titan1978

When I was a kid and again a few years ago on rewatch I thought Wes Kenney’s tenure was much better than Hardy’s. Although Hardy was in charge when some of the sets were upgraded, including the Q mansion which was a beautiful set compared to the original (which was a good set too, just not as grand or rich looking).

I was pretty young but I was into GH and Anna was my favorite character until I was a young teen and we got to Karen/Jagger/Brenda/Jason/Robin/Stone times. What I remember the most about that Duke story was being upset that they essentially killed him again and broke Anna’s heart all over again and it felt like it was all for no reason and cruel and felt forced. As basically a kid it was probably the first time I was consciously aware of backstage issues destabilizing the onscreen product. I know there have been rumors that the actor was difficult to work with, and also that the fan response was not what they wanted. But by the time the reunion/death happened I do recall people were more upset with him being killed off, and it showing up in soap mags. So at some point there was an audience that wanted to at least see them together as Duke/Anna and try it out. I remember thinking Greg Beecroft was attractive and very intense, and would have preferred he not really be Duke and maybe see what they could have made of that. He just didn’t seem like Duke at all, even though Ian played him as very intense as well. But his Duke had charm and sex appeal, and Beecroft’s Duke was kind of remote. He would have made a fantastic Cassadine. Honestly I also remember thinking GB’s Duke and Julian Jerome should just kiss and get it over with. I haven’t watched that story since I was a kid, I wonder if it would trigger my more advanced gaydar of today?

I can see her as part of the renewed focus music that happened during Riche’s first few years though. I could see her as a partner in The Outback and playing music there. Or exploring another aspect of her talents and she plays in Mary Mae Ward’s recording sessions, etc. but I also don’t see her as a major player. I did not really like her to be honest when this was airing. I had preferred the angst of Robert/Cheryl and original recipe Julian Jerome, and by the time Katherine and fake Duke were there I was ready for Robert/Anna. That Duke story is another one of the strange things that happened in those couple of years between Monty tenures that hurt the show. All that time and effort setting it up and selling it only to have him die again just as he and Anna were reuniting. I know it wasn’t very popular, but I have also read people started to get into it and were pissed when they killed him off. At the time I remember not liking it but also not being happy with how it wound up. Then on the heels of that debacle comes Casey the Alien. Finola almost had Deidre Hall levels of difficulty selling some wild stories back to back.

I thought so. As a huge Anna fan it was a big ask to keep her on the show after everything that had happened, especially trying to walk her back from fully psycho. I actually liked Colton but there really wasn’t much there after Frisco returns. He’s essentially a decent guy that doesn’t have the right kind of ties to build on in that era. He’s not part of the WSB/PCPD group, he’s not tied to the Quartermaines, and he’s not a doctor or in the medical profession for the hospital stories, or romantically involved with a core character. At that time on GH you really needed at least one of those ties to succeed. It’s not like Young and the Restless where stories rarely overlapped. GH stories really did a lot of crossover. I adored Charlene and was sad when she left. Without those characters I don’t know if Lucy lasts as long as she did. It allowed more exploration of Lucy beyond just her schemes. Lucy seems to be an acquired taste but I have always loved Lynn and am happy for every second of screen time she has. I hate that GH never capitalized on Serena, especially since Carly was great and they had an opportunity to continue to grow her up in real time like Robin.

When Bill died Sly ended up with Paul and Jenny, who limped along for a bit then lived offscreen in PC. Sly was still seen a lot as Lucky’s best friend for a couple of years, and I truly don’t remember much of any appearances after Labine leaves, he was already being phased out before the Webber sisters arrived. Catching up on the last few pages- as we have discussed many times Monty had the right idea about the tone of the show needing to be more grounded, she just botched her way into doing it. Both the show and Bill Eckert might have been more successful had she brought in a writing team that was capable of that transition instead of just trying to force it to happen. Riche’s vision is pretty rocky even if she did accomplish grounding the show until Claire Labine became available. Tony Geary as anybody but Luke was never going to fly on GH. He was too iconic. And both of them have spoken about how difficult it was to return in 1993. Both Genie and Tony have said they knew that return would basically cement them never having other parts again. What Genie did was build a life and family away from the show. And Tony by his own admission struggled with that until he found Amsterdam, which is when his time off requests became the focus of his contract negotiations. If you are a creative person, soaps even back then are a grind.

Most soaps were stacked like this back then. The difference was they were telling full stories, and you had people there that helped flush stuff out as true supporting over the years. GH did have tendency to revolve around a handful of characters though during that time, especially once Anna became a lead. For example on Y&R Paul had a secretary named Lynn, you had John Silva, and Esther. GH had Amy always there at the hospital, and Lila was a significant character but never a lead like Monica, Alan, or Edward were. Same with Gail Baldwin, and characters like Amanda Barrington. When I first got into AMC in the early 1990’s that show was full of people like this. A major difference with today was those recurring folks were rarely the leads in stories. GH does that all the time now, and has for years. They have contract players that hardly lead stories at all.

Thanks for the episode @Vee I agree it was a natural progression for Sean and Tiffany to exit when they did. My wish many years ago was that Sean would have been revealed as behind the virus outbreak instead of Holly. It could have been some gray area WSB storyline and him being revealed would have been more complicated for Robin, Robert and Anna than Holly was as just an opportunist. Holly only really impacts Robert and Luke. If Sharon had been able to return I would have her running a media empire, easily more believable for her to be the head of Aurora than Michael or Curtis. Especially over Crimson BITD to be a mentor to Kate, Lulu and Maxie, and a thorn in the side of Nina. Tiffany in scenes with Todd Manning when The Sun came to Port Charla would have been a lot of fun.

Labine broke your heart but there was always an undercurrent of hope, community, and love. I don’t know what the hell happened to Bob Guza, but his stories rarely had that kind of heart in them. And he was surrounded by a lot of the same writers as Labine, they just didn’t break through from the cynicism. By the end of his final run things were beyond bleak, and JFP likes that too, so there was no reprieve. That’s how I remember it. There was some corporate speak by Riche that they had no story for them and no plans for one, and they were too important to just languish, or some nonsense like that. But it was budget. They were expensive players in the beginning days of declining revenue being the norm from then on.

There was something sweet about the proposal and them falling in love as friends and fully adults. But I also found them boring as a couple back then. Truthfully I never liked Tony until Labine got there. And even then he is often judgmental. But I do think he played an important role for balanced storytelling by being the one calling out ridiculous and irresponsible behavior. I actually enjoyed his slow descent into being broken. My problem then and now was they didn’t build him back up. Even though his life had been very hard, you still want a soap opera to give him some hope and happiness again. I agree. I loved her and missed her when she was gone, but never as a lead. She would have been a great character to build the PC media empire around, with the Quartermaine’s backing her, but even then I would have her as supporting the other characters in the story.

The updated sets in the early 1990’s were more expansive and really looked like a wealthy old money family mansion.

I honesty do not know. Probably not? But he was being called to film while doing some social media thing and was talking with Ingo, said he was shooting with NLG, and kind of rolled his eyes or made a gesture like she was the problem and not Ingo, or like working with her was annoying. It didn’t go over well with people that saw it including his own fans. Nancy also made comments about it before it was resolved with Mo. None of it went over well with Frank because he likes a tight ship with no public leaks about bts stuff. He really dislikes people that speak out about pretty much a lot of things. Tristan Rogers also alluded to being punished by not being used for complaining a few years ago, and he has routinely sent Kin Shriner packing. One of the more savvy things Genie Francis has done was when he fired her she let the public do the work for her, which was sustained long enough that ABC/Frank rehired her with a story. When Kelly Monaco was fired her fans tried to do a similar thing, except they didn’t have the stamina or the numbers to push ABC to change course. Fire Frank and the Genie stuff lasted the entire time she was gone, and the save Sam stuff just lasted a couple of weeks in large enough numbers to be noticed.

It’s funny because he seemed like an asshat to me in stuff I have seen before he turns into a screaming maniac. Like nobody could tell this guy was awful from the jump?

That’s what I read, he pushed her down the stairs. I’m going to try to find the episode.

I always found Patch kind of cheesy and had no idea SN had that in him. But that first coupe of years he had fire chemistry with Laura, Bobbie, Alexis, Helena and truthfully, Tony Geary. He was so good as Stefan. Even though it didn’t work out, he also had some chemistry with Marybeth’s Katherine. Not as much as with her Kayla, but it was there.

It took a minute for her to get out of the Valentini dog house. If I have the timeline correct, right around the time there was the dust up between NLG and Maurice/Ingo, Alexis ended up going to jail and was barely used. And NLG outright said she was being punished by her boss on twitter. And Jonathan Frakes even commented something along the lines of how hilarious it was for her to post that. I am still waiting for Kelly Monaco’s burning the bridges tell her story thing that never materialized. Agreed. Also if you do this type of thing then every character that has the potential to be the shooter should be seen and established consistently before and during the story, especially if it’s going to be the kid!

While doing google research on DL Brock and learning that he was, in fact, the reason Bobbie cannot have children, I stumbled upon an SOD interview with Jackie, and this section really stood out to me. CARLY TRIES TO DESTROY BOBBIE’S LIFE, 1996-98 Let’s talk about the introduction of Carly. Did you know from the beginning they were giving Bobbie a daughter? “You know what, this is going to be really funny. Bob Guza, who was writing at the time, we went one day to lunch at this Italian place, the only time we went to lunch, and he said, ‘I’m going to do “married to the mob” with you. I’m going to write that storyline.’ And I’m like, ‘Ooh, that’s great.’ I think, I don’t know, but I always [assumed], that when he went to the network and told them, they said, ‘You know what, Jackie’s getting older. Let’s bring in a daughter and we’ll do “married to the mob” with the daughter.’ Bob Guza never called me to say, ‘Change of plans.’ But all of a sudden, Carly’s appearing. I think she is wrong. I don’t think she aged out, I think that married to the mob storyline was supposed to be her marriage to Stefan, it was going to be inspired by a married to the mob idea. And now I am even more upset with how that turned out. We could have had a very complex story with Bobbie where she is drawn to the power and it corrupts her a little bit. She found the stability she craved with Tony but it wasn’t enough. Now as a Cassadine she has the kind of status that the Quartermaines have, even if it ends up being hollow. It causes friction with not just Luke, but the hospital staff and Edward because her husband is on the board, maybe even her eventually. This would have been a fabulous story for Bobbie.

This reminds me of the Greece remote for DAYS, and Genie Francis telling the story about the cast and location crew getting to their lodging and it was a boat with a hose for washing and cots. And she was like absolutely not, marched her way up to town and found several rooms, and paid for them with her own credit card. I do agree that DAYS and GH did them better than everybody else. Judi shared a poignant story about that wedding with Justin and Adrienne, and how Genie told her to make sure she had something to do after the scenes were done. Because you go through all that heightened emotion and then it can be very lonely afterwards if you just go home at the end of that day to nothing. I know Francis has spoken about it many times, but damn that time in her life must have been very hard and lonely. The New Years Eve 1984 GH episode was in my for you YouTube, so I watched it and it was pretty interesting. Sean is just beginning his scheme with the Quartermaines, and Frisco is temporarily being played by Kevin Bernhardt, who will later be back as Kevin O’Connor during the Laurelton Murders storyline. IIRC Jack Wagner said this temp was Gloria Monty leveraging him to stay on the show or behave or some kind of punishment and he took it seriously. Did DL Brock’s abuse cause Bobbie to not be able to have children? Did the show address exactly why? I can’t remember.

The stories he had to play in his first return were atrocious and tonally about deconstructing Lucky and it was miserable to watch and for him to play. This recent return there was no story. It’s just a shame because he and Becky still have chemistry and I actually prefer his sweeter natured Lucky to the misery only character Guza wanted.

That long ass list of teases for nearly every character, including a bunch of recurring people. And nothing listed about Elizabeth Webber. It’s pretty shameful how this show treats a longtime veteran who still has fan support and should be center stage.

If they had recast Lucky with a more quirky actor that had a lot of depth instead of two actors who were talented but also more traditional and definitely closer to the soap hunk mold, maybe Lucky would have been as important as he should be, and they would not be beholden to JJ’s schedule. But they also wanted Liz and Lucky to be young adults and in those stories, and Greg fit that better than Jacob Young or Jackson would have at that time. Although I did buy JJ’s Lucky as a cop with Dante as his partner.

Rena did static version of her shot with her nails visible in the current photo montage that mirrored her old shot and I knew it was purposeful and I loved her for it.

I remember Jason after Stone died and before his accident making sure Robin was doing okay, spending time with her, etc. IIRC she visits him in the hospital after the accident and she was one of the few people he was not a dick to, even if he didn’t know her yet. I remember that WLS interview with Labine, and in recent years MVJ has contradicted the Carly part of that timeline, saying she was wholly created with Guza and the staying writers before the official credited change in HW. I tend to believe MVJ’s version of events eve no though I adore Claire Labine. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle. MVJ is certainly a Guza apologist!

In the 1990’s, Jagger would have made a better firefighter than cop, that’s for sure. Complete with the shirtless charity calendar. Port Charles had EMS characters. Wasn’t Frank an EMT?

The AMC one used the format the best. But the GH one was an outlier even back then. It was kind of the theme but you could tell they wanted it to stand out. Stuff like the final cast shot with all the men, many of them long gone by the time that opening stopped being used. And the way the characters were photoshopped in, the Lucky/Emily/Nikolas fades a story that never took off. I do remember that it premiered way later than it was supposed to.

The problem with updating that intro for today is the hospital staff is not front and center, with a vet actively part of those stories. You also have so many recurring players driving the stories that it would seem odd to not include them. I would film a modern speeding ambulance once again by the real GH location hospital, and do a quick updated version of the classic era theme from the 70’s-80’s. But even the original negative image title card from the 60’s would be superior to today’s opening!