Paul Rauch hired by Y&R

[rangethatrover]

Everybody get your sunglasses! Word on the street is that huge spotlights are being brought into the CBS lot with the words "New Lighting- Y&R".

Everybody knows that a Rauch show is lit like Walmart!

I LOVED Paul Rauch's OLTL.(Other than the bright, tacky lighting). In my opinion the show was excellent from 84-89. (Yes, I enjoyed Eterna.)

And Rauch's Another World was classic soap from what I hear (and the clips I saw on Youtube and WOST showed that the shows had exceptional production values and shockingly low lit cinematic lighting.)

Paul Rauch as EP of Y&R?? (I watch OLTL and Y&R)

His shows are never boring. They have great background music. Other than that they generally VERY inconsistent and implode eventually.

Also, he is a notorious bastard behind the scenes and really difficult to work for. He and Eric Braeden would be like bulldogs.

As long has he is smart enough to bring back the Y&R of the 70's 80's and most of the 90's, gives the show a great villian and some suspense- I am in. He better not touch the lighting and I really miss Y&R's old background music before Latham ditched it all.

I say what the hell- the show has NEVER been this boring. Completely lifeless.

I would love to see a guy like this try his hand at Y&R.

[rangethatrover]

And if you guys thought that GL was brightly lit during the Rauch era- OLTL truly was lit with spotlights. Check out Youtube OLTL look in the 80's makes Rauch's GL look like Dark Shadows by comparison.

[MarkH]

Well Bill Bell was a tough guy too, by all accounts. I actually see Braeden getting along with him -- like he did with Jesse Ventura.

[SteveFrame]

I had forgotten about the stuff that Dwyer had to say about Lemay, but I do know first hand what Reinholt has to say about both Rauch and Lemay as well as what he told me Courtney said too.

In the firings and the changes at AW both Rauch and Lemay were equally as guilty. Lemay was not innocent and Rauch was not the total villian.

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As far as keeping the lower-class family seeking to enter financial higher-ups, etc. - the formula was still there from the beginning. The Matthews were the 2 lower and upper class families. Even Nixon kept the differences apparent but under Lemay even Liz Matthews who was always from the richer side of the family seem to have the same level in society as Jim's side of the Matthews family.

Liz Matthews was always a wealthy b*itch in the mode of Phoebe Tyler, Iris Carrington, etc. Lemay degraded Liz to working as a secretary to Mackenzie Cory. That was so weird. There was no explanation that I ever remember as to what happened to her wealth either.

And as far as lower class families, Lemay brought a ton of those on in his tenure that he could have easily written many of the stories he did for the Frames. He had the McGowans, the Ewings, the Perrinnis, the Connollys and he could have easily used Rachel's sister Pamela who had been written off Somerset. Her past had not been explored fully at Somerset. Or as you said he could have made the other Frame's cousins.

I never understood the need to change Steve's history esp. when at first the other Frame's didn't seem to stay long. Emma would come and go at first. Janice's initial stay in town wasn't long. The only 2 that stayed very long were Willis and Sharlene, but Sharlene didn't stay that long in the long run of things in the 70's.

I am just forever grateful that Virginia Dwyer took a stand and refused to play the death scene for them.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Y&R has always been a darkly lit show, even under Latham and now, they kept that quality in tact. Bill Bell wanted dark lighting because it "helped the audience focus on the characters more so." Surely, Rauch would know not to mess with that (then again, this is Rauch).

Anyway, I too don't have much of a problem if Rauch is given the EP title. Lemay always said Rauch was a bully and he had to fight him to get his way. As long as Maria and Hogan stand firm on their ideas. they should work very well with Rauch.

Y&R fans have been upset over the weak EP's we've had since David Shaughnessy left, and Rauch is very hands-on with his shows, that's a good thing IMO. He gives the actors direction, likes to be there when the scenes are taped, and he finds a way to produce the written material, no matter how bizarre it is (see the camp trips on both OLTL and GL).

[MarkH]

Is there any chance Rauch, at 74 and NY based, really is just consulting?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Apparently, Rauch has at least two residences in California (according to Sylph). Age doesn't mean anything, Rauch left GL at 68 and continued as a consulting producer on that Russian telenovela until it ended in 2004.

I wouldn't be surprised if he'd take the EP position at Y&R.

Face it, Josh Griffith needs to be replaced with someone who actually knows what he/she is doing.

[EricMontreal22]

Actually according to LaGuardia's 1977 soap book Wonderfl World of Soap Operas one reason the AW firing WAS such big news and so documented compared to anything in the 60s was it happened just when soap magazines became big business and started paying attention to the backstage stories. Otherwise much of it prob woulda remained lesser known. It DID cause huge fan reaction (again according to the book)

If I ever figure out my scanner I should scan the whole chapter "The Another World Adventure" it has huge letters from Pete and from George about the firing. George claims he called Agnes Nixon about it and she said he was right--that when a show became an hour it should be better not just bigger and she agreed, he claims, with George that the writing became all about filler. I sorta doubt she said that (most of what George says sounds made up or exagerrated in the letter) but it's true she was very hesitant to move AMC to an hour.

[SteveFrame]

I doubt it Eric. Joseph Stuart agreed with George too. I have seen stuff that Joseph Stuart wrote. Stuart was at The Doctors at the time of George's firing and wanted George at The Doctors so bad. He was going to play Nick Bellini's brother - I am sure it is the role that eventually went to Chandler Hill Harben I think.

NBC would not hear of it esp. after George and Jacqueline went on to The Mike Douglas Show and talked about the firings.

I have always felt that much of what Agnes said was truly from the heart but I also chalk it up to the fact that Harding was undoing much of the history that she had tried to put back into place after the damage James Lipton had done to the show. Nixon restored the Matthews family from the damage Lipton did and saved Another World. Much of that was undone by Harding Lemay.

[EricMontreal22]

Agnes Nixon likes to say things that won't gether in too much trouble but I agree. Then again I don't get the feeling that in 1975 she was following AW super close so maybe she just agreed with George out of sympathy--she did help hire him after all

[DaytimeFan]

Not the LIGHTING. {Katherine Chancellor} Dear God In Heaven {Katherine Chancellor}

That being said, the Restless Style Bullsh*t isn't lit properly, it looks dingy. And the set that I think is lit the best (The Chancellor Residence) has some of the brighter lighting.

We will have to see. Y&R doesn't need any more reinventing, that already f*cked up the show!

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Outside of his liking for bright lighting, Rauch is very good with production values. The sets at his time at OLTL and GL was very well done, large, and nicely decorated.

In fact, I think he might actually work well with the set designers and decorators on Y&R.

He just needs to leave the lighting alone!

He's also hands-on with the production of his shows, Josh Griffith clearly IS NOT.

[rangethatrover]

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I think the lighting is bad on all 3 ABC soaps, LOL! Though, OLTL is certainly better in the production and lighting department than AMC. GH has the best directing team of all the ABC soaps, IMO. OLTL's sets and their decorations leave a lot to be desired IMO, a lot of it is really tacky.

DAYS is lit well, thanks to Ed Scott. However, with some of the DAYS sets, the new darker lighting doesn't look too well, I've noticed. Unlike Y&R where the sets were designed especially for dark lighting, a lot of the DAYS sets were not and it works better on some sets than others. The lighting on B&B and the P&G soaps are all over the place.

I've noticed that the orchestrated background music has been slowly creeping back into Y&R since Latham's been gone. It's still not used as much as it used to be, but it's still there to an extent. Y&R also needs to reestablish a real directing team again. They have too many freelance directors at the moment.

[DaytimeFan]

Oh yes there is still MUCH to be done at Y&R.

The directing team is a sloppy mess, it needs to be overhauled and Sally McDonald needs to be crowned Queen of the Directors, in my view she's the only one who knows what she's doing and knows what Y&R is supposed to look like.

The lighting must stay the same. The Y&R sets will look bad with bright lighting, DARK lighting is GOOD lighting. The music needs to get back to being 100% orchestral, it's pathetic that Y&R has such stirring, melodramatic, FABULOUS music lying around some mixing booth while we are subjected to the bullsh*t LML 'innovated'.

If Rauch is indeed the new and improved EP of Y&R I hope he doesn't tamper with what works...Y&R doesn't need any more effing sh*t up.