OLTL Tribute Thread

[Paul Raven]

Chris McKenna wasn't on the show when Alice was, so I wonder how they connected.

[SFK]

So late to the party, currently devouring these late '70s episodes I hadn't realized @Vee was so kind to tag to my attention. Thank you! At the moment, I'm watching Mr. Angelino himself, Jordan Charney as Vinnie being all charming and romantic with his equal, Marilyn Chris as Wanda. Anna Craig just told Viki Riley to think of the end of the rainbow and I'm thinking of Peabo's theme.

Seeing Ernest Graves and Gillian Spencer as Victor and Victoria was one thing I never thought I'd see beyond photos, and the same goes for Nancy Pinkerton and Shepperd Strudwick. And now George Reinholt playing the piano (for real!), iss teww mush!

[SFK]

I've never seen any of her episodes, but I read that Ellen Barber was a temporary recast for Dorian as well.

Dorian had it HARD for ol' Joe Riley.

Seeing episodes before and after Victor and Dorian's wedding with Eugenia's and then Dorian's portrait above the Llanfair library mantle make me so greedy for the episode where Viki made her grand entrance at the portrait unveiling. 

[Vee]

Very excited to be back to poring over the crucial Gottlieb/Malone transition era in OLTL '91. Malone moves quickly: Luna parachutes in at the end of his first day (a Friday, 9/13), takes Llanfair by storm in her (and Malone's) first week with a series of very fun scenes with Karen Witter's Tina and co. While Andrew Carpenter - Malone's other muse and possible surrogate - arrives on the Monday of his second week (9/23), in a low-key introduction halfway through the episode, after Megan and Bo have already had a heart to heart at Sarah's grave. Megan greets Andrew, who she already knows in a passing way as a newcomer to town but we don't at all. Malone is also apparently laying very early groundwork here - Andrew mentions his brother William, dead of AIDS, in these first scenes.

The scenes with Stephanie, Kevin and Jason remain strikingly candid and mature, where she explains her longing for someone to be intimate with her and cut through all their adolescent drama, whereas the scenes with Stephanie and Jason getting it on on Malone's first day were equally candid and raw but also remarkably sensual and somewhat kinky. The sexuality Malone brought to his work proved out even from the beginning, but that emotional and physical candor is so lacking in soaps today. (Even the smart little subplot of Viki and Sheila crusading re: women being marginalized by doctors vs. men seems a bit too forward for today's GH.) It's too bad Robyn Griggs was apparently a a pain BTS because she has done pretty good work here ever since the writing handover, and does have chemistry with Mark Brettschneider. But Yasmine Bleeth is a star and it makes perfect sense that they'd move her to Kevin and finally place Lee Ann with someone her own age.

Lee Ann's pointed, fiery refusat to discuss her father makes me wonder if this was ever a story point.

The Bo/Cassie scenes where they talk at length over the Sarah issue are actually very sensitive and mature. But it is still very bizarre they're already engaged and I think they've only been dating since what, April? May? Maybe even June or July officially? But for soap purposes it served the Sarah return story Gottlieb wanted to kick into high gear. I assume the masked Sarah in Bo's dream was not voiced by Grace Phillips, but who knows.

Edited February 25 by Vee

[DRW50]

Thanks for getting back into these analyses.

[Vee]

I hope you'll watch it too!

[Vee]

You get a good idea of why longtime viewers might've been put out with the big change in the show - I think the very obvious riff on Steven Soderbergh's then-recent sex, lies and videotape in the 9/24/91 episode, with Megan and "Heinrich"/Cain filming each other on videotape in confessionals, is inspired, introspective and well done and clearly comes from a producer immersed in Hollywood, but you also have to imagine veteran viewers are kind of wondering wtf is going on here with Megan and this guy who's back again wearing a fake mustache and muttonchops. But the show had also been in a malaise already for awhile at this point pre-Gottlieb, so I can't fault them for breaking the mold as I think the early changes (Luna and Tina's mischief, the country club subplot with Sheila, Jason/Stephanie/Kevin/Lee Ann, Bo's "Haunting of Sarah" etc.) are all pretty good.

I do wonder if Gottlieb was hedging her bets on Jessica Tuck renewing here. Yes, they had clearly already begun writing Megan's lupus into the show as early as late August at Hunter and Andy's wedding (before Malone's name was officially on it) but you get the sense they were also chemtesting her and Christopher Cousins as well as obviously her and Bob Krimmer. Interesting to see Cassie's first meeting with Andrew too. IIRC they did not hit on putting them together until mid-'92, after their initial plans for Andrew (supposedly the Maggie Vega character, intended for Saundra Santiago who backed out) flopped and they realized RK and LB had chemistry.

Cord's sudden massive dose of chauvinism is jarring in these episodes, but also not exactly alien to the show after the Rauch years. It's nice to have it addressed, particularly in Cord's own fantasy sequence (among Malone's first of many, many, many I think?) where he imagines himself as Ward Cleaver with Tina as the doting wife. I don't think it needed to go on for maybe 5+ minutes and end with Cord having learned nothing and stepping up hard on Luna. Yes, Loprieno had most likely given his notice by now but this stuff could be softer. I assume Cord will get his comeuppance and reconcile with Tina shortly, though I also know Mia Korf's Blair and her targeting Cord is just around the corner.

Very weird to see the Gottlieb-era canvas shaping up in the old Llanfair set. @DRW50 would know better than me but the old foyer always looks exactly like the Old House from Dark Shadows to me. I assume it can't be the same given OLTL was on-air before DS was off, but IIRC many DS BTS personnel (Henry Kaplan, Gordon Russell, Sam Hall, etc.) went on to various ABC shows.

Pretty sure I have an idea of what Asa is freaking out about in his private papers from Du Ann. It is very strange still to see Asa and Renee talking about Little Al as their grandson, who NuMax basically left to them despite feuding with Asa - and Asa still calling Max his 'son' despite knowing the truth and having this obsession challenged by Renee, Cord, etc. since the writing change. As I noted before, Asa and Max's love/hate relationship would continue to circle each other (most pointedly with the tired JFP remake of this storyline) until the end of their tenures in town, and beyond the end of Asa's life - Max's final return to the show comes for Asa's funeral. But it's interesting that Cain would later almost take up part of this mantle in Asa's world, IIRC - Cain is fascinated with Asa now re: his grilling of Megan, and later I believe he tries to or succeeds in getting close to him for a time, being another version of Asa's protege and surrogate corporate tycoon son a la Max. Anyway, I didn't realize JdP is back so soon- I think he is maybe only a week or two away, less than 3 weeks since Nicholas Walker's hammy final airdate on the start of Malone's first full week (9/16).

Edited February 26 by Vee

[Franko]

I'm actually surprised by this. For whatever reason, I assumed that Cassie & Andrew was always going to happen.

I was trying to figure out if there was a night that sex, lies and videotape and The Donna Reed Show were both on cable.

It'll be nice to have the real Max back.

[Vee]

I've seen the Maggie Vega they ended up with after Santiago passed. It's not hard to realize why that died.

[DRW50]

@Vee I'd never thought about it before, but stranger things have happened (and we don't know a lot about what Llanfair looks like pre-71, do we, aside from one episode).

Cain does become close to Asa for a time, yes.

I don't think Malone ever knew what to do with Cord, although he wasn't alone in that as the character was packed off not long after Malone left. John Loprieno was a more charming performer than the material for him would suggest (still, it was great stuff compared to his ATWT run).

[Vee]

I think Malone teased him with both Blairs, as well as of course playing him with Angela Holliday (or as Cord called her 'Ain-gela') and maybe even Luna briefly. But I agree he never got a firm handle on Cord for A-story, which is too bad. I have heard that before Todd Cord was considered as the endgame for KDP's Blair. Maybe it would've worked. But yes, John Loprieno is and was so underrated.

[Soaplovers]

I think I recall that the actor who played Cord had remarked at the time that the show kept doing the same story with Cord and Tina (Tina messes up, they break up, Cord meets a new girl, Tina schemes to win him back, they reunited, etc).   He said when he saw that Mia Korf was hired and being paired with him in scenes, he knew that the same thing was going to happen and gave notice.

I remember soap magazines in 1992 were confused over why Maggie Vega was being featured so much when the show had LK as Cassie that could take up the mantle.. and even remarked that Andrew had better chemistry with Cassie then he did with Maggie.  

I think originally Cassie and Andrew were friends that bonded because they were both single and she was comforting him over Megan's death and he was helping her with dealing with the Bo/Sarah situation.. and the show eventually paired them up in the summer 1992 with fun scenes while the Marty lying about Andrew being gay was playing out.

[Vee]

That's very interesting. I had no idea.

[Khan]

I think John Loprieno had a point: there was only so many times you could watch Cord forgive Tina for her latest round of mistakes and lies before you started to wonder if Cord was a total moron.

[Vee]

I agree, but by the same token Cord haranguing Tina over and over got exhausting. The show actively begins to play against that endless pattern in fall '91 by having KW's Tina confront Cord about it.

I think Loprieno may have misread the paradigm shifting moment. I think they may have locked in quickly on putting KW with Christopher Cousins as Cain, and I think Malone and Gottlieb may have hoped to really try Korf's Blair with Cord. At least for awhile, as I know there have been rumors Witter and Loprieno did not get along (which is too bad if true, as they had real chemistry). I also have heard that the original endgame for KDP's Blair (pre-Todd) was Cord. There's just a lot of potential roles not taken, and I do think Cain and KW's Tina had plenty of chemistry, but I can't say that I necessarily found any of them better than a more evolved, less repetitive Cord and Tina.