Y&R: RIP Kristoff St John

[Khan]

I'm still worried that Neil's death (should he be killed off) will end up being about the Rosales clan.  

[DramatistDreamer]

The first Grace Turner.

 

[ajsp35801]

 

Murder mystery for Rey. Lola worried about HWG going under and her losing her restaurant. Mia doing everyone's makeup for the funeral, even a deceased Neil for the funeral home. 

[BetterForgotten]

I'd almost forgotten that Neil was initially interested into Olivia, and Dru was obviously into Nathan. Bill Bell loved his sibling quadrangles - I guess this was his first attempt at doing it with black people. 

 

The Barber/Winters brought so much vitality to the show in those early years, yet even then, the show was accused of having its black characters in a bubble and very much in their own little corner. However, I didn't mind as Y&R was always the one soap where characters didn't always have to intersect and some popular characters would never cross one another's paths. 

[Khan]

 

Great.  The final indignity for Neil Winters.  Going out looking like a circus clown with a hyperactive thyroid.

 

 

Oh, please, PLEASE make this happen, Y&R!

[DeeeDee]

 

Those same 'fans' are the ones that never had any use for the Barber/Winters family and wanted the entire group of actors & characters recast and/or written off altogether.

When was the last time you heard soap fans CONSTANTLY advocating (over decades) for replacing an entire VETERAN core family? One or two characters, sure, but never a whole family.

[DramatistDreamer]

[DeeeDee]

 

He did it with his initial Black characters too. They just weren't related. Jazz had a thing for Amy who had a thing for Tyrone.

Once Tyrone started wearing whiteface & dating Alana, Amy began flirting with Nathan until she disappeared with Nathan becoming the center of a love triangle between Liv & Dru.

 

The thing is that The Barber/Winters were initially VERY well integrated into the canvas. It wasn't until a terrible decision by Bill Bell (driven largely by major behind the scenes drama) that everything changed.

[DramatistDreamer]

Someone already shifted KSJ's name to the "former actors" section on the Y&R Wikipedia page, which left me feeling some kind of way. They sure didn't waste any time.

[BetterForgotten]

Yes, and I don't think the soap press and critics really appreciated what Y&R accomplished with the Barber/Winters family until many years later (if they ever did). 

[ReddFoxx]

Wikipedia is a site where pretty much everyone is always in a race to input information as fast as possible.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

I doubt they did.

It reminds me of an article I read about how UPN and the WB filled their roster with many shows/sitcoms with a majority black cast, most of which brought high ratings.  After these networks cultivated audiences, then proceeded to 'transition' out of this by canceling many of these shows.  

By the time both networks merged into the CW, with shows like Gossip Girl, the CW's programming bore little resemblance to it's network predecessors.

[Vee]

Fox did it too.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

It wouldn't surprise me if an intern from Y&R did it on the DL. I doubt anything goes on that page without them noticing and if there were one piece of objectionable information put up there, they'd scrub it off that page so fast.

[Faulkner]

 

 

I think the writer of The NY Times appraisal missed a lot of the fückery KSJ/Neil endured before he was sidelined.

 

I’m glad the piece recognized VR’s contributions. Throwing their erasure of her in their faces in the paper of record.

 

From Rebecca Budig: