2007: The Directors and Writers Thread

[heatherwebber]

Culliton's GH I could watch. Since then it's been horrible with the brief exception of the McTavish period which I could actually sit through unlike much of her recent AMC stint.

I also watched & enjoyed Culliton's AMC but it's been a disaster since he left.

[Sylph]

Couldn't find the posts.

[jfung79]

I thought Griffith's dialogue for ATWT was good when he was a script writer there.

Did people like his headwriting at OLTL? I don't remember.

Also, if what RavenWhitney writes is true, I like Griffith's ambition of trying to come up with a new soap at a time that soaps are said to be dying! I'm also glad that Barbara Bloom is doing something constructive if what RavenWhitney writes is true -- not just letting ATWT flounder, but also not approaching just any random writer for a change.

[jfung79]

I kind of don't want to show them to you becuase it'll drag up all the old Culliton baggage from a time when fans thought he was responsible for things he wasn't responsible for, like the firing of Charles Keating at AW.

But, if you search for "more Edward Albee and less Tennessee Williams" in quotes on Google Groups, you will find one of the posts from this bashing writer. Also search for "ex-stenographer" Culliton to see him bash Carolyn.

[Sylph]

So, in the end, who do you think is the grey eminence who wrote under Culliton?

[jfung79]

I've never been able to figure it out. He claimed to be 43 in 1999, and a friend of Anna Stuart. Does anyone have a list of the ATWT dialogue writers in 1994 and 1995?

[jfung79]

Actually I think I know -- Thomas D. Petitjean, Jr. I figured it out from an Amazon listing and obituary. He died in 2006 at only 49 years old

[Sylph]

That's sad...

[Sylph]

I know that Jim Houghton was once a regular poster on rec.arts.tv.soaps.cbs, but stopped after many questioned his indetity...

[Adam]

He was alright paired with Malone. Better than the Higley era that is for sure but I suppose that isn't say much.

Poor Josh. His integrity is shot now. He went from being quite possibly one of the best dialouge writers in the business at ATWT to being nothing but a yes-man for Lynn Marie Latham at Y&R.

[aMLCproduction]

wow really? Did he dish any info Sylph?

[Andre]

I'd like to believe you. The iTune article about Days mentioned an exec shakeup in the near future. Perhaps this is part of it? Also, Meg is an excellent scriptwriter; the handful of times she's written for Days have been excellent.

[Adam]

Surprised Lynn would let Paula go. She was one of her first hires when she came in. Oh well, she'll just bring on another person completely new to Y&R with no ties to the show and fire someone else who has been there for years.

[R Sinclair]

I'm a couple days late, so this made me roll on the damn floor in laughter.

Anyhow, I hated Richard Culliton's writing on AMC. His first three months were good (September - December 2001), but then everything just became All Greenlee and Leo All the Time shitfest from January to November 2002. The proteus story was atrocious, no matter how conceptually appealing the umbrella story might've been, it was piss poorly executed. All of the revisionist history as well was horrible. David's father being a drug lord. Trey Kenyon being the son of Vanessa and Richard Fields. MAUREEN GORMAN! UGH! Aidan Devane -- the most USELESS character created portrayed by the BLANDEST actor in ages with no real, interesting story to hold him up. Followed by the pointless creation of the spineless, wishy washy Maggie Stone with, again, no real, interesting story to support the character... Pine Valley stopped being a working class town and morphed into Llanview, with everyone being rich and fabulous and having endless supplies of money.

He may have been excellent dictating story on other programs -- and if he penned the first one or two scripts during the beginning of his 2001-2002 AMC head writing tenure (I do have to admit his first episodes under the banner of his name as head writer were good), I will even give him credit for being a good script writer. But overall, the show was irritating to say the least during his stint as head writer. He was a step up from Jean Passanante -- absolutely. But still, I'd have to co-sign Logan with the Cullitoon remark... because it just became a joke.

[Adam]

Cullitoon is such a cheesy put down but I suppose that's Logan for you

Did Carolyn and Richard ever co-HW a show together? I know he was an associate HW under Megan McTavish at AMC in the early 90's and at the same time Carolyn was writing scripts at AMC. Did they ever co-HW together?