Nutgraf

I grew up with The Young and the Restless. The program apparently started when mom was expecting me, and has been a peripheral if constant presence ever since. Sick days, summers, the odd holiday… we watched it. Often with sandwiches, since it’s been in the same time slot since dinosaurs roamed the earth. Well, mom finally got up close and personal with the show. But why don’t I let her tell it.

Mom on the scene

Okay, I admit it. I have watched The Young and the Restless for 35 years. Not consistently, mind you, but often enough to know the difference between Adam and Billy, or say, Ashley and Mac. Long enough to have seen Victor age as a pater familias, and lose some of his boxing form. I’ve seen Ashley played by a variety of folks, with the best one (Eileen Davidson) comfortably settled in the role again. I’ve seen the town prosecutor die, only to be reborn as his own evil twin (people wrote in – they missed the actor). Mrs. Chancellor, of course, is the same as she has been for 35 years—let’s send up a hurrah for actor Jeanne Cooper, who once allowed her facelift to be written into the scripts, and who is in real life the mother of actor Corbin Bernsen.

I guess not everyone is up on these folks. Or cares. My life has changed over the years, too. I’m no longer stuck at home with a sick child, or hanging out with the TV during a long, lonely winter. I still consider the inhabitants of Genoa City to be part of my family. I mean, they are always there for me. Whenever I had to sit around a courthouse, waiting to see if I’d be placed on a jury I found a TV turned to Y&R surrounded by a cadre of women who argued and clucked their tongues about the fate of these characters just as I did. We leaped all class barriers and bonded instantly.

Me again, the one mom doesn’t mention because she wasn’t really there, is that when she was having an operation a few years ago, her husband and I sat in the waiting room with the anxious family members of other patients. At 12:30, my stepdad asked them to turn to CBS and we all watched together – taking turns complaining about Victor Newman. Will that man never learn? But back to the story:

So when I had the chance to be an extra on the show (thank you, Y&R, for making that donation to my cousin’s school auction so that my kids would force me to bid on it), I didn’t hesitate to hop on a plane to L.A., check into a room at a funky little hotel called The Farmer’s Daughter, don one of my favorite shirts and dash across the street to CBS, where I was greeted by a lovely young woman named Erin Yeomans, who looked like a star herself, and who showed me one of the best times of my life.

It wasn’t being in the scene in the coffee shop where you can see me for about 3 seconds. Much better was being on the set most of a day and watching them film the show. I watched actors spend two minutes doing a read through of a scene, and then getting it shot in one take. The takes are short, but even so…. these guys are good. And they laugh a lot when they blow it, as when Cane said to Lily, “The doctor says a fever of 105 is not good, but just to watch it and call if it gets any higher,” necessitating one of the few do-overs of a scene. I got to sit on Victor’s couch! I’d seen that living room on my screen at home hundreds of times. I got hugged by Neal and kissed by Cane! I laughed with Lily. And best of all, I met Jack – sweet, unlucky Jack. After a heartbreaking scene in which, Jack loses out in love and potential parenthood yet again, actor Peter Bergman came up behind me and said, “Could you hear that? We speak pretty softly because the mikes can pick up everything.” I told him I’d heard enough of it to know that Jack got screwed again, and we agreed that he gets a bad deal much too often.

Erin answered all my questions about people on the show, and took my picture with everyone I met. But she swore me to secrecy about some of the plot elements. The show is shot a month or so in advance, so I’ve known for weeks that Mary Jane is actually Patty. I can say that now.

I sat in the director’s booth and watched them orchestrate a pretty complicated set of events, quietly and seamlessly. These people shoot five one hour shows in four days, week after week, and everyone was good-humored. As one of the crew said to me, “I’m only staying as long as it’s still fun. That’s been 19 years so far.”

I’d stay, too, if I could. They even paid me for being an extra. Thank you, Y&R. Even as soap operas struggle to hang on in the great media shakedown, I pledge myself as a lifelong fan.

You can see for yourself at 26.42 of the September 2, 2009 episode, if you’re so inclined. Fine work mom!

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