2009: The Directors and Writers Thread

[Toups]

That was a pretty good interview. LOL at him saying the SB writers didn't listen to the HW. I wonder who he was talking about - Anne Howard Bailey? I so want to see “The Capwell Zone” episode, sounds interesting. I really hate that he's being wasted at B&B. Is he close with Tomlin? I would love to see him at DAYS, writing for Joe Mascolo, John Aniston, Louise Sorel, Crystal Chappell, Michael Sabatino. Man, imagine Mulcahey, Courtney Simon and Richard Culliton together - talk about the ultimate SW team.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Most likely, she was hated by a lot of people at SB.

He really loves doing special episodes, he did quite a few of them at GL in the early 90's.

He only worked with Tomlin at SB, so I doubt they're very close.

He seems to like the autonomy B&B gives to him and he's pretty close with Brad Bell, and he's known Barbara Bloom since their GH days.

He mentioned how certain writers have chemistry together, like he did with Nancy Curlee and Stephen Demorest at GL, and I agree. Sometimes even the best of writers don't mix well at a certain show with a certain group of writers. I think that might be the case with him at B&B.

He also said he wrote with Marland briefly at Loving, which I didn't know.

And he seems to confirm that Nancy and Stephen treated him as a Co-HW at GL, but he was never credited as such during that time period.

[Sylph]

Fabulous interview! I want more! Korte, Val Jean, Simon, Broderick!!! Just interview them, Nelson!!!

But... William Shakespeare of soaps? Please. And I didn't like that Faulkner line - more modesty please.

Bullsh!t. Unlike all of you, I think B&B might have been the perfect place for Patrick. Why and how it all went to unimaginable sh!t is beyond me.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I don't see how his style could have changed so drastically from the stuff he did at SB, GL, and GH to doing what he does at B&B now. I've also seen more than a couple of former Y&R writers head to B&B and change significantly there, I've always believed something was in the water at that show. LOL!

He had the Dobsons at SB, Curlee/Demorest at GL, and Guza when he was good at GH. Who does he have at B&B? Brad Bell. LOL!

Oh, he also claimed he worked as a team on stories with Guza, Val Jean, and Korte at GH, so Guza does seem open to suggestions, when you're in his inner circle, of course.

[Toups]

I thought it was pretty interesting/cool how they were like, "This is OUR show and we know it better than you. So we're going to this our way." LMAO

I really want to see some of his SB episodes. I know if SB aired when I started watching soaps, I would've loved it.

You never know. They've both been in the industry for many decades, so they might know each other.

But he doesn't get the chance to write any Mulcahey-esque dialogue. The characters just aren't right for it.

Yeah, I agree about "team chemistry" - you need in sports and I think you need it in soaps too. Like Hogan Sheffer's first year at ATWT, man what a team that was with CCulliton, Stephen Demorest, Hal Corley, Courtney Simon as his CoHWs/AHWs.

New info! So did Mulcahey start at SB when the show started in '84? When did he join SB?

And GH too.

[Sylph]

Weird, I tell ya. W-e-i-r-d.

Especially given his extensive experience and reputation. He should have adapted to B&B and elevated the dialogue. Instead, it all went upside down: B&B shot him.

[Sylph]

I know Toups finds me annoying and all, but I really wish he dedicated himself more to these interviews... All of them were great and it would be such a shame not get another chance at hearing Labine or Broderick or Tomlin. Whomever. Even Jean Passanante!

[Sylph]

How did you all get the yes-or-no man description?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Here's The Capwell Zone scenes/episode:

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[Toups]

I got it as: "Let's ask Patrick what he thinks of this." They thought very highly of him.

Awesome, thanks! Man, Meg Bennett back then. LOL

[Toups]

GH:

Josh Griffith first listed as Breakdown Writer on August 7

[bellcurve]

Either a ) he's being edited to death by the network or by the show or b ) he really has given up, save for a few moments of brilliance. I think ( A ) is the more likely scenario.

[Sylph]

I can hardly accept that Patrick would accept that. At least, he wouldn't tolerate it for all these year. Perhaps I am mistaken, but a writer of his caliber... As for giving up, I think that GH dialogue doesn't come as a product of a hugely diffucult, laboursome process. It's not effortless, but I don't think those people would ever write episodes as bad as some of Patrick's recent ones.

[DeliaIrisFan]

A script writer's job is to make the characters sound like themselves. If they don't, there is a script editor to edit all of the scripts to ensure continuity. A soap character cannot gain 50 IQ points from Thursday to Friday and then lose them all the following Monday. That's not even the kind of micromanaging that Mulcahey complained about killing soaps in recent years - that's the way it's always been. I think he would rather write for a show that has its own reality that he has to respect, than to have his scripts dissected by corporate hacks on the grounds that something is pushing the envelope too far or "the audience isn't smart enough to understand that" or the episode is just too long and something he spent so much time writing is expendable. On B&B, it's more like Ridge and Brooke are the ones who wouldn't understand big words, not the viewers necessarily. That writing team probably has more creative autonomy than any other writers in daytime, not to mention the show is half as long so there is a lot more time off. And, it has (comparatively) good ratings and international success, making for the closest thing to job security that exists in this dying business. I completely understand why Mulcahey would rather work there than anywhere else - I myself couldn't imagine having to "find Ridge Forrester's voice" for a living, but for someone whose greatest talent is writing dialogue I can see how it would be less frustrating than writing for characters who really do live and breathe for you and knowing that your work can and will be rewritten in ways that do not ring true.

I'm admittedly not a fan or regular viewer of B&B, but I presume I've seen the show enough to have caught some Mulcahey scripts in the past 5 years, and the dialogue sounds exactly like B&B dialogue I remember when flipping the channels when I was 12. These characters don't learn from their mistakes, don't grow as people, don't look in the mirror and say, "I am a grandparent and I am contemplating making the same disastrous decision I made all those years ago that led to my grown children having the heredity that they have in the first place!" GH's characterizations are based at least in part on (pop) psychology, and there is a moral code (good mobsters vs. bad mobsters, etc.) that does not necessarily hold up to logic but is at least somewhat complex. Also, after really dysfunctional couples finally hurt each other enough, they sometimes move on, seemingly permanently, to new partners. As a result, GH characters can have conversations that seem to be intelligent on the surface without betraying completely inexplicable actions. Whereas I've never seen B&B attempt to explain why Ridge cannot make up his mind between Taylor and Brooke after twenty years, and what is worse, neither of them ever act like there is anything wrong with his behavior let alone try to justify why he acts that way. Like I said, I'm not a fan or longtime viewer, so if there was some brilliance to B&B's past dialogue that I've missed that Mulcahey has failed to live up to then I am all ears, but otherwise I would not expect him to replicate the exact same writing style he has used on other, very different shows.

The only writing stints of Mulcahey's that I ever watched on a regular basis were GH and GL in the '90s, but I've seen enough SB and early '80s GL episodes on YouTube to pick up on differences in his dialogue from one show to another. Dare I commit blasphemy by saying that GL's dialogue 10 years after the Doug Marland era was much more literate and lyrical? The kind of monologues Mulcahey became famous for writing in the '90s just would have stuck out like a sore thumb a decade earlier, only one day a week. With SB on the other hand, he basically admitted in this interview that he had no respect for the revolving door of head writers who usurped the Dobsons and that it was not the greatest soap opera ever written, and all of the other script writers were in agreement - so in other words they wrote scripts that essentially made fun of the story lines, while honoring the complexity of the characters. He never did that in either of his GL stints because he actually believed in the stories both Marland and Curlee/Demorest were telling. A part of me thinks that I might actually watch B&B if it were written with all kinds of in-jokes to let the viewers know that the writers understand that the stories are nonsense, but it's doubtful that the other script writers would be on-board, and frankly I'm not sure if some of the leads have the comic abilities to pull it off.

In any event, a fascinating interview with a fascinating writer I believe we are lucky to have had working in this genre...

[Sylph]

I stopped after the first sentence... No need to lecture me on what an SE's job is. I know.

My arrogance again, what can one do...