Guiding Light discussion thread

[Soaplovers]

Guiding Light was able to kind of end on somewhat of a decent note vs As the world turns

[DramatistDreamer]

P&G, even in their heydays as soap producers was only ever about promoting their stars during a brief window of time in the 1980s when they were chasing the youth demographic.

Otherwise, it was the Nixon soaps, the Bell soaps that promoted the hell out of their stars. Even Days made some effort.

It’s probably the reason why so many talented ATWT actresses were repeatedly passed over for Daytime Emmy awards while Erika Slezak has like more than a half dozen of those trophies.

[kalbir]

By the time of OJ, Another World had already been limping along for like 15 years, but that's neither here nor there for this thread.

The P&G 1995 EP switch damaged all three shows and they never really recovered from that.

GL entered cancel territory in 1995 and it looked like 1996 would be the end.

[Contessa Donatella]

In 1970-71 Kathy Phillips had a legal abortion on SFT. As far as I can tell a handful of people know this. In speaking to Courtney Sherman Simon about it, she opined that P&G just didn't make a big deal of it. Of course, either ABC or Agnes did make a big deal out of it, so the whole world thinks Erica had the first legal abortion. 

And, at some point P&G began selling less dishwashing liquid & powder & they didn't need their soap operas to advertise so much soap, as they had previously needed them. 

Has anyone ever done an analysis of where JFP did the most damage, the least damage, etc.? I know it seems off the top of my head like she did the most damage at AW & the least damage either at SB or at GH. 

Edited December 24, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges
just had a thought

[Khan]

I agree.

I agree.  Nevertheless, GL's finale still felt follow to me, even with all the returns that @DRW50 mentioned.

True!

[Contessa Donatella]

I happen to agree that more often than not "OJ" is a scapegoat. It is true that effectively having soap fans is an item of habituation so that heavy pre-empting can teach people to get out of the daily habit. The shows were slow to come up with any plans to try to ameliorate that effect. They should have been doing 5 minute recaps at the top of every hour from the first week. 

Is this hollow? Anyway, you say finale to me & I just knee-jerk claim AW's as one of the worst ever. If I look at the last 3 days of GL, it seems pretty good to me. AW was the last 2 days & I automatically think of what CCulliton said when I asked her what she thought of being memorialized forever as Carolyn the gorilla, ... she effin hates it! Well, me, too. Thanks so much Gary Tomlin & Sam Ratcliff (RIP).

 

[NothinButAttitude]

Oh how I used to be amused by Vivian growing up watching GL with my grandma. She was so stiff and snobbish. A total contrast from my beloved David & Gilly; however, it was refreshing as a young Black man to see a Black character that wasn't reduced to the role of the "best friend" or the "have nots."

I hate how the Grants were made a mainstay on the show. 

[Lujack4Ever]

Wow, what a Christmas gift! I've finally been able to register on a site that I have been enjoying for years!

Long ago I made a promise to myself that if I ever got on the very first thing I would do is bow down to the poster called Mitch. I used to think I knew a lot about GL but after reading his posts I am John Snow knowing nothing compared to him. There is one area where we are match for match...the dislike of the character of Buzz Cooper.

Not only did he suck the airtime from so many other characters but his unlikely pairings one right after another was laughable and poor Lillian ultimately getting anchored to him

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 The one scene I always wanted to see was Springfield descending in mass on the diner for all the free meals he promised whenever he would rudely kick people out of the diner mid-meal.

Anyway, I don't want my whole post to be negative. I loved this show so much and it wasn't easy. Try being a 13-year-old boy in 1981 becoming infatuated with Vanessa and Maeve Kinkaid when I saw her for the first time. She got me watching GL. Being a young male soap was challenging all through high school, college, and beyond all the way until Peapack when I could no longer have the heart to watch daily after what GL had become. The glory years for me was Lujack's two-year reign.

Anyway, now that this Lujack fan is part of the community I hope someone can please answer this question that I've wondered about for years. Did Larkin Malloy voluntarily leave the show or did the producers cut him loose to rehash Josh and Reva something the show would do up until the final seconds of GUIDING LIGHT!

[chrisml]

I'm sure I watched some of GL during the 1994 to 1996 period (or at least kept up through summaries) but I have no memory of most of it beyond a few details here and there.  I came back around the time of Cynthia Watros and Amy Ecklund and would come and go depending on how bad I found the show. My mother in particular loathed the character of Buzz and how much airtime he chewed up.  I don't understand how a show could be so good in 1991 and 1992 and fall to pieces in 1993 and especially in 94 and 95 (from what little I've seen). What happened? Was it that JFP had no real storyline plans post-Maureen 's death? Or was it a combo of that and all the departures/casting mistakes?

[DRW50]

There were many factors - the departure of Nancy Curlee, JFP's favoritism and power games, the exodus of many of the show's most popular or strongest actors, robbing the show of a core, and some of the strongest stories of 91-92 being set up by the previous producer.

I too could not stand Buzz at this time. Everything about him, especially the shouting and smugness, were the antithesis of what I enjoyed about GL.

If not for my enjoying Marcy Walker on Santa Barbara I think I also would have been much more negative about her aimless GL run.

I will also argue that some of the stories which were praised at the time were not that good and were held up by some of the actors and some strong scriptwriters, especially the Alex/Nick/Mindy plot. The whole thing fell apart, embarrassingly so, without Kimberley and Beverlee.

Edited December 25, 2023 by DRW50

[kalbir]

I will forever maintain that Robert Calhoun laid all the groundwork but JFP got all the credit.

It disappoints me that the ratings didn't improve during Robert Calhoun's run. JFP first year got the ratings up but there's also the factors of ABC's big three tanking at various times during that year, and Days being a mess in that post-supercouple/pre-Reilly era.

Now that we have 1980s and early 1990s ratings data, it seems to me that the real issues w/ GL began when Douglas Marland departed in 1982. Yes, that first year of Gail Kobe/Pamela Long got the ratings back up, but it was too much chasing 1980s trends which wasn't sustainable and that was reflected in the ratings from Fall 1984 onward. 

Summer 1992 departures of Kimberley Simms, Sherry Stringfield, Beverlee McKinsey w/in weeks of each other left a huge void in the canvas. January 1993 departure of Ellen Parker was the beginning of the end.

I figured Kimberley and Sherry departures as finish initial contract, move on to other things while still relatively young. Beverlee was a shock I didn't expect. I didn't see Ellen departure in real time but the reasons behind it have been talked about in this thread.

Edited December 25, 2023 by kalbir

[Khan]

I agree!

I agree with these points as well!

[bboy875]

With the backlash the show received after killing off Maureen, the best way to get angry fans watching again would've been bringing back Mike and Hope Bauer. They'd ease back in while helping Ed and Michelle deal with Maureen's death, and helping wayward grandson/son Alan Michael. Mike and Ed would talk about how Ed became their father Bill. The press, while covering Maureen's death would bring up Ed cheating on her in the past, which leads Michelle to learn she is Claire and not Maureen's daughter (I believe she was only a toddler when Claire left), and Blake helps to comfort her by telling her that she was led to believe Ed was her father for years, and would really move into the role of her older sister. Mike checks up on Lilian, making things more uncomfortable, the brief revisit of Ed/Holly/Roger, goes on longer, Ed tells Nadine that she owes Bridget for taking advantage of her in regards to baby Peter, and Nadine's redemption begins there, as she is also in the Bauer sphere. Alexandra returns and she and Mike becomes chummy again, and then position everyone where they need to be for Alan's 1994 prison release. Also, had Alan Michael and Gilly ended up together, after a slow build and them really having time to become a couple, the arrival of Victoria and a son, could've ultimately led to a triangle, with that son possibly still coming to terms with having white blood inside of him, and him and Gilly being treated differently by some, clashes with his mother over this, and too many Spauldings and Vanessa engaged in power struggles over Spaulding enterprises is a hell of a lot better than what we actually got.

Part of the problem in 1993 is the stunt casting. Joe Lando was part of that. SOD named him being on the show, worst limited run I think. They began the article by saying whoever thinks stunt casting is the way to get ratings up, do not know soaps. I figured the writers would have stories carefully plotted with characters we love, but Jill telling them that she just hired so and so, this is when they begin, contract length, and when to write them into scripts, so the writers would have to throw together a character, story, and possibly toss a carefully plotted story. Curlee did an interview a number of years back where she said she didn't have time to develop Tangie

And finally, Beverlee McKinsey was right about Alex/Nick/Mindy going on too long. Alex would've said, that she knew about Lujack, but only had about 2 yrs with him b4 he died. Now with Nick, she wants the time to get to know him and have a relationship with him, so she would not try to break up him and Mindy. Of course she'd tell Mindy that she knows Mindy will mess things up herself, and when Nick dumps her, she can not blame her. I wonder if they had anything more long-term with him minus the triangle. With both characters gone, Nick was boring. With the roles recast, Nick was still boring. Beverlee and Simms were that story's big draw. I stand firm on my opinion that Mindy never should have had a miscarriage. Imagine how permanently messy things would've been had Mindy given birth to Roger's son. And delay the it hitting the fan had Mallet convince Mindy to let him pretend to be the father, with Roger highly suspicious that yet another woman is letting another man raise his child? Calhoun, Curlee and Co made a major mistake with this one 

[DRW50]

@bboy875 The idea of Mindy having Roger's baby is definitely one worth developing. Maybe she would have lied that she lost the baby, but left town and kept it somewhere hidden because of Alexandra's wrath and Roger being Roger. 

[Lujack4Ever]

Alan Michael and Gilly had fantastic chemistry but the show was hellbent/locked into putting  him with Lucy that they had to ignore this and stay on course. One of the great missed opportunities over the years.