2007: The Directors and Writers Thread

[Sylph]

The whole of daytime industry's here, YRWT! You didn't know?

[IMissDrusilla]

In the last two days I've been accused of being Victoria Rowell (four times) and [s.W.S.N.B.N.] (twice).

I happen to know Bola and am aware that she quit posting at WOST because all these "copycats"

started trying to make like they were her on other boards and it turned out that Peter Brash, another

writer at "Days of Our Lives" was involved in trying to use the internet and [!@#$%^&*]'s presence on it to make

her look bad.

He said some real scandalous b.s. about her that I hear cost him his job.

I'm assuming this is one of the boards he hit with the b.s.

[Sylph]

If she were clever, she would know how to get around that with little or no problems.

[IMissDrusilla]

Knowing Bola, she was too busy being "honest" to try and be clever.

I take it you're one of the ones spreading the lies about her posting here?

Funny how you didn't dare QUOTE the part about "white boy" Peter Brash, Mr. "Black Invasion".

Anyway, just so long as you know my name is WESS and I'm not in this mess.

LOL

[Sylph]

Another excuse. From all I read about [!@#$%^&*] and her ideas about soaps, I can tell you I like her way of thinking. Pitty she's not 

working for any of those anymore. Or maybe she is, but undercover.

You can check my 600 or more posts and see that I didn't defame anyone. I don't know why I even bother proving anything... 

I actually never read those topics about [!@#$%^&*] in great detail, I didn't have the patience to go through them all, but of those I did read, not one was racist or anything similar.

[IMissDrusilla]

I'm sorry Sylph. I shouldn't have assumed anything about you.

My bad.

[Adam]

Ok bringing this thread back on topic....... I hope Carolyn Culiton takes on a big role under Ron. I'd love it if she eventually was a co-HW.

[Dr. Jay S.W.]

Culliton-Carlivati is my new dream team!!

[IMissDrusilla]

If they make Culliton co-HW then I will get truly excited, because that woman CAN WRITE!

It's a shame she's not the HW, but I doubt she would accept the HW position, because she prefers

doing "back-up" work.

I also love Richard Culliton. I'm probably misspelling their names.

[Adam]

I always seem to get mixed up as to whether to spell it with one L or two L's LOL. So you are not alone.

I have always been a strong advocate of Richard's writing and if the ax does finally fall on Jean Passanante's head he should be promoted to head writer.

[aMLCproduction]

The Cullitons indeed are some of Soap's finest. I don't recall ever hearing negative things about the pair. I really wish, they would team up and take over ATWT, which needs help as well as GL. I am not to sure if they are working right now. Are the Cullitons employed by any soaps now?

[Adam]

Richard is writing scripts at ATWT and Carolyn is doing the same at OLTL.

[aMLCproduction]

Ok thank you. Hmmm... They are on competing shows and married. Both shows are blessed to have them. I bet their conversations at night be interesting.

[IMissDrusilla]

Every holiday season, the Cullitons send out these neat elfin-embroidered cloth napkins to almost everyone

in the industry wishing them a happy X-mas/new year. When you unfold the napkin, they have all kinds of

little goodies in there.

They are the nicest people in N.Y. bar none.

[jfung79]

I love their writing, so I really like how the Cullitons' reputation has gotten better lately. However, there was a time in 1997 when Richard Culliton was bashed mercilessly by TV Guide's Michael Logan, who called him "Cullitoon." Tony Geary was disgruntled, and had a meal with Culliton where apaprently Geary was annoyed that Culliton didn't realize that he didn't get Geary's character Luke, and there were even some rumors Geary punched Culliton. There were also rumors that Geary demanded that Culliton be fired.

Many GH fans at the time were convinced that Bob Guza had left this amazing wonderful story in 1996 for Culliton with the Cassadines and the Spencers and the hospital, which Culliton supposedly then botched after a few months. They theorized that his first few months were great because he was still following Guza's story up to Laura's faked death in December 1996, and then they thought he ruined GH after that until he left in May/June 1997, even though looking back there was clearly great material for Alan and Monica in early 1997. Also Culliton created Alexis and Taggert. I also liked several other stories in this time as well.

Now, I hope most GH fans who have lived through Guza's tenure realize that Guza is not some amazing visionary writer who could do no wrong, lol.

To me, it's more likely that the distraction of creating Port Charles, and the departure (I think) of Karen Harris as GH's co-head-writer, contributed to the somewhat increased boredom factor of GH during early 1997. Even so, I enjoyed it, and thought it was good character-based storytelling. His GH is what first turned me on to Richard Culliton.

There are also some old Usenet posts where Richard was bashed by an industry "insider", a dialogue writer and former actor, as arrogant but talentless. This dialogue writer, who wrote for ATWT in the mid-1990s, complained that Richard disliked soap dialogue writers -- that Richard thought soap dialogue writers kept writing 1950s "Love of Life" dialogue. The writer claimed that the only note he ever got from Richard as headwriter that made sense to the writer was to have "more Edward Albee and less Tennessee Williams" in his dialogue writing style. The same writer called Carolyn Culliton the "ex-stenographer" wife of Richard, as if that should be a putdown of Carolyn's writing ability, so I don't really give his views much credibility. To me it sounds like the writer was challenged by Richard Culliton to write better and is personally bitter instead of taking on the constructive criticism.

More recently, Sean-Paul Riesing on WOST has written some good things about Richard Culliton's writing, but also said that Culliton was a bit arrogant at GL under Pam Long in the late 1980s in terms of thinking of himself as a senior writer, because Culliton had worked on GL with Pam Long during her first headwriting run as well. Still Riesing seemed to think that the GL writing team mostly worked well together, so Culliton probably was not way way arrogant. (Riesing was a part of this GL writing team in the late 1980s.)

So, anyway, it's good to know from IMissDrusilla that Richard and Carolyn are now perceived as the nicest people in N.Y. bar none, and that they give these great Christmas/New Year's gifts! Yay! Now I can love them even more.