Y&R: TV Guide Confirms JG is out and his replacement!

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Yes, GL and SB share Jill Farren Phelps, Rauch, and Conboy as common EP's. Conboy's mismanagement of GL's budget is almost single-handedly responsible for all the trouble GL is in right now.

I think Conboy's in his 80's, and of course things didn't end on a happy note between William J. Bell and Conboy.

I heard Texas was originally intended to be a period soap, but NBC and P&G had it revamped to cash in on the Dallas craze that was sweeping the nation at that point. Interesting to note that Beverlee McKinsey adored Rauch, while she couldn't stand Phelps. Rauch and Phelps are probably the two most controversial soap opera EP's ever.

[Manny]

It aired here in Croatia few years ago. I didn't watch it, but the little I saw was AMAZING production wise! I didn't know Rauch was the producer! Wow!

[dc11786]

Conboy gets a lot of the blame but Raunch left the show in bad shape. How did Conboy mismanage GL's budget?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

For one thing, wasting over a million dollars on that baseball set that was used ONCE. I can't even begin to imagine all those actors who got fired or pushed to recurring for that alone. He didn't like the sets GL had, he wanted to "beautify" them, that he did, and in the process spent GL's budget like it was water.

At least Rauch kept his promise regarding Maureen Garrett and Jerry Ver Dorn. He didn't fire or bump them recurring. Poor Garrett was bumped to recurring almost as soon as Rauch left.

And GL was not really in bad shape when Rauch left, Taggart and Culliton were doing a fine job as HW's, IMO. That was probably the last time GL felt a bit like itself.

[DaytimeFan]

GL was in relatively good shape when Rauch left. He wasn't GL's problem, he saved that show from cancellation in '97 and totally revitalized it. He got Joan Collins on board in '02 and kept things going. He was pretty good at GL.

Sylph, thanks for letting us know Lee Phillip Bell's age, I've always wondered how old she is. I think she keeps herself out of Y&R aside from signing a few cheques and papers each year. She goes to the Bel Air country club, the Church of the Good Shepherd, Neiman Marcus, On Sunset, the Polo Lounge, Malibu on the weekends: it's a nice life.

And if what i'm seeing onscreen screams of Sheffer, well scream Hogan scream.

[rangethatrover]

Did Conboy dramatically change GL's look? Did the show look alot better??

[RoseVioletDaisy]

Somethings looked better under Conboy but alot of the sets looked worse IMO. While Rauch overlit everything, Conboy went too far the other way and made everything too dark with alot of episodes set at night with dim lighting in every shot. There were whole episodes where you could barely see the actor's faces. Wheeler continued the two-lightbulbs-and-a-flashlight tradition that Conboy started until that got too expensive and they switched over to using the Tickertoy cameras outside in the sunlight every freaking day.

[MTSRocks]

They won't let Raunch mess up Y&R creatively. Maybe experiment... but nothing definite if it sucks.

With that aside...

I'm loving Y&R lately. It seems to be going places, and it's the only show I keep up with now. I'm done with the other soaps, and even if Y&R gets bad again, then I'll just tune in sporadically - but I will not be dedicating my time to another soap again. PERIOD Maybe a little YouTube here and there to check out a "solid performance" but that's about it. OLTL seriously burned me.

[Manny]

I agree 100%!!

[lmfan]

I like the show but it is way too much Newman. Everyday, the same characters are on. The ratings took a serious slide earlier this year when we saw the same stories and the same characters week after week. There is more to the core than the Newmans. It looks like the Newmans, revitalized Abbotts and Chancellors are being pushed. I like that but let's not forget about other core characters who have paid their dues and are fan favorites but don't happen to be part of those three families.

[dc11786]

I’ve always been curious about the baseball set. Some say it was very expensive others says it wasn’t because the show recycled older sets to incorporate into the baseball field. However, I find it really hard to believe the set cost one million dollars. At that point, I would assume it would be cheaper to shoot on location or am I wrong?

I don’t think Conboy was as wasteful as people claim. I suspect that Raunch would’ve had to make similar cast cuts had he stayed. I know Kim Zimmer made it very clear during the big contract debate in 2005 that she had already negotiated and taken a cut under John Conboy. Zimmer doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would take a cut if she felt the money was being spent elsewhere. Also, this was around the time of the baseball storyline.

To be honest, I didn’t like a lot of Culliton and Taggert’s work before Conboy came in, but I also wasn’t watching consistently. I remember taping the first appearance of Joan Collins to see if the show had improved any and ended up fast forwarding through the entire episode other than Alexandra’s scenes. I didn’t like Ben and Marina or Beth and Bill. I couldn’t understand how Taggert could defend the Tony and Marah pairing or having a poor widow stripping for a mob boss to pay off her death be a prelude to romance. I thought the custody battle for Zack was poorly done as Phillip became a complete jack***, Harley was a fool, and I couldn’t stand Gus and Harley as a couple. For me, Eden was a bore until Weston made her a hooker. The only storyline that was good was Olivia-Phillip-Alan triangle and the business aspect of Spaulding. I don’t even want to talk about the awful Santa Clause pushes Danny and Cassie together scenes. Ratings wise, GL had been fairly low for years and when Raunch left the ratings were low, I don’t think that was leaving the show in good shape.

My problem with Raunch is I don’t think he would have allowed the stuff to play out as it later did. I felt like MADD cleaned up a lot of stuff before Conboy came in, except for losing Joan Collins. Creatively, Taggert and Culliton had good ideas, but a lot of the stuff was much better executed under Conboy than some right now are giving him credit for. Personally, if Conboy, Taggert, and Culliton had continued to helm “Guiding Light” the show would be in better shape, at least creatively.

Overall, I don’t mind Conboy. I don’t agree with Conboy and Weston’s decision to go for, and deliver, a younger demographic to the show, but they did it successfully. Ratings didn’t fall until after the Maryanne Carrouthers mystery climaxed. When Wheeler came in, she valiantly tried to grab the older viewers that Conboy/Weston had alienated, but failed.

Conboy and Weston did make mistakes, but they maintained most of the characters that Raunch had left, even if that meant they were on recurring status. The show had a core even if it wasn’t used to the best of it’s ability. Also, 2003 was a year most soaps were falling in the ratings whereas Guiding Light remained fairly stable. I just think that while these two weren’t by any means amazing, they weren’t as bad as the were made out to be. Yet, I know that's an unpopular opinion.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

^I do agree, some of the stories were better executed when Conboy joined Taggart and Culliton. However, I disagree with the Conboy/Weston praise, they made me turn off GL for good. I think Weston is just as bad Kreizman, only GL had a better budget then, which makes things even more worse.

Not just the baseball set controversy, but Conboy revamped most of GL's sets and overall production, which was very costly. I thought the major reason for his firing stemmed from budget problems and ratings not rising (but they were relatively stabled compared to most other soaps at the time I guess).

[dc11786]

By no means was expecting others to like Weston. I did, but I know that it is an unpopular opinion. I thought Conboy was fired because he refused to follow network mandates. He had aired a racy nude scene around the time of the Janet Jackson incident. Ratings didn't fall until his firing had been announced and if budget was the case I don't understand why Conboy was hired back after he quit in December 2003.

Sorry, I was aware of the other sets, but forgot to mention it. Some were revamped and I think there were also a lot of new large sets. I remember the haunted museum (which I suspect was a hold over from Taggert), Orchid Mansion, and Eden's loft being fairly large sets that were brand new. However, Ellen Wheeler revamped most of the sets in the fall of 2004 and they were fairly new. Honestly, Wheeler's sets, at least initially, weren't as nice as Conboy's, but that's my opinion.

[Dan]

Now I will give Rauch some credit. The beginning and the end of his tenure were both fairly good, but the middle sucked ass. Major ass.

Agreed completely. Those first two months of 2003 were brilliant with a capital B. The beginning of the Reva stalker mystery had me on the edge of my seat.

[Dan]

The interesting thing about Kreizman and Weston is that they are really on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of their GL tenures.

Weston had HORRIBLE ideas that did not fit in with GL (the hooker serial killer, Ben Reade; Pornstar-Shayne as baseball player; Maryanne Carruthers), but she had fairly good execution. The stories had some structure and were paced well. Technically they were fairly decent stories. Just not on GL. She turned the show into a movie-of-the-week.

Meanwhile, Kreizman alot of times has some rather brilliant ideas. The Cassie/Josh/Reva triangle, on paper, was a brilliant idea, especially is LW would have been there to play it. The Roger story was done with good intentions. The Holly/Blake/Sebastian/Alan storyline would have been BRILLIANT had he followed through on it. The breast cancer story for Reva could have galvanized the show.

But the problem is that Kreizman has HORRIBLE execution. His pacing is haphazard and that was even BEFORE they started those damn ITL episodes. His characterization is juvenile and his writing has all the humor of a demented frat boy. His stories sucked, not because they were good ideas, but because he had no idea how to bring those stories come to life on the screen. Had he gotten a good co-HW with enough creative influence, he could have done much better IMO.