Essentially, this is... a recap of recaps

[cleolinda]

Today's The Month What My Journal Was Born In flashback: I learned my recappin' in a hard school, y'all. For about three months, I wrote daily Days of Our Lives recaps. And then, between my class schedule changing and the show being on every weekday, I burnt out. BUT THE LESSONS I LEARNED STAYED WITH ME FOREVER. And as soon as I figure out what those lessons were, I'll let you know.

So what I ended up doing this morning was going back and tagging those entries so that you can get them all together (start at the bottom here and move up). Quick excerpts, if you'd like to see what my recapping style was like four years ago:

http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/64769.html
OH MY GOD MARLENA ACTUALLY FELL 500 STORIES BOUNCED OFF A CANOPY AND LANDED ON HER OWN DAUGHTER THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME SHOW IN THE HISTORY OF EVER.

http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/101234.html
Chez Crazy. Shawn [who is chained up in the Love Cage] snips at Crazy Jan to stop it and get off him. He insists that Belle is the only woman he has ever loved and that she did not "brainwash" him. This is not good. Crazy Jan bitches at some kewpie voodoo doll that the doll promised her it would go better than this. Kewpie Voodoo Doll advises her to be patient. I am so not making this up, I can't even tell you. Crazy Jan tells Shawn that she's gonna have to break out the tough love. Shawn's all like, whatever. She returns to the Kewpie Voodoo Doll ("You can do it, Jan!"). She jumps on Shawn again and promises that she has big surprises for him.

http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/102106.html
Chez Crazy. Shawn: "I AM BEING HELD AGAINST MY WILL! PLEASE SEND THE COPS!" Nicole [on phone with Crazy Jan]: "Girl, I gotta hand it to you. You are nuttier than a fruitcake, but you get the job done." Shawn, in the background: "SHE IS HOLDING ME CAPTIVE! PLEASE CALL THE SALEM POLICE DEPARTMENT!" Really, we're on a totally different scene now and I'm still capping this one because I'm crying [with laughter] so hard.

http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/105362.html
John asks Mr. Mephistopheles if it's at all possible that Marlena is alive. Lexie points out that she declared Marlena dead; Marlena was shot through the heart; John held her as she died; and Mr. Mephistopheles adds that HE EMBALMED HER, THANK YOU, CAN WE BURY HER NOW? Marlena: *gasp sigh flop.* Marlena, she not ded yet. Still. Commercials.

Chez Crazy. Jan comes out in a spifforama new outfit for the bank. Nicole: "You realize that if you marry Shawn, you'll be... Jan Brady. Which somehow... would be... so fitting." Jan: "Who's Jan Brady?" Nicole: "Never mind." I may or may not be able to recap the rest of this scene, as now I ded from laughter.

http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/107292.html
House of Bitch. Sami doesn't want to go out to dinner, has right to grieve, leave her alone, etc. Lucas: WOMAN, JUST GO TO THE OLIVE GARDEN WITH ME. Lucas threatens to call his mom and hang out with her instead. Ew, Lucas. Don't blackmail women into going out with you by using your mom, dude.

http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/108369.html
Bizarro Alice's House. Abe worries that Lexie will find someone else and move on--particularly since he told her to. If I get married, and something happens to my husband, I will never be able to see other men because I will always be worried that he's trapped in a tropical Bizarro Birmingham somewhere. Woe.

http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/110084.html
Love Cage. Crazy Jan crazies. My mother, wisely: "See, he needs to fake like he loves her." Me: "Mom... he's been doing that for, like, two weeks now." Shawn: "I want to hold you in my arms. I want to give you the love you deserve." Me: "I told you." Crazy Jan: "...This is an act, ISN'T IT?" Mom: "Two weeks, huh?" Commercials.


I never did find out how the Bizarro Salem or the Love Cage storylines ended up, by the way.

Comments

[hulamoth.livejournal.com]

aw, if I had the time for soaps, I would rock that.

Mr. Mephistopheles adds that HE EMBALMED HER, THANK YOU, CAN WE BURY HER NOW?
sounds like XF.

[greedyskunk.livejournal.com]

Whoa, and this was four years ago? I used to watch DOOL in the mid-90's, but stopped right around when Marlena became possessed by Satan and was torching Christmas tree lots. I really think I stopped just when the show was getting good. Nice to know that the Crazy Train kept chugging away.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was recapping during the ballyhooed Salem Stalker/Bizarro Salem storyline. Sadly, I think Crazy Jan was my favorite part.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Yay for the return of the ghost background!

[musikologie.livejournal.com]

The only time I watched this show was when my college roommates watched it, and it was during this time exactly -- oh, the memories!

[septimus.livejournal.com]

Never did watch DOOL but I was raised on As The World Turns.

[sweetsyren.livejournal.com]

*is confused and British*

Wait I don't get it...is it always like this??

[cassildra.livejournal.com]

All American soaps are like this. Welcome to Bizzaro!Soaps land. :D

I was, briefly, addicted to General Hospital in my freshman year.

[leighdb.livejournal.com]

I only watched Days once, when my friend evilly made me sit with her through like two weeks' worth of the show she had taped. She never did it again, probably because I was HOWLING with laughter the entire time.

Best bit: it was during the whole "Marlena is possessed" storyline, and in the previous episode she had turned herself into a jaguar (!) and attacked someone, and then is all, "Who? Me?" when that Other Blonde Chick came around asking about it, at which point Other Blonde ACTUALLY SAYS: "You can't fool me, Marlena! I know you turned into a JAGUAR last night!"

This would be the point where I actually fell off the couch. UN frickin' REAL. Literally.

[robinmc.livejournal.com]

When I was in middle school, my best friend was a huge DOOL fan, so I'd watch it with her sometimes, and she'd try to explain what the hell was going on. I remember the first time I saw Marlena on DOOL. My reaction went something like this:

"The mom from Our House is possessed by the devil? What?"

[pescivendolo.livejournal.com]

I REMEMBER ALL OF THESE! HAHAHAHAHA.

This is totally how I found your LJ. All those years ago. Ahh, the Love Cage and the Kewpie Doll. Those were good times.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Aw, hee!

[softerthansound.livejournal.com]

I will read the rest of this eventually, but I am currently choking on my own laughter from the first recap excerpt.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

That was the day I started recapping. You see why I couldn't resist.

[paranoidgrl.livejournal.com]

Oh my lord, I think I watched part of that summer. I have no idea how it ended, because I got sick of the show focusing on the teenagers.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I suspect a lot of that was because kids were out of school for the summer, and they were trying to hook the teenage demographic.

[everstar3.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I remember this story line. Good times.

I feel I should share my own bit of soap opera nostalgia: I was looking for an audio book of Jane Eyre and going through the options, and I came across one called "Celebrities Read the Classics." I started listening to Jane Eyre and thought, "Wait, that sounds like... could it be...." It was Juliet Mills, or as I like to think of her, Tabitha from Passions. Needless to say, I wouldn't be able to listen to that particular audio book without waiting for Zombie Charity to burst into Thornfield to seduce Mr. Rochester.

[sneaky-minx.livejournal.com]

And as soon as I figure out what those lessons were, I'll let you know.

First hearty laugh of the day for me. I love you.

[goonie-freak.livejournal.com]

I never watched DOOL but I was very much into General Hospital then Port Charles... With the vampires and the fallen angels and the creepy women coming out of paintings... good stuff right there... Everytime I see the Orbitz commercials I still think of that creepy painting jumper lady...

[jennnk.livejournal.com]

i grew up watching soaps with my mom. i think it was y&r that she watched, with the vicky/nicky evil twin thing going on. she realized it probably wasn't appropriate "watch tv before going off to afternoon kindergarten" viewing when i asked "ooh mama, who is she today? nicky vicky vicky nicky?"

[jennnk.livejournal.com]

oh and i started watching dool when i came home from class when andy (now nearly 3) was a baby. i got so sick of the "i love you/i hate you/i love your brother" sami/lucas bullshit that i stopped.

[undersaturn.livejournal.com]

Grew up on DOOL myself though no longer watch it regularly. I remember the storyline but had to wiki it to check how it actually ended.

I guess Tony was behind everything as some revenge against John. Everyone finds the island of not!dead ppl eventually, Tony blows the volcano to try and stop them from escaping. They all make it back to Salem one way or another in the end.

Whenever I wanna catch up without watching now a days a go to http://prevuze.blogspot.com/ (Recently they super-aged one character from 5 to over 30! O_o)

LOVE CAGE = EPIC

[sarahspat.livejournal.com]

I've been watching DOOL for YEARS...my best friend/coworker and I used to walk to my apartment last summer on our lunch breaks to watch. Then our NBC station in NYC changed DOOL's time slot from 1p to 2p and I can't push lunch back that late and get away with being gone for an hour. It's kind of frowned upon in the professional work force...go figure.

Just called her (from 3 cubicals away at the office...oh yeah) to get the scoop on how the Love Cage story turns out, and she's giving me the deets right now: So, Sean escapes the love cage and crashes his motorcycle through the church stained glass at Belle and Philip's wedding. He gets amnesia from the accident and wakes up thinking that he's engaged to Crazy Jan. Mimi ends up KILLING Jan accidentally because she was tired of Jan manipulating her by threatening to tell Rex about the baby Mimi aborted. And Stan who actually turns out to be SAMI BRADY IN DISGUISE threatens to call the police on Mimi and I'm not quite sure where that goes but I'm sure it involves blackmail because it wouldn't be daytime television without a healthy dose of blackmail. ANYWAY, Mimi and Sean end up getting married and live next door to Belle and Philip and there's all that sexual tension and shit because Bell and Sean are still in love with each other because their love is so EPIC. THEN, Belle and Mimi get pregnant at the same time but it turns out that Belle is actually pregnant with Sean's baby and Mimi with Philip's baby because they were being artificially inseminated and the syringes (tubes of sperm?) got switched up...

She's still talking and I've got a wall of text on my hands. Whoops.

Re: LOVE CAGE = EPIC

[lumaria.livejournal.com]

Small correction: Mimi did not kill Jan. Jan is still in a coma to this day, though, because of Mimi. But she not ded.

[lumaria.livejournal.com]

Days! That's how I first found you! :)

[onesyrinx.livejournal.com]

Oh, Days. I will never forget the time Marlena was possessed and it took what felt like a year and a half to do the exorcism, only to have Satan apparently get sick of the whole thing and basically tell John that all he had to do was shout "Get out of her!"

And it worked.

And then it started to rain fire.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

"LOOK YOU CAN HAVE HER OKAY I AM GETTING KIND OF TIRED AND I AM A VERY BUSY SATAN."

[sturmclan.livejournal.com]

My God. I wish you'd been around to recap DOOL back when I used to watch it. Back in the days of John's a priest and Marlena's possessed by Satan and LEVITATED OVER THE BED, OMG, Carrie & Sami fighting over Austin, Bo & Billie doin' the nasty all over Salem before Hope/notHope came back and one minute she WAS Hope, but the next minute she WASN'T Hope. Or way, way, way back in the day when Bo & Hope went to New Orleans to profess their trueloveomg and dressed in old fashioned plantation clothes outside Oak Alley.
Or the whole Stefano/Kristin/John/Susan (actress playing Kristen with bad teeth, glasses and a frizzy wig) thing with Crazy!Susan getting pregnant and giving birth to Elvis. (Who's now EJ, I think???)

So.....Marlena's a zombie now? Guess Dierdre Hall has given up all pretense of being a good, serious actress. Dear Heavenly GOD.

[greedyskunk.livejournal.com]

Lol! Yeah, this was about my era of the DOOL-watching.

Have you ever noticed how Marlena's expression never changes? My mom and I would (and still do sometimes) randomly turn to each other with a blank, wide-eyed stare and declare we were sad or excited or angry or any other kind of emotion. This was the "Marlena Evans School of Acting."

And on a side note, how sad is it that I'm inwardly happy that Sami and Lucas are an on again/off again couple? I so wanted them to get together back in the day, but I don't think I ever saw that.

[animejosse.livejournal.com]

Oh god. That's even crazier than the ending to Tre Kronor here in Sweden: A mad priest locks in all but three-four people in the titular building and commits suicide bombing.

[violet-q.livejournal.com]

Oh, those storylines are from the year or so that I actually watched DOOL. Memories! I got hooked when they were being stalked by a stalker AND a tiger. Which was awesome. I never found out how the Bizarro Salem or the Love Cage storylines ended up, either.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

I actually watched One Life To Live for a while back in my early college days, because Andrea "Tina" Evans turned up on Hollywood Squares and I was instantly in lust. (Alas, I wasn't the only one. (http://www.etonline.com/news/2008/05/61767/index.html)) Yeah, shallow of me. But then I started getting into in the plots, and was impressed by some of the actors, like James dePaiva as Max, Thom Christopher (who I remembered and loved from Buck Rogers) as Carlo Hesser, and the amazing Erika Slezak as Viki (my God, that poor woman has had SO MUCH CRAZY in her life). I think I finally drifted away about the time they switched Darrins Kevins (again?) and there was the whole thing with Todd being redeemed (because fans liked the actor) even though he RAPED A GIRL WTF.

[jainamsolo.livejournal.com]

WAIT WAIT WAIT. You used to recap Days? During a year when I was actually watching the show? And I didn't know about it!?

Lucas: WOMAN, JUST GO TO THE OLIVE GARDEN WITH ME.

Oh, man. Best ship EVER.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, my journal was about six months old at the time, and I think I had maybe five people reading.

[stephentrendy.livejournal.com]

The really sad thing, is I would trade today's Days episodes for those in a heartbeat. The show is barely moving along and they've managed to make Stefano Fucking DiMera BORING. How you make Stefano boring, I'm not sure. Well, you could have your actors re-write the scripts and storylines and go through more writers/Exec Producers than you can shake a stick at. That might manage to make the show total crap.

I miss Marlena's letter opener. That was my favorite.