1 hour ago, Khan said:

Gary Tomlin, IMO, is a more palatable version of Frank Valentini or Ron Carlivati. He's just as much into camp and pretty young (male) thangs as they are, but it's not nearly as annoying with him, nor does he let it get in the way of telling the damn story.

I dunno about that. I think Tomlin's OLTL was much messier than earlier Carlivati. There is a lot of 2002 especially that is just plain embarrassing. And frankly FV had no definitive signature for years until he got together with Ron and they became industry stars. He just produced the show and kept it running smooth under multiple HWs; it took years for his ego to manifest. I do think Gary means well and has done good work, but it's apples and oranges to me between the 3 of them.

As for Walter Balsom, I have no idea the ins and outs there. I just know Ron confirmed that he had pitched Roxy being trans and Rex's father and it got shut down. Later he hinted at it in the final weeks, when Roxy discovers her favorite heroine on Fraternity Row (who IK/Roxy 'played' in the Fraternity Row fantasy episode in late 2011) was born male. (Ron did the same with his plans to make Shane Morasco gay - his last act with the character was to send Shane off to 'the Phil Jimenez Art School.' Phil Jimenez is a prominent and openly gay comics artist.)

Edited 16 hours ago16 hr by Vee

From early Santa Barbara, about 8-10 weeks in, there was the dropped story of Russian submarines patrolling the coast. One of them saved Joe from drowning, complete with a sexy Russian female spy, and the subs seemed to be the reason Cruz the super spy really had come to town. Joe and Cruz were going to be true action-adventure guys. The whole thing was dropped once Joe got recast, and they had an earthquake instead.

Also, they were always planning on doing a blonde girl and a Latin male as a couple, but they were originally going to do it with the teens Jade and Danny. With those actors having little chemistry and acting ability, and the overall show struggling, they decided to really go for it, ditching the teens and switching that story to adults, Cruz and Eden. Eden was originally going to mix it up with the more Anglo characters of Warren and Lionel.

Edited 13 hours ago13 hr by Jdee43

Russian spies?? That is insane.

4 hours ago, Vee said:

Russian spies?? That is insane.

Russians were fave villains of the 80s. GH had them, I think OLTL did, too.

On All My Children, Dr. Joe revealed to Jack that he had a heart condition (I believe in a Friday cliffhanger), then it was never discussed again.

7 hours ago, Vee said:

Russian spies?? That is insane.

And soooooo not in the Dobsons' wheelhouse.

DAYS: Bill Bell was going to have Bill Horton raped in prison.

What the hell was the original plan for Jordan Ridgeway? I'm actually surprised Chrishelle Stause hasn't yet to spill the beans on that one.

Also, during Cwikly's first tenure, they alluded to there being some connection between Celeste and Caprice the nanny.

And originally, Austin was brought on for Jennifer, and Kate was attracted to Jack.

8 hours ago, Jdee43 said:

From early Santa Barbara, about 8-10 weeks in, there was the dropped story of Russian submarines patrolling the coast. One of them saved Joe from drowning, complete with a sexy Russian female spy, and the subs seemed to be the reason Cruz the super spy really had come to town. Joe and Cruz were going to be true action-adventure guys. The whole thing was dropped once Joe got recast, and they had an earthquake instead.

Also, they were always planning on doing a blonde girl and a Latin male as a couple, but they were originally going to do it with the teens Jade and Danny. With those actors having little chemistry and acting ability, and the overall show struggling, they decided to really go for it, ditching the teens and switching that story to adults, Cruz and Eden. Eden was originally going to mix it up with the more Anglo characters of Warren and Lionel.

Thanks for the extra Santa Barbara details. What a fascinating show this was, due to so many factors. I am still never sure why they recast Joe with Mark Arnold (nothing against him), but I guess they weren't interested in the character anymore.

3 hours ago, Jonathan said:

On All My Children, Dr. Joe revealed to Jack that he had a heart condition (I believe in a Friday cliffhanger), then it was never discussed again.

This, IIRC, is the story Walt Willey said never happened because he had gone from being not in the best shape to going on a health and fitness kick and being in much better shape at just the time they were giving him this plotline.

I remember people here mentioning a black man appearing with Leanna during her early days on Y&R. He was never mentioned again. What was that all about?

Austin/Jennifer and Kate/Jack is wild. Weren't J&J still going strong at that point, or was Reilly already angling to dump Ashford?

7 minutes ago, Vee said:

Austin/Jennifer and Kate/Jack is wild. Weren't J&J still going strong at that point, or was Reilly already angling to dump Ashford?

Matt Ashford and Deb Adair were on the show together for about 8 months, and had story together pretty quickly after her debut because he had found her manuscript. Her attraction to him is canon! The manuscript history was mentioned a couple times in recent years. One of the few things I'll give RC's DAYS kudos for is finally making Jack a real character again.

19 hours ago, Wendy said:

One last thing I remember was the whole thing with David and Angela Raymond and Angela's dead, never-seen sister, Marilyn. The show, when the characters were introduced, seemed to hype that death up as some sinister mystery, but no one cared, especially since David wasn't well received (and meant - per the Dobsons in an interview - to be Julia's next big love interest, which didn't pan out!), while the audience did like Angela - out of David's orbit. The whole thing was reduced to some throwaway scene or line (been so long now) with Angela revealed to have been the driver, but nothing happened. The audience shrugged and moved on.

I think the Marilyn story point wasn't dropped, I think it changed due to the head-writer change. I truly think the Dobson's had intended there to be something sinister that was set to come out. They set up Angela/Warren interacting with him interested in finding out what happened to Marilyn while she was jealous of her estranged husband's interest in Julia. If I recall the timeline correctly, Warren/Angela start hooking up while the Dobson's are head-writing.. I think it was right around the time Amado was killed and Craig losing his mind. The Dobson's also decided to flip the Cassie character changing her from their perspective of a grey character to being the obstacle for Warren/Angela.

I know that one the early things that Pam Long did when taking over as head-writer was bring back up the Marilyn story with flashbacks to scenes of a young David/Angela getting out of the car wondering where Marilyn was... with a crazed Cassie trying to use this as a way to break Warren/Angela up. I think the high school reunion (where Kim Zimmer's Jodie was introduced) was where the Marilyn story finally came out where Angela felt extreme guilt for the death of Marilyn.. because she was the driver, maybe jealous of Marilyn/David. The story actually made Angela more of a tragic anti-heroine than an antagonist.. and Cassie ended up having a mental break when her plan didn't work. The last scenes of Cassie were her trying to get better in a retreat and Warren telling Cassie that it was horrible they were kept apart due to lies, they couldn't go back and that he was focusing on his future with the last scenes of Cassie vowing to get better.

I would say the story was changed with the new head-writer in order to tie up the Cassie story, resolve a plot point that didn't have much focus, gave backstory on the tension between David/Angela, and made Angela sympathetic for carrying huge guilt.

Another Santa Barbara story that was dropped was involving the character of Suzanne (the real Suzanne that Eden borrowed for her split personality). Once her brief fling with Cruz ended, Pam Long had promised there was going to be a new chapter and romance in her life. The writing seemed to indicate that Ted/Suzanne were going to be a couple.. with their banter, food fight, Suzanne assuming her restoration work was ruined by ted, etc.. with the main conflict for a possible relationship being that he was dating her friend and roommate Katrina (I would have also added the Eden element.. but the show seemed determined to not mention her much). However, by mid summer, after Suzanne is injured in a fall from a cliff due to her work at restoring a photo in the haunted mansion mystery (Ballymoor).. she decided to cut ties and leave town. Made me wonder if the shaky status of the show (only given a six month pick up) caused Long to cut short whatever plans she had for Suzanne.. or if she didn't see Ted/Suzanne as working since she focused Ted eventually toward Angela's orbit, wrote out Katrina and eventually had an odd Ted/Lily/Angela/CC sort of situation develop in the last weeks of the show.

Lots of dropped stories from GH 1990, when Gloria Monty came back as EP. The show had spent 2 years selling Scorpio as Lucas's real bio father, something he didn't know about, and Gloria was having none of that, switching it in 2 days.

A few years ago on General Hospital, I remember certain characters reacting to it being unseasonably at wintertime, and I wondered if somehow they were going to bring back the weather machine since Victor Cassadine was back on the canvas in the form of Charles Shaughnessy; however, that seemed to be dropped along with some other stories around that time too.

Yeah, they totally dropped the weather machine revisit on GH in '23. Drove me nuts.