Rewatching The Early Years

[cymbaline]

TV and soap magazines are, by their nature, a throwaway thing. All the same, it's a pity that there isn't an archive of them. Perhaps the answers to some of our questions might lie within their pages. So many old issues have been lost forever, apart from random ones that people held onto. These days I love looking at scans of old magazine articles when they pop up. They're such a snapshot in time and can be quite entertaining. Especially when you read interviews with actors you barely remember but who were leaving a soap and planned to become the next big thing in Hollywood. 

The only time I cared about Floss and Neville was when they had that grandson storyline. That was well done and something people could relate to. On the other hand, I hate hate hate Floss's psychic flashes. It's bad enough that they did it in 1988 but they continued with that shtick on her return. 

[CaptainHulk]

  On 21/02/2025 at 16:25, cymbaline said:

TV and soap magazines are, by their nature, a throwaway thing. All the same, it's a pity that there isn't an archive of them. Perhaps the answers to some of our questions might lie within their pages. So many old issues have been lost forever, apart from random ones that people held onto. These days I love looking at scans of old magazine articles when they pop up. They're such a snapshot in time and can be quite entertaining. Especially when you read interviews with actors you barely remember but who were leaving a soap and planned to become the next big thing in Hollywood. 

The only time I cared about Floss and Neville was when they had that grandson storyline. That was well done and something people could relate to. On the other hand, I hate hate hate Floss's psychic flashes. It's bad enough that they did it in 1988 but they continued with that shtick on her return. 

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People who dabble in that stuff have a hard time letting it go completely.

[adam436]

  On 21/02/2025 at 16:25, cymbaline said:

These days I love looking at scans of old magazine articles when they pop up. They're such a snapshot in time and can be quite entertaining. Especially when you read interviews with actors you barely remember but who were leaving a soap and planned to become the next big thing in Hollywood. 

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I enjoy reading the interviews with actors I used to really enjoy watching who perhaps we don't really too much about or know about their thoughts of working on the shows at the time. You learn lots of little bits of info of actors who have since faded into obscurity, like real-life romances between actors or that they had kids etc. 

I still recall the TV Week gossip column of one issue of TV Week said Georgie Parker was in talks with Neighbours about a possible role, and they were negotiating a schedule that allowed her to commute between Sydney and Melbourne (I think something similar was offered to fellow H&A alumni Jodi Gordon and Kip Gamblin). It obviously came to nothing and I've never found it again or a trace of it online, but there must be so many behind-the-scenes stories and gossip snippets in those magazines that have since been lost and make interesting trivia now. 

 

  On 21/02/2025 at 16:25, cymbaline said:

On the other hand, I hate hate hate Floss's psychic flashes. It's bad enough that they did it in 1988 but they continued with that shtick on her return. 

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Me too - the one she had Bobby is probably the prime example of why I didn't like Floss. Her telling Bobby about that caused so many disruptions for Bobby, just as she was becoming settled into a stable life with Tom and Pippa. Floss just wouldn't let it go. 

I know the show has to think and about keeping the show fresh and not "let's make sure we still have some original cast in 20-30 years time", but the majority of the cast likely didn't leave of their own accord: 

• Lynn, Floss, Neville, Martin and Lance were all definitely axed. 
• Celia, Tom and Pippa #1 - based on Cornelia Frances' comments about her own exit, it sounds like those three were either axed or something went down behind the scenes that led to their departures. 
• Steven and Carly - I suspect they didn't have their contracts renewed, but we don't know for sure. By 1990, the show was moving into the next generation of the Fletcher/Ross family (Michael and new Pippa, Finn, Sophie, Haydn), so they may have it felt it was the natural time for Steven to move on too, especially since Steven had just finished high school and his peers Emma and Viv had left a few months earlier. And Julian McMahon wanted to leave, so it's very possible Carly was written out too, since the character would have become a spare part in the new Ross family, and had pretty much run her course. 
• Roo - Justine Clarke supposed wanted to leave because of the way she was treated by viewers. Justine has had the most successful post-H&A acting career of the original cast, so she would have left sooner rather than later anyway, but we still might have got another year or two out of her. 

So that just leaves Frank, and longer-running characters Bobby, Fisher, Ailsa and Sally. 

[cymbaline]

Interesting. Can you remember what Cornelia Frances said? 

 

[adam436]

It's discussed briefly on page 32 of this thread. I did a quick google and couldn't find any reference to the original article though, so I only know what was mentioned there.

[CaptainHulk]

Talking of Cornelia, she guested in an ep of the Ferals

[adam436]

The Ferals was one of my favourite TV shows as a child

She also was the voice of the tortoise in Magic Mountain, another 90s Australian children's classic. 

Cornelia had some really fun roles in the 90s and early 2000s when her career had a bit of a resurgence (perhaps in part to the H&A reruns). As well as the Weakest Link, she played the Madame of a brothel in the Ned Kelly parody film Ned and a cynical book publisher in Always Greener.  

[cymbaline]

She appeared in an episode of G.P. and was a nice person in that. That was pretty jarring to me because I only knew her as nasty Morag. 

[j.laur5]

  On 01/03/2025 at 11:04, cymbaline said:

She appeared in an episode of G.P. and was a nice person in that. That was pretty jarring to me because I only knew her as nasty Morag. 

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Only roles she ever really was mean was in early years H&A and  her guest appearance in Prisoner and even in  Young Doctors i wouldn't say her character Sister Scott was nasty  but just someone who meant business and had no time for people fooling around in work place.    

[cymbaline]

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Edited March 2 by cymbaline