Talking Simpsons - Pygmoelian With Louis Peitzman

Beetlejuice the musical had the best description of gay republicans, invisible and completely powerless

Erin MacAllister

@drew I remember watching Port Charles when it aired (both the intern focus and the supernatural focus.) I remember the transition wasn't jarring since the show went into a 13 week long "closed ended" arc. In fact, GH just recently did a small homage to one of the arcs I want to say it was Superstition for their election episode. Lucy lights the time candle. When Joslyn and Trina came back from 1920, Lucy said, "this candle should not have been lit" implying she remembers that time. Since Lucy came back, Port Charles was integrated into GH's cannon. GH held on as long as it could. I do remember people being annoyed by the flashbacks . Haha!

Angel

General Hospital didn't record as much in advance as Days of Our Lives, but did manage to keep going longer thanks to some amazing (for the time and budget) runtime padding editing that added more previous scene recaps than a soap parody. Also, Passions was trippy as fuck. The living doll and all that made GH's spinoff Port Charles and all of its vampire slaying seem tame in comparison.

Drew Waranis

You talk about how people are likely more familiar with the Beatles’ ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’ cover than the original, but, as a hardcore Beatles fan, I’ve gotta say that their hippy hippy shake cover is getting into super obscure territory, as their cover only appeared on the 1994 collection of radio performances ‘Live at the BBC’. Your average Beatles fan would not know this song. People are likely more familiar with The Swinging Blue Jeans’ version, which reached number 24 in the US charts

Since I am a soap opera fan, I am going to hold my tongue on a lot facts. However here are two that might interest you, the show with the devil posession was Days of Our Lives. I think All My Children was incorrectly mentioned. This marked an important pivot towards shows trying out supernatural storylines because that story aired during the OJ Simpson Trial and was the only show to see it's ratings rise. The writer for that storyline was given a deal from NBC to work on his own soap opera which became Passions. The other fact is most soaps had to stop producing during COVID-19. When the shows ran low on episodes, they held back a few episodes to air when restrictions lifted for continuity and scheduling purposes and aired classic episodes. The only soap opera to have new episodes during that time was Days of Our Lives because of an erratic schedule for budgetary reasons. This led to them having 6 months of episodes to burn off. They are only recently airing their post-COVID episodes.

Angel