MLH

Are there any really good interviews with the writers of Guiding Light after the show was cancelled? Anyone else think Henry and HB were not used enough in the 90s? Was it due to their contract? I just think they could have been used more at the time. Even the actor who played Dylan really didn't get to interact with the actor who played his Grandfather! I know that Henry was part of Roger tricking him with the rigged poker games. After that, all he did to me was warn people and show up to events. It was getting good with the Jenna angle, but then Buzz came around and that basically became a very small part of Jenna's and Henry's interaction. Heck, Jenna worked with Alan Michael after breaking up with Roger. Even the Dinah part wasn't done well. I would buy him faking an illness to get Dinah to help take care of him and her driving each other crazy. LOL I also don't buy that Adam wouldn't want to visit/see his Grandchildren and meet Hart. After Blake's wedding, it's like he dropped off the face of the earth again. Was he ever mentioned? For all the harping Hart did about the farm, he sure never mentioned his maternal Grandfather.

I never bought Mo's and Vanessa's friendship. The female friendships were never as good as the men, which was surprising.

I swear, by the 90s (after his divorce from Alexandra), Roger was the only one that stayed faithful! LOL I can't believe Vanessa and Ed had an affair! Why would Maureen want to be friends with Vanessa?

Glad I didn't watch this stupidity. LOL This small dinner party Alexandra did for Phillip/Beth, Alan Michael and Roger was hilarious! The fight between Harley and Alan Michael with the bra (Blake's) she found in his robe cracks me up! Roger always had a soft spot for Harley. I am guessing due to feeling guilt for the guy he hired causing the fire.

I didn't get the need to pair Samantha up with Daniel St John in the first place. She really ended up causing people to die because of her stupid crush. Then the waste of time character of Suzanne Devereux. Fell off the face of the earth after Daniel was killed. Mark Derwin said the actor playing Daniel wasn't liked and he and Michael Zaslow fought over who could kill him off (LOL). As for Will, it was an accidental death with Rose. Rusty using Mindy rubbed me the wrong way. I didn't see Will with the other Mindy before Simms. Anyone know how they were like? I would have liked to see more of Josh involved with the Will storyline. Josh was so wasted to me. Josh came off having too bad of a temper and went off the handle too much, but didn't here. I wish Kimberly never got involved with Vincent in real life. That always messes things up when it doesn't work out and fans get WAY too attached to the character's relationship working out. @Speed Racer You can watch it with the Archive and the German dubbed Springfield Story YouTube channel.

I am positive that's why. Even Phillip wasn't around. Too many vacuums. Plus, I really loved the Alan-Michael character at that time. His relationships with Harley and Blake made sense. He was very handsome yet approachable.

89-92 were pretty good to me. I think there were enough characters to cover. The Beth Is Alive story gave a film noir vibe. The gaslighting storyline with Rusty/Mindy vs Will was well done. I think Kimberly Simms had good chemistry with whomever she was paired up with. I didn't care for Johnny/Chelsea per se, but their relationship had good chemistry and the stalker storyline was well thought out. I thought the Roger getting into the Spaulding family caused good ripple effects to other storylines. The Vanessa/Billy/Nadine triangle was well done. Billy's drinking problem was well done. I even liked the storyline for Reva with her driving off the bridge and the storylines that rippled from that. I didn't like them adding Hart. However, he fit in well with the whole Bridget/Hart/Julie storyline. Then they kept aging him up when he didn't meet the timeline with the first Hart in the first place. The storyline with Daniel St John being a murderer made no sense to me. Rick Hearst was a great Alan-Michael, but he was a totally different Alan-Michael. It was jarring with Harley and the Bauer family. Then the Cooper family expanded and so many main characters from 1992 left. I hated Buzz. It should have stuck to Jenna creating a father/daughter bond with Henry vs her bizarre relationship with Roger. 1994 is when it started going off the rails. Roger and Holly being paired up made no sense to me. Blake having no life apart from Ross. She became part of Frank's fake detective agency that did nothing. The focus on the newspaper and WSPR fading into the background.

Discovered GL this year. I watched vids from 1989 to 1998. I saw him as a totally different character than the one that Rick replaced. He hung around Harley and Marlers more than the Bauers to me. Then it was the Coopers with the whole Lucy thing. Poor Harley was just in her relationship with Josh and here comes the new version of Alan Michael that didn't have any of the chemistry with her that she had with the one she married. The show was so obsessed with Lucy and Alan Michael. I was surprised there wasn't a baby involved.

This made me laugh so much! Reva flushed down the toilet?! What? That's why I always think of GL as two different soaps. One with Reva and the other with Dinah/Annie/Cassie on the other soap by the mid 90s. I think one of the main characters needed to get a STD with all the unprotected sex and relationships lasting less than 5 minutes. @DeeVee Yes. That's the scene with Reva and Alexandra I was talking about from 1989/1990. I can't remember if Roger was married to Alexandra yet. It was before Alan Michael being kidnapped and the Fifth Street Fire, so I think 1989. I thought the scene didn't make sense. I swear, that so called mansion had the worst security system. BTW, I never bought Rick Herst's Alan Michael as a Bauer. He stuck out like a sore thumb to me.

It sure would have! There weren't enough women characters that could go toe to toe with Bev's Alexandra. I thought the Reva ones with Alexandra were unrealistic. @anthonymolchan I read that the actor who played Roger's dad was only 9 years older than Michael! I could see Robin playing Amanda. I wish there were more late 30s/40s women with Roger. @alwaysAMC 1994 GL was not great IMO. It just went worse in 1995 when it jumped the shark and had to come up with more and more outlandish storylines. @Speed Racer Did Holly ever interact with Reva or Josh? Didn't seem like it. But I stopped watching anything beyond 1998. Does anyone else thought the Blake/Ben storyline made no sense when she just reconciled with Ross over her sleeping with Rick?

@alwaysAMC I finally watched the full episode of that All My Children tornado in 1994 and talk about an overabundance of great actors that GL could have had! 1994 AMC was way superior to 1994 GL. Would Robin Mattson make a better Hope or Amanda?

Thank you. I will have to check that out. Too bad the German dubbed ones are the only ones available with the most episodes. I think a person's voice can really impact some of the scenes. What about Tonja Walker? Would she make a good Hope in the 1990s after Bev left in 1992? I would have had Alan return after Alexandra left. It left a huge vacuum.

What year was this? I like a good gaslighting story. I want to compare it to the one done by Rusty/Mindy against Will (it was done pretty well) and the horrid Dinah/Hart vs Roger one. Too bad they never had Hope come back. It's a no brainer for a Alan/Hope/Roger story. Especially with no mother figure for Alan Michael.

Didn't Holly leave in 1980?

Nadine wasn't a fav character. I just liked her more than Vanessa. Vanessa seemed stuck up. My fav characters were Roger and Little Marah. I was so sad that she only lasted 2 years or so. By 1997, Roger wasn't being written as Roger anymore, so I don't buy that they couldn't write Michael's speech issue and illness into the storyline. Once the other guy took over, they really made him just a typical Grandpa and pining over Holly. That's it.

I liked Nadine. I liked that she didn't go out with Billy right away after he fired Reva from her job at Hamp's bar/restaurant they started. She knew what she wanted and went for it. I didn't like that they kept her tied to the diner. Between Vanessa and Nadine, I liked Nadine better. I didn't care for Billy or Buzz for her. Her and Ross were funny, opposites attract short romance. I didn't see the romance between Nadine and Alan though.

IDK, it seemed like Nola should have been introduced earlier. Seemed like a 1980s character in a 1990s soap. Seemed like Nola would take the opposite position and nothing come of it. There were so many things wrong with Dinah introduced in 1995 that I just never bought the hype. Ross acting so stupid about Dinah. Even Roger would set a boundaries with Blake in 89 to early 90s. Blake acting like she didn't do just as bad, if not worse things in the past. Blake literally having no life. No women friends until Annie. Can tell when Dinah was a sneak, but not Annie. Holly and Roger regressing on their relationship with Blake. Seemed like they treated her like a 20 year old than a full adult. Henry would have given Dinah money and a place to live in a heartbeat. Yet Dinah (who just wanted the money) never seems to get a clue. There is no way Dinah would fall in love with Roger. Roger likes to be in control. No way would he even get involved with her. It was bad enough that whole Roger/Alan, Roger/Alexandra, Roger/Holly storylines from 1994 fell flat. Then all of a sudden in 1994, Roger thinks WSPR isn't worth anything and the next does again only to lose WSPR to Dinah who always acted like work was a four letter word. Maybe, I need to go back to GH old 1980s mystery storylines. They have the entire storyline in order from start to finish on YouTube. LOL

I thought Bridget should have been living with Vanessa, etc. from the start. Nola didn't bring anything to me but some comic relief a bit here and there. The boarding house occupants started ok, but then it just fell apart and was very boring. Dinah should have been forced to live there, not married to Roger. Then it would make sense that Nola is around.

I didn't mind how long Roger was behind the mask, because he was grooming Alexandra. Sonni was one of the most interesting characters of all the years I have currently watched. Eve was a poor copycat. I thought Pilon did a better job than Raines in being different than Roger and still be intimidating. Also had a gothic vibe. The problem for me with Alan was that he had all this power behind bars and then nothing for years. Soap storylines started to go faster and faster. By the time a character is recasted viewers have no reason to be excited. That's why they should have laid the groundwork for a character returning like they did with Holly and Roger. Cassie and Hart (somewhat Amanda) never worked for me was because there was no history behind them. Nola didn't work for me, because she wasn't needed. IMO. Anyone know why Will was written out? I thought the actor that played him did a good job.

Great detective work! Thank you. Always interesting how things like that turn out. If I were Susan, I would have put their screenplay they wrote for "Allison" into book fiction. Or sold copies of the script to raise money. It was in pre-production Does that mean they already sold the rights to that script? @vetsoapfan @P.J. In 1989 I liked how they had Billy and Nadine first meet via her talk show interview with Hamp. I liked how they handled the whole WSPR atmosphere. Although, they dropped the ball with the newspaper. In the mid-90s WSPR was totally wasted and the newspaper too focused on. Only weak spots were Johnny/Chelsea and Fletcher. They didn't know what to do with them.

I have seen worse in the mid 90s on. @Speed Racer I agree. I thought Roger's and Sonni's Independence Day dinner was more interesting than the 1989 Bauer Snorefest BBQ. The 93 one with Holly/Michelle/Roger/Ed at Cliff House was better too. I didn't see the 2001 one, but all the ones I have seen seemed boring. The only one I think was pretty good was when Bridget/Julie/Hart/Kat were first introduced.

Just watched August 18, 1989 episode on Springfield Story after Blake and Phillip got married and threw a party. Holly wasn't invited but shows up...just before Roger and Sonni come. Talk about soap goodness! LOL It was interesting, because before the party Sonni was avoiding Roger after talking to Holly and they have a good conversation about it when he went find her at Cedars. It seems like the writers did a great job with balancing the backstory of Roger and Holly. This was the beginning of the Beth Is Alive story that also showed that Roger was smart. Unlike how they wrote Roger in 1994 til the end. I liked how he cut the painting and brought it back to Harley's store to get information about the guy who brought it there.

I haven't watched anything beyond 1998. They would do Memorial Day ones too.

Yes. Thank you @Reverend Ruthledge for the history of the, IMO, always boring Bauer BBQ. Or was there ever an interesting one? I thought the Memorial Day one with Buzz was done better.

Thank you for taking the time to answer. I thought all movies in post production could be found on IMDB, but I guess you have to have a person take the time and do so. I didn't even see anything mentioning that he was the star of that play "D" in the first place. The screenplay for "Allison seemed like a really interesting story. Surprises me what makes it to screen like "You Light Up My Life" vs the "Allison" one.