25 years ago

[MichaelGL]

Was it him who penned the Viky's introduction and the whole Vicky/Jake/Marley stuff?

I've always thought that after Culliton left GL, that it was when the show started losing some of it's wheels. Of course it didn't help that there was extreme pressure on the show to be more like General Hospital. Sleeping death anyone? Exploding music boxes? While entertaining, these stories seemed to be at the expense of GL's heart and soul.

Pam took over in 1987 with Willmore still in charge. It didn't take long for Long to return to GL after SFT's cancellation.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Funny thing is, I heard Long and Calhoun HATED each other. I can see why, Long squarely focused on her creations for the most part, where Calhoun had spent previous years at ATWT with Marland and favoured a more ensemble approach. Calhoun had to have hated the Reva and Josh focus, and Reva was just the antithesis of the worldly soap divas that Calhoun would seem to love. I don't think it was any coincidence that under Calhoun's tenure, Alexandra, Holly, and Vanessa had much more to do. 1988-1989 would see Roger and Holly's return, and Alexandra pushed to the head of the Spaulding family, with Christopher Bernau's illness and ultimate passing. Then by 1990, Kim Zimmer left, and Long left a few months afterwards. I'm thankful for all of that actually, because Calhoun promoted Curlee/Demorest and we had those awesome years in the early 90's. Even though Calhoun left sometime in mid 1991, I think the show was becoming what he wanted all along - an ensemble piece that focused on many different characters. I think Reva's departure turned out to be a blessing for the show, and I imagine Curlee/Demorest favoured ensemble writing too.

[DRW50]

When you were watching back then, did you keep up with the changes in producers or writers? Did you sense a change, even if you didn't know about backstage upheaval?

I started watching GL around the late 80s/early 90s and I never even noticed the shift. I loved Alex, I loved Reva, loved Holly, loved Vanessa, loved Nadine, Mindy, Harley, Blake, Maureen. I didn't start to notice the changes in the show until those characters started being damaged, or written out. It wasn't until then, when JFP started sinking in, that I started to resent one character for taking another character's story or love interest. Then my feelings towards the show started becoming very bitter (at the time I blamed this on Lucy Cooper -- I blamed everything on her) because there was a contempt from the producer level.

I think that's the biggest reason soap ratings have fallen. The contempt towards fans (not fan groups, fans period) helped end that age of innocence where people could just watch their shows.

[Helena]

IIRC "The Four Musketeers" (Beth/Philip/Mindy/Rick) story line started in mid 1983. November 1983 had the introduction of Lujack, Christmas 1983 had Beth and Philip running away to New York, with Mindy and Rick not too far behind. By around February 1984 they were all back in Springfield, Philip and Beth were engaged, Mindy was pregnant with Philip's child and Lujack was interested in Beth. Beth found out about Mindy on her wedding day, called it off and moved into the boarding house, right next door to Lujack.

By June of 1984 Mindy had lost the baby and Beth had moved on with Lujack. After the summer Darcy drama had Lujack rejecting Beth and everyone else in his life in order to protect them, Lujack and Beth reunited and Lujack decided to start a club with the trust fund money Alexandra had given him.

Philip spent the rest of 1984 trying to get Beth back by trying to be her "friend" while Lujack struggled with starting up his club. India was in the picture by that time, and Beth was jealous of her friendship with Lujack while Lujack was worried about Philip trying to get Beth back. An explosion at the club (that one of Philip's hired thugs had arranged...with or without Philip's knowledge...I don't quite remember) resulted in Beth being blinded and pulling away from Lujack. By the end of 1984 India had blackmailed Philip into marriage (she knew about the club and who had destroyed it) GA was going or gone already, Lujack was trying to find proof about who set him up, and was pretending to be a mute piano playing handy man at a school for the blind in order to stay closer to Beth, who didn't want to be with him until she could see again.

[David V]

I think he introduced Marley onto the show, and also introduced Wallingford. Gary Tomlin joined the AW team and then became HW in early 1985. After Tomlin left there was something of a creative dib until DePriest took over in 1986, and in the summer of 1986 AW got its highest ratings of the decade.

They can be seen as part of a wider problem in the soap industry, that of copying at the expense of any real identity. Everyone wanted to be like GH in the 80s, many soaps tried Days-like gimmicks in the 90s and thereafter, all at great cost to the industry.

[rangethatrover]

Cool ^^ Thanks for the GL info!

Something I remember about "Loving" was that it was constantly panned for not being about anything. All of the mags used to say the same thing- that it had no vision.

[Soapsuds]

Good times...good times ..loved GL during that time. I actually loved all of GL until Ellen Weston showed up.