All: Do the HW&Ep's watch other soaps?

[Southofnowhere]

Do the HW&EP's watch other soaps. Are TPTB of each soap in a room every afternoon watching 9 tv's seeing what everyone else are doing?

[Sylph]

I don't think so. But if you know your position is rocky, I'm sure you'll watch other shows so that once you get fired, you get hired by the other soap.

I remember Lynn Antoinette mentioned in one of her interviews she was a huuuuge fan of one soap opera and I really want to know which one is it.

I'm sure Hogan is watching ATWT and Bradley Bell is watching Y&R.

[heatherwebber]

remember Lynn Antoinette mentioned in one of her interviews she was a huuuuge fan of one soap opera and I really want to know which one is it.""

Lynn Latham?

If so she mentioned in one interview I saw that she'd been watching 2 soaps for years. I think one of them was One Life but the other was definitely Guiding Light. She had some good things to say about GL. If I'm remembering right she only mentioned Dorian on One Life and didn't say she was still watching it. I also think she said or implied she'd rather have been offered to write GL than Y&R.

[RuAsRuAnAu]

I'm sure Barbara Bloom watches all of CBS Daytime's shows (she wrote a breakdown for Y&R back in June 2007). I'm certain that Frons doesn't watch any, except for GH (in small parts though). Annamarie Kostura? You'd have to pay her to watch DOOL & the cancelled Passions.

Someone leaked info (some say Josh Griffith) that P&G had approved of Luke being a homosexual on ATWT (P&G execs were reportedly ticked off), so Frons and his infinite wisdom with the help of Guza & Pratt decided to steal their "thunder" make Lucas Jones, Bobbie Spencer's son, a homosexual. It turned out to be a huge flop on GH's part. I must say that making Lucas gay was one of the worst decisions ever made on GH. Where is he now? Conversion therapy camp?

I think LML watches GH b/c on 9/20/07, Y&R's Christian LeBlanc (Michael Baldwin) was talking a bit like GH's Bradford Anderson (Spinelli). That struck me as copycatting, or a nice homage to a character that's making a lot of waves among GH viewers. Go, Spinelli! After all, LML was PC's HW, so she had to watch GH during her PC tenure, which wasn't what Kay Alden called "unwatchable".

Bell watches Y&R!? Kidding, right? Does LML watch B&B?

During the AMC/OLTL crossover baby story in 2004, I think McTavish, Carruthers, Malone, Griffith, Valentini (and maybe Higley) watched each other's shows.

Regardless of her haters, LML rocked Y&R from February to November 2006, and I'm sure she would have rejuvanated the stale GL.

[Sylph]

No, she didn't. Her only contribution to that period was that she ruined the stories Kay and John F. were writing and should have continued to write. Basically, you're a Lynn hater, you just don't know it yet.

[Sylph]

Yes, Heather, Lynn Marie Antoinette is Lynn Marie Latham. It was a play on words made by Diva from Usenet group.

[EricMontreal22]

Often you hear about these writers havign watched soaps BEFORE they became head writers, or when they got the job if they hadn't watched soaps before (liek Lemay) they spend 6 months watchign and comparing different ones etc. but I think to be a HW takes SOOO much of your time that you really can't follow any other soap all that closely though I'm sure you're somehwat aware of what's going on with the major shows.

[Cat]

Well, aparently on most shows, the monitors in the make-up and wardrobe areas are turned on to all three Daytime networks during the day, so actors and producers can see what's going on with most soaps -- including their own. Many AW actors were addicted to GH and Sunset Beach in the late 1990s, apparently.

But I'm not sure some of the writers do. LML had never really seen Y&R before she was hired, for example. Claire Labine, on the other hand, was a staunch Love of Life fan and watched GH, too. She revitalized both when she worked there. GL and OLTL, on the other hand? I'm willing to bet she had never really gotten into either show.

Is Hogan an exception? The anti-soap-watching soap writer?

[EricMontreal22]

Hogan wasn't the first--Harding Lemay never had watched (and he watched a bunch before his work started and called them crap though I think in his book he says he liked Another World the best), neither had Michael Malone. Both had a lot of help when starting--Lemay with Irna Philips for 6 months and Agnes Nixon actually helped Malone a lot with AMC even though she hadn't been involved int he show for a while (and havign soap scribe Josh Griffith helped I'm sure)

[Cat]

LOL, you mean OLTL, right?

Perhaps soaps need TWO co-HWs -- one who is a genuine fan of the show in question. And the other who knows nothing, has never watched and just brings a fresh perspective and some new ideas!

[EricMontreal22]

I do yah lol I should quit posting in the middle of the night when I can't sleep

I do think a mix of people who know and respect, and have worked in the genre and a fresh person actually makes a lotof sense though it's hard to organize or get the right fit (a bit liek those magical HW/EP combos--nearly every time I think of a really great soap period--say Malone, Griffith and EP Linda Gottlieb at OLTL--it's the whole combo that made it work so well, when those HWs have returned with a diff EP the magic is invariably at least slightly lost)

E

[RuAsRuAnAu]

LML was given many Y&R discs to watch when SONY/CBS wanted to hire her as Executive Consultant. Did she watch all of them more than once?

Goutman & Mary Alice Dwyer Dobbin flew to L.A. (musta been desperate, huh?) to meet with Sheffer in early 2000. Sheffer was given & watched 2 discs, one was ATWT, the other was GL. Sheffer thought ATWT was "boring" (that's the word he used), but had the most interesting characters compared to GL at that time. Sheffer had never watched a minute of a daytime show prior to him viewing ATWT & GL in 2000. What would Springfield have been like if Sheffer decided not to write for the citizens of Oakdale? I'm sure he would have rocked it in the similar way he did ATWT. Does anyone want Sheffer to move outta Salem & relocate to Springfield?