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[Bright Eyes]

Can we get that list of actresses Jon Hensley dated?

[Franko]

Whoa, I was not expecting the GH primer until Monty 2.0 was more firmly in motion. Since the previous pattern was CBS-NBC-ABC, I now assume the last four shows will go in reverse and be SB, Y&R, Loving and then B&B.

 

Philip and Beth's wedding and departure from GL is our top story. Beth Chamberlain got a cruddy deal, apparently being kicked off the show since Grant Aleksander decided to leave. Oh well, at least Phillip and Beth aren't getting a "bizarre ending." Then again, this is a soap -- would being presumed dead be that offbeat? What would be offbeat is if they left to pursue careers on the Olympics basketball team.

 

Sherri Anderson's comment about actors making sure to kiss their winning costars reminds me of the time Chris Colfer won his Golden Globe for Glee. I think every female on that show embraced him before he finally left their table. Compare it to the legendary moment where the Santa Barbara cast was losing its [!@#$%^&*] the year the show won its first Daytime Emmy for Best Drama.

 

Casting that worked out in the long run (and then some): Kristoff St. John as Neil, John J. York as Mac.

Casting that didn't: Frank Koski, whom I don't remember at all, on OLTL. Any of the women who played Dr. Whitney Baker on DOOL.

On the way out: Besides Philip and Beth, we've got Ken Jordan (victim of too many rewrites) of AW, Dan Wolek of OLTL (umpteenth time wasn't the charm with what should have been a legacy character) and two pair from Loving, Cabot & Isabelle Alden and Egypt & Alex Masters.

 

Side note: Ellen Wheeler, who read for Whitney, was adrift at this time. If I'm not mistaken, she ended up re-auditioning (and getting rejected) for Vicky and Marley a few months later.

 

Tony Geary continues the trend of GH leading men dumping on their characters. Oh well, at least he's not playing Luke anymore ...

 

Interesting that the seeds of A. Martinez's departure from Santa Barbara were already planted. In retrospect, the Dobsons should have given Eden and Cruz much happier endings. I got a kick out of the mention that NBC had pilot deals with Marlee Matlin, Phil Hartman and A. Package deal, anyone?

 

Blood Ties will get the pilot movie treatment, while Dynasty is getting the conclusion miniseries treatment. Spoiler alert: not all the Carringtons, namely Gordon Thompson, will be on hand.

 

Oh my god, poor Deidre Immerschein has one of the most unflattering photos I've ever seen in SOD. She looks like she could be Susan Lucci's mother.

 

The article about revisiting Roger raping Holly was fascinating. Nearly 30 years later, we're at an age where soap fans can watch the scenes from 1979 as well as 1991. Compare it to 2019, when many writers and producers seem to wish they can rewrite history without objections. It does feel like Calhoun's giving a little bit of lip service to the idea of exorcising the past.

 

Hey, It's 1991!: Nicollette Sheridan and Harry Hamlin are engaged! I hope nobody bought them (or Julia Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland) an especially extravagant gift.

 

Today I learned:

Kin Shriner had a crush on Anne Heche.

Eileen Fulton loves Designing Women (no brainer), Night Court (okay ...) and Perfect Strangers (I'd have never guessed).

Douglas Marland loved him some Knots Landing (he always did have taste) while Lynn Marie Latham loved ATWT.

Peter Bergman can be a real bey-otch. "General Hospital is too bizarre."

 

Yet another reason to lament daytime's irreversible decline: no significant improvement regarding minority representation. Also, this is the second time in recent memory that B&B's half-hour format's been used as an excuse. There's no opportunity to properly handle older character or minorities. *eye roll*

 

Interesting that GH was considered "one of daytime's finest hours -- really." I may have cut my teeth, so to speak, during the Claire Labine era, but 1987-91 has its share of hidden gems.

 

The primer goes back and forth with recent history. Lucy's miscarriage is mentioned. But Dawn's still alive and the likes of Cheryl, Katherine, Colton and Aunt Charlene are apparently still in town. Again, why would they publish this when GH is in the midst of change?

 

All this and Richard Van Vleet trying out for Re-Animator.

[Khan]

I had no idea that Douglas Marland (my favorite soap writer of all time) even watched my favorite nighttime soap, KL.  That makes me extremely happy.  

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[kalbir]

 

Hahaha. I can't wait to see how SOD covers the fight later in 1991.

[YRfan23]

It kind of rubs me the wrong way that he “steals” other performers work....

 

[j swift]

(1) Does having British cast members count as diversity in 1991? (2) The historically humourous opening line about the Jerome family - "Even though they're all dead (as far as we know)..."

 

I'm beginning to think that it is emblematic of the rather kooky industry of producing soaps that there has been legitimate gossip of backstage turmoil for every issue that we've discussed. 

[j swift]

It is March 5, 1991, in the SOD universe - Janet Jackson is about to sign a $40 million deal with Virgin Records and Desert Storm is going full force

 

Two features this week.  First up, Jason Bonderoff writes an opinion piece disguised as a feature based on his concerns that soaps tease us with shirtless hunks but, there's no sex.  Or is it that there is too much sex, but not enough romance? Either way, nobody is allowed to dispute the thesis.  Next, cue cards, DAYS, SB and Y&R were cited as allowing cue cards, and all of the other soaps did not allow them on set.  The torture of learning lines is fully covered, as well as tricks for hiding scripts around the set.

 

In the news is the New & Improved GH, but I think @Franko should cover all of that

 

SOD likes a strong woman.  Brooke English gets a thumbs up for standing up to Adam Chandler in their divorce, but Valene's return to crazytown gets a thumbs down.

 

Great Picky-Picky's this week, just because SOD editors always dragged Cricket on Y&R (who was also never a personal favorite).  They kept calling her Cricket after she changed her name to Christine and had a bi-yearly column that Cricket was taking over Y&R.  This week, they contorted themselves to suggest that because Cricket demanded that her dying mother should divorce John Abbott and marry Jim Granger, he should have shown up at her wedding in Hawaii (as if his taking away of her constantly weeping mother wasn't gift enough).  Also, we saw OLTL Megan ski in Mendorra but a new writer forgot that and wrote that she's a clutz.  Then, there's the old SOD canard, the use of publicity shots as family photos.  In this case, Y&R's Brad and Cassandra had wedding photos published even though Brad was famously passed out during the ceremony.   I think SOD needs to accept that in a soap universe they only sell 8x10 frames and everyone has a glamour shot of their mother in their living room.

 

None of the daytime or primetime soaps are going to discuss Desert Storm either because their production is too far behind or they just don't want to do so.  Except Loving which is sending Stan Alber's Curtis off to war.  It sounded OK at this time...

 

Finally, in casting news, Gregory Gordon has been replaced on AMC as Brian Bodine by Matt Borlenghi.  He was a sophomore at NYU studying journalism at the time.  I looked up his IMDB, and I hope he his reporting somewhere because he has only had three jobs since 2000.

[Franko]

How can I not lead with the new and improved General Hospital? I can't help but be irrationally annoyed that the show more or less got two primers in two issues.

 

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[Franko]

March 5, 1991

Our top story is General Hospital's much ballyhooed revamp. But is it just a case of the same old, same old? SOD knows about that -- they reran Kin Shriner's quote comparing Gloria Monty to Scorsese, as well as Tony Geary's criticism of Luke.

 

Gloria's comments about molding GH into daytime's answer to Upstairs, Downstairs are well-intended, but oh so easy to mock. Imagine if she said she was going to turn the show into the soap equivalent of Roseanne? That's not a knock on Roseanne, which also tackled social issues and the classes in a distinctly '90s style.

 

Also easy to mock, but endearing in a retro way, the promise that people in Port Charles can start saying that something sucks. I'd love to see the scene where Robin explains "dissing."

 

The cast exodus is addressed. I question whether or not Shep and the Shore-Greco family were key characters, though. Dawn, Decker and Edge will soon follow them out the door. Tom and Simone didn't, but it's going to feel like they did.

 

While that's an awful lot of departures so soon, they're all members of GH's B team and C team. Monty's going to run into trouble in a few months when the A team starts revolting. Tristan Rogers comes across as having his eyes perpetually on the door, to the point where maybe Robert should have been the one killed off instead of Duke.

 

(A brief break to discuss Geary's career since GH. What, no mention of UHF? P.S. One thing that SOD doesn't mention about Jackie Zeman's two films were that they were produced by ABC.)

 

I can't wait to find out SOD's reaction to Jenny Eckert. She comes across as *such* a Mary Sue in summaries.

[Khan]

I must give Gloria Monty credit, though, for not returning to GH with the attitude of pretending she could do in '91 what she did in '81 and be just as successful.  Times had changed, and soaps needed to get back to basics.  Her plan to inject more class conflicts into the storylines might have been more successful, however, had she had another Douglas Marland or Pat Falken Smith as her new HW.

[Franko]

Yeah, I tease Gloria, but she did make an effort at trying something new. I think she was let down by lackluster writing and the cast revolt.

 

Now, onto the non-GH news.

A. Martinez, although a hot property, isn't leaving Santa Barbara. Not while he's got a "present commitment" to the show. Not exactly words to boost the Dobsons and Conboy's confidence.

 

Operation Desert Storm/Gulf War #1/The One with Bush Sr. was actually concluding by the time this issue hit stands. Of course, nobody could have predicted that in early 1991. Remember the episode of A Different World where Blair Underwood guest starred and it's heavily implied it's going to be a prolonged war (and he's going to die)? With that in mind, I can cut the powers that be a little bit of slack for not immediately addressing the world around them. That said, snaps for Loving for being the only soap to address it, even if they're mainly doing so because Stan Albers wasn't working out.

 

In other departures and arrivals, Larkin Malloy is saying goodbye to AMC. Meanwhile, there's a new Brian Bodine and Arlene's no longer a recurring character. In hindsight, these moves are less important for the characters of Brian and Arlene, more for better establishing Hayley. Compare and contrast that to the arrival of GH's Mac (who transcended his initial status as Robert's brother) or Paul and Jenny (whose storyline dried up with the departures of Tracy Quartermaine and then Bill Eckert).

 

Today I learned Terrell Anthony was on Another World.

 

The thumbs up is a bit stranger than Brooke being independent, @j swift. They're applauding her for evening the score sexually with Dixie. No, not in that way, but by having slept with and being impregnated by her man. This is something to applaud?

 

Joan van Ark, of course, hated Val having a brain virus. She felt it was the worst example of the writers making her the village idiot. It does feel like Knots was marking time for Gary and Val, especially since Michelle Phillips nixed the idea of an Anne/Gary/Val triangle.

 

Speaking of naughty girls, Ceara Connor may or may not be setting a soap record with simultaneous broken engagements to a father and a son (Jeremy and David).

 

The commentary about Jack and Jennifer's hot-and-heavy hype not matching their on-screen reality was good for a chuckle. "They're really more like two renegades from a Sweet Valley High romance." What, no mention of their recent angst, namely her rape and his past as a rapist? Of course not.

 

I'm going to be rude -- was anyone wanting to see a Victor Newman sex scene? I thought so.

 

Onto the cue cards article. I can't help but wonder if any of those eight soaps that didn't use cue cards allowed for teleprompters. Michael Sabatino's comments about Avery Schreiber also caught my attention. Schreiber was an early member of the Second City improv. group. Soaps are a different beast than improv., and maybe the director was a stickler about getting the dialogue just right, but you'd think he would have swam rather than sank.

 

Finally, Peter Bergman continues to work my nerves. "If we are allowed to be lazy, many of us will choose to be." Well, smell you!

 

All this and Steve Bond in bed.

[Khan]

 

IDK how I would have felt about a Gary/Val/Anne triangle.  On the one hand, I don't see Ted Shackelford and Michelle Phillips sharing as much chemistry as others do.  (Anne might have been better off pursuing young Michael, lol.)  But, OTOH, I don't agree with Phillips' reasoning that Anne needed to do more than pursue rich men for their money (or something like that).  Michelle, honey, that IS Anne Matheson, to a T.  You want to portray a woman who's a bit more enlightened and a bit less like a gold-digging tramp?  Go work on another series!

[Franko]

This. Very much this. I'm glad Anne eventually ended back in Greg's orbit.

[Khan]

 

I'm still mad about how the show had written Travis into a corner for that lousy Jack.

[YRfan23]

Bergman later says in another interview related to actors learning their lines (in the 8/31/93 SOD) that he thinks cue cards should be called "idiot cards"....he's an ass....