42 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

That's hilarious, and it's so true how invested viewers were in "their stories" back then.

Oh I remember the whole student lounge went into an uproar when James pulled down his hood. in the student center (back in the day where there were 3 lounges...one for CBS, one for NBC and one for ABC..) There had to be over 30 people there and people from the hall ran over to see what was going on.

 

44 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

Genuinely nice guys always have a certain edge.

I kind of feel bad for making fun of him when I read all the genuinely nice things the other actors , especially the younger ones said about him.  Despite the over the top stories they put him in he must have brought it down to earth. Kind of reminds me of RN on GL...they had him panting after Reva and the EVIL woman of the moment when at a certain time his best scenes were with his kids and the younger actors.

28 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

Oh I remember the whole student lounge went into an uproar when James pulled down his hood. in the student center (back in the day where there were 3 lounges...one for CBS, one for NBC and one for ABC..) There had to be over 30 people there and people from the hall ran over to see what was going on.

You gave me flashbacks of having to get to the student lounge early enough to turn the channel to CBS before ATWT came on. It was ALWAYS turned to ABC. If I remember correctly, I always had to watch the end of All My Children or whatever was on and turn the channel immediately before any One Life to Live or whatever came in. I may be getting the shows confused. Anyway, I remember people walking in, giving me a dirty look and then walking out. I remember thinking, "You don't know what you're missing". 

1 hour ago, vetsoapfan said:

Chris was raped in 1973 by George Curtis, who was played by Tony Geary. Peggy was the one raped by Ron Becker, on June 16, 1976. Upon finding her baby sister had also been assaulted, Chris had memory flashbacks of compulsively showering after her own assault, to wash the stain off. It was heartbreaking.

Ok. So, I guess it was Peggy that I remember. I guess I remember Chris' shower flashback. I vaguely remember Chris looking at Peggy and knowing what was up even though Peggy wasn't letting anyone know. These memories are very vague. I don't trust them. 

22 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

That era of TGL was golden. And the actors played that memorable episode to the hit.

There were so many beats left to play in that story; so many emotional chords left to hit. Discarding Justin Marler so quickly was a terribly bad decision.

The audience still resents losing Ellen Parker's beloved Maureen. If the rumor is true, that we lost her to make room in the budget to pay for Justin Deas, it's all the more egregious. We finally had a warm and sympathetic character to replace Bert as the Bauer matriarch, and instead we got a hammy and loud-mouthed buzzard inflicted upon us. No, thank you.

JWS reaffirmed that he was more than just a pretty face in that storyline, and the "Helloooooo, Barbara!" moment became iconic. In its heyday, ATWT gave us some great stuff!

Lisa Brown does not get enough love for her sheer talent. IMO, she's in that rarefied group of the top actresses on par with Bev McKinsey.

Yes. I adored Tom O'Rourke. What EP makes the decision to cut off their nose to spite their face like that? Phillip's origins had been a driving story for years at that point. That has to be in some kind of Hall of Shame decision making moment.

I know James became somewhat of a cartoon, but his first return from the dead was TERRIFIC. Anthony Herrera had a malevolence to him that jumped off the screen. And Colleen Zenk's fear is palpable in that scene.

8 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

We must have been watching at the same time! Well I never could stand Jack and Carly..so not that.

I remember running in from the pool to watch Nola get hers...even though we were rooting for her ( a few losers liked Morgan...) Soap viewers today can't really have that anticipation and excitement built up over months of story and characters that could be both "bad" and good.  

I still remember how hot it was on the day watching Reva in the fountain...they really mimicked the midwest well with the sounds of the crickets and you almost felt that humidity on that patio. 

I was in the student lounge at college with "Hello Barbara" and this football player watched ATWT every day there and he got up screaming "Jame f*cking Stenbeck..Barbara girl watch out!"  Again..I can't see a soap inspiring that in an audience anymore.

LOL...I loved Kelly and Morgan so much at the time! And I hated Nola's fantasies! (well, I'm still not thrilled by them, even though I love classic movies so much more now...) I remember bits and pieces of shows (since I watched the entire CBS lineup at the time), but that was the first BIG moment that I really got swept up in the story. And then like a week later, Nola at her drab little wedding, bravely just says no thanks to marrying a man she doesn't love. 

The world before spoilers and the internet was awesomer than we give it credit for. It's also great that now I can see stuff I didn't get to (like Rita in the Hall of Mirrors), but that shock and awe moment of getting surprised is gone.

Edited September 6Sep 6 by P.J.

9 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

Oh I remember the whole student lounge went into an uproar when James pulled down his hood. in the student center (back in the day where there were 3 lounges...one for CBS, one for NBC and one for ABC..) There had to be over 30 people there and people from the hall ran over to see what was going on.

I always made sure to audiotape or videotape my favorite shows at home, because there was  too much competition for control of the television sets at school.

9 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

I kind of feel bad for making fun of him when I read all the genuinely nice things the other actors , especially the younger ones said about him.  Despite the over the top stories they put him in he must have brought it down to earth. Kind of reminds me of RN on GL...they had him panting after Reva and the EVIL woman of the moment when at a certain time his best scenes were with his kids and the younger actors.

It's always so disarming when actors interact with young actors, and their innate affection for kids shines through. When Jacquie Courtney returned to AW in 1984, the show did almost nothing of interest with the character (a shockingly stupid blunder on TPTB's part), but she had some scenes with the adorable child who played Alice's grandson Kevin, and she really sparkled in those scenes. She had also shone a decade before when acting with young Cathy Greene, who played Sally as a little girl. JC clearly enjoyed interacting with children.

8 hours ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

You gave me flashbacks of having to get to the student lounge early enough to turn the channel to CBS before ATWT came on. It was ALWAYS turned to ABC. If I remember correctly, I always had to watch the end of All My Children or whatever was on and turn the channel immediately before any One Life to Live or whatever came in. I may be getting the shows confused. Anyway, I remember people walking in, giving me a dirty look and then walking out. I remember thinking, "You don't know what you're missing". 

When did you get your first VCR, so you could videotape the soaps at home? I used audiotape recorders before the advent of Betamax and VHS, set up with timers in different rooms at home, so I could at least listen to the dialogue of my shows at night. It was like listening to radio plays and was quite satisfying, but as soon as Betamax appeared on the market, I bought one...even though it cost a fortune.

8 hours ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

Ok. So, I guess it was Peggy that I remember. I guess I remember Chris' shower flashback. I vaguely remember Chris looking at Peggy and knowing what was up even though Peggy wasn't letting anyone know. These memories are very vague. I don't trust them. 

Ron Becker had intended to rape Chris, but found Peggy in the Fosters' apartment instead. When Chris returned home, Peggy was huddled on the floor, shaking and in a state of shock. Chris quickly figured out what had happened. The show's use of flashbacks to Chris' own assault and obsessive showering was very effective. Bill Bell later made the comment that you don't duplicate a prior story unless you're doing it on purpose for impact. This defintely had the intended impact.

2 hours ago, P.J. said:

Lisa Brown does not get enough love for her sheer talent. IMO, she's in that rarefied group of the top actresses on par with Bev McKinsey.

Lisa Brown was indeed a unique talent, and Nola was her better role.

2 hours ago, P.J. said:

Yes. I adored Tom O'Rourke. What EP makes the decision to cut off their nose to spite their face like that? Phillip's origins had been a driving story for years at that point. That has to be in some kind of Hall of Shame decision making moment.

This was the responsibility of producer Gail Kobe ("Story on soaps is more important than the  characters!") and newbie writer Pamela Long ("My first mission was to get rid of all the dead wood in the cast."), and IMHO they crippled the show. Peter Simon said that Tom O'Rourke was the last of the "old guard" whom Kobe and Long fired, and when he left the building on his last day, he went ranting and raving down the hall.

2 hours ago, P.J. said:

I know James became somewhat of a cartoon, but his first return from the dead was TERRIFIC. Anthony Herrera had a malevolence to him that jumped off the screen. And Colleen Zenk's fear is palpable in that scene.

Like with Stefano DiMera on DAYS, ATWT went back to the well too many times with James Stenbeck and it ultimately ruined the character.

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

The world before spoilers and the internet was awesomer than we give it credit for. It's also great that now I can see stuff I didn't get to (like Rita in the Hall of Mirrors), but that shock and awe moment of getting surprised is gone.

The world before spoilers was a boon to the soaps; being taken by surprise was a highlight of viewing. When Mary Matthews died suddenly on AW in 1975, we had no advance warning, and were not used to seeing matriarchs of core families being killed off. The abject shock of the event elevated the impact to the nth degree. The same was true on Little House on the Prairie, when Mary Ingalls' baby died in a fire at the school for the blind. We had no notice, the plot was sick and grisly, and left a mark (I'm sure) on all the people who endured it.

Edited September 6Sep 6 by vetsoapfan

10 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

Ron Becker had intended to rape Chris, but found Peggy in the Fosters' apartment instead. When Chris returned home, Peggy was huddled on the floor, shaking and in a state of shock. Chris quickly figured out what had happened. The show's use of flashbacks to Chris' own assault and obsessive showering was very effective. Bill Bell later made the comment that you don't duplicate a prior story unless you're doing it on purpose for impact. This defintely had the intended impact.

Now that you say this, it's coming back to me. I remember that he had intended to rape Chris now. Wow. I hadn't thought of that in 50 years. Your memory is incredible. Even when I remember things, it's often distorted because I mix things up. Sometimes I've even imagined things that didn't happen. I guess that's a good sign that I have a creative mind but it makes memories less reliable. I would imagine if they ever stream the old shows of Y&R and DOOL that a flood of memories would come back to me as I watch them. 

It's no wonder I grew up so neurotic. I was watching some very traumatic things as a child! LOL.

11 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

Peter Simon said that Tom O'Rourke was the last of the "old guard" whom Kobe and Long fired, and when he left the building on his last day, he went ranting and raving down the hall.

He played taps on bagpipes I heard!

44 minutes ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

Now that you say this, it's coming back to me. I remember that he had intended to rape Chris now. Wow. I hadn't thought of that in 50 years. Your memory is incredible. Even when I remember things, it's often distorted because I mix things up. Sometimes I've even imagined things that didn't happen. I guess that's a good sign that I have a creative mind but it makes memories less reliable. I would imagine if they ever stream the old shows of Y&R and DOOL that a flood of memories would come back to me as I watch them. 

My memory is good about stuff that captivated and interested me, no matter how long ago it was. Ask me about some of the tedious subjects I studied in high school...forget it. All that data is gone with the wind.😁

(To be honest, I'm glad that I retained more soap trivia in my head than facts about trigonometry or chemistry or any of the stuff we were force-fed in Moral & Religious Instruction 🙄).

Soaps turned out to be much more relevant to my life! One teacher of religion argued with me about my answer to, "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"

Paul Simon hit the nail on the head when he sang about all the crap we learned in high school.

58 minutes ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

It's no wonder I grew up so neurotic. I was watching some very traumatic things as a child! LOL.

A friend remarked to me the other day that his young niece is watching DVDs of Little House on the Prairie which she got for Christmas. He said he was aghast to realize how sick and vicious some of the stories on the show really were. It's true, but soaps were second-to-none when it came to inducing trauma in viewers!

23 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

He played taps on bagpipes I heard!

OMG, too funny; funny because it was so appropriate. Bagpipes have long been used to commemorate funerals and other somber occasions, and heaven knows, TGL was being slaughtered at the time. Good for O'Roarke. (Writing out Justin was an bad move in the first place, but bringing him back later with a recast actor only reinforced the error.)

11 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

The world before spoilers was a boon to the soaps; being taken by surprise was a highlight of viewing. When Mary Matthews died suddenly on AW in 1975, we had no advance warning, and were not used to seeing matriarchs of core families being killed off. The abject shock of the event elevated the impact to the nth degree. The same was true on Little House on the Prairie, when Mary Ingalls' baby died in a fire at the school for the blind. We had no notice, the plot was sick and grisly, and left a mark (I'm sure) on all the people who endured it.

This just sounds hauntingly magical. ❤️ The original way these shows were created to be experienced. 

9 minutes ago, Maxim said:

This just sounds hauntingly magical. ❤️ The original way these shows were created to be experienced. 

And for many years, the successful soaps existed in a "reality bubble," staying more or less within the bounds of events that could take place in the real world. We had ordinary people next door to watch on-screen, and we never knew from day to day what would happen to them. It was easy to get immersed in the stories and identify with the characters' problems. There were no clones, extra-terrestrials, time travelers, devil possessions, mad scientists freezing the world, towns filled exclusively with the uber-rich, etc., all of which broke the magical reality bubble of the genre, and reinforced the idea that everything we were now watching had turned to cartoonish farce. To me, the advent of over-the-top camp alienated a lot of the die-hard soap fans who had loved the shows for their lost, immersive and HUMAN qualities.

But for decades, we had experienced something magical!

13 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

This was the responsibility of producer Gail Kobe ("Story on soaps is more important than the  characters!") and newbie writer Pamela Long ("My first mission was to get rid of all the dead wood in the cast.")

Kobe, of course, was wrong. The best stories on soaps come FROM character.

A perfect example of that, IMO, is Dark Shadows, which was TOTALLY over-the-top as far as plot, but I think why people loved it so much and why it remained a cult show is because everything came from character. The characters even remained consistent through different timelines.

Barnabas, for instance, is always a guy fighting against the curse he's under by trying recreate a long-dead romance. Pretty much everything he does comes from that, even after he escapes the curse. Quentin is completely ruled by his dick. (As a kid, of course, I didn't pick up on this 😁). That's consistent from story to story. When DS stopped being consistent (i.e. putting Jonathan Frid and Lara Parker together as a romantic couple instead of adversaries) that's when they lost the audience.

If you look at the older soap storylines, so many of them came from character. Rachel on AW and Jill on Y&R wanting more than what they were born into, Iris having a daddy fixation, Laurie's jealousy of her sister Leslie, Katherine Chancellor refusing to let anyone put her on a shelf because she was over 40--those are just a few examples.

Soaps could have done the wild stuff just fine--IF a lot it come had come from character. It was plot driving characters instead of characters driving plot that damaged soaps, IMO.

4 hours ago, DeeVee said:

Kobe, of course, was wrong. The best stories on soaps come FROM character.

A perfect example of that, IMO, is Dark Shadows, which was TOTALLY over-the-top as far as plot, but I think why people loved it so much and why it remained a cult show is because everything came from character. The characters even remained consistent through different timelines.

Barnabas, for instance, is always a guy fighting against the curse he's under by trying recreate a long-dead romance. Pretty much everything he does comes from that, even after he escapes the curse. Quentin is completely ruled by his dick. (As a kid, of course, I didn't pick up on this 😁). That's consistent from story to story. When DS stopped being consistent (i.e. putting Jonathan Frid and Lara Parker together as a romantic couple instead of adversaries) that's when they lost the audience.

If you look at the older soap storylines, so many of them came from character. Rachel on AW and Jill on Y&R wanting more than what they were born into, Iris having a daddy fixation, Laurie's jealousy of her sister Leslie, Katherine Chancellor refusing to let anyone put her on a shelf because she was over 40--those are just a few examples.

Soaps could have done the wild stuff just fine--IF a lot it come had come from character. It was plot driving characters instead of characters driving plot that damaged soaps, IMO.

I agree. While plots themselves can be riveting, we will care about all the twists and turns of the stories so much more because of our emotional involvement with the characters.

The great writer Henry Slesar of The Edge of Night acknowledged this in an interview once. He opined that no matter how well he crafted his stories, they only worked effectively because the viewers cared for the people involved. He said that without our attachment to the likes of Mike and Nancy Karr, the audience would end up no more moved by the stories on soaps than by the articles we read in the morning newspapers. The plots, themselves, would not have the same deep impact.

Your analysis of Dark Shadows was on the mark. The show surged in popularity upon the introduction of Barnabas Collins primarily because he was such a complex, tortured, fascinating character to watch. Despite his obvious trouble in memorizing the mountains of dialogue he was given day after day, month after month, Jonathan Frid played the character beautifully. But once characterization was sidelined/shortchanged and more and more time was spent on flashy gimmicks and shocks (the show had been more subtle in the original vampire story), DS burned itself out.

TPTB who decided that offering gimmicky plot devices over layered, complex  characterizations was the way to success understood neither the soap genre nor its audience.

On 9/4/2025 at 9:41 PM, kalbir said:

It was the combination of Roger return and Robert Calhoun becoming EP that got GL to finally hit its stride after some pretty bad years. Unfortunately the ratings during the Calhoun/Long/Curlee era did not reflect the quality of the show

When I finally got to see nearly all of that run, it quickly became a favorite. That writing team spreading the story wealth around and making it a true ensemble was wonderful. There were so many great stories and characters, and nobody really felt generic. The dialogue couldn’t just be swapped between characters. The adults felt like adults, and people like Bridget and Michelle felt authentic.