Days Of Our Lives' Subtle Nod To Another World Has Twitter Going Wild

As the BBC has reported, there were 18 soap operas on the air by the year 1969. Soap fans are woefully aware that there are now only four left on the three major networks, and "Days of Our Lives" recently moved from NBC to the streaming service Peacock. "Another World" was a sudser that ran on NBC from 1964 to 1999. It was created by Irna Phillips, who was also behind such shows as "Guiding Light" and "As the World Turns," and co-created "DOOL." The soap focused on several families, including the Matthews, Hudson, and Winthrop clans. "Another World" launched Anne Heche's career, among several other famous actors like Ray Liotta, and had a couple of firsts for daytime serials: it was the first to expand to one-hour episodes in 1975, as well as the first to have spin-off shows — "Texas," and "Somerset."

The ABC soaps "All My Children," "One Life to Live," and "General Hospital" existed in a shared universe, as do the CBS shows "The Young and the Restless" and "The Bold and the Beautiful," with characters crossing over between shows. Similarly, several "Another World" characters moved over to "As the World Turns" when the show was canceled in 1999. The show even had inter-network crossovers with CBS' "Guiding Light" character Michael Bauer (Don Stuart) appearing on "AW," and the character Cass Winthrop (Stephen Schnetzer) conversely appeared on "GL," according to TV Tropes.

And now, "DOOL" has surprised keen fans with a fun "AW" Easter egg on a recent episode.

An observant "Days of Our Lives" fan posted a video clip on Twitter, writing, "After all these years, Cass Winthrop now lives in Salem. Do you think he's still married to Lila?" The clip showed Mayor Abe Carver (James Reynolds) who, while talking to Paulina Carver (Jackee Harry), made a phone call to Cass Winthrop — the president of Salem's city council. Fans quickly picked up the reference to the "Another World" character that Stephen Schnetzer portrayed from 1982 to 1999.

According to Soap Central, Cass was previously a prominent lawyer who also started a publishing firm. Schnetzer had also played Stephen Olson on "DOOL" in 1978 — Julie Olson's (Susan Seaforth Hayes) brother — and fans were quick to point that out. One retweeted a post containing a picture of Schnetzer with Hayes from back in the day, saying, "Would Julie think that Cass Winthrop looks familiar?"

The fact that it could have just been a mere mention and not a portent of things to come was not lost on one fan's tweet, "Loved hearing [Cass Winthrop] name-dropped on ['Days of Our Lives']! One of my favorite characters from ['AnotherWorld'], and I would LOVE to see the character on 'DOOL'! @carlivatiron Any chance of Steven Schnetzer appearing, or was it just an Easter Egg?"

Whether or not Schnetzer will reprise his "AW" role on "DOOL" remains to be seen, but we're excited at the prospect.