UYI

This would've been after Andrea Evans left the show and right before Karen Witter joined the show, it seems. Sadly, Bronwen Booth (Brunette Andy) died of ampullary cancer last year. When Fiona Hutchison was interviewed by Alan Locher last year, it was shortly after both Bronwen and Andrea's deaths, and she talked about how she and Bronwen became close friends again after running into each other by chance two decades ago--Fiona introduced Bronwen to her husband! Thank you, @Melgaypet, for the shoutout regarding Gabrielle! I haven't even really been here regularly in quite a long time (not even to talk about the Conners, which just came back recently and I had been actively talking about that show on its forum here from the beginning), and it's always nice to be remembered! 🙂

Kristen Alderson gave birth to a baby girl, Kiera Sky, on January 29th. First Baby Pictures Here

20 years ago today. Still bitter.

Late to responding on this one, but I think "I Tina, take thee Cord" at her non-wedding to Max has to be up there, too. I wouldn't be surprised if "I Ross, take thee Rachel" at his wedding to Emily on Friends was directly based on this scene. Damn, Andrea, Ellen, & Kamar, all in one year. I was always fond of Antonio & Keri, and hated how her character got trashed in favor of Antonio & Jessica later on (a couple that shouldn't have existed on the basis of Cristian & Jessica's teenage romance alone, but I digress). Poor Sherri, having to deal with this on Christmas Eve, along with their kids.

I'm late to answering this, but "In My Life" was played on the piano by Peter, who had briefly gone out with Melissa's friend Russell a year or so before that (they were the gay characters who set off a brief firestorm of controversy by--GASP!--being shown SITTING UP in bed together!--and without even touching each other, either, per an edict from ABC), and he had played "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" before that. Peter & Russell hadn't seen each other since they stopped dating, so this was the first time they had seen each other since then. The original broadcast had both a Rolling Stones song and a Rod Stewart song among the songs playing in the background on Michael & Hope's stereo, but they were changed for the DVD release due to copyright reasons. Those were the two songs I remembered most, so when I got the DVDs and realized those two songs had been changed, it drove me crazy, lol. I'm pretty certain all the other songs in that episode remained intact, though.

One thing that EH & ES DID share was their disdain for Arthur Burghardt (Dr. Jack Scott). Erika openly called him out for being one of the only actors on the show that she found unpleasant to work with, and of course Ellen didn't want him to be hired in the first place (for those of you who don't know, a pre-fame Morgan Freeman was up for the role; EH BEGGED the producers to hire him, to no avail).

One story of hers that has always stuck with me is one she told for Jeff Giles' Llanview in the Afternoon book (nerd that I am, I just grabbed my copy off the shelf to share that excerpt here below): Erika, for what it's worth, VEHEMENTLY denied Ellen's allegations in the very same book--which is to be expected, to be sure, but I've always wondered what went down there. I certainly don't like the idea of dismissing the story of a black woman and her experiences with a white woman, but this also does NOT sound like something Erika would do, ever (not that I know her personally, of course). In any case, it was always clear Ellen REALLY did not like Erika--and I don't think it had anything to do with the character of Viki, at least not at first, because I do know that Ellen LOVED Viki's original portrayer, Gillian Spencer (and I want to say she had praised Robin Strasser at one point, too?--I've never read Ellen's memoir--something I hope to rectify someday!--but I read a review of it years ago which mentioned the Gillian/Erika stuff, and I have a vague memory of her saying good things about Robin, too). What is clear, though, is that OLTL's biggest and original sin was the lack of respect and reverence paid towards these characters and actors who were/are every bit as important as the other characters and actors who DID get that respect and reverence from the show--arguably more so, given the barriers they broke in daytime. One other story I remember from the review I mentioned above is that Ellen was asked to attend the 25th anniversary party in 1993, but by that point, she had become a librarian, and she turned it down out of embarrassment--not that there is ANYTHING wrong with being a librarian at all, but I could see her feeling like her stock in life had sunk since she had been a leading lady on the show. In the end, I just hope she found some happiness and peace in her life. She certainly deserved it. RIP, legend.

The dean of Chicago weather is retiring. Good luck, Tom! He is truly the GOAT.

This pretty much sums it up for me, too!

So I started watching Y&R earlier this year--a soap that I'll admit that I NEVER would have seen myself getting into in the past; I guess time really DOES make fools of us all, hee!--and I'll say it: I am LOVING Trevor St. John as Tucker. Whatever issues I had with him on this show, I definitely don't have any of them watching him as Tucker. Granted, he's not playing a character that is being portrayed as almost everything that he logically shouldn't be this time around (to the point where the original actor is brought back to undo the damage and TSJ's character is revealed to be someone else), but still. lol

SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP. I'M SO EXCITED! <3

John, Erika, & Fiona will pay tribute to Andrea on August 9th. <3 (Fiona also posted a LOT of personal photos of her with Andrea on her Instagram page, too.)

The story of where David is/what he's been up to over these last few years has been ambiguous enough that I could definitely see why people would be upset at him having minimal to no contact with Harris or Mark over these last few years (as I recall, the last time we saw him he was in town/at least close enough where they might have SOME relationship if they wanted one with him), but when Mark first brought up inviting him to his graduation, I immediately fell on the side of him being a deadbeat dad/wondering why Mark would bother asking him in the first place, and was relieved when he told him not to come after all. As someone who has always been a Becky fan, I especially loved seeing her in that little graduation ceremony--I know she'll hypothetically get one when she graduates from college (let's hope, anyway!), but having watched where she started when she eloped with Original Recipe Mark back in the day--it meant something to me to see that. And I loved the photo booth in the tag! Some of the tags on this show are so bewildering and weird, I appreciate when they do something simple and fun like this. See in y'all in the fall for (potentially) one more season!

I waited until tonight to watch this--given the choice between watching this live or watching Carol Burnett's 90th birthday special on NBC, it was a no brainer to watch Carol and save this for later. That said--all the expected stupidity aside--the way that Mark's family embarrassed him in front of James at the Lunchbox reminded me of how Dan & Roseanne threatened to embarrass Becky in front of Chip, WAY WAY back in the day before she had even met Mark's namesake. (But yeah, WHY on EARTH would Mark have his date with James take place there? Oh, right, it's their only restaurant set now without the Mexican restaurant--silly me.) And forget the Jailhouse Rock parody-- we missed the chance to see Darlene snark at Dan while he's behind bars again! ("I don't have time for this." "Oh, I think you do.")

When I looked up where that line was from, I realized that the lunch lady position technically wasn't open yet because of Darlene's line, which might be even funnier than Roseanne's line right after it: "The lunch lady at school's been sick for a few weeks, I think she's going to die soon...you interested?" 😅