Trivia / Days of Our Lives

• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • Bill Hayes says that his one request when Doug was "killed" in the Salem Stalker storyline, which the producers ended up granting him, was that Doug would at least get a chance to fight back before being offed (and his doing so led to the first reveal of the Stalker's identity).
  • The Fantasy Sequence with Calliope as a Court Jester mentioned below in Short-Lived, Big Impact was originally conceived and pitched by Arleen Sorkin herself (inspired by The Princess Bride).
• Affectionate Parody: On Friends, Joey Tribbiani plays brain surgeon Dr. Drake Ramoray in a slightly-more ridiculous version of Days of Our Lives. Because of its in-canon portrayal, many non-American Friends fans — regardless of whether the actual soap is aired on a regional broadcaster — likely wound up thinking Days of Our Lives is a fictional soap opera poking fun at the genre, rather than an exaggerated depiction of a real show! In a case of geographical license, the in-universe Days takes place within the sitcom's New York City setting. (The only soap opera among the four aired by NBC during Friends' 10-season run that was taped in New York was Another World, which ended its 35-year run in June 1999, shortly after the conclusion of the sitcom’s fifth season; Days, Sunset Beach and AW replacement Passions were all filmed at NBC Studios^note (renamed The Burbank Studios after NBC’s 2014 sale of the facility to Worthe Real Estate Group) in Burbank, California.) Several Days cast members including Alison Sweeney (Sami Brady), Kristian Alfonso (Hope Brady), Roark Critchlow (Mike Horton), Kyle Lowder (then-Brady Black) and Matthew Ashford (Jack Deveraux) guest-starred on Friends over the two stints in which Joey worked on the show in-universe; the notable exception was John Aniston (Victor Kiriakis), whose daughter Jennifer Aniston played Rachel Green on Friends, presumably to avoid a Celebrity Paradox situation.
• Banned in China: For Utah viewers, Days of Our Lives basically became Nights of Our Lives in 2011, when Salt Lake City NBC affiliate KSL-TV began delaying the show to 1:05am! The reason for busting the series to a timeslot that basically required most fans to either DVR it or watch it online was reportedly because the LDS Church, which is morally opposed to homosexuality and owns KSL parent company Bonneville International, objected to the gay relationship storyline involving Will Horton and Sonny Kiriakis. Oddly or maybe because of how it has previously dealt with such shows, KSL elected to punt the show to overnights rather than pass it over to CW affiliate KUCW or MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYU^note (which, ironically, are respectively co-owned with competing ABC affiliate KTVX and CBS affiliate KUTV), both of which have been used in the past by NBC to act as a dumping ground for shows with subject matter that LDS ownership deems objectionable (as it did with short-runner primetime shows like The Playboy Club, The Book of Daniel and The New Normal) or scheduling conflicts (as it did with Saturday Night Live from 1995^note when it first became an NBC affiliate to 2013, when it started airing SNL after moving a long-running local sports discussion show from the former's standard slot), where it could have been able to keep its daytime slot. Other reasons have been suggested for the timeslot demotion (including affording the show protection from breaking news preemptions by putting it in a more DVR-friendly overnight slot, and opportunities to accrue higher ad revenue by substituting the soap with local or syndicated programs in its normal daytime slot).
• Breaking News Interruption: West Coast airings of the December 31, 2021 episode were interrupted for a special report on the death of Betty White.
• The Cast Show Off: Some of the show's cast members have showcased quite the singing talent:
  • Casey Moss, who has played JJ Deveraux from 2013 to 2020, has performed at least a half-dozen times since his run on the show began. In real life, he is the lead singer and founder of the band Eyes of One.
  • Then there's Thia Megia, who played Haley Chen from 2018 to 2020, who was a top-11 finalist on American Idol in 2011; Megia was, at 15 at the time she was on the show, the youngest Idol contestant to reach the live performance episodes^note (the tenth season that year saw Idol lower its minimum age of eligibility to 15). Incidentally, both times Haley sang on the show were in duets with JJ.
  • Olivia Rose Keegan, who played Claire Brady from 2015 to 2019, released a six-song EP (in 2016) and a single ("Queen is King," 2018) during the course of her run. Claire's initial storyline with Keegan in the role, incidentally, was crafted to showcase Keegan's singing chops, having her pursue a music career stewarded by, of all people, Eve Donovan.
• Channel Hop: NBC decided to replace Days on its daytime schedule with the afternoon newscast NBC News Daily (produced by and simulcast on the NBC News Now streaming network) in September 2022 after its 57th season; thereafter, first-run episodes were released exclusively on its co-owned Peacock streaming service, which had been the show's primary streaming home since its May 2020 launch.^note For the remainder of its NBC run, episodes were released hours after their original broadcast, usually in the early evening (mirroring its release schedule on NBC's website and apps); they shifted to an early morning release schedule upon becoming a Peacock exclusive. With this, it became only the third soap to switch from broadcast to streaming, and the first to do so uninterrupted (All My Children and One Life to Live had gaps of 18 and 14½ months, respectively, between their move from ABC to Hulu, following the end of their network runs).
• The Character Died with Him:
  • Dr. Tom Horton died offscreen about 3 months after Macdonald Carey passed away in 1994, and about 5 months after his last appearance. His wife Alice Horton died after Frances Reid did in 2010, but her last appearance on the show had been Christmas 2007.
  • Victor Kiriakis was laid to rest in September 2023, after John Aniston died the previous November.
  • The producers have confirmed that Doug Williams will have a funeral later in 2024, after Bill Hayes passed away in January.
• Character Outlives Actor: Bill Horton. The three previous actors who played the role had all died (Paul Carr passed away in 2006, Edward Mallory passed away a year later and Christopher Stone passed away 12 years prior), but that didn't stop the show from bringing him back for his mother's funeral in 2010, this time played by John H. Martin. (Days matriarch Alice Horton was killed off for good because the actress who played her, Frances Reid, died.) Bill was eventually killed off in February 2020, having suffered a heart attack while on an exploratory mission in Africa.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In Denmark, the show is titled Horton-sagaen (The Horton Saga).
  • In Sweden, the show title Våra bästa år (Our Best Years).
• Follow the Leader: When General Hospital became a phenomenon in The '80s with its elaborate adventure storylines and Super Couple Luke and Laura, Days followed suit by adding those elements, while keeping the legacy characters and storylines around so they wouldn't fall Out of Focus, which allowed Days to stay steady in the ratings while GH burned out after a while. By the 2000s, things switched and GH started emulating Days by bringing back a lot of legacy characters and copying the Crime Drama elements that had become a Days trademark.
• Hostility on the Set: Julie and Doug abruptly disappeared from the show in 1984 after Susan Seaforth Hayes and Bill Hayes complained to head writer Margaret DePriest about the Out of Focus and Flanderization issues they perceived happening to the characters. The last straw for DePriest was seeing them talk about their concerns on a local Los Angeles TV news show. DePriest was let go a few months later, and Doug and Julie returned in 1990.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Days of Our Lives was last rerun on SOAPNet in 2013. Otherwise, there have been no reruns or DVD releases of the series. Not helping matters is that there are tens of thousands of episodes, and its not clear that all of them are intact in their entirety due to the practice of "wiping" (the reuse of videotapes to tape over previously recorded episodes, a practice common in network television at the time of the show's debut). Among the few early episodes known to be intact is the November 8, 1965 premiere episode, which SOAPNet aired in 2010 in commemoration of the show's 45th anniversary and has been made available for streaming in the past on the now-defunct SoapCity website.
  • Episodes from the current season are available on NBC's website, as well as the Peacock streaming service for free.
• The Other Darrin: Par for the course for the series' genre, many characters have been recast throughout the years:
  • The most notable, and one which partly contributed to the character's age retconning, was Mike Horton, who was played by a total of 13 actors between 1968 and 2010^note In order, they were: Kyle Puerner (1968–69), Wade Holdsworth (1969), Brian Andrews, Bobby Eilbacher, Eddie Rayden (briefly in 1970 for all three), Alan Decker (1970–71), John Amour (1971–73), Dick DeCoit, Stuart Lee (both briefly in 1973), Wesley Eure (1974–81), Paul Coufos (1981–82), Michael T. Weiss (1985–90) and finally, Roark Critchlow (1994–99; 2010).
  • Recent ones that come to mind are Brady^note Alex, Dash and Max Lucero (1992–94), Brandon and Eric Billings (1994–99), Kyle Lowder (2000–05) and Eric Martsolf (since 2008), Philip^note Brandon Tyler (1999), Jay Kenneth Johnson (1999–2002; 2007–11), Kyle Brandt (2003–06) and John-Paul Lavoisier (2015–16), Belle ^note Brianna and Chalice Fischette (1993–95), Brianna and Brittany McConnell (1995–98), Ashlyn and Kaylyn Messick (1998), Chelsea Butler (1998–99), Kirsten Storms (1999–2004), Charity Rahmer (2004) and Martha Madison (2004–08; and intermittently since 2015), Shawn ^note Noel Bennett Castle (1987), Paul Zachary (1990), Scott Groff (1990–95), Collin O'Donnell (1995–99), Jason Cook (1999–2006; 2015) and Brandon Beemer (2006–08; intermittently since 2016), Will^note Shawn and Taylor Carpenter (1995–2002), Darian Weiss (2002–03), Christopher Gerse (2003–07), Dylan Patton (2009–10), Chandler Massey (2010–14; since 2017) and Guy Wilson (2014–15) and Eve^note Charlotte Ross (1987–91) and Kassie DePaiva (2014–2019). Roman was recast in 1997 by Josh Taylor, after having been played by Wayne Northrop for several years (sans the five starting in 1986, when Drake Hogestyn played the version that was retconned into John Black), but some fans still do not accept his version.
  • Of the current cast the following are all being played by someone other than their first adult portrayal^note On Days, many characters born on the show start off played by various child actors; for them by first adult portrayal, we are counting when a teen or young adult took the role and they became eligible for romantic storylines. though some would be hard pressed to name the original: Abby, Belle, Ben, Bonnie, Brady, Chad, Ciara, Claire, Gabi, Jack, Jan, Jennifer, Julie, Kate, Kayla, Kristen, Roman, Shawn, Theo and Valerie.
  • Bill Horton was played by four actors in the soap, the first three have since passed away. See Character Outlives Actor above.
• Prop Recycling: One primetime special (guest starring David Ruprecht) reused the car-holding staircase from fellow NBC daytime stalwart Classic Concentration while that show was on a taping break.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Initially played straight by Melissa Reeves, after she quit the series in late 1995. It was later discovered that her husband, Scott Reeves, had walked in on her and co-star Jason Brooks (who played Jennifer's co-worker, Peter Blake, at the time) having sex in her dressing room and had demanded that she quit the show right then and there if she wanted to save their marriage. The result was a tearful early-morning phone call to the show's producers informing them that she would not be reporting to work that day or any time in the near future. After several years of considerable uproar—along with the personal fallout, Days sued her for breach of contract—not only was their marriage saved (they're still together as of November 2014), but the trope was eventually averted when she returned to the show in 2000 for six years, and returned again in 2010.
• Romance on the Set: Bill Hayes (Doug) and Susan Seaforth (Julie) married in 1974, four years after their characters were first paired up on the show. Also something of a Real Life Writes the Plot situation, since fans were well aware that the actors were married in Real Life, and pushed for them to get married on the show (they finally did in 1976). The couple would later publish a joint memoir called, naturally, Like Sands Through the Hourglass.
• Screwed by the Network: In 2019, Days took one of the biggest risks in daytime ever with a Time Skip and a week with very important flashbacks needed for fans to understand what in the world was going on. This same week half the episodes were pre-empted^note Technically, delayed to late night on most NBC stations, while continuing to be available on NBC’s website and mobile platforms. due to live news coverage of American political drama, the Congressional hearings for Donald Trump's first impeachment. Trump’s impeachment trial in late January 2020 caused similar issues with another week of episodes tied to flashbacks (in that case, relating to Adrienne’s death and a baby switch involving Kristen’s carried-to-term daughter and Sarah’s miscarried daughter).
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: The actors playing twins Allie Horton and Johnny DiMera, Lindsay Arnold^note Not to be confused with the professional dancer from Dancing with the Stars (who played the role from 2020 to 2023) and Carson Boatman (who joined the show in 2021), are jaw-droppingly similar in resemblance (down to their strong similarities in facial structure, especially their cheekbones and jawlines). Considering they portray fraternal twins on the show (and the casting department could have easily cast actors to play Allie and Johnny that each resemble one of their respective parents^note Both were conceived by different fathers: Johnny by E.J. DiMera (played by James Scott from 2006–2014, and by Dan Farrugiel since 2021), and Allie by Lucas Horton (Bryan Datillo)), the fact that both Arnold and Boatman also pretty strongly resemble Alison Sweeney (whose character, Sami Brady, is their characters’ mother) likely contributed to them landing the roles.
• Short-Lived, Big Impact: A comical 1987 Fantasy Sequence had Shane Donovan tell his young son Andrew a Fairy Tale-themed bedtime story, with many of the regulars as part of the tale, including Shane, Kimberly and Andrew as the King, Queen and Prince, and Calliope Jones as a Genki Girl Court Jester. Since it was just a one-off scene, the characters were quickly forgotten in the show's universe. However, Calliope's portrayer Arleen Sorkin showed the scene to Paul Dini, who was pondering the concept for a female sidekick for The Joker on Batman: The Animated Series, and he created Harley Quinn for Sorkin to voice based on her performance in that sequence, spawning one of The DCU's most beloved characters.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Josh Taylor as Chris Kositchek and Roman Brady. Oddly enough, his role on fellow NBC series Valerie was not initially responsible for Taylor leaving his role as Kositchek, as he remained on Days while working on other series projects during the 1980s (including the short-lived Riker in 1981); his Days departure in 1987 came after his Valerie role of Michael Hogan was expanded amid a Retool (as Valerie's Family/The Hogan Family) caused by Valerie Harper's firing from the series (and her character being killed off) amid financial and production disputes with the show's producers. Taylor returned to Days as Roman in 1997.
  • Wayne Northrop as Roman Brady and Alex North. In this case, Northrop's return to Days in 1991 for a second four-year stint, resulted in the Retconning of Drake Hogestyn's iteration of Roman into John Black. With Josh Taylor playing his former role of Roman, Northrup returned to the show in 2005 in the newly created role of Alex North, part of an unpopular storyline in which the therapist (who was helping the amnesiac Marlena regain her memories) was revealed to be Marlena's abusive ex-husband. His short-lived role as Andre DiMera in 1983 also fits this trope.
  • Judi Evans as Adrienne Johnson Kiriakis and Bonnie Lockhart.
  • Tamara Braun as Ava Vitali and Taylor Walker.
  • Kyle Lowder as Brady Black and Rex Brady. Like the Josh Taylor/Wayne Northrup situation above, when he was brought back to the show in 2018, Lowder's former role of Brady had already been played by Eric Martsolf since 2008 (shortly after Martsolf ended his run as Ethan Winthrop on the then-recently-cancelled-again former NBC soap Passions). Lowder's characterization of Rex received a lukewarm response from viewers and was written out in August 2019, but was brought back for a guest stint in December 2021.
  • John Aniston played Dr. Eric Richards from 1969 to 1970, before returning as Victor Kiriakis in 1985.