Thank you for filling in what happened to Barry.

I liked everything about his relationship with Delia until suddenly she was in the car with Faith and was yet again made the heavy in an attempt to create sympathy for an unlikeable heroine. At the time of those episodes I felt like any story with Faith was automatically dragged down by her presence. Sadly they never seemed to have any idea what to do with Barry from that time on. The writers strike probably didn't help.

I wonder what he would do as HW of ATWT. He can't be any worse than Jean. I think the last time there was too much pressure to live up to the Marland legacy.

Anyone that followed Marland was bound to never live up to expectations - it was almost a guaranteed fail. In retrospect, Backus and Packer were better than any HW regime we've got since Marland died.

Backus did tell FF this:

I'm sorry I've never had a second chance at head-writing once I learned the craft better and knew how much more responsibility you could delegate to the breakdown writers, but I moved on happily to other things.

Too bad he'll never get another chance at being HW, I'd rather give him another chance than any of the recycled hacks in daytime right now, I'd even take him at Y&R, since even that show is pissing me off at the moment

Edited May 18, 200916 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

Wow! Great job, man! You got the "dream interview" - meaning someone who's willing to give you long, detailed answers/stories. I really enjoyed reading that.

Thanks for the interesting interview!

What happened to the stuff about Richard Culliton you said he had told you about?

Charlotte Savitz vetoing Malone's ideas was probably not a bad thing. There were all these rumors Malone just wanted to turn AW into that New Orleans soap that had been abandoned by Fox. (I think introducing Lila was the beginning of that, but I'm not sure. I did like Lila though.) Supposedly he wanted to turn Paulina into a prostitute. I don't think it was going to attract viewers -- AW was going to be cancelled no matter what happened because NBC hated it and was firing everyone.

Edited May 18, 200916 yr by jfung79

I apologize. I thought he had but by reading again, I realized I was wrong. I will ask him, sorry.

I apologize. I thought he had but by reading again, I realized I was wrong. I will ask him, sorry.

Don't worry about it, no need to ask him again. Shows he wasn't important enough to Backus for Backus to bring him up. Oh, and I didn't realize, but looks like Culliton was the headwriter when Backus was fired from AW, hmmm, lol, don't know if Culliton had any say in that.

Edited May 18, 200916 yr by jfung79

That was a fantastic interview, FF! Great job!