Scandals, Sequins and Sex: Primetime Soaps of the 80s
Carolyn Cochrane 0:01
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Kristin Nilsen 1:22
I really thought they were sleeping like that. Was really bad thing to sleep in the same bed, not
Michelle Newman 1:27
how is that possible when you were 40 in 1974
Kristin Nilsen 1:32
for a long time, I thought because they did say, well, they were, they would either say make love, or they would say sleeping with and so I think making love was like rolling around in the sheets you were making. You're really making something. It was love, and then sleeping together was that was very intimate. You slept in the same bed.
Unknown Speaker 1:53
Hello world, it's a song that we're singing. Come on, get happy. Whole lot. It's what we'll be bringing
Carolyn Cochrane 2:06
will make you happy. Welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society, the podcast for people born in the big wheel generation who knew that burping a Tupperware bowl does not mean throwing it over your shoulder and patting its back.
Kristin Nilsen 2:20
We believe our Gen X childhoods gave us unforgettable songs, stories, characters and images, and if we don't talk about them, they'll disappear, like Marshall will and Holly on a routine expedition.
Michelle Newman 2:31
And today, we'll be saving the prime time soap operas of the 80s that captivated us with glamor, scandal, sex and, most importantly, gargantuan shoulder pads. I'm Carolyn, I'm Kristen, and I'm Michelle, and we are your pop culture preservationists. Welcome to Season 15, everybody. What the f Gosh, I'm
Carolyn Cochrane 2:55
sorry, I cannot. I mean, yeah, that's
Michelle Newman 3:00
crazy. Yeah, I was just thinking though, at least we think it's 15 sometimes I'm like, Yeah,
Kristin Nilsen 3:04
I think I was like, Is it someone fact
Michelle Newman 3:07
check us, please?
Carolyn Cochrane 3:08
Yes, I know they're just all, I don't want to say running together, because that sounds negative. It's just we're having so much fun, it's hard to keep count.
Michelle Newman 3:16
It's crazy. Well, this season, we have some really fun episodes and conversations coming to you guys listening. So buckle up. We're excited to be back, I know, and we're really excited for this first one too, about some of our favorite nighttime soaps. So the 1980s was a decade defined by so much pop culture awesomeness, MTV, blockbuster movies and blockbuster movie leg warmers, yuppies, break dancing and so much neon. And it was also the golden age of nighttime soap operas. These Prime Time dramas enraptured audiences with their opulent lifestyles, deliciously scandalous affairs, cliffhanger endings and yes, like I just said a minute or so ago, gargantuan shoulder pads. So many shoulder pads. Are we thinking
Carolyn Cochrane 4:10
triangles? I mean, the curtain rod is it?
Michelle Newman 4:17
Is it because it makes your waist look narrower? Because if that's the case, I'm bringing them back.
Kristin Nilsen 4:23
I could definitely use that. Wouldn't that be
Michelle Newman 4:26
kind of fun? Let's do it, you guys. What if the three of us just started wearing gargantuan shoulder pads, just like non ironically, just in
Kristin Nilsen 4:34
jewel tones. Everything's in jewel tones, like magenta, yep.
Michelle Newman 4:41
So these popular nighttime soaps dominated the ratings, drawing millions of viewers into the glamorous yet tumultuous excess worlds of their characters. And this excess was totally a hallmark of the early 80s. By the way, everything was excess, wasn't it like shoulder, like your shoulder? COVID, your hair, oh, my god,
Kristin Nilsen 5:03
the makeup, the eye makeup,
Michelle Newman 5:06
yes, lip liner. It was so much lip liner, different color, totally, like 18 shades darker than your lips. It's like
Kristin Nilsen 5:13
your face was Technicolor.
Michelle Newman 5:16
It was a piece of art, really was so the combination of the high stakes drama of these shows, the stunning fashion and the jaw dropping plot twists, which I think we're all gonna get to in just a minute, created a perfect storm of addictive television that had viewers tuning in night after night to see what would happen next. Were you guys hooked?
Kristin Nilsen 5:41
Oh yeah, I was not. I wasn't hooked on the genre, but my family was hooked on certain characters, and we were very loyal. And even though it's so funny, even though this was the antithesis of family viewing in my house, it was family viewing. Yeah, same five Nielsen's met in front of the TV every Thursday night at 9pm and also on Friday night at 9pm we got hooked on these characters and their exploits and the same It was sort of the same way we got hooked on Erica at lunchtime in the summertime when my parents weren't teaching school. I
Michelle Newman 6:14
was just gonna say that when you said we got hooked on the characters, I was like, well, that tracks, yeah, yep.
Carolyn Cochrane 6:19
You like this genre
Michelle Newman 6:21
for sure. Yeah, I remember how old you were. I was just gonna say you said you're all five. Nielsen's gathered. And I know that there's some there's some age between like you and your sister, for example. A lot I remember watching especially Dallas, which we're gonna talk about these in just a little bit. But I feel like I was probably too young, and it was just me and my mom that would watch it. My sister probably did too with Dallas dynasty. I think was just me and my mom, but I do not have memories of feeling uncomfortable because, listen, there's a lot of sex. But why don't I have like, feeling like, Oh, I remember feeling so cringy. I don't I just remember being like, oh, where he's sleeping with, who, you know, sleeping
Kristin Nilsen 7:03
with. I really thought they were sleeping like that was a really bad thing to sleep in the same bed.
Carolyn Cochrane 7:09
How is that possible
Michelle Newman 7:11
when you were 40 in 1974
Kristin Nilsen 7:14
for a long time, I thought because they did say, well, they were, they would either say make love, or they would say sleeping with and so I think making love was like rolling around in the sheets you were making. You're really making something. It was love. And then sleeping together was that was very intimate. You slept in the same bed. And they're
Carolyn Cochrane 7:33
not like focusing in or dwelling on that particular scene. You know, it's like, kind of in regular daytime soap operas, you see them like laying in bed maybe after or, you know, a kiss, but we're not like sitting there next to our parents while they're humping or,
Unknown Speaker 7:48
yes, there was no humping. There's no
Carolyn Cochrane 7:52
humping or sound related to it. So it just was kind of a little graduation from what we kind of saw during the day. And we watched those soap operas with our moms and our grandmothers, and I never felt comfortable with the daytime soaps well, and maybe
Kristin Nilsen 8:05
that's why it was family viewing, because they were only insinuating and then we took from it only what we could take from it, which was sleeping or rolling in the sheets or making some they're making love.
Michelle Newman 8:19
It's the boundary of what your little, you know, nine year old mind can handle. And it stops at like, the make out kiss or something, and then it's just like, Oh, you're not supposed to be sleeping on the same bed with her. You're married to someone else. I know.
Kristin Nilsen 8:31
I also think it was that the 9pm time slot was important, because that's when everyone was home, right? We kids now, we were in junior high, we were in high school. We might have games, we might have practices, lessons, we had all the things. In high school, we got a lot busier, but in the evening, everyone was home by 9pm
Michelle Newman 8:51
That's true. That's true. Now some people's dance classes start at 9pm Yes,
Kristin Nilsen 8:56
I don't think we can. We can over emphasize our 1980s obsession with wealth like this was, you mentioned yuppies exactly, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and excess. Everything was more, more more, and all of a sudden, people were setting their sights on finance careers with the goal of working on Wall Street, even though I had no idea where that was, I don't I think most people didn't know where that was, but we were gonna all work on Wall Street, and you were gonna make a lot of money. I went to college intending to be, wait for it, you're just gonna die laughing. I was gonna be an economics major. Yes, I was, well,
Michelle Newman 9:32
no, that doesn't make us that's, you're the mathematician of the PCPs, quote,
Kristin Nilsen 9:36
unquote mathematician. Well, let's, I mean, just from my personality, that is ridiculous. And I told people I wanted to be a stockbroker. I did not know what that was. I did no idea, and I didn't even pretend to know what it was, but it was what we were doing in 1986
Michelle Newman 9:56
Yeah. Well, like I said earlier, it's the excess. The early 80s were defined by excess, and money is one of them, right?
Kristin Nilsen 10:04
And it had to be like it had to be the pendulum swinging from the crunchy granola free love hippies of the 70s. It was materialism and capitalism. And who cares about the state of the world as long as I can have a BMW, consumerism totally. And remember in Family Ties how the parents used to be hippies, and then Alex P Keaton was the yuppie like So that right there shows us every that tells us everything me to know about where these shows came from. Yeah.
Michelle Newman 10:32
Do you guys know what the first prime time soap opera was, the very first one?
Kristin Nilsen 10:36
Okay, hold on. Was it like Peyton Place or something? It was Peyton Place
Carolyn Cochrane 10:45
good for you.
Michelle Newman 10:48
Exactly. Wow, already season 15. She's the champ already. Peyton Place was in 1964 with Ryan O'Neal and Mia Farrow. Oh,
Kristin Nilsen 10:58
was in that show. I kind of feel like I want to watch that. Wouldn't that be kind of fun? That would be very interesting to see the genesis of the prime time soap, how it really
Michelle Newman 11:06
would Yeah, and that's an attractive couple. Yes, it is. So there were really just three shows that reigned supreme in the late 70s and all throughout the 80s. Dallas, Knott's landing and dynasty. And as luck would have it, each one of us loved one or more of these shows, and today we're going to remind you why they were so spelling bind. They were so did they're spelling minded. Carolyn. Do you love that I did that just for Carolyn, I did a word play. I love that little word
Carolyn Cochrane 11:43
play. So let's start with my favorite. My favorite would be Dallas. You
Kristin Nilsen 12:05
I'm doing a flag. I'm waving the flag. I'm in a marching band.
Carolyn Cochrane 12:11
Every marching band did it very Yes, and you might be surprised as to one of the reasons that this is my favorite show. It happens to correspond with the same dates that I moved from Texas to New Jersey. So as you know, Dallas had people well, hold on, as you might know, Dallas began airing in april of 1978 and it really put Texas on the map. I mean, everybody thought Texas was like South Fork and the Ewing family, and so I was kind of like this little expert, like people could come to me and say, oh, did you do this in Texas? Like, Texas was a really cool thing, a cool place to be from. So in addition to just the story lines and the plot lines and everything, I felt like I was a little bit elevated in my new life in New Jersey, because of my previous life in Texas, you
Kristin Nilsen 13:00
had an identity, yes, and it helped you stick out in a good way, in a good way. So here's
Carolyn Cochrane 13:07
a little background for you. In april of 1978 a new family was welcomed into our homes via our television sets. They were a little more glitzy than the Ingalls and the Waltons and the Bradford little bed, just a little, just a little. And as we've said, it was the Ewing's from Dallas, Texas. They were a dynasty whose wealth derived from their oil empire. As everybody thought Texas was just oil wells and oil. And actually, my dad worked for Texaco, so it kind of, oh, you're
Kristin Nilsen 13:38
basically a Ewing.
Michelle Newman 13:39
My dad used to go out, and we would go with him, and he would have to go check the oil all the oil rigs. Oh, would stop by, like a chain, like, just in the middle of West Texas, that just be, like a fence would or like a big gate. He'd have the key. We had to unlock it. We drive right after. I can remember
Carolyn Cochrane 13:55
that smell, Oh, wow. I think people in Texas sometimes, too, thought they were like those giant, like, oil derricks or whatever. Like, I remember things where they were really just, like you said, Michelle, these just in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes, like in the middle of a small town, like you'd see house, oil rig, house, yeah, it was just bizarre. And they were just pumping along,
Kristin Nilsen 14:15
just pumping, pumping, pumping. Yes. Was it called Ewing oil? Is that right? Okay,
Carolyn Cochrane 14:20
yes, yes. And we really followed the rivalry between brothers JR and Bobby Ewing. And really the entire Ewing clan kept America tuning in for 13 seasons, 356 episodes. And interestingly enough, you guys, CBS never envisioned Dallas to be the winner that it became. It was initially scripted as a non continuing, just five part drama, so almost kind of like a little mini series. Oh, and how about that? So it aired the first time on April 2 in 1978 and then it ran five consecutive Sunday nights, and each week the ratings got higher and higher and higher. So. And so based on those impressive numbers, CBS approved 13 additional scripts, and Season One officially began. Wow, as we said, for 356 episodes until May 1991 and at that time, it had become the most watched series in the world and had spawned successful spin off series like not slanting, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But for me, I mean, I think 356 episodes, I gotta be honest, you guys, I didn't watch 356 episodes. No, I think, you know, my love of the show was those initial, first few seasons. Really, to me, it was about those original characters. So we had Miss Ellie Ewing, kind of the matriarch of the Ewing family. We had jock, the dad. Then, as I mentioned, we've got Bobby and Jr. Ewing always at odds with each other. Bobby was played by Patrick Duffy, our man from Atlantis, who is now
Unknown Speaker 15:58
webbed hands.
Unknown Speaker 16:01
Yes, we love Patrick Duffy.
Michelle Newman 16:03
I have such a crush on him.
Carolyn Cochrane 16:07
He was a good brother, you know? And, yeah, right. And do you know who he's married to today? I do.
Michelle Newman 16:14
I don't. I do. Okay, Michelle, Linda Pearl, no, they're so cute. They're all over Instagram. Yes, they both look they look great, but they look their age. They look great. They're such a cute they're such a loving couple. And I don't think it's first marriages for either of them. I feel like they get married only, like, maybe 10 or
Carolyn Cochrane 16:35
fairly recent, but it's a real fun meet cute story. I can't remember all the details, but I remember them kind of sharing it in an Instagram reel. It was Linda
Kristin Nilsen 16:44
Pearl will always be to me. I mean, she's been in a lot of things, but to me, she will always be Sean Cassie co star in the made for TV movie that we're never going to talk about like normal people. Google it because we're not going to talk right now. We can't.
Michelle Newman 16:56
We won't even go there. 110%
Carolyn Cochrane 16:59
agree, and I'm not sure how Linda Pearl would feel about that. We remember her career, but I, I remember
Michelle Newman 17:05
from Happy Days,
Kristin Nilsen 17:07
happy days. Yeah, she was the mom of of the girl from Poltergeist,
Michelle Newman 17:11
that's right, she ended up being fonsi's wife or fonzie's girlfriend in the later seasons. Yeah, well,
Carolyn Cochrane 17:19
I guess we all remember who played Jr Ewing. Who would that be? Kristen? That
Kristin Nilsen 17:24
would be major Tony Nelson from a dream of Genie. Yes, Larry Hagman. I seriously couldn't come up with his name. I'm like Tony Nelson, yeah,
Carolyn Cochrane 17:34
but I'm glad you remember that. And yes, and I think I do remember, and I think I've talked about this before, that initial kind of confusion, because Major Nelson was such a good guy, and I love, yes, he's evil, and I don't think that's an overstatement. I
Kristin Nilsen 17:50
was conflicted, too. I really was conflicted. That's the word, yeah. And his mom was Mary Martin. The sounds right,
Michelle Newman 17:57
that's right. My mom used to always say that because we were big Dallas watchers for like, the first four or five years. And I probably every episode should go, you know, who do you know? Who his mother is? Yeah, isn't
Kristin Nilsen 18:09
that funny? We always chime in with things our parents told us, like, these were the things that they always had something to chip in with when we were watching. That's right.
Carolyn Cochrane 18:17
That's exactly right. The other characters, those original characters. We had Pamela Barnes viewing our first introduction to Victoria principal, or at least for me, it was my first introduction. Was
Unknown Speaker 18:29
she a bright girl?
Michelle Newman 18:32
She might she was, I think she was a girl, yeah, let's start the rumor that she was a bright girl. Well, and also, isn't it about this time, isn't that where Andy Gibb saw her on Dallas and became aware of her Yeah, and his
Kristin Nilsen 18:45
crush developed, yes, right? And as we've said in the Andy Gibb episode, she is not responsible for his mental health. No, she is not responsible. End of story. Okay, moving on. So go ahead. Carolyn, no, 100%
Carolyn Cochrane 19:01
then we had the character that we all love to hate. At least I did, and that would be Lucy Ewing, Charlene Tilton, I loved
Unknown Speaker 19:08
her. We hated her.
Michelle Newman 19:10
I thought I loved her. She was kind of, she was bratty, but I love her.
Carolyn Cochrane 19:15
Yeah. I mean, I loved her, but I didn't want to like, love who she was, because she was manipulative. She was like a mini Jr. I suppose
Kristin Nilsen 19:21
maybe she I never thought of her like that. I
Michelle Newman 19:24
just really liked her. I liked her because, like, I was always going to identify or project myself, my future self, onto the youngest, especially when I'm watching a grown up show. I thought she was beautiful, and her outfits were so cute. And most importantly for me, she was five feet tall. That's right, she was short. Important fact, sorry, she was fabulously she was teeny,
Unknown Speaker 19:48
and I was like the teeny people. And it
Carolyn Cochrane 19:51
was very clever of CBS to cast a character like that, like a younger teenager that we could relate to. Because. We've talked about when we think about our regular soaps, and we had, you know, we loved Greg and Jenny and, you know, characters like that that we could relate to. So we had a reason to tune in. All right, we're gonna wrap it up with Sue Ellen Ewing, Linda gray. We all love Linda gray. Og character, Ray Krebs. He was played by Steve Hanley. I really liked him too. He was, I
Michelle Newman 20:22
did not like him. I did not like
Kristin Nilsen 20:24
Cliff, no, I did not like Cliff Barnes. No, he's a bad guy. He was, he was, like a love American style guy, and then like him, but Ray was in the ray Krebs was in the barn all the time. So,
Michelle Newman 20:35
yeah, I totally was, he was good looking. Yeah, he was, wasn't he? And I always
Carolyn Cochrane 20:39
felt sad for him, because, yeah, he's always in the barn, and he just has this
Kristin Nilsen 20:45
Victoria, yes, and he's not one of the rich people
Carolyn Cochrane 20:47
a ranch hand or whatever. Yeah, he was, like, their ranch. He was the
Kristin Nilsen 20:51
Wrangler. He was the Wrangler. I think,
Carolyn Cochrane 20:54
yeah, I like that word and all that ranch technology. I
Kristin Nilsen 20:58
did work on a ranch. You know, that's
Unknown Speaker 21:00
funny.
Carolyn Cochrane 21:03
A dude ranch I worked on a dude I was the regular on your ranch. Was Mike the Wrangler?
Kristin Nilsen 21:07
No. Mike was the maintenance man. Wait,
Michelle Newman 21:10
wait, wait, wait, understand, listeners, a lot of you are always surprised by the fact that the three of us only met when we were in our 50s. I think I was just turning 50 the week I met you guys show off. Well, yeah, yeah, no, no, no. But listen, what I'm gonna say is this is that we've spent enough time together that we've told all each other all these stories, but we forget because one we've told each other all these stories when we've had men and paws brain. So it's like almost cruel. What I think would be really fun is, let's do an episode, maybe this season we could fit this in where we just say all the things we've done, because we've all given lots of stuff. Everybody knows we were teachers and librarians. That's the easy one. But we've all done some weird things. I've done some things that you guys might go, wait what I think that would be fun. I wonder if our listeners would like that. Listeners, if you're listening, listeners, if you're listening to this. Obviously you are my God. Season 15, the end.
Carolyn Cochrane 22:09
Okay, well, let's just cut to the chase. Everybody, what is the moment you most remember? Very Good gosh, you wanted to win that one too, didn't you? Kristen, there's
Kristin Nilsen 22:18
nothing bigger. There's nothing bigger on Dallas. There's nothing bigger in TV history. I'm sorry. There's nothing bigger. No,
Carolyn Cochrane 22:25
I have such a distinct memory of going to school on the day that it was gonna Yes, and being at the bus stop and my one of the guys a year older than I was, who I wouldn't have thought would have watched Dallas. I mean, it never really came up, and I don't think we always chatted that much at the bus stop, but he was like, Who do you think who shot Jr? Like that was conversation among all generations. Who shot Jr. This iconic storyline aired in 1980 and it caused a nationwide stir, very similar to the mash final series finale that we talked about, millions of viewers tuned in, really worldwide. It became one of the most watched television events in history. And you guys, it turned out that Bing Crosby's daughter shot Jr. Oh,
Kristin Nilsen 23:21
I forgot that. I forgot about that nugget.
Michelle Newman 23:26
I know her character names,
Speaker 1 23:27
but I guess what? What is her name? Yeah, it's Kristen
Kristin Nilsen 23:33
show, yeah. What is her name?
Carolyn Cochrane 23:37
Mary Crosby. Mary Crosby, that's right, yes. And we kind of, or at least I did, kind of, watched her grow up a little bit, because we always watch the Bing Crosby Christmas specials every year, which I'm surprised we never mentioned in any of our Christmas episodes. Yeah, that's right, done because that was, that was just a staple in our house. And I loved, this is so awful. And I've shared this about Lillian before, but Lillian just had a thing when people would divorce like their first wives and then married like a much younger wife. And so you guys told us that before Yes, Bing Crosby was one of those people. So we would watch that. But she would say, because he had those young kids, and he was like an old man, and he had Mary, and there were some sons, and they were always on the special and his wife was pretty young. And my mom would just say, Yeah, gosh, you know, he left his first wife, you know, and I think, for her, and then he would go on and on. So I always felt like those poor kids, like, in my head, they had this. They had this cross to bear because their dad, because the way my mom talked about
Kristin Nilsen 24:35
them, by their name, that's right, like they dad,
Carolyn Cochrane 24:40
yes, yeah. But so Mary, yeah. So Mary, who I watched grow up in the 70s, you know, kind of she was the teenager always on those Christmas specials. But yes, she ended up being the shooter. But we, we didn't know, because the cliffhanger they left with anyone could have been it. It was like, you know, they show somebody with a go. And, or just those kind of so crafty, very soap opera kind of a thing where they go to, like different characters and like you could almost hear the
Michelle Newman 25:11
music Well, and think thankfully, current times with through the magic of YouTube, you can go watch who, you can watch that scene anytime. Oh, I'm
Kristin Nilsen 25:19
gonna do that. It really felt to me like they should have called off school. Like, that's how it was. It was nobody was paying attention. It was like, going to school on Halloween, and the teachers were, like, everybody eyes up here on the board, like, we can't we're gonna find out Bucha chair. It
Carolyn Cochrane 25:34
was like on the cover of Time. It was a big thing. And here is an interesting fact for you. The producers actually created the twist to satisfy CBS request for two extra episodes to end the season. So it wasn't originally like part of the storyline. Evidently, this was like, let's throw in this little Twister cliffhanger thing for these two extra episodes. And again, like so to keep the secret we saw these scenes where anyone could have been the one to pull the trigger, but it was such a pop culture moment that there have been, there's a novelty record out there that an artist named Gary Burbank did, and, of course, a Simpsons episode titled who shot Mr. Burns. I'd never seen that one, but I feel like I probably should, yeah,
Michelle Newman 26:21
Mr. Burns, then is in the wheelchair with the blanket over his legs, just like Jr was in the
Kristin Nilsen 26:28
next 50s, you have to have a blanket over your legs. Why should legs get cold when you're in a wheelchair? I mean, it doesn't make any sense. I think
Carolyn Cochrane 26:37
maybe it was to like, Well, maybe you didn't have good blood flowing. You were cold or two. You know, some people, their legs might have shriveled up a little bit ugly, so they they like covered up their legs, or raising legs after the war.
Kristin Nilsen 26:58
Those are some of the reasons. Has to have the answers. Yeah, right.
Michelle Newman 27:01
There's a story for everything. Yeah. Okay,
Carolyn Cochrane 27:03
a few other quick story lines I want to remind you guys of Do you remember the dream season? Yes, season nine, it aired in 1985 through 86 the season 10 premiere, it was revealed that the entire season prior had been a dream. The
Michelle Newman 27:19
whole season that jumps the shark for me. That jumps the shark for me, dream
Carolyn Cochrane 27:22
for Pamela Ewing. And do you remember why they had to do this, or why they did it? I
Kristin Nilsen 27:27
feel like she was leaving or something. No, it was Patrick Duffy was leaving. Then he changed his mind. So of course, the pre the season prior, Bobby Ewing had had died, and then the next season, Patrick down is like, he's like, in the shower, and he turns around, and we all go, what?
Michelle Newman 27:48
And didn't show his butt.
Carolyn Cochrane 27:51
Oh, I think there was maybe, like, a little foggy, you know, it was kind of one of those, yeah, things through the shower glass kind of a thing. If I maybe, oh, sure,
Michelle Newman 28:01
because that would have been the type of glass in the 80s, for sure, pebbles that type of pebbled, like tempered glass. But right? I remember that being a big deal that he's in the shower. And I also remember that being a big deal for me, you know, 15 year old me to be like,
Unknown Speaker 28:18
rewind. Yeah, he was pretty good,
Carolyn Cochrane 28:20
but yeah, and that scene is just embedded in my brain. I can close my eyes and just see him, like, turning Yeah, like you said, Yeah. I think you maybe even see the soap or something in his hand. Yeah,
Kristin Nilsen 28:34
I can almost see where his hands are placed. And truthfully, I wasn't a Dallas watcher at that time. I wasn't probably saw this on like Entertainment Tonight, right? They probably did this reveal and replayed that moment on Entertainment Tonight. And because of that, I feel like I'm in on the whole story of Dallas, whether I'm a regular watcher or not, which is what makes these pop culture moments? Well,
Carolyn Cochrane 28:55
that, and I think we've talked about this before too. Just the genre of soap opera. You don't have to watch every episode what's going on in a lot of these shows. So you can kind of probably see it on Entertainment Tonight, and then go, oh yeah, you know, somebody was mad at him because of Victoria, whatever you can like, piece together the whole plot line, and you don't have to have watched every episode. All right. Of course, I have a couple more fun facts. Wanted to make sure that you guys knew that in the final season of Dallas, Barbara Eden had a five episode guest starring role. Now, why would Major Nelson? Yes, yes. And they had been college. I don't know if it was sweethearts. They had had a relationship in college where her maiden name happened to be Nelson. So her character was Leanne de la Vega, and she was a billionaire trying to ruin Jr. So I'm guessing that de la Vega was the billionaire guy that she may be married.
Kristin Nilsen 29:53
Okay, so her so JR and Jeannie went to college together. They were college sweethearts. And her name in college was Nelson, Nelson, and then she married Vega, she did okay and became a billionaire.
Carolyn Cochrane 30:07
Yes, okay. And she was impregnated by JR while she was in college, and somehow she lost the baby. I don't know if she had an abortion or a miscarriage or whatever, but it caused her to be infertile. She could never have any more children. So that is what made her determined to ruin Jr at all costs. She was not gonna leave this planet until she had ruined him. So she was on for five episodes. That's
Kristin Nilsen 30:32
brilliant. I'm clapping for you, writers. That's fantastic. Oh, I thought you were
Carolyn Cochrane 30:37
clapping for me that I found that
Unknown Speaker 30:41
Carolyn good for you.
Carolyn Cochrane 30:44
Okay. So as we know, this influence of Dallas on our generation, it extended way beyond its entertainment value, and continues today. Because you know what? Maybe next to the Brady Bunch house, South Fork might be one of the most iconic TV residences of all time, and you can actually visit South Fork today. Not only do they have, like Dallas related events, you could get married there. We could have a PCPs gathering at South Orange. Can we do? We can run we go by the pool. The pool and Charlene Tilton are also embedded in my mind. When she was she was she
Michelle Newman 31:21
was always in the pool. She was always
Kristin Nilsen 31:22
Charlene Tilton, because I think, I think Lucy had a crush on Ray. She
Michelle Newman 31:26
had a huge
Carolyn Cochrane 31:29
crush. Yes, right? Oh my gosh, I forgot about that. Like, with her little shirts, you know, tied up, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 31:34
like Ellie May, yes.
Carolyn Cochrane 31:37
So you can take guided tours. You can relive exciting moments. You can see the gun that actually shot JR and Lucy's wedding dress, Jacques Lincoln, Continental. And how about this? There are two special packages they offer. You can live like a Ewing, where you get to experience the life of a Ewing like never before. You get to have Jr's VIP steak dinner and champagne in the dining room, a trail ride and a private tour of the Ewing mansion. You can upgrade your experience to include a helicopter ride, limousine service and cowboy hats for an additional
Unknown Speaker 32:18
fee. That's so funny, and
Carolyn Cochrane 32:19
that would cost you about $325 per person, plus the extra fees for the cowboy hat. Lastly, you can really upgrade it to the live and dream like a Ewing package, where you can spend the night in the world's most
Kristin Nilsen 32:35
Bobby in your shower. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 32:37
I think that's a nice as well. That would
Carolyn Cochrane 32:41
cost you $1,978 plus a 26% service charge.
Kristin Nilsen 32:49
Thank you for this extra information. Yes.
Carolyn Cochrane 32:51
So, just so you know, friends, maybe after you go visit the Benji house, because you can do that's not very far. So you can make it. Make it a twofer. There you go. Ladies and gentlemen, a few fun little facts about my favorite nighttime soap Dallas.
Kristin Nilsen 33:16
So my family's prime time soap of choice was Knott's landing.
Which is, by the way, the longest running of all of these soaps at 13 and a half seasons. It ran from December 1979 to May of 1993 and most people knew at some point, but then promptly forgot that Knott's landing was a spin off of Dallas. Remember its main characters, Gary and Valene Ewing. Ewing, we forget that Gary and Val Ewing were Charlene tilton's Mom and Dad. So when you talk about the Ewing brothers, you have Jr, and you have Bobby, oops. What about Gary? Forget about Gary. Yeah, no
Carolyn Cochrane 34:13
offense to get people named Gary, but that's probably why
Kristin Nilsen 34:16
that's not a very No. Jr, Jr, yeah, that's right. And Bobby, so Val Gary and valine, they were teen parents, and they left their daughter at South Fork and went to live in the suburbs of Los Angeles. And there's a whole back story about how this happened that may or may not appear in any episode, but it is absolutely bonkers. It was something about Jr framing Gary for some financial blunder at Ewing oil and forcing him out of Ewing oil and into alcoholism, and then valiant running away to find her mama, Lily may in Tennessee. And then Jr tracks her down, and he takes Lucy back to South Fork to be raised by quote, unquote, real Ewing's. But I don't remember any of this on knots. Landing or Dallas. So maybe it's just the back story for the writers. I don't even know. So anyway, Knott's landing was set in fictitious coastal suburb of Los Angeles and initially centered on the lives of four married couples living on a cul de sac called Sea View circle in the Los Angeles suburb of Knott's landing, which I assumed was somewhere near Knott's Berry Farm. Of course, of course, right? It only makes sense. And at first it was very it was very desperate housewives. It really did focus on suburban life and relationship struggles of all the people in those perfect houses produced by the upwardly mobile 80s. But these weren't mansions and estates, these really were cul de sac people. So Gary and Val were the young married couple in the cul de sac. Sid and Karen fairgate Were the solid couple, the salt of the earth couple that everyone admired. Karen played by Michelle Lee and then her husband by some other guy, Laura,
Michelle Newman 35:59
because I usually get so excited when would watch it, because I my mom and I watched all three of these, and when her name would come up, Michelle Lee, I would get so excited, like, oh, look, I'm seeing my name. Like, it would make me so excited. Yeah, right.
Kristin Nilsen 36:11
Then there was Laura and Richard, who were constantly in turmoil and probably shouldn't have gotten married. And ginger and Kenny were the newlyweds, and I have no memory of them, and it dealt with real life middle class issues like alcoholism, infidelity, like the cul de sac was hopping you guys and divorce. Sid and Karen originally, even though it was a it was a spin off of Dallas, and it was about teen parents, Gary and valine. Sid and Karen were written to be the core of the show, even though Gary and Val were the stars, Sid and Karen were the beating heart of sea view circle. But as the show progressed, this began to change, and Knott's landing got soapier and soapier because it was the 80s and everything was over the top, and the storylines expanded to include crime, lots and lots of crime. You got your rape, you got your kidnapping, you got your murder. And sea view circle became a very dangerous place to live, and it might have a lot of this crime. It may have started right around the time that Sid's sister, Abby Cunningham later viewing foreshadowing played by Donna Mills, moved to the cul de sac with her children, and all hell broke
Michelle Newman 37:29
loose. Wasn't she just deliciously evil?
Kristin Nilsen 37:32
She was delicious and evil beautiful, like
Michelle Newman 37:35
somebody my television and you couldn't talk back then you couldn't, but anytime she's gone, yes, I was like, her hair was Hair flip was like, perfect. We really
Kristin Nilsen 37:46
did love to hate her. And FYI, her son, was played by a young Brian Austin Green before he lost his virginity to Tory. Spelling on 90210,
Michelle Newman 37:57
probably just a few miles down the road, just down
Kristin Nilsen 37:59
the road in Beverly Hills. So some would say that the addition of Abby would prove to be the best move that producers ever made to the show. After the first season, the ratings were not awesome. And after that, every show had to have an Abby, every not just Knots Landing, every TV show had to have an Abby, that person that they love to hate. So I think this is quite hilarious. Although they don't belabor their association with Dallas, they do acknowledge it when Gary receives news of his brother Bobby's death and he returns to Dallas for the funeral, and Val even names one of her twin babies, Bobby. These were babies that she had been told were stillborn, but they were actually stolen for black market adoptions. But don't worry, she got them back. But then, as as we all know, Bobby, Bobby's death was just a
Michelle Newman 38:52
dream. So wait, did she have those babies in the dream state? Like think about that? Well, Dream On Knots Landing, too.
Kristin Nilsen 39:00
That's, does the dream apply to Knots Landing? It I don't think that it does. Because on Knots Landing, this was never acknowledged, and Bobby was never mentioned again. But
Michelle Newman 39:10
that was going to be really hard, because, you know, now I could do well, like those time travel, time circle, things you get into, like 13 going on 30 or big or whatever in those movies, that whole thing wasn't really a thing yet. So the writers probably were scratching their heads like, Wait, we can't do this time circle like, this is too confusing.
Kristin Nilsen 39:31
Patrick Duffy, and after that, there were no more crossover story lines between Dallas and Knott's landing, because I'm sure Joan van arc was like, What am I supposed to do with this baby named Bobby?
Michelle Newman 39:47
You know, I have an idea. They could have made it a pretend year for them too, a dream year. And then in the next season, she just has, like a baby doll that she calls Bobby.
Kristin Nilsen 39:59
Do. That's so creepy, that's really good, that could have gotten super soapy. But here's what I think is the most important cultural impact of Knots Landing. I Kristin Nilsson, believe that it's possible that Knots Landing is the vehicle for bringing back the name Abby, played by Donna Mills, the first villain on Knots Landing so and I looked it up. I did some research. I looked it up. There were almost zero babies named Abby in 1978 and then you see a sharp spike in 1980 it literally goes straight up, and that spike continues to grow into the until the early 2000s
Michelle Newman 40:39
were you looking up Abby or Abigail? I did both. Yeah, I think you're right. I think definitely the television shows and characters that either people love or love to hate certainly would influence baby names. Yeah.
Kristin Nilsen 40:52
I mean, there were no, did you have any abbys in your classes growing up? No, no. Abby's name, Abby that was a lady name like Abigail. That was like Abigail Adams, right? The only way we knew Abigail,
Unknown Speaker 41:07
it's true. Mm hmm, yeah. And
Kristin Nilsen 41:10
I think that's the lasting impact all these people we know. All of us know tons of kids named Abby now. And by kids, I mean 25 year olds, 30 year olds, yeah. Mm hmm. Good job.
Michelle Newman 41:22
So let's move on to the third show we're going to talk about. And this show aired from January of 1981 to may 1989 a little over or eight years and that's dynasty you
so dynasty copied the oil Scion theme, but moved the setting to Denver, and it aired on ABC, like I said, for almost eight years. This is The One Show of these three that was produced by ABC series puppet master, Aaron Spelling, and it was actually created to compete with Dallas by 1981 spelling had already produced star skin, hutch, Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Vegas and heart to heart. So why did he pick Denver? Because it's the best city to live in in America, obviously. But really, this is a fun story, and it comes from a from a great article called commas, cat fights and clothes. Sorry. This is just read through my sorry, you guys. And it comes from a great article called comas, cat fights and clothes
Speaker 1 42:37
that didn't make sense to me. No, I was like commas,
Carolyn Cochrane 42:40
but we didn't really react like,
Michelle Newman 42:44
okay, like, I didn't know. I know an oral history of dynasty that was included in a 2021, issue of Denver's 5280 magazine. And I'll share the link in this week's Weekly Reader for those of you who were dynasty fans, because it's really a fun article. It's super interesting. So as otherworldly as dynasty was compared to Dallas, it did possess one tenuous tie to reality, Denver, where the carringtons lived, married, divorced, remarried, died, came back to life, divorced again, remarried again and once discovered a trove of stolen Nazi treasures beneath a lake. Although, although dynasty was filmed in Los Angeles, it was Denver that helped inspire the series. After Aaron Spelling said, We'll do oil, but somewhere else. I mean, smart, right? You couldn't do oil again in Dallas. No, we'll do oil, but somewhere else. There's more oil in Denver. Is there? I should say there's more oil. There's more oil in Denver. That's how you'd say it. In Texas, there's more oil in Denver. I actually don't know. And
Kristin Nilsen 43:43
then significant, if you don't know, I think the answer might be no.
Michelle Newman 43:46
Well, then he met and befriended a Colorado billionaire named Marvin Davis, and that's who he'd eventually based the character of Blake Carrington on. Okay, like, so that was like, based in reality, which I think is really interesting. So spelling took on writers Richard and Esther Shapiro's vision of this rich and powerful family who lived and sinned in a 48 Rome, Denver mansion. I see that here all the time. You guys truly mansion, living and sending your boy. Yeah. So as we know the story of dynasty. It centers on oil magnet Blake Harrington, played by John Forsyth. So, oh, and that's Charlie, by the way, that is true, yeah. So, yeah. So he already had an in with Aaron spell there and spelling and his glamorous new, much younger wife, Crystal, who was his former secretary, I know, and that was played so well by Linda Evans, yes, iconic, I know, right. And their hairdo, my mom, my mom, idol, worshiped Linda. Linda Evans, and everything from her hairdo, from to her fashion.
Kristin Nilsen 44:53
And I do remember, I it was the first time we got to see Charlie. Do you remember that being impactful for you? Oh
Michelle Newman 45:00
yeah, that voice was so familiar to me, I only knew the voice and it
Kristin Nilsen 45:03
came through the little intercom on Charlie's Angels. And here he was in the flesh. And you're like, Oh my God, that's what he looks like.
Michelle Newman 45:11
But when the ratings dropped during dynasty's first season, the producers decided to shake things up and add a villain much like Dallas, much like that's landing everyone into Abby, you do so enter British star Joan Collins, dun, dun, dun. Oh,
Kristin Nilsen 45:26
I did not know she was not from the beginning. She was added Yes,
Michelle Newman 45:30
well, she arrived in season two as Alexis Carrington, Blake carrington's ex wife and a just straight up deliciously nasty female version of JR Ewing and a perfect nemesis for Crystal, which is sealed when she discovered that Alexis caused her miscarriage by startling her horse with a gunshot. How does that work again? So they were famously, they famously butted heads. And According to Entertainment columnist Sue Cameron, the cat fights became so popular that the press were invited to watch the filming of them, and crystal and Alexis famously Brawl for the first time in Alexis his studio, and then later in a coy pond. And I feel like that one is really historical.
Kristin Nilsen 46:16
I can see it. I love that they invited the press.
Michelle Newman 46:20
That's fantastic, I know, and I love this producer, the producer Douglas, as Kramer said, we walk a fine line just this side of camp. Careful calculations are made. We sense that while it might be wonderful for Crystal and Alexis to have a cat fight in a koi pond, it would be inappropriate for Joan to smack Linda with a Koi.
Unknown Speaker 46:42
You Yes. He's
Michelle Newman 46:44
like, we walk a fine line. Yep, he's very serious. Well, adding Joan Collins to the cast boosted the ratings immediately, and by the fall of 1982 it was a top 10 show, and by the spring of 85 it was the number one show in the United States. Yeah. Okay, so we can't talk about dynasty without talking about the fashion, primarily of crystal and Alexis, because it really became iconic and a style. I mean, these women made their mark on 80s fashion. I remember my mother talking about dresses that were crystal Carrington dresses. Or you could look at a nip tucked blazer with enormous shoulder pads and immediately think that's an Alexis blazer. Right in this article that I referenced earlier, Florence Mueller, she's a Textile and Fashion curator for the Denver Art Museum. She said the difference between dynasty and Dallas is in Dallas, it's Jr who is the main character, and he's a masculine character in dynasty, it's feminine characters who are dominant women are becoming much more powerful in the professional world at this time, right? And the big shoulders are expressing this. It's taking up space. So I find this so interesting that all of these fashion choices were very intentional, more for their place on this, on the ladder of success, really, rather than just for their appearance.
Kristin Nilsen 48:02
Yeah, here I am. You can't ignore me. That's right.
Michelle Newman 48:06
Yeah, wow. I thought that was interesting. So a few other notable characters and stars on dynasty, Pamela Sue Martin was Blake's promiscuous, very spoiled daughter, Fallon, true, yeah, and she'll be replaced by Emma Sam's in season five as amnesiac Fallon, because in season four, Fallon is presumed dead after a car accident, but then she reappears months later, and she's different actress, so she's an amnesiac.
Kristin Nilsen 48:31
So when you have amnesia, your looks change, yeah, of course.
Carolyn Cochrane 48:35
Well, maybe, was it an awful, actually good show. They have facial reconstruction. Maybe it was. What happens? Got all maybe
Michelle Newman 48:41
well, Blake's son Steven is played by Al core al Corley. So cute, so cute. I had such a huge crush on him. Look him up. Al Corley, whose complicated relationship with Blake his dad stems from their fundamental political differences and Blake's disgust at his homosexuality, which seems to come and go, though, because he will marry twice in 1982 he leaves Denver for Indonesia, where he'll go missing and be presumed dead after an explosion on an oil rig he's working on, but Blake will find him a few months later in a hospital in Singapore. However, he's had plastic surgery because of all his burns, obviously. And is now played by actor Jack Coleman.
Kristin Nilsen 49:24
So handy. It's so, so handy, actually, yeah, makeup.
Michelle Newman 49:29
And actually, it's Jack Coleman. I'm picturing it now. It's Jack Coleman is the one cute. He was the cute Stephen. And then surgery
Kristin Nilsen 49:36
solves all your writing problems,
Michelle Newman 49:40
yes, and a dream. Yeah. Good job. And then season two brings us Crystal's greedy knee. Sammy Joe Dean, played by Heather Locklear, who will later marry Steven and she's gonna later marry be one of gay Stevens wives. She'll be his first wife, and they'll have a baby Danny together. Now Sammy Jo is very naughty, and that gets her into all kinds of dicey. Predicaments, but you root for her because she is Heather Locklear, yes, and so cute because she's TJ hooker's partner, and on Battle of the network stars constantly. So you just love her, another
Kristin Nilsen 50:10
adorable person. And I have to point out, I never watched a single episode of this show, and I know every single person you're talking about. Well,
Michelle Newman 50:19
here's another one. Then what about the absolutely drop dead gorgeous John James played Jeff Colby and he'll marry Fallon. Now, does he marry Pamela Sue Martin Fallon, or Emma Sam's Fallon? I don't remember.
Carolyn Cochrane 50:32
Oh, I thought that was a little quiz. Yeah.
Michelle Newman 50:35
Okay. I have just a few fun facts to end this. The working title for dynasty was all
Speaker 1 50:45
oil. I call it all I was like, how did I spell that?
Michelle Newman 50:51
George pep from the A team, but earlier, Breakfast at Tiffany's was originally cast as Blake, but felt the role was too unsympathetic. That's what the that's according to the web costume designer Nolan Miller. So he was very famous for the fashion. He designed approximately 3000 costumes over the course of the series, saying, I never want to see them wearing the same outfit twice weekly. Wardrobe budget $35,000 and that's in the early 80s, you
Kristin Nilsen 51:23
guys, that is a career that man had. That's like, that's like, Bob Mackey level, yeah, yeah, ready to have your job. Wow, yeah.
Carolyn Cochrane 51:32
And also, to say, I don't think these characters should ever wear the same outfit twice. I mean, yes, there's, there's your job security. I
Kristin Nilsen 51:41
believe that. Alex P Keaton should wear a different button down shirt in every episode,
Michelle Newman 51:46
right? Okay, John Forsyth was the only cast member to appear in all 220 episodes of the series. So you know, Blake wasn't getting killed off. He wasn't, yeah, let's see anything else fun? Oh, during its run, dynasty explored issues such as, sort of like the other ones, but rape, homosexuality and racial integration, and it put middle aged women in the forefront, though, yeah, and now I it was well, because the shoulder pads, nobody else could stand next to them.
Kristin Nilsen 52:19
Oh, sorry, go ahead. Just Crystal carrington's hair, like I was always, I didn't know if that was gray hair or if that was blonde hair, but I knew it was significant, because this was not an ingenue,
Michelle Newman 52:30
right, right? It was kind of, wasn't it like a silvery blonde,
Kristin Nilsen 52:33
very silver, yeah, yep. She was a woman of a certain age. Oh,
Michelle Newman 52:38
my God, you guys. But what? How old? I bet she was in like four. I bet she was like, I don't want to Okay. Well, okay. And then in season four, Diane Carolyn appears as Blake's illegitimate African American half sister, dominate Devereaux. And then in 1985 there was a spin off. Do you guys? Did you remember there was a spin off? It was called the Colbys? Oh yes, yes, yes. As Fallon returned from the dead and ex husband Jeff followed her to Los Angeles, where they became embroiled in the family intrigues of Jeff's wealthy California relatives.
Kristin Nilsen 53:10
I too, yeah, I do remember that. I don't think I got
Michelle Newman 53:13
into that, but I think I probably tried to watch
Carolyn Cochrane 53:16
it. Maybe I was just thinking about shoulder pads as we've been talking about it. And I just remember I would have, and I want to know if you guys have this, I would have outfits that had the shoulder pads, but they were Velcro, so you could use them out. Oh, yeah, more. So it could be with or without
Michelle Newman 53:31
my room on your bra straps. I had the ones that clipped on my bra straps. Think I did, because you got to have
Kristin Nilsen 53:37
your shoulders high, right? My my roommate in grad school, hi, Allison. She tells the story about being at a bar in college, and she's just out there on the dance floor. She's just dancing super hard, and her shoulder pad, like, makes its way out of her sleeve and lands on the dance floor. And everyone thinks it's a maxi pad, and so they all everyone's just like, backing up, like, oh no. And she's like, No, no. It didn't come out of my underwear. In case, she's like, it's my shoulder. It's my shoulder. I swear to God, it's my shoulder.
Michelle Newman 54:10
Yeah, mine that velcroed on my bra straps would slip backwards sometimes. And so you would have got these little hunches on your Yeah, on your
Carolyn Cochrane 54:18
so in case you're wondering, we asked you all what your favorite nighttime soap opera was, and spoiler alert, it was, Dallas came in with 55% of the vote. I was surprised with this one second place. Knots Landing with 24% of the vote. I'm always surprised by that too. I know me too, but you know, you figure maybe if Dallas had such a huge following, some of those people you know, went over to not landing too, so that they kind of had a built in, maybe advantage. And then dynasty rounded it out with 21%
Michelle Newman 54:52
of the vote. Interesting. Well, what also? It's a very unscientific well, we might cut. Control the ages or anything. That's true. It is science. You're right. Carolyn
Kristin Nilsen 55:05
looked at it, and then I looked at it. Well, Michelle looked at it.
Michelle Newman 55:11
Okay. So quickly, I just want to tell you. I mean, when did Prime Time soaps die? Because we don't really have those anymore. Now it's the Real Housewives. Now it's all like reality Prime Time soaps, right? Yes. So the late 80s and the early 90s marked a shift for the nighttime soap operas, and while shows like dynasty in Dallas continued to dominate the ratings, the genre began to evolve so opulent that opulent, larger than life drama of the early 80s that we've just been talking about, gave way to more complex storylines and character development. And so we see series like Melrose Place and Beverly Hills, 90210, introducing younger and more relatable characters and tackled contemporary issues, which broadened the appeal of the genre, right? Because then you've got these like we like I said earlier, I latched on to, you know, Charlene Tilton, because she was the only youngster on that show. But now you've got all these other shows that are really speaking to we were exactly the demographic of Melrose Place, like those people were born the same day I was born. And then we have our compatriots who were born the exact day that Tori Spelling was born. Yeah, these were speaking directly to us, and they were soapy, and there was some plastic surgery, there was still amnesia and stuff like that, but it was a little more relationship and and like you said, character driven and more realistic storylines. I think it wasn't based on
Kristin Nilsen 56:33
we could relate to the same degree, remember,
Carolyn Cochrane 56:35
and Melrose Place wasn't there. This is just popping into my head, the the scene, or the plot line where the woman like she's
Kristin Nilsen 56:46
looking in the mirror and she peels her face off, and it's the dead
Michelle Newman 56:50
doctor, the red hair. She's got red hair, straight red hair. Oh my god. Why? Okay, right now we're all having menopause brain come we're gonna Google her name, and it's gonna and people right now listening or shouting it out at us. Shout louder. It was, it was
Kristin Nilsen 57:03
the who shot Jr moment, or it was Bobby in the shower. It was that moment where, like, yeah, he married her again, but he thought she was dead and he thought she was never birthing. It was Kimberly. Kimberly.
Michelle Newman 57:14
Kimberly, Dr Kimberly Shaw, pulled off that wig. Yeah, yeah.
Carolyn Cochrane 57:19
And her brain tumor,
Kristin Nilsen 57:21
and she pulled off the wig, and her brain was showing Yes.
Michelle Newman 57:24
And of course, you guys, I'm sorry I did have to go to the Googles for this, but of course, it was Marcia Cross, yes,
Kristin Nilsen 57:34
yeah, oh yes. She was no, that's Mark cherry. Never mean, yeah.
Michelle Newman 57:39
But however, then, as the decade progressed, the popularity of those shows like the Melrose places in the Beverly Hills, 9021, OHS began to wane because viewers tastes shifted towards other TV formats. Now, so don't, let's not forget the time we're starting to get way more channels, way more cable opportunities for us to watch all kinds of other things. Pretty much this is when we're starting to lose, oh, we all have three channels and we have to watch primetime TV. We could watch a whole bunch of other HBO things. Yeah, right, yeah. And so yeah, while the legacy of nighttime soap operas lives on in the form of countless reruns and cultural references, I mean, who shot Jr is a battle cry for a generation, right? And and Boomers, because they were the adults watching right when they were the children. Yeah, that whole era of this prime time soap dominance came to a close. I mean,
Kristin Nilsen 58:29
it really did end really hard. When you look at what are the what are the hallmarks of the 90s? Think about X Files and Twin Peaks. We had these very we were turning toward more toward dark and supernatural. We had charmed. We had Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. It was getting a little more imaginative, and it certainly wasn't focused on that wealth anymore. No, no. In retrospect, we can see how these shows in retrospect, we can see how these shows, in particular, these wealth obsessed shows, really reflected the spirit of the 80s. Mayberry was gone, the Waltons were gone. Get out of here, poor people like we're not. We don't care about you anymore. And let's get let's get a little thinky here. We can connect that to the administration of Ronald Reagan and the embrace of trickle down. Embrace of trickle down economics. But we're not a political podcast, so we're not gonna talk about it. But Google it. Google it. It was the era of the rugged, obscenely rich cowboy, which was Ronald Reagan or Jr, or they went in the same chicken or the egg, right? Yeah. All of this is to say these shows are historical artifacts, like, quite literally, they should be studied, and someday somebody is going to be able to get a PhD in dynasty. Thank you so much for listening today, and we will see you next time,
Michelle Newman 59:57
and a gigantic, super sized thank you goes out. To our Patreon members who take their support of this podcast and the entirety of the pop culture Preservation Society to the next level with their monthly donations that make it possible for us to keep on trucking, and today we're giving a shout out to patrons. Melissa, Annabelle. I love that name, Annabelle, God. I love that name. Sandra Rosa, Susan the dead sleep podcast, which we love, by the way, and recommend Jenny, Sherry, Aggie, Elizabeth and Nina. And if you'd like to explore the fun perks our patrons get as a thank you for their support, just go to patreon.com P, A, T, R, E, o, n.com and type in pop culture preservation up in the search
Carolyn Cochrane 1:00:42
box, and another way you can support us is by liking and following us and sharing the podcast with others. That really helps us get our numbers up and our podcast shown to others, and it helps
Kristin Nilsen 1:00:53
our community grow. Yeah, and it's easy. In the meantime, let's raise our glasses for an extremely expensive toast with the finest vintage of sparkling wine, maybe from the vineyards of Falcon Crest, courtesy of the cast of Three's Company, two good times, two
Carolyn Cochrane 1:01:13
Happy Days, Two Little House on the Prairie.
Speaker 1 1:01:18
Cheers. Clink, clink, clink, clink. Du information, opinions
Kristin Nilsen 1:01:27
and comments expressed on the pop culture Preservation Society podcast belong solely to Carolyn the crushologist and hello Newman, and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we are always right, there is always a first time the PCPs is written, produced and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional wjm studios and our beloved Mary Richards. Nanu. Nanu, keep on truckin, and May the Force Be With You. You.