Episode 658, Joel Crothers

[TNickey2003]

Episode 658 was the final episode for JC's character Joe Haskell, however JC appeared in a few episodes that followed, as Nathan Forbes in the 1796 flashback in which [spoiler]Barnabas returns to that year to save Victoria Winters from the gallows.    Both Nathan Forbes and Natalie Dupres were killed by Ben Stokes in the Secret Room when they attempted to stake Barnabas in his coffin.[/spoiler]


(edited by mod.)

[Mysterious Benefactor]

As people who tried to visit the forum between 7pm ET/4pm PT and about 7:20pm ET/4:20pm PT know, there was an error in the database that prevented the forum from displaying correctly. The error caused a problem with the captions for the slideshow that I thought I'd completely fixed. But apparently the part of the final caption that said "final episode as Joe" was mysteriously truncated and I didn't notice.    But it's been fixed now. 

[IluvBarnabas]

I was sorry to see Joe go, I always hoped that he and Maggie might get back together.

Joe deserved a better fate than [spoiler]getting shipped off to Windcliff.[/spoiler]

Joel Crothers was great as both Joe and Nathan....he played the sweet guy/detestable guy equally well.

[BuzzH]

I was sorry to see Joe go, I always hoped that he and Maggie might get back together.

Karlenfan once wrote a story where they indeed get back together.  It was a great story.  Ah, fanfiction! 

[Sunny_Collins]

I was sorry to see Joe go, I always hoped that he and Maggie might get back together.

Joe deserved a better fate than [spoiler]getting shipped off to Windcliff.[/spoiler]

I wholeheartedly agree with this! Poor Joe, the writers should never have shipped him off in such a sad way!  I see no reason why he and Maggie wouldn't get back together.

[BuzzH]

I see no reason why he and Maggie wouldn't get back together.

Joel wanted off the show, think KLS wrote about that in Scrapbook Memories.  I personally couldn't see anyone other then Joel playing Joe, but I think they should have killed him off instead of what they did do to get him off the show.  Just don't see what happened actually happening, he was too strong for that. 

[Midnite]

I see no reason why he and Maggie wouldn't get back together.

Joel wanted off the show, think KLS wrote about that in Scrapbook Memories.  I personally couldn't see anyone other then Joel playing Joe, but I think they should have killed him off instead of what they did do to get him off the show.  Just don't see what happened actually happening, he was too strong for that. 

In Scrapbook Memories, all I recall her saying is that she and Joel were very close and that he, along with Alexandra and Mitch Ryan, had left the show.  But I can't remember that she stated in any other publication that he wanted to leave.  I also don't recall that he ever said it; only that he had become unhappy with the way his character was written but was willing to take on a more challenging role.  My understanding is that the decision to write Joe out of the show was a creative one-- they had nowhere to go with him at the time, and since there wasn't another character for Joel to play, he moved on.  He was quoted in the fanzine "The Eagle Hill Sentinel" from 1969:

... Alexander Moltke had left at the end of the previous storyline, and early into this one, Joel Crothers announced he was taking a part on the daytime series Secret Storm. "Joe Haskell had been made into too colorless a character," he complained.  He would have relished the role of Quentin, but was told he had "too honest a face." So Joe was taken away to Wyndclliffe, never to be seen again, and his girlfriend Maggie Evans, once a hard-bitten girl from a poor family, became the helpless victim-in-residence. ...

[michael c]

i agree it's really sad the way the character of joe haskell was handled after a certain point.

i'm rewatching the early episodes and as much as i came to enjoy some of the later parts of the show i can never get past the first year cast.for some reason that dozen or so characters really found a place in my heart.
when characters like burke,vicki,sam and joe departed it was never quite the same for me.

it's true that the show moved in a vastly different direction than it began but i think they could have found a place at the table for everyone.

[Gothick]

MB, or somebody, posted a 1969 or 1970 soap mag interview with Joel in which he discussed his departure from DS in a fairly frank way.

He also revealed that he had written several episodes of the show, which I found quite fascinating.  I've never seen this mentioned in any other publication, which seems kind of sad.

Clarice Blackburn went on to become a fairly well-known writer for soaps, and it sounds as if Joel Crothers had that potential as well.  I have never heard whether he did any further writing in his later career?

I do LOVE Joel's thesping in his final episode as Joe.  It's so deliciously over-the-top!

G.

[Jackie]

In Scrapbook Memories, all I recall her saying is that she and Joel were very close and that he, along with Alexandra and Mitch Ryan, had left the show.  But I can't remember that she stated in any other publication that he wanted to leave.  I also don't recall that he ever said it; only that he had become unhappy with the way his character was written but was willing to take on a more challenging role.  My understanding is that the decision to write Joe out of the show was a creative one-- they had nowhere to go with him at the time, and since there wasn't another character for Joel to play, he moved on.  He was quoted in the fanzine "The Eagle Hill Sentinel" from 1969:

... Alexander Moltke had left at the end of the previous storyline, and early into this one, Joel Crothers announced he was taking a part on the daytime series Secret Storm. "Joe Haskell had been made into too colorless a character," he complained.  He would have relished the role of Quentin, but was told he had "too honest a face." So Joe was taken away to Wyndclliffe, never to be seen again, and his girlfriend Maggie Evans, once a hard-bitten girl from a poor family, became the helpless victim-in-residence. ...

Maybe "Joe" had an honest face but "Nathan" was a unscrupulous individual.  I think Joel could have been a great "Quentin".  Both David Selby and Joel Crothers were very good looking men.  Joel proved himself a great actor!  Remember Joe's dream, [spoiler]when he saw Tom and Chris at the same time, then the vampire and werewolf came after him.  And when Joe was bitten by vampiress Angelique, he went through more emotional gamut that any other male character experienced on the show... more so.[/spoiler]

If that was the excuse they gave Joel for not getting the Quentin part, it was lame.  That's what actors do, act.  They used the same excuse on Alexandra Molkte.  Since fans knew her as the sweet Vicki, they would not be able to accept her as anything else.  I think that's lame too.  I love to see these actors stretching their talents and making the story plots more interesting.  They lost great actors when JC or AM left the show.[/color]

[BuzzH]

Maybe "Joe" had an honest face but "Nathan" was a unscrupulous individual.  I think Joel could have been a great "Quentin".  Both David Selby and Joel Crothers were very good looking men.  Joel proved himself a great actor!  Remember Joe's dream, [spoiler]when he saw Tom and Chris at the same time, then the vampire and werewolf came after him.  And when Joe was bitten by vampiress Angelique, he went through more emotional gamut that any other male character experienced on the show... more so.][/spoiler]If that was the excuse they gave Joel for not getting the Quentin part, it was lame

While ITA that Joel would have made an excellant Quentin, I honestly can't imagine anyone other than David Selby playing him.

[Alondra]

I have to agree Buzz. Quentin as played by David Selby was my first crush as a 9 year old girl and I can't imagine anyone else playing him. If Joel had been given the part we never would have seen David Selby and since he had proven how well he could play a villain when he played Nathan Forbes, he would have been believable in the role. I thought Joel was a great actor.

Now assuming that he had gotten the role as Quentin, it's possible the writers would have allowed Joe and Maggie to get back together in the present time. It was such a shame that two couples were [spoiler]broken up by Cassandra/Angelique's machinations, Carolyn and Tony Peterson and Joe and Maggie.[/spoiler] No reason why either couple couldn't have gotten back together. Why should she have been allowed the satisfaction of breaking up two couples? I don't understand why Carolyn and Tony couldn't have gotten back together. Jerry Lacy wasn't leaving the show, since he returned as Trask in 1897.

Alondra

[Pansity]

I was sorry to see Joe go, I always hoped that he and Maggie might get back together.

Karlenfan once wrote a story where they indeed get back together.  It was a great story.  Ah, fanfiction! 

And don't forget that in the backstory they mention for Return to Collinwood, it was said that Joe and Maggie had been married for a number of years.  If I recall they said she had been widowed either a few months or a year before the beginning of the play.  She was just getting out of mourning and had made tentative steps toward some sort of a relationship with Quentin as the story opens.

[Nelson Collins]

Maybe "Joe" had an honest face but "Nathan" was a unscrupulous individual.  I think Joel could have been a great "Quentin".  Both David Selby and Joel Crothers were very good looking men.  Joel proved himself a great actor!  Remember Joe's dream, [spoiler]when he saw Tom and Chris at the same time, then the vampire and werewolf came after him.  And when Joe was bitten by vampiress Angelique, he went through more emotional gamut that any other male character experienced on the show... more so.[/spoiler]

If that was the excuse they gave Joel for not getting the Quentin part, it was lame.  That's what actors do, act.  They used the same excuse on Alexandra Molkte.  Since fans knew her as the sweet Vicki, they would not be able to accept her as anything else.  I think that's lame too.  I love to see these actors stretching their talents and making the story plots more interesting.  They lost great actors when JC or AM left the show.

On one of the dvds in set 8 I think, there is an interview with DC in which is laughs and insists that he loves to cast "on type" rather than against.

That being said, I think he would have made a good quentin.  I am imagining now though everyone saying when Quentin's ghost starts appearing, "you remind me of Joe!"

[Nelson Collins]

I have really enjoyed Joel's descent into madness.  I just finished watching 658 and thought it was an excellent little tour de force for Joel - I was very impressed.  He was taken way too early.

I love also the way the episode starts and ends on his wild eyed face (after the obligatory opening shot of collinwood, of course)