Legendary Emmy-winning soap scribe PAMELA K. LONG comes to Brandon's Buzz!

[Greg's GL]

Yes. The post-Marland version of Vanessa was I absolutely love Maeve!

I think we can continue our GL discussions in the "canceled soaps" thread cuz there's alot I would like to talk about with you, Mitch and MichaelGL (to name a few).

And BTW, Brandon, THANK YOU so much for getting this interview! I've never heard her voice before and completely loved the interview. Thank you so much!

[DRW50]

Oh that's right I forgot the discussion would go there now. Poor GL.

It's nice to get to talk about this stuff so if you have anything to say there then I hope we'll respond.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I think one thing Long's GL was good at was that the show had a lot of heart and a sense of community, which is something I think GL has always been about. I think Curlee/Demorest kept that with the switch over, only their writing was generally more sophisticated and intelligent.

[Brandon's Buzz]

Hey Greg, thank you for listening! As I said on air, I was stunned (and a little hurt) that no one in the main press had reached out to at least get a blurb from Pam Long about this show's cancellation, and I finally set out to do it myself, and I so appreciate you guys not only listening, but starting such a conversation over it.

For those of you who have yet to listen, let me once again remind you that you can find the show as a podcast at the iTunes music store, or by following this link: http://brandonsbuzz.com/brandons-buzz-radio-the-archives/september-16-2009-emmy-winning-soap-scribe-pamela-k-long/

[Brandon's Buzz]

Juniorz, I appreciate your input on this, and while we'll probably never agree on this matter, I want to say a couple of things in an attempt to put a bit of this in perspective. First of all, the single biggest factor in determining Santa Barbara's ratings during its final year wasn't its stories, characters, or actors, but its clearances: by the middle of 1992, SB had been yanked off the air in Philadelphia and in a handful of other major markets, and many of the affiliates that did choose to stick with the show often aired it in late night or late morning time slots. Once you start that snowball rolling, it's hard for anything good to come of it. (Just ask the folks at Loving, The City, Port Charles, Ryan's Hope.... if you doubt that.)

Secondly, the Dobsons left SB in such unmanageable turmoil during their second stint writing the show, to the point that almost NOTHING was working. Pam Long came in with a mandate from NBC and New World to make MAJOR changes in an attempt to transcend the offbeat niche that it had fallen hopelessly into. The deck was stacked against her from the very beginning, as Marcy Walker had left, and A Martinez had one foot out the door, and Louise Sorel had clashed with Paul Rauch and had left. The classic tentpoles of the show --- Sorel, Walker, Davies, Deas, Martinez --- were mostly gone, leaving Pam with no choice but to start from scratch and try to utilize what was left.

[juniorz1]

I very much appreciate your response and agree with much of what you said. Believe me, I know the timeslot shifts are a big part of what killed SB. I lived in St Louis and had to get up at 2 AM to watch the final episode. The rest of the time, of course, I taped. And yes- Sorel, Walker, Davies, and Deas weren't there, which were HUGE holes in the canvas. But Gordon Thomson was a solid Mason re-cast and you still had Grahn, McConnell, Allen, Coster, & Mattson. In fact, Long's writing for Gina was a disappointment, since she seemed like a character that would be up Pam's alley.

I don't agree, however, that nothing was working when the Dobsons left. I believe the show still had some semblance of its identity under them. I very much liked some of the new characters they introduced, especially Angela Cassidy. The whole Mason/Cassandra/Warren/Angela storyline was very well done and Mason's shooting and Warren's subsequent trial were classic SB. Michael Brainard as Ted was an inspired recast that worked. Unfortunately, the biggest blunder they made was re-casting Carrington Garland's Kelly with Eileen Davidson and pairing her with Cruz, yet Long chose to continue that and backburner everything else.

I concur that the deck was stacked against her, but I very much maintain that her vision didn't mesh with SB's identity.

[Greg's GL]

I think that's a very good way to put things. Long's writing may have been more pedestrian than the Curlee era, but you're right. Her GL did have a lot of heart and I generally loved her tenure. How I miss those days. :-(

And in the grand scheme of things, I think Pam Long will be remembered as one of the more important writers in GL's history. Along with Curlee, Marland and (perhaps) the Dobsons. A little OT, but I really wish Millee Taggart was given more time writing this show. She would have done some good, IMO.

[Mitch]

I agree,I think the main problem I always had with Marland was that he was so "cold," even working on All-American ATWT...his characters were all so waspy (even if they weren't wasps) and polite, etc. Even his sex scenes lacked sizzle. Long was all heart, but short on the sophistication that Marland gave a show. I thought that the combination of those two would be great (though I am sure they would end up killing each other) but maybe the combination was indeed Curlee and company.

[MichaelGL]

Wow you've hit the nail on the head with Marland's ATWT. I've tried so hard to get into Marland's ATWT via YouTube, and I have, but when I watch the video's there it's so different from GL, very cold.

A few points about Long...

(1.)I can't get over how much she was responsible for reviving and rejuvenating the show, all the while undoing it as well. I watched the entire episode of Reva's Baptism, and damn it SO MUCH MORE was going on at that little soiree than I first thought. Every storyline clicked and left you wanting more. (Rick putting Mindy in the fountain, and telling her that he loved her, Claire and Rick's affair.)

(2.)I do have a problem though trying to pin point exactly when the wheels went off for Long's first tenure.

(3.)Long didn't hit her stride the second time around until Roger's return. By 89/90 the show seemed pretty good compared to 87/88.

A little off topic...but I've always been curious about early Mallet, who I think was created by Pam Long. It seemed for some time there, the writers appeared to aiming to pair him up with Mindy. I wonder what happened?

Last point, Pam Long had a really strong knack for creating multi dimensional characters, alot of whom had lasting power on the show, aside from the obvious with Reva, you had Alex, Harley, India, the entire Lewis and Shayne clan except Trish and Josh.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Is that really Long though? According to what Nancy Curlee told us, Roger's return was her idea, and Pam had never seen or knew much about Roger and Holly during their first stint on the show. I think this was during the time Curlee became Long's Co-HW.

I think Mallet joined at the VERY end of Long's time as HW, so all of his development was Curlee/Demorest.

I guess Mindy was too preoccupied at the time with Roger and Alexandra, and plus Curlee/Demorest had plans of bringing on Vincent Irizarry as Nick McHenry in 1991, so they went in that direction with her.

[DRW50]

I couldn't tell what they were doing with Mindy/Mallet, but I always liked that friendship, with benefits. It's funny because that story and the Francesca story are not considered Mallet's finer moments but I preferred them to the relationship with Harley, which I thought was stifling and cold (like Josie/Gary on AW a few years later).

I can get what you're both saying about Marland's ATWT and warmth but ATWT was never the most warm of soaps. It's a very stolid soap. I loved ATWT in that era because of the traditions, the family and friendships, but there was always a certain amount of sternness, more than heart and soul. The women who were central figures on ATWT were a very mixed bag in terms of being the nurturing figure. Kim and Nancy were both pillars of strength in Marland's run and they were never overly warm women. They were brisk. They avoided emotion if they could. So did Ellen. Lisa was warm but also kind of flighty. Lyla, like Kim and Nancy, had also learned to repress many of her feelings. So had Iva. That's one of the reasons ATWT felt very real to me, because I have known so many women like this over the years. They have scars which only rarely show.

I did think Emma was a very loving presence, not always, but more often than not. I thought her scenes with her children had a variety of emotions but there were many laughs and many fond memories shared of old times and that type of stuff, along with the barbecues Bob threw and the joking around Tom and Margo used to do, it was very heartwarming for me back then.

As for what brought Long down during her first tenure, wasn't the Kyle Sampson story around the time people started to lose interest? That and when the stories for Tony and Annabelle dried up and core actors like Grant ALeksander left.

[Mitch]

I can't believe I remember this stuff, however...Mallet and Mindy were the "end game," couple during Long's tenure..Mallet came to town supposedly to write a book on Phillip (during his first and best, nondeath) but was really investigating the Spauldings and the nondeath. He was pumping Mindy for info but her friends wisely kept her out of the loop, (which eventually led to her feeling isolated and Roger's bed) etc. At that time Harley was being slated for a romance with Matt Weisman, but the network nixed that idea and character based on his Jewish background..one of the things that really pissed Long off and led to her parting ways with CBS. It was Curlee who hooked up Harley with Mallet, and created Nick for Mindy. I loved Mallet (thought at that time that Derwin was hotness personified) but never really like Harley and he (I never liked Harley after they morphed her from hard ass social climber to every gal romantic heroine) but I have always found Ehlers and Harley hard, harsh and cold.

Great insight into ATWT. It has always been a colder soap, probably why I never got into as much as GL (though I grew up with it, my mom would make me sit in her lap for "quiet time," so she could watch her show and would mutter, "That damn Lisa," probably as weird as it is, why I still find Hastings, Fulton's and Wagner's voices so soothing and nice.) I like Nancy Hughes where I LOVED Bert Bauer, etc. I liked Marland's ATWT but always felt a distance from it, even the farm family was a little cold and distant.

GL started to fall apart in the fall of 85, when the emphasis on the show quite noticebly changed. That was the point it became the Reva Show under long and the Bauers were split apart as Charita was sick, Mike Bauer was written off, and Hillary Bauer was killed off, and Peter Simon left the show. The Reardons were obscured and it became all about Reva and the Lewises, and Kyle Sampson and a record company of all thing he brought to town. Funny thing is, that summer, when the show was about the Bauers, Reardons, Spauldings and Lewises, the show hit number one for three weeks, and faltered when the changes occured. I had heard it was a network mandate to keep pace with GH and go BIG, but the show toppled GH because it was the opposite.

[DRW50]

Yeah, Bert was out of control for years and years. She only began to settle down after Mike and Ed were grown and she probably knew she had to shape up. Charita Bauer is such a force of nature in those clips available from the 50s and 60s. Nancy, in contrast, was very controlled. She was also very bitter, in the early years, as she had huge problems relating to Penny, since her favorite daughter, Susan, had been killed by a lightning strike a few years before ATWT began. I think Irna Phillips went out of her way to write very controlled, stern characters, and that imprint has stayed with ATWT to some degree.

I wish those years were available because supposedly Aunt Edith (Ruth Warrick) was very free and ahead of her time, challenging conventions about what women were allowed to be. If Irna had had her way, Edith and Ellen Lowell's married father would have lived happily ever after. Naturally, when the network said no, Irna got mad and killed him off.

I didn't mind Harley as heroine but looking back I can see the spark draining from her in that time period. I think Mark Derwin's a hot guy but as a romantic figure I think he suffocates his love interests.

So Matt Weisman was never actually on the show?

Do you know if it was Jeff Ryder or Pam Long who brought in the other Shaynes?

Do we know which stories were Jeff's and which Pam had no involvement in?

Sonni/Solita was Pam, right? I know a lot of that was rewritten heavily during the strike.

Were you watching GL during their '88 strike? What did you think of the material?

[Paul Raven]

Matt Weiss did appear for a few months and was played by Jeff Gendelman,who had previously appeared as Nick on Loving.

[MichaelGL]

Okay, not a bright question here, but for what soaps did Pam Long win an Emmy for? I didn't even know she had one until this thread.