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"I wouldn't be surprised if there were some submissive men in the audience right now who would love nothing more than to sit right here by my feet and play with my boots and kiss my feet, but they wouldn't have the nerve to do it in public. ..."
-- Mistress Kellie, a sexually dominant woman, on Sally
For today's viewing, I watched a baker's dozen episodes and clips representing five talk and morning shows, five daytime soaps and the "Big Two" of 1988's primetime soaps. While I regret not giving my usual level of care and commitment in selection, I feel like I did find an interesting assortment. All clips are courtesy of YouTube, those who uploaded and any production companies or distributors.
The Oprah Winfrey Show (Men who don't talk to their wives, July 18, 1988)
-- I'm fascinated by this period in Oprah's career, when she was a TV star but not yet queen of the universe. I don't know if she grew out of it, but in some of her '80s episodes that I've seen, she'll do things like character voices and otherwise be more animated than I remembered or am used to. There's less shtick in this episode, which has three long-married couples (I'm going to guess they're all in their '40s) and Dr. Herb Goldberg, author of The Inner Male.
-- Halfway through this episode, I developed a theory. It wasn't so much that director Jim McPharlin was overdoing the audience reaction shots (although 54 in less than 44 minutes is excessive) as it was that he and/or the show was trying to psychologically influence the at home audience. There's a real diversity in reactions from the people in Oprah's studio. This contrasts with the three husbands and some of the men in the audience. They all seemed to have the same rationality for lack of communication. It was like that when they were growing up. Other than Oprah's antics, the most excitement comes from a little tension between Dr. Goldberg and Andrea Kaufman. "Hopefully men will evolve and develop. Hopefully we'll have a different basis --" "This year?"
-- We even get a Stedman story. He and Oprah were on vacation, with him laying about and her reading a book. He admitted not liking that she was hanging out in sweats, which led to a "big conversation" about how she'll make an effort when being around other people, but not him. It also led to Oprah going shopping.
Santa Barbara, Sept. 29, 1988 (Two clips total.)
-- Nearly nine years after Luke raped Laura on General Hospital and nearly seven years after their wedding attracted a record audience, the show got called out by its timeslot rival. Santa Barbara ultimately failed to go the distance against GH and Guiding Light, but for a few years it received plenty of Emmys attention and some good press. It helped that the show had an anything goes, so let's kill the sacred cows reputation that actually wasn't too far off from GH's at the start of its celebrated second wind.
-- Eden Capwell Castillo (Marcy Walker), both recently married to Cruz (A. Martinez) and a rape victim, reads a pair of crass, self-absorbed actors from "General Clinic," who play the roles of "Linc and Laurie," for filth. I want to respect these scenes more than I can. The soaps should be held accountable for storylines where rapists and their victims ultimately fell in love. GH was neither the first nor last show to do that. At the same time, Santa Barbara should have been held accountable for the juxtaposition of Eden describing her rape as another one takes place. If that wasn't bad enough, the serial rapist was ... Eden's gynecologist!
-- Soap Opera Digest reported on the production of these scenes. Of the three interviewed, Marcy Walker (who previously played a raped character on All My Children) comes across as the most level-headed and responsible.
Sally ("Dominant Women," 1987)
-- Things are livelier than they were over at Oprah. We have four women who are into what we now call BDSM. I wouldn't say that Sally Jessy Raphael and her audience don't know what to make of Mistresses Rose and Kellie, Mistress "La Mystique" and her submissive Gene and Mistress Jacqueline and her slave Joseph (sporting a leash and collar, of course). I'd say that several probably made up their minds rather quickly.
-- I was most fascinated with the exchange between Kellie and the angry female audience member, not so much because of what they were saying but because of how hostility on talk shows was handled back then. Sally had less audience reaction shots than Oprah, but still an excessive amount for a half-hour series: 26 total. Maybe I just didn't notice her, but it seems like the one audience member left or deliberately didn't get any more attention after she spoke her peace. Speaking of hostility, remember that 1988 was the year that Geraldo Rivera got his nose broken when a fight broke out on his show, while Jerry Springer was still reporting in Cincinnati.
Ryan's Hope (Sometime in 1987-88) and All My Children (Monday, Feb. 8, 1988)
-- Awful sound quality aside, these clips are worth watching because of how well they show off their leading ladies. Maeve Ryan (Helen Gallagher, who won the Daytime Emmy in 1988) is dealing with the possibility of losing her husband Johnny (Bernard Barrow). I believe they were on the outs for reasons including the reveal of his illegitimate son. Anyway, Helen, like many NYC soap actors, had extensive stage experience. I'm always impressed by how well some folks could modulate their performances for the intimacy of TV.
-- Erica Kane (Susan Lucci, who'd finally win the Emmy 11 years later) is giving birth for supposedly the first time. I almost tried to track down the two episodes that aired prior to Bianca Montgomery's birth, where a comatose Erica dreamed that she's was in a romantic movie opposite all of the men in her life over AMC's past 18 years. The men included her then-husband Travis (Larkin Malloy), who shares a sweet moment with Erica when it turns out that she actually delivered a daughter.
-- Bianca was the first of Erica's children to be born on screen, but was actually her third and last child. Years later, AMC introduced Kendall, Erica's daughter after being raped as a teenager, and more controversially, Josh, who turned out to have the fetus that Erica and viewers assumed she had aborted in 1973. No really, the "unabortion" happened. Bianca, meanwhile, dealt with everything from setting the house on fire when she caught Erica cheating with her uncle to having anorexia to coming out as a lesbian to being raped by a man and getting pregnant.
-- Hey, It's ...!: Yasmine Bleeth, with a high head of hair, as Maeve and Johnny's granddaughter Ryan. Would you buy Yasmine as Kate Mulgrew's daughter?
-- Legend has it that Lucci had it written into her contract that she'd have not only her children's birthdays, but their first days of school, off from work.
Today (Sometime in the summer of 1988?)
-- Jane Pauley interviews Penny Marshall on the success of Big. Penny mentions how the movie was the last of 1987-88's body swapping comedies and also said that she feared that audiences would get confused since there were so many other movies with "Big" in the title. If anything, I'd think that the makers of Big Business (and maybe Big Top Pee-wee) would have more reason to be nervous about Penny's movie.
-- "So, what are you going to do next? The pressure is on." "Oh, well, I'll have to do something, eventually ..."
Dynasty ("Body Trouble," Dec. 8, 1988)
-- "Dinner is served ..." After more than seven years of Krystle Carrington (Linda Evans) being too serene for the scene, it's a lot of fun to watch her tossing plates at extras and antiques. She's doing so because of a brain tumor. That's how Krystle/Linda left the series. After renewing her vows to Blake, she went to have high risk surgery in Switzerland. It failed, leaving Krystle in a coma that she came out of for Dynasty: The Reunion. Once conscious, she was brainwashed to kill Blake (John Forsythe), but his love deprogrammed that. Did I mention that Blake was another of those soap characters who committed rape but was redeemed?
-- On a lighter note, Alexis (Joan Collins) had a fun reaction to this fiasco. "(paraphrased) I've never known her to throw a tantrum, let alone a plate."
Dallas ("The Fat Lady Singeth," May 13, 1988)
-- "I don't care what you say, I'm goin' after her." ... "I'd like to report a double murder. ... This is Sue Ellen Ewing." Alas, both of the cliffhangers in this clip ended up having poor resolutions.
-- Since Victoria Principal was adamant about never reprising the role of Pam Ewing, Cliff (Ken Kercheval) shared his next big scene with Margaret Michaels. Pam, who had underwent plastic surgery after surviving a car crash and explosion and fleeing the Dallas hospital, claimed that she had started a new life and was remarrying. She was actually terminally ill, a plot point that lasted all the way up to the conclusion of the Dallas revival series.
-- Michaels came back for a few episodes in 1990 as a "Pam lookalike" who Bobby (Patrick Duffy) dated and used for resolving his feelings of loneliness and abandonment. He did that so he could marry April (Sheree J. Wilson), who ended up killed in Paris after being kidnapped by ... I'm not kidding you .. Sheila Foley/Hillary Taylor (Susan Lucci).
-- On the one hand, it's thrilling to know that Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) finally shot J.R. (Larry Hagman) after all the misery he had inflicted on her. This included keeping her from their son, John Ross (Omri Katz) and causing her boyfriend, Nicholas (Jack Scalia) to fall to his death from a balcony. On the other hand, it looks a little like Dallas wasn't exactly sure what the cliffhanger would be. Would it be the man plunging to his doom? Oh, but they revealed it wasn't J.R., so we are going with the shooting cliffhanger. I dunno, maybe it would have been better if they had teased us with the question of which man plunged and which one was shot?
-- As it turns out, Sue Ellen didn't seriously wound J.R. The 1988-89 season, Gray's last before reunion movies and the revival series, included J.R. and Sue Ellen divorcing again, him being forced (twice) into marrying country girl Cally (Cathy Podewell), Sue Ellen saving J.R. from being executed by the mob and her getting involved with writer-director Don Lockwood (Ian McShane) before leaving the U.S. with him.
The Dr. Ruth Show (This was actually October 1985)
-- I don't have a lot to say about this clip. Dr. Ruth (who's still alive at age 93) has a pretty good rapport with Eartha Kitt, although she does seem to cut her off or interject quite a bit. Eartha's promoting a Carnegie Hall concert and chatting about daughter Kitt Shapiro, the vegetables she grows, her diet, pre-performance fears and what it means to earn applause.
-- "I can tell immediately if the applause are honest applause, or whether they are applauding for something I did 20 years ago, or whether they're just being polite. And that honesty of the applause, that's what I'm waiting for and that's the greatest payment in the world."
The Young and the Restless (Sometime in 1987) and General Hospital (Dec. 23, 1988)
-- After nearly a decade atop the ratings chart, GH fell to Y&R in 1988. My late grandma watched the ABC soaps, so I don't have a whole lot of familiarity with Victor (Eric Braeden), Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott), Ashley (originally and currently Eileen Davidson) and Jack (currently Peter Bergman). I will note that it's fun to catch Nikki having one of those "I'm going to narrate everything I just saw" moments that only seem to happen on a soap. As for Victor and Ashley, reuniting after she had an abortion, well, results may vary.
-- Our last soap clip is of ex-spy leader Sean Donnelly (John Reilly) marrying ex-actress Tiffany Hill (Sharon Wyatt), nee Elsie Mae Crumholtz. The couple had been dating for two years and would stay married by the time they left GH in 1995. Their wedding party included Commissioner Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers), formerly and eventually married to ex-Commissioner Anna Devane (Finola Hughes), who was presently married to reformed mobster/nightclub owner Duke Lavery (Ian Buchanan). Robert, who had dated Tiffany around the time of Luke and Laura's wedding, just ended a relationship with Tiffany's sister Cheryl (Jennifer Anglin). Folks, that's the short version of the story. I haven't watched GH in years, so I don't know how Robert, Anna and Duke's lives have changed since they all came back from the dead.
Attitudes (Sometime in the summer of 1989)
-- Finally, we have the Lifetime talk show hosted by soap legend Linda Dano (Another World) and Dee Kelly. I like Linda a lot, but I also have to admit that she kinda comes across like your mother's fabulous but slightly insufferable friend. Kinda like a Godmommie Mame, you know?
-- There's a lot going on in this episode. The main reason why I chose it was because Rosie O'Donnell was a guest. This was Rosie during her VH1 VJ days, before she made movies and before she was a talk show force to be reckoned with. In addition to Rosie's huge hair and suit, note that before there was Tom Cruise, there was Greg Louganis. She had a running gag that the only that would cheer her up was seeing Greg "in his Speedo briefs." Greg found out about this and surprised Rosie on air during Thanksgiving 1988.
-- Hey, It's 1989!: Linda and Dee are doing a week on what's hot. Alas, I missed the episode with Linda and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I did see her and Dee shining the light on fax machines (which you can have in your car, too!), the Nakeds cosmetics (Andrea Robinson and Kevyn Aucoin are also guests), folk art, going to Thailand, Zsa Zsa Gabor (proving that any publicity is good publicity), wearing your hair short, having "a cellular phone," becoming a mother, the band Living Colour (who proved that not all of the Rolling Stones' opening acts set the world on fire), having tofu pizza and soy milk and driving a Miata.
-- Hey, It's also 1989!: Another reminder of how the nursing industry really didn't like the show Nightingales.
Thoughts:
-- "(Rosie appraises her first headshot) You wanna know the sad thing? I thought I looked good that day. Do I look like David Cassidy or what?" I'm actually seeing more Donny Osmond there, Rosie, but whatever ...
-- Awards Watch, talk shows: The Oprah Winfrey Show won its second straight Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show in 1988. However, Oprah didn't repeat her win for hosting. Phil Donahue won in 1988, followed by Sally in 1989 and Joan Rivers in 1990. Then it was five straight years of Oprah wins.
-- Awards Watch, soap operas: Santa Barbara dominated the Daytime Emmys in 1989, with wins in the Outstanding Daytime Drama Series (its second of three consecutive wins), lead actress (Walker), both supporting acting (with a tie for supporting actress between Nancy Lee Grahn and Debbi Morgan of All My Children), young male actor and writing categories.
-- "That's a terrific thing to say for a mother, that it's not just 'It's my daughter,' but that you really like her."
-- I would watch a whole show about this woman.
-- Next: Married ... with Children. On deck: Tidy Endings and bonus Mystic Pizza.
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