A sure sign that things aren't going well on a soap opera is when they make writing changes. For months, 'One Life to Live' has been spinning out of control. Headwriter Ron Carlivati, who has been excellent in the past, just let the show run off the rails. And the results have been seen in the declining ratings and reason to be concerned about 'OLTL.'

To help get Carlivati out of the woods and back on track, Jean Passanante will join 'One Life to Live' as associate headwriter. (Like Miss America, in the event that Carlivati cannot fulfill his role as headwriter, Passanante will resume his activities...)

It's tough to pull off an April Fool's Day prank and not look like a complete tool. Believe me, we've tried it more than once here at TV Squad. Either the joke is so subtle no one gets it, or it's so obvious and over the top that people start to think we've had our senses of humor surgically removed.

I wanted to give that caveat before I talk about what Drew Carey and the folks at 'The Price is Right' did to celebrate April Fool's Day today. If you didn't see it, Kathy Kinney made her second appearance on the show as her old 'Drew Carey Show' character Mimi Bobeck. This time, Mimi has been given the reins of the show by the folks at CBS, and she not only has made a few changes, but she's watching her arch-nemesis Drew's every move.

The gag worked in places. But the problem with carrying a gag like this through an hour-long game show is that you actually have to play the games in a straightforward manner. And that's where things broke down. Video of Drew's and Mimi's intro is after the jump.

When it was announced last month that movie star Julianne Moore was returning to 'As the World Turns' for a guest appearance, it sounded like a prank. And the fact that today is April 1 -- April Fool's Day -- maybe you think this is a gag. It's not. Julianne Moore, four-time Oscar-nominated actress -- is really going back to her roots.

On Monday, April 5, Julianne Moore will be on 'As the World Turns' as Frannie Hughes, the character she played from 1985-87 on the CBS soap. She also played Frannie's look-alike British twin Sabrina. She was so good on 'ATWT' that she won the Daytime Emmy in 1988 for Outstanding Ingenue in a Drama Series. And she was! So often in the soap genre, actors are given the opportunity to play a twin -- evil or not -- and they either rise to the occasion... or crash and burn.

"Charlatan" is a word that should be used more. I think it has been replaced nowadays by words like "sleazebag" and "crook" and maybe "con artist." But a judge in San Diego used it yesterday to describe America's favorite syndicated exploiter of people, Dr. Phil McGraw.

The judge not only called Dr. Phil a charlatan, she also said that he was a "terrible, terrible man" and chastised the "doctor" for not giving a couple enough help and counseling after they appeared on his show. The couple was (or maybe still are?) chronic shoplifters. The judge sentenced the husband to 27 months in jail and his wife to 12 months in jail. The couple would go into stores (with their kids!), steal stuff, and sell most of it on the web. They made $100,000 a year doing that. Who says you can't make money online?

On behalf of America, I'd like to thank this judge for saying out loud what a lot of us have thought about Dr. Phil for quite some time.

Less than a year ago, 'General Hospital' made a big move by aging the character of Michael Corinthos, III. Young Dylan Cash, who had played the role for six years, literally growing up before our eyes, was deemed too young for the mature story the writers had in mind for Sonny's son. It was a rough transition for fans, but since Michael was in a vegetative state and bed-ridden for months and months, when he finally awoke and the actor playing Michael was Drew Garrett, we accepted him.

However, in a surprisingly move, 'General Hospital' has replaced Drew Garrett with Chad Duell. No reason given, just a general statement wishing Garrett well in his future endeavors. The pink slip came as a shock to Garrett who claims he was blindsided by the dismissal. And just a month ago he was on the pre-Emmy nomination list for award consideration.

If you been keeping track of the daytime ratings, you probably noticed that 'Days of Our Lives' has been on an upswing. NBC noticed. In fact, after a shaky year in which the threat of cancellation hung over their necks like the Sword of Damocles, 'Days of Our Lives' has been renewed for another year.

That means that this November, NBC and 'Days' will be able to celebrate 45 years on the air. In making the announcement, Marc Graboff, Chairman, NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios, said, "'Days of our Lives' continues to be a favorite of the daytime audience and we are thrilled to keep it going through its 45th season. 'Days' has shown year-to-year increases in key female demographics and remains both relevant and fresh creatively."

The first week in April will be tumultuous for the folks from 'Glee.' Sunday, April 4, is Easter, then on Monday, April 5, the gang will be at the White House for the annual Easter Egg festivities. Then on Wednesday, April 7, 'Glee' goes to 'The Oprah Winfrey Show'! They should sing 'My Kind of Town' as a tribute to Chicago when they get off the plane, don't you think?

In January, things weren't looking good for ABC's 'One Life to Live.' It wasn't just that 'All My Children' was getting the move to Los Angeles, leaving 'OLTL' the lone ABC soap in New York. It wasn't just the delay in going to HD, nor the flagging ratings.

It was the stagnant story telling. The emphasis on gay marriage in Dorian's mayoral campaign was over the top, as was the romance of closeted cop Oliver Fish and ex-lab tech Kyle. The Kyle-Fish relationship developed a fan base. The proponents of 'Kish' were all for the twosome become like Cam and Mitchell on 'Modern Family,' a gay married couple with broad-based appeal.

That's not to be. This past week, 'One Life to Live' dumped the duo. Actors Brett Claywell and Scott Evans were let go because their characters are being written off the show, according to the New York Post.

For the longest time we didn't see Jerry Seinfeld on TV at all but now he seems to be everywhere. Not only is he on NBC's 'The Marriage Ref' (which he also produces), he's now going to pinch hit for Regis Philbin on tomorrow's edition of 'Live with Regis & Kelly' (or as Tom Hanks called it the other day, 'Live with Regis & Kathie Lee'). Of course, it's like Seinfeld never left TV because his sitcom is on various channels six times a day.

This will be Seinfeld's first go at co-hosting the show. On a side note, is Regis OK? He seems to be taking several days off since his hip surgery. Hopefully this week is just a planned, ordinary vacation week and not something more serious. But this has been a good week for co-hosts, with Andy Richter yesterday and now Seinfeld.

No one closely involved in the Conan O'Brien/NBC chaos has spoken out on the matter, at least anyone close to Conan's side. Jeff Zucker did give an interview to Charlie Rose and Jay Leno sat down with Oprah, but Conan hasn't given an interview (he's busy on Twitter though!) so we don't know his side of things, aside from his statement that was released before everything was decided. But sidekick Andy Richter is talking, and he actually said a lot while sitting in for Regis this morning on 'Live with Regis & Kelly.'

Richter says that Conan isn't allowed on TV for a while but he's not under the same restriction (in fact, he's still under contract with NBC) so that's why he co-hosted today. You can tell Richter isn't happy with the way things went down (in fact he says he does have bad feelings towards the network and/or Leno), and a lot of the feelings we assumed he and Conan had about this seem to be pretty accurate.

I was especially happy that Richter mentioned that, yeah, the ratings for Conan's 'Tonight Show' weren't great, but that's because they had Leno as a lead-in. "It's not like the local news suddenly got worse," Richter said.

If this story weren't so strange, you would swear it was a FunnyorDie.com sketch. It could be a 'Saturday Night Live' bit, but their stuff is rarely this hilarious. Tyler Bowling, a 21-year-old Minnesotan who had a condition that caused white pimples to appear on his penis, received a free laser treatment for removal of the penile papules when he consulted with Dr. William Groff in Los Angeles. The $4,500 procedure was done gratis in exchange for Tyler's story to be told on CBS's syndicated daytime show, 'The Doctors.'

However, Tyler Bowling is filing suit against the doctor, his practice, the producers of 'The Doctors' and even the company that created the laser that was used to fix his problems, claiming he was tricked into getting the work done and becoming the fodder for the TV show.

There's a great history of 'The Young and the Restless' acquiring stars who were once tearing up the screen on 'All My Children.'

Peter Bergman, Elizabeth Hendrickson, Billy J. Miller, are just a few of the 'AMC' alums who have found great characters and thriving story lines among the Genoa City citizenry.

And now you can add another almost iconic Pine Valley actor. Eden Riegel is joining 'The Young and the Restless' taking on the role of Heather Stevens. Currently, Vail Bloom's been playing the assistant district attorney, Paul's daughter, but she's been pink-slipped in favor of Eden.

Sometimes morning TV can be more than perky weather girls and middle-aged anchors with over-sized coffee mugs.

One of the U.S. Marshal's most wanted criminals is now in custody thanks to the unlikely partnership of Regis Philbin, Kelly Ripa and John Walsh.

Just a week after being added to the U.S. Marshals 15 Most Wanted list and one day before his case was to be profiled nationally on FOX's 'America's Most Wanted,' former state corrections officer Albert James Turner, Jr. is now in custody.

Walsh visited 'Live with Regis and Kelly' Friday morning to discuss the 1,000th episode of the long-running true crime show and his interview with President Obama. He previewed the upcoming cases Friday morning, and the right person was watching.

As a U.S. Marshal's press release states, "a viewer tip led to Turner's arrest this morning at a mall in Concord, N.C. He was taken into custody without incident."

TV Guide is reporting that 'Today' co-host Meredith Vieira has signed a new deal with NBC that keeps her in the co-anchor seat alongside Matt Lauer until the end of 2011.

The fact that Vieira re-upped with 'Today' isn't surprising (she has settled in quite nicely over there), though it is a little surprising that she only signed on for one more year. I don't know what type of contract Lauer has with the show (though The New York Times says his last contract extension in 2006 was for five years), or Robin Roberts at ABC or Harry Smith at CBS, but I would have thought that the network would want to lock Vieira in with a multi-year deal. So the fact that Vieira is staying with 'Today' isn't news, but I think the length of her contract might be.

Maybe she just wants to take it year by year and see how things go.

Howard Stern has never held back when it comes to his feelings on Jay Leno. He talks about it on his SIRIUS show, he has talked about it on 'The Late Show,' and now he went on CBS' 'The Early Show' (from his studio) to talk to Harry Smith about Leno's return to 'The Tonight Show.' The words "vomit" and "thief" are mentioned.

At the end, Smith also asks him about going back to terrestrial radio and a possible offer from 'American Idol.' (Sorry for the video quality - CBS hasn't posted the video yet for some reason.)