Big deal to phased out

[titan1978]

Hearing the name Dimitri Merrick on a recent GH episode made me nostalgic for when he arrived on AMC, and that lead me to thinking about how that show slowly phased him out.

 

If you watched AMC in the early 1990’s, Edmund and Dimitri were huge characters that were always front burner.  An entire family backstory, a significant set (Wildwind), and romantic pairings with important veterans of their shows (Erica and Brooke). But then kind of suddenly they were not.  They just slowly phased them out completely.

 

These were not flash in the pan characters, but instead kind of discarded after relatively short periods of importance in the grand scheme of things on their shows.

 

Other examples?

[Khan]

OLTL's "damn Rappaports" (tm Asa Buchanan).

[Paul Raven]

Y&R 

Paul Williams - had a family built around him, married 2 leading ladies (amongst others) and front burner for years before slowly diminishing in importance and then dropped quietly. Back in the same limited capacity (grouchy, ineffective police chief)

[ReddFoxx]

B&B: Nick Marone. He was onscreen a lot for years and now it's like he never existed. Although I expect that Bell will make use of his son with Brooke and Taylor at some point.

[DeeeDee]

Y&R Rosales

[Vee]

Probably not big enough, but I'd say both incarnations of Kate Howard/Connie Falconeri on GH.

[Chris B]

 

This is a big one. It’s crazy how important he was for so long and then he just disappeared. I remember when he was on I felt like he’d never leave. 

[reallyhateskateonlost]

And yet they fail to mention David Hayward who Anna was married to!

 

[titan1978]

I don’t even watch B&B and I know about this set of characters.  Didn’t he have a mother and brother that also drove a lot of story?  And then just over.

[John]

On the Dimitri front, that was due to Michael Nader being on drugs. AMC did temp recast with Anthony Addabo but he was miscast. Then Dimitri & Alex were gone 3 months later

Michael reprised Dimitri in 2013 on AMC revival

 

I wonder if Eva & John's divorce led to Edmund being killed off in Jan 2005

 

And they did nothing with Christian Campbell as Bobby Warner or Natalia Calgulia as Anita

[edgeofnik]

 

So true - and Nick was annoying as heck. As soon as Brad saw the magic with Stuffy/Lame/Dope, the show quickly erased Nick/Jackie/Owen, etc. The whole Marone thing was a huge mistake all because they wanted Joe so much, which bombed from Day 1. Now with Rick vanquished, the only "Forrester" legacy children on-canvas are actually from the Marone line.  

[DeeeDee]

ATWT: Lisa, Ellen

[Gray Bunny]

 

Excellent example, though I can't say I miss him. Same with Bridget. 

[kalbir]

Y&R: Cricket. Basically ate the show in the late 1980s then all but disappeared 20 years later.

[DramatistDreamer]

John Dixon, ATWT. 

While some characters on ATWT only seemed to get a lot of story during one, maybe two writing regimes (if they were fortunate), John got quite a bit of prominent storylines over several writing regimes from the late 1970s throughout the entire 1980s. 

Even in the 1990s, he got a pretty decent amount of screen time, although the quality of the stories could be inconsistent.

A few years before he left though, he seemed to be a glorified extra at times.  I guess those disputes of seniority and salary pay-cuts were really brought to bear before he pretty much faded and only showed up for a brief story arc right before the show's cancellation to usher Lucinda off the canvas.