Asp Burger
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Dante and Cody's conversations about camp (and oh how I wish I meant Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Pink Flamingos) remind me a lot of the early Olivia Falconeri days. Remember the incessant conversations she and Sonny would have about some nun from their childhood, some fruit vendor on their street, or some other Bensonhurst local color the script writers were pulling out of their asses?
It's forced, as @dubbel zout says, and it's also overcompensation. They want badly to emphasize the importance of a new character in the history of a character we've been following for years, even though we'd never heard about this person. It's also unnecessary, because most of the people who watch a show like this one have been introduced to a lot of new characters who have old history with the existing ones. We're well drilled. If the script says "This is So-and-so's never-before-mentioned childhood friend," like they did with Liz and Terry, we'll go with it.
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I know Dan has said that Holly's feelings for him were a complete fabrication, but I dunno. A lot of Holly's emotional testimonials to him during that Challenge were not edited. We could both hear and see her saying "Dan" in on-camera interviews. One example came at the end of the season, when she was crying and talking about how she wasn't going to see Dan anymore now that everyone was going home. And she did seem absolutely glued to his side.
It's possible she was just really into him as a friend rather than romantically. If the producers grossly misled us, I think it was more doing Holly dirty. She was the one viewers were calling a stalker and worse. Dan was portrayed as resolute not to get involved with anyone, because he had the girlfriend back home.
Both Teck and Seattle David claimed in the Challenge 2000 section of one of the RW books that Holly really was into Dan. But Teck adds that she was just as much into David. David doesn't say a word about that.
On 7/6/2022 at 11:22 AM, Tatum said:Granted, I am not sure in the early days of B/M they were that interested in manufactured drama, but the option was there.
This is one thing that I think the New York cast couldn't really relate to. Their season was almost a practice run, compared to later ones. The time the castmates were living together was shorter. There were fewer episodes. The producers and editors were still figuring their format out. So their season was more authentic and less manipulated than any later one (although it was still manipulated -- there were a few "We all decided to..." group things that I'm sure the producers fed them, like the prank on Kevin). They just didn't have the same experience that, say, the Hawaii cast had.
I like Heather and dislike Tami, but they were both right. You have to take responsibility for how you behave on camera, knowing it's very likely to be part of the finished product, but the producers can make anyone look better or worse in the edit. And it does shape viewers' idea of you.
If over five months, I talk about a particular topic six times, maybe that isn't an overwhelming amount of attention to one topic in the big picture of everything I say. But if every time I bring it up, it goes in the show, a viewer will reasonably conclude I'm obsessed with that topic. Especially if there's zero coverage of numerous other things I talk about.
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On 7/1/2022 at 10:47 AM, ljenkins782 said:
Are those reunions on Youtube? I have zero recollection of Kaia being on anything beyond her original season.
I don't think YouTube would be helpful here. Last time I looked, only the 1996 reunion (seasons 1-4) was there.
In the 2001 special (with all of the first nine casts), I think the only part she did was the party. She really avoided the cameras. We just saw her walking in, all in black and stony-faced. Most of the arriving people were waving to the crowd, chatting with Miami Dan the emcee, and looking as if they were going to a party. And many of them were doing "confessionals" or chatting with each other or with Dan during the party. (I remember Kelley and New Orleans Melissa talking to the camera about how we should forget their pseudo-fight at the end of their season, because they were friends now.) None of that from Kaia.
In the 2000 reunion (seasons 5-8), as above, Cynthia and (Miami) Melissa talked about how stressed out Kaia seemed backstage, and Cynthia said it was too soon for the Hawaii cast to have to go through this. Melissa replied, "The first year, you're bitter. The second year, you seek professional help. The third year, you're over it!" Kaia did seem tense the whole time she was onstage. The host, Dave Holmes, asked her if she had any poetry for the audience, and she said she wouldn't read a poem because then she wouldn't have the copyright, but her poetic speech was "Speak as much truth as you can." Teck burst out laughing, and the audience joined in. She didn't seem to be in a good place with it all. She said the positive thing she got from doing the show was "having seen [her]self."
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21 hours ago, ljenkins782 said:
I'm shocked that Justin wasn't one of the holdouts, given the hatchet job they did on him on his way out. I'd have been really interested in how he turned out and what he had to say about his edit.
His having had a novel published in the last year or so may have had something to do with his willingness to do a Homecoming. They'd let him plug it. I'm sure Kelley had at least a few more sales of her FLOW book from being back on television for eight weeks. I'm still planning to read Lone Stars eventually. One of these Amazon (or library) trips, its day will come. I hear it's quite good.
Kaia did seem shell-shocked in the two reunions on which she appeared. Weren't Cynthia and Melissa from Miami talking backstage in the 2000 one about how scared she seemed?
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Syrus is better-looking in that current photo than he was on Real World Boston or the Challenge.
On 6/29/2022 at 3:24 PM, Lantern7 said:I think the only ones from her season people would want to see are Ruthie and Teck . .. and we'd be reminded that she was a mess that endangered herself and others. Also...would you want to see Matt for any reason? Maybe to see if he's still not capable of blinking?
I'd watch a Homecoming for Hawaii. I strongly disliked most of them in 1999, and even the ones I didn't mind so much did things that weren't cool, but I found them entertaining. For a Real World cast, they have an impressive record of accomplishment in the grown-up world since 1999, so they'd have a lot to talk about.
Re: Matt, my sense is that once he got the "working in movies/TV" bug out of his system, or realized he wasn't headed straight for the top in it, he found a way to channel his irksome big-brother-who-knows-best tendencies in a more constructive direction with his teaching career.
8 hours ago, ljenkins782 said:Rachel has got to be close to 50 if she's not already
She turned 50 this past October.
7 hours ago, BelleBrit said:Syrus said "We don't talk." He said that he was the one who introduced Sean and Rachel
Huh. I thought we had seen their first meeting on television, when they both did Road Rules All-Stars. They definitely played it that way, but maybe it was for show.
I can't think about that season without remembering the song they wrote and recorded. "We've got Cyn Dawg from Miami and Jon from LA / We've got Rachel comin' down from the Frisco Bay / We've got Eric from New York and Sean from Beantown / We've packed up all our things and we're ON OUR WAY NOW." I'll still be able to sing that when I'm in the home. Poor Eric kept flubbing his line at the end and having to do it over.
6 hours ago, choclatechip45 said:I just googled Evita and she appears on Fox News all the time and writes a column for the Federalist so at the moment her views seem very similar to her parents.
Yes, I looked at her Instagram the other day. Nothing on it surprised me, given her origins. Suffice to say, she's definitely not one of those kids who rebel against their parents' views.
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Was that reminder that Carly went to nursing school (but didn't finish) planted for a reason? Is that the next thing for her, she loses the hotel and becomes a nurse, and two weeks later is "head nurse"?
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14 hours ago, movingtargetgal said:
Violet is so annoying. It is not the young actress's fault, it's the direction she is being given. That saccharine sweetness and lisp are not adorable, it just grates on me.
Agreed.
There is a perilous age group for GH -- old enough to do more than be carried around as a little prop, but not yet a teen who can be in relationships -- and Violet is in it. Thinking back 20 years or more, I think the only child actor on this show I've truly enjoyed was that one outstanding Morgan, Aaron Refvem. He had the role for the first couple of years of Dante. He was wonderful.
All the others who are coming to mind have been super-stiff, or really unpleasant (Dylan Cash as Michael), or if they've shown any flair for acting at all, they've been encouraged to ham it up and they've been over-featured. Nicolas Bechtel had talent, but they went in awful directions with him.
The previous Charlotte wasn't bad, but I can't say I looked forward to her scenes. Hudson West (Jake) did well with the brainwashing story, but I can't remember much around that.
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On 6/25/2022 at 9:17 PM, Daisy said:
Well this wasn't because Carly was stupid. this happened because once again, Carly thought she knew more than anyone else, and refused to listened. She was being Carly. In fact this happened because she was Carly and then men in her life were so collossaly stupid that not to flat out tell her why it was wrong starting with it was 100000 percent illegal.
Cue Carly-on-the-bridge scene, talking to Jason. "This never would have happened if I had you here to talk me down. God, I miss you so much!"
ETA: And you have to keep in mind that Carly is brave and strong, and when she invests, she invests with her whole wealth. Not just a part of it!
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On 6/25/2022 at 12:16 AM, Lantern7 said:
Lets see . . . I'm going to assume this is the oldest daughter. I remember when Sean & Rachel brought her to the Reunion and Ruthie wrote her name on the kid's foot. That was in 1999, so I'll assume she was born in '98. That would make her 23-24 years old.
The reunion for seasons 5-8 in which various Real Worlders took turns babysitting Evita was in 2000.
Evita was born in October 1999. Rachel said the baby was five months old at the time of that reunion. So, it was taped in March 2000 for airing in May.
Evita would be 22 now. And yes, she was the one who just got married.
QuoteActually, I haven't seen any of the Homecoming seasons. Does anyone else feel weird about seeing those? For me, the concept is offputting, and I can't put it into words.
Kind of, but they're not as unpleasant as the later Challenges that I saw in the '00s. Those were super-toxic. At least these Homecomings make some feints at constructive things, even if there's a lot of bad with the good.
New Orleans is the best of the three.
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49 minutes ago, Grinaldi said:
Anyone remember the name of that old forum that was just bitter old queens posting the most scandalous gossip? It's where the whole Carolyn Hinsey payola thing blew up.
It's probably not the one you mean, as it's still around, but Datalounge has regular discussion of the remaining soaps, and it matches that description. Lots of behind-the-scenes dish that may or may not be true.
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Since I just fell off the turnip truck this morning, hitting my head on the way down, my hope is that Carly has to go through a bad patch when the sekrit of Willow's parentage is out. We all know she'll be an unrepentant bitch about it, so maybe besides Nina and Sonny, Millow will also have her on their shit list for at least a few days.
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Just something else for the "how the sausage was made" file, from the Hawaii book.
In the "how they were cast" section, Colin describes the experience of an open casting call. He, his friend Trevor, and a young woman named Sol were sitting at a table with Mary-Ellis Bunim herself.
Per Colin, Bunim instructed Trevor to ask Sol something that would "really embarrass" her. Trevor asked Sol something "obscene," and Sol had a good comeback to it. Bunim told the three of them they had an interesting dynamic. Someone else told them they would get a call by Sunday if they were going to be part of either Real World Hawaii or Road Rules Semester at Sea. You know the rest of the story. None of them got a call, and Sol, Trevor, and Colin became three of the four "rejects" who hosted the casting special.
So, that's where the process was by 1998-99. The co-creator of the show wanted to see how a boy would go about humiliating a girl and how the girl would handle it.
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A new Melissa interview in Vulture. "The show had been on for eight seasons by the time we got on, and we kind of did know what we were getting into, but the piece that I didn’t understand was the permanence of the choice. I’m now 45 years old, and I’m still Melissa from The Real World."
If you're out of free articles with this site and you're wondering whether you should clear your browser just for this, I'd say it depends on how much you like Melissa. There's nothing in it she hasn't said on the Homecoming interview circuit, her social media, or the show itself, but it's a pretty good read. I love that "that lady" doesn't come up even once.
https://www.vulture.com/article/real-world-homecoming-new-orleans-melissa-beck.html#comments
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4 hours ago, Mirabelle said:
On the shallow end, Carly needs to set the dial on the spray tan back a few levels. She's literally orange on my TV.
(George Costanza voice) "She's like a carrot!"
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23 hours ago, statsgirl said:
Wyatt is the Pioneer (!?) who found Peter in the cabin when Obrecht had him tied up and was torturing him. He pops up occasionally, I think he found Scott in the woods when he was thrown out of the plane by Victor's goons. Knowing how Frank hires people, I wonder if he's played by someone's son.
Wyatt's other appearance (between finding Peter in the cabin and finding Scott in the woods) was as a patient at the hospital. He needed to have some operation (tonsils?) and he was scared about it, and Peter gave him a pep talk about bravery.
They really seemed all in for a while with trying to make Peter happen as a sympathetic character. It's weird having this recurring kid on once in a while to bring back memories of it, since his early appearances were largely to facilitate it.
On GH kids: Yeah, I'm still finding every scene with Violet overdone and cloying. and there are So. Many. of Them. I'd never wish anything really bad on an actual kid, but a huge growth spurt (making all the talk about tea pawties too ridiculous even for Frank's GH to continue) can't come soon enough.
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I don't see why Teck needs each individual holdout to give him a reason. Every time I hear that they can't get all seven people from a cast together again, I'll assume the reason is that people have moved on with their lives, they don't want to be on television again, and they specifically don't want to be vivisected in the Bunim/Murray lab again. I understand that. I'll watch a Homecoming for a season I enjoyed, but if I were a former cast member, the three seasons to date would not make Homecoming more tempting to me. Quite the opposite.
Teck got off lightly in 1999 and then parlayed the experience into a career as an MTV personality and sometime actor, and maybe his point of view on fame hasn't changed much. Some of his castmates didn't have a great MTV experience, and now they have careers and families far from the entertainment world. While "low six figures" is a nice amount for a few weeks of your life, not everyone will be swayed by that.
Matt, for example, is a teacher. By the accounts I've read, he's good at it and well liked by colleagues and students. I can see him thinking it's bad enough that anyone can go to YouTube and find the 1999 version of him with watery eyes saying "I sense the torture in Ruthie's soul," without risking embarrassment a second time.
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"The man I married five times" was unintentional comedy gold. And it's, unfortunately, on brand for Carly. She lacks the awareness to connect the easy dots: you had to keep marrying him again and again because why?
Admittedly, some of those may have been those "vow renewals" soaps do when they have no idea what else to write for a stagnant couple.
Okay, I just did the research. I got six. Twice to the Sarah Brown version (one a renewal of vows), once to the Tamara Braun version (a renewal of vows), three times to the Laura Wright version (one a renewal of vows). Three official divorces. Two more times when it seems like they got divorced, because they were separated and there were lawyers and they kept talking about it, but they ultimately threw out the papers or didn't sign them or whatever.
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From Melissa's Twitter.
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I found Colin more likable and genuine than Kyle. I didn't mind him relative to some others in that cast. He just seemed young and had some unexamined privilege. There were moments that made me think his heart could be in the right place. I liked his rapport with Ruthie toward the end of the season, as well as what he contributed to the work meeting about comedians saying offensive things.
The Hawaii book is a good one. I've been looking through it since I watched that season again recently on YT. What hits me about it is that this cast came in with an unusually high level of arrogance, and then they got knocked on their asses. I think several of them believed they knew how the game was played and could beat the house, so to speak, and then they got a rude awakening when they saw the footage they'd given the producers to work with and how it was assembled. Probably the only one who got away completely unscathed, got exactly what he wanted from the experience, was Teck. Colin's edit wasn't as bad as some, and maybe not as bad as it could have been. Matt, Ruthie, Justin, Kaia, and Amaya all got creamed in one way or another.
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I don't have much to add on this latest post-show round that hasn't been said. We can believe one of two things; (1) Kelley, a fairly public person about whom the worst anyone said even 22 years ago was that she was boring and that she gossiped a little with Danny, has decided to smear Julie with outrageous lies. In this endeavor, she has been embraced and supported by three of five other cast members. The other two haven't commented to say Julie is getting a raw deal and none of this happened. Or (2) Julie, who vowed to be the one to "make good TV," and who's been grossly inappropriate on this series and others before it, was also grossly inappropriate in incidents not caught on camera. As bad as she seemed in what we saw, she was getting a good edit.
It isn't a hard call for me.
On 6/13/2022 at 2:14 PM, BelleBrit said:I think that Julie gets a special kick out of shocking people, like how she used to push her parents' buttons on the original season by claiming that she is rooming with Matt, or how she used to get really touchy feely with Matt when it was clear that it was making him uncomfortable.
About that. Here is producer Andrew Hoegl's quote about Matt and Julie, from the 2000 New Orleans book. "I thought it was really funny to watch Matt and Julie's relationship. It was so painfully obvious that Julie was just pining away for him every second of the day. For the first month and a half, Matt was totally oblivious, and then afterward he was uncomfortable. After she realized he was uncomfortable, she did it more. She'd try to kiss him on camera! His squirming just made us laugh."
That quote (and the mentality behind it) is an example of why even those of us who have fond memories of Bunim/Murray shows from the '90s and early '00s have complicated feelings about them today. That's hardly the worst behavior production encouraged (they fed Puck's "bad-boy legend" nonsense by putting him on television regularly for a decade; they invited the violent CT back for Challenge after Challenge; they didn't send Julie herself packing after the harness incident), but it's troubling. Just because it was a cute blond girl doing it didn't make sexual harassment wholesome fun.
You have to wonder what effect it had on Julie if she got positive reinforcement for acting that way in 2000. The feedback could be anything from crew members giggling to producers praising/thanking her for it at the end of the season. Well, there's no "if" -- Hoegl's quote itself is positive reinforcement.
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Yeah, Colin had a main-cast role on M.Y.O.B. with Lauren Graham and Katharine Towne. I'm not sure when that show was in production, but four of the eight completed episodes aired in summer 2000, at the time Real World New Orleans was running.
So, it is a plausible scenario that shortly after leaving Hawaii, he got hooked up with an agent who told him that distancing himself from Bunim/Murray would be a good move for his acting career, hence his withdrawal from The Challenge and his no-show at both the 2000 and 2001 reunions. Then he was over the aspirations to an acting career by the time he joined Battle of the Sexes in 2002.
I do wonder which Challenge 2000 guy got the call to be his replacement. The final lineup for the RW side was Amaya, Heather, Kat, David, Mike, and Teck. I'm thinking Miami Mike was the one whose number came up in Rolodex Roulette when they lost Colin.
The Hawaii cast was heavy on wannabe Hollywood people. Teck and Ruthie obviously wanted entertainment careers. (Ruthie kept talking about "this opportunity" being taken away when they were trying to get her into alcohol treatment.) Kaia says in the book that she wants to be in movies. Matt wanted to write/direct.
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It's interesting that Colin says in the Hawaii book that he'll be taking a semester off to tape the Challenge that fall. Amaya and Teck also say they'll be doing it. Colin says he hopes he and Amaya can keep it civil. But he wasn't on that Challenge, although Amaya and Teck were. If he changed his mind, was Seattle David or Miami Mike his replacement?
That would have been a Real World team heavily loaded with Hawaii cast members, but it was a popular season when it was airing.
Ugh. Imagine eleven more episodes of the Colin/Amaya "relationship."
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On 6/9/2022 at 11:36 PM, CeeBeeGee said:
Ah, okay, you guys make some good points--Chris could be a little dull. I guess I let him slide because trying to stay sober is so difficult, plus he had to "educate" the Theos and the Tonyas of the loft, be a Good Little Gay example and he certainly didn't repel me the way some RW participants have. (Adam in Paris, eg.)
I was a Chris fan, but I sometimes gravitated to the calm person in various houses (Pam and Mo in San Francisco, Rebecca in Seattle). It's fine as long as there aren't four or five such people. (Hi, London season!)
I think it was just where he was. His improbable friendship with Theo was interesting to me.
I don't think anyone in the Chicago cast was a waste of space. I couldn't stand some of them, but that's The Real World.
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My biggest memory of Theo on the Challenge is when he was on some spinning contraption and was supposed to hold on as long as possible, and he was yelling "Oh Lord, give me strength in my arms!" and similar things the whole time. While I know he's from a religious family and I don't question the legitimacy of his beliefs, that kind of devoutness rubs me the wrong way. It seems performative, like the objective is to make sure everyone around you knows you're religious.
Chris Beckman has an Instagram, if anyone's curious what he looks like, what he's painting lately, what his dogs look like, etc. One of his posts from this year commemorates his 21 years of sobriety. I know he rubbed a lot of viewers the wrong way by talking about that so much, but good for him for maintaining.
Episode Discussion II: The TFGH
in General Hospital
· Edited by Asp Burger
Cynthia Preston is a lot to live up to, but I thought the Faith Rosco recast had a pretty good first day. I believe her as the same character, somewhat older. It's interesting that they're involving her with Nikolas and Spencer.
Oh, my bad. It's just Ava, having a hair off-day.
Re: Josslyn talking about Diane getting Sonny acquitted over and over for years, when "he was always guilty": So, buttercup. Think back to when you were so offended that your supposed close friend Cameron strongly believed Jason had committed a murder. You cold-shouldered him for weeks over it. Who (allegedly) ordered most of the murders Jason (allegedly) committed? The always-guilty guy, right? I can't with her.
Carolyn Hennesy is a good actress, and that's a lot of the reason Diane works as this supposed powerhouse attorney. The writing in the courtroom is usually dumb and unbelievable, but I believe her as an effective attorney for the way she speaks and carries herself. I expect cases on soaps to feel rigged; they're going to go the way the writing needs them to go. This show has "needed" Sonny, Jason, and Carly to come out on top for so long. But I've never minded Diane herself. It could be so much worse, and we get just the right amount about her personal life (very little).
Poor Mickey Horton on DOOL never won a case in the '90s. They'd bring him out of storage whenever one of the show's heroic characters was being framed for murder or whatever, and he'd lose (because the writers planned to have the character literally in the gas chamber before being exonerated). But everyone would still talk about him all the time as being one of the country's finest defense attorneys. It was a running joke with the DOOL fans.