HOLIDAY MIRACLE: Prospect Park Back On Track To Revive AMC and OLTL

[EricMontreal22]

Ha, somehow I suspect that the only way they could get that poor child actor to not stare at the camera and point was if he was distracted by maps, which were probably somewthing he liked looking at anyway... I always defend McT, and I will say there were a few scattered moments in her 97-99 run that I liked (Stuart/Marian, and ummm, prob something else), but that was the first time, as a teen, I was really aware of a soap suddenly becoming a weird mess of new badly cast characters and bizarre plots (bleeding tattoos) so quickly--even back then I paid attention to the writer's credits, but I remembered McTavish's name from when I started watching the show so didn't think too much of her returning into the credits--but the show veered into weird so quickly. (I'm sure that was partly what she was told to do when she was rehired--Broderick had already been making her AMC more stunty to compete with Days which had so quickly replaced it in the ratings--with half hearted voodoo plots, etc).

It sounds like it's still something of a mess, and things are in a bit of a scramble right now, but it seems, and I trust the various info that it is (pretty much--I'll grant you the 10%) happening. For good or bad... (Maybe it's time Agnes rewrites the AMC opening poem...)

[Errol]

Christina Bennett Lind

Christina Bennett Lind

Christina Bennett Lind

(aka: topic I'm trying to concentrate on posting article on)

[allmc2008]

What was the Voodo plot?

Is coming back???

[EricMontreal22]

Oh good! I grew to really like her.

The voodoo plot was Noah and Keefer and something to do with Jamaica and the now crazy Taylor, and to sneak them back into the US (I think?) they had to induce a voodoo thing where it would appear that Noah (I think?) was dead? It didn't go full on supernatural like DAYS but it was obviously inspired by it--and didn't really work.

(On the other hand Broderick's other really wacky plot, Myrtle, her double Mrs Claus and Santa Claus kinda worked for me, largely just because I loved seeing Myrtle hamming it up, and it was never taken seriously--I wish the scenes where she confronts Mrs Claus who accuses her of seducing Santa were on youtube).

[Vee]

I just remember when Noah and Julia got a full-on Disneyfied soap opera fairy tale wedding. I thought that was crap. Noah would never have gone for that, yet there he was in tux and tails. I'd tired of them quite some time before, but it was still ludicrous and was just one more thing that drove me even further into the proverbial bosom of OLTL at the time.

[Khan]

I remember that wedding, too. Noah and Julia's wedding, along with the Conner family's visit to Disney World on "Roseanne," was the first time people were aware of how much the network was now firmly under Disney's control.

[EricMontreal22]

Right, the wedding was actually full on based on Cinderella (which, no doubt, was just reissued on video at the time). Around the same time JR would come back from a movie naming the latest Disney release, or a younger kid would have a stuffed Disney figure.

[SFK]

I didn't really follow the Jamaica s/l. I do remember that Victoria Platt was in it. What was her character's name, Camille, Corrine? She followed them back to Pine Valley IIRC, she was on contract. Did she get any loving in PV?

[Khan]

I swear, they would have recast roles on all the ABC soaps with Disney cartoon characters if they thought they could have gotten away with it. (And please, don't let that statement turn into a tangent where we take it upon ourselves to start doing just that. I think people have had enough of that mess.)

Yep, SFK, her character's name was Corinne. Victoria Platt was on-contract for awhile, but I think AMC was quick to realize just how much a voodoo priestess (with a questionable "Jamaican" accent) did not fit in Pine Valley.

[SFK]

Victoria should play Karla M.'s older sister on B&B.

[EricMontreal22]

Corinne I'm pretty sure. And I remember I liked her, so was glad she came back with them--but all I remember from that is that she sorta disappeared, I'm not sure if they even seemed to be testing her with anyone. But I think by then it seemed like a lot of Broderick's characters and ideas were being ushered out.

(Which reminds me, another thing I did like about McTavish's subsequent run was the Adrian Sword/Matthew McTavish storyline for Opal, which I wish they would have at least referenced later... Maybe on AMC 2.0 Opal's biracial grandchildren can come live with her...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_-61GJrtds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1RvDzIm9EQ

(So I was wrong about the timing, it was still somewhat early in Broderick's run, but definitely after AMC had started to lose major points to Days).

[Vee]

God, there's so many quirky or 'ethnic' characters like that who shows would sign and then forget about. Especially AMC.

Remember Lysistrata, who everyone liked but me? Oh, she's so quirky! Let's put her on a contract and have her flirt with Tad! I [!@#$%^&*] hated the Rayfield/Cascio era, it was Frons at the height of his 'remake the soap opera' powers, and she was so forced to me. OTOH, I loved Elizabeth Rodriguez as Carmen, and then they dropped her after bringing her back to PV. I don't think she got an exit.

They did do a fair bit with Adrian Sword, though, at least early on. I loved him. I remember a very strange scene with him and Cady McClain at a Martin family picnic where, though she was with Tad, she very definitely appeared to be hitting on him. It seemed to be in the script, but it was so random. And hot, and never spoken of again.

[Khan]

No offense, Eric, but I'm glad they have conveniently forgotten about Adrian. That was one of those situations where tying a new character to an older one didn't make me care suddenly about them. If anything, the revelation that he was Opal's son made me care even less, because I felt like Opal would not have been involved with a Black man at that period in her life.

Speak for yourself, Vee. I didn't like that annoying head-shrinker either.

[allmc2008]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1RvDzIm9EQ

I found her at 1:20

They could have had her and Opal run the glamorama or even with Myrtle at the boarding house. Regardless a friendship between Opal/Myrtle/Corinne would have been pretty cool.

[Khan]

Once Erica learned about Jack's ONS with Carmen, she disposed of Carmen and destroyed the evidence. That's why she won't be around for the reboot: someone attempted to blackmail her, so she left Pine Valley.