titan1978

Do we think Bell kept the right characters to mix with his new families? I think it would be hard to say what Y&R would have been like if he hadn’t kept people like Nikki, Victor, Jill and Katherine once the purge began and he moved towards characters that had little if any ties to the original families. Once we get to the years when Y&R challenges GH and then passes it in the ratings, you really only had a few of orbits on the show. Victor and the Abbots (through relationships or business), Cricket, Katherine and Jill, and Lauren. Everyone was tied to those stories or sets of characters as far as I can remember, with little spots of overlap. By the time Bill left as HW, the Abbots and Jill and Katherine were pretty much not as center stage (except for Jack). Everything was pretty Victor or Cricket or Drucilla centered. Kay Alden moves Katherine and Jill and the Abbots back into being major parts of the show again, and leaves them there. I remember at the time Bell was almost done that the show was not as compelling and he wasn’t using people I loved like Nina and Katherine very much. But Sharon and Nick were always on.

Bobbie was well positioned before they phased her out. She could have been in storylines with nursing students, and tenants living in the brownstone to ease her into that matriarch situation. I think she had much more of a temperament as a character (beyond her very early years) to be the tent pole/matriarch role. Alan and Monica are wonderful characters but they are also too selfish and manipulative for that stereotypical place on a soap. Lesley would also have been perfect. There was a time when I felt the show was trying to shoehorn Tracy into that and it just doesn’t work for her either. Especially when she was Lulu’s stepmother and Dylan was around. I loved her scenes with them back then, but only Bob Guza would try to make Tracy a matriarch.

I agree so much. Although Julie is at her best when they let her remain feisty and kind of a pain in the ass. So I’m glad they still use that aspect of her personality.

Re-watching the BJ/Maxie heart story (I guess I wanted to cry tonight), and I do not think the show ever told another story as beautifully as this one. Stone comes close, and it deeply moved me then and now, but BJ was connected to the entire community of Port Charles. We watched BJ grow up. The bet and the Damian affair and how Bobbie was feeling before having the affair. Frisco being there. The family stuff with Frisco, Felicia and Tony and Bobbie, Ruby and Luke. Monica was on the transplant team, Amy and Steve worked on BJ when she arrived. I think the scenes with Lucy and Alan comforting her were really special and a use of history that these shows rarely do anymore. Just really good integrated character based writing. I know Jack Wagner and Kristina Wagner were never given material like this to act on the show before and she in particular really does great work.

I love Anna during that period. Also Casey the alien gave us Faison, and we got to explore Anna’s time with the DVX. I loved that aspect. Anna teaching Frisco was a great mentoring relationship back then.

Wasn’t it symbolic of them wanting to feel like they had the bonds of family? Since Laura had been so troubled and Lesley had missed out on so much of her life? I know I have seen clips of Rick with Monica and it was very important to him that she still be his daughter and important. Laura even likes Monica during the period Rick and Monica are together. I wonder if any of the scenes of them in therapy back then when Laura was more troubled covered any of this? Is Chris Robinson there? I couldn’t find him and considering everyone else that is I think it is strange. Even the AJ before Kanan is there, and he had been replaced relatively soon in relation to this. Genie was there when she was still fighting being back on the show. She lost her AMC job because they wanted her back on GH. The audience didn’t want Geary as Bill, and it was the decision of all involved to bring back Luke. Geary said he couldn’t be Luke without Laura (sure changed later), and so the network forced the issue. Genie waited a long time to agree. Mostly because of the trauma of her first period in the show. Once she was back, backstage was so much better and she was valued so her opinion changed.

The posted clip of Monica and Alan learning of Lesley’s death was a great scene. The one with Lesley and Monica is good too. On another show they would have been rivals for years. I wish we had gotten that. Claire Labine would have loved writing for Lesley. That clip also reminds me just how much Genie is a lot like Denise in acting choices. I see a lot of similarities. Lesley is such a great character. I would kill to see scenes of her from DAYS- especially confrontations or scheming. Oh- and I am more than ready for Jeff Webber. He can get it. Especially over Rick and even Alan. Also- I loved Doug Sheehan on Knots and he is just so cute when I see him in clips from this era as Joe Kelly. Richard Dean Anderson must have been proud of his time on GH. Proud enough to attend the 30th anniversary party and be in the giant cast photo with Riche and tons of former and current actors.

As awful as Monty’s seduction rewrite was, I give her some credit for learning her lesson there. She never did it again. Which makes me think she knew it was not good. And unlike DAYS, which was the most like GH in tone in the 1980’s, the women had more agency and were not as male dependent as on other soaps of the era. I love Hope and Kayla and Kim but they are nothing like Anna or Felicia or Monica. That period between PFS’s first two GH runs is a mess. The DVX Grant Putnam mess, David Gray, Susan’s murder... just a mess. Without those actors and a few couples people were excited about, I am amazed the show stayed number one. Anna’s arrival, Frisco/Felicia, Robin, the Asian quarter storyline through the end of Monty with Duke and the Jerome’s was a great time on the show though. I also think the next two EP’s had great stuff, and the show was good if not great, except for wtf Casey the alien and Duke being killed again for no reason.

And yet Holly and Roger had romantic scenes together again. Jack through his relationship with Jennifer did become an heroic man. Mark Valley sure didn’t inherit a character that the rape played a part in at all. And truthfully, neither did Matt for a long time until GH laid the groundwork by destroying Luke and Laura. Todd and Marty were paired together as well (I think. Wasn’t watching OLTL then). Poor Jennifer Horton, one of her friends chose her rapist as a partner (Carly I’m looking at you). Roger was the only one in my list that their entire show was not propping at some point. He was never really redeemed. Sure he had good qualities, but as Alexandra said he was also always hungry. For power.

That is one of the reasons I love Alan and Monica. They were both horrible people in relationships, but they also were great doctors and more than just one thing. I have seen several scenes on YT from back then of Monica with Laura trying to help her. These people had layers, and even in Monty’s plot oriented storytelling they still kept their layers. Monica could go from concern for Laura and selfishness with Rick and Lesley to love for Alan and anger over his child with Susan. And yet she ended up loving Jason, arguably more at times than her own son. She helped Sean steal the Q fortune and kicked them out of the house, and was later devastated by Alan cheating on her and marrying Lucy. She had so many layers that her cancer storyline never occurred to me to be a redeeming story. Same with Bobbie back then. She was awful to Laura in her pursuit of Scotty and then protection of her brother. But she was also a good nurse, and seeing Roy killed and then her abusive relationship with Brock never seemed like a redemption arc. Luke and Laura and the left handed boy seems like a redemption arc to me though. Once again, why do all these soaps have rapists as romantic leads during their history? Roger, Luke, Todd, Franco, Jack, Lawrence? Even if I loved some of these characters, it is still ultimately gross.

Marland and Monty set the foundation for the show at that time. It is not the GH that was created in the 1960’s. But PFS and Monty created the tone that made me love the show. And then she came back and created Anna Devane, my favorite character in the history of the show. As a viewer I owe them so much for the fun I had watching the show. Labine took those bones and gave them a deeper soul than they had ever had before, but the bones were still the ones created by Monty and PFS. As Monty described it- Capra and Hitchcock blended together. That is the tone and style of the show when she was there. I know lots of people deride what they did, and how daytime changed. But I loved it. However- I still think to this day that Monty was best with a strong HW.

I think Monty’s GH was at its best both times Falken-Smith was the head writer while she was EP. First after Marland, then again when she introduced Anna and Robin in the mid 1980’s. She really set the tone for what GH became when it blew up as far as story and style. I think everyone that worked with Monty after that first stint was just trying to emulate what PFS did. Marland was a much more traditional. How do we pin her style down? That earlier DAYS stint is just so different than her other work. GH really was trying to be modern for the times. She is a fantastic character creator. The Cassadines, Roman Brady, Stefano, Anna Devane, Robin Scorpio etc. She also wrote some of the most iconic umbrella storylines in GH and DAYS history- Salem Strangler, Left Handed boy, etc. Sheri Anderson was on her writing team at both shows. These people created the super couple formula (which could be bad when it was applied to every story, like on DAYS).

The song had a huge jump on the billboard chart due to useage on the show. From wiki- Jill Farren Phelps, musical director of the ABC soap opera General Hospital, decided to use "Rise" as the musical backdrop for the rape of Laura Webber by Luke Spencer. For several weeks afterward, the recording was played on the show to evoke the memory of Luke's act. The added exposure in an extremely popular program boosted sales to the point of selling more than one million copies. The week the show hit number one was credited to the Alan/Monica/Rick/Lesley storyline hitting a peak. Luke and Laura are credited with cementing that status and holding it until Genie left. Other shows would get the top spot from time to time but GH stayed that way on the yearly charts until soon after Monty left in 1987, or near then. The show took off relatively quickly, because they were going to give Monty 6 or 10 (I can’t remember exactly) weeks to save the show or let it go out with dignity. Marland created great new characters, gave the existing ones Monty wanted to keep good stories and then she and Falken-Smith made it into a cultural phenomenon. My what if has always been if Marland had stayed? No left handed boy (which is where Luke and Laura really took off), no Diana murder, no Cassadines. I think Falken-Smith really knocked what started before her out of the park!

I do not think I have missed anyone that Guza and JFP got rid of more than Alan Quartermaine. Sure I loved Brenda, and enjoyed and see the potential in Emily, Georgie, Tony, Zander and so many others they got rid of. But Alan is a hole to me as big as Maureen Bauer on GL, just in a different way because they are different characters. Alan is just missing and nothing has ever filled that void. As a doctor at GH, his specific place in the Quartermaine family, his relationships with his children, animosity with Sonny, and his complicated marriage with Monica. He could be ruthless, and he could also be sensitive. Alan was not a played out character. When Labine and Riche wrote out Sean and Tiffany, I missed them but I also got it. They were expensive talent that didn’t have enough story left for what they cost. These were not actors that would have gone recurring or taken huge cuts at that time just to never be the lead in a story again. I kind of felt the same way about Tony once he was off contract. But I think Alan had story still to tell.

I was watching a bunch of random GH clips on YouTube and it occurred to me that Bob Guza loved courtroom scenes. There were so many trials and scenes in a court during his run. Laura on trial for murdering Damian. Luke on trial for something (I can’t remember what) when his affair with Felicia came out. Monica Vs Dorman for sexual harassment. Tons of Sonny or mob related court scenes. Custody of catatonic Laura. Custody of Michael. Dianne, Alexis, Ric and Scotty were always in court for something. It’s almost as big a trope in his writing as misogyny.

I didn’t hate Robert, I just didn’t enjoy him and if he had a love interest I didn’t dig (Katherine) then he was especially grating. Outside of Anna being my favorite, I was way more into Frisco back then than Robert. But when he came back it was like a breath of fresh air. Even now, I love the way he says Corinthos. Just the right amount of contempt.

I’ve been watching this playlist covering Luke & Laura and Lucky’s return in 1993. So many great little moments surrounding all the big events, like Laura finding the old Ward house and her feeling the memories of them while she and Luke hide out. Just the image of her seeing the house is special. This clip reminded me of the easy chemistry Laura and Tony had as friends, and the ending with Scotty is just good soap opera writing. Play those beats!

That first two years of Ron at OLTL and GH were so much better than what we had been getting, but the messy times were there too. The issue is that he starts to climax the stuff that was his “A” material, the stuff he gets accolades and ratings growth with. And then he runs out of places to go, or chooses the easy way out of a storyline (shocks, killing off characters, etc). No one writer should have told so many DID, doppelgänger, and forgotten children storylines on the same shows. Anyone that is a comic book fan can see Ron’s problematic style. Strip-mining history for moments to build his plots around. Any chance for someone to have been off screen is a chance for Ron to have given them a child, past as a spy, twin, etc. He does it so much though that it is a trope in his writing, and often the telling gets worse with each copy.

Thanks for posting this. I really miss Nina. There was a lot of great stuff on the show during this period, but I truly enjoyed all her storylines until pretty near the end. I think Nina is my favorite character from this era. From her early baby story to Phillip, fighting with Kay and Jill, the money, David. Really until Ryan I loved her.

I think Susan was killed too soon. Just imagine 5 or 6 years of her making Alan miserable. Using Scotty to get herself some ELQ shares on behalf of Jason or even of her own through lawsuits or the threat of public humiliation. Fighting with Monica. I used to love Lucy holding her shares over everyone’s head. Imagine if we had Susan and Lucy?

Great clips. I grew up in the Anna, Frisco and Felicia era of the show. But I absolutely loved Dr Hardy, Lee and Gail and Lesley (it was on around me when I was a kid, I just didn’t make a choice to follow the show for myself until that mid 1980’s time period). Clips like these make me miss those characters, and what might have been had they not all been so sidelined and many of them now sadly passed away.

Thanks for the info. It’s kind of like the Spencer’s. I do not remember them being such long-standing Port Charles residents. When Luke and Laura came back in the 90’s, the feeling was Laura was home. Not Luke. Not that Luke was a character to spend much time in reflection. But I don’t remember Bobbie talking about a childhood there either. Just with Ruby and that was in Florida if I remember correctly.

When did the show decide the Q’s had been in Port Charles all along? I know the house wasn’t just invented for Alan to give to Monica, there seems to be some history there for the family. I just get confused. Alan arrived on the show first, but was the rest of the family there and just not seen? There was a real chance when they brought AJ back, and Tracy was still there that Celia could have been brought back with kids that could have integrated well. Now, with just Monica, it would be a harder sell for me. Another waste of Jane before she retired.

I hear a lot about the hurricane that Monty sent through the town to wipe out the cast memebers she didn’t like. I assume this was written by Marland? Kin Shriner jokes about it all the time. Who got the ax then?

Or busy hospital/restaurant scenes. Monty’s GH has lots of background actors.