfried.

I was bummed that Reggie/Joanie was short changed when the two had serious chemistry, and it was the only youth story line that the show seemed to write that worked.

 

Agree.  Even by 1989/1990, the garden party/country club structure had fallen out of vogue.

The early 90s teen scene (Hayley, Brian, Terrence, Taylor, An-li, later Julia) worked so well because it wasn't about garden parties/country clubs.  For example,  Taylor/Terrence had conflict due partly to class differences, but also due to race with An-li being caught in between the two.   

[EricMontreal22]

My introduction to Cecily was when she was brought back for Christopher Lawford's Charlie Brent, who already was a character that baffled me.  At the time I had friends who had been watching AMC longer because their mom was a fan, and they said how the Charlie he replaced was so cute (I don;'t think Christopher Lawford's looks were exactly something 14 year old girls--or 13 year old gay guys--would find appealing.)  And then Cecily, who, yes, seemed very annoying, came on without much of an explanation of how she was tied to the show...  They were going for a cutesy Nick and Nora thing with the two of them after, and I hope I remember this right, a very early You Got Mail rip off storyline where they didn't realize they were talking to each other, but I remember even as a relative soap newbie and a teen never thinking it worked (and then they were written off anyway...)  Cecily certainly would have been more appealing if they were able to give her more interactions with Phoebe and maybe that was down to the health issues Ruth Warrick was having off and on by that point.

[SFK]

Cecily's return, working with Charlie at the detective agency, didn't pop as I recall. Rosa Nevin was a charismatic presence back in the Nico, Julie, Charlie Era, and as Eric alluded to, a classic example of recasts making characters feel like totally new people. I remember watching the He‐Man movie and my mother warmly spotting Charlie, her first and perhaps only reaction to the movie. The new Charlie who Erica dated was so different, and then Lawford... did we get another Charlie after him? I don't think so.

By the way, AMC talk with you old familiar avatars is giving me the warm and fuzzies, much appreciated in these uncertain times.

[DRW50]

I felt like we were meant to sympathize with Greenlee even then (weren't we already getting the poor Greenlee's parents don't love her routine then?), which I know I should appreciate as Liza also got that type of writing when she was in the same story, but Budig is no Marcy Walker for me. I do respect that many loved her.

I do appreciate that Nixon was trying to give the show its old identity back as best she could with the class element.

He was the last Charlie.

The story was panned - I think SOD named it as one of the worst of 1995. It didn't help that McTavish brought Cecily back and was fired not long after, so they likely had no real plans for her. And beyond Charlie I am not sure if she even interacted much anyone else most of the time.

Edited March 7 by DRW50